Effluents from food, fermentation, and sugar industries contain a large quantity of glucose which has to be removed to limit the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the water discharged. This work proposes novel thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) membranes incorporated with MgFe2O4 and ZnFe2O4 nanoparticles to address this concern. The nanoparticles synthesized by the sol–gel method was extensively characterized and then incorporated into the active polyamide layer of the thin-film composite polysulfone membranes. The change in membrane morphology, wettability, chemical structure, and mechanical strength with the incorporation of nanoparticles was studied in detail. Membranes with 0.005 wt.% MgFe2O4 nanoparticle exhibited highest glucose rejection (96.52?±?2.35%) at 10 bar, 25 °C, and sufficiently high pure water flux (50.54?±?1.92 L/m2h). This membrane also displayed 69.1?±?5.12% salt rejection when challenged with 2000 ppm synthetic NaCl solution.
We aimed to compare cell-based NIPT (cbNIPT) to chorionic villus sampling (CVS) and to examine the test characteristics of cbNIPT in the first clinical validation study of cbNIPT compared to cell-free NIPT (cfNIPT).
Material and Methods
Study 1: Women (N = 92) who accepted CVS were recruited for cbNIPT (53 normal and 39 abnormal). Samples were analyzed with chromosomal microarray (CMA). Study 2: Women (N = 282) who accepted cfNIPT were recruited for cbNIPT. cfNIPT was analyzed using sequencing and cbNIPT by CMA.
Results
Study 1: cbNIPT detected all aberrations (32/32) found in CVS: trisomies 13, 18 and 21 (23/23), pathogenic copy number variations (CNVs) (6/6) and sex chromosome aberrations (3/3). cbNIPT detected 3/8 cases of mosaicism in the placenta. Study 2: cbNIPT detected all trisomies found with cfNIPT (6/6) and had no false positive (0/246). One of the three CNVs called by cbNIPT was confirmed by CVS but was undetected by cfNIPT, two were false positives. cbNIPT detected mosaicism in five samples, of which two were not detected by cfNIPT. cbNIPT failed in 7.8% compared to 2.8% in cfNIPT.
Conclusion
Circulating trophoblasts in the maternal circulation provide the potential of screening for aneuploidies and pathogenic CNVs covering the entire fetal genome. 相似文献
Particulate matter(PM) emissions from various sources can affect significantly human health and environmental quality especially in the Chihuahuan Desert region along US–Mexico border. The objective of this study was to use the low-cost sticky tape method to collect airborne PM for size characterization and identification of fungal spores. Sticky tape samplers were placed at 1.0 and 2.0 m above the ground surface at experimental sites in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and at 0.6, 1.2 and 1.8 m at New Mexico sites, USA. Soil samples were collected in both countries to determine fungal diversity, texture and moisture content Dust particles collected from all of the experimental sites had a dominant texture of clay( 0.002 mm). The dominant textures identified from soil samples collected from the US and Mexican sites were loam and sandy clay loam, respectively. Alternaria, Penicillium and Fusarium were frequently found funguses in the US sites while Alternaria and Aspergillus were commonly observed in the Mexican sites. The sticky tapes also showed a similar diversity of fungal microorganisms present in the airborne PM at both Mexico and US sites Alternaria, Penicillium and Aspergillus were the three groups of airborne fungal microorganisms consistently present in the US and Mexican sites. The low-cost sticky tape method has the potential to be used for characterizing different airborne microorganisms and dust particles. 相似文献
Prions are the etiological agents of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSSEs), a class of fatal neurodegenerative diseases affecting humans and other mammals. The pathogenic prion protein is a misfolded form of the host-encoded prion protein and represents the predominant, if not sole, component of the infectious agent. Environmental routes of TSE transmission areimplicated in epizootics of sheep scrapie and chronic wasting disease (CWD) of deer, elk, and moose. Soil represents a plausible environmental reservoir of scrapie and CWD agents, which can persist in the environment for years. Attachment to soil particles likely influences the persistence and infectivity of prions in the environment. Effective methods to inactivate TSE agents in soil are currently lacking, and the effects of natural degradation mechanisms on TSE infectivity are largely unknown. An improved understanding of the processes affecting the mobility, persistence, and bioaviailability of prions in soil is needed for the management of TSE-contaminated environments. 相似文献
This article discusses non-fiscal policy options to reduce energy demand and the resulting environmental impacts, and it reviews experiences with these options to date. Such policies include accelerating technology development and demonstration, stimulating product demand via procurement policies, applying efficiency standards to information-poor end-use sectors, and encouraging utility energy-efficiency programs. Efforts to implement such measures are underway in several industrialised countries and have begun in developing countries. Increasing energy efficiency is an important area for near-term carbon emission reductions, and a key strategy for cost-effective mitigation of global climate change. However, little of the energy-efficiency potential identified by technical studies will be realised in the absence of policies to reduce barriers to energy-efficiency investments. Performance standards can overcome the lack of information on the part of energy users, while technology procurement helps overcome the view of manufacturers that introducing efficient products is risky. The effects of these policy options on product markets are characterised, showing the synergy between different instruments and their potential to create and transform markets for energy-efficient products, systems and services. The existence of such energy-efficiency markets can stimulate new progress and innovation, providing the conditions in which the continuous process of technical improvement is significantly accelerated. Most policy analysis and discussions regarding climate-change mitigation have centred on various forms of carbon emission taxes and to some extent on tradable emission offsets or permits. This article concludes with an examination of why non-fiscal options are mostly absent from energy-economic models and climate-change policy studies, and we suggest approaches to include them more fully in energy-policy analysis and implementation. 相似文献