关键词： Electric arc furnace   DRI   HBI   yield of steel   electric power consumption   electrode consumption  

摘要： The data obtained on 220-T ultra-high power electric arc furnace (EAF) were analysed in order to study the impact of DRI quality on the steelmaking process parameters and consumption of lime, coke, oxygen, natural gas, electrical energy and electrodes. In addition, the effects of charging methods and proportions of DRI in an EAF were studied. It was found that by increasing the proportion of non-high quality reduced pellets and/or HBI to 45% of the metallic charge, the steel yield decreased to 85.32% and increased to 87.57% when between 75 and 100% continuous feeding of high quality reduced pellets. This resulted in saving 21 min in tap-to-tap time and 7% of the electrode consumption. Charging high proportion of non-high quality DRI from 45% to 100% in EAF, leads to a loss of 4 tons/heat in liquid steel, and an increase in lime consumption from 4 to 6 kg/ton liquid steel.

关键词： compact DC electron gun   terahertz source   Smith-Purcell radiation  

摘要： An alternative technique to verify terahertz (THz) Smith-Purcell radiation (SPR) was proposed by using different grating periods. A compact DC electron gun, serving as a THz source, was modified to generate continuous 35 keV electron beam that passes by a metal-coated silicon grating in order to induce SPR. A design on beam optics to generate high-brightness beam was carried out by using Computer Simulation Technology (CST) Studio Suite(R) software package. The optimization of beam parameters was obtained and experimentally performed. Results show that the root-mean-square (rms) beam size (diameter) is about 1 mm when supplying beam current of 200 mu A, and rms beam emittance is about 3 pi mm mrad. The CST simulation software was, furthermore, employed to observe radiation spectra when using different grating structures. A liquid-helium cooled silicon bolometer together with a low-pass filter was used to detect radiation power. The results reveal that incoherent THz signal with power of 1.5 mu W cm(-2) is observed when the continuous-beam current is about 200 mu A. The dependence of THz frequency and power on the grating period, that is associated to the SPR, was also investigated in this work.

关键词： SUMO   DNA-protein crosslink   DPC repair   Top1   Top1cc   Siz2   Ulp1   Wss1   Tdp1   STUbL   Flp-nick  

摘要： Endogenous metabolites, environmental agents, and therapeutic drugs promote formation of covalent DNA-protein crosslinks (DPCs). Persistent DPCs compromise genome integrity and are eliminated by multiple repair pathways. Aberrant Top1-DNA crosslinks, or Top1ccs, are processed by Tdp1 and Wss1 functioning in parallel pathways in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It remains obscure how cells choose between diverse mechanisms of DPC repair. Here, we show that several SUMO biogenesis factors (Ulp1, Siz2, Slx5, and Slx8) control repair of Top1cc or an analogous DPC lesion. Genetic analysis reveals that SUMO promotes Top1cc processing in the absence of Tdp1 but has an inhibitory role if cells additionally lack Wss1. In the tdp1 Delta wss1 Delta mutant, the E3 SUMO ligase Siz2 stimulates sumoylation in the vicinity of the DPC, but not SUMO conjugation to Top1. This Siz2-dependent sumoylation inhibits alternative DPC repair mechanisms, including Ddi1. Our findings suggest that SUMO tunes available repair pathways to facilitate faithful DPC repair.

关键词： alternative splicing   machine learning   protein-protein interactions   semi-supervised learning  

摘要： Alternative splicing introduces an additional layer of protein diversity and complexity in regulating cellular functions that can be specific to the tissue and cell type, physiological state of a cell, or disease phenotype. Recent high-throughput experimental studies have illuminated the functional role of splicing events through rewiring protein-protein interactions;however, the extent to which the macromolecular interactions are affected by alternative splicing has yet to be fully understood. In silico methods provide a fast and cheap alternative to interrogating functional characteristics of thousands of alternatively spliced isoforms. Here, we develop an accurate feature-based machine learning approach that predicts whether a protein-protein interaction carried out by a reference isoform is perturbed by an alternatively spliced isoform. Our method, called the alternatively spliced interactions prediction (ALT-IN) tool, is compared with the state-of-the-art PPI prediction tools and shows superior performance, achieving 0.92 in precision and recall values.

关键词： Alternative splicing   Arabidopsis thaliana   cold acclimation   heat acclimation   splicing factor   temperature adaptation   temperature response  

摘要： Alternative splicing occurs in all eukaryotic organisms. Since the first description of multiexon genes and the splicing machinery, the field has expanded rapidly, especially in animals and yeast. However, our knowledge about splicing in plants is still quite fragmented. Though eukaryotes show some similarity in the composition and dynamics of their splicing machinery, observations of unique plant traits are only starting to emerge. For instance, plant alternative splicing is closely linked to their ability to perceive various environmental stimuli. Due to their sessile lifestyle, temperature is a central source of information, allowing plants to adjust their development to match current growth conditions. Hence, seasonal temperature fluctuations and day-night cycles can strongly influence plant morphology across developmental stages. Here we discuss available data on temperature-dependent alternative splicing in plants. Given its fragmented state, it is not always possible to fit specific observations into a coherent picture, yet it is sufficient to estimate the complexity of this field and the need for further research. Better understanding of alternative splicing as a part of plant temperature response and adaptation may also prove to be a powerful tool for both fundamental and applied sciences.

关键词： Mass spectrometry   Fossil fuels   Chromatography   Ionization   Pyrolysis  

摘要： Modern industry strongly relies on the molecular analysis of fossil petroleum and petroleum-derived materials. In the context of a circular economy and carbon neutrality, the chemical description of alternative feedstock materials, such as waste plastic and biomass pyrolysis oils, increases in importance. Moreover, online monitoring of the thermochemical and catalytic conversion processes has gained rising attention. In this framework, evolved gas analysis (EGA) concepts with soft photoionization mass spectrometry (PIMS) were successfully deployed for numerous challenges. On the one hand, photoionization is a highly versatile technique and allows for "soft" ionization of the analyte molecule, preserving the molecular information. On the other hand, multiple evolved gas analysis concepts exist with unique benefits, such as the mass loss information in thermogravimetry coupling, high-throughput in direct inlet probe concepts, or straightforward reactor monitoring, allowing for direct online insights into pyrolytic transformation processes. Hence, this review aims to summarize the recent work in the field of EGA-PIMS. After technical description of the multiple photoionization and thermal analysis concepts, applied studies are summarized, discussed, and evaluated. Besides fossil fuels, studies on alternatives from renewable materials, such as biomass pyrolysis, plastic pyrolysis oils, and recycling processes, are reviewed. Finally, future perspectives on this field are given, highlighting the importance of those soft ionization schemes together with state-of-the-art detection by high-resolution mass spectrometry in the field of energy and fuels research.

关键词： Active aspiration   butterfly needle   extrusion mode   suprachoroidal hemorrhage  

摘要： Purpose: To describe a novel surgical technique for external drainage of choroidal detachment/suprachoroidal hemorrhage with a butterfly needle. Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective case series on six eyes with serous and/or hemorrhagic choroidal detachments due to previous intraocular surgery or perforating ocular trauma that underwent active external suprachoroidal fluid drainage procedure with butterfly needle. The primary outcome measures were perioperative controlled fluid discharge and presence of choroidal detachment at 1 week, 1 month, and 6 months postoperatively. Secondary outcome measures were postoperative visual acuity and intraocular pressure. Results: During drainage, controlled hemorrhage discharge was observed. Drainage resolved hemorrhagic choroidal detachments at 1 week postoperatively. Intraocular pressure significantly increased, and visual acuity improved in all eyes. No complications were noted. Conclusion: Management of hemorrhagic choroidal detachment is challenging, and external drainage can be complicated. Active aspiration of hemorrhagic material with a butterfly needle may help early resolution.

关键词： Degradation   Peptides and proteins   Monomers   Hydrophobicity   Conjugate acid-base pairs  

摘要： Carboranes 1 and 2 were designed and synthesized for hydrophobic tag (HyT)-induced degradation of HaloTag fusion proteins. The levels of the hemagglutinin (HA)-HaloTag2-green fluorescent protein (EGFP) stably expressed in Flp-In 293 cells were significantly reduced by HyT13, HyT55, and carboranes 1 and 2, with expression levels of 49, 79, 43, and 65%, respectively, indicating that carborane is an alternative novel hydrophobic tag (HyT) for protein degradation under an intracellular environment. To clarify the mechanism of HyT-induced proteolysis, bovine serum albumin (BSA) was chosen as an extracellular protein and modified with maleimide-conjugated m-carborane (MIC). The measurement of the zeta-potentials and the lysine residue modification with fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) of BSA-MIC conjugates suggested that the conjugation of carborane induced the exposure of lysine residues on BSA, resulting in the degradation via ubiquitin E3 ligase-related proteasome pathways in the cell.

关键词： isoform   transcript   expression   brain   cortex   mouse   human   adult   fetal   long-read sequencing   alternative splicing  

摘要： Alternative splicing is a post-transcriptional regulatory mechanism producing distinct mRNA molecules from a single pre-mRNA with a prominent role in the development and function of the central nervous system. We used long-read isoform sequencing to generate full-length transcript sequences in the human and mouse cortex. We identify novel transcripts not present in existing genome annotations, including transcripts mapping to putative novel (unannotated) genes and fusion transcripts incorporating exons from multiple genes. Global patterns of transcript diversity are similar between human and mouse cortex, although certain genes are characterized by striking differences between species. We also identify developmental changes in alternative splicing, with differential transcript usage between human fetal and adult cortex. Our data confirm the importance of alternative splicing in the cortex, dramatically increasing transcriptional diversity and representing an important mechanism underpinning gene regulation in the brain. We provide transcript-level data for human and mouse cortex as a resource to the scientific community.

关键词： Magnetic materials  

摘要： The search for molecule-based magnetic materials has stimulated over the years the development of extremely rich coordination chemistry. Various combinations of spin carriers have been investigated and illustrated by a plethora of hetero-spin complexes: 3d-nd, 3d-4f, 2p-3d, and 2p-4f. More recently, two other classes of hetero-spin complexes have grown rapidly: compounds containing three different paramagnetic metal ions, or one radical and two different paramagnetic metal ions (all within the same molecular entity). Such new classes of systems represent a challenge both from a synthetic and theoretical point of view. Indeed, the synthetic control and the understanding of the spin topology effect on the overall magnetic behavior from first-principles is a difficult problem to be solved. The presence of different spin carriers in a single molecule makes such compounds particularly interesting because they offer the possibility of developing new magnetic properties, different from those of hetero-bi-spin or homo-spin systems. A critical overview taking the case of 2p-3d-4f complexes is the focus of this perspective paper. An original organic picture of the state-of-art in this field and new hints about the main directions that should be pursued to achieve hetero-tri-spin systems with large anisotropy barriers, low quantum tunneling of magnetization and, possibly, large blocking temperatures are provided in this article through an analysis based on numerically revisiting already published data and a critical survey of the literature reported so far. The reasons for the limited success obtained for the largely used 3d-2p-4f topology are given along with the ones explaining the failure for the 2p-4f-3d case. The still never synthesized linear 2p-3d-4f spin topology seemed to be the most promising one based on the results obtained for the unique closed hetero-tri-spin closed triangular system synthesized so far.