Growth mechanism of a preferentially oriented mordenite membrane

INTRODUCTION Zeolite membranes have been investigated formany years due to their promising applications inseparations (Tavolaro and Drioli, 1999) and mem-brane reactors (Coronas and Santamaria, 1999). Oneof the challenges in the preparation of zeolite mem-branes is the control of the crystal orientation, espe-cially for zeolites that have an anisotropic porestructure (Caro et al., 2000). An ideal case is that thechannels in the zeolite crystals are perpendicular tothe support surfa…     

研究型图书馆的影响力评估研究(摘要)

1简介随着在线信息的普遍应用,用户逐渐感到图书馆的作用越来越小,而资助机构和主管部门也要求图书馆提供更多的影响力说明。馆藏量和图书馆指导培训的数量已经不能作为继续获得资金的有力说明。图书馆需要回答的问题是:图书馆的资源、服务以及专业知识在用户生活中起到了哪些不同凡响的     

Government Plays a Key Role in Protecting Intangible Cultural Heritage：An exclusive interview with Chinese vice cultural minister Zhou Heping

Just before China celebrated its second ＂National Cultural Heritage Day＂, our staff reporter had an interview with Chinese Vice Cultural Minister Zhou Heping.     

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease associated with impairment of kidney function in nondiabetes population

Background

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is associated with the increased burden of kidney. However, there is still no large population study to explore the potential relationship between NAFLD and mild kidney function damage (MKFD) after adjusted for confounding factors. This study is to test the hypothesis that NAFLD is associated with MKFD under controlling the effects of confounding factors.

Materials and methods:

Levels of serum fasting glucose, creatinine, cholesterol, triglyceride, alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase were analyzed from 1412 Chinese Han adults. Questionnaire and physical examination were performed to explore the potential association of NAFLD with kidney function.

Results:

NAFLD was associated with impairment of kidney function. Multivariate-adjusted odds ratio illustrated that, compared to subjects with normal liver, NAFLD subjects had a significantly higher risk of MKFD with or without adjusted for blood glucose and other covariates (P = 0.041). Further results from multi-interaction analysis demonstrated that the underlying mechanisms linked NAFLD with impaired kidney function may be that they share common risk factors and similar pathological processes.

Conclusions:

The most striking finding of this study is that NAFLD is negatively associated with kidney function, in nondiabetic population. NAFLD and MKFD may share similar risk factors and/or pathological processes.     

A microfluidics approach towards high-throughput pathogen removal from blood using margination

Sepsis is an adverse systemic inflammatory response caused by microbial infection in blood. This paper reports a simple microfluidic approach for intrinsic, non-specific removal of both microbes and inflammatory cellular components (platelets and leukocytes) from whole blood, inspired by the invivo phenomenon of leukocyte margination. As blood flows through a narrow microchannel (20 × 20 µm), deformable red blood cells (RBCs) migrate axially to the channel centre, resulting in margination of other cell types (bacteria, platelets, and leukocytes) towards the channel sides. By using a simple cascaded channel design, the blood samples undergo a 2-stage bacteria removal in a single pass through the device, thereby allowing higher bacterial removal efficiency. As an application for sepsis treatment, we demonstrated separation of Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae spiked into whole blood, achieving high removal efficiencies of ∼80% and ∼90%, respectively. Inflammatory cellular components were also depleted by >80% in the filtered blood samples which could help to modulate the host inflammatory response and potentially serve as a blood cleansing method for sepsis treatment. The developed technique offers significant advantages including high throughput (∼1 ml/h per channel) and label-free separation which allows non-specific removal of any blood-borne pathogens (bacteria and fungi). The continuous processing and collection mode could potentially enable the return of filtered blood back to the patient directly, similar to a simple and complete dialysis circuit setup. Lastly, we designed and tested a larger filtration device consisting of 6 channels in parallel (∼6 ml/h) and obtained similar filtration performances. Further multiplexing is possible by increasing channel parallelization or device stacking to achieve higher throughput comparable to convectional blood dialysis systems used in clinical settings.     

一个中国少年的世界文化之旅

中国杭州少年李恒轩．数年来趁假期跟随父亲游览不少世界文化名胜,甘地陵、夏克蒂女神庙、库克船长的小屋、新圣女公墓和冬宫、维尔兰雕塑公园、卢森堡城雕．卢浮宫和巴黎圣母院、罗马斗兽场和比萨斜塔、剑桥和莎翁故居……从中培养了兴趣,开拓了眼界,丰富了知识。增长了阅历。他撰写近百件习作,汇集出版。本刊特请他的父亲李建东撰稿介绍。并附一篇李恒轩游记《大英博物馆》。     

Enjoy Spring Festival Fairs in Beijing

Strolling around temple fairs, enjoying New Year !Eve dinners and watching CCTV Spring Festival Gala are the three routine activities that Beiiingers do during the Spring Festival celebration. And in particular, attending one of Beijing＇s many temple fairs during the Spring Festival will bring you a lot of fun outdoors.     

DRAWING FROM NATURE： XU ZHIGUANG＇S PAINTING

Xu Zhiguang, a Shandong-born painter, has a typical character of Shandong people--simple and guileless. His personality has had visible impacts on his artistic creation. ＂1 put much values on sketching, because I believe that sketching can not only improve expressiveness of my painting works, but also help me to have a better understanding of what is happening today,＂ said Xu.