Differences in the Effects of Calcium and Magnesium Ions on the Anammox Granular Properties to Alleviate Salinity Stress

Divalent cations were known to alleviate salinity stress on anammox bacteria. Understanding the mechanism of reducing the salinity stress on anammox granules is essential for the application of the anammox process for saline wastewater treatment. In this study, the effect of Ca2+ and Mg2+ augmentation on the recovery of the activity of freshwater anammox granules affected by salinity stress was evaluated. At the condition of a salinity stress of 5 g NaCl/L, the specific anammox activity (SAA) of the granule decreased to 50% of that of the SAA without NaCl treatment. Augmentation of Ca2+ at the optimum concentration of 200 mg/L increased the SAA up to 78% of the original activity, while the augmentation of Mg2+ at the optimum concentration of 70 mg/L increased the SAA up to 71%. EPS production in the granules was increased by the augmentation of divalent cations compared with the granules affected by salinity stress. In the soluble EPS, the ratio of protein to polysaccharides was higher in the granules augmented by Ca2+ than with Mg2+, and the functional groups of the EPS differed from each other. The amount of Na+ sequestered in the soluble EPS was increased by the augmentation of divalent cations, which seems to contribute to the alleviation of salinity stress. Ca. Kuenenia-like anammox bacteria, which were known to be salinity stress-tolerant, were predominant in the granules and there was no significant difference in the microbial community of the granules by the salinity stress treatment. Our results suggest that the alleviation effect of the divalent cations on the salinity stress on the anammox granules might be associated with the increased production of different EPS rather than in changes to the anammox bacteria.

Controlled rate slow freezing with lyoprotective agent to retain the integrity of lipid nanovesicles during lyophilization

We designed a novel lyophilization method using controlled rate slow freezing (CSF) with lyoprotective agent (LPA) to achieve intact lipid nanovesicles after lyophilization. During the freezing step, LPA prevented water supercooling, and the freezing rate was controlled by CSF. Regulating the freezing rate by various liquid media was a crucial determinant of membrane disruption, and isopropanol (freezing rate of 0.933 °C/min) was the optimal medium for the CSF system. Lyophilized lipid nanovesicle using both CSF and LPA retained 92.9% of the core material and had uniform size distributions (Z-average diameter = 133.4 nm, polydispersity index = 0.144), similar to intact vesicles (120.7 nm and 0.159, respectively), after rehydration. Only lyophilized lipid nanovesicle using both CSF and LPA showed no changes in membrane fluidity and polarity. This lyophilization method can be applied to improve storage stability of lipid nanocarriers encapsulating drugs while retaining their original activity.

Spontaneous Hydrogen Production using Gadolinium Telluride

Developing a catalyst for green hydrogen production through water splitting, is one of the most promising ways to meet current energy demand. Here, we demonstrate spontaneous water splitting using gadolinium telluride (GdTe) with high hydrogen evolution rate. The spent catalyst can be reused after melting, which regains the original activity of the pristine sample. The phase formation and reusability are supported by the thermodynamics calculations. The theoretical calculation reveals ultra-low over-potential for hydrogen evolution reaction of GdTe caused by charge transfer from Te to Gd, hence enhancing the catalytic activity. Production of highly pure and instantaneous hydrogen by GdTe could accelerate fuel cell-based sustainable technologies.

Enacting burikko

Adopting a single case analysis, this article examines how the learning of the Japanese word burikko is occasioned in a bilingual lunch conversation through enactments that are employed for three interactional purposes: (a) renewal of laughter, (b) vocabulary explanation (VE), and (c) demonstration of understanding. The interactional analysis is enhanced by Praat to respecify the role of prosody in enactments. I first describe how burikko, the laughable of a humor sequence, becomes a learnable through a repair sequence. I then analyze a reinitiated joking sequence, where the VE recipient categorizes one of the co-participants as burikko and escalates the categorization through multimodal enactments. I argue that this jocular mockery, occasioning a demonstration of understanding, exhibits that the learning opportunity has been taken. Furthermore, I discuss how a repair work embedded within a larger humor-oriented activity may afford resources for language learning outside of the classroom, while sacrificing progressivity for intersubjectivity. The fact that the VE recipient, after intersubjectivity has been achieved, resumes the original activity of pursuing humor through the same means employed for the explanation of the target word offers interesting implications for CA-SLA and pragmatics.

An Advanced Lyophilization Toward Intact Lipid Nanovesicles: Liquid-mediated Freezing With Cryoprotectant to Retain the Integrity of Lipid Nanovesicles

A novel lyophilization method using liquid-mediated freezing (LMF) with cryoprotectant (CPA) was designed to achieve intact lipid nanovesicles after lyophilization. During the freezing step, CPA prevented water supercooling, and the freezing rate was controlled by LMF. Regulating the freezing rate by various liquid media was a crucial determinant of membrane disruption, and isopropanol (freezing rate of 0.933°C/min) was the optimal medium for the LMF system. Lyophilized lipid nanovesicle using both LMF and CPA retained 92.9% of the core material and had uniform size distributions (Z-average diameter = 135.5 nm, polydispersity index = 0.074), similar to intact vesicles (112.3 nm and 0.184, respectively), after rehydration. Only lyophilized lipid nanovesicle using both LMF and CPA showed no changes in membrane fluidity and polarity. This lyophilization method can be applied to improve storage stability of lipid nanocarriers encapsulating drugs such as a mRNA vaccine, while retaining its original activity.

Compartmentalization of Pectinase within Cellulose Hydrogel: An Efficient Technique to Enhance the Catalytic Properties of Pectinase for Industrial Applications

Pectinase catalyze the breakdown of pectin polymer and widely has been used in different industrial preparations such as fruit juice preparation, liquification and scarification of plant biomass as well as coffee and tea fermentation. In this study, the pectinase from Bacillus licheniformis was compartmentalized within cellulose beads hydrogel using encapsulation technique to make it reusable with easy recovery from reaction mixture. The compartmentalization improved catalytic properties of pectinase and ensured its reusability for continuous uses. It was observed that 5.0% cellulose concentration was enough to form stable cellulose hydrogel beads with retention of high relative of activity of pectinase. The hydrogel compartmentalization didn’t change the optima pH and temperature for maximum relative activity and both the hydrogel compartmentalized pectinase and free pectinase maximum relative at same pH and temperature but the hydrogel compartmentalization increased the stability of pectinase against various temperatures and pH, and hydrogel compartmentalized pectinase showed higher relative activities against various temperature and pH as compared to free pectinase. The hydrogel compartmentalization slightly reduced the affinity of pectinase toward the substrate (pectin) and hydrogel compartmentalized pectinase showed little bit higher Km value as compared to soluble pectinase. Cellulose hydrogel compartmentalization retained the pectinase activity for reutilization in different reaction preparation and hydrogel compartmentalized pectinase showed more than 80% of its original activity after three times reusing.

Enhancement of Thermostability of Aspergillus flavus Urate Oxidase by Immobilization on the Ni-Based Magnetic Metal–Organic Framework

The improvement in the enzyme activity of Aspergillus flavus urate oxidase (Uox) was attained by immobilizing it on the surface of a Ni-based magnetic metal–organic framework (NimMOF) nanomaterial; physicochemical properties of NimMOF and its application as an enzyme stabilizing support were evaluated, which revealed a significant improvement in its stability upon immobilization on NimMOF (Uox@NimMOF). It was affirmed that while the free Uox enzyme lost almost all of its activity at ~40–45 °C, the immobilized Uox@NimMOF retained around 60% of its original activity, even retaining significant activity at 70 °C. The activation energy (Ea) of the enzyme was calculated to be ~58.81 kJ mol−1 after stabilization, which is approximately half of the naked Uox enzyme. Furthermore, the external spectroscopy showed that the MOF nanomaterials can be coated by hydrophobic areas of the Uox enzyme, and the immobilized enzyme was active over a broad range of pH and temperatures, which bodes well for the thermal and long-term stability of the immobilized Uox on NimMOF.

Production and characterisation of thermostable alkaline protease from Bacillus subtilis isolated from LA hot spring, Terengganu

This research aims to produce thermostable alkaline protease from Bacillus subtilis isolated from La Hot Spring, Terengganu, Malaysia. The study was also conducted to determine the optimum conditions for protease production and stability by considering several parameters including pH, temperature and salt concentration. All seven bacteria were screened on skim milk agar overnight at 37 °C. Three strains with the highest proteolytic activity were identified in protease specific medium. The thermostable alkaline protease had an optimum temperature of 60 °C which achieved 85.73, 82.90 and 83.05 U/mL of protease activity for the three strains respectively. Furthermore, the strains exhibited significant activity of more than 90% from their original activity. Meanwhile, the optimum pH for protease production was pH 9 with the protease activity of 76.76, 79.71 and 88.39 U/mL for TB4, TB6 and TB9 strains, respectively. Proteases were found stable at pH 9 where the loss did not exceed 30% of its original activity. Collectively, all of the data emphasised that proteases from B. subtilis were alkaline thermostable proteases in accordance with a recent report. The finding highlights the viability of the proteases for biotechnological and industrial applications.

Delimiting durative events with manner

Durative events by default are atelic. However, temporal targets are typically required for durative verbs with a rushing manner, such as ‘We are catching the 3:30 flight’ and ‘The farmer rushed to harvest before the storm’. Why and how does manner introduce delimiting temporal concepts to durative verbs? This puzzle is addressed by our current study of two near-synonymous Mandarin durative verbs describing events carried out in a rushing manner: 赶 gǎn and 抢 qiǎng. Our event-base account will examine both their compositional meanings and their constructional patterns. We will show that 赶 gǎn and 抢 qiǎng not only coerce eventive readings from their nominal objects, but also require certain delineating temporal targets. The verb 赶 gǎn requires an understood deadline, while the verb 抢 qiǎng requires the presupposition of the limited availability of the object. As neither temporal targets mark the time of the actual activities, these are exceptional cases of aktionsart. We will show that the different ways to delineate event meanings of the constructions [gǎn/qiǎng+ noun] can be predicted from the lexical meaning of the two verbs and can in turn predict the event types represented by the object with the MARVS theory. Based on this lexical semantic representation, we further show that the Generative Lexicon theory predicts the coercions of the rushing meaning from the original activity verb senses, and that the Construction Grammar theory accounts for their sharing of the same syntactic configuration.