Posts

Decoding the secrets of human health: scientists worldwide collaborate on developing a holographic digital mannequin

A groundbreaking research project aimed at revolutionizing the field of life sciences and providing unprecedented insights into the human body had been announced. The significant research program, titled "digital life and holographic human body" brought together leading scientists, researchers, and experts from all around the world to develop a pioneering digital model that represents the physiological and pathological processes of human life system activities in real time. The concept of a “holographic digital mannequin” involves reconstructing the micro-, meso-, and macro-networked dynamic life information dataset of the human body using advanced technologies such as digital twin and computer simulation. By categorizing, integrating, and digitizing existing theoretical models, the research aims to decode the complex life activity processes and uncover the exact causes of accurate and effective intervention and rehabilitation measures for improved initiative for this researc...

Special Issue on Advanced Water Science and Technology

Editorial Science and Technology for Combating Global Water Challenges Jiuhui Qu , Huijuan Liu , Gang Liu doi:10.1016/j.eng.2022.01.007 Research One-Step Reverse Osmosis Based on Riverbank Filtration for Future Drinking Water Purification Yujia Zhai , Gang Liu , Walter G.J. van der Meer doi:10.1016/j.eng.2021.02.015 Digital Water Developments and Lessons Learned from Automation in the Car and Aircraft Industries Dragan Savić doi:10.1016/j.eng.2021.05.013 The Phragmites Root-Inhabiting Microbiome: A Critical Review on Its Composition and Environmental Application Donglin Wang , Yaohui Bai , Jiuhui Qu doi:10.1016/j.eng.2021.05.016 Viability of Harvesting Salinity Gradient (Blue) Energy by Nanopore-Based Osmotic Power Generation Zhangxin Wang , Li Wang , Menachem Elimelech doi:10.1016/j.eng.2021.02.016 Niche Differentiation of Phenol-Degrading Microorganisms in UASB Granular Sludge as Revealed by Fluorescence in situ Hybridization Kengo Kubota , Kei Igarashi , Masayoshi Yamada , Yasuyuki ...

The Latest Papers On 6G Requirements, Vision, and Enabling Technologies

  Editorial Editorial for the Special Issue on 6G Requirements, Visions, and Enabling Technologies Ping Zhang , Xuemin (Sherman) Shen , Jianhua Zhang Views & Comments 6G: Ubiquitous Extending to the Vast Underwater World of Oceans Yuanliang Ma , Qunfei Zhang , Honglei Wang Industrial Wireless Control Networks: From WIA to Future Haibin Yu , Peng Zeng , Chi Xu Research Federated Learning for 6G: Applications, Challenges, and Opportunities Zhaohui Yang , Mingzhe Chen , Kai-Kit Wong , H. Vincent Poor , Shuguang Cui The SOLIDS 6G Mobile Network Architecture: Driving Forces, Features, and Functional Topology Guangyi Liu , Na Li , Juan Deng , Yingying Wang , Junshuai Sun , Yuhong Huang Toward Wisdom-Evolutionary and Primitive-Concise 6G: A New Paradigm of Semantic Communication Networks Ping Zhang , Wenjun Xu , Hui Gao , Kai Niu , Xiaodong Xu , Xiaoqi Qin , Caixia Yuan , Zhijin Qin , Haitao Zhao , Jibo Wei , Fangwei Zhang Blockchain for Transparent Data Management Toward 6G Xuemin (S...

Call for Papers: Blue-Green-Grey Solutions for Sustainable Urban Water Systems

Image
CO-EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Dr. Glen Daigger Professor, University of Michigan, USA Member, USA National Academy of Engineering Dr. Nan-Qi Ren Head, State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resource and Environment, China Member, Chinese Academy of Engineering Executive Editor-in-Chief Dr. Yu Tian  Professor, Harbin Institute of Technology, China Distinguished Professor of Yangtze River Scholar Deputy Director, State Key Laboratory of Urban Water  Resource and Environment, China GUEST EDITORIAL BOARD Dr. Helmut Krosis Distinguished Fellow and Former President, IWA Professor, Vienna University of Technology Dr. Teng Chye Khoo Professor, National University of Singapore Former CEO, PUB, Singapore Dr. Dragan Savic Professor, University of Exeter, UK CEO, KWR Water Research Institute, The Netherlands Dr. Ai-Jie Wang Distinguished Fellow, IWA Professor, Harbin Institute of Technology, China Dr. Peter Vanrolleghem IWA Fellow Professor, Université Laval, Canada Dr. Zeynep Erdal Business and Techn...

Artificial intelligence in pharmaceutical sciences revolutionizes drug research and development

Scientists have long been challenged by the complex process of drug discovery and development, with investments that often go unrewarded. However, with the advancement of experimental technology and computer hardware, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a leading tool in analyzing abundant and high-dimensional data. In a new academic paper published in the journal   Engineering   titled “Artificial Intelligence in Pharmaceutical Sciences,” researchers detail the advantages of AI technology in all aspects of new drug research and development (R&D). AI is capable of discovering new drugs more efficiently and at a lower cost. Through the explosive growth of biomedical data, AI has led to a revolution in drug R&D, from target discovery to preclinical research, automated drug synthesis, and influences on the pharmaceutical market. In the review, the authors provide a brief overview of common AI models in the field of drug discovery, then summarize and discuss in dep...

Optical biosensing through a toy microscope over a surface “rainbow” chip

  We have witnessed the global spread of COVID-19 in the past years and fully recognized the importance of rapid, accurate, and easy sensing of viruses and diseases. It is highly desired to have a personalized sensing device that can be implemented in our daily life to improve the life quality.  Recently, researchers have been exploring on-chip sensing technologies to tackle these emerging challenges. More and more healthcare monitoring functionalities were integrated with wearable devices.  New research led by engineers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST of Saudi Arabia) and the State University of New York at Buffalo (University at Buffalo, USA) makes significant progress along this direction. The system is constructed by a graded surface nanograting with the period changing from 300 nm to 500 nm. Under the illumination of LEDs or lasers, one can see a dark bar in the reflection image (as illustrated in the image). The spatial location of the d...

Embedding social considerations in large-scale ecological restoration planning leads to more practical and cost-effective implementation

  The growth of ecological restoration programs worldwide has made the planet greener. Meanwhile, the failure of large-scale restoration has also been witnessed, due to conflicts between stakeholders during the implementation process. For effective ecological restoration, a comprehensive understanding of social-ecological interactions during the land conversion process and the integration of social dimension into large-scale ecological restoration planning play key roles. However, large-scale ecological restoration planning tends to pay more attention to ecological attributes (e.g., slope), with social attributes often neglected. Furthermore, how social dimensions should be considered remains a challenge.  Recently, many researchers have attempted to analyze the responses and feedbacks of human behavior at the household scale during large-scale ecological restoration implementation. A new study led by the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences of the Chinese Academy of...

Sodium nitrate passivation as a novel insulation technology for soft magnetic composites

  Recently,   Engineering   published the research work on sodium nitrate passivation as a novel insulation technology for soft magnetic composites developed by Prof. Mi Yan and Dr. Chen Wu’s team. Soft magnetic composites, which are fabricated based on metallic magnetic powders via insulation coating, binding, compaction, and annealing, serve as the key fundamental material in various fields including energy, transportation, aerospace, and national defense. Due to the low-electrical-resistivity nature of the soft magnetic alloys, it is challenging to control the eddy current loss, which has become a bottle-neck problem for high-frequency applications. For scientific research and industrial production, phosphorization technology is usually used to generate insulation coatings. However, the resultant phosphate coating tends to decompose above 600 ℃ and lose the insulation effect at elevated temperatures. It is of great significance to develop new insulation technology to f...

Thermo-tunable metamaterial with ultra-broadband absorption property

  A research team, led by Prof. Xiaoyong Tian in the State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering at Xi’an Jiaotong University, has successfully manufactured a thermo-tunable broadband metamaterial (T-TBM) by 3D printing. The electromagnetic (EM) response of the T-TBM can be adjusted by controlling the solid–liquid phase state of different metamaterial units. Unlike previously reported active control metamaterials, the absorption response of the T-TBM can be controlled by the change of temperature; furthermore, its performance of ultra-wideband absorbing does not change with the temperature. The T-TBM can further promote the development of intelligent metamaterials and thermally controlled absorbers, according to the research team. In this study, the research team first prepared RGO@Fe 3 O 4  nanocomposites by mechanical method. The characterization results of the RGO@Fe 3 O 4  nanocomposites confirmed that the RGO@Fe 3 O 4  nanocomposites with sandwich...

Transparent thermally tunable microwave absorber based on patterned vanadium dioxide film

  Recent, the rapid development of optoelectronic devices has made human life more convenient. However, these devices emit large amounts of electromagnetic radiation, which not only endanger human health, but also cause unacceptable malfunction of electronic systems. Therefore, electromagnetic shielding technology that eliminates the adverse electromagnetic waves is of vital importance to protect sensitive circuits from interference and preserve a healthy living environment. The absorption-based electromagnetic shielding technology is the most ideal method of electromagnetic shielding at present due to the electromagnetic waves cannot return to space and are completely eliminated. In particular, the optical transparent and tunable microwave absorption technology, which can be tuned in real time and applied in visual observation occasions, has attracted great attention for its scientific and application values. Vanadium dioxide is a promising candidate material for tunable absorbers...

Temporal dynamics and performance association of the tetrasphaera-enriched microbiome for enhanced biological phosphorus removal

  Background Phosphorus (P) eutrophication and P mineral resource depletion are increasingly serious global problems. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are both the sink and source for P. The bioprocess known as enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) can effectively promote P removal and recovery in WWTPs. It relies on a specific microbial functional guild called polyphosphate-accumulating organisms (PAOs). Recently,  Tetrasphaera  PAOs have gained increasing attention due to their prevalence in global WWTPs as both important contributors to P removal and potential reservoirs for P recovery. However, only a few studies have reported  Tetrasphaera -enriched microbiomes that were fed amino acids as a sole carbon source. The enrichment strategy, process, and key biotic and abiotic factors are unclear, hindering the in-depth study of  Tetrasphaera  PAOs for optimizing the P removal and recovery in WWTPs. To fill above knowledge gaps, this study propose...

Engineering Contents February 2023

Image
 Huifang Wu, Dan Hu, Quanxiao Li, Chunyu Wang, Xiaoyi Zhu, Wei Li, Binfan Chen, Ping Ji, Keke Huang, Ailing Huang, Jinghe Huang, Dimiter S. Dimitrov, Yanling Wu, Tianlei Ying, Half-Life Extension Enhances Drug Efficacy in Adeno-Associated Virus Delivered Gene Therapy, Engineering, Volume 21, 2023, Pages 203-213, ISSN 2095-8099, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eng.2022.02.009. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095809922001485) Abstract: Prolonged half-life of protein-based therapeutics can improve drug efficacy. However, the impact of drug half-life on gene therapy, which inherently provides long-lasting production of the desired therapeutic protein, remains unclear. In this study, several proteins with extended half-lives were engineered by fusion with the soluble monomeric immunoglobulin G 1 (IgG1) fragment crystallizable (sFc) or Fc region of IgG in adeno-associated virus (AAV)-delivered gene therapy. It was demonstrated that extending the half-life of a small-sized ...