However, linear regression analysis between different material efficiency indicators and environmental impacts showed that indicators targeted at actual recycling, specifically at closed loop, were better suited to reflect environmental performance than input-based indicators. Therefore, whenever data are available, output-based quality-related indicators should be used to measure the material efficiency of waste and resource systems because they correlate best with the goals of increasing resource efficiency and decreasing environmental impacts.The effect of a biosurfactant, rhamnolipid (RL), coupled with a thermal treatment was investigated to determine its impact on improving the deflocculation of dehydrated sludge from wastewater treatment processes. Results showed that the RL treatment positively impacted sludge conditioning to weak acidity and hydrolyzed the carbohydrates and proteins released from the matrix of the extracellular polymeric substance. When RL was coupled with high temperature thermal treatments (65 and 95 °C), soluble chemical oxygen demand and chemical oxygen demand solubilization increased by 9.6-19.7 times and 13.4-29.3%, respectively. The RL treatment reduced antibiotic resistant bacteria by 5.4-98.4%, and antibiotic activity was further accelerated by high temperature thermal treatment. The combination of biosurfactant and thermal treatment can effectively deflocculate dehydrated sludge and should be considered an alternative technology for the sludge management process.Objective The aim of this study was to analyze the intake of specific macronutrients and minerals that could influence cardiovascular health in recreational marathon runners. Methods We grouped 37 male runners into two groups according to their 50th percentile race time (3.39 h) and divided them into fast (group 1 [G1] 3.18 ± 0.18 h) and slow runners (group 2 [G2] 3.84 ± 0.42 h). Anthropometric parameters, macronutrients, and mineral records were collected before the race. Minerals (sodium ion, potassium ion, and magnesium ion), lipid profile (triacylglycerols, low-density lipoprotein, high-density lipoprotein, and cholesterol), muscle damage (creatine kinase), inflammation (C-reactive protein), and cardiovascular health (high-sensitivity troponin T, ST2, and N-terminal proB-type natriuretic peptide) were analyzed in blood 24 h before, immediately after, and 48 h postrace. Results Weight (G1 74.70 ± 7.76 kg, G2 79.58 ± 6.72 kg; P 250 ng/L, and 81% of the runners (30 of 37) presented higher postrace values. Conclusions Marathon runners consuming adequate amounts of unsaturated fat, iron, potassium, and magnesium, performed better and presented better cardiovascular health.Here we report a density functional theory study on the pristine and amino acid-functionalized C4B32 borospherene as drug delivery systems. Inspired by a fascinating finding of novel borospherenes which were designed by doping four carbon atoms in the B364- cluster (C4B32), we suggest the pristine and alanine-functionalized C4B32 clusters as high-efficient drug delivery systems.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/bms-927711.html  The main objective of the present work is to investigate the interaction of pristine and alanine-conjugated borospherenes with an anticancer drug (hydroxyurea) by means of the density functional theory. Our calculations reveal that the amino acid functionalization can not only transport biological drugs but also leads to improve the drug adsorption on the C4B32 cluster. Our UV-Vis calculations represent that the electronic spectra of the drug@cluster systems show a red shift toward a higher wavelength. In order to go further and gain insight into the binding features of the studied borospherenes with hydroxyurea drug, the Atoms in Molecules analysis was also performed. We found that the electrostatic nature of the hydroxyurea/cluster bonding. Consequently, our results represented that the alanine-functionalized C4B32 borospherene could be used as a potential carrier for the delivery of anticancer drugs.Hypothesis Polymer additives such as Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) are ubiquitously used in wet chemical reduction methods to tune nanoparticle sizes and shapes. However, all polymers retain some traces of their synthetic history through their end-groups and impurities. These impurities may thus impact redox and interfacial processes occurring during the formation of nanocolloids. Experiments We report a systematic comparison of four representative silver nanoparticle syntheses in the presence of either commercial PVP or its purified version, obtained through dialysis or filtration. We characterized the resulting nanoparticle dispersions through UV-visible spectroscopy, electron microscopy, X-ray scattering and Raman spectroscopy. Findings For all syntheses and methods, the simple removal of PVP molecular impurities drastically modifies nanoparticle size, shape and formation kinetic. Impurities from additives thus play a pivotal role in nanoparticle syntheses and must be systematically evaluated for relevant mechanistic investigations and robust process engineering.As a promising drug nanocarrier, carbon dots (CDs) have exhibited many excellent properties. However, some properties such as bone targeting and crossing the blood-brain barrier (BBB) only apply to a certain CD preparation with limited drug loading capacity. Therefore, it is significant to conjugate distinct CDs to centralize many unique properties on the novel drug nanocarrier. Considering that CDs have abundant and tunable surface functionalities, in this study, a direct conjugation was initiated between two distinct CD models, black CDs (B-CDs) and gel-like CDs (G-CDs) via an amidation reaction. As a result of conjugation at a mass ratio of 53 (B-CDs to G-CDs) and a two-step purification process, the conjugate, black-gel CDs (B-G CDs) (53) inherited functionalities from both CDs and obtained an enhanced thermostability, aqueous stability, red-shifted photoluminescence (PL) emission, and a figure-eight shape with a width and length of 3 and 6 nm, respectively. In addition, the necessity of high surface primary amine (NH2) content in the CD conjugation was highlighted by replacing G-CDs with other CDs with lower surface NH2 content. Meanwhile, the carboxyl groups (COOH) on G-CDs were not enough to trigger self-conjugation between G-CDs. Moreover, the drug loading capacity was enhanced by 54.5% from B-CDs to B-G CDs (53). Furthermore, when the mass ratio of B-CDs to G-CDs was decreased from 530, 5100 to 5300, the obtained nanostructures revealed a great potential of CDs as Lego-like building blocks. Also, bioimaging of zebrafish demonstrated that various B-G CDs exhibited properties of both bone targeting and crossing the BBB, which are specific properties of B-CDs and G-CDs, respectively.