Microplastic as an anthropogenic pollutant accumulates in terrestrial ecosystems over time, threatening soil quality and health, for example by decreasing aggregate stability. Organic matter addition is efficient approach to promote stability, yet little known about whether microplastic can reduce the beneficial effect of organic on We investigated impacts fibers presence or absence different m...

Soil aggregates play an important role in affecting the structural stability of soil, and it is to understand relationship between soil aggregate crop yield herbage-fruit tree intercropping systems. In this study, we determined optimal spacing configurations for improving while increasing yields alfalfa-jujube The treatments included three patterns, i.e., distances alfalfa jujube at 0.5 m (IP0....

Formation and structure of whey protein heat-induced gels (100 mg mL-1) through heat treatment at 80 °C and pH modifications at three pH values of acidic (2), isoelectric (5.6) and neutral (7) were studied. The obtained results indicated that the nature of the primary gel networks was different at each pH value. The heat-induced gels produced at pH of 2 and 7, had acceptab...

We present a new type of nanoparticle-based DNA sensor using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) on gold nanoparticle (Au NP) aggregates formed by DNA photoligation. The DNA sensor exploits the photoligation reaction between oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) attached to the surfaces of Au NPs in the presence of target DNA (T-DNA). When hybridization takes place between the ODNs and T-DNA, Au NP...

Gray seals (Halichoerus grypus) have been rapidly recolonizing the Northeast US coast, eliciting concern from the fishing industry. However, the ecological effect of this recovery is still unknown and as such, research is needed to better understand how the diet composition of gray seals in US waters will contribute to the ecological impact. While previous research on seal diets has focused on ...

Stable isotope analysis has become a powerful tool to study feeding ecology, water use or movement pattern in contemporary, historic and ancient species. Certain hair and teeth grow continuously, and when sampled longitudinally can provide temporally explicit information on dietary regime and movement pattern. In an initial trial, we analysed a tail sample of an Asiatic wild ass (Equus hemionus...

In 1995, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) began reconstruction in Houston on a section of IH-10 with continuously reinforced concrete pavement (CRCP). The unique aspect of this project was the use of crushed concrete as both coarse and fine aggregates in the new concrete. No virgin aggregates were used. The primary objectives of this study were to evaluate (1) the material propert...

The aggregation behavior in water-rich solutions of five iron(II) complexes with alkylated derivatives of 2,2'-bipyridine was studied by electron microscopy (cryo-SEM, SEM, and TEM) and AFM. The results obtained by cryo-SEM on frozen colloidal solutions show that the morphology of the aggregates strongly depends on the length of the alkyl chains in the bipyridine ligands, with shorter alkyl cha...

The organization of water molecules adsorbed onto cellulose and the supramolecular hydrated structure of microfibril aggregates represents, still today, one of the open and complex questions in the physical chemistry of natural polymers. Here, we investigate by 2H MAS NMR the mobility of water molecules in carefully 2H-exchanged, and thereafter re-dried, microcrystalline cellulose. By subtracti...