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Contamination of water with organic dyes is a major environmental concern as it causes serious life-threatening environmental problems. The present research was designed to evaluate the potential of three different natural inorganic clays (NICs) i.e., Pakistani bentonite clay (PB), bentonite purchased from Alfa Aesar (BT), and Turkish red mud (RM) for malachite green (MG) dye removal from an aqueous solution. Various analytical techniques, namely X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area measurement (BET), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), were used to investigate the physicochemical properties of the NICs samples. The effect of adsorption operational parameters such as contact time, aqueous phase pH, dye concentration, and amount of NICs on the adsorption behavior of MG onto NICs samples were investigated under the batch adsorption system. The equilibrium and kinetic inspection reflected the best description of MG adsorption behavior by the Langmuir isotherm model and pseudo-first-order kinetic model, respectively. The results indicated that the adsorption was favorable at higher pH. The maximum adsorption capacities calculated by Langmuir isotherm for PB, BT, and RM were found to be 243.90 mg/g, 188.68 mg/g, and 172.41 mg/g, respectively. It can be concluded that natural inorganic clays with a higher surface area can be used as an effective adsorbent material to remove the MG dye from an aqueous solution.

Indoor air pollutants comprise both polar and non-polar volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Indoor potted plants are well known for their innate ability to improve indoor air quality (IAQ) by detoxification of indoor air pollutants. In this study, a combination of two different plant species comprising a C3 plant ( Zamioculcas zamiifolia ) and a crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) plant ( Sansevieria trifasciata ) was used to remove polar and non-polar VOCs and minimize CO 2 emission from the chamber. Z. zamiifolia and S. trifasciata , when combined, were able to remove more than 95% of pollutants within 48 h and could do so for six consecutive pollutant’s exposure cycles. The CO 2 concentration was reduced from 410 down to 160 ppm inside the chamber. Our results showed that using plant growth medium rather than soil had a positive effect on decreasing CO 2 . We also re-affirmed the role of formaldehyde dehydrogenase in the detoxification and metabolism of formaldehyde and that exposure of plants to pollutants enhances the activity of this enzyme in the shoots of both Z. zamiifolia and S. trifasciata . Overall, a mixed plant of Z. zamiifolia and S. trifasciata was more efficient at removing mixed pollutants and reducing CO 2 than individual plants.

Background This study aimed to investigate the potential toxic effects of Molybdenum disulfide nano-flowers (MoS 2 NF), which have been suggested as a chemotherapeutic agent, but lack previous toxicity studies. Methods Acute, sub-acute and developmental toxicity studies were conducted following OECD guidelines 425, 407 and 414, respectively. Results In the acute toxicity study, female Wistar rats received logarithmic doses (1.75–550 mg/kg) of MoS 2 NF over 14 days. Results indicated a decrease in oxidative stress markers (CAT, SOD and GSH) and increased MDA levels, along with significant decrease in organ weight compared to normal control. Alterations in liver enzymes, CBC profile and lipid profile and histopathological analysis were observed in MoS 2 NF groups. Sub-acute toxicity (28-day at 3 and 10 mg/kg in both male and female rats) resulted in increased levels of ALT and AST, decreased levels of CAT, SOD and GSH and increased MDA and urea levels. Sperm analysis in male group showed increased motility and concentration, with more defective morphology. In developmental toxicity studies, a 10 mg/kg dose for 21 days decreased all oxidative markers except MDA, which increased. Fetal crown-to-rump length increased, while uterine SOD, CAT and GSH levels decreased. Histopathology revealed organ damage in both sub-acute and developmental studies. Maternal weight remained unaffected, whereas fetal weight showed an increased. Conclusion MoS 2 NF exhibited mild-to-moderate toxicity, however, long-term and studies are recommended to assess the safety and therapeutic potential of MoS 2 NF.

Indoor air pollution is of increasing concern for human health. Amongst the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) found indoors, formaldehyde and toluene are two toxic compounds. Indoor plants have an innate capability to remediate indoor airborne pollutants. Zamioculcas zamiifolia is an ornamental plant local to Thailand reported to be very efficient for VOC removal. Indole acetic acid (IAA) was applied to shoots and roots of Z. zamiifolia to enhance the capability for removing a toluene and formaldehyde mixture. We found that 5 μM of exogenous IAA can enhance Z. zamiifolia efficiency about 20% and 40% for toluene and formaldehyde, respectively, after plant was exposed to initial toluene-formaldehyde mixture concentration 20 ppm (1:1) for 3 cycles (156 h). We found that 5 μM of exogenous IAA had a positive effect on the stomatal aperture opening and stomatal conductance. However, 10 μM of exogenous IAA had a negative effect on the opening of stomatal aperture, and thus initially decreased that remediating ability of Z. zamiifolia for formaldehyde and toluene. We investigated the formaldehyde dehydrogenase activity in shoots of Z. zamiifolia and found significantly enhanced FDH activity in plants supplied with exogenous IAA. We concluded that exogenous IAA in optimum amounts could enhance the mitigating ability of indoor plants for airborne air pollutants. However, our research indicated that the application of IAA to roots could have a negative effect on the remediating ability of Z. zamiifolia.

To improve the storage stability of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD), superparamagnetic magnetite (Fe3O4) nanoparticles were synthesized by co-precipitation method and coated with polydopamine (PDA) for GAD immobilization. Dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy were used to determine size of the nanoparticles, which were approximately 10 nm, increasing to 15 nm after PDA-coating and to 20 nm upon GAD binding. Vibrational scanning measurements significantly represented the superparamagnetic behavior of the Fe3O4, and X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed that the crystalline structure before and after coating with PDA and the further immobilization of GAD remained the same. Thermogravimetric analysis and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy proved that the PDA-coating on Fe3O4 and further immobilization of GAD were successful. After immobilization, the enzyme can be used with a relative specific activity of 40.7% after five successive uses. The immobilized enzyme retained relative specific activity of about 50.5% after 15 days of storage at 4 °C, while free enzyme showed no relative specific activity after two days of storage. The GAD immobilization on PDA-coated magnetite nanoparticles was reported for the improvement of enzyme storage stability for the first time.

In this work, highly crystalline CdS nanorods (NRs) were successfully synthesized by a facile, one-step solvothermal method. The as-prepared CdS NRs powder was characterized by XRD, FESEM, Raman, PL, XPS, BET, and UV-visible techniques to evaluate the structural, morphological, and optical properties. The photocatalytic performance of the as-synthesized CdS NRs was investigated for the photodegradation of RhB dye under visible light irradiations. It has been found that CdS NRs show maximum RhB degradation efficiency of 88.4% in 120 min. The excellent photodegradation ability of the CdS NRs can be attributed to their rod-like structure together with their large surface area and surface state. The kinetic study indicated that the photodegradation process was best described by the pseudo-first-order kinetic model. The possible mechanism for the photodegradation of RhB dye over CdS NRs was proposed in this paper.

Large Language Models face significant challenges in maintaining coherent interactions over extended dialogues due to their limited contextual memory. This limitation often leads to fragmented exchanges and reduced relevance in responses, diminishing user experience. To address these issues, we propose a memory-augmented architecture that dynamically retrieves, updates, and prunes relevant information from past interactions, ensuring effective long-term context handling. Experimental results demonstrate that our solution significantly improves contextual coherence, reduces memory overhead, and enhances response quality, showcasing its potential for real-time applications in interactive systems.

Conventional Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) methods employ a fixed rank, imposing uniform adaptation across transformer layers and attention heads despite their heterogeneous learning dynamics. This paper introduces Adaptive Rank Dynamic LoRA (ARD-LoRA), a novel framework that automates rank allocation through learnable scaling factors. These factors are optimized via a meta-objective balancing task performance and parameter efficiency, incorporating \\(_1\\) sparsity for minimal rank and Total Variation regularization for stable rank transitions. ARD-LoRA enables continuous, differentiable, per-head rank adaptation. Experiments on LLAMA-3.1-70B and PaliGemma-2 demonstrate ARD-LoRA's efficacy, achieving up to 99.3% of full fine-tuning performance with only 0.32% trainable parameters, outperforming strong baselines like DoRA and AdaLoRA. Furthermore, it reduces multimodal adaptation memory by 41%. These results establish dynamic, fine-grained rank allocation as a critical paradigm for efficient foundation model adaptation.

The recycling of construction and demolition waste (CDW) for the extraction of recycled concrete aggregates (RCAs) to be used to produce recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) is widely acknowledged internationally. However, CDW not only contains concrete debris but may also contain burnt clay bricks. The recycling of such CDW without the segregation of different components would result in recycled aggregates having different proportions of concrete and brick aggregates. The utilization of these aggregates in concrete requires a detailed investigation of their mechanical and durability properties. In this regard, the present study focused on investigating the mechanical and durability properties of hybrid recycled aggregate concrete (HRAC) made by the 100% replacing of natural aggregates with recycled brick (RBAs) and RCA in hybrid form. The partial replacement of cement with fly ash was also considered to reduce the corban footprint of concrete. An extensive experimental program was designed and carried out in two phases. In the first phase, a total of 48 concrete mixes containing coarse RBA and RCA in mono and hybrid forms were prepared and tested for their compressive strength. The test results indicated that the compressive strength of HRAC is greatly affected by the proportion of coarse RBA and RCA. In the second phase, based on the results of the first phase, eight concrete mixes with the most critical proportions of RBA and RCA in hybrid form were selected to evaluate their mechanical and durability performance. In addition, four mixes with natural aggregates were also prepared for comparison purposes. To evaluate the mechanical properties of the concrete mixes, compressive strength and modulus of rupture (MOR) tests were performed, while for the evaluation of durability properties, water absorption and behavior after exposure to aggressive conditions of acidic and brine solutions were studied. The results revealed that a 20% replacement of cement with fly ash resulted in acceptable mechanical and durability properties of HRAC intended to be used for making concrete bricks or pavers.

This study aimed to evaluate the anti-cancerous effect of molybdenum disulfide nanoflowers (MoS2-NFs) and berberine (BRB) in N-nitroso-N-methyl urea (NMU)-induced breast cancer in female rats. MoS2-NFs were synthesized using a one-step hydrothermal method, and their structural and morphological properties were characterized using PXRD, FESEM, XPS, BET, and Raman analysis. Computational studies further confirmed our experimental findings. Breast tumors were induced in rats by four doses of NMU (50 mg/kg) at an interval of 3 weeks. Oxidative stress markers, DNA fragmentation, mitochondrial respiratory chain complexes, hormonal profiles, and inflammatory mediators were evaluated for chemo-preventive characteristics of MoS2-NF. Results of our study showed that MoS2-NFs (3 and 10 mg/kg) and BRB (10 mg/kg) significantly decreased the weight of the mammary gland and enhanced the antioxidant effect. Similarly, reduction in malondialdehyde (MDA) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels showed the anti-cancerous potential of MoS2 NFs at 3 mg/kg, 10 mg/kg, and BRB 10 mg/kg, which was further confirmed by histopathological studies and DNA fragmentation proportion. Estrogen and progesterone levels significantly declined in combination treatment groups, whereas individual drug treatment groups also showed satisfactory results. Similarly, reduction in levels of IL-6, TNF-alpha, and kappa b in all treatment groups indicated test agent efficacy against inflammation and tumor infection. Furthermore, all mitochondrial respiratory complexes, particularly complex I and II + III, activated significantly after individual test substances treatment as compared to combinatory effect, while citrate synthase showed marked efficacy in combination treatment. In conclusion, MoS2 NFs and BRB showed attribution of anti-tumor potential towards mammary gland carcinoma. However, further studies are needed to assess its safety and efficacy.