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In order to improve the accuracy and efficiency of hydrogen energy storage system (HESS) risk assessment, the study proposes a risk portfolio assessment model based on kernel principal component analysis-tuna swarm optimization-least squares support vector machine (KPCA-TSO-LSSVM) algorithm. Firstly, the original data were downscaled using KPCA to extract principal components with at least 98% information content. These principal components use the extracted principal components as inputs to the model. Secondly, TSO is used to implement the optimization of parameter settings for LSSVM. Thirdly, the applicability of the proposed KPCA-TSO-LSSVM in HESS risk assessment is verified by case analysis. Finally, the superiority of the model proposed is verified by comparing TSO, whale optimization algorithm (WOA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO). The results show that KPCA-TSO-LSSVM performs optimally in HESS risk assessment. The classification time of the test sample is shorter at 0.0416 s. The accuracy is higher at 97%. Therefore, the proposed model can effectively identify HESS risks, reduce the operational risks of HESS, and improve the stability and reliability of the system. • Kernel principal component analysis extracts principal components of 98% or more. • Tuna swarm algorithm optimises parameters of least squares support vector machine. • Case study validates the applicability of KPCA-TSO-LSSVM in risk assessment. • Multi-method comparisons confirm that KPCA-TSO-LSSVM is the best with 97% accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although inorganic salts are considered outstanding thermal storage materials, drawbacks such as low thermal conductivity, corrosion issues, and leakage severely hinder their practical industrial application. Porous ceramics are suitable to serve as the supporting skeleton for inorganic salt due to good corrosion resistance, high thermal conductivity and high porosity. In this study, secondary aluminum dross (SAD) and ferronickel slag (FNS) were used as raw materials to prepare cordierite-mullite porous ceramic (CMC). The NaNO 3 /CMC composites were synthesized using spontaneous melting-infiltrating method, and their thermal storage performance were studied in detail. The results indicated that CMC had a favorable pore structure with high porosity and micro-sized pores, as well as high compressive strength exceeding 30 MPa. Excellent chemical compatibility between CMC and NaNO 3 was demonstrated by XRD analysis. The latent heat of the NaNO 3 /CMC5, NaNO 3 /CMC15 and NaNO 3 /CMC30 composites, as determined by DSC, were 76.4 J/g, 76.7 J/g and 73.6 J/g, respectively, accounting for 43.5%,43.6% and 41.9% of pure NaNO 3. The supercooling of NaNO 3 was significantly decreased after infiltration into CMC supporting skeleton. A 100-cycle thermal cycles experiment was conducted to verify the long-term thermal reliability of the NaNO 3 /CMC composites, including latent heat and heat transfer property. The melting latent heat of the NaNO 3 /CMC5, NaNO 3 /CMC15 and NaNO 3 /CMC30 decreased by nearly 5.6%, 3.7% and 2.9%, respectively, after 100 thermal cycling tests, indicating the NaNO 3 /CMC composites had good thermal reliability. The thermal conductivity of all the NaNO 3 /CMC composites exceeded 1.8 W m−1 K−1 at 350 °C. Additionally, the compressive strength of all the composites showed only minimal decrease after thermal cycling test, remaining higher than 100 MPa. The NaNO 3 /CMC composites offer promising prospects in the medium temperature thermal storage utilization field, such as industrial waste heat recovery, owing to low production cost, high thermal conductivity and high mechanical strength. • Excellent chemical compatibility between CMC and NaNO 3 was verified. • The latent heat of NaNO 3 /CMC composite was more than 40% of that of pure NaNO 3. • Good thermal reliability of NaNO 3 /CMC composite was demonstrated. • The thermal conductivity of NaNO 3 /CMC composite exceeds 1.8 W/(m·K) even after 100 thermal cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind energy is an important renewable clean energy resource. However, the stochastic and volatile nature of wind power brings significant challenges to the power system's reliable and secure operation. Accurate and reliable wind power prediction is critical for the integration of wind power into the grid. The existing wind power forecasting (WPF) methods lack an assessment of the reliability of the predicted results, which may result in a financial penalty for the wind energy producers. An accurate prediction with reliability measurement is urgently needed to encounter the intricate nature of the problem. In this paper, a Bayesian framework-based bidirectional gated logic unit (BiGRU) method was proposed for ultra-short-term wind power forecasting. First, an encoder-decoder (ED) architecture was combined with a BiGRU time series modeling and feature–temporal attention (FT-Attention) to improve the accuracy of wind power prediction. Then, two uncertainty losses were applied to improve the model's performance further. The proposed method obtains the uncertainty of forecast results, which effectively eliminates the untrusted results. Our proposed method demonstrated promising results for ultra-short-term wind power forecasting due to its competitive performance compared with traditional forecasting methods. • A novel ultra-short-term WPF method is proposed with a deep Bayesian model. • Quantifying the uncertainty of WPF is a unique ability of our proposed framework. • Aleatoric uncertainty loss and epistemic uncertainty loss are introduced. • Temporal attention and feature attention are designed to enhance the accuracy of WPF. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multispectral imaging, a non-invasive technique to measure retinal oxygen saturation levels, is limited due to its time-consuming and expensive nature. In this paper, we present R3ST (Retinex-based Semantic Spectral Separation Transformer), an innovative end-to-end method for RGB fundus image spectral reconstruction. Our proposed model leverages RGB images to reconstruct multispectral images, making retinal oximetry more accessible for diagnostics. Existing spectral reconstruction methods face challenges in achieving high accuracy and generalizing across camera sources, affecting diagnostic results. R3ST addresses these issues through an unsupervised semantic spectral separation module that strives to encourage the separate reconstruction of pixels with different semantics as much as possible. Additionally, we introduce an oxygen saturation loss to improve reconstruction accuracy within the relevant regions. To overcome the limitations of generalization properties, our model incorporates a self-supervised Retinex reflectance extraction module. This simulates various imaging systems and extracts reflectance information from fundus images for reconstruction. Extensive experiments demonstrate R3ST's superior performance in spectral reconstruction accuracy, making retinal oximetry a more viable, cost-effective diagnostic option that provides essential eye health and systemic health information. The code of R3ST is available at https://github.com/telesc0pe/R3ST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provided a value-added utilization route for industrial solid waste by converting them into porous ceramics to act as supporting skeleton for PCMs. Steel slag (SS), ferronickel-slag (FNS) and Fly ash (FA) was used as main raw material to prepared anorthite-cordierite (AC) porous ceramics. Five groups of formula with different phase content were designed by adjusting the amount of SS and FNS addition. FactSage 8.0 software was applied to calculate the equilibrium phase composition of AC at high temperature, which provided guidance for the actual high temperature synthesis process. The prepared AC porous ceramics were found to have good mechanical strength and high porosity. Good chemical compatibility between AC and NaNO 3 was demonstrated and the infiltration ratio was varied from 42% to 45%. In addition to high thermal storage capacity, AC has been found to help reduce the supercooling of NaNO 3 and helps to improve the thermal storage performance. After 100 thermal cycles of melting and freezing, NaNO 3 /AC C-PCMs could maintained high than 97% of latent heat. Thermal transfer properties of AC were significantly enhanced after molten NaNO 3 infiltrated. The thermal conductivity of NaNO 3 /AC40 C-PCMs at 25 °C reached 1.60 W·(m·K)−1, which is more than three times that of pure NaNO 3. The good thermal storage performance of NaNO 3 /AC C-PCMs makes it potential candidate in high-temperature thermal storage fields like industrial waste heat recovery and solar energy storage. In a word, the application potential of metallurgical slag in the field of energy saving was well demonstrated by this study. • Thermal transfer properties of AC improved with increase of cordierite phase. • AC0 is suitable as thermal insulation materials due to low thermal conductivity of 0.3 W·(m·K)-1. • AC was proved to have good chemical compatibility with NaNO 3. • Heat storage loss of NaNO 3 /AC was less than 3% even after 100 thermal cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photovoltaic storage system (PVSS) has been spawned with the combined application of photovoltaic (PV), energy storage (ES) and energy blockchain (EB), which has also made important contributions to the energy structure adjustment, energy transaction security and ecological environment protection. The establishment of a reasonable task matching mechanism can further improve the operation efficiency and quality of the system under the EB environment, and this paper consequently constructs a task matching model of PVSS based on GA-CLOUD-GS algorithm. Firstly, the decision-making committee is set up and the index system is determined for the to-be-matched task. Secondly, the Genetic Algorithm (GA) comprehensive weighting method is introduced to integrate the subjective and objective weights to achieve the weight optimization. Thirdly, the cloud model is used to obtain the preference order and priority order of the to-be-matched subjects. Fourthly, the Gale-Shapley (GS) algorithm is used to obtain the task matching results. Finally, the operability, the stability and the effectiveness of the model are separately verified through numerical simulation, sensitivity analysis and comparative analysis. Corresponding suggestions for the task matching of PVSS in the EB environment are also put forward according to the research content. • The necessity, superiority, and application scenarios of collaborative development between PVSS and EB are clarified, and the importance of research on task matching mechanism is identified. • A task matching mechanism model based on the GA-CLOUD-GS algorithm is established, the feasibility, stability, and effectiveness of the established model were verified. • Relevant suggestions are provided for the development of PVSS in the EB environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy is the foundation and driving force of modernization. Renewable energy has been developed with the help of global environmental awareness. In recent years, supported by the relevant national industrial policies, China's photovoltaic market has developed rapidly and its production capacity is huge. However, the core of supporting the sustainable development of an industry lies in the continuous appreciation of the value of itself. In order to correctly understand the status quo and problems of PV industry value chain in China, based on the "Smile Curve" theory, taking the gross profit rate of PV industry listed companies as sample variables from 2015 to 2017, the research finds that its value chain shows a gradually deepening smile. And to explore the extent to which gross profit margin is affected by various factors, 15 variables are selected from six aspects: internal innovation power, growth potential, profitability, operational efficiency, scale strength and external environment, the Stepwise Regression method is used to determine the optimal model first. Further use Principal Component Analysis to confirm the motivations affecting the value-added of listed companies in the PV industry in the upper, middle and down reaches. The results indicate that only 6 variables have significant effects on the gross profit margin of the PV industry value chain, and there are big diversities in the main influencing factors of the value-added capacity of PV companies in different links, so they should seek their own value-added breakthroughs. • China's PV industry value chain conforms to the "smile curve" form. • The profitability can significantly influence the value of the entire industry. • Innovation is the key factor to the upper and downstream PV companies' value added. • The key factor to midstream PV companies' value added is operational efficiency. • Company's scale and external environment have synergistic effects on the value added. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In recent years, the wind curtailment has become a serious problem in China and the government are actively seeking solutions to deal with this energy loss. Therefore, the use of non-grid-connected wind power has received great attention since it can be supplied to local end users equipped with energy storage and then mitigate wind curtailment. Since the non-grid-connected wind power and local power load have to confront dramatic power fluctuations, a hybrid energy storage system (HESS) including batteries and supercapacitors is applied. This paper proposes a multi-objective optimization model of HESS configuration in non-grid-connected wind power/energy storage/local user system. In this model, two decision variables, numbers of batteries and supercapacitors, are determined based on the objective of annual profit maximization and wind curtailment rate minimization. To solve this model, a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) is employed to obtain Pareto front and VIKOR (VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje) technique is applied to select the optimal solution from Pareto solutions. Finally, a wind farm in Hebei province is studied and discussed. A scenario analysis, a sensitivity analysis and a comparative analysis are performed to show the advantages of the proposed model. Highlights • The local consumption of non-grid-connected wind is a solution to wind curtailment. • Hybrid energy storage increases the profit and reduces the wind curtailment rate. • NSGA-II-VIKOR is effective to determine the optimal energy storage capacity. • Energy storage cost and objective weight both influence the optimization result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secondary aluminum dross (SAD) is a kind of hazardous waste with high aluminum content produced in the aluminum industry. From another point, SAD is also considered as a valuable aluminum resource, which can be used as high-quality raw material for value-added products such as refractory materials. In this study, a novel route for preparing corundum-spinel heat storage spheres (HSS) using washed residue of secondary aluminum dross (WSAD) as the main raw material was proposed. FactSage 8.1 software was used for the detailed thermodynamic calculation, which provided accurate theoretical guidance for the actual synthesis experiments. The effects of roasting temperature and formula on the main phases, compressive strength, porosity, and bulk density of HSS were systematically analyzed. The strengthening mechanism of the liquid phase on the sintering strength was revealed. The results showed that the HSS with good properties could be obtained with 90 wt% WSAD, 10 wt% kaolin, and 1 wt% bentonite. The HSS mainly consisted of corundum and spinel phases. The synthetic temperature of corundum-spinel ceramic was reduced by more than 200 °C. This study provides a novel way for value-added utilization of SAD as well as realizing the deep detoxification and the removal of nitrogen of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The removal of 4 typical pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) in sewage sludge, i.e. diclofenac (DCF), clofibric acid (CFA), carbamazepine (CBM), and triclosan (TCS), was evaluated during 3 integrated processes of anaerobic digestions (ADs). The integrated processes included ADs integrated with mixed enzymolyses (MEADs), ADs integrated with mixed enzymolyses together with ultrasonic irradiation pre-treatment (MEUADs), and ADs integrated with mixed enzymolyses together with mechanical rotary disc post-treatment (MEADRDs). The SRTs were set at 15 d. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS) following solid-phase extraction was used to analyze and detect the target compounds. Under the mesophilic condition, the highest removal during MEAD and MEUAD was 67.6% and 77.1% of CFA, and 78.1% of CBZ during MEADRD. There was little differences between the removals of 4 PhACs during MEADRD, and all the removal rates were higher than 70%. Especially the removal of DCF increased from 40.6% during MEAD to 71.7% during MEADRD. The overall removal during MEADRD was highest with the increase by about 20.9% from that during MEAD. The highest removal during MEAD, MEUAD and MEADRD was 81.1%, 70.7% and 71.8%, respectively, of CFA under the thermophilic condition. MEADRD could realize the highest overall removal, up to 69.4% with the increase by 11.0% compared with MEUAD. The results showed that the integrated process, MEADRD, under both mesophilic and thermophilic condition was suitable for the effective removal of PhACs, and MEADRD under the mesophilic condition was a preferable choice from the energy-saving perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence and uniqueness theorem of solutions provides an effective tool for the model validation of both deterministic and stochastic equations. The objective of this paper is to establish the existence and uniqueness of solutions for a class of Itô-Doob stochastic fractional differential equations under non-Lipschitz condition which is weaker than Lipschitz one and contains it as a special case. The solution is constructed with the aid of Carathéodory approximation. Moreover, the continuous dependence of solutions on the initial value is investigated in view of the stability of solutions in the sense of mean square. Finally, an example is given to illustrate the theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electric vehicle sharing (EVS) has been recognized as a promising solution to growing issues of traffic congestion, air pollution and insufficient parking spaces. This study assesses service performance of EVS programs in order to help operators improve service quality and attract more customers. First, this paper identifies 22 criteria from the perspectives of electric vehicles, charging stations, payment and Internet services and establishes the evaluation index system. Then a VIsekriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) based approach is proposed with three main steps including processing the criteria values represented by crisp values, interval numbers and linguistic variables, determining integrated criteria weights and assessing alternatives by VIKOR method. Next, a case study is provided to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method. Three candidate EVS programs in Beijing are evaluated and ranked according to their scores. A sensitivity analysis and a comparative analysis of different methods are also performed to show that the proposed method is capable to assess service performance of EVS programs. Finally, suggestions are made for program operators according to assessment result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Installing a photovoltaic (PV) power plant at a proper location has been a critical problem for the system planners and investors. In this study, grey cumulative prospect theory is employed to study the site selection of PV power plants from the perspective of sustainability. First, considering the sustainable development, eight decision-making criteria are identified and divided into three categories: geographical conditions, economic profits and environmental benefits. The decision-making steps of grey cumulative prospect theory are then proposed to select the optimal alternative and in this method, an optimization model is used to obtain the importance of criteria. The proposed method has also been implemented in a case of four cities in Northwest China in which the optimal alternative, Yulin city, is selected with the highest prospect value. Finally, a comparison analysis of multi-criteria decision-making methods and a sensitivity analysis of all criteria are performed and the results show that the proposed method can be used effectively for the site selection of PV power plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Photovoltaic + energy storage" is considered as one of the effective means to improve the efficiency of clean energy utilization. In the era of energy sharing, the "photovoltaic - energy storage - utilization (PVESU)" model can create a more favorable market environment. However, the various uncertainties in the construction of the PVESU project have become the main obstacles to the development of the PVESU model. This paper aims to evaluate the risk level of China's PVESU projects through an improved Cloud-TODIM (Cloud-an acronym in Portuguese for Interative Multi-criteria Decision Making) method. First of all, 18 critical risk factors are identified using the constructed five-dimensional risk analysis model. Secondly, the improved method is used to calculate the weight of the comprehensive criteria and rank 14 PVESU alternatives. Finally, the accuracy and feasibility of the hybrid method are verified by sensitivity analysis tests concluding the loss decay coefficient adjustment and comparison analysis with the Cloud-TOPSIS(Cloud-Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) method. Meanwhile, in terms of energy storage, some suggestions are made for the future development of China's PVESU project. This study can also provide insightful enlightenment for PVESU project investors, risk management professionals and decision makers. • The highlights stated are as follows: • Construct an evaluation system of Photovoltaic - Energy storage - Utilization (PVESU) project risk assessment. • Contribute to adding five-dimensional risk analysis method to select critical risk factors. • Propose an improved Cloud-TODIM method to analyze the risk level of PVESU projects. • Extend the research on integrated projects on the field of clean energy and energy storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The realization of carbon neutral goal is inseparable from the development of new energy industry, and scientific and effective policy support can accelerate the progress of the goal. In this paper, the policy driven ability of China's photovoltaic industry in the background of carbon neutral is evaluated. Firstly, the evaluation system is established by the improved diamond model. Then, the policy evaluation standard is formulated according to the Interval Type-2 Fuzzy sets (IT2FS). Finally, the weight of each index is determined by using the fuzzy OWA operator weighting method (F-OWA). Then, the policy driving ability of China's photovoltaic industry is evaluated by fuzzy matter-element extension method (F-MEEM), and the effectiveness of the evaluation results is further verified by weight sensitivity analysis. According to the evaluation results, policy support plays an important role in the development of photovoltaic industry. This paper also gives policy suggestions for the development of China's photovoltaic industry under the background of carbon neutral from the macro, meso and micro perspectives. • China's PV industry evaluation system is established by the improved diamond model. •IT2FS and F-OWA are used to process indicators. •The policy driving ability of China's PV industry is evaluated by F-MEEM. •The effectiveness of the evaluation results is further verified by weight sensitivity analysis. •The results are analyzed in detail, and corresponding suggestions are put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A water-soluble polysaccharide, designated as EFP-AW1, was isolated from the roots of Euphorbia fischeriana and purified to homogeneity by gel-filtration chromatography. Its carbohydrate content was up to 92.34%, which was composed of glucose (Glc), galactose (Gal), mannose (Man) and rhamnose (Rha) in a molar ratio of 14.1:1.9:2.0:1.9. The molecular weight was evaluated to be 10,830Da as determined by high performance size exclusion chromatography (HPSEC). On the basis of sugar analysis, methylation analysis, periodate oxidation, Smith degradation, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) studies (1H and 13C), the structure of the repeating unit of the polysaccharide was established as: Display Omitted [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A water-soluble protein-bound polysaccharide (EFP-W1) was fractioned from roots of Euphorbia fischeriana and purified by gel-filtration chromatography. Its primary structural features were characterized by partial acid hydrolysis, Smith degradation-periodate oxidation, methylation analysis, high performance size exclusion chromatography (HPSEC), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), gas chromatography (GC), gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) analysis and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). The data obtained indicated that EFP-W1 contains about 91% of carbohydrate content, which was mainly composed of glucose (Glc), galactose (Gal), mannose (Man), arabinose (Ara) in a molar ratio of 6:1:1:1. Its average molecular weight was about 11,230Da. The structure of the repeating unit of the polysaccharide was elucidated as follows: Display Omitted [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: One water-soluble glucan (PCP-W1) was purified from the crude polysaccharide of Pleurotus citrinopileatus by chromatography on DEAE Sepharose Fast Flow and Sephadex G-200 column, and PCP-W1 (Mw =45kDa), was predominantly composed of Glc. Partial acid hydrolysis, Smith degradation–periodate oxidation, methylation analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) analysis and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) experiments were conducted to elucidate its structure. The results indicated that PCP-W1 had a glucan backbone consisting of (1→6)-linked-β-d-glucopyranosyl residues, which were branched at O-3 position of the backbone with (1→3)-linked-β-d-glucopyranosyl and non-reducing end 1-β-d-glucopyranosyl residues. The repeating unit of the polysaccharide was established as: Display Omitted [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: One water-soluble polysaccharide (ABP-W1) was purified from the fruiting bodies of Agaricus blazei by DEAE Sepharose Fast Flow and Sepharose 6 Fast Flow column chromatography. Its molecular weight was about 3.9×102 kDa as determined by high-performance size-exclusion chromatography (HPSEC). The structural feature of ABP-W1 was investigated by a combination of chemical and instrumental analysis, including partial hydrolysis with acid, periodate oxidation–Smith degradation, acetylation, methylation analysis and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR 1H, 13C). The results revealed that ABP-W1 had a backbone consisting of (1→6)-linked-α-d-galactopyranosyl and (1→2,6)-linked-α-d-glucopyranosyl, which was branched with one single terminal (1→)-α-d-glucopyranosyl at the O-2 position of (1→2,6)-linked-α-d-glucopyranosyl along the main chain in the ratio of 1:1:1. The observation of the complex-formation between ABP-W1 and Congo Red indicated that ABP-W1 probably existed in a triple-strand helical conformation in water. Based on the data obtained, ABP-W1 was composed of a repeating unit with a structure as below: Display Omitted [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to determine the optimum extraction conditions for polysaccharides (EFP) from the roots of Euphorbia fischeriana. A Box–Behnken design (BBD) with four independent variables was investigated, such as extraction temperature (°C), water/solid ratio, extraction number (n), and extraction time (h). The results indicated optimum extraction conditions were extraction temperature of 97°C, water/solid ratio of 9:1, extraction number of 2 and extraction time of 2.4h, respectively. Under these conditions, the experimental value was 24.6±0.62, which was well in close agreement with value predicted by the model. The preliminary chemical analysis of EFP revealed the EFP contained 25.43% polysaccharides, 20.42% uronic acids, 2.54% sulfate radical and 23.41% proteins. And the neutral polysaccharides were mainly composed of glucose, arabinose, rhamnose, galactose, xylose, mannose in the ratio of 21:8:5:3:1:1. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: An alkali-extractable and water-soluble polysaccharide (ABP-AW1) was isolated by 5% sodium hydroxide solution from the fruiting bodies of Agaricus blazei. ABP-AW1 (M w =50kDa), was composed of Gal, Glc, Fuc, Ara and Man with the molar ratio of 29: 20: 6: 2: 2. According to the combination of chemical and instrumental analysis, the results indicated that ABP-AW1 had a backbone consisting of (1→6)-linked-β-d-galactopyranosyl, (1→6)-linked-β-d-glucopyranosyl and (1→3, 6)-linked-β-d-glucopyranosyl, which was terminated with (1→)–linked Fuc, Ara and Man residues at the O-3 position of (1→3, 6)-linked-β-d-glucopyranosyl in the proportion of 29: 10: 10: 6: 2:2. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to optimize the extraction conditions of polysaccharides from the roots of Codonopsis pilosula. A central composite design (CCD) was used for experimental design and analysis of the results to obtain the optimal processing parameters. Four independent variables such as extraction temperature (°C), ratio of water to raw material, extraction time (h), and number of extraction (n) were investigated. The experimental data obtained were fitted to a second-order polynomial equation using multiple regression analysis and also analyzed by appropriate statistical methods. The 3-D response surface and the contour plots derived from the mathematical models were applied to determine the optimal conditions. The optimum extraction conditions were as follows: extraction temperature 94°C, ratio of water to raw material 9, extraction time 2.5h, and number of extraction 5. Under these conditions, the experimental percentage value was 15.2±0.28, which is well in close agreement with value predicted by the model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this study, the saponins (PCS) from the roots of Pulsatilla chinensis were evaluated for its haemolytic activity, acute toxicity and tested for potential adjuvant activity in mice immunized with ovalbumin (OVA) compared with that of Quil A saponin. The haemolytic activity of PCS was determined using 0.5% rabbit red blood cell with values of 15.41 and 7.42% at concentrations of 500 and 250µg/mL, respectively. The saponins were tested for their toxicity by lethality in mice and were found to be less toxic at the same dose than their counterpart Quil A. ICR mice were immunized subcutaneously with OVA 100µg in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) alone or with OVA 100µg in the presence of Quil A (10µg) or PCS (50, 100 or 200µg) twice at a 2-week interval. Four weeks later, the ConA-, LPS-, and OVA-induced splenocyte proliferation, OVA-specific antibodies levels (IgG, IgG1, and IgG2a) in serum, IL-2, and TNF-α were significantly enhanced by PCS at a high dose compared to that induced by Quil A. The P values of various testing activities in saponin-treated groups were obviously differential to that in the OVA-immunized mice (p <0.05 or p <0.01). This finding suggested that PCS might have an effect on Th1 and Th2 helper T cells. In conclusion, the results indicated that PCS showed slight side effects and at an appropriate dose could be used as a vaccine adjuvant to increase immune responses. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this research, one low molecular weight polysaccharide (LMW-ABP) was isolated from the fruiting bodies of Agaricus blazei Murill. We reported that the effect of LMW-ABP on inhibiting the interaction between E-selectin and sialyl Lewis X (sLex) by flow cytometry and real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technology. Different concentrations of LMW-ABP (5, 10, and 20mg/L) could effectively dose-dependently inhibit adhesion of HT-29 cells to human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) in static conditions, as well as down-regulating the expression of both α-1,3-fucosyltransferase-VII (FucT-VII) and sLex in transcription or translation level, respectively. These results suggest that LMW-ABP could suppress the metastasizing capacity of cancer cells through interfering with the interaction between E-selectin and sLex. Thus based on these findings, LMW-ABP is expected to be having enormous potential for use in treatment for neoplasm metastasis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Response surface methodoloty (RSM) was used to optimize the extraction conditions of polysaccharides (ABP) from the fruiting body of Agaricus blazei. A central composite design (CCD) was used for experimental design and analysis of the results to obtain the optimal processing parameters. Four independent variables such as extraction temperature (°C), ratio of water to raw material, number of extraction, and extraction time (h) were investigated. The experimental data obtained were fitted to a second-order polynomial equation using multiple regression analysis and also analyzed by appropriate statistical methods. The 3-D response surface plot and the contour plot derived from the mathematical models were applied to determine the optimal conditions. The optimum extraction conditions were as follows: extraction temperature 91°C, ratio of water to raw material 14, number of extraction 6, and extraction time 2.1h. Under these conditions, the experimental value was 65.8±1.42, which is well in close agreement with value predicted by the model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]