Search

In the post-epidemic era, the global political and economic pattern has accelerated the evolution, and regional imports and export tr[ade has become an important way of political and economic communication between countries. As the research area, this paper selects Shanghai, China, establishes a comprehensive evaluation index system of influencing factors of regional import and export trade, and constructs a high-precision artificial neural network (ANN) model to quantitatively evaluate import factors and export trade in Shanghai, China. The results show that freight capacity, science, technology level, and exchange rate change have a greater impact on the import and export trade in the region. Improving the level of transportation, science, and technology in Shanghai is significant to the sustainable development of Shanghai's foreign trade. The Chinese government can appropriately expand the geographical distribution of import and export business, establish a particular currency portfolio, and disperse foreign exchange risks in international trade and investment, and financing. The Chinese government can consider providing cash flow support for enterprises, which promotes consumption investment and vigorously improves the VAT retention and rebate system. It can focus on solving the problem of tax retention and rebate in scientific research, technical services, and transportation industries to improve market confidence and promote the development of China's import and export trade.

Prestress is an important index of the mechanical performance of prestressed structures, which will have a certain impact on the natural vibration frequency of the structure. In this paper, based on the action mechanism of the prestressing system, the externally prestressed simply supported steel beams are classified, and the energy method is used to establish the dynamic equations of the prestressed steel beams with three forms of cable distribution, with a view to exploring the relationship between the magnitude of prestressing force, cable distribution form, and cable section size and the natural vibration frequency of externally prestressed simply-supported steel beams. Through a numerical example, the theoretical calculation results are compared with the finite element simulation results to verify the theoretical calculation formula derived in this paper and reveal the action law of the prestressed system on the natural vibration frequency of the simply supported steel beam.

Oysters have high nutritional value but are rare in processing products. In this study, we developed an innovative product of oyster combined with soybean paste. The processing conditions and flavoring formulations of canned oysters were optimized using orthogonal experiments. Headspace solid-phase microextraction (HP-SPME) combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was applied to evaluate the volatile compounds related to the aroma. The results showed that the optimal canned oyster was oyster dried at 90 °C for 20 min and oil-fried at 150 °C for 6 min with the adding flavoring formula of 20% soybean paste, 0.5% vinegar, and 0.01% I+G (disodium 5'-presenting nucleotide) based on the weight of oyster. Canned soybean paste oysters enrich volatile components related to aroma including 2-octanol, 2-furanmethanol, benzaldehyde, and 2-pentylfuran. The canned soybean paste oyster is a high-valued nutrient including protein, fat, zinc, and taurine. This study will provide processing conditions for favorite instant processed oysters with soybean paste supplementary and deep insight into the flavor formation.

We prove that there are at least two new non-naturally reductive Ad(Sp(l) × Sp(k) × Sp(k) × Sp(k)) invariant Einstein metrics on Sp(l + 3k) (k 4 admits at least $$2[{1 \over 4}(n - 1)]$$ non-naturally reductive Ad(Sp(l) × Sp(k) × Sp(k) × Sp(k)) invariant Einstein metrics.

In this paper, we consider a class of left invariant Riemannian metrics on Sp(n), which is invariant under the adjoint action of the subgroup Sp(n − 3) × Sp(1) × Sp(1) × Sp(1). Based on the related formulae in the literature, we show that the existence of Einstein metrics is equivalent to the existence of solutions of some homogeneous Einstein equations. Then we use a technique of the Grobner basis to get a sufficient condition for the existence, and show that this method will lead to new non-naturally reductive metrics.

Salvia bowleyana is a traditional Chinese medicinal plant that is a source of nutritional supplements rich in salvianolic acid B and a potential experimental system for the exploration of salvianolic acid B biosynthesis in the Labiatae. Here, we report a high-quality chromosome-scale genome assembly of S. bowleyana covering 462.44 Mb, with a scaffold N50 value of 57.96 Mb and 44,044 annotated protein-coding genes. Evolutionary analysis revealed an estimated divergence time between S. bowleyana and its close relative S. miltiorrhiza of ~3.94 million years. We also observed evidence of a whole-genome duplication in the S. bowleyana genome. Transcriptome analysis showed that SbPAL1 (PHENYLALANINE AMMONIA-LYASE1) is highly expressed in roots relative to stem and leaves, paralleling the location of salvianolic acid B accumulation. The laccase gene family in S. bowleyana outnumbered their counterparts in both S. miltiorrhiza and Arabidopsis thaliana, suggesting that the gene family has undergone expansion in S. bowleyana. Several laccase genes were also highly expressed in roots, where their encoded proteins may catalyze the oxidative reaction from rosmarinic acid to salvianolic acid B. These findings provide an invaluable genomic resource for understanding salvianolic acid B biosynthesis and its regulation, and will be useful for exploring the evolution of the Labiatae.

This work investigated the impact of temperature on the digestate water quality and bacterial community in the treatment of wastewater sludge using biological hydrolysis (BH)-anaerobic digestion (AD). The results showed that the BH 55 °C followed by AD 35 °C or 42 °C was the optimal temperature combination in terms of methane yield and digestate water quality. High-throughput sequencing revealed the key differences in bacterial communities for different BH-AD temperature combinations. Microbial source tracking showed only minor microbial migration from raw sludge and BH pre-treated sludge to the AD stage. Strong correlations between the residual sCOD, BH-AD temperature conditions, and dominant bacteria were identified. Clostridiales, Bacteroidales, Cloacimonadales, Thermotogales, and Anaerolineales were closely related to the digestate water quality and methane yield. Overall, the results showed that AD temperature exerted a dominant impact on methane yield, digestate water quality, and bacterial compositions in the BH-AD of wastewater sludge.

Antarctic krill oil (KO) prepared using supercritical carbon dioxide extraction and characterized using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was used to investigate its preventive effect on ethanol-induced gastric tissue damage in a rat model

Naringenin (NN) is one of the most abundant flavonoids in citrus and grapefruits and has been shown to have antioxidant properties in vitro. The purpose of the study is to examine the antioxidant and anti-aging activities of NN in C. elegans, and to further explore the molecular mechanism. The results showed that NN enhanced the lifespan under normal and oxidative stress induced by H2O2. After treatment with NN, locomotion capability was improved and aging pigment accumulation was suppressed. NN also delayed the paralysis and reversed the defective chemotaxis behavior induced by Aβ protein. Meanwhile, the treatment with NN enhanced the activities of antioxidant enzymes and reduced the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and malondialdehyde (MDA) content. The possible targets and pathways interacting with NN were predicted by network pharmacology. Real-time PCR analysis indicated that NN upregulated the expression levels of daf-16, sek-1 and skn-1, downregulated the expression levels of daf-2, age-1 and akt-1, and further activated sod-3, ctl-1, ctl-2, gst-4 and mtl-1. Moreover, the selected mutant strains were used and molecular docking was conducted to further suggest that IIS and MAPK pathways could be involved in the NN-mediated longevity-promoting effect.

The microbial ecosystems of the sludge were characterized in terms of the core community structure, functional pathways, and functional redundancy through Illumina MiSeq sequencing and PICRUSt analysis on the activated sludge (AS) samples from an extended activated aeration process. Based on the identified OTU distribution, we identified 125 core community genera, including 3 abundant core genera and 21 intermittent abundant core genera. Putative genera Nitrosomonas, Nitrotoga, Zoogloea, Novosphingobium, Thermomonas, Amaricoccus, Tetrasphaera, Candidatus Microthrix, and Haliscomenobacter, which are associated with functions of nitrifying, denitrifying, phosphorus accumulating, and bulking and foaming, were found to present as the core community organisms in the AS sampled from the conventional extended aeration AS processes. The high-abundant nitrogen metabolic pathways were associated with nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA and ANRA), denitrification, and nitrogen fixation, while the ammonia oxidation-related genes (amo) were rarely annotated in the AS samples. Strict functional redundancy was not found with the AS ecosystem as it showed a high correlation between the community composition similarity and function similarity. In addition, the classified dominant core genera community was found to be sufficient to characterize the functionality of AS, which could invigorate applications of 16S rDNA MiSeq sequencing and PICRUSt for the prediction of functions of AS ecosystems.

We prove that Sp(2k + l) admits at least two non-naturally reductive Einstein metrics which are Ad(Sp(k) × Sp(k) × Sp(l))-invariant if k < l. It implies that every compact simple Lie group Sp(n) for n ⩾ 4 admits at least 2[(n–1)/3] non-naturally reductive left-invariant Einstein metrics.

This research aims to prepare capsules emulsion using gallic acid (GA), dextran (DEX), bovine serum albumin (BSA), sodium alginate, and K-carrageenan (K-Car) as the biological delivery system of lycopene. The stability and bioaccessibility of lycopene were further improved through encapsulation of covalent complex of sodium alginate and K-Car. The molecular weight distribution and secondary structure of the conjugates were analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The storage stability of the emulsion stabilized by conjugates was measured with Turbiscan stability index (TSI) and fluctuation of the particle size. The TSI value of ternary conjugates was 18.7 (37℃) with particle sizes ranging from 208 to 319 nm. Then, the changes of three-dimensional reticulate structures and physical properties of sodium alginate-K were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and TPA. The thermal stability of the sodium alginate-K-Car composite systems was increased compared with sodium alginate. The bioaccessibility of lycopene was significantly improved under the dual embedding of BSA-DEX-GA conjugate emulsion and sodium alginate-K-Car composite systems.

Naringenin (NN) is one of the most abundant flavonoids in citrus and grapefruits and has been shown to have antioxidant properties

Chitooligosaccharide is a kind of functional food, which is the degradation product of chitosan (COS) catalyzed by the endo-chitosanase (COSE) enzyme. A COSE with a molecular weight of 34 kDa was purified and characterized from a newly isolated Mitsuaria sp. C4 (C4), and a 38.46% recovery rate and 4.79-fold purification were achieved. The purified C4 COSE exhibited optimum activity at 40°C and pH 7.2 and was significantly inhibited in the presence of Cu2+ and Fe3+. The Km and Vmin of the COSE toward COS were 2.449 g/L and 0.042 g/min/L, respectively. The highest COSE activity reached 8.344 U/ml after optimizing, which represented a 1.34-fold of increase. Additionally, chitooligosaccharide obtained by COSE hydrolysis of COS was verified by using thin-layer chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography analysis. Whole-genome sequencing demonstrated that the C4 strain contains 211 carbohydrate enzymes, our purified COSE belonging to GHs-46 involved in carbohydrate degradation. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the novel COSE obtained from the C4 strain was clustered into the degree of polymerization = two to three groups, which can perform catalysis in a similar manner to produce (GlcN)2 and (GlcN)3. This work indicates that the C4 strain could be a good resource for enhancing carbohydrate degradation and might represent a useful tool for chitooligosaccharide production in the functional food industry.

The estrogen (17β-estradiol, E2) level in the hippocampus is higher and more stable in male rats than female rats. Both stress and estrogen affect spine plasticity, and many studies have demonstrated that peripheral estrogen treatment can prevent stress-induced spine loss in both males and females. Some in vitro studies have indicated that neural estrogen (nE2) participates in the modulation of spine plasticity in cultured neurons. However, whether nE2 regulates spine density in vivo in males is not clear, and the specific role of nE2 in stress-induced depression-like behaviors of male rats remains unknown. We delivered letrozole (a selective aromatase inhibitor that blocks the conversion of testosterone to estradiol) and estrogen into the hippocampus of rats and found that letrozole treatment induced the same depression-like behaviors in control rats as observed in chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) rats. Estrogen treatment reversed/or alleviated depression-like behaviors induced by CUMS or letrozole infusion and elevated Kalirin-7 expression in hippocampus. Estrogen treatment also rescued letrozole-induced spine loss. Expression of GluN1 and PSD-95 also changed with Kalirin-7 and spine density. All these proteins were decreased in CUMS rats and letrozole infusion rats but increased in rats treated with estrogen. In conclusion, nE2 in the hippocampus plays an important role in CUMS-induced depression-like behaviors in male rats and Kalirin-7 is involved in this process. GluN1 and PSD-95 possibly mediate the regulation of Kalirin-7 by nE2, which ultimately leads to changes in spine density and depression-like behaviors.

The effects of thermal treatments on the antigenicity and structural properties of soybean glycinin were investigated. An indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (iELISA) result indicated that the antigenicity of the soybean glycinin decreased to the lowest level when the heat treatment time was 50 min and the temperature was set at 110°C. The reducing sodium dodecyl sulfate-Gel electrophoresis results showed that the heat treatment had promoted the formation of small molecular weight protein subunits and concentrated protein. The free sulfhydryl (-SH) group of glycinin had increased significantly (p

Numerous studies have revealed the effect of temperature and hydraulic retention time (HRT) on microbiota in sludge biological hydrolysis (BH). However, few scholars have explored the combined effect of these two critical BH parameters. This study explored the BH performance and community structures over 12 combined temperatures–HRT conditions for temperatures from 35 °C to 55 °C and HRTs from 1.5 days to 6.0 days. Results showed that the 12 combined conditions formed only six distinct community structures with each of them relating to a distinctive range of volatile suspended solid reduction rates. The nonmetric multidimensional scaling and species–species association analysis on the DNA sequencing data revealed that the community structure was greatly driven by the microbial interactions (e.g., heterogeneous commensalism and competition) under the effect of temperature and HRT. This study established the linkages among the combined BH temperature–HRT conditions, microbial interaction, microbial community, and BH performance.

In this paper, we consider invariant Einstein–Randers metrics on the Stiefel manifolds $$V_k\mathbb {R}^n$$ of all orthonormal k-frames in $$\mathbb {R}^n$$ , which is diffeomorphic to the homogeneous space $${\mathrm {S}}{\mathrm O}(n)/{\mathrm {S}}{\mathrm O}(n-k)$$ . We prove that for $$2\le p\le \frac{2}{5}n-1$$ , there are four different families of $${\mathrm {S}}{\mathrm O}(n)$$ -invariant Einstein–Randers metrics on $${\mathrm {S}}{\mathrm O}(n)/{\mathrm {S}}{\mathrm O}(n-2p)$$ whose corresponding Riemannian metrics are determined by $${\mathrm {A}}{\mathrm {d}}(U(p)\times {\mathrm {S}}{\mathrm O}(n-2p))$$ -invariant inner products on the tangent space of $${\mathrm {S}}{\mathrm O}(n)/{\mathrm {S}}{\mathrm O}(n-2p)$$ .

Here, we aimed to investigate the role of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) THRIL in septic-induced acute lung injury. C57BL/6 mice were injected with Adenoviruses (Ad)-shTHRIL or negative control (NC) before caecal ligation and puncture (CLP) operation. MPVECs were transfected with Ad-shTHRIL or NC, followed by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treatment. MiR-424 and Rho-associated kinase 2 (ROCK2) were predicted and verified as direct targets of THRIL and miR-424, respectively, by using dual-luciferase reporter assay. ROCK2 overexpression vector and shTHRIL were co-transfected into mouse pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells for 24 h before LPS treatment. Our results showed that THRIL was highly expressed in the lung of sepsis mice. CLP triggered severe lung injury and apoptosis in mice, which was abolished by THRIL knockdown. Moreover, CLP treatment visibly increased protein concentration, the number of total cell of neutrophils, and macrophages in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF). Besides, elevated protein levels of tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-1β, and interleukin-6 were observed in both lung and BALF. However, inhibition of THRIL reduced the number of inflammatory cells and the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines in sepsis mouse model. The effect of THRIL on inflammatory response and apoptosis in the lung was confirmed in sepsis cell model. Moreover, mechanistic studies have shown that THRIL up-regulated ROCK2 level through sponging miR-424. Furthermore, ROCK2 overexpression reversed the inhibitory effects of THRIL knockdown on LPS-induced inflammatory response and apoptosis. Overall, in vivo and in vitro results suggested that THRIL accelerates sepsis-induced lung injury by sponging miR-424 and further restoring ROCK2.

We construct a special class of fermionic Novikov superalgebras from linear functions. We show that they are Novikov superalgebras. Then we give a complete classification of them, among which there are some non-associative examples. This method leads to several new examples which have not been described in the literature.

In this study, a novel microcapsule was generated by the encapsulation of Lactobacillus acidophilus using konjac glucomannan (KGM) hydrogel. Micropowder of L. acidophilus was mixed with gel particles, which was encapsulated in a microcapsule wall material produced by the combination of konjac oligosaccharides (KO) and sodium alginate (SA). The encapsulation and stability (both storage and digested) along with the microstructure of the capsules were analysed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results revealed that the microencapsulation rate was 62.5%, Dialdehyde glucomannan (DAK)/gelatin crosslinked gel formed numerous interconnected pores, and the pore wall was thick and smooth, which could well protect the microorganisms inside. Study of the storage stability showed that microencapsulated L. acidophilus could be stored for longer at both 4 °C and 25 °C. Gastric fluid simulation results confirmed that microencapsulation improved the acid resistance of L. acidophilus . An enteric test revealed that the number of viable bacteria increased with an extension of the digestion time, and no solid particles were observed in the solution after 45 min. In addition, KO was applied as both prebiotic of L. acidophilus and anti-freeze agent. It is illustrated that the survival rates of L. acidophilus (with and without encapsulated) were significantly increased during freeze drying situation. This work contributes a pathway on the construction of advanced L. acidophilus microcapsules by using KGM as a main precursor.

In this article, we achieved several non-naturally reductive Einstein metrics on exceptional simple Lie groups, which are formed by the decomposition arising from general Wallach spaces. By using the decomposition corresponding to the two involutive automorphisms, we calculated the non-zero coefficients in the expression for the components of Ricci tensor with respect to the given metrics. The Einstein metrics are obtained as solutions of systems polynomial equations, which we manipulate by symbolic computations using Gr\"{o}bner bases., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1511.08849 by other authors

In this article, we prove that the compact simple Lie groups S U ( n ) for n ≥ 6 , S O ( n ) for n ≥ 7 , S p ( n ) for n ≥ 3 , E 6 , E 7 , E 8 , and F 4 admit left-invariant Einstein metrics that are not geodesic orbit. This gives a positive answer to an open problem recently posed by Nikonorov.

In this article, we prove that every compact simple Lie group $${\mathrm S}{\mathrm O}(n)$$ for $$n\ge 10$$ admits at least $$2\left( [\frac{n-1}{3}]-2\right) $$ non-naturally reductive left-invariant Einstein metrics.

This study investigated the relationship between the temperature (35, 42, and 55 °C) used in temperature-phased anaerobic digestion (TPAD) and fate of methanogens between the two anaerobic digestion (AD) phases. Methanogens were profiled by using next generation sequencing (NGS) and droplet digital PCR approaches. The results showed that optimal combined temperatures for methane production were 55 °C during biological hydrolysis (BH) and 35 or 42 °C during AD. BH exhibited much lower archaeal population and was more susceptible to changes in temperature, compared to the AD phase. Additionally, we demonstrated, for the first time, that the BH step could affect the subsequent AD phase by altering AD methanogen composition and improve the stability of the process by enriching the rapidly growing Methanosarcina in the BH-AD process. These results are significant for understanding the mechanisms and stability of methane production in TPAD systems.

In this paper, we focus on homogeneous spaces which are constructed from two strongly isotropy irreducible spaces, and prove that any geodesic orbit metric on these spaces is naturally reductive., Comment: 18 pages. Accepted for publication in SCIENCE CHINA Mathematics

This research investigated the interaction between chitosan and whey protein molecules in terms of pH and heating. The FTIR, rheological analysis, turbidity, and zeta potential measurements were used to assess this interaction. At pH 4.0, addition of low amount chitosan with chitosan/whey protein isolate (C/WPI) ratio of 1:5 effectively prevented the denaturation of whey proteins after heating, whereas high amount of chitosan (C/WPI,1:2) led to depletion flocculation. The combination of chitosan and whey proteins was electrostatic attracting at pH 5.5 and 6.0. At low chitosan addition, the complexes formed at pH 5.5 showed higher viscosity and the complexes formed at pH 6.0 showed a shear-thinning behaviour. At high chitosan addition, the complexes showed high viscosity at pH 6.0. Heating led to the decrease of viscosity and increase of turbidity. The results manifested that chitosan and whey protein formed different complexes at pH 5.5 and 6.0, and the complexation of C/WPI was influenced by heating and ratio of chitosan and whey proteins.

Cane molasses is beneficial for lipid and carotenoid production in microalgae. We made a survey for the lipid and carotenoid production profile of R. toruloides M18 (MT) with various concentrations of molasses under nitrogen-deficited conditions. The production of α-linolenate and torularhodin from MT were 1.22- and 14.68-fold higher than those of the wild-type strain. We observed that molasses at concentrations of 35 g/L and 70 g/L represented a cheap and environmentally friendly strategy for producing lipids and carotenoids. Transcriptome and WGCNA analysis demonstrated that the genes relevant to the lipid and carotenoid production, including MYB, bHLH, Δ-4 desaturase, Δ-12 desaturase and FA2H, were significantly highly expressed. The results indicated that molasses could represent an inexpensive means for achieving high lipids and carotenoids production in R. toruloides.