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In order to ensure the reliability of the simulation test on the shelling process of ginkgo nuts, the physical parameters (characteristic dimensions, thousand grain mass, moisture content, density, Poisson’s ratio, elastic modulus, and shear modulus), contact parameters (restitution coefficient, static friction coefficient, and dynamic friction coefficient) and actual stacking angle of the ginkgo nuts were measured by physical test methods. A stacking angle test model was established, and simulation tests were performed. Parameter intervals for the simulation were selected according to the measured parameters. Three factors affecting the stacking angle significantly were determined using the Plackett–Burman test: static and dynamic friction coefficients of ginkgo nut–ginkgo nut and the restitution coefficient of the ginkgo nut–steel plate. Each factor’s range was selected using the steepest climbing test. A quadratic polynomial regression model of the stacking angle considering these factors was obtained using the Box–Behnken test. Taking the actual stacking angle of 39.59° as the optimization objective, the optimal combination was formed: the static and dynamic friction coefficients were 0.5 and 0.36, respectively, and the restitution coefficient was 0.42. This combination was used for the verification test. The stacking angle was found to be 41.12°. The relative error was 3.86%, indicating that the model is reliable and can provide a useful reference for relevant research.

Peanut is an important oil crop and cash crop, with a wide range of applications in many fields such as the food industry, light industry, and chemical industry. Mechanized shelling is a necessary part of the post-production processing of peanuts, and it is also the key to determining the quality of peanut products. Reducing shelling damage is an effective way to improve the quality and comprehensive benefits of peanut products. Consequently, it is of great significance to strengthen the research on damage reduction in mechanized peanut-shelling. China is a large peanut producer, but the research on mechanized shelling started relatively late, and the existing technology is not compatible with the high-quality shelling requirements of farmers. This paper reviews the status of mechanized peanut-shelling technology, compares the technical characteristics and equipment development of the world’s important peanut producing countries, it summarizes and proposes the suggestions to reduce loss from the aspects of varieties, agronomy, technology, and technical equipment; further deepen innovative research; and strengthen the construction of peanut-shelling socialized service systems. It is expected to provide reference for effectively reducing damage and improving quality of China’s mechanized shelling, and promoting the sustainable development of peanut shelling industry.

Background: It remains unclear whether visceral adipose tissue (VAT) can predict the response of patients with Crohn’s disease (CD) to anti-tumour necrosis factor-α (anti-TNF-α) therapy. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate whether VAT predicts the efficacy of infliximab (IFX) for different sites of CD and its relationship with serum TNF-α levels and IFX serum trough concentration. Design: This is a multicentre retrospective study. Methods: Patients with CD treated with IFX from January 2014 to January 2021 were included. The perimeter of the visceral adipose area was obtained by a Computed Tomography (CT) scan. Participants were classified according to the lesion site (L 1 , L 2 , and L 3 ) and visceral fat area. The participants were divided into colon-uninvolved non-visceral obesity (L 1 -VAT L ), colon-uninvolved visceral obesity (L 1 -VAT H ), colon-involved non-visceral obesity (L 2 + L 3 -VAT L ), and colon involved visceral obesity (L 2 + L 3 -VAT H ) groups. The end points of this study were set as disease remission status at 6 and 12 months. Results: The final cohort included 140 patients. Regarding efficacy at 6 and 12 months, there was a significant difference between L 1 -VAT L (73.8% versus 36.8%, p = 0.006) and L 1 -VAT H (81.0% versus 47.4%, p = 0.008) groups. In the analysis of serum TNF-α levels and IFX serum trough concentrations, there was a significant difference between L 1 -VAT L and L 1 -VAT H (59.5 pg/mL versus 236.0 pg/mL, p TNF-α = 0.006), (10.0 μg/mL versus 0.4 μg/mL, p IFX = 0.000), and L 1 -VAT H and L 2 + L 3 -VAT H (78.7 pg/mL versus 118.6 pg/mL, p TNF-α = 0.031), (0.4 μg/mL versus 6.40 μg/mL, p IFX = 0.017). Conclusion: In L 1 patients, the VAT level predicted the efficacy of IFX, with high VAT values indicating poor efficacy. The VAT level may be a useful radiological marker to predict the efficacy of IFX in patients with various types of CD.

At present, ginkgo nut shellers have many problems, such as low shelling rate and high damage rate. To address these problems, a multifunctional ginkgo nut sheller was designed. The equipment had functions for shell breaking, shelling, and separation of shell from the kernel. The influencing factors of the shelling process were analyzed. A three-factor two-level response surface test was conducted, and mathematical models for the response surface were established. The influence of each factor on the operation quality was analyzed, and a combination of parameters was optimized. The experimental results showed that the factors in the order of importance of their influence on shelling rate was as follows: feeding rate, chainplate speed, and shelling gap. The factors in the order of importance of their influence on damage rate was as follows: shelling gap, chainplate speed, and feeding rate. The results of the interaction analysis conducted showed that the interaction between the chainplate speed and shelling gap had the highest significant effect on the shelling rate, followed by the interaction between the feeding rate and chainplate speed. The interaction between the chainplate speed and shelling gap had a significant effect on damage rate. The interaction between the other factors had no significant effect on shelling and damage rates. The optimal combination of parameters was as follows: the feeding rate was 30.2 g/s, the chainplate speed was 0.48 m/s, and the shelling gap was 12.3 mm. The optimal combination was employed, and the validation test resulted in a shelling rate of 98.02% and damage rate of 4.45%. The relative error between the measured and theoretical values was less than 5%, indicating that the models were reliable. This study can provide a reference for subsequent research on shelling equipment of ginkgo nut.

Abstract Background: Both hypoxia and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) contribute to the tumor progression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We sought to establish a hypoxia-related lncRNA signature and explore its correlation with immunotherapy response in HCC.Materials and Methods: Hypoxia-related differentially expressed lncRNAs (HRDELs) were identified by conducting the differential gene expression analyses in GSE155505 and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)- liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC) datasets. The HRDELs landscape in patients with HCC in TCGA-LIHC was dissected by an unsupervised clustering method. Patients in the TCGA-LIHC cohort were stochastically split into the training and testing dataset. The prognostic signature was developed using LASSO (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator) penalty Cox and multivariable Cox analyses. The tumor immune microenvironment was delineated by the single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) algorithm. The Tumor Immune Dysfunction and Exclusion (TIDE) algorithm was applied to evaluate the predictive value of the constructed signature in immunotherapeutic responsiveness.Results: A total of 55 HRDELs were identified through integrated bioinformatical analyses in GSE155505 and TCGA-LIHC. Patients in the TCGA-LIHC cohort were categorized into three HRDELs-specific clusters associated with different clinical outcomes. The prognostic signature involving five hypoxia-related lncRNAs (LINC00869, CAHM, RHPN1-AS1, MKLN1-AS, and DUXAP8) was constructed in the training dataset and then validated in the testing dataset and entire TCGA-LIHC cohort. The 5-years AUC of the constructed signature for prognostic prediction reaches 0.705 and is superior to that of age, AJCC stage, and histopathological grade. Patients with high-risk scores consistently had poorer overall survival outcomes than those with low-risk scores irrespective of other clinical parameters status. The low-risk group had more abundance in activated CD8+ T cell and activated B cell and were predicted to be more responsive to immunotherapy and targeted therapy than the high-risk group.Conclusion: We established a reliable hypoxia-related lncRNAs signature that could accurately predict the clinical outcomes of HCC patients and correlate with immunotherapy response and targeted drug sensitivity, providing new insights for immunotherapy and targeted therapy in HCC.

GRHL3 is a factor associated with a tumor, of which the molecular mechanism remains a further investigation. We explored the underlying mechanism of tumor-promoting effect of GRHL3 in colorectal cancer (CRC), which is involved in the MEK1/2 pathway. The expression of GRHL3 was measured in CRC and adjacent normal tissue using qPCR and immunohistochemical staining. Lentivirus-mediated knockdown expression of GRHL3 was performed in the CRC cell line HT29. Cell proliferation and metastasis were assayed in vitro, and tumorigenicity was investigated in vivo. We found higher GRHL3 expression in colorectal cancer, which was negatively correlated with patients’ prognosis. Results from studies in vitro and in vivo indicated that downregulation of GRHL3 expression inhibited tumor growth and metastasis and inhibited the activation of the MEK1/2 pathway. The effect of GRHL3 downexpression was the same as that of MEK1/2 antagonists on suppression of tumor growth and metastasis. Our results suggested that GRHL3 may act as an oncogene to promote tumor growth and metastasis via the MEK pathway in colorectal cancer.

Background. Acidosis in the tumor microenvironment (TME) is involved in tumor immune dysfunction and tumor progression. We attempted to develop an acidosis-related index (ARI) signature to improve the prognostic prediction of pancreatic carcinoma (PC). Methods. Differential gene expression analyses of two public datasets (GSE152345 and GSE62452) from the Gene Expression Omnibus database were performed to identify the acidosis-related genes. The Cancer Genome Atlas–pancreatic carcinoma (TCGA-PAAD) cohort in the TCGA database was set as the discovery dataset. Univariate Cox regression and the Kaplan–Meier method were applied to screen for prognostic genes. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) Cox regression was used to establish the optimal model. The tumor immune infiltrating pattern was characterized by the single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) method, and the prediction of immunotherapy responsiveness was conducted using the tumor immune dysfunction and exclusion (TIDE) algorithm. Results. We identified 133 acidosis-related genes, of which 37 were identified as prognostic genes by univariate Cox analysis in combination with the Kaplan–Meier method (p values of both methods < 0.05). An acidosis-related signature involving seven genes (ARNTL2, DKK1, CEP55, CTSV, MYEOV, DSG2, and GBP2) was developed in TCGA-PAAD and further validated in GSE62452. Patients in the acidosis-related high-risk group consistently showed poorer survival outcomes than those in the low-risk group. The 5-year AUCs (areas under the curve) for survival prediction were 0.738 for TCGA-PAAD and 0.889 for GSE62452, suggesting excellent performance. The low-risk group in TCGA-PAAD showed a higher abundance of CD8+ T cells and activated natural killer cells and was predicted to possess an elevated proportion of immunotherapeutic responders compared with the high-risk counterpart. Conclusions. We developed a reliable acidosis-related signature that showed excellent performance in prognostic prediction and correlated with tumor immune infiltration, providing a new direction for prognostic evaluation and immunotherapy management in PC.

The quality of walnuts deteriorates owing to the poor quality of the shelling equipment. The improvement of shelling quality is urgently required for walnut processing. In this study, systematic research was carried out on the changes in walnut mechanical properties, mechanical model of walnut shelling, and the key parameters of the equipment. The key parameters were determined as the angles of the shelling conic roller (X1), speeds of the shelling conic roller (X2), clearance between the shelling conic roller and the static roller (X3), and the moisture content of walnuts (X4). The Box–Behnken design method was used for the experimental design, an analysis of variance was applied to determine the graded significance of each variable on the rate of high-quality kernel (RHQK) and rate of shell rushing (RSC), and the multi-objective optimization method was used to obtain the optimal parameters for RHQK and RSC. The ranking of factors affecting RHQK and RSC were: (X3) > (X4) > (X2) > (X1) for RHQK, and (X2) > (X3) > (X4) > (X1) for RSC. The ranks of significant interactive effects among the factors were as follows: (X1 X2) > (X2 X3) for RHQK and (X2 X3) > (X3 X4) > (X2 X4) for RSC. The multi-objective optimization results showed that the optimal combination was X1 = 15.83°, X2 = 17.93 rpm, X3 = 45 mm, and X4 = 9.5%, yielding RHQK = 84.54%, and RSC = 99.15%. The verification test of the optimal results further illustrates the accuracy of the optimization. The obtained results showed that the quality of walnut shelling can be improved by adjusting the moisture content of walnuts and optimizing key parameters of the equipment. This method also represents a potential solution for improving the shelling quality of other nuts.

Poor shelling quality degrades the performance and profit of the peanut industry. The Hertz theory and the wear resistance experimental method were applied to identify a highly wear-resistant material guaranteeing a low mechanical damage rate (MDR) of peanut kernels. The Box–Behnken design method was applied in the experiment to illustrate the influence of the material’s elastic modulus (X1), radius of curvature of the key parts (X2), rotating speed of the shelling drum (X3), and clearance between the shelling drum and concave screen (X4) on MDR and shelling efficiency (SE). Depending on the analysis of variance, the weights of the influential factors were observed as X1 > X3 > X4 > X2. The mathematical models of MDR and SE were derived from the least squares’ method, and four-dimensional slice diagrams of the three most significant factors were used to illustrate the trends of MDR and SE. A multi-objective analysis provided the optimal combination of parameters as: X1 = 10 MPa, X2 = 12.77 mm, X3 = 277.48 r/min, and X4 = 24.24 mm, yielding MDR = 4.89% and SE = 97.91%. The results were further verified by a production trial test, proving that the proposed solution with the selected material, machine design, and working parameters were effective in improving peanut shelling quality.

Background: As a novel candidate metastasis suppressor gene, Nasopharyngeal carcinoma-associated gene 6 (NGX6) is involved in cellular growth, cell cycle progression and tumor angiogenesis. Previous studies have shown that NGX6 gene is down-regulated in colorectal cancer (CRC). However, little is known about its transcriptional regulation. Results: We defined the minimal promoter of NGX6 gene in a 186-bp region (from-86 to +100) through mutation construct methods and luciferase assays. Results from Electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSA) and Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) revealed that Early growth response gene 1 (Egr-1) binds to the Sp1/Egr-1 overlapping site of NGX6 minimal promoter. Overexpression of Egr-1 increased the promoter activity and mRNA level of NGX6 gene; while knock-down of endogenous Egr-1 decreased mRNA expression of NGX6 gene. Conclusion: These results demonstrate that Egr-1 regulates NGX6 gene transcription through an overlapping Sp1/Egr-1 binding site as a positive regulator of NGX6 gene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma associated gene 6 (NGX6) is down-regulated in most colon cancer cell lines and tumor tissues when compared with their normal tissue samples. As a novel suppress tumor gene, it could inhibit colon cancer cell growth and cell cycle progression. However, little is known about the transcriptional mechanisms controlling NGX6 gene expression. Recent findings suggest that epigenetic inactivation of multiple tumor suppressor genes plays an important role in the tumorigenesis of colorectal carcinoma (CRC). In this study, we explored the role of DNA methylation in regulation of NGX6 transcription. Methods: In the present study, we cloned the NGX6 promoter with characteristics of a CpG island by luciferase reporter assay. Then, the CpG methylation status around the NGX6 promoter region in colon cancer cell lines and colorectal tumor tissues was examined by methylation-specific PCR and bisulfite DNA sequencing. Finally, 5-Aza-2'- deoxycytidine (5-Aza-dC) treatment was used to confirm the correlation between NGX6 promoter methylation and its gene inactivation. Results: The sequence spanning positions -157 to +276 was identified as the NGX6 promoter, in which no canonical TATA boxes were found, while two CAAT boxes and GC boxes were discovered. Methylation status was observed more frequently in 40 colorectal cancer samples than in 40 adjacent normal mucosa samples (18/40 versus 7/40; P < 0.05). An analysis correlating gene methylation status with clinicopathological cancer features revealed that dense methylation of the NGX6 promoter was associated with colorectal cancer patients age (P < 0.05). Moreover, a trend was shown toward metastasis status and primary site in colorectal carcinomas with NGX6 promoter methylation (p = 0.056 and P = 0.067, respectively). In addition, 5-Aza-dC could induce NGX6 mRNA expression and NGX6 promoter demethylation in HT-29 cells. Conclusions: Down-regulation of NGX6 gene is related to the promoter methylation. DNA methylation of NGX6 promoter might be a potential molecular marker for diagnosis or prognosis, or serve as a therapeutic target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research interest in pneumatic conveying technologies in processes such as peanut harvesting and shelling has grown rapidly in recent years. However, the use of pneumatic conveyors in this application suffers from high pod damage rates and duct obstruction. To address these issues, we analyzed the critical speed of pneumatic transport for conveying the peanut pods and measured the angle of friction and coefficient of restitution of peanut pods on a variety of material surfaces. Based on the results of these tests, optimizations and improvements were made to the separator bowl, air supply duct, and conveying duct. A pneumatic conveying experiment was then performed using peanut pods. In the factorial experiment, it was found that increases in fan speed increase the pod damage rate and transport efficiency, while increases in the thickness of the cushioning/anti-obstruction layer decrease the rate of pod damage and transport efficiency. Pod damage rates were significantly affected by fan speed, the thickness of the cushioning/obstruction prevention layer, and interaction between these factors, while transport efficiency was only significantly affected by fan speed. It is proved by the machine verification test, the optimal parameters for the pneumatic transport of Baisha peanut pods with a moisture content of 7.24% was a fan speed of 2700 r/min and a cushioning/anti-obstruction layer thickness of 6 mm. A pod damage rate of 5.19% and transport efficiency of 92.03% were achieved using these parameters, which are sufficient for meeting the requirements of industrial applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]