Search

Fermented sausage is popular with consumers because of its unique flavor, rich nutrition and long shelf life. In recent years, It has become a hot topic to endow the fermented sausage with functional characteristics under the premise of ensuring safety. The application of functional starter culture in fermented sausages can effectively inhibit the reproduction of harmful microorganisms, reduce the generation of biological amines and N-nitrosamines, promote the formation of good flavor, inhibit excessive oxidation, reduce blood pressure, and reduce cholesterol content. This paper reviews the research progress of functional starter cultureand functional characteristics of functional starter culture in fermented sausages, and looks forward to its future research trend.

Vulvar lichen sclerosus (VLS) is a common inflammatory condition associated with an increased risk of developing vulvar carcinoma. Recently, high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) has been identified as a promising treatment modality for VLS in several clinical trials. However, in HIFU therapy, therapeutic outcome is routinely assessed visually by an expert using standardized grading criteria. Furthermore, such a therapeutic assessment cannot be made until at least 3 months after treatment. Therefore, an objective and timely method capable of quantitatively evaluating HIFU treatment effectiveness is desired, which may help identify patients whose treatment is insufficient promptly and prevent delay in re-treatment. The purpose of this study is to investigate the feasibility of using active dynamic thermal imaging (ADT) and hyperspectral imaging (HSI) as two individual objective and non-invasive optical methods for prompt quantitative assessment of the therapeutic response to HIFU treatment in VLS. From December 2018 to March 2019, 20 female VLS patients who underwent HIFU treatment were evaluated using both the ADT and HSI methods. The effective damage rate from the ADT method and the entropy of feature index from the HSI method were used to develop a multivariate linear discriminant classification model for grading the effectiveness of HIFU treatment in comparison with clinical evaluation gold standard. It was found that ADT was able to correctly differentiate ineffective treatments from effective ones with a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 100%, while the sensitivity and specificity of HSI were 75 and 87.5%, respectively. The classification results demonstrate the clinical potential of the ADT and HSI methods for timely non-invasive and quantitative assessment of HIFU treatment for VLS.

C20H22N2O5, tetragonal, P4̅21c (no. 114), a = 16.624(6) Å, c = 14.385(6) Å, V = 3975(3) Å3, Z = 8, Rgt(F) = 0.0647, wRref(F2) = 0.2119, T = 296(2) K.

C18H16Cl2N2O2, triclinic P1̅ (no. 2), a =8.5266(7) Å, b = 11.2217(9) Å, c = 11.5785(9) Å, α = 113.355(8)°, β = 103.305(7)°, γ = 98.461(7)°, V = 953.92(16) Å3, Rgt(F) = 0.0524, wRref(F2) = 0.1747, T = 293 K.

Singapore grouper iridovirus (SGIV) is a new ranavirus species in the Iridoviridae family, whose high lethality and rapid spread have resulted in enormous economic losses for the aquaculture industry. Curcumin, a polyphenolic compound, has been proven to possess multiple biological activities, including antibacterial, antioxidant, and antiviral properties. This study was conducted to determine whether curcumin protected orange-spotted grouper (Epinephelus coioides) from SGIV-induced intestinal damage by affecting the inflammatory response, cell apoptosis, oxidative stress, and intestinal microbiota. Random distribution of healthy orange-spotted groupers (8.0 ± 1.0 cm and 9.0 ± 1.0 g) into six experimental groups (each group with 90 groupers): Control, DMSO, curcumin, SGIV, DMSO + SGIV, and curcumin + SGIV. The fish administered gavage received DMSO dilution solution or 640 mg/L curcumin every day for 15 days and then were injected intraperitoneally with SGIV 24 h after the last gavage. When more than half of the groupers in the SGIV group perished, samples from each group were collected for intestinal health evaluation. Our results showed that curcumin significantly alleviated intestine damage and repaired intestinal barrier dysfunction, which was identified by decreased intestine permeability and serum diamine oxidase (DAO) activity and increased expressions of tight junction proteins during SGIV infection. Moreover, curcumin treatment suppressed intestinal cells apoptosis and inflammatory response caused by SGIV and protected intestinal cells from oxidative injury by enhancing the activity of antioxidant enzymes, which was related to the activation of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) signaling. Moreover, we found that curcumin treatment restored the disruption of the intestinal microbiota caused by SGIV infection. Our study provided a theoretical basis for the functional development of curcumin in aquaculture by highlighting the protective effect of curcumin against SGIV-induced intestinal injury.

Recently, vanadium diselenide (VSe2), a member of transition metal dichalcogenides, has attracted a great deal of interest in spintronic devices and memory devices due to its unique physical properties. However, it is still a challenge to prepare a continuous VSe2 thin film which is critical for its potential application. Here, we report a continuous single-crystalline 1T-VSe2 thin film grown on mica by pulsed laser deposition. Both x-ray diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy verify the van der Waals epitaxy of the VSe2/mica heterostructure. Free-standing and flexible VSe2 thin films can be obtained and combined with integrated circuit technology, which is of great significance for the application of two-dimensional materials in the field of multifunctional flexible electronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The temperature and equivalent strain distribution of SUS436L slabs were analyzed by a finite element (FE) model in the hot rolling processes considering different surface temperatures of the intermediate slab for finish rolling (IST). The practical rolling processes were operated and different ISTs were designed. With IST decreased, the deformation permeability and the deformation uniformity of the hot-rolled strips are improved due to the increased temperature difference between the surface and the center of the strips. After annealing at 980 °C for 180 s, the strips are dominated by substructure, followed by recrystallized grains. The fraction of the recrystallized grains, the grain homogeneity and the maximum of γ texture orientation density of the hot-rolled and annealed strips are increased with the IST decreased, and the average grain size decreased. As a result, the yield strength (RP0.2), the tensile strength (Rm), the percentage elongation after fracture (A) and the product of strength and elongation (U) of the hot-rolled and annealed strips are all increased with IST decreased and are 285, 441 MPa, 45.2% and 19.9 GPa·%, respectively, at 800 °C of IST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Olfactory dysfunction is among the earliest non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). As the foremost pathological hallmark, α-synuclein initiates the pathology in the olfactory pathway at the early stage of PD, particularly in the olfactory epithelium (OE) and olfactory bulb (OB). However, the local neural microcircuit mechanisms underlying olfactory dysfunction between OE and OB in early PD remain unknown. Results: We observed that odor detection and discrimination were impaired in 6-month-old SNCA-A53T mice, while their motor ability remained unaffected. It was confirmed that α-synuclein increased and accumulated in OB but not in OE. Notably, the hyperactivity of mitral/tufted cells and the excitation/inhibition imbalance in OB were found in 6-month-old SNCA-A53T mice, which was attributed to the impaired GABAergic transmission and aberrant expression of GABA transporter 1 and vesicular GABA transporter in OB. We further showed that tiagabine, a potent and selective GABA reuptake inhibitor, could reverse the impaired olfactory function and GABAergic signaling in OB of SNCA-A53T mice. Conclusions: Taken together, our findings demonstrate potential synaptic mechanisms of local neural microcircuit underlying olfactory dysfunction at the early stage of PD. These results highlight the critical role of aberrant GABAergic signaling of OB in early diagnosis and provide a potential therapeutic strategy for early-stage PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]