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OBJECTIVE: MiRNA family gene is an evolutionarily conserved non-coding small RNA that directly participates in a variety of physiological processes and cancer development via regulating gene expression in the biological level of transcription. To research the specific mechanism by which miR-186 regulates apoptosis within gliomas. PATIENTS AND METHODS: RT-qPCR was performed to verify the transcriptional level of miR-186 within glioma tissues and glioma cells. miRanda and Dual-Luciferase assay were performed to predict and confirm that Smad6 gene is an effective target of miR-186 within glioma. The expression of Smad6 protein was tested by Western blot following cell effective transfection. Apoptosis of gliomas was analyzed by inverted fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry. RESULTS: The mRNA level of miR-186 was suppressed within glioma tissues and glioma U87 cells. MiR-186 is associated with apoptosis in glioma. Overexpression of miR-186 promoted U87 cell apoptosis, whereas suppression of miR-186 had the opposite effect. Besides, miR-186 directly targeted Smad6 and suppress its expression in glioma. The expression of Smad6 affected the regulation of miR-186 on glioma cell apoptosis, restoration of Smad6 rescued apoptosis of glioma U87 cells induced by miR-186 mimics, whereas inhibition of Smad6 promoted apoptosis. CONCLUSIONS: As noted above, miR-186 exerts a tumor-suppressing effect by targeting Smad6. We propose that miR-186 can be used as a novel biomarker for glioma diagnosis in the future, or as a new pharmacy target in the cure of gliomas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enhancing the supply of arginine (Arg), a semi-essential amino acid, has positive effects on immune function in dairy cattle experiencing metabolic stress during early lactation. Our objective was to determine the effects of Arg supplementation on biomarkers of liver damage and inflammation in cows during early lactation. Six Chinese Holstein lactating cows with similar BW (508 ± 14 kg), body condition score (3.0), parity (4.0 ± 0), milk yield (30.6 ± 1.8 kg) and days in milk (20 ± days) were randomly assigned to three treatments in a replicated 3 × 3 Latin square design balanced for carryover effects. Each period was 21 days with 7 days for infusion and 14 days for washout. Treatments were (1) Control: saline; (2) Arg group: saline + 0.216 mol/day l -Arg; and (3) Alanine (Ala) group: saline + 0.868 mol/day l -Ala (iso-nitrogenous to the Arg group). Blood and milk samples from the experimental cows were collected on the last day of each infusion period and analyzed for indices of liver damage and inflammation, and the count and composition of somatic cells in milk. Compared with the Control, the infusion of Arg led to greater concentrations of total protein, immunoglobulin M and high density lipoprotein cholesterol coupled with lower concentrations of haptoglobin and tumor necrosis factor-α, and activity of aspartate aminotransferase in serum. Infusion of Ala had no effect on those biomarkers compared with the Control. Although milk somatic cell count was not affected, the concentration of granulocytes was lower in response to Arg infusion compared with the Control or Ala group. Overall, the biomarker analyses indicated that the supplementation of Arg via the jugular vein during early lactation alleviated inflammation and metabolic stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cereal grains treated with organic acids were proved to increase ruminal resistant starch and can relieve the risk of ruminal acidosis. However, previous study mainly focussed on acid-treated barley, the effects of organic acid-treated corn is still unknown. The objectives of this study were to evaluate whether feeding ground corn steeped in citric acid (CA) would affect ruminal pH and fermentation patterns, milk production and innate immunity responses in dairy goats. Eight ruminally cannulated Saanen dairy goats were used in a crossover designed experiment. Each experimental period was 21 day long including 14 days for adaption to new diet and 7 days for sampling and data collection. The goats were fed high-grain diet contained 30% hay and 70% corn-based concentrate. The corn was steeped either in water (control) or in 0.5% (wt/vol) CA solution for 48 h. Goats fed CA diet showed improved ruminal pH status with greater mean and minimum ruminal pH, and shorter (P< 0.05) duration of ruminal pH<5.6 and less area of ruminal pH<5.6, 5.8 and 6.0. Concentration of total volatile fatty acid and molar proportion of propionate were less but the molar proportion of acetate was greater (P< 0.05) in goats fed the CA diet than the control diet. Concentration of ruminal lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was lower (P< 0.05) and that of lactic acid also tended (P< 0.10) to be lower in goats fed CA than the control. Although dry matter intake, actual milk yield, yield and content of milk protein and lactose were not affected, the milk fat content and 4% fat-corrected milk tended (P< 0.10) to be greater in goats fed CA diet. For the inflammatory responses, peripheral LPS did not differ, whereas the concentration of LPS binding protein and serum amyloid A tended (P< 0.10) to be less in goats fed CA diet. Similarly, goats fed CA diet had less (P< 0.05) concentration of haptoglobin and tumour necrosis factor. These results indicated that feeding ground corn treated with CA effectively improved ruminal pH status, thus alleviated the risk of ruminal acidosis, reduced inflammatory response, and tend to improve milk yield and milk fat test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRF), attenuated total reflectance spectroscopy (ATR) and Fourier transform infrared photoacoustic spectroscopy (PAS) are useful techniques that are commonly used to characterize soil properties. Here, these techniques were used to evaluate individual properties of 1456 paddy soil samples from Nanjing, China, to explore their features in the mid‐infrared range. The diffuse reflectance spectroscopy showed broad and shouldered peaks that ranged from 4000 to 500 cm−1. Attenuated total reflectance spectroscopy produced main peaks around 1000 cm−1. Fourier transform infrared photoacoustic spectroscopy spectra showed several moderate intensity peaks in the regions of 4000–2600 and 2500–500 cm−1. The effective variables (wavenumbers) were selected using an uninformative variable elimination (UVE) algorithm to predict soil pH, and soil organic matter (SOM), total nitrogen (TN) and available phosphorus (AP) contents; it used a self‐adaptive partial least squares model (SAM–PLS). The results showed that selected wavenumbers improved the accuracy of prediction for pH, and SOM, TN and AP contents. For the prediction of pH, ATR spectra showed marginally better performance than the other spectra. The DRF spectroscopy was the optimal method for SOM and TN prediction. Available phosphorus contents were predicted poorly by all three spectra. Furthermore, mid‐infrared incident light paths, absorption modes, sensing styles, as well as peak interference and the prediction model, were the main factors that affected the assessment of soil properties in the three types of spectroscopy. Highlights: Soil spectra data were measured with DRF, ATR and PAS spectrometers over the range 4000–500 cm−1.A UVE algorithm was used to select effective wavenumbers from the full spectrum.The pH, SOM, TN and AP were estimated using three techniques based on a SAM–PLS model.Mid‐infrared incident light paths and absorption modes affected prediction performance of the three techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The parameters to prepare α-Al2O3 coatings by double glow plasma technique were optimized to obtain dense and thick α-Al2O3 coatings on 316 L stainless steel at low temperature of 580 °C. The parallel distance between the source electrode and the substrate, working pressure, source electrode voltage, and workpiece electrode voltage were designed by L9 Orthogonal array design. The thickness, microstructure, chemical composition and phase components of the sputter-deposited Al/α-Al2O3 coatings were analysed by means of 3-D non-contact surface profiler analysis, scanning electron microscopy equipped with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry and glancing-angle X-ray diffraction, respectively. The results indicated that the parallel distance between the source electrode and the substrate played a dominant role in determining the thickness of the films. The coatings prepared at the optimum parameters exhibited a very dense, uniform, and compact microstructure without any cracks and defects. It was found that iron aluminide formed at the interface between the coatings and the substrates. The thickness of the coatings reached about 11.6 μm at the deposition rate of ~64.4 nm min -1 . The oxidized coatings with the lowest porosity about 0.13 % had relative content of α-Al2O3 as high as 66.5 % when oxygen flow was 2 sccm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sn doped zinc oxide (ZnO) films have been successfully synthesised via the sol–gel method by spin coating onto glass substrates followed by annealing in air at 600°C for 2 h. The X-ray diffraction patterns of the annealed specimens exhibit well defined diffraction peaks indexed to the hexagonal wurtzite structure with no trace of tin metal, oxides or binary zinc tin phases, indicating that metallic Sn entered the ZnO lattice in the form of Sn4+. Sn dopant concentration caused the carrier concentration and the grain size change, thus affecting the infrared emissivity of ZnO films. When the ZnO film was doped with 6 at-%Sn, the infrared emissivity decreased as the temperature increases, which was favourable for the application in infrared stealth technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a two-port antenna including a receiving port and a transmitting one in the same volume. These two antennas are physically integrated and electrically isolated. The receiving antenna is a linearly polarized narrowband slot for energy harvesting, whereas the transmitting one is a circularly- polarized ultrawideband (UWB) quasi-spiral for signal radiation. The measurement results show that, the slot resonates at 5.8 GHz, and the quasi-spiral has a 10-dB return loss bandwidth of 2.85-5.16 GHz and a 3-dB axial-ratio bandwidth of 3.05-4.43 GHz. The electrical isolation between these two antennas is more than 20 dB covering 1-8 GHz. This two-port antenna is a good candidate for wireless powered UWB-RFID tags. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel modified composite right/left- handed (CRLH) unit cell to achieve sharp rejection at 5.8 GHz. Design formulas are theoretically derived and numerically verified. Based on this unit cell, ultra-wideband (UWB) bandpass filters with two and three cells are designed, fabricated, and on-wafer measured. The measurement results show that the CRLH bandpass filter has a rejection of > 60 dB at 5.8 GHz, a minimum insertion loss of 1.1 dB, and 3-dB bandwidths of 3.09-4.79 GHz and 3.22-4.61 GHz for the two and three unit cells, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electro-magneto-elastic composites containing a doubly periodic parallelogrammic array of coated fibers are dealt with under antiplane shear coupled with inplane electro-magnetic loads, a rigorous analytical method is developed by using the generalized eigenstrain (an aggregation of eigenstrain, eigen-electric-field and eigen-magnetic-field) concept integrated with the doubly quasi-periodic Riemann boundary value problem theory. The expressions of electro-magneto-elastic fields in each phase of composites are obtained. A comparison with the finite element analysis (FEA) results demonstrates the accuracy of the proposed method. The effects of the coating with different thickness and stiffness on the stress concentration factor and electro-magneto-elastic effective moduli are discussed and a lot of interesting electro-magneto-elastic interaction phenomena are revealed, which are useful to estimate and optimize the performance of such elector-magneto-elastic composites. Also, the present method can provide benchmark results for other numerical and approximate methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dengdeng is one kind of special goat jerkies in Indonesia which has the special properties of higher sugar contents and oil frying. This study applies the pork instead of goat meat to investigate the effects of various sugar contents (18%, 24%, 30%) and different dry conditions (50°C/3 hr + 55°C/2 hr, 50°C/3 hr + 55°C/2.5 hr + 50°C/3 hr +55°C/3 hr) on the quality of their finished products. The results showed that adding sucrose levels had the significant effects of aw and moisture contents of samples; the moisture contents were influenced by the drying conditions, also. Samples treated with adding levels of 30% combined with drying conditions of 50°C 3 hrs + 55°C 2hrs had the best yields (64.59%). There was no significant difference on the color among treatments. The scores of sensory evaluation for samples were dramatically affected by color, texture and overall acceptability. The drying conditions also influenced the texture and aroma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated for applying cheese instead of pork backfat mixing with different combinations of chicken parts (thigh meat, breast meat and mixtures of each half) on the quality effects of cheese chicken patties. The results showed that the breast samples had lighter color among 3 different treatments; the cooked samples were lighter than fresh groups. The a*, b* values, cooking loss and pH values of thigh samples were the highest. But, the moisture content(%) of breast samples was the highest. The intensity of cheese aroma strength from breast samples were the strongest, the biting strength, springiness and chewiness of thigh group had the highest scores, breast group were lowest; the results of 5-scale hedonic scores for different sensory attributes had the similar tendency. The thigh samples had the highest scores of overall acceptability (3.8), the mixture group was next (3.0), those whole quality were accepted by panelists; but, the breast group was the lowest (2.6). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]