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The mainstream adoption of chickpea proteins and lipids requires a thorough understanding of the impact of critical extraction parameters (enzyme use, reaction time, and solids-to-liquid ratio—SLR) and modes of extraction (single-stage extraction—SSE and countercurrent extraction—CCE) on the simultaneous extraction of lipids and proteins from full-fat chickpea flour and economic process feasibility. A kinetics study revealed that 68.5% oil and 87% protein extraction yields can be achieved using 0.5% protease at pH 9.0, 50 °C, 60 min, and 1:10 SLR, highlighting the role of proteolysis and an adequate incubation time on overall extractability. An increased gradient concentration between the matrix and aqueous media solutes at a lower SLR (1:15), and reduced slurry viscosity increased oil and protein extractability to 80 and 91%, respectively. The high-water usage in the SSE was addressed by the development of a two-stage CCE that reduced water usage by 47% while increasing oil and protein extractability to ~96%. Higher extractability and reduced water usage in the two-stage CCE resulted in a higher net gross profit, thus outweighing its higher operating costs. The results presented herein further widen the scope of bioprocessing standards for full-fat chickpea flour and add to the elucidation of the impact of key processing conditions on the extractability and economic feasibility of the production of chickpea ingredients for subsequent food/nutraceutical applications.

Objective To investigate whether GSTA1, GSTO2, and GSTZ1 are relevant to an increased risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in a Chinese population. Methods In this study, 143 sporadic ALS (sALS) patients (83 men, 60 women) and 210 age- and sex-matched healthy subjects were enrolled. Blood samples were collected by venipuncture. Genomic DNA was isolated by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The potential associations between ALS and GSTA1, GSTO2, and GSTZ1 polymorphisms were estimated using chi-squared analysis and unconditional logistic regression. Results The D allele and genotype frequencies of GSTO2 were increased in sALS patients compared with healthy subjects, indicating that the GSTO2 DD genotype was associated with an increased risk of sALS (odds ratio [OR] = 3.294, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.039–10.448). However, a significant association between the DD genotype and the risk of sALS was evident in men only (OR = 7.167, 95% CI = 1.381–37.202). Conclusion This study revealed that the D allele and genotype frequencies of GSTO2 were increased in sALS patients. The GSTO2 DD genotype was associated with an increased risk of sALS in men in a Chinese population.

To investigate the effect of two-step kinetics on enzyme adsorption and hydrolytic properties of different structural substrates at low enzyme doses. The two-step kinetic experiments of ultrafine grinding (UGCS) and sieve-based grinding corn stover (SGCS) were performed respectively with enzyme loading of 2.5 + 2.5 FPU/g and 5 + 5 FPU/g. The different performance of these two samples were illustrated by characterizing the particle size distribution, SEM and XPS. The results showed that ultrafine grinding can promote the structural properties which is beneficial to adsorption and hydrolysis. The main factors influencing adsorption kinetics are enzyme concentration and the surface cellulose amount. Pre-adsorbed enzyme has no effects on the subsequent enzyme adsorption quantity but produces some small competitive and impeditive effects. The hydrolysis kinetics mainly depend on the structure of the substrate and its complexity of hydrolysis. The two-step hydrolysis didn’t promote the total sugar yield under the same enzyme concentration, but the first step contributed more to the total sugar yield.

For global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers with dual-polarised sensitive arrays (DPSAs), two beamforming algorithms, which can mitigate interferences and preserve GNSS signals in the joint space–frequency–polarisation domain, are proposed. Firstly, the space–frequency–polarisation adaptive processing (SFPAP) architecture is put forward, where the received signal is divided into several frequency bins so that the narrowband array processing technique can be applied. After that, the received signal model corresponding to the SFPAP architecture is established, based on which the covariance matrix for each frequency bin is estimated. Furthermore, two beamforming algorithms based on the SFPAP architecture are proposed for GNSS receivers. Especially, the constraints corresponding to the two proposed SFPAP algorithms are designed to cancel interference and meanwhile form beams towards the desired GNSS satellites in the joint space–frequency–polarisation domain. Moreover, the computational complexity between the proposed SFPAP algorithms and the corresponding space–time–polarisation adaptive processing algorithms is compared. Finally, simulation results show that the proposed algorithms are effective in cancelling interferences and steering beams towards the desired GNSS satellites in the joint space–frequency–polarisation domain.

A novel robust interference-plus-noise covariance (INC) matrix reconstruction algorithm is proposed for global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers. Instead of using the presumed interference steering vectors (SVs) to reconstruct the INC matrix, the SVs projected onto the interference subspace are utilized so as to mitigate large SV mismatches caused by gain and phase errors. Simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm performs better than the other INC matrix reconstruction algorithms in output carrier-to-noise (C/N\(_0\)) ratio. Moreover, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is validated by the GNSS software receiver.

A novel method has been developed to easily hydrolyze cellulose to sodium cellobionate in a filamentous fungas, Neurospora crassa. The objectives of this experiment were to investigate the in vitro biological activities of sodium cellobionate. Antioxidant activity was evaluated with 3 chemical-based assays, including DPPH radical scavenging assay (DPPH), Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity assay (TEAC), and ferric reducing antioxidant power assay (FRAP). Antimicrobial activity was determined as minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) that prevented growth of tested bacteria, including four gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli F18 and ATCC 25922, and Salmonella Typhimurium ATCC 14028 and a wild strain isolated from cull diary cows in California) and one gram-positive bacteria (Enterococcus faecalis ATCC 29212). Anti-inflammatory activity was tested by analyzing TNF-α production with porcine alveolar macrophages that were challenged with lipopolysaccharide. A porcine intestinal epithelial cell line, IPEC-J2, was also used to test the effects of cellobionate on cell proliferation of intestinal epithelial cells. The tested doses of sodium cellobionate were 0, 0.04, 0.20, 1.00, 2.00, 4.00, 20.00, and 40.00 mg/mL. All assays were performed with over 6 replicates, except that MIC assays were performed as triplicate. All data were analyzed by PROC MIXED of SAS. Sodium cellobionate did not have radical scavenging capacity, but had weak FRAP (9.68 μM L-Cysteine equivalent) and TEAC (69% reduction) at the dose of 40 mg/mL. MIC results revealed that sodium cellobionate did not inhibit the growth of all tested bacteria, indicating it does not have antimicrobial activity within the range of tested doses. Sodium cellobionate did not exhibit anti-inflammatory activities, but significantly enhanced (P < 0.05) intestinal epithelial cell proliferation in vitro by 24.00%, 39.64%, and 25.98% when the doses were 1.00, 2.00, and 4.00 mg/mL, respectively. Results of this experiment indicate that cellobionate has limited biological activities in vitro, except that this biomass product could strongly stimulate the proliferation of intestinal epithelial cells. Future research will focus on the potential impacts of sodium cellobionate on intestinal physiology in vivo.

Background To date, there have been very few studies that have explored the relationship between headaches and computer use. The chief aim of this study is to investigate the prevalence of primary headache disorders among informational technology staff and identify the potential factors contributing to it. Methods This is a cross-sectional study based on annual health checks of employees from the information technology industry. We identified 2216 information technology staff members from Beijing by stratified random sampling who met the inclusion criteria. All participants were initially required to have a physical examination, after which they complete a general situation questionnaire that included a headache screening question. Those who had suffered from headache within the previous year also completed the questionnaire developed by Lifting the Burden. The International Classification of Headache Disorders 3(ICHD-3) criteria was used for the diagnosis of headache. Results A total of 2012 valid questionnaires (males, 1544 [76.7%]; females, 468 [23.3%]) were obtained from 2216 participants for a response rate of 90.8%. A total of 619 participants were diagnosed with primary headache, the one-year prevalence of which was 30.8%. Regarding the classification of the primary headache, 152 participants suffered from migraine, with a one-year prevalence of 7.6%; 440 and 27 suffered from tension-type headache and unclassified headaches, with one-year prevalences of 21.9 and 1.3%, respectively. Multivariate regression analysis showed that female gender was a risk factor for migraine and tension-type headache (OR 3.21[95% CI 2.28–4.53] and 1.88[95% CI 1.47–2.40], respectively). Age was also related to migraine and tension-type headache. The 41–50 age group had 2.02 times the probability of migraine, and the 31–40 age group had 1.89 times the probability of tension-type headaches compared to the 18–30 age group. Obesity and excessive computer use (more than 12 h per day) were also factors contributing to tension-type headache (OR: 2.61[95% CI 1.91–3.56] and 1.63[95% CI 1.18–2.25], respectively). Conclusions The one-year prevalence of primary headache in this population was 30.8%. The prevalence of tension-type headache in this population was higher than that in the general Chinese population. The occurrence of primary headache is correlated with many factors, among which excessive computer use significantly contributed to the risk of tension-type headache.

Aspergillus niger produces a wide spectrum of extracellular polysaccharide hydrolases that hydrolyze cellulose into soluble glucose and cellodextrins. Transporters are essential for sugar uptake, yet it is not clear whether cellodextrin transporters exist in A. niger. Here, one cellulose inducible cellodextrin transporter CtA was identified in A. niger B2. It was found that CtA not only could transport cellobiose, but also cellotriose, cellotetraose, and cellopentaose. The yeast strain YPβG-CtA, expressing cellodextrin transporter CtA and an intracellular β-glucosidase, grew on cellobiose with the cell growth rate of 0.0830 ± 0.0113 h-1 under aerobic condition. Furthermore, the engineered yeast could produce 1.1 g/L ethanol anaerobically on cellobiose in 2 days. The identification of CtA provides evidence that the cellodextrin uptake is a complementary strategy of cellulose utilization in A. niger, and the CtA could be a strong transporter candidate for constructing engineered cellodextrin-utilizing microorganisms.

The guaranteed performance consensus problem for multi-agent systems with Lipschitz nonlinear dynamics is investigated, where the interaction topology is directed. Both switching and fixed ...

Guaranteed-cost consensus for high-order nonlinear multi-agent networks with switching topologies is investigated. By constructing a time-varying nonsingular matrix with a specific structure, the whole dynamics of multi-agent networks is decomposed into the consensus and disagreement parts with nonlinear terms, which is the key challenge to be dealt with. An explicit expression of the consensus dynamics, which contains the nonlinear term, is given and its initial state is determined. Furthermore, by the structure property of the time-varying nonsingular transformation matrix and the Lipschitz condition, the impacts of the nonlinear term on the disagreement dynamics are linearized and the gain matrix of the consensus protocol is determined on the basis of the Riccati equation. Moreover, an approach to minimize the guaranteed cost is given in terms of linear matrix inequalities. Finally, the numerical simulation is shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of theoretical results.

Guaranteed cost consensus analysis and design problems for high-dimensional multi-agent systems with timevarying delays are investigated. The idea of guaranteed cost control is introduced into consensus problems for high-dimensional multi-agent systems with time-varying delays, where a cost function is defined based on state errors among neighboring agents and control inputs of all the agents. By the state space decomposition approach and the linear matrix inequality U+0028 LMI U+0029, sufficient conditions for guaranteed cost consensus and consensualization are given. Moreover, a guaranteed cost upper bound of the cost function is determined. It should be mentioned that these LMI criteria are dependent on the change rate of time delays and the maximum time delay, the guaranteed cost upper bound is only dependent on the maximum time delay but independent of the Laplacian matrix. Finally, numerical simulations are given to demonstrate theoretical results.

Aspergillus niger produces a wide spectrum of extracellular polysaccharide hydrolases that hydrolyze cellulose into soluble glucose and cellodextrins. Transporters are essential for sugar uptake, yet it is not clear whether cellodextrin transporters exist in A. niger. Here, one cellulose inducible cellodextrin transporter CtA was identified in A. niger B2. It was found that CtA not only could transport cellobiose, but also cellotriose, cellotetraose, and cellopentaose. The yeast strain YPβG-CtA, expressing cellodextrin transporter CtA and an intracellular β-glucosidase, grew on cellobiose with the cell growth rate of 0.0830 ± 0.0113 h–1 under aerobic condition. Furthermore, the engineered yeast could produce 1.1 g/L ethanol anaerobically on cellobiose in 2 days. The identification of CtA provides evidence that the cellodextrin uptake is a complementary strategy of cellulose utilization in A. niger, and the CtA could be a strong transporter candidate for constructing engineered cellodextrin-utilizing microorganisms.

According to the latest research, lncRNAs (long non-coding RNAs) play a broad and important role in various biological processes by interacting with proteins. However, identifying whether proteins interact with a specific lncRNA through biological experimental methods is difficult, costly, and time-consuming. Thus, many bioinformatics computational methods have been proposed to predict lncRNA-protein interactions. In this paper, we proposed a novel approach called Long non-coding RNA-Protein Interaction Prediction based on Improved Bipartite Network Recommender Algorithm (LPI-IBNRA). In the proposed method, we implemented a two-round resource allocation and eliminated the second-order correlations appropriately on the bipartite network. Experimental results illustrate that LPI-IBNRA outperforms five previous methods, with the AUC values of 0.8932 in leave-one-out cross validation (LOOCV) and 0.8819 ± 0.0052 in 10-fold cross validation, respectively. In addition, case studies on four lncRNAs were carried out to show the predictive power of LPI-IBNRA.

Gluconic acid, an oxidized cellulose degradation product, could be produced from cellulosic biomass. Glycerol is an inexpensive and renewable resource for fuels and chemicals production and is available as a byproduct of biodiesel production. Gluconate is a more oxidized substrate than glucose, whereas glycerol is a more reduced substrate than glucose. Although the production of homoethanol from glucose can be achieved, the conversion of gluconate to ethanol is accompanied by the production of oxidized byproduct such as acetate, and reduced byproducts such as 1,3-propanediol are produced, along with ethanol, when glycerol is used as the carbon source. When gluconate and glycerol are used as the sole carbon source by Klebsiella oxytoca BW21, the ethanol yield is about 62 to 64%. Coutilization of both gluconate and glycerol in batch fermentation increased the yield of ethanol to about 78.7% and decreased by-product accumulation (such as acetate and 1,3-propanediol) substantially. Decreasing by-product formation by deleting the pta, frd, ldh, pflA, and pduC genes in strain BW21 increased the ethanol yield to 89.3% in the batch fermentation of a glycerol-gluconate mixture. These deletions produced the strain K. oxytoca WT26. However, the utilization rate of glycerol was significantly slower than that of gluconate in batch fermentation. In addition, substantial amounts of glycerol remain unutilized after gluconate was depleted in batch fermentation. Continuous fed-batch fermentation was used to solve the utilization rate mismatch problem for gluconate and glycerol. An ethanol yield of 97.2% was achieved in continuous fed-batch fermentation of these two substrates, and glycerol was completely used at the end of the fermentation. IMPORTANCE Gluconate is a biomass-derived degradation product, and glycerol can be obtained as a biodiesel byproduct. Compared to glucose, using them as the sole substrate is accompanied by the production of by-products. Our study shows that through pathway engineering and adoption of a fed-batch culture system, high-yield homoethanol production that usually can be achieved by using glucose as the substrate is achievable using gluconate and glycerol as cosubstrates. The same strategy is expected to be able to achieve homofermentative production of other products, such as lactate and 2,3-butanediol, which can be typically achieved using glucose as the substrate and inexpensive biodiesel-derived glycerol and biomass-derived gluconate as the cosubstrates.

The shortage of resources is becoming increasingly serious in the global form. In the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, China emphasized the status of marine resources and planned the development of marine resources in China. However, in the process of developing marine resources, advanced equipment and reasonable development planning are especially important, especially the development of marine resources, which is the core of the development of the whole marine resources. This paper emphasizes the function and basic structure of the Beidou satellite system, and analyzes the working principle of the Beidou satellite navigation system in detail. The author mainly explains the Beidou satellite system from four aspects of the rescue, positioning, communication and data transfer, and explains the significance and method of using the Beidou system to the ocean engineering. Finally, the advantages of the Beidou System in marine engineering are summarized.

Dual-polarized sensitive arrays (DPSAs) with the space&ndash, time-polarization adaptive processing (STPAP) technique, which employs the polarization domain as well as the space domain and time domain to filter out interferences, can cancel a larger number of wideband interferences for GNSS receivers. However, the traditional STPAP beamforming algorithm, which requires a separate adaptive filter for each GNSS satellite, will make the process computationally intensive as there are multiple GNSS satellites in the field of view (FOV). In order to overcome the shortcoming, a novel STPAP beamforming algorithm based on the minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) criterion is proposed. Compared with the traditional STPAP beamforming algorithm, the proposed STPAP beamforming algorithm can process multiple GNSS satellites at once using only one adaptive filter, which will greatly reduce the computational complexity. Moreover, the proposed algorithm will not lead to a sharp deterioration in the output carrier-to-noise density ratio (C/N0) performance if the number of GNSS satellites processed in the same adaptive filter is proper. Furthermore, to calculate weight vector iteratively, an adaptive algorithm based on the constrained least mean square (CLMS) method is derived for the proposed STPAP beamforming algorithm. Simulation results validate that the proposed algorithm is effective in mitigating interferences for GNSS receivers in the joint space&ndash, time-polarization domain and meanwhile has lower computational complexity when maintaining the output C/N0 performance close to that of the traditional STPAP algorithm.

End-product inhibition by cellobiose and glucose is a rate-limiting factor in cellulose hydrolysis by cellulases. While cellobiose and glucose inhibition have been extensively investigated, cellobionate inhibition has been minimally studied despite the discovery that accessory proteins such as cellobiose dehydrogenase (CDH) work synergistically with cellulases to form aldonic acids. The fraction of equilibrated cellobionate in the cellobiono-δ-lactone form was determined by NMR over the range of pH 4–8. To better improve the understanding of cellobiono-δ-lactone and cellobionate inhibition of cellulases, we investigate the inhibition of Trichoderma reesei cellobiohydrolase I (CBHI), one of the most extensively studied CBHs, and Neurospora crassa CDH by equilibrated cellobionate. The well-characterized inhibitor cellobiose is evaluated in parallel for comparison. The mechanisms of inhibition are determined for both inhibitors and the kinetic parameters compared using a Michaelis–Menten inhibition model. Cellobiose and cellobionate inhibition of CBHI is extended to Avicel hydrolysis, along with an investigation of those inhibitors on Accelerase 1500, a commercial cellulase preparation.

In high dynamic environment, the output performance of the space-time adaptive processing (STAP) beamformer can be degraded dramatically since directions of arrival (DOAs) corresponding to interferences change rapidly. A novel robust STAP beamforming algorithm is proposed for global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers to broaden the nulls towards interferences and meanwhile fight against the steering vector (SV) mismatch caused by DOA estimation errors. Firstly, the received signal model in high dynamic environment is established for the STAP architecture. Then, the spatial-temporal interference plus noise covariance (INC) matrix is obtained by reconstructing the interference covariance matrix and noise covariance matrix respectively to avoid DOA estimation of GNSS signals, which can also remove the signal of interest (SOI) component from the sample covariance matrix (SCM). Furthermore, the spatial-temporal spectrum estimates around interferences are respectively reset to be the same as those of interferences, due to which the nulls towards interferences in the space domain can be widened in high dynamic environment. Finally, the constraints to solve weight vector is specially designed for GNSS signals. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can broaden the nulls effectively and also has a better output carrier-to-noise (C/No) ratio performance than the other involving algorithms.

The optimization of ligninolytic enzyme (LE) activities in a novel fungal co-culture between Pycnoporus sanguineus and Beauveria brongniartii were studied using a Plackett-Burman experimental design (PBED) and a central composite design (CCD). In addition, H

Epilepsy is a type of refractory neurologic disorder mental disease, which is associated with cognitive impairments and memory dysfunction. However, the potential mechanisms of epilepsy are not well understood. Previous evidence has identified the voltage gated potassium channel complex (VGKC) as a target in various cohorts of patients with epilepsy. In the present study, the efficacy of an antibody against VGKC (anti-VGKC) for the treatment of epilepsy in mice was investigated. A mouse model of lithium-pilocarpine temporal lobe epilepsy was established and anti-VGKC treatment was administered for 30 days. Memory impairment, anxiety, visual attention, inhibitory control and neuronal loss were measured in the mouse model of lithium-pilocarpine temporal lobe epilepsy. The results revealed that epileptic mice treated with anti-VGKC were able to learn the task and presented attention impairment, even a tendency toward impulsivity and compulsivity. It was also exhibited that anti-VGKC treatment decreased neuronal loss in structures classically associated with attentional performance in hippocampus. Mice who received Anti-VGKC treatment had inhibited motor seizures and hippocampal damage as compared with control mice. In conclusion, these results indicated that anti-VGKC treatment may present benefits for improvements of the condition of motor attention impairment and cognitive competence, which suggests that VGKC may be a potential target for the treatment of epilepsy.

The sequences of the primers in this study. (DOCX 12Â kb)

Background Cluster headache (CH), a rare primary headache disorder, is currently thought to be a genetic susceptibility which play a role in CH susceptibility. A large numbers of genetic association studies have confirmed that the HCRTR2 (Hypocretin Receptor 2) SNP rs2653349, and the ADH4 (Alcohol Dehydrogenase 4) SNP rs1126671 and rs1800759 polymorphisms are linked to CH. In addition, the CLOCK (Circadian Locomotor Output Cycles Kaput) gene is becoming a research hotspot for CH due to encoding a transcription factor that serves as a basic driving force for circadian rhythm in humans. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association between CH and the HCRTR2, ADH4 and CLOCK genes in a Chinese CH case–control sample. Methods We genotyped polymorphisms of nine single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the HCRTR2, ADH4 and CLOCK genes to perform an association study on a Chinese Han CH case-control sample (112 patients and 192 controls),using Sequenom MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry iPLEX platform. The frequencies and distributions of genotypes and haplotypes were statistically compared between the case and control groups to identify associations with CH. The effects of SNPs on CH were further investigated by multiple logistic regression. Results The frequency of the HCRTR2 SNP rs3800539 GA genotype was significantly higher in cases than in controls (48.2% vs.37.0%). The GA genotypes was associated with a higher CH risk (OR = 1.483, 95% CI: 0.564-3.387, p = 0.038), however, after Bonferroni correction, the association lost statistical significance. Haplotype analysis of the HCRTR2 SNPs showed that among eight haplotypes, only H1-GTGGGG was linked to a reduced CH risk (44.7% vs. 53.1%, OR = 0.689, 95% CI =0.491~0.966, p = 0.030). No significant association of ADH4, CLOCK SNPs with CH was statistically detected in the present study. Conclusions Association between HCRTR2, ADH4,CLOCK gene polymorphisms and CH was not significant in the present study, however, haplotype analysis indicated H1-GTGGGG was linked to a reduced CH risk. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s10194-017-0831-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Convergence speed of the multi-agent system is usually determined by the algebraic connectivity of the communication network. By changing the network topology or getting more state information, the algebraic connectivity can increase, but it is usually fixed and may be very small, which means that it cannot be adjusted flexibly according to the requirements of the convergence speed. In order to overcome this problem, we investigate the convergence speed adjustment problem of multi-agent systems. Firstly, we propose a new γ-adaptive consensus protocol, where the weights of the edges can adaptively change according to the status difference between neighboring agents. By this protocol, not only the convergence time is decreased, but also the convergence speed can be quantitatively adjusted through changing the value of γ approximately. Then, a sufficient condition for consensus is given, and the adjustable feature of the convergence speed is proved. Finally, numerical simulations are presented to illustrate theoretical results.

Adaptive consensus design problems for swarm systems with Lipschitz nonlinear dynamics are investigated. An adaptive consensus protocol based on state errors is proposed to obtain adaptive consensus. By using a state decomposition method, adaptive consensus problems of a swarm system are transformed into the asymptotic stabilization problems of a reduced-order subsystem. Then, the structure property of a transformation matrix and the Laplacian matrix, and the Lipschitz condition are utilized to deal with the Lipschitz nonlinear dynamics. Furthermore, an explicit expression of the consensus function of this swarm system and its initial state are presented. Finally, a numerical simulation is proposed to demonstrate the effectiveness of theoretical results.