Background
Probiotic therapies, mainly live bacteria, have been proven to be effective in treating atopic dermatitis (AD) with some controversies. Killed probiotics or postbiotics would have ...immunomodulatory effect in allergic diseases including AD. This study was performed to evaluate the therapeutic effect and safety of tyndallized Lactobacillus rhamnosus (IDCC 3201, isolated from the feces of a Korean breastfed infant, repeated heat‐treated and incubated, RHT3201) in children with AD.
Methods
In a randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled study, RHT3201 at a dose of 1.0 × 1010 CPU/d or placebo was given in children (aged 1‐12 years) with moderate AD for 12 weeks. SCORing of AD (SCORAD) scores, allergic inflammatory markers, and safety parameters were evaluated.
Results
For evaluating the therapeutic effects of RHT3201, 33 subjects in each group were analyzed. The change of SCORAD total score at 12 weeks (primary outcome) from baseline was significantly greater in the RHT3201 group (−13.89 ± 10.05) compared to the control group (−8.37 ± 9.95). Levels of eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) and interleukin (IL)‐31 showed tendency to decrease in the RHT3201 group and significant decreases in subgroup analysis in AD for ≥50 months. For safety analysis, a total of 100 subjects (50 in the treated group and 50 in the control group) were evaluated, and there were no significant differences in safety parameters between two groups.
Conclusion
In children with moderate AD, oral administration of RHT3201 showed the therapeutic effect on AD, the effects in part correlated with decrement of ECP and IL‐31, and the effect was more remarkable in subgroup analysis.
Drones, typically unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have many purposes. However, simultaneous operation of multiple drones is challenging, considering the real-time interactions and the environment; ...the drone must avoid collision with the other drones or obstacles. The proposed Advanced TD3 model performs energy-efficient path planning at the edge-level drone. We modify the twin-delayed deep deterministic policy gradient (TD3), which is the state-of-the-art policy gradient reinforcement learning. The frame stacking technique considers the continuous action space of the drone to the TD3 model. During the training, we gradually increase the observation range of agents for fast and stable convergence. We train the modified TD3 model through Offline RL to reduce the overhead for the RL model training. Drones mount the converged RL model on their onboard computer. The Advanced TD3 model in the drones selects an energy-efficient path without the overhead of the training process of the RL model in real-time, considering external factors such as wind or another drone. The total energy consumption of drones in flight along with online path planning is approximately 106% of the total energy consumption of drones that follow offline path planning, even though the trained TD3 model does not require complex computations for real-time execution.
ABSTRACT
The therapeutic effect of oral administration of Lactobacillus rhamnosus IDCC 3201 tyndallizate (RHT3201) on atopic dermatitis (AD)‐like skin lesions in NC/Nga mice were investigated. After ...induction of dermatitis in NC/Nga mice with house‐dust mite extract, each group was fed RHT3201 with 1 × 108, 1 × 109, or 1 × 1010 cells orally once a day for 8 weeks. Dermatitis scores and frequency of scratching were improved by oral feeding with RHT3201. In contrast to the control group, RHT3201‐fed mice showed significantly down‐regulated mast cell numbers and serum immunoglobulin E (IgE) concentrations had significantly less IL4 in their axillary lymph node cells. The therapeutic effect of RHT3201 was found to be dose‐dependent. These findings indicate that RHT3201 has potential for treating AD.
Gut microbiota dysbiosis is strongly associated with psychiatric disorders and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Herein, we examined whether the fecal microbiota of IBD patients with depression ...(IBDD) and their gut microbiota culture (iGm) could cause depression and colitis in mice and anti-inflammatory probiotics could mitigate depression in iGm-transplanted or immobilization stress (IS)-exposed mice. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) from IBDD patients, which exhibited
-rich gut microbiota, and its gut microbiota culture (iGm) increased depression-like behaviors in mice. Their treatments heightened the blood lipopolysaccharide (LPS) level and colonic IL-1β and IL-6 expression. However, FMT from healthy volunteers or sulfasalazine treatment alleviated cGm-induced depressive-like behaviors and hippocampal and colonic inflammation in mice. Moreover, oral administration of
NK151,
NK173, and
NK175, which inhibited LPS-induced IL-6 expression in macrophages, alleviated cGm-induced depression-like behaviors, hippocampal NF-κB
Iba1
cell numbers and IL-1β and IL-6 expression, blood LPS, IL-6, and creatinine levels, and colonic NF-κB
CD11c
number and IL-1β and IL-6 expression in mice. Treatment with NK151, NK173, or NK175 mitigated immobilization stress (IS)-induced depressive-like behaviors, neuroinflammation, and gut inflammation in mice. NK151, NK173, or NK175 also decreased IS-induced blood LPS, IL-6, and creatinine levels. The transplantation of
-rich gut microbiota can cause depression and colitis, as IS exposure, and anti-inflammatory NK151, NK173, and NK175, may alleviate stress-induced fatigue, depression, and colitis by regulating the expression of proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines through the suppression of gut bacterial LPS.
Rotary unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, have various advantages, yet their actual applications are limited owing to their flight range. However, increasing the flight range by ...enhancing the hardware is a challenging task. In this study, we introduce the first step of systematic drone low-power optimization based on the framework of electronic design automation (EDA). We attempt drone power management without in-depth knowledge of aerodynamics and control theory. Instead, we introduce a novel power model of drones using physical parameters that can affect power consumption, such as the three-axis velocity and acceleration, drone height, wind velocity, and the weight and volume of payloads. We detail the experimental setup, power modeling, accuracy verification, and optimization for minimum energy paths. We achieved over 90% accuracy in power modeling without depending on aerodynamics. The proposed approach shows the feasibility of energy-aware rotary UAV flight trajectory optimization considering the external forces affecting drones such as wind. The proposed method presents up to 24.01% energy saving through path changes considering external forces.
Neuropsychiatric disorders including Alzheimer's disease (AD) may cause gut inflammation and dysbiosis. Gut inflammation-suppressing probiotics alleviate neuropsychiatric disorders. Herein, to ...understand whether anti-inflammatory probiotics
NK41 and
NK46, which suppressed tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α expression in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated macrophages, could alleviate cognitive impairment, we first examined their effects on cognitive function, gut inflammation, and gut microbiota composition in 5xFAD-transgenic mice. Oral administration of NK41 or NK46 decreased cognitive impairment-like behaviors, hippocampal amyloid-β (Aβ), TNF-α and interleukin (IL)-1β expression, hippocampal NF-κB
Iba1
cell population, and Aβ accumulation, while hippocampal brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) and IL-10 expression and BDNF
NeuN
cell population increased. They also decreased TNF-α and IL-1β expression and NF-κB
CD11c
cell population in the colon. They also reduced fecal and blood LPS levels and gut
and
populations (including
), which are positively associated with hippocampal TNF-α and fecal LPS levels and negatively correlated with hippocampal BDNF level. However, they increased
, which positively correlated with BDNF expression level and TNF-α to IL-10 expression ratio. The combination of NK41 and NK46 (4:1, NKc), which potently inhibited TNF-α expression in LPS-stimulated macrophages, additively alleviated cognitive impairment-like behaviors in 5xFAD-transgenic or aged mice. NKc increased hippocampal BDNF
NeuN
cell population and BDNF expression in 5xFAD-transgenic or aged mice, while hippocampal TNF-α and IL-1β expression decreased. NKc also decreased TNF-α and IL-1β expression in the colon and LPS levels in the blood and feces. These findings suggest that gut bacteria and its product LPS may be closely connected with occurrence of cognitive impairment and neuroinflammation and the combination of NK41 and NK46 can additively alleviate cognitive impairment and neuroinflammation by inducing NF-κB-suppressed BDNF expression and suppressing LPS-producing gut bacteria.
Lipids from Chlorella vulgaris were successfully extracted using an ionic liquid, BmimMeSO₄. BmimMeSO₄ dissolved C. vulgaris, leaving the lipids insoluble. The undissolved lipids could easily be ...recovered due to the lower density of the lipid phase. Furthermore, ultrasound irradiation highly enhanced the extraction rate and yield with BmimMeSO₄. The total amounts of lipid extracted from C. vulgaris by the Soxhlet method and the Bligh and Dyer's method were 21 and 29 mg/g dry cell weight (DCW), respectively, whereas it was 47 mg/g DCW with BmimMeSO₄. Additionally, the amount of lipid extracted using BmimMeSO₄ was 1.6 times greater with ultrasound irradiation. The rate of extraction of lipids from C. vulgaris with BmimMeSO₄ was also 2.7 times greater with ultrasound irradiation. The fatty acid profiles of the lipids extracted using BmimMeSO₄ were very similar to those of the lipids obtained by Bligh and Dyer's method.
Functional microbiome development has steadily increased; with this, the viability of microbial strains must be maintained not only after the manufacturing process but also at the time of ...consumption. Survival is threatened by various unavoidable factors during freeze-drying and shelf storage. Here, the aim was to optimize the manufacturing process of the functional strain
Lactiplantibacillus plantarum
IDCC 3501 after freeze-drying and storage. Explosive growth was achieved using a medium composition with two nitrogen sources and a mineral, and growth was drastically improved by neutralizing the medium pH during the culture of
L. plantarum
IDCC 3501. Culture optimization involved a smaller cell size, leading to less intracellular free water. Moreover, when maltodextrin (MD) powder was directly added to the harvested cells, some intracellular free water was extracted from the bacterial cells, resulting in a dramatic increase in the viability of
L. plantarum
IDCC 3501 after freeze-drying and subsequent storage. Furthermore, MD enhanced survival in a dose-dependent manner. Bacterial survival was correlated with lysozyme tolerance; therefore, the positive result might have been caused by the osmotic dehydration of intracellular free water, which would potentially damage the bacterial cells via ice crystallization and/or a phase transition during freeze-drying. These critical factors of
L. plantarum
IDCC 3501 processing provide perspectives on survival issues for manufacturing microbiome strains.
Key points
•
Culture conditions for probiotic bacteria were optimized for high growth yield.
•
Osmotic dehydration improved bacterial survival after manufacturing and shelf storage.
•
Reduction in intracellular free water content is crucial for intact survival.
With the recent development of agriculture, the growing area and utilization rate of facilities are increasing, but it is necessary to control and prevent pests, and if the disease is detected at an ...early stage, appropriate treatment is possible. To this end, researches on control systems using artificial intelligence are being expanded recently, therefore we propose a pest diagnosis system using data acquisition and deep learning through collective intelligence. This study modeled the diagnostic system based on deep learning using the collective intelligence that the user group participates in the prediction of pests arising from the plant cultivation and the data registered by experts in the field. Diagnostic data were collected information on pest diagnosis registered on the Internet and used; the collected data were constructed as a data set that is easy to analyze, through preprocessing, types of crops were classified, pests data were studied through TensorFlow. Most of the researches for the control and prevention of pests are based on web-based expert system. In this paper, we collect data through the collective intelligence and the general public. Especially, when a user uses input question and answers data without a formalized format, it gives wrong prediction; therefore, the preprocessing process was performed for data analysis because it could adversely affect the reliability of the system. After the data collection and preprocessing process is completed, a prediction model is created using TensorFlow, an artificial intelligence open source framework, using the generated data set. The user was allowed to input arbitrary data values while testing the data one to five times based on the data value and the effective value of the prediction model was confirmed according to the change of the value. Through the research, it is proved that diagnosis of pests is possible by using collective intelligence. In future research, research on the construction of a system that enables users to diagnose pests more easily should be continued using not only collective intelligence but also image and video.
► Extraction of lipids from algae using ionic liquids. ► Linear solvation energy relationship analysis. ► Fatty acid methyl ester profiles of lipids from algae.
Lipids from algal biomass were ...extracted using mixtures of ionic liquids (ILs) and methanol, and fatty acid profiles of the extracted lipids were characterized in this work. Mixtures of ILs and methanol successfully dissolved biomass leaving lipids insoluble. The total contents of lipids extracted from commercial and cultivated Chlorella vulgaris were 10.6% and 11.1%, respectively, by the conventional Bligh and Dyer’s method, while a mixture of BmimCF3SO3 and methanol extracted 12.5% and 19.0% of the lipids, respectively. Multi-parameter regression by the linear solvation energy relationship showed that dipolarity/polarizability and hydrogen bond acidity of ILs are more important than their hydrogen bond basicity for effectively extracting lipids from algal biomass. Fatty acid profiles of the lipids extracted using IL–methanol mixtures showed that C16:0, C16:1, C18:2, and C18:3 fatty acids were dominant. This suggests that the lipids extracted from C. vulgaris can be used as a source of biodiesel production.
