•The underlying change of rice starch quality was investigated under straw return (SR).•Long-term SR increased cooked texture indica rice in South China.•SR improved the thermal and pasting ...properties of indica rice starch.•Straw burning return worsened cooked indica rice texture, especially late rice.•Cooked rice texture improved was attributed to the starch fine structure under SR.
Straw return can improve rice eating quality by modifying starch formation from long-term field trials, whereas the relevant mechanisms are still unknown. A long-term field experiment, including straw removal (CK), straw burning return (SBR), and straw return (SR) was conducted to investigate the starch structure, physicochemical properties, and cooked rice textures of indica early- and late-rice. Compared with CK, SBR and SR enhanced relative crystallinity, amylopectin long chains in both rice seasons, and gelatinization temperatures in late rice. Compared to SBR, SR decreased protein content and amylopectin short chains but increased starch branching degree, breakdown, and stickiness, ultimately contributing to improved starch thermal and pasting properties. Meanwhile, SR decreased hardness, cohesiveness, and chewiness, resulting in cooked texture meliorated, which was mainly attributed to amylopectin chain length and starch granule size. The results suggest that SR increased cooked texture of indica rice by altering starch structural and physicochemical properties.
The western Sichuan is a region with various first-class environmental problems like earthquakes and geological disasters. In field studies, people responsible for the environmental safety of western ...Sichuan argue that the region is confronted by the shortage of fund and expertise. And there are even people claiming that "all they need is money". It seems that "fund" and "expertise" lie in the core of the problem, which is still in question. The paper, aiming at improving the management system and capacity of geological disasters in western Sichuan, used the landslide in Die Xi in 2017 as the case study to explore the problems and challenges confronting the region, including the weak legal system, defective management mechanism and ineffective disaster prediction.
Clinically, skeletal muscle ischemia/reperfusion injury is a life-threatening syndrome that is often caused by skeletal muscle damage and is characterized by oxidative stress and inflammatory ...responses. Bilobalide has been found to have antioxidative and anti-inflammatory effects. However, it is unclear whether bilobalide can protect skeletal muscle from ischemia/reperfusion injury.
The effects of bilobalide on ischemia/reperfusion-injured skeletal muscle were investigated by performing hematoxylin and eosin staining and assessing the wet weight/dry weight ratio of muscle tissue. Then, we measured lipid peroxidation, antioxidant activity and inflammatory cytokine levels. Moreover, Western blotting was conducted to examine the protein levels of MAPK/NF-휅B pathway members.
Bilobalide treatment could protected hind limb skeletal muscle from ischemia/reperfusion injury by alleviating oxidative stress and inflammatory responses via the MAPK/NF-휅B pathways.
Bilobalide may be a promising drug for I/R-injured muscle tissue. However, the specific mechanisms for the protective effects still need further study.
Abstract Background Clinically, skeletal muscle ischemia/reperfusion injury is a life-threatening syndrome that is often caused by skeletal muscle damage and is characterized by oxidative stress and ...inflammatory responses. Bilobalide has been found to have antioxidative and anti-inflammatory effects. However, it is unclear whether bilobalide can protect skeletal muscle from ischemia/reperfusion injury. Methods The effects of bilobalide on ischemia/reperfusion-injured skeletal muscle were investigated by performing hematoxylin and eosin staining and assessing the wet weight/dry weight ratio of muscle tissue. Then, we measured lipid peroxidation, antioxidant activity and inflammatory cytokine levels. Moreover, Western blotting was conducted to examine the protein levels of MAPK/NF-κB pathway members. Results Bilobalide treatment could protected hind limb skeletal muscle from ischemia/reperfusion injury by alleviating oxidative stress and inflammatory responses via the MAPK/NF-κB pathways. Conclusions Bilobalide may be a promising drug for I/R-injured muscle tissue. However, the specific mechanisms for the protective effects still need further study.
We present BioBug, a bionic cognitive response navigation algorithm for mobile robots based on neuroethology principles. It includes a biological antenna model for environment perception and an ...improved Bug algorithm for motion planning and control. The biological antenna model delineates the interested sensing areas, and thus decreases the computational burden. Then, this obtained environment stimulation is responded to generate the corresponding walking behavior according to BioBug. Simulations and experiments have been carried out in different conditions of obstacle density and boundary shape through algorithm comparisons. Compared with the competitors, BioBug is characterized by not only a smaller path length, but also shorter time for obstacle escape. The results demonstrate the practicality, environment robustness, and obstacle avoidance efficiency of the algorithm.
Single stage horizontal self-priming pump system consists of roots pump and centrifugal pump. That changes the shortcomings of low efficiency, easy to damage and difficult to maintain of the ...traditional water supply system. This paper introduces the working principle and structure in the system of single stage horizontal self-priming pump system. And using the Pro/ENGINEER (Pro/E) 3D software to establish the assembly and to carry out the kinematic simulation and analysis and to lay a solid foundation for the next step to product prototype and to experiment.
Shrimp processing byproducts (SPB) was digested by 6 proteases (trypsin, pepsin, neutrase, Protamex, Flavourzyme, and Alcalase) to produce antioxidative peptides. Both degree of hydrolysis (DH) and ...DPPH radical scavenging activity (DSA) of the Alcalase hydrolysate were the highest of all. The effect of defatting on DH and DSA of the Alcalase hydrolysate was significant. The DH decreased while the DSA increased after defatting of the byproducts. The antioxidative activity of Alcalase hydrolysate was also investigated using several in vitro assays, including DPPH, ABTS radical scavenging assays (ASA), reducing power assay, and chelating activity. The antioxidative activity of the hydrolysate was obviously concentration dependent. The SPB Alcalase hydrolysate exhibited notable DSA and ASA with the IC∧50 values of 500 and 7.4 ㎍/mL, respectively. And the hydrolysate showed 38.9% chelating activity at 120 ㎍/mL level. The SPB Alcalase hydrolysate was a potential source of natural antioxidants.
We investigate the subsurface heat exchange process in EGS （enhanced geothermal systems） with a previously developed novel model. This model treats the porous heat reservoir as an equivalent porous ...medium of a single porosity. However, it considers local thermal non-equilibrium between solid rock matrix and fluid flowing in the factures and employs two energy conservation equations to describe heat transfer in the rock matrix and in the fractures, respectively, enabling the modeling and analyses of convective heat exchange in the heat reservoir. Another salient feature of this model is its capability of simulating the complete subsurface heat exchange process in EGS. The EGS subsurface geometry of interest physically consists of multiple domains： open channels for injection and production wells, the artificial heat reservoir, and the rocks enclosing the heat reservoir, while computationally we treat it as a single-domain of multiple sub-regions associated with different sets of characteristic properties （porosity and permeability, etc.）. This circumvents typical difficulties about matching boundary conditions between sub-domains in traditional multi-domain approaches and facilitates numerical implementation and simulation of the complete subsurface heat exchange process. This model is used to perform a comprehensive parametric study with respect to an imaginary doublet EGS. Effects of several parameters, including the permeability of heat reservoir, heat exchange coefficient in the heat reservoir, the specific area of fractures in the heat reservoir, and thermal compensation from surrounding rocks, on the heat extraction efficiency and EGS lifetime are analyzed.
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