An advance in novel intelligent sensory technologies: From an implicit-tracking perspective of food perception.

Food sensory evaluation mainly includes explicit and implicit measurement methods. Implicit measures of consumer perception are gaining significant attention in food sensory and consumer science as they provide effective, subconscious, objective analysis. A wide range of advanced technologies are now available for analyzing physiological and psychological responses, including facial analysis technology, neuroimaging technology, autonomic nervous system technology, and behavioral pattern measurement. However, researchers in the food field often lack systematic knowledge of these multidisciplinary technologies and struggle with interpreting their results. In order to bridge this gap, this review systematically describes the principles and highlights the applications in food sensory and consumer science of facial analysis technologies such as eye tracking, facial electromyography, and automatic facial expression analysis, as well as neuroimaging technologies like electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Furthermore, we critically compare and discuss these advanced implicit techniques in the context of food sensory research and then accordingly propose prospects. Ultimately, we conclude that implicit measures should be complemented by traditional explicit measures to capture responses beyond preference. Facial analysis technologies offer a more objective reflection of sensory perception and attitudes toward food, whereas neuroimaging techniques provide valuable insight into the implicit physiological responses during food consumption. To enhance the interpretability and generalizability of implicit measurement results, further sensory studies are needed. Looking ahead, the combination of different methodological techniques in real-life situations holds promise for consumer sensory science in the field of food research.

An up-to-date review: differential biosynthesis mechanisms and enrichment methods for health-promoting anthocyanins of citrus fruits during processing and storage.

Anthocyanins, naturally found in citrus, play key roles in improving the qualities of citrus fruits and products. Dietary consumption of fruit-derived anthocyanins is concerned increasingly owing to health-promoting properties. However, anthocyanins are vulnerable to many physical and chemical factors during processing and storage, affecting fruit qualities and consumer acceptance. Thus, the aim of this review is to focus on main advances in chemical structures, differential biosynthesis mechanisms, enrichment methods, and bioactivities of anthocyanins in pigmented and unpigmented citrus fruits. In this review, anthocyanin species and concentrations display tissue specificity in citrus, and the chemical structures and contents of main anthocyanins are summarized. For differential biosynthesis mechanisms, the reasons why most citrus fruits lose the ability of anthocyanin biosynthesis compared with pigmented fruits, and the molecular differences of biosynthesis mechanisms in pigmented citrus fruits are both discussed in detail. Furthermore, anthocyanins' enrichment methods (low-temperature stimulus, light irradiation, xenobiotics inductions, and ripeness influence) during processing and storage have been summarized, which achieve quality improvement by promoting structural gene expression, reducing anthocyanin-degrading enzyme activities, or altering DNA methylation status. Meantime, the health benefits of extract from pigmented citrus and their waste are mentioned, which provides a new approach for citrus waste recycling. HIGHLIGHTS• Chemical structures of individual anthocyanins in citrus are reviewed.• Differential anthocyanin biosynthesis in citrus depends on mutations of Ruby genes.• Anthocyanins are enriched in response to exogenous stimulus during storage.• Health benefits of extract in blood oranges and their waste are summarized.

Risk factors for the in-hospital mortality of CRRT-therapy patients with cardiac surgery-associated AKI: a single-center clinical study in China.

OBJECTIVE: We retrospectively analyzed risk factors on in-hospital mortality in CRRT-therapy patients with open cardiac surgery (CS)-induced acute kidney injury (AKI), to provide the clinical basis for predicting and lowering the in-hospital mortality after CS. METHODS: 84 CS-AKI patients with CRRT were divided into survival and death groups according to discharge status, and the perioperative data were analyzed with R version 4.0.2. RESULTS: There were significant differences between the two groups, including: urea nitrogen, Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score and vasoactive-inotropic score (VIS) on the first day after operation; VIS just before CRRT; SOFA score and negative balance of blood volume 24 h after CRRT; the incidence rate of bleeding, severe infection and MODS after operation; and the interval between AKI and CRRT. Univariate logistic regression analysis showed that SOFA score and VIS on the first day after operation; VIS just before CRRT; VIS and negative balance of blood volume 24 h after CRRT; the incidence rate of bleeding, infection and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) after operation; bootstrap resampling analysis showed that SOFA score and VIS 24 h after CRRT, as well as the incidence of bleeding after operation were the independent risk factors. CONCLUSION: Maintaining stable hemodynamics and active prevention of bleeding are expected to decrease the in-hospital mortality.

Diagnostic value of an enhanced MRI combined with serum CEA, CA19-9, CA125 and CA72-4 in the liver metastasis of colorectal cancer.

OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to explore the diagnostic value of enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) combined with a carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and carbohydrate antigen in terms of the liver metastasis of colorectal cancer. METHODS: A total of 167 colorectal cancer patients with liver metastasis and 167 colorectal cancer patients without liver metastasis were selected as the subjects. An automatic electrochemiluminescence analyser was then used to detect the tumour markers CEA, CA19-9, CA125 and CA72-4. The consistency between the MRI examination and clinical pathological examination was also analysed, and the sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values of various combined detection methods were compared. RESULTS: The abnormal rates of CEA, CA19-9, CA125 and CA72-4 in the two groups were statistically significant (P < 0.05), while the results of the enhanced MRI and clinicopathological examination for liver metastasis in patients with colon cancer were largely consistent (Kappa coefficient = 0.788, P < 0.000). However, the two methods were inconsistent. The false positive rate of the enhanced MRI examination was 15.3%, while the false negative rate was 6.0%. The specificity (94.61%), positive predictive value (92.68%) and positive likelihood ratio (12.67%) were the highest for the MRI combined with serial CEA, while the sensitivity (98.80%) and negative predictive value (97.22%) were the highest with the MRI combined with parallel CEA, and this combination returned the lowest negative likelihood ratio (0.03). CONCLUSION: The combination of MRI and CEA excludes non-metastatic patients and identifies colorectal liver metastasis cancer patients. Overall, it has a higher diagnostic value.

Atomic-Scale Visualization of Stepwise Growth Mechanism of Metal-Alkynyl Networks on Surfaces.

One of the most appealing topics in the study of metal-organic networks is the growth mechanism. However, its study is still considered a significant challenge. Herein, using scanning tunneling microscopy, the growth mechanisms of metal-alkynyl networks on Ag(111) and Au(111) surfaces were investigated at the atomic scale. During the reaction of 1,3,5-tris(chloroethynyl)benzene on Ag(111), honeycomb Ag-alkynyl networks formed at 393 K, and only short chain intermediates were observed. By contrast, the same precursor formed honeycomb Au-alkynyl networks on Au(111) at 503 K. Progression annealing led to a stepwise evolution process, in which the sequential activation of three Cl-alkynyl bonds led to the formation of dimers, zigzag chains, and novel chiral networks as the intermediates. Moreover, density functional theory calculations indicate that chlorine atoms are crucial in assisting the breakage of metal-alkynyl bonds to form Cl-metal-alkynyl, which guarantees the reversibility of the break/formation equilibration as the key to forming regular large-scale organometallic networks.

Extraction Methods Affect the Structure of Goji (Lycium barbarum) Polysaccharides.

Polysaccharides are considered to be the most important active substances in Goji. However, the structure of polysaccharides varies according to the extraction methods applied, and the solution used to prepare Goji polysaccharides (LBPs) were limited. Thus, it is important to clarify the connection between extraction methods and structure of Goji polysaccharide. In view of the complex composition of cell wall polysaccharides and the various forms of interaction, different extraction methods will release different parts of the cell wall. The present study compared the effects of different extraction methods, which have been used to prepare different types of plant cell wall polysaccharides based on various sources, on the structure of cell-wall polysaccharides from Goji, by the single separate use of hot water, hydrochloric acid (0.4%) and sodium hydroxide (0.6%), at both high and low temperatures. Meanwhile, in order to explore the limitations of single extraction, sequential extraction methods were applied. Structural analysis including monosaccharide analysis, GPC-MALLS, AFM and 1H-NMR suggested the persistence of more extensively branched rhamnogalacturonan I (RG-I) domains in the procedures involving low-temperature-alkali, while procedures prepared by high-temperature-acid contains more homogalacturonan (HG) regions and results in the removal of a substantial part of the side chain, specifically the arabinan. A kind of acidic heteropolysaccharide was obtained by hot water extraction. SEC-MALLS and AFM confirmed large-size polymers with branched morphologies in alkali-extracted polysaccharides. Our results provide new insight into the extraction of Goji polysaccharides, which differ from the hot water extraction used by traditional Chinese medicine.

Dimerization interface of osteoprotegerin revealed by hydrogen-deuterium exchange mass spectrometry.

Previous structural studies of osteoprotegerin (OPG), a crucial negative regulator of bone remodeling and osteoclastogenesis, were mostly limited to the N-terminal ligand-binding domains. It is now known that the three C-terminal domains of OPG also play essential roles in its function by mediating OPG dimerization, OPG-heparan sulfate (HS) interactions, and formation of the OPG-HS-receptor activator of nuclear factor κB ligand (RANKL) ternary complex. Employing hydrogen-deuterium exchange MS methods, here we investigated the structure of full-length OPG in complex with HS or RANKL in solution. Our data revealed two noteworthy aspects of the OPG structure. First, we found that the interconnection between the N- and C-terminal domains is much more rigid than previously thought, possibly because of hydrophobic interactions between the fourth cysteine-rich domain and the first death domain. Second, we observed that two hydrophobic clusters located in two separate C-terminal domains directly contribute to OPG dimerization, likely by forming a hydrophobic dimerization interface. Aided by site-directed mutagenesis, we further demonstrated that an intact dimerization interface is essential for the biological activity of OPG. Our study represents an important step toward deciphering the structure-function relationship of the full-length OPG protein.

Negative-Ion Mode Capillary Isoelectric Focusing Mass Spectrometry for Charge-Based Separation of Acidic Oligosaccharides.

Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) are biologically and pharmacologically important linear, anionic polysaccharides containing various repeating disaccharides sequences. The analysis of these polysaccharides generally relies on their chemical or enzymatic breakdown to disaccharide units that are separated, by chromatography or electrophoresis, and detected, by UV, fluorescence, or mass spectrometry (MS). Isoelectric focusing (IEF) is an important analytical technique with high resolving power for the separation of analytes exhibiting differences in isoelectric points. One format of IEF, the capillary isoelectric focusing (cIEF), is an attractive approach in that it can be coupled with mass spectrometry (cIEF-MS) to provide online focusing and detection of complex mixtures. In the past three decades, numerous studies have applied cIEF-MS methods to the analysis of protein and peptide mixtures by positive-ion mode mass spectrometry. However, polysaccharide chemists largely rely on negative-ion mode mass spectrometry for the analysis of highly sulfated GAGs. The current study reports a negative-ion mode cIEF-MS method using an electrokinetically pumped sheath liquid nanospray capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE-MS) coupling technology. The feasibility of this negative-ion cIEF-MS method and its potential applications are demonstrated using chondroitin sulfate and heparan sulfate oligosaccharides mixtures.

On-surface synthesis of 2D COFs on Cu(111) via the formation of thermodynamically stable organometallic networks as the template.

Template-directed polymerization is an effective approach used to afford regular 2D covalent organic frameworks (COFs), thus the regularity of the template is crucial for the quality of the resulting 2D COFs. For the Ullmann reactions on Cu(111), aryl iodides and bromides are activated at low temperature to form organometallic C-Cu-C structures, which lead to kinetic trapping and irregular organometallic networks. Therefore, the subsequent annealing step can only afford irregular 2D COFs. In this manuscript, the molecule 4,4''-dibromo-5'-(4-chlorophenyl)-1,1':3',1''-terphenyl incorporated two Br terminals and one Cl terminal has been used to demonstrate different reactivities of a C-Cl bond and a C-Br bond via the hierarchical activation of the C-Br bond and the C-Cl bond on Cu(111). At room temperature, zigzag, armchair, and ring-like organometallic chains formed due to the activation of the C-Br bond to generate a C-Cu-C structure while C-Cl remained intact, illustrating that the C-Cl bond is more stable than C-Br. Further annealing at 433 K activated the C-Cl bond to produce regular organometallic networks as the thermodynamic product. Using the simpler molecule 1,3,5-tris(4-chlorophenyl)benzene as the precursor, the self-assembly of the intact molecules was observed on Cu(111) at 300 K without activation of the C-Cl bond. After annealing at 433 K, similar thermodynamically stable organometallic networks formed directly, which were used as a template to generate regular 2D COFs upon further annealing at 510 K.

Characteristics changes of Chinese bayberry (Myrica rubra) during different growth stages.

The study evaluated the flavor related properties of the Chinese bayberry (Myrica rubra) during different growth stages. The weight, total soluble solids, sugar composition and total anthocyanin content were the highest in full-ripe bayberry fruit. Total phenolic content decreased during growth and full-ripe fruit juice showed the lowest antioxidant activities (DPPH, FRAP, and ABTS). Forty-seven volatiles were detected in the different ripening stages of bayberry, and 20 of them were identified as important aroma contributors using GC-MS-O. PCA based on the data of GC-MS and electronic nose allowed to clearly differentiate all the ripening stages. The results also indicated that D-limonene (D3) with "lemon, citrus" note was most closely associated with the unripe bayberry, nonanal (A5, "citrus, flower" note), decanal (A7, "orange" note), ß-ocimene (D5, "mushroom" note), and isocaryophyllene (D8, "wood" note) were associated with the mid-ripe bayberry, and the full-ripe bayberry fruit were characterized by hexanal (A1, "green" note), (E)-2-octenal (A4, "green" note), (E)-2-nonenal (A6, "cucumber" note), 1-hexanol (B1, "green" note), (Z)-3-nonen-1-ol (B3, "cucumber" note), and methyl benzoate (C6, "herb" note).

Pectin from Citrus Canning Wastewater as Potential Fat Replacer in Ice Cream.

Pectin had been recovered from canning wastewater produced by chemical treatment of segment membrane during preparation of canned citrus in our previous research. The purpose of this study was to characterize the extracted pectin from canning wastewater, and to evaluate its application as a fat alternative to replace fat in ice cream. The monosaccharide composition and rheological properties of the pectin were determined. The influences of fat reduction and pectin addition on the physicochemical, rheological and sensory properties of low-fat ice cream were determined. The rheological results showed that pectin solutions were typical pseudoplastic fluids. The addition of pectin in ice cream can cause an increase in viscosity, overrun, and hardness, and a decrease in meltdown of the ice cream. When 0.72% pectin (w/w) is incorporated into ice cream, a prototype product of ice cream with 45% lower fat content compared to the control was made. Results indicated that their qualities such as appearance, flavor, and taste were not significantly different. The low-fat ice cream had higher smoothness scores and lower mouth-coating scores. Hence, pectin extracted from citrus canning wastewater can be potentially used as fat replacer in ice cream, which benefits both the environment and the food industry.

Discrimination of Aroma Characteristics for Cubeb Berries by Sensomics Approach with Chemometrics.

The dried cubeb berries are widely used as medicinal herb and spicy condiment with special flavor. However, there is a significant definition discrepancy for cubeb berries. In this study, an efficient analytical method to characterize and discriminate two popular cubeb fruits (Litsea cubeba and Piper cubeba) was established. The aroma profiles of cubeb berries were evaluated by different extraction methods including hydro-distillation, simultaneous distillation/extraction, and solid-phase micro-extraction followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-olfactometry (GC-MS-O). In total, 90 volatile compounds were identified by HD, SDE, and SPME combined with GC-MS. Principal component analysis was further applied and discriminated ambiguous cubeb berries by their unique aromas: Litsea cubeba was characterized by higher level of d-limonene ("fruit, citrus"), citral ("fruit, lemon") and dodecanoic acid; α-cubebene ("herb") was identified as a marker compound for Piper cubeba with higher camphor ("camphoraceous"), and linalool ("flower"). Flavor fingerprint combined with PCA could be applied as a promising method for identification of cubeb fruits and quality control for food and medicinal industries.

DG2GAN: improving defect recognition performance with generated defect image sample.

This article aims to improve the deep-learning-based surface defect recognition. In actual manufacturing processes, there are issues such as data imbalance, insufficient diversity, and poor quality of augmented data in the collected image data for product defect recognition. A novel defect generation method with multiple loss functions, DG2GAN is presented in this paper. This method employs cycle consistency loss to generate defect images from a large number of defect-free images, overcoming the issue of imbalanced original training data. DJS optimized discriminator loss is introduced in the added discriminator to encourage the generation of diverse defect images. Furthermore, to maintain diversity in generated images while improving image quality, a new DG2 adversarial loss is proposed with the aim of generating high-quality and diverse images. The experiments demonstrated that DG2GAN produces defect images of higher quality and greater diversity compared with other advanced generation methods. Using the DG2GAN method to augment defect data in the CrackForest and MVTec datasets, the defect recognition accuracy increased from 86.9 to 94.6%, and the precision improved from 59.8 to 80.2%. The experimental results show that using the proposed defect generation method can obtain sample images with high quality and diversity and employ this method for data augmentation significantly enhances surface defect recognition technology.

Enhance the resistance of probiotics by microencapsulation and biofilm construction based on rhamnogalacturonan I rich pectin.

Microcapsules were always used as functional material carriers for targeted delivery and meanwhile offering protection. However, microcapsule wall materials with specific properties were required, which makes the choice of wall material a key factor. In our previous study, a highly branched rhamnogalacturonan I rich (RG-I-rich) pectin was extracted from citrus canning processing water, which showed good gelling properties and binding ability, indicating it could be a potential microcapsule wall material. In the present study, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum GDMCC 1.140 and Lactobacillus rhamnosus were encapsulated by RG-I-rich pectin with embedding efficiencies of about 65 %. The environmental tolerance effect was evaluated under four different environmental stresses. Positive protection results were obtained under all four conditions, especially under H2O2 stress, the survival rate of probiotics embedded in microcapsules was about double that of free probiotics. The storage test showed that the total plate count of L. rhamnosus encapsulated in RG-I-rich pectin microcapsules could still reach 6.38 Log (CFU/mL) at 25 °C for 45 days. Moreover, probiotics embedded in microcapsules with additional incubation to form a biofilm layer inside could further improve the probiotics' activities significantly in the above experiments. In conclusion, RG-I-rich pectin may be a good microcapsule wall material for probiotics protection.

Natural polysaccharides from Glycyrrhiza uralensis residues with typical glucan structure showing inhibition on α-glucosidase activities.

Two neutral Glycyrrhiza polysaccharide (GP), named GP-LA and GP-HA, with molecular weights of 3.023 × 105 and 1.291 × 105, respectively, were extracted from Glycyrrhiza residues by hot acid extraction (HA) and low-temperature acid extraction (LA) and purified by column chromatography. Comprehensive analysis showed that the backbone of GP was composed of →4)-ß-D-Glcp-(1→. For GP-LA, the side chain probably composed of ß-L-Araf-(1→, →5)-ß-L-Araf-(1→, →4)-ß-D-Xylp-(1→, ß-D-Glcp-(1→, →3,4)-α-D-Glcp-(1→, →4,6)-α- D-Glcp-(1→, and for GP-LA, the side chain probably composed of→6)-ß-D-Galp-(1→, -α-D-Glcp-(1→, →3,4)-α-D-Glcp-(1→, →2,4)-α-D-Glcp-(1→, →4,6)- D-Glcp-(1→. The GP had a triple helix conformation and numerous irregular spherical particles with smooth surfaces. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) confirmed that GP-HA possessed single-branched structures and GP-LA possessed cross-linked network structures. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed that GP-LA had both crystalline and amorphous structures, but GP-HA had no crystal structure. Furthermore, the results indicated that GP-LA and GP-HA exhibited certain inhibition activity on α-glucosidase. CD spectra and fluorescence intensity measurements confirmed that the secondary structure of α-glucosidase changed with the addition of GP.

Photo-crosslinking modified sodium alginate hydrogel for targeting delivery potential by NO response.

In recent years, the incidence of inflammatory bowel disease has gradually increased. Traditional drugs can reduce inflammation, but cannot be targeting released and often require the coordination with delivery systems. However, a good targeting performance delivery system is still scarce currently. Inflammation can trigger oxidative stress, producing large amounts of oxides such as nitric oxide (NO). Based on this, the present experiment innovatively designed a hydrogel delivery system with NO response that could be inflammation targeting. The hydrogel is composed of sodium alginate modified with glycerol methacrylate, crosslinked with NO response agent by photo-crosslinking method, which have low swelling (37 %) and good mechanical properties with a stable structure even at 55 °C. The results of in vitro digestion also indicated that the hydrogel had a certain tolerance to gastrointestinal digestion. And in the NO environment, it was interestingly found that the structure and mechanical properties of the hydrogels changed significantly. Moreover, hydrogels have good biocompatibility, which ensures their safe use in vivo. In conclusion, this NO-responsive-based delivery system is feasible and provides a new approach for drugs and active factors targeting delivery in the future.

Characteristic aroma improvement mechanisms of heat-sterilized bayberry juice regulated by exogenous polyphenols.

Bayberry juice is favored for its unique taste and flavor, while heat sterilization tends to reduce the aroma quality during processing, which limits its acceptability to consumers. To address this issue, we use exogenous polyphenols to regulate flavor compounds to improve the product quality. Total 13 differential key aroma-active compounds were identified between fresh bayberry juice (FBJ) and heat-sterilized bayberry juice (HBJ) using aroma extract dilution analysis (AEDA), orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) and odor activity values (OAVs). Further, eight polyphenols were added to investigate their influences on the aroma quality of HBJ respectively. The results showed that all tested polyphenols could maintain the aroma profile of HBJ closer to FBJ and improve the odor preference of HBJ, among which resveratrol and daidzein were most effective. Their aroma molecular regulatory mechanism involved enhancing the characteristic aroma of bayberry and reducing the certain off-flavored compounds produced by heat sterilization.

A method for gel grade determination and application evaluation of two citrus pectins.

Citrus paradisi Macf. cv. Changshanhuyou and Citrus paradisi Macf. cv. Star Ruby are two emerging processed citrus fruits. The processing produces lots of peel wastes rich in pectin. While more attentions were paid on pectin's functional properties, the quality about commercial application like gel grade was little investigated. In this study, we established a method for gel grade determination based on texture analyzer, the new method is economical and can be used on a large scale in the laboratory. The commercial application related qualities of two citrus pectins were also studied in detail. The results showed that the yields of Changshanhuyou and Star Ruby pectins (CHP and SRP) were 20.23 % and 18.33 %, respectively. The indexes of CHP and SRP mostly were in line with the commodity standards, except the dry weight loss. The gel grades of CHP and SRP determined by the new method were 109.9 and 96.8, respectively. The CHP aqueous solution exhibited higher apparent viscosity and better performance in stabilizing acidified milk drink (AMD) compared with commercial pectin. From the view of commercial application related qualities and functional properties, CHP could be a good potential commercial pectin.

Ultrasound Treatment Improves Fruit Quality of Postharvest Blood Oranges (Citrus sinensis L. Osbeck): Anthocyanin Enrichment and Its Biosynthesis.

This study was to investigate the effects of different nonthermal treatments on quality attributes, anthocyanin profiles, and gene expressions related to anthocyanin biosynthesis during low-temperature storage, including pulsed light (PL), magnetic energy (ME), and ultrasound (US). Among these treatments, 1 min US treatment was the most effective method for improving fruit quality and increasing total anthocyanin contents (by 29.89 ± 3.32%) as well as individual anthocyanins during low-temperature storage of 28 days. This treatment resulted in high color intensity, intact cellular architectures, and positive sensory evaluation. In contrast, PL and ME treatments displayed negative effects on quality improvement, leading to the destruction of cell architectures and inhibiting anthocyanin levels. Furthermore, qPCR analysis revealed that the structural genes (C4H, CHS1, CHS2, CHI, F3H, ANS, and GST) related to anthocyanin biosynthesis and transport were the target genes and upregulated in response to the cavitation effect of US treatment.