Extraction of pectins from renewable grapefruit (Citrus paradisi) peels using deep eutectic solvents and analysis of their structural and physicochemical properties.

This study presents an innovative attempt to extract high-quality pectins from grapefruit (Citrus paradisi) peels by using deep eutectic solvents (DESs) as extraction agents. The maximum yield of betaine-citric acid (BC)-extracted pectin (BC-P) reached 36.47 % under the optimum process conditions: an L/S ratio of 25 mL/g, a pH of 2.0, and a temperature of 85 °C for 120 min. The yield of BC-P was significantly higher than HCl-extracted pectin (HCl-P, 8.76 %) under a pH of 2.0. In addition, the structural, physicochemical, and emulsifying properties of the purified pectins (BC-P and HCl-P) and commercial pectin (CP) were comparatively analyzed. Results showed that BC-P exhibited higher RG-I value, more arabinan side-chains, bigger Mw and Mn value than HCl-P. Moreover, the viscosity, G' and G'' of BC-P were significantly higher than those of HCl-P and CP. More importantly, BC-P demonstrated better emulsifying activity and stability compared to HCl-P and CP. When the concentration of BC-P was increased to 1.50 %, a stable emulsion containing a 50 % soybean oil fraction could be obtained. Our results confirmed that DESs can be considered as high-effective agents for pectin extraction. Pectins extracted from grapefruit peels can be as a promising natural emulsifiers that can be used in the food industry.

Pre-Configured Error Pattern Ordered Statistics Decoding for CRC-Polar Codes.

In this paper, we propose a pre-configured error pattern ordered statistics decoding (PEPOSD) algorithm and discuss its application to short cyclic redundancy check (CRC)-polar codes. Unlike the traditional OSD that changes the most reliable independent symbols, we regard the decoding process as testing the error patterns, like guessing random additive noise decoding (GRAND). Also, the pre-configurator referred from ordered reliability bits (ORB) GRAND can better control the range and testing order of EPs. An offline-online structure can accelerate the decoding process. Additionally, we also introduce two orders to optimize the search order for testing EPs. Compared with CRC-aided OSD and list decoding, PEPOSD can achieve a better trade-off between accuracy and complexity.

Eco-friendly simultaneous extraction of pectins and phenolics from passion fruit (Passiflora edulis Sims) peel: Process optimization, physicochemical properties, and antioxidant activity.

The objective of this study was to simultaneously extract passion fruit (Passiflora edulis) peel pectins and phenolics using deep eutectic solvents, to evaluate their physicochemical properties and antioxidant activity. By taking L-proline: citric acid (Pro-CA) as the optimal solvent, the effect of extraction parameters on the yields of extracted passion fruit peel pectins (PFPP) and total phenolic content (TPC) was explored by response surfaces methodology (RSM). A maximum pectin yield (22.63%) and the highest TPC (9.68 mg GAE/g DW) were attained under 90 °C, extraction solvent pH = 2, extraction time of 120 min and L/S ratio of 20 mL/g. In addition, Pro-CA-extracted pectins (Pro-CA-PFPP) and HCl-extracted pectins (HCl-PFPP) were subjected to high performance gel permeation chromatography (HPGPC), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), thermogram analysis (TG/DTG) and rheological measurements. Results verified that the Mw and thermal stability of Pro-CA-PFPP were higher than those of HCl-PFPP. The PFPP solutions featured a non-Newtonian behavior, and compared with commercially pectin solution, PFPP solution exhibited a stronger antioxidant activity. Additionally, passion fruit peel extract (PFPE) exhibited stronger antioxidant effects than PFPP. The results of ultra-performance liquid chromatography hybrid triple quadrupole-linear ion trap mass spectrometry (UPLC-Qtrap-MS) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis showed that (-)-epigallocatechin, gallic acid, epicatechin, kaempferol-3-O-rutin and myricetin were the main phenolic compounds in PFPE and PFPP. Our results suggest that Pro-CA can be considered as an eco-friendly solvent for high-efficient extraction of high-value compounds from agricultural by-products.

Deep Eutectic Solvents-Based Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction of Antioxidants from Kudingcha (llex kudingcha C.J. Tseng): Process Optimization and Comparison with Other Methods.

Kudingcha (KDC) is an important tea substitute containing abundant antioxidants. Herein, a ultrasonic-assisted extraction (UAE) technique based on deep eutectic solvents (DESs) was applied to optimize the total phenolic/total flavonoid content (TPC/TFC) from the KDC extracts. Results indicated that DES composed of L-proline and glycerol (Pro-Gly) had excellent extraction performance for TPC, TFC, ABTS•+ and FRAP, which were significantly better than other solvents. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to obtain optimal extraction parameters for simultaneously maximizing the TPC, TFC and antioxidant activity. Results revealed that water content in Pro-Gly, liquid to solid ratio (L/S), ultrasonic temperature and extraction time were the major influence factors of the TPC, TFC, ABTS•+ and FRAP of the KDC extracts. The optimal conditions included water content in Pro-Gly of 46.4%, L/S of 25:1 (mL/g), ultrasonic temperature of 55 °C and extraction time of 50 min. Meanwhile, HPLC-MS/MS was adopted to identify the KDC extracts, which revealed the presence of major phytochemicals, including 5-chlorogenic acid, 4,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid, 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid, 3,4-dicaffeoylquinic acid, kaempferol 3-rutinoside, myricetin and isorhamnetin. Moreover, UAE-Pro-Gly achieved further higher individual phenolics contents, TPC, TFC, ABTS•+ and FRAP than other methods. In conclusion, UAE-Pro-Gly is a highly efficient method for extraction of phenolic antioxidants from KDC.

Clinical performance evaluation of serum amyloid A module of Mindray BC-7500CS automated hematology analyzer.

Background: Laboratory detection of high values of serum amyloid A (SAA) is impaired by the hook effect. In response to this problem, Mindray has launched the new generation BC-7500CS automated hematology analyzer with an SAA autodilution (SAA-D) function. The present study aimed to verify the performance of the SAA module. Methods: Venous whole-blood specimens anticoagulated with EDTA-K2 were randomly collected from outpatients and inpatient of the Children's Hospital of Nanjing Medical University (CH). Background, repeatability, precision, linear range, intermode comparison, and interference of the SAA module of the Mindray BC-7500CS were evaluated, and the performance of the SAA-D function was verified. Results: The Mindray BC-7500CS showed an SAA background of 0.14 mg/L, well below that claimed by the manufacturer. Repeatability of SAA with standard deviation (SD) <0.6 mg/L and coefficient of variation (CV) <6%, the quality control (QC) precision was less than 8%. The measured value of the linear range was essentially consistent with the theoretical value, and the maximum measured values could reach 1932.38 mg/L. The deviation between whole-blood mode and micro-whole-blood mode was small (r=0.999), and the SAA module displayed high anti-interference ability. In addition, the measured results of specimens with high SAA concentration diluted by SAA-D were close to those after manual dilution (r=0.993). Conclusions: The SAA module of the Mindray BC-7500CS had excellent performance, and the SAA-D function was highly accurate at measuring specimens with high SAA concentration, enabling reliable SAA detection in the laboratory and clinical practice.

Rhodomyrtus tomentosa Fruits in Two Ripening Stages: Chemical Compositions, Antioxidant Capacity and Digestive Enzymes Inhibitory Activity.

Rhodomyrtus tomentosa fruit (RTF) has been known as a food source with multiple health-care components. In this work, nutrition characteristics, free and bound phenolic profiles, antioxidant properties in vitro and digestive enzymes inhibitory activities of un-fully mature RTF (UM-RTF) and fully mature RTF (FM-RTF) were evaluated for the first time. Results verified that high levels of energy, ascorbic acid, organic acids and total phenolics were observed in FM-RTF. Moreover, FM-RTF had significant higher total phenolic content (TPC), but significantly lower total flavonoid content (TFC) than UM-RTF. In addition, twenty phenolic compounds in RTF were identified by high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-qTOF-MS/MS) method. Quantitative analysis results indicated that gallic acid, ellagic acid and astragalin were the predominant free phenolics, while gallic acid and syringetin-3-O-glucoside were dominant in bound phenolic fractions. In contrast, higher contents of phenolics were observed in FM-RTF. The results also confirmed that FM-RTF exhibited higher antioxidant activities and digestive enzymes inhibitory activities than UM-RTF. Strong inhibitory ability on α-glucosidase was found in RTF, while bound phenolics showed a stronger α-amylase inhibitory effect than free phenolics. Moreover, the interaction between the main phenolic compounds and α-glucosidase/α-amylase was preliminary explored by molecular docking analysis. The results provided valuable data about the chemical compositions and biological potential of R. tomentosa fruits in both maturation stages studied.

Novel 12 Mb interstitial deletion of chromosome 8p11.22-p21.2: a case report.

BACKGROUND: The deletion of a short arm fragment on chromosome 8 is a rare cause of Kallmann syndrome and spherocytosis due to deletion of the FGFR1 and ANK1 genes. CASE PRESENTATION: This case study describes a 4-month-old child with growth and psychomotor retardation, auricle deformity, microcephaly, polydactyly, a heart abnormality, and feeding difficulties. An approximately 12.00 MB deletion was detected in the 8p11.22-p21.2 region of chromosome 8. After sequencing, we found that 65 protein genes had been deleted, including FGFR1, which resulted in Kallmann syndrome. There was no deletion of the ANK1 gene associated with spherocytosis, consistent with the phenotype. CONCLUSION: This patient is a new case of short arm deletion of chromosome 8, resulting in novel and previously unreported clinical features.

Gradient-probability-driven discrete search algorithm for on-chip photonics inverse design.

The inverse-designed photonic device, with the characteristics of high performance and ultra-high compactness, is suitable for on-chip photonics applications. The gradient-based algorithms have high convergence efficiency. However, they depend on the continuous independent variable, so they cannot be directly applied to the pixel-based discrete search methods. In this paper, we propose a gradient-probability-driven discrete search (GPDS) algorithm for photonics inverse design. The algorithm establishes a connection between the gradient and the discrete value set by introducing the method of probability sampling. As an intrinsic discrete search algorithm in which the values of pixels are selected from a finite number of the discrete set, no additional discretization process is needed. Compared with the traditional brute-force search (BFS) method and traditional gradient method, the probability sampling process of our proposed GPDS algorithm can improve device performance efficiently and provide better stability to the initial states. We illustrate several component designs which are commonly used in the silicon photonics platform, and the results show that the algorithm can achieve high-performance structures within fewer iterations and has the ability of multi-objective optimization. With good flexibility and manufacturing-friendly geometry control, the algorithms are potential to be a powerful tool in solving multi-objective problems.

Pass-block architecture for distributed-phase-reference quantum key distribution using silicon photonics.

Secure transmission of information is an indispensable part of the government and individual activities. Quantum key distribution (QKD), ascribed to its security based on the laws of quantum mechanics, has become an urgent research task to eliminate the rapidly growing threats of the ever-evolving large-scale quantum computing. In this Letter, we propose a silicon photonics transmitter using a pass-block architecture and experimentally demonstrated its performance with a demodulation chip for high-speed distributed-phase-reference QKD. We show estimated asymptotic secret key rates of 792 kbps for coherent-one-way protocol and 940 kbps for differential-phase-shift protocol over a 20 km emulated fiber link. This work provides new levels of flexibility, to the best of our knowledge, of using silicon photonics devices to incorporate QKD into future telecommunications networks.

LMO1 Gene Polymorphisms Reduce Neuroblastoma Risk in Eastern Chinese Children: A Three-Center Case-Control Study.

Background: Neuroblastoma, a neuroendocrine tumor, stems from the developing sympathetic nervous system. Previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have discovered a number of neuroblastoma susceptibility genes in Caucasians including LIM domain only 1 (LMO1). Objective: We conducted a three-center case-control study including 313 cases and 716 controls with the purpose to evaluate the association between five GWAS-identified LMO1 variants (rs110419 A>G, rs4758051 G>A, rs10840002 A>G, rs204938 A>G, and rs2168101 G>T) and neuroblastoma susceptibility in eastern Chinese children. Methods: Odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to evaluate the strength of the associations. False positive report possibility (FPRP) analysis was performed to check whether significant results were noteworthy. Results: Significant associations with neuroblastoma risk were found for four (rs110419, rs4758051, rs10840002, and rs2168101) out of the five polymorphisms. Combined analysis demonstrated that carriers of 4-5 protective genotypes had a significantly decreased risk of neuroblastoma in comparison those with 0-3 protective genotypes (adjusted OR = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.39-0.68, P < 0.0001). Haplotype analysis of the five SNPs yield four significant haplotypes associated with neuroblastoma susceptibility. Conclusion: In conclusion, we confirmed LMO1 polymorphisms may reduce neuroblastoma risk in eastern Chinese populations.

Development of simultaneous nitrification-denitrification (SND) in biofilm reactors with partially coupled a novel biodegradable carrier for nitrogen-rich water purification.

Development of simultaneous nitrification-denitrification (SND) is a promising approach for nitrogen-rich water purification. Coupling biofilm reactors with novel biodegradable carrier of Pumelo Peel (PP) and various conventional plastic fillers (polyurethane filler, SPR-1 suspension filler, TA-II elastic filler and sphere filler) were examined to achieve SND in this study. Results represented that partially coupled with PP could achieve highly efficient SND. Optimal performance appealed in a bioreactor of coupling PP and SPR-1filler with ammonia and total nitrogen removal efficiencies of 96.8±4.0% and 78.9±9.5%, respectively, as well as low effluent CODMn of 1.85±0.86mgL-1. Notably, PP and conventional plastic filler played obviously different roles in combined bioreactor system. Microbial analysis suggested that dominant genera were Thiothrix, Gemmata, unclassified comanonadaceae, unclassified Rhizobiales, Salipiger, Chloronema and Klebsiella in optimal combined bioreactor, which indicated novel co-existence of heterotrophic nitrification, solid-phase, non-solid-phase heterotrophic and sulfur-based autotrophic denitrification for achieving efficient SND.

Characteristics of nitrogen removal and microbial community in biofilm system via combination of pretreated lignocellulosic carriers and various conventional fillers.

Each kind of conventional plastic filler (polyurethane filler, SPR-1 suspension filler, TA-II elastic filler and sphere filler) coupled with alkaline pretreated corncob (A.H.corncob) was applied in each bioreactor system for treating polluted water with nitrate and organics. Results demonstrated that addition of A.H.corncob could achieve simultaneous removal of nitrogen and organics, and coupling of SPR-1 suspension filler with A.H.corncob (R2) had the best performance. In coupling system of R2, the total nitrogen (TN) removal rate improved from below 10% to 55.92 ± 18.27% with effluent CODMn concentration maintaining at a low level of 2.67 ± 0.44 mg L-1. Microbial analysis of combined filler system demonstrated that conventional plastic filler mainly accumulated non-solid-phase denitrifiers for both nitrate and organics removal including genera Salipiger, Enterobacteriaceae etc. while A.H.corncob carrier was stronghold of solid-phase denitrifiers (Runella, etc.) directly using lignocellulosic materials as carbon source and fermentative bacteria (Coprococcus, etc.) for supplementing available carbon sources for denitrifiers in the system, which were integrated to achieve simultaneous removal of nitrate and organics.

Identification and expression analysis of microRNAs at the grain filling stage in rice(Oryza sativa L.)via deep sequencing.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been shown to play crucial roles in the regulation of plant development. In this study, high-throughput RNA-sequencing technology was used to identify novel miRNAs, and to reveal miRNAs expression patterns at different developmental stages during rice (Oryza sativa L.) grain filling. A total of 434 known miRNAs (380, 402, 390 and 392 at 5, 7, 12 and 17 days after fertilization, respectively.) were obtained from rice grain. The expression profiles of these identified miRNAs were analyzed and the results showed that 161 known miRNAs were differentially expressed during grain development, a high proportion of which were up-regulated from 5 to 7 days after fertilization. In addition, sixty novel miRNAs were identified, and five of these were further validated experimentally. Additional analysis showed that the predicted targets of the differentially expressed miRNAs may participate in signal transduction, carbohydrate and nitrogen metabolism, the response to stimuli and epigenetic regulation. In this study, differences were revealed in the composition and expression profiles of miRNAs among individual developmental stages during the rice grain filling process, and miRNA editing events were also observed, analyzed and validated during this process. The results provide novel insight into the dynamic profiles of miRNAs in developing rice grain and contribute to the understanding of the regulatory roles of miRNAs in grain filling.