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The xyloglucanase gene (RmXEG12A) from Rhizomucor miehei CAU432 was successfully expressed in Pichia pastoris. The highest xyloglucanase activity of 25,700 U mL−1 was secreted using high cell density fermentation. RmXEG12A was optimally active at pH 7.0 and 65 °C, respectively. The xyloglucanase exhibited the highest specific activity towards xyloglucan (7915.5 U mg−1). RmXEG12A was subjected to hydrolyze tamarind powder to produce xyloglucan oligosaccharides with the degree of polymerization (DP) 7–9. The hydrolysis ratio of xyloglucan in tamarind powder was 89.8%. Moreover, xyloglucan oligosaccharides (2.0%, w/w) improved the water holding capacity (WHC) of yoghurt by 1.1-fold and promoted the growth of Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophiles by 2.3 and 1.6-fold, respectively. Therefore, a suitable xyloglucanase for tamarind powder hydrolysis was expressed in P. pastoris at high level and xyloglucan oligosaccharides improved the quality of yoghurt.

In this paper, the air-fuel ratio regulation problem of compressed natural gas (CNG) engines considering stochastic L2 disturbance attenuation is researched. A state observer is designed to overcome the unmeasurability of the total air mass and total fuel mass in the cylinder, since the residual air and residual fuel that are included in the residual gas are unmeasured and the residual gas reflects stochasticity. With the proposed state observer, a stochastic robust air-fuel ratio regulator is proposed by using a CNG engine dynamic model to attenuate the uncertain cyclic fluctuation of the fresh air, and the augmented closed-loop system is mean-square stable. A validation of the proposed stochastic robust air-fuel ratio regulator is carried out by the numerical simulation of two working conditions. The accuracy control of the air-fuel ratio is realized by the proposed stochastic robust air-fuel ratio regulator, which in turn leads to an improvement in fuel economy and emission performance of the CNG engines.

In this paper, the problem of adaptive control with disturbance attenuation is investigated for stochastic discrete-time nonlinear systems with Markovian jumping parameters and unknown system parameters. Using the proposed control law and the sufficient conditions, the closed-loop system achieved H∞ performance. As a practical example of the considered problem, an air-fuel ratio controller for a gas engine intended as an electric vehicle extender is designed based on the proposed adaptive disturbance attenuation control algorithm. The air-fuel ratio controller is validated via a numerical simulation under three working conditions. The results of the numerical simulation show that the air-fuel ratio can be regulated into a range around its desired value by the proposed adaptive disturbance attenuation controller and that the adaptive law can be tuned to a steady value. The control performance indices of the proposed adaptive disturbance attenuation controller are smaller than those of the open-loop controller, which means that the proposed adaptive disturbance attenuation controller achieves a greater control effect.

β-1,3-1,4-Glucanases are a type of hydrolytic enzymes capable of catalyzing the strict cleavage of β-1,4 glycosidic bonds adjacent to β-1,3 linkages in β-D-glucans and have exhibited great potential in food and feed industrials. In this study, a novel glycoside hydrolase (GH) family 12 β-1,3-1,4-glucanase (CtGlu12A) from the thermophilic fungus Chaetomium sp. CQ31 was identified and biochemically characterized. CtGlu12A was most active at pH 7.5 and 65 °C, respectively, and exhibited a high specific activity of 999.9 U mg−1 towards lichenin. It maintained more than 80% of its initial activity in a wide pH range of 5.0–11.0, and up to 60 °C after incubation at 55 °C for 60 min. Moreover, the crystal structures of CtGlu12A with gentiobiose and tetrasccharide were resolved. CtGlu12A had a β-jellyroll fold, and performed retaining mechanism with two glutamic acids severing as the catalytic residues. In the complex structure, cellobiose molecule showed two binding modes, occupying subsites −2 to −1 and subsites + 1 to + 2, respectively. The concave cleft made mixed β-1,3-1,4-glucan substrates maintain a bent conformation to fit into the active site. Overall, this study is not only helpful for the understanding of the substrate-binding model and catalytic mechanism of GH 12 β-1,3-1,4-glucanases, but also provides a basis for further enzymatic engineering of β-1,3-1,4-glucanases.

An electrochemical biosensor was prepared for nucleic acid-based hantavirus detection using a Cu-based metal-organic framework (CuMOF) as a signal tag. The CuMOF was synthesized by the solvothermal method and then covalently bonded with signal DNA (sDNA) probes. The Au nanoparticles and reduced graphene oxide composite were deposited on the electrode surface by electroreduction as support substrate and was then functionalized with capture DNA (cDNA) probes by self-assembly. Through the complementary base pairing, the target DNA (tDNA) fragment of hantavirus hybridized with the cDNA and the sDNA in a sandwich-type format. The tDNA was detected according to the current signal of the CuMOF catalyzed reaction using o-phenylenediamine as redox substrate. The peak current of the biosensor at − 0.55 V increased linearly in proportion to the logarithmic value of the tDNA concentration from 10−15 to 10−9 mol/L, with a detection limit of 0.74 × 10−15 mol/L. Moreover, the proposed biosensor was successfully applied to detect hantavirus and was able to distinguish hantavirus from other arboviruses.

D-Mannose isomerase can reversibly catalyze D-fructose to D-mannose which has various beneficial effects. A novel D-mannose isomerase gene (PsMIaseA) from Pseudomonas syringae was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli. The recombinant D-mannose isomerase (PsMIaseA) showed the highest amino acid sequence homogeneity of 50% with ManI from Thermobifda fusca. PsMIaseA was purified through Ni-NTA chromatography, and its specific activity was 818.6 U mg-1. The optimal pH and temperature of PsMIaseA were pH 7.5 and 45 °C, respectively. The enzyme was stable within a wide pH range from 5.0 to 10.0. It could efficiently convert D-fructose to D-mannose without any metal ions. When PsMIaseA was incubated with 600 g/L D-fructose for 6 h, the space-time yield of D-mannose reached 27.2 g L-1 h-1 with a maximum conversion ratio of 27%. Therefore, the D-mannose isomerase may be suitable for green production of D-mannose.

β-1,4-Mannanase degrades β-1,4-mannan polymers into manno-oligosaccharides with a low degree of polymerization. To date, only one glycoside hydrolase (GH) family 113 β-1,4-mannanase, from Alicyclobacillus acidocaldarius (AaManA), has been structurally characterized, and no complex structure of enzyme–manno-oligosaccharides from this family has been reported. Here, crystal structures of a GH family 113 β-1,4-mannanase from Amphibacillus xylanus (AxMan113A) and its complexes with mannobiose, mannotriose, mannopentaose, and mannahexaose were solved. AxMan113A had higher affinity for −1 and +1 mannoses, which explains why the enzyme can hydrolyze mannobiose. At least six subsites (−4 to +2) exist in the groove, but mannose units preferentially occupied subsites −4 to −1 because of steric hindrance formed by Lys-238 and Trp-239. Based on the structural information and bioinformatics, rational design was implemented to enhance hydrolysis activity. Enzyme activity of AxMan113A mutants V139C, N237W, K238A, and W239Y was improved by 93.7, 63.4, 112.9, and 36.4%, respectively, compared with the WT. In addition, previously unreported surface-binding sites were observed. Site-directed mutagenesis studies and kinetic data indicated that key residues near the surface sites play important roles in substrate binding and recognition. These first GH family 113 β-1,4-mannanase–manno-oligosaccharide complex structures may be useful in further studying the catalytic mechanism of GH family 113 members, and provide novel insight into protein engineering of GHs to improve their hydrolysis activity.

Mannan is one of the major constituent groups of hemicellulose, which is a renewable resource from higher plants. β-Mannanases are enzymes capable of degrading lignocellulosic biomass. Here, an endo-β-mannanase from Rhizopus microsporus (RmMan134A) was cloned and expressed. The recombinant RmMan134A showed maximal activity at pH 5.0 and 50 °C, and exhibited high specific activity towards locust bean gum (2337 U/mg). To gain insight into the substrate-binding mechanism of RmMan134A, four complex structures (RmMan134A–M3, RmMan134A-M4, RmMan134A-M5 and RmMan134A-M6) were further solved. These structures showed that there were at least seven subsites (−3 to +4) in the catalytic groove of RmMan134A. Mannose in the −1 subsite hydrogen bonded with His113 and Tyr131, revealing a unique conformation. Lys48 and Val159 formed steric hindrance, which impedes to bond with galactose branches. In addition, the various binding modes of RmMan134A–M5 indicated that subsites −2 to +2 are indispensable during the hydrolytic process. The structure of RmMan134A–M4 showed that mannotetrose only binds at subsites +1 to +4, and RmMan134A could therefore not hydrolyze mannan oligosaccharides with degree of polymerization ≤4. Through rational design, the specific activity and optimal conditions of RmMan134A were significantly improved. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the structure and function of fungal GH family 134 β-1,4-mannanases, and substrate-binding mechanism of GH family 134 members.

An engineered β-mannanase (mRmMan5A) from Rhizomucor miehei was successfully expressed in Pichia pastoris. Through high cell density fermentation, the expression level of mRmMan5A reached 79,680 U mL−1. The mRmMan5A showed maximum activity at pH 4.5 and 65 °C, and exhibited high specific activities towards mannans. To produce manno-oligosaccharides, palm kernel cake (PKC) was pretreated by steam explosion at 200 °C for 7.5 min, and then hydrolyzed by mRmMan5A. As a result, the total manno-oligosaccharide yield reached 34.8 g/100 g dry PKC, indicating that 80.6% of total mannan in PKC was hydrolyzed. Moreover, the kilo-scale production of manno-oligosaccharides was carried out to verify the feasibility of mass production. A total of 261.3 g manno-oligosaccharides were produced from 1.0 kg of dry PKC. An effective β-mannanase for the bioconversion of mannan-rich biomasses and an efficient method for the production of manno-oligosaccharides from PKC are provided in this paper.

Partially hydrolyzed guar gum (PHGG), an important supplemental dietary fiber, has been used as food ingredient in many industries. In this study, a novel β-mannanase gene (RmMan5A) from Rhizomucor miehei was successfully expressed in Pichia pastoris and subjected for PHGG production. Enzyme activity of fermentation supernatant reached 85,200UmL-1 after 168h high cell density fermentation. The purified RmMan5A exhibited the highest enzyme activity at pH 7.0 and 65°C. RmMan5A was then employed for guar gum hydrolysis and PHGG obtained demonstrated a weight-average molecular weight (Mw) of 2.5×104Da. Total dietary fiber accounted 90.6% of PHGG and 24.9% (w/w) of PHGG were identified as manno-oligosaccharides with degree of polymerization

The crystallization behavior and microstructure of a series of Dy 3 + /Tb 3 + doped aluminoborosilicate (ABS) magneto-optical glass was investigated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The apparent crystallization activation energy ( E g ) and the kinetic properties at the corresponding glass transition temperature ( T g ) were studied as a function of Dy 3 + /Tb 3 + concentration. The results showed that the glass matrix precipitated Al 3 Tb(BO 3 ) 4 and TbBO 3 crystals when subjected to heat treatment at 852.8 and 902.6 °C, respectively. The crystallization activation energy of these two crystalline phases (Al 3 Tb(BO 3 ) 4 and TbBO 3 ) was E p1 = 993.3 kJ/mol and E p2 = 544.97 kJ/mol, respectively. The average crystallization index was 0.5 and 0.8, respectively. By applying the Kissinger equation to the parameterized crystallization behavior, the calculated phase transition activation energy was determined to be 420.18 kJ/mol. The parameterized crystallization behavior of this particular ABS magneto-optical glass can be used to avoid the deterioration of magneto-optical properties due to the crystallization of glass matrix.

To produce manno-oligosaccharides from cassia gum, a mutated glycoside hydrolase family 134 β-mannanase gene (mRmMan134A) from Rhizopus microsporus var. rhizopodiformis F518 was expressed in Pichia pastoris and a high expression level (3680 U mL−1) was obtained through high cell density fermentation. mRmMan134A exhibited maximum activity at pH 5.5 and 50 °C. It was then subjected to hydrolyze cassia gum with 70.6% of overall yield of manno-oligosaccharides. From the hydrolysate, seven components (F1–F7) were separated and identified as mannose, mannobiose, galactose, mannotriose, mannotetraose, 61-α- d -galactosyl-β- d -mannobiose, and mannopentaose, respectively. According to in vitro fermentation, the manno-oligosaccharides were able to promote the growth of three Bifidobacterium strains and six Lactobaillus strains with 3.0-fold increment in culture absorbance, and these strains preferred manno-oligosaccharides with degree of polymerization (DP) 2–3 rather than those with DP 4–5. Novel manno-oligosaccharides from cassia gum with promising prebiotic activity were provided in the present study.

Natural polysaccharides, particularly galactomannans, are potential candidates for treatment of alcoholic liver diseases (ALD). However, applications are restricted due to the physicochemical properties associated with the high molecular weight. In this work, guar gum galactomannans were partially hydrolyzed by &beta, mannanase, and the molecular mechanisms of hepatoprotective effects were elucidated both in vitro and in vivo. Release of lactate dehydrogenase and cytochrome C were attenuated by partially hydrolyzed guar gum (PHGG) in HepG2 cells, due to protected cell and mitochondrial membrane integrity. PHGG co-administration decreased serum amino transaminases and cholinesterase levels of acute alcohol intoxicated mice, while hepatic pathologic morphology was depleted. Activity of superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase was recovered to 198.2, 34.5, 236.0 U/mg protein, respectively, while malondialdehyde level was decreased by 76.3% (PHGG, 1000 mg/kg∙day). Co-administration of PHGG induced a 4.4-fold increment of p-AMPK expression, and lipid metabolism was mediated. PHGG alleviated toll-like-receptor-4-mediated inflammation via the signaling cascade of MyD88 and I&kappa, B&alpha, decreasing cytokine production. Moreover, mediated expression of Bcl-2 and Bax was responsible for inhibited acute alcohol-induced apoptosis with suppressed cleavage of caspase 3 and PARP. Findings gained suggest that PHGG can be used as functional food supplement for the treatment of acute alcohol-induced liver injury.

A novel glycoside hydrolase family 5 β-mannosidase gene (AcMan5) from the filamentous fungus Absidia corymbifera D1 was cloned and expressed in Escherichia coli. AcMan5 had an open reading frame of 1311 bp encoding 436 amino acids. The β-mannosidase (AcMan5) shared highest amino acid sequence identity (73%) with the β-mannosidase from Rhizomucor miehei. The purified β-mannosidase was a monomer of 51.9 kDa. Its optimal pH and temperature were pH 5.5 and 60 °C, respectively. The enzyme was stable up to 60 °C and within a pH range of 4.0⿿10.5. It was found to be a typical exo-β-mannosidase acting on the non-reducing end of manno-oligosaccharides. In addition, AcMan5 displayed high transglycosylation activity. It could transfer mannose residue to six acceptors ⿿ glucose, galactose, fructose, gentiobiose, laminaribiose and sucrose ⿿ among 20 candidates at low donor concentration in a short time. Due to its hydrolytic and transglycosylation properties, AcMan5 may have potential in several industrial applications. This is the first report on a β-mannosidase from Absidia species.

Foam glass was prepared which using iron tailings and waste glass with SiC powders as foaming agent. The influence of the foam temperature on the bulk density, porosity, water absorption and compressive strength was studied. The results show that foam glass with higher iron tailings content of 24.5 wt% could be prepared at about 830 °C for 30 min. Some of the reactions inside the iron tailings are responsible for the foaming mechanisms. When the foam temperature was 830 °C, the bulk density and flexural strength reached a minimum value of 0.224 g/cm 3 and 0.53 MPa.

Due to high operating cost, limited coverage range, complex installation and additional weight, helicopter and other general aviation aircraft may not have datalink function implemented as portion of its avionics system. However, datalink has great advantages of releasing crowed VHF channel resources, reducing pilot and controller workload, supporting automation application, gaining time efficiency and operation precision. During the preflight, in-the-air and post-flight periods, general aviation operators and ground stations always demand data from helicopters, similar to Airline Operation Control (AOC) for air transportation. The automotive control trends and mandatory standards also drive the installation of data communication for the helicopters. By using SysML modeling language, this paper tries to identify the data link communication scenarios and requirements for helicopters. The feasibility of utilizing existing high speed mobile network for helicopters data communication is analyzed and confirmed, which removes the cost obstacles of helicopter datalink applications. Based on the operational concept and requirement analysis, flexible and scalable datalink system architecture for helicopters is proposed, which support both the VHF ACARS and mobile cellular network. Since the weight and size of airborne system for helicopter is severely restricted, besides the data communication radios, all the other router, protocol stacks and applications should be hosted in the modular computing resources and/or multi-function displays. With an integrated data communication radio and the datalink partition hosted applications, the airborne datalink system can support the 4G/LTE, WiFi, VHF ACARS and other future new communication channels, e.g. broadband satellite communication and AeroMACS system etc.

This research aims to obtain the piston ring tribological characteristics of a free-piston engine. Mathematical models of piston ring seal and lubrication were established based on thermodynamic equation and hydrodynamic lubrication equation. The lubrication performances of the piston ring were simulated; the effects of the piston motion to piston ring lubrication process were analyzed compared with a corresponding conventional engine. Results show that seal working time of free-piston ring is longer than conventional engine's during a cycle time, but the leakage loss is lower. Besides, the oil film thickness of piston ring in free-piston engine is thinner than that of crankshaft engine just around TDC, but other position is thicker. Moreover friction forces and friction work of piston ring in two engines are almost equivalent, but the peak friction power of free-piston engine is larger than crankshaft engine.

Hydroxyapatite luminescent nanocrystallines doped with 6 mol.% Tb3+ (Tb-HA) were prepared via chemical deposition method and calcined at different temperature, and the effects of calcinations temperature on the luminescence intensity and fluorescent lifetime were studied. TEM image of Tb-HA revealed that the shape of nanocrystallines changed from needle-like to short rod-like and sphere-like with the increase of calcinations temperature; while the particles sizes decreased from 190 nm to 110 nm. The crystallinity degree increased. The typical emission peaks attributed to Tb3+ ions were observed in emission spectra of 6 mol.% Tb-HA under 378 nm excitation. The luminescent intensity of Tb-HA, which showed the fluorescence quenching, firstly enhanced and then decreased at 700 °C; while the fluorescent lifetime increased firstly and then decreased after 600 °C. Furthermore, the ratio of intensity between 545 nm and 490 nm corresponding to electric-dipole and magnetic-dipole transition (IR: IO) increases firstly and then decreases, which revealed that the proportion of substitute type and site of Ca2+ ions by Tb3+ ions were helpful to realize the substitute process and functional structure design.

Hyperspectral imaging at visible and short near infrared (VIS/SNIR) region has been used to estimate the pigment content of leaves. A complicating feature of measurements with any hyperspectral imaging methodology is the large amount of information generated during the measurement process. In this paper we discuss the identification of the desirable information using independent component analysis (ICA). After hyperspectral image acquisition and pre-processing, the average spectra obtained from the region of interest (ROI) in cucumber leaves were used for model development. Additionally a multi-linear regression model was developed for the prediction of cucumber leaf chlorophyll content. When compared with normal principal component analysis (PCA), the ICA multi-linear regression model provided improved estimates. When the calibration models were applied to an independent validation set, chlorophyll content was reasonably well predicted with a high correlation (r2 = 0.774). Depending on the sample, the technique enabled the identification and characterization of the relative content of various chlorophyll types that were distributed within the cucumber leaves. Typically low levels of chlorophyll at leaf margins and higher levels along main vein regions were identified. Our results indicate that hyperspectral imaging exhibits considerable promise for predicting pigments within cucumber leaves and furthermore can be applied non-destructively and in situ to living plant samples.

Identification of apple stem-ends and calyxes from defects on process grading lines is a challenging task due to the complexity of the process. An in-line detection of the apple defect is developed in this article. Firstly, a computer controlled system using three color cameras is placed on the line. In this system, the apples placed on rollers are rotating while moving, and each camera is capturing three images from each apple. In total nine images are obtained for each apple allowing the total surface to be scanned. Secondly, the apple image is segmented from the black background by multi-threshold methods. The defects, including the stem-ends and calyxes, called regions of interest (ROIs), are segmented and counted in each of the nine images. Thirdly, since a calyx and stem-end cannot appear at the same image, an apple is defective if any one of the nine images has two or more ROIs. There are no complex imaging processes or pattern recognition algorithms in this method, because it is only necessary to know how many ROIs are there in a given apple's image. Good separation between normal and defective apples was obtained. The classification error of unjustified acceptance of blemished apples reduced from 21.8% for a single camera to 4.2% for the three camera system, at the expense of rejecting a higher proportion of good apples. Averaged over false positive and false negative, the classification error reduced from 15 to 11%. The disadvantage of this method is that it could not distinguish different defect types. Defects such as bruising, scab, fungal growth, and disease, are treated as the same.

This paper presents a system for apple color grading into four classes according to standards stipulated in China. To automatically grade apple fruit color, a laboratory machine vision system was developed, which consisted of a color CCD camera equipped with an image grab device, a bi-cone roller device controlled by a stepping motor, and a lighting source. Four images, one for every rotation of 90^o, were taken from each apple. Seventeen color feature parameters (FP) were extracted from each apple in the image processing. Three hundred and eighteen ''Fuji'' apples were examined by the system, and were divided into two sets, with 200 in ''Training set'' and 118 in ''Test set''. A method called organization feature parameter (OFP), based on formulae expression trees by using genetic algorithms (GA), was used in this paper. When the initial FP could not sensitively distinguish among different classes of apples, the FP were organized into one new OFP by using genetic algorithm. By applying the step decision tree algorithm in combination with the OFP method, high grade judgment ratios were achieved in the classification of two of four apple color grades, i.e., 'Extra', and 'Reject'. However, the grade judgment ratio for 'class I' and 'class II' was relatively low. Compared with BP-ANN and SVM, the OFPs method was more accurate than BP-ANN, but a little lower than SVM for identification results.

The feasibility of using the efficient selection wavelength regions in FT-NIR for a rapid and conclusive determination of fruit inner qualities such as soluble solid content (SSC) of apples was investigated. An apple's NIRS acquisition device was developed in this study. With this device, the apple was rolling while collecting the NIR spectroscopy. Graphically-oriented local multivariate calibration modeling procedures called interval partial least-squares (iPLS), backward interval partial least-squares (BiPLS), forward interval partial least-squares (FiPLS), genetic algorithm interval partial least-squares (GA-iPLS) and genetic algorithm partial least-squares (GA-PLS) were applied to select the efficient spectral regions that provide the lowest prediction error, in comparison to the full-spectrum model. The optimal combinations of 12 spectral intervals among 40 intervals which selected by BiPLS yielded a good result (RMSEC = 0.39286, r c = 0.953, RMSEP = 0.4531, r p = 0.924), and the optimal combinations of 14 spectral intervals among 40 intervals which selected by FiPLS also yielded good results (RMSEC = 0.4027, r c = 0.948, RMSEP = 0.4424, r p = 0.927). The intervals selected by BiPLS were not the same with those selected by FiPLS, due to different algorithms employed in these two methods. The five intervals selected by GA-iPLS which contained 360 variables were used as calibration set in GA-PLS model. 45 variables were selected in the best prediction ability of the GA-PLS models (RMSEP = 0.414). These procedures allow the simultaneous determination of other internal quality of fruits.

The measurement and calibration of the laser diffuse reflection characteristic from target is crucial for the evaluation of laser system.A target laser diffuse reflectance test system consisting of a large-diameter laser energy analyzer is described.The structure of this system ensures that the CCD observation system and 1.57 μm laser detector have the same optical axis.The CCD observation system and laser energy meter have same mechanism.With calibration results and experiment results,it is shown that the accuracy of laser diffuse reflection from target is high,and the test method is operationally excellent.

A new room temperature gas sensor was fabricated with pigment-sensitized TiO2 thin film as the sensing layer. Four natural pigments were extracted from spinach (Spinacia oleracea), red radish (Raphanus sativus L), winter jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum), and black rice (Oryza sativa L. indica) by ethanol. Natural pigment-sensitized TiO2 sensor was prepared by immersing porous TiO2 films in an ethanol solution containing a natural pigment for 24h. The hybrid organic-inorganic formed films here were firstly exposed to atmospheres containing methylamine vapours with concentrations over the range 2-10 ppm at room temperature. The films sensitized by the pigments from black-rice showed an excellent gas-sensitivity to methylamine among the four natural pigments sensitized films due to the anthocyanins. The relative change resistance, S, of the films increased almost linearly with increasing concentrations of methylamine (r=0.931). At last, the black rice pigment sensitized TiO2 thin film was used to determine the biogenic amines generated by pork during storage. The developed films had good sensitivity to analogous gases such as putrscine, and cadaverine that will increase during storage.

A thermostable xylanase (McXyn10) from the thermophilic fungus Malbranchea cinnamomea strain S168 was purified and biochemically characterized. The enzyme was purified to homogeneity with a molecular mass of 43.5 kDa on SDS-PAGE. The optimal pH and temperature of the purified enzyme were pH 6.5 and 80°C, respectively. The enzyme showed a broad range of pH stability (pH 4.0-10.5), and was stable up to 70°C with a thermal denaturing half life of 76.0 min. The enzyme exhibited strict specificity for various xylans as substrates, but displayed no activity toward other tested polysaccharides. McXyn10 hydrolyzed birchwood xylan, beechwood xylan and oat-spelt xylan, yielded mainly xylobiose, xylotriose and xylooligosaccharides with degree of polymerization (DP) above 5, while yielded xylobiose from xylotriose and xylotetraose. The xylanase gene was further cloned. It had an open reading frame of 1191 bp with two introns. The deduced amino acid sequence of the gene showed highest identity (58%) with a glycoside hydrolase family 10 xylanase from Aureobasidium pullulans.

Design and fabrication of an ammonia sensor operating at room temperature based on pigment-sensitized TiO2 films was described. TiO2 was prepared by sol–gel method and deposited on glass slides containing gold electrodes. Then, the film immersed in a 2.5 × 10−4 M ethanol solution of cyanidin to absorb the pigment. The hybrid organic–inorganic formed film here can detect ammonia reversibly at room temperature. The relative change resistance of the films at a potential difference of 1.5 V is determined when the films are exposed to atmospheres containing ammonia vapors with concentrations over the range 10–50 ppm. The relative change resistance, S, of the films increased almost linearly with increasing concentrations of ammonia (r = 0.92). The response time to increasing concentrations of the ammonia is about 180–220 s, and the corresponding values for decreasing concentrations 240–270 s. At low humidity, ammonia could be ionized by the cyanidin on the TiO2 film and thereby decrease in the proton concentration at the surface. Consequently, more positively charged holes at the surface of the TiO2 have to be extracted to neutralize the adsorbed cyanidin and water film. The resistance response to ammonia of the sensors was nearly independent on temperature from 10 to 50 °C. These results are not actually as good as those reported in the literature, but this preliminary work proposes simpler and cheaper processes to realize NH3 sensor for room temperature applications.

The indispensable role of Management Information Systems is common sense in the buisness and organizaiton circle. The use of Management Information Systems has gone from competitive advantage for few to business necessity for all. Its true value comes in empowering business competitiveness advantages by enhancing the organization's efficiency and effectiveness. Understanding the industry's booming environment and designing the best strategies to meet objectives is vital to expand business in the short and long run.

Knowledge management is seen by many to be a prerequisite for the successful organization. As a multidisciplined approach to achieving organizational objectives by making the best use of knowledge, its gaining value had been recognized by more organizations and adopted to leverage business efficiency and effectiveness. Exploring the importance of knowledge management in the new businesis enviroemnt s of great necessity and therefore will bring significent evolution to the operation.

A series of Europium (Eu) and Strontium (Sr) codoped hydroxyapatite samples (Ca10-x-Srx-HAp: Eu) were designed and prepared using the chemical co-precipitation method. The crystalline structure, chemical composition and luminescent property of samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and photoluminescent spectrum (PL). XRD patterns showed that Eu doping had little effect on the structure of the samples, while with the increase of Sr content, crystallinity and interplanar crystal spacing were increased. PL spectra indicate that the fluorescence intensity at 596 nm and 618 nm of Ca-Sr-HAp: Eu samples increased firstly and then decreased with increase of Sr content at 394 nm excitation, and the strongest peak appeared in the Ca3-Sr7-HAp: Eu samples. At the same time, the fluorescence lifetime of the samples showed the same tendency with the increase of Sr content. In addition, the ratio of magnitude between electric dipole and magnetic dipole transition (IR/IO) also increased firstly and decreased subsequently along with the increase of Sr content in the matrix. Furthermore, the energy transfer 1104 无 机 材 料 学 报 第 31卷 parameters (f) calculated from luminescent dynamic of Eu correlating to different sites and transitions present the reverse change. It is concluded that the doped sites of Eu ions in the host lattice are affected by the content and location of Sr ions in the matrix. Thereby a tunable luminescent property of Ca10-x-Srx-HAp: Eu samples can be obtained by changing the site of Eu ions in the matrix through adjusting the value of Sr/Ca.

The objective of this study was to investigate the spectral behavior of the relationship between reflectance and chlorophyll content and to develop a technique for non-destructive chlorophyll estimation and distribution in leaves using hyperspectral imaging. The hyperspectral imaging data cube of cucumber (Cucumis sativus) leaves in the range of 450-850 nm was investigated and preprocessed. Sixty optical signatures or indices as a function of the associated reflectance (R(λ)) at the special wavelength (λ) nm which proposed in the literatures were used to predict the total chlorophyll content in cucumber leaves. Finally, R(710)/R(760), (R(780)-R(710))/(R(780)-R(680)), (R(750)-R(705))/(R(750)+R(705)), (R(680)-R(430))/(R(680)+R(430)), R(860)/(R(550)×R(708)), (R(695-705))(-1)-(R(750-800))(-1), and REP-LEM (a index based on red edge position and estimated with a linear extrapolation method) were identified as optimum indices. Red-edge waveband (680-780 nm) appeared in all these optimum indices, indicating the importance of REP (red edge position) in chlorophyll estimation. When (R(695-705))(-1)-(R(750-800))(-1), the best index was applied to an independent validation set, chlorophyll content (r=0.8286) were reasonably well predicted, indicating model robustness. Depending on the sample, this technique enables to identify and characterize the relative content of various chlorophyll that distribution in the cucumber leaves. The map shows a relatively low level of chlorophyll at margins. Higher level can be noticed in the regions along the main veins and in some areas exhibiting dark green tissue. Our results indicate that hyperspectral imaging has considerable promise for predicting pigments in leaves and, the pigments can be detected in situ in living plant samples non-destructively.

More than 3.2 million litres of vinegar is consumed every day in China. There are many types of vinegar in China. How to control the quality of vinegar is problem. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) transmission technique was applied to achieve this purpose. Ninety-five vinegar samples from 14 origins covering 11 provinces in China were collected. They were classified into mature vinegar, aromatic vinegar, rice vinegar, fruit vinegar, and white vinegar. Fruit vinegar and white vinegar were separated from the other traditional categories in the two-dimension principal component space of NIR after principle component analysis (PCA). Least-squares support vector machine (LS-SVM) as the pattern recognition was firstly applied to identify mature vinegar, aromatic vinegar, rice vinegar in this study. The top two principal components (PCs) were extracted as the input of LS-SVM classifiers by principal component analysis (PCA). The best experimental results were obtained using the radial basis function (RBF) LS-SVM classifier with σ = 0.8. The accuracies of identification were more than 85% for three traditional vinegar categories. Compared with the back propagation artificial neural network (BP-ANN) approach, LS-SVM algorithm showed its excellent generalisation for identification results. As total acid content (TAC) is highly connecting with the quality of vinegar, NIR was used to prediction the TAC of samples. LS-SVM was applied to building the TAC prediction model based on spectral transmission rate. Compared with partial least-square (PLS) model, LS-SVM model gave better precision and accuracy in predicting TAC. The determination coefficient for prediction ( R p ) of the LS-SVM model was 0.919 and root mean square error for prediction (RMSEP) was 0.3226. This work demonstrated that near infrared spectroscopy technique coupled with LS-SVM could be used as a quality control method for vinegar.

Variable (or wavelength) selection plays an important role in the quantitative analysis of near-infrared (NIR) spectra. A method based on a genetic algorithm interval partial least squares regression (GA iPLS) combined successive projections algorithm (SPA) was proposed for variable selection in NIR spectroscopy. GA iPLS was used to select informative interval regions among the spectrum, and then SPA was employed to select the most informative variables and to minimize collinearity between those variables in the model. The performance of the proposed method was compared with the full-spectrum model, conventional interval partial least squares regression ( iPLS), and backward interval partial least squares regression (B iPLS) for modeling the NIR data sets of pigments in cucumber leaf samples. The multiple linear regression (MLR) model was obtained with eight variables for chlorophylls and five variables for carotenoids selected by SPA. When the SPA model was applied to the prediction of the validation set, the correlation coefficients of the predicted value by MLR and the measured value for the validation data set ( rp) of chlorophylls and carotenoids were 0.917 and 0.932, respectively. Results show that the proposed method was able to select important wavelengths from the NIR spectra and makes the prediction more robust and accurate in quantitative analysis.

Apple is a very important fruit in China. The shape of the apple is important indices for classifications. An image collecting system was developed and 4 images are obtained from each apple in this study. In order to describing the irregular shapes of apples, Fourier expansion was developed to reduce the dimensionality of the edge points of an image to a set of 33 Fourier coefficients. These coefficients and variables were used as feature parameters. A new method called organization feature parameter based on formulae expression tree by using genetic algorithm was proposed in this paper. It could solve the problem how to getting optimum feature parameters. By applying "step decision tree" descriptor in combination with the new method to identify the shape of apples, the grade judgment ratios for "extra", "categories II" and "reject" are high, but the ratio for " category I" is not high.

It is important to identify the relationship between the starting requirements and the structure parameters of the diesel free piston linear alternator on the structural design stage. In this article, the forces applied on the moving part during the starting process are analyzed, and an oscillation model is established. The numerical simulation results of the oscillation model are presented, and the energy-transfer mechanism is analyzed. Then, the oscillation model is simplified by utilizing the energy balance theory. Expressions of the achieved starting frequency and required starting force are derived and the effects of different design variables on them are investigated. The results show that the achieved compression ratio is determined by the energy balance between the friction consumption and the energy supplied by the starting force. The starting frequency achieved and starting force required are associated with the cylinder bore, the moving mass, and effective stroke of the engine, which can be applied to the matching design and optimization of the prototype.