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Arabinoxylans (AXs) are non-starch polysaccharides with complex structures naturally occurring in grains (i.e., barley, corn, and others), providing many health benefits, especially as prebiotics. AXs can be classified as water-extractable (WEAX) and water-unextractable (WUAX) based on their solubility, with properties influenced by grain sources and extraction methods. Numerous studies show that AXs exert an important health impact, including glucose and lipid metabolism regulation and immune system enhancement, which is induced by the interactions between AXs and the gut microbiota. Recent research underscores the dependence of AX physiological effects on structure, advocating for a deeper understanding of structure-activity relationships. While systematic studies on WEAX are prevalent, knowledge gaps persist regarding WUAX, despite its higher grain abundance. Thus, this review reports recent data on WUAX structural properties (chemical structure, branching, and MW) in cereals under different treatments. It discusses WUAX applications in baking and the benefits deriving from gut fermentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore the trade-offs between public and private investment in autonomous driving technologies. Utilizing an evolutionary game model, we delve into the complex interaction mechanisms between governments and auto manufacturers, focusing on how strategic decisions impact overall outcomes. Specifically, we predict that governments may opt for strategies such as constructing and maintaining infrastructure for Roadside Infrastructure-based Vehicles (RIVs) or subsidizing high-level Autonomous Driving Vehicles (ADVs) without additional road infrastructure. Manufacturers' choices involve deciding whether to invest in RIVs or ADVs, depending on governmental policies and market conditions. Our simulation results, based on scenarios derived from existing economic data and forecasts on technology development costs, suggest that government subsidy policies need to dynamically adjust in response to manufacturers' shifting strategies and market behavior. This dynamic adjustment is crucial as it addresses the evolving economic environment and technological advancements, ensuring that subsidies effectively incentivize the desired outcomes in autonomous vehicle development. The findings of this paper could serve as valuable decision-making tools for governments and auto manufacturers, guiding investment strategies that align with the dynamic landscape of autonomous driving technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ground penetrating radar (GPR), as a non-destructive and rapid detection instrument, has been widely used for underground pipeline detection. However, as the interpretation of 3-dimensional GPR images is still manually performed, the process is inefficient. Aiming at solving the challenges of automatic recognition for underground pipelines, we propose a recognition method based on a deep learning algorithm, which uses 3-dimensional GPR images and the improved 3D depth-wise separable convolution block. In order to expand the number of samples in the dataset, we propose a data augmentation method based on three-dimensional matrix rotation and use a wavelet-based denoising method to filter out the direct wave interference. To prove the effectiveness and efficiency of our method, we compared the classification performance of the improved 3D depth-wise separable convolutional block with the traditional 3D convolutional block and the ordinary 3D depth-wise separable convolutional block under the same conditions. According to the experiment's results, the number of parameters of the method we proposed is 66.9% less than that of the traditional 3D convolution method, while the classification performance is similar. Furthermore, compared with ordinary 3D depth-wise separable convolution, our method can significantly improve the classification and recognition ability of the neural network, while the number of calculations and the number of parameters remain almost the same. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of 3D-CNN in the field of GPR image interpretation. An improved 3D depth-wise separable convolutional block is also proposed. It greatly reduces the amount of calculation and parameters while ensuring classification performance. It is better than the existing algorithms in performance. At the same time, to obtain the position and direction of the pipeline, in this study, a conic fitting method using the Canny operator is proposed to locate the vertices of B-Scan images and record their horizontal and vertical coordinates. This method can estimate the direction of the pipeline and it lays the foundation for future work such as measuring the pipeline depth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A polysaccharide from Gastrodia elata (named GEP-1) was isolated with a DEAE-52 column and Sephadex G-100 column. The structural characteristics showed that GEP-1 was mainly composed of glucose (92.04%), galactose (4.79%) and arabinose (2.19%) with a molecular weight of 76.444 kDa. The polydispersity (Mw/Mn) of GEP-1 was 1.25, indicating that the distribution of molar mass (Mw) was relatively narrow, which suggested that GEP-1 was a homogeneous polysaccharide. Moreover, the molecular conformation plot of the root mean square (RMS) radius (< r g 2 > 1/2) versus Mw yielded a line with a slope less than 0.33 (0.15 ± 0.02), displaying that GEP-1 is a compact and curly spherical molecule in NaNO3 aqueous solution. NMR and methylation analyses revealed that the main chain structure of GEP-1 was α-(1→4)-glucans. Furthermore, it was proven that GEP-1 possessed cytoproliferative and enhancing phagocytic activities and induced cytokine (TNF-α, IL1-β) and nitric oxide (NO) release in macrophages by upregulating the related gene expression. In addition, the RNA-seq results suggested that the GEP-1-induced immunomodulatory effect was mainly caused by activation of the NF-κB signaling pathway, which was further verified by NF-κB ELISA and pathway inhibition assays. As a result, GEP-1 exhibits the potential to be developed as a novel cheap immunostimulant without obvious toxicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fermentation is one of the most economical and safe methods to improve the nutritional value, sensory quality and functional characteristics of raw materials, and it is also an important method for cereal processing. This paper reviews the effects of microbial fermentation on cereals, focusing on their nutritional value and health benefits, including the effects of fermentation on the protein, starch, phenolic compounds contents, and other nutrient components of cereals. The bioactive compounds produced by fermented cereals have positive effects on health regulation. Finally, the future market development of fermented cereal products is summarized and prospected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanopores have attracted widespread attention in DNA sequencing and protein or biomarker detection, owning to the single-molecule-scale detection accuracy. Despite the most use of naturally biological nanopores before, solid-state nanopores are widely developed with strong robustness, controllable sizes and geometries, a wide range of materials available, as well as flexible manufacturing. Therefore, various techniques typically based on focused ion beam or electron beam have been explored to drill nanopores directly on free-standing nanofilms. To further reduce and sculpt the pore size and shape for nano or sub-nano space-time sensing precision, various controllable shrinking technologies have been employed. Correspondingly, high-energy-beam-induced contraction with direct visual feedback represents the most widely used. The ability to change the pore diameter was attributed to surface tension induced original material migration into the nanopore center or new material deposition on the nanopore surface. This paper reviews typical solid-state nanopore shrinkage technologies, based on the careful summary of their principles and characteristics in particularly size and morphology changes. Furthermore, the advantages and disadvantages of different methods have also been compared completely. Finally, this review concludes with an optimistic outlook on the future of solid-state nanopores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doxorubicin (DOX) is an effective chemotherapeutic agent that plays an unparalleled role in cancer treatment. However, its serious dose-dependent cardiotoxicity, which eventually contributes to irreversible heart failure, has greatly limited the widespread clinical application of DOX. A previous study has demonstrated that the ribonucleotide reductase M2 subunit (RRM2) exerts salutary effects on promoting proliferation and inhibiting apoptosis and autophagy. However, the specific function of RRM2 in DOX-induced cardiotoxicity is yet to be determined. This study aimed to elucidate the role and potential mechanism of RRM2 on DOX-induced cardiotoxicity by investigating neonatal primary cardiomyocytes and mice treated with DOX. Subsequently, the results indicated that RRM2 expression was significantly reduced in mice hearts and primary cardiomyocytes. Apoptosis and autophagy-related proteins, such as cleaved-Caspase3 (C-Caspase3), LC3B, and beclin1, were distinctly upregulated. Additionally, RRM2 deficiency led to increased autophagy and apoptosis in cells. RRM2 overexpression, on the contrary, alleviated DOX-induced cardiotoxicity in vivo and in vitro. Consistently, DIDOX, an inhibitor of RRM2, attenuated the protective effect of RRM2. Mechanistically, we found that AKT/mTOR inhibitors could reverse the function of RRM2 overexpression on DOX-induced autophagy and apoptosis, which means that RRM2 could have regulated DOX-induced cardiotoxicity through the AKT/mTOR signaling pathway. In conclusion, our experiment established that RRM2 could be a potential treatment in reversing DOX-induced cardiac dysfunction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated and intercompared seven near-real-time (NRT) versions of satellite-based precipitation products (SPPs) with latencies of less than one day, including GSMaP-NRT, GSMaP-Gauge-NRT, GSMaP-NOW, IMERG-Early, IMERG-Late, TMPA 3B42RT, and PERSIANN-CCS for wet seasons from 2008 to 2019 in a typical middle–high latitude temperate monsoon climate basin, namely, the Nierji Basin in China, in four aspects: flood sub-seasons, rainfall intensities, precipitation events, and hydrological utility. Our evaluation shows that the cell-scale and area-scale intercomparison ranks of NRT SPPs are similar in these four aspects. The performances of SPPs at the areal scale, at the event scale, and with light magnitude are better than those at the cell scale, at the daily scale, and with heavy magnitude, respectively. Most SPPs are similar in terms of their Pearson Correlation Coefficient (CC). The main difference between SPPs is in terms of their root-mean-square error (RMSE). The worse performances of TMPA 3B42RT are mainly caused by the poor performances during main flood seasons. The worst performances of PERSIANN-CCS are primarily reflected by the lowest CC and the underestimation of precipitation. Though GSMaP-NOW has the highest RMSE and overestimates precipitation, it can reflect the precipitation variation, as indicated by the relatively high CC. The differences among SPPs are more significant in pre-flood seasons and less significant in post-flood seasons. These results can provide valuable guidelines for the selection, correction, and application of NRT SPPs and contribute to improved insight into NRT-SPP retrieval algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thermal inactivation kinetics of kudzu (Pueraria lobata) polyphenol oxidase (PPO) were investigated in model and food systems. PPO in kudzu tissue (tPPO) showed a higher thermostability than that of PPO in crude extract (cPPO) and purification fractions (pPPO). The PPO inactivation rate constant (k) increased with an increase in temperature, and tPPO showed the lowest k value, followed by that of cPPO and pPPO at the same temperature, indicating that PPO in the food system was more resistant to thermal treatment. Food constituents (pectin, starch, sucrose, and bovine serum albumin) in the food system decreased the activity of PPO but increased the thermostability of PPO, among which pectin exhibited the strongest protective effect against thermal inactivation, and the influence of sucrose was much slighter than that of other macromolecules. Fluorescence emission spectra indicated that pPPO exhibited stronger interactions with pectin than sucrose, and pPPO with pectin showed a more stable conformation under thermal treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wavenumber imaging with Green's function reconstruction of ultrasonic diffuse fields is used to realize fast imaging of near-surface defects in rails. Ultrasonic phased array has been widely used in industries because of its high sensitivity and strong flexibility. However, the directly measured signal is always complicated by noise caused by physical limitations of the acquisition system. To overcome this problem, the cross-correlations of the diffuse field signals captured by the probe are performed to reconstruct the Green's function. These reconstructed signals can restore the early time information from the noise. Experiments were conducted on rails with near-surface defects. The results confirm the effectiveness of the cross-correlation method to reconstruct the Green's function for the detection of near-surface defects. Different kinds of ultrasonic phased array probes were applied to collect experimental data on the surface of the rails. The Green's function recovery is related to the number of phased array elements and the excitation frequency. In addition, the duration and starting time of the time-windowed diffuse signals were explored in order to achieve high-quality defect images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultrasonic phased array is widely used for damage detection recently because of its high sensitivity and rapid scanning without sensor movements. However, the measured signal is always influenced by the remnants of the initial excitation and the nonlinear signals from the instrumentation, which limits its application in thin-plate structures. To address this issue, an approach called auto-correlation subtraction is proposed to extract the scattering information of defects in this paper. In order to testify the feasibility of this method for damage detection, the experiments were carried out on three thin aluminum plates combined with the total focusing method (TFM) for imaging. By auto-correlating the full matrix data received by sensors and then subtracting the average auto-correlation of noise recorded by all receivers, the coherent scattered signal containing defect information is recovered. The experimental results indicate that the coherent travel time is in agreement with the theoretical value and the signal-to-noise ratio are improved. Additionally, compared with the cross-correlation technique, the time synchronization between different receivers is not necessary with the auto-correlation method. Results indicate that the presented method can improve the imaging resolution and has a great potential in the field of non-destructive testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]