Search

In this brief reply I respond to criticisms of my book, The referential mechanism of proper names, from Michael Devitt and Nicolo D'Agruma. I focus on the question of whether the perspectivism advocated in the book explains the empirical results there detailed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the first study in the literature that adopts a bibliometric approach to systematically explore the scholarship in the young and fast‐growing research field of experimental philosophy. Based on a corpus of 1,248 publications in experimental philosophy from the past two decades retrieved from the PhilPapers website, the study examined the publication trend, the influential experimental philosophers, the impactful works, the popular publication venues, and the major research themes in this subarea of philosophy. It found, first, an overall growing trend in publications in experimental philosophy, encompassing four developmental stages. Second, it found that significant changes in topics of interest have taken place, with some gaining increasing attention, others seemingly going out of fashion, and still others remaining popular constantly. Third, the study identified lists of leading philosophers, frequently cited publications, and popular journals helpful for researchers and newcomers to get a quick start in learning about the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is defined by atherosclerosis, which may result in stenosis or blockage of the arterial cavity, leading to ischemic cardiac diseases such as angina and myocardial infarction (MI). Accumulating evidence indicates that the gut microbiota play a critical role in the initiation and progression of CHD. The gut microbial metabolite trimethylamine N‐oxide (TMAO) is intimately linked to the pathophysiology of CHD. The hepatic flavin‐containing monooxygenases (FMOs) convert trimethylamine (TMA) to TMAO. As a result, it is critical to prevent TMA generation. Stilbenes could reduce cardiovascular disease mortality. Twelve stilbenes with inhibitory activity against TMA‐lyase were compiled and evaluated in this study. Docking results showed Resveratroloside had the highest Vina score, indicating that it was the most active and might be employed as a lead molecule for further structural modification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poly(4‐thiostyrene), a historically challenging to synthesize polymer, is synthesized herein via a feasible three‐step protocol. Based on the newly developed protection–deprotection strategy, the precursor polymer containing thiomethyl groups is deprotected using Li/naphthalene to yield poly(4‐thiostyrene) after acidification. This newly developed procedure is crucial for preventing crosslinking of the thiol groups and therefore the resulting polymer is soluble in common organic solvents (e.g., chloroform, tetrahydrofuran) and can be stored long‐term, which has been challenging to accomplish over the past 60 years. The successful synthesis is confirmed by various characterization techniques including NMR, Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and Raman analysis, which collectively are new and useful data that have generally been unavailable in previous reports. This work provides a robust approach for synthesizing this promising polymer and offers a new route to investigate thiol‐containing polymers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Many cyber‐attach schemes and coding models established by algebra tools are build to address the problem of security of cyber‐pysical systems (CPS). As an important field of algebra computing, Boolean Polynomial System Solving (PoSSo) problem plays a very important role in many algebra applications. In this article, we propose an efficient Parallel Boolean Characteristic Set method (PBCS) under the high‐performance computing environment to improve the efficiency of solving Boolean polynomial systems. The PBCS is implemented based on the state‐of‐the‐art Boolean Characteristic Set method (BCS). It adopts a master‐slave parallel pattern, and distributes tasks based on the polynomial sets after initial zero decomposition. We design a strategy of dynamically reallocating tasks to ameliorate load imbalance, which is caused by dynamical zero decomposition of polynomials. Furthermore, we improve its performance by optimizing the parameter settings of PBCS, including the maximum number of polynomial branches that trigger the dynamic allocation policy and the scheduling time. Experimental results with solving several Boolean polynomial systems confirm that PBCS is efficient and scalable, especially for the equations generating from stream ciphers that have block triangular structure. Moreover, the method also has good scalability. It shows a stable speedup as well even extending to the size of thousands of CPU cores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exosomes are cell‐derived extracellular vesicles that hold promise for diagnosis and therapy. The surface characteristics of exosomes dictate their biological fate and are therefore important for various applications, however surface modification strategies are generally either limited in scope or require complex equipment or experimental procedures. Herein, we employ a simple and fast method to control the surface properties of exosomes via polydopamine coating. Specifically, the polydopamine coating allowed for tailorable functionalization via secondary reactions, which opens exciting avenues for the application of exosomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaporation duct is an abnormal refraction atmospheric stratification frequently appearing at sea. Accurately obtaining evaporation duct height (EDH) is significant for the effective application of electromagnetic system equipment. To overcome the limitations of theoretical prediction models, this study proposes a pure data-driven back propagation neural network (BPNN) EDH prediction model (referred to as BPNN model) for the first time, which uses BPNN suitable for the data characteristics of evaporation duct and then conducts two groups of experiments to fully test the proposed BPNN model. The Paulus–Jeske (PJ) model and support vector regression (SVR) model are introduced as the baseline methods in these experiments. The results of the first group of experiments prove that on the EDH prediction in all the experimental areas, the BPNN model has significantly better comprehensive performances than the PJ model and the SVR model. Also, the second group of experiments' results reflects the BPNN model has great generalisation capacity, which makes it suitable for predicting the EDH, and the distributions of EDH have a strong spatial correlation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and objectives: Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) is a promising nutritious cereal known for its rich nutrition and diverse physiological activities. In order to further investigate the profiles and physiological activities of phenolic compounds from quinoa, the composition of free and bound phenolic extracts from white, red, and black quinoa were analyzed, as well as their antioxidant, anti‐inflammatory, and antitumor activities. Findings: Total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC) ranged from 514.03 to 1,409.54 mg gallic acid equivalent (GAE)/100g and 177.49 to 407.75 mg rutin equivalent (RE)/100 g, respectively. TPC existed mainly in bound form in red and black quinoa, but free form in white quinoa. Eight individual phenolic acids were detected, with the total acids amount ranging from 86.21 to 188.76 µg/g. Protocatechuic acid was the dominant phenolic acid both in red and black quinoa. Red quinoa showed the highest TPC and TFC, while black quinoa had the highest phenolic acids concentration. Red quinoa also showed the best ABTS and DPPH radical scavenging activities. Positive correlations were found among antioxidant activity and phenolic components. Besides, phenolics from red and black quinoa showed better anti‐inflammatory and antitumor activity by down‐regulating the NO production and inhibiting the proliferation of MCF‐7 cells. Conclusions: Quinoa seed is rich in phenolic components, especially the red and black one. Higher phenolic contents in red and black quinoa can be responsible for their superior antioxidant, anti‐inflammatory, and antitumor activities. With potential health benefits, quinoa phenolics may be used as ingredients for functional food. Significance and novelty: Findings of this study revealed useful information on phenolics and bioactivity of quinoa for its cultivation and breeding with functional oriented purpose. The results could be also applied in health food industry for quinoa material selection and processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaporation duct is a special atmospheric stratification that always exists at sea, which has an important influence on electromagnetic wave propagation. Accurate prediction of evaporation duct height is of great significance for radio information system. In the era of big data, machine learning has been widely used in various research work and achieved a series of excellent results. Based on the observation data method, this paper studies the prediction model using Gradient Boosting Regression algorithm (GBR) and proposes the pure data‐driven GBR (PDD_GBR), GBR_Paulus‐Jeske (GBR_PJ), and GBR_Babin‐Young‐Carton (GBR_BYC) evaporation duct prediction models. Simultaneously, traditional Paulus‐Jeske (PJ) model, Babin‐Young‐Carton (BYC) model, and existing SVR_PJ model are introduced into the experiment to make a comparison. The comprehensive performance of PDD_GBR model is optimal among these models with high stability and strong generalization ability, whose prediction accuracy has a great promotion compared with other models. Key Points: We propose the pure data‐driven GBR (PDD_GBR) model of new evaporation duct prediction modelPDD_GBR model is optimal among these models in experimental area, whose prediction accuracy has a greater promotion than other modelsCompared with PJ and SVR_PJ model, RMSE is reduced by 84.6% and 54.1%, respectively, and SCC is increased by 102.3% and 40.3%, respectively [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve the commercial and nutritional quality of Chinese steamed bread (CSB), effect of extruded adzuki bean flour (EABF) substitution (10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%) for wheat flour on the quality properties of blended flour and CSB was studied. Results showed that the development time, stability time, and farinograph quality number of blended flours were decreased with EABF addition, although water absorption and softening degree were increased. Pasting properties of them were also degraded with the addition. EABF substitution lowered the lightness and strengthened the hardness of CSB. The sensory evaluation total scores of CSB were both improved with 10% and 20% EABF addition, because slight red color of them was favored by the panelist. Nutritional analysis showed that CSB with 10% and 20% EABF ranked higher protein and essential amino acids content than that of WF‐CSB, especially lysine and threonine. Addition of EABF contributed to the superior α‐glucosidase inhibitory activity of protein isolated from CSBs. α‐Glucosidase inhibition rate of CSB made from EABF (39.88%) was improved nearly five times compared with that of WF. It might be concluded that CSB with addition of 10% and 20% EABF could be used as a nutritional and healthy staple food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current industry practices for large-scale mammalian cell cultures typically employ a standard platform fed-batch process with fixed volume bolus feeding. Although widely used, these processes are unable to respond to actual nutrient consumption demands from the culture, which can result in accumulation of by-products and depletion of certain nutrients. This work demonstrates the application of a fully automated cell culture control, monitoring, and data processing system to achieve significant productivity improvement via dynamic feeding and media optimization. Two distinct feeding algorithms were used to dynamically alter feed rates. The first method is based upon on-line capacitance measurements where cultures were fed based on growth and nutrient consumption rates estimated from integrated capacitance. The second method is based upon automated glucose measurements obtained from the Nova Bioprofile FLEX® autosampler where cultures were fed to maintain a target glucose level which in turn maintained other nutrients based on a stoichiometric ratio. All of the calculations were done automatically through in-house integration with a Delta V process control system. Through both media and feed strategy optimization, a titer increase from the original platform titer of 5 to 6.3 g/L was achieved for cell line A, and a substantial titer increase of 4 to over 9 g/L was achieved for cell line B with comparable product quality. Glucose was found to be the best feed indicator, but not all cell lines benefited from dynamic feeding and optimized feed media was critical to process improvement. Our work demonstrated that dynamic feeding has the ability to automatically adjust feed rates according to culture behavior, and that the advantage can be best realized during early and rapid process development stages where different cell lines or large changes in culture conditions might lead to dramatically different nutrient demands. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2013; 110: 191-205. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NS0 cells require exogenous cholesterol for growth. The non-glutamine synthetase (GS) cholesterol-dependent NS0 host was treated with 5-azacytidine (5azaC), a demethylation drug, and adapted to grow in cholesterol-free, chemically defined medium. Within 7 weeks, a stable, cholesterol-independent NS0 host (NS0.CF) was obtained. The new NS0.CF host, as well as the original cholesterol auxotroph host, was transfected with the same mAb expression plasmid, and the top producing clone from both hosts were compared side-by-side in the enhanced platform fed-batch cultures using chemically defined media. The NS0.CF derived clone significantly out-performed the cholesterol-dependent clone, with titer reaching 4.5 g/L versus 3.0 g/L, respectively, mainly due to higher specific productivity, while key product quality attributes remained comparable. This work demonstrated an effective and rapid approach to generate a cholesterol-independent NS0 host, and its application in recombinant protein production. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2012; 109:1685-1692. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lactate has long been regarded as one of the key metabolites of mammalian cell cultures. High levels of lactate have clear negative impacts on cell culture processes, and therefore, a great amount of efforts have been made to reduce lactate accumulation and/or to induce lactate consumption in the later stage of cultures. However, there is virtually no report on the impact of lactate depletion after initial accumulation. In this work, we observed that glucose uptake rate dropped over 50% at the onset of lactate consumption, and that catabolism of alanine due to lactate depletion led to ammonium accumulation. We explored the impact of feeding lactate as well as pyruvate to the cultures. In particular, a strategy was employed where CO2 was replaced by lactic acid for culture pH control, which enabled automatic lactate feeding. The results demonstrated that lactate or pyruvate can serve as an alternative or even preferred carbon source during certain stage of the culture in the presence of glucose, and that by feeding lactate or pyruvate, very low levels of ammonia can be achieved throughout the culture. In addition, low levels of pCO2 were also maintained in these cultures. This was in strong contrast to the control cultures where lactate was depleted during the culture, and ammonia and pCO2 build-up were significant. Culture growth and productivity were similar between the control and lactate-fed cultures, as well as various product quality attributes. To our knowledge, this work represents the first comprehensive study on lactate depletion and offers a simple yet effective strategy to overcome ammonia and pCO2 accumulation that could arise in certain cultures due to early depletion of lactate. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2012; 109:1173-1186. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dielectric spectroscopy was used to analyze typical batch and fed-batch CHO cell culture processes. Three methods of analysis (linear modeling, Cole–Cole modeling, and partial least squares regression), were used to correlate the spectroscopic data with routine biomass measurements [viable packed cell volume, viable cell concentration (VCC), cell size, and oxygen uptake rate (OUR)]. All three models predicted offline biomass measurements accurately during the growth phase of the cultures. However, during the stationary and decline phases of the cultures, the models decreased in accuracy to varying degrees. Offline cell radius measurements were unsuccessfully used to correct for the deviations from the linear model, indicating that physiological changes affecting permittivity were occurring. The β-dispersion was analyzed using the Cole–Cole distribution parameters Δℇ (magnitude of the permittivity drop), fc (critical frequency), and α (Cole–Cole parameter). Furthermore, the dielectric parameters static internal conductivity (σi) and membrane capacitance per area (Cm) were calculated for the cultures. Finally, the relationship between permittivity, OUR, and VCC was examined, demonstrating how the definition of viability is critical when analyzing biomass online. The results indicate that the common assumptions of constant size and dielectric properties used in dielectric analysis are not always valid during later phases of cell culture processes. The findings also demonstrate that dielectric spectroscopy, while not a substitute for VCC, is a complementary measurement of viable biomass, providing useful auxiliary information about the physiological state of a culture. © 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog., 2010 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: Dopamines; Exosomes; Vesicles; PEGylation EN Dopamines Exosomes Vesicles PEGylation 562 562 1 06/07/21 20210601 NES 210601 B Exosomes were non-covalently functionalized b using the self-polymerization of dopamine and subsequent PEGylation via Thiol-Michael addition. This rapid and versatile exosome coating method improved the colloidal stability of exosomes and endowed them with tunable fluorescence and coating thickness. Dopamines, Exosomes, Vesicles, PEGylation. [Extracted from the article]