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We investigated the effects of stoichiometry on photovoltages and photocurrents in CuBi2O4 thin-film photocathodes grown by pulsed laser deposition under different oxygen partial pressures to manipulate their stoichiometry. While the X-ray diffraction patterns show crystalline phases in the CuBi2O4 thin films, it is found that the Cu/Bi ratio of the CuBi2O4 thin films varied from ~0.3 to ~0.5 which are analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The slightly off-stoichiometric CuBi2O4 thin-film photocathode with a Cu/Bi ratio of ~0.44 shows the highest photocurrent density in the CuBi2O4 thin films. More interestingly, the off-stoichiometric CuBi2O4 thin-film photocathode with a Cu/Bi ratio of ~0.44 exhibited a stable open-circuit voltage difference of ~0.2 V RHE without severe degradation over time. On the other hand, the photovoltage of the stoichiometric CuBi2O4 thin-film photocathode with a Cu/Bi ratio of ~0.5 gradually decreased as a function of time. Our results suggest that stoichiometry manipulation can be one of the promising strategies to achieve long-term stable Cu-based oxide photocathodes with the maintenance of a stable photovoltage.

In this study, the effects of heat-treatment temperature and hot-end coating (HEC) by spray coating on the mechanical properties and reliability of lightweight glass bottles were investigated. When the chemical strengthening occurred at Tg, the hardness and impact strength increased by 163% and 198%, respectively. All specimens exhibited improved mechanical properties with chemical strengthening, regardless of the HEC. The strengthening effect was relatively large in the absence of HEC. However, the distribution of the impact strength was smaller when HEC was applied. Compared to non-HEC bottles, HEC glass bottles had higher Weibull modulus values after chemical strengthening, which increased their reliability. Therefore, it is possible to chemically strengthen a lightweight glass bottle by spray-coating. Chemically strengthened lightweight glass bottles with excellent mechanical properties and high reliability can be produced when both HEC and chemical strengthening are applied.

Lutein is an important antioxidant that quenches free radicals. The stability of lutein and hence compatibility for food fortification is a big challenge to the food industry. Encapsulation can be designed to protect lutein from the adverse environment (air, heat, light, pH). In this study, we determined the impact of mixed biopolymer systems based on bovine and caprine caseins, yeast β-glucan, and maltodextrin as wall systems for microencapsulating lutein dispersed in emulsified lipid carriers by spray drying. The performance of these wall systems at oil/water interfaces is a key factor affecting the encapsulation of lutein. The highest encapsulation efficiency (97.7%) was achieved from the lutein microcapsules prepared with the mixed biopolymer system of caprine αs1-II casein, yeast β-glucan, and maltodextrin. Casein type and storage time affected the stability of lutein. The stability of lutein was the highest (64.57%) in lutein microcapsules prepared with the mixed biopolymer system of caprine αs1-II casein, yeast β-glucan, and maltodextrin, whereas lutein microcapsules prepared with the biopolymer system of bovine casein, yeast β-glucan, and maltodextrin had the lowest (56.01%). The stability of lutein in the lutein microcapsules dramatically decreased during storage time. The antioxidant activity of lutein in the lutein microcapsules was closely associated with the lutein concentration.

The food industry has increasingly added nutrients and other ingredients to products to enhance their health benefits. Fucoxanthin is recognized for its benefits in mitigating obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and inflammation. Therefore, addition of fucoxanthin into goat milk yogurt, its stability, and the physicochemical properties of yogurt during processing and storage was investigated. Yogurts with and without fucoxanthin were manufactured by mixing goat whole milk (82.85%, w/w), powdered goat milk (10.68%, w/w), and sugar (6.47%, w/w). Fucoxanthin (0.052 mg/g of yogurt mix) was added to the treatment. The mix was heated at 80 °C for 30 min, cooled, inoculated with a culture, and incubated at 43 °C for 5 h. Fucoxanthin in the yogurt mix and yogurt was quantified by an HPLC method. The recoveries of fucoxanthin from the mix before and after heating were 98.25% and 98.83%, respectively. However, less fucoxanthin (90.13%) was recovered from the freshly prepared yogurt than from the mix. Heating the yogurt mix did not affect the concentration of fucoxanthin but adding the inoculum to the mix reduced its concentration during fermentation. During the storage period, the concentration of fucoxanthin in yogurt remained the same. Fucoxanthin did not adversely affect the chemical composition and physicochemical properties of yogurt, but it influenced the color, decreasing lightness (81.47 ± 0.09), and increasing redness (7.67 ± 0.09) and yellowness (38.24 ± 0.09). Thus, goat milk yogurt can be an effective food matrix to deliver fucoxanthin to human diet.

The incorporation of hydrophobic ingredients, such as resveratrol (a fat-soluble phytochemical), in nanoemulsions can increase the water solubility and stability of these hydrophobic ingredients. The nanodelivery of resveratrol can result in a marked improvement in the bioavailability of this health-promoting ingredient. The current study hypothesized that resveratrol can bind to caprine casein, which may result in the preservation of the biological properties of resveratrol. The fluorescence spectra provided proof of this complex formation by demonstrating that resveratrol binds to caprine casein in the vicinity of tryptophan amino acid residues. The caprine casein/resveratrol complex is stabilized by hydrophobic interactions and hydrogen bonds. Hence, to study the rate of resveratrol degradation during processing/storage, resveratrol losses were determined by reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) in nanoemulsions stabilized by bovine and caprine caseins individually and in combination with polysorbate-20. At 48 h oxidation, 88.33% and 89.08% was left of resveratrol in the nanoemulsions stabilized by caprine casein (&alpha, s1-I)/polysorbate-20 complex and caprine (&alpha, s1-II)/polysorbate-20 complex, while there was less resveratrol left in the nanoemulsions stabilized by bovine casein/polysorbate-20 complex, suggesting that oxygen degradation was involved. The findings of this study are crucial for the food industry since they imply the potential use of caprine casein/polysorbate-20 complex to preserve the biological properties of resveratrol.

In article number 1900301, Sanghan Lee and co‐workers report a multi‐heterojunction MoS2/WS2/WSe2 thin film catalyst which improves photogenerated electron transfer from photocathode to the electrolyte for effective photoelectrochemical hydrogen evolution. The designed MoS2/WS2/WSe2 thin film is uniformly deposited on centimeter‐scale silicon photocathode through a direct in situ growth process.

Lack of essential amino acids (EAA) in the diet of at-risk populations could beget a state of food insecurity. Plant proteins are deficient in some essential amino acids. Animals obtain EAA from plant sources. Simple biotechnologies are being developed for improving the EAA composition of crop proteins. The aim was to integrate-discriminate glycolysis and citric-glyoxylic acid cycles to optimize biosynthesis of EAA in food crops. Permutation of diverse metabolic pathways at the mRNA level by glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH)-synthesized RNA is a common biotechnology for doubling the nutritious compositions of plants. Peanuts were planted in plots and treated with mineral salts mixed according to stoichiometric ratios. Protein-bounded and free amino acids of mature peanut seeds were determined by HPLC. GDH-synthesized RNA probes homologous to the mRNAs encoding glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), phosphoglycerate mutase (PGlycM), phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPCase), enolase, malate dehydrogenase (MDH), isocitrate lyase (ICL), and malate synthase (MS) were prepared from peanut seeds using restriction fragment double differential display PCR method. Northern assays of peanut total RNA showed that the mRNAs encoding PGlycM, PEPCase, MDH, and MS shared extensive sequence homologies that produced a dense network of cross-talks, resulting to co-differential silencing of the mRNAs thereby permuting glycolysis, citric-glyoxylic acid cycles. There were 42 permutations in the NPPKtreated, 105 in control, 420 in KN-, and NPKS-treated peanuts. Because of permutations involving the mRNAs encoding ICL and MS, wherever the abundances of these mRNAs were high (control, and NPPK-treated peanuts) the concentrations of the α-ketoglutarate group of total glutamate, glutamine, arginine, proline, and histidine were minimized (28.0 mg/g). The integration of glycolysis, citric and glyoxylic acid cycles increased the quality and doubled the concentrations of the protein-bounded EAA composition of NPPK-treated (33.37 mg/g) compared with the control peanut (15.66 mg/g). The commanding biotechnology was the stoichiometric mineral salts-based induction of GDH to synthesize the RNAs that integrated glycolysis, citric-glyoxylic acid cycles to one functional unit.

Phyla (Lippia) dulcis contains hernundulcin sesquiterpene zero-caloric sweetener that is about a thousand times sweeter than sucrose, and also bitter constituents including camphor and limonene. There is yet no simple method to remove the undesirable constituents. The yield of sweetener hernundulcin is very low, and there is no simple method to maximize its composition. The aim of the project was to characterize the mRNA targets that regulate the primary and terpenoid metabolic enzymes of P. dulcis. Restriction fragment differential display polymerase chain reaction of P. dulcis glutamate dehydrogenase-synthesized RNA showed that many mRNAs encoding β-caryophyllene, (+)-epi-α-bisabolol, bicyclogermacrene, bifunctional sesquiterpene, and geraniol synthases shared sequence homologies with ribulose-1,5-bisphophatase carboxylase, granule-bound starch synthase, pyruvate kinase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, and phosphoenol pyruvate carboxylase. Sequence similarities between mRNAs encoding primary metabolic enzymes and terpene synthases suggested that photosynthesis could regulate terpenoid metabolism in order to increase the yield of sweetener hernundulcin.

The identification of an appropriate multivariate copula for capturing the dependence structure in multivariate data is not straightforward. The reason is because standard multivariate copulas (such as the multivariate Gaussian, Student-t, and exchangeable Archimedean copulas) lack flexibility to model dependence and have other limitations, such as parameter restrictions. To overcome these problems, vine copulas have been developed and applied to many applications. In order to reveal and fully understand the complex and hidden dependence patterns in multivariate data, a mixture of D-vine copulas is proposed incorporating D-vine copulas into a finite mixture model. As a D-vine copula has multiple parameters capturing the dependence through iterative construction of pair-copulas, the proposed model can facilitate a comprehensive study of complex and hidden dependence patterns in multivariate data. The proposed mixture of D-vine copulas is applied to simulated and real data to illustrate its performance and benefits.

We propose a new partial correlation approach using Gaussian copula. Our empirical study found that the Gaussian copula partial correlation has the same value as that which is obtained by performing a Pearson's partial correlation. With the proposed method, based on canonical vine and d-vine, we captured direct interactions among eight histone genes.

The 0.25-mL French straw has been thoroughly studied and compared with the 0.5-mL French straw for about 40 yr. The 0.25-mL straw has some distinct advantages over the 0.5-mL straw in terms of storage efficiency and extender usage. The 0.25-mL straw is more sensitive to temperature change, which may be an advantage in some freezing systems with a slow freezing rate, but provides no advantage when the freezing rate is accelerated to optimize freezing in 0.5-mL straws. Disadvantages of the 0.25-mL straw include increased sensitivity to post-thaw temperature change, slightly more difficult handling, and inferior readability. Fertility of cattle inseminated with extended semen packaged in 0.25-mL straws assessed in 13 studies (>770,000 inseminations) had a weighted advantage of 0.9% (0.7% unweighted advantage) compared with semen packaged in 0.5-mL straws. In 2 studies in which palpated conception rates were obtained, the weighted advantage of the 0.25-mL versus the 0.5-mL straw was 0.2% (0.4% unweighted advantage). Paired t-tests did not detect a significant difference in pregnancy outcome between straw sizes. Logistic regression of all 15 studies (>780,000 inseminations) detected large variation among studies and tended to detect a small advantage for the 0.25-mL straw. Meta-analyses applied to fixed- or random-effect models of all 15 studies indicated the average odds of having a greater pregnancy outcome with the 0.25-mL straw were either 3 or 4% greater. Based on these odds ratios, the expected proportion of difference in pregnancy outcome translated into a difference of 0.74%. These small differences in pregnancy outcomes do not provide compelling evidence that a transition from 0.50- to 0.25-mL straws in the United States is warranted, especially given the added negative aspects of semen handling and the greater potential for technician x straw type interactions among herdsman inseminators.

Dust generated during grain handling can pose a safety and health hazard and is an air pollutant. This study was conducted to characterize the particle size distribution (PSD) of dust generated during handling of wheat and shelled corn in the research elevator of the USDA Grain Marketing and Production Research Center and determine the effects of grain lot, repeated transfer, and grain types on the PSD. Dust samples were collected on glass fiber filters with high volume samplers from the lower and upper ducts upstream of the cyclone dust collectors. A laser diffraction analyzer was used to measure the PSD of the collected dust. For wheat, the size distribution of dust from the upper and lower ducts showed similar trends among grain lots but differed between the two ducts. The percentages of particulate matter (PM)-2.5, PM-4, and PM-10 were 5.19%, 9.81%, and 34.1% of the total wheat dust, respectively. The total dust mass flow rate was 0.94 g/s (equivalent to 64.6 g/t of wheat handled). For shelled corn, the size distributions of the dust samples from the upper and lower ducts also showed similar trends among transfers but differed between the two ducts. The percentages of PM-2.5, PM-4, and PM-10 were 7.45%, 9.98%, and 28.8% of the total shelled corn dust, respectively. The total dust mass flow rate was 2.91 g/s (equivalent to 185.1 g/t of corn handled). Overall, the corn and wheat differed significantly in the size distribution and the rate of total dust generated.

A study was conducted to test the hypothesis that injecting Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) concurrently with Prostaglandin F2 alpha ( P G F 2 𝛼 ) followed by an injection of human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG), would advance follicular growth to ovulation in Holstein heifers bearing a corpus luteum (CL). After manual examination of the CL, group 1 (PGF; 𝑛 = 1 2 ) received an injection of P G F 2 𝛼 (25 mg, im). Group 2 (PGF + GnRH; 𝑛 = 1 3 ) received an injection of GnRH (100 μg, im) immediately after an injection of P G F 2 𝛼 . Group 3 (PGF + GnRH + hCG; 𝑛 = 1 2 ) received concurrent injections of P G F 2 𝛼 and GnRH followed with hCG (1500 IU, im) two days later. Follicular size and day of ovulation were monitored by daily ultrasonographic examination from days 1 to 10. Blood was collected on days-7, 0 ( P G F 2 𝛼 administration), 2, and 7. Progesterone was not different ( 𝑃 > . 0 5 ) on days-7, 0, and 2 between the experimental groups. However, it was higher ( 𝑃 < . 0 0 5 ) in the PGF + GnRH + hCG group on day 7 compared to PGF + GnRH heifers, but not significantly higher than the PGF. Additionally, heifers in the PGF + GnRH + hCG group ovulated earlier ( 𝑃 < . 0 5 ) than heifers in the PGF + GnRH and the PGF group. This data indicates that hCG advances follicular growth to ovulation in spite of high levels of progesterone when injected 48 h after concurrent treatments of GnRH and P G F 2 𝛼 on heifers bearing a CL.

Background/Objectives: For efficient PhotoVoltaic (PV) power generation, computing and information technologies are increasingly used in irradiance forecasting and correction. Methods/Statistical Analysis: Today the majority of PV modules are used for grid-connected power generation, so solar generation forecasting that predicts available PV output ahead is essential for integrating PV resources into electricity grids. This paper proposes a short-term solar power forecasting system that employs Neural Network (NN) models to forecast irradiance and PV power. Results: The proposed system uses the weather observations of a ground weather station, the medium-term weather forecasts of a physical model, and the short-term weather forecasts of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model as input. To increase prediction accuracy, the proposed system performs forecast corrections and determines the correction coefficients based on the characteristics and temperature of PV modules. The proposed system also analyzes the inclination angle of PV modules to predict PV power outputs. Conclusion/Application: In the future, the proposed forecasting system for solar power generation resources will be further refined and run in real environments.

Background Genes interact with each other as basic building blocks of life, forming a complicated network. The relationship between groups of genes with different functions can be represented as gene networks. With the deposition of huge microarray data sets in public domains, study on gene networking is now possible. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the reconstruction of gene networks from gene expression data. Recent work includes linear models, Boolean network models, and Bayesian networks. Among them, Bayesian networks seem to be the most effective in constructing gene networks. A major problem with the Bayesian network approach is the excessive computational time. This problem is due to the interactive feature of the method that requires large search space. Since fitting a model by using the copulas does not require iterations, elicitation of the priors, and complicated calculations of posterior distributions, the need for reference to extensive search spaces can be eliminated leading to manageable computational affords. Bayesian network approach produces a discretely expression of conditional probabilities. Discreteness of the characteristics is not required in the copula approach which involves use of uniform representation of the continuous random variables. Our method is able to overcome the limitation of Bayesian network method for gene-gene interaction, i.e. information loss due to binary transformation. Results We analyzed the gene interactions for two gene data sets (one group is eight histone genes and the other group is 19 genes which include DNA polymerases, DNA helicase, type B cyclin genes, DNA primases, radiation sensitive genes, repaire related genes, replication protein A encoding gene, DNA replication initiation factor, securin gene, nucleosome assembly factor, and a subunit of the cohesin complex) by adopting a measure of directional dependence based on a copula function. We have compared our results with those from other methods in the literature. Although microarray results show a transcriptional co-regulation pattern and do not imply that the gene products are physically interactive, this tight genetic connection may suggest that each gene product has either direct or indirect connections between the other gene products. Indeed, recent comprehensive analysis of a protein interaction map revealed that those histone genes are physically connected with each other, supporting the results obtained by our method. Conclusion The results illustrate that our method can be an alternative to Bayesian networks in modeling gene interactions. One advantage of our approach is that dependence between genes is not assumed to be linear. Another advantage is that our approach can detect directional dependence. We expect that our study may help to design artificial drug candidates, which can block or activate biologically meaningful pathways. Moreover, our copula approach can be extended to investigate the effects of local environments on protein-protein interactions. The copula mutual information approach will help to propose the new variant of ARACNE (Algorithm for the Reconstruction of Accurate Cellular Networks): an algorithm for the reconstruction of gene regulatory networks.