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Xiaomin Li,&ast; Qiuwen Tan,&ast; Hongjiang Li, Xiaoqin Yang Department of Breast Surgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Xiaoqin YangDepartment of Breast Surgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, No. 37 Guoxue Alley, Wuhou District, Chengdu City, 610041, Sichuan Province, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86-18980605792Email XiaoqinYang2019@outlook.comBackground: Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is connected with the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) and prognosis. In addition, residual lymph node burden after NAC is likely important for prognosis. However, most studies have focused on the predictive value of NLR for NAC pathological complete response (pCR) rate. The relationship between NLR and post-operative residual lymph node ratio (LNR), and their prognostic values remain to be determined.Methods: We retrospectively studied 282 patients with breast cancer who underwent curative surgery after NAC from 2008 to 2018. We collected pretreatment NLR in peripheral blood, the response to NAC, and the amount of axillary lymph nodes (positive and total) from patients who received axillary lymph node dissection (ALND). We followed up all patients from 2 to 116 months, with an average of 63 months. We analyzed the predictive value of pretherapeutic NLR in peripheral blood on the response of NAC, including pCR rate and postoperative LNR. The prognostic value of NLR and LNR was also analyzed.Results: A pCR was achieved in 20 (27.0%) of 74 patients with low NLR, and 34 (16.3%) of 208 with high NLR (P = 0.045). In luminal A and luminal B tumors, patients with high NLR tended to have elevated LNR (LNR> 0.5; P=0.041). In Kaplan–Meier analysis, overall survival of patients with low NLR (NLR < 1.8; P = 0.033) was longer than that of patients with high NLR (NLR ≥ 1.8). Moreover, by multivariable analysis, LNR was negatively correlated with overall survival (P < 0.05) and disease-free survival (DFS) (P < 0.05).Conclusion: pCR rate, post-operative remaining lymph node involvement and overall survival in all patients who received NAC may be predicted by NLR. Low NLR and LNR may suggest favorable outcomes.Keywords: positive lymph node ratio, pathological complete response, lymph node ratio, positive lymph node ratio categories

The study aimed to explore the feasibility of an image registration technique for assessing the accuracy of intraoperative osteotomy of pelvic tumors by 3-dimensional (3D)-printed patient-specific templates. Patients with malignant pelvic tumors who were admitted to our hospital between March 2014 and December 2020 were retrospectively enrolled. Patients underwent hemi-pelvic resection and reconstruction by 3D-printed individualized prostheses. The registration between the designed model and the postoperative segmented model of the prosthesis was used to obtain the intraoperative osteotomy plane and reduce metal artifacts in postoperative computed tomography (CT) images. The distance and angle between the planned and actual osteotomy planes were then used to assess the accuracy of the intraoperative osteotomy. Eight patients with 13 osteotomy planes were enrolled, including four males and four females. The median age at the time of imaging examination was 44 years (range, 33–54 years). All intraoperative osteotomy planes were assessed successfully. The mean distance between the planned and true intraoperative osteotomy planes was −0.69 cm (−7.5–7.35 cm), and the mean angle was 6.57°±3.36° (1.05°–11.88°). This new assessment method of registering the designed model and the postoperative CT segmented model of the prosthesis may be used to assess the accuracy of intraoperative osteotomy for pelvic tumors, using 3D printed patient-specific templates.

Germplasm of industrial brewing yeast of the worldwide have a richer diversity, and various successes in improving the performance of brewing yeasts. However, they are limited in that they have relatively low odds of combining desirable traits in a correct manner. To improve germplasm resource preservation, management, and utilization efficiency. In this study, the genetic diversity of 35 industrial brewing yeasts were analyzed based upon inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers, in which 151 out of 167 SSR loci (90.42%) were polymorphic between two or more strains. Three preliminary core collections were established using ISSR data, and based on three different strategies as follows: an advanced maximization (M) strategy, an allele preferred sampling (A) strategy, and a random sampling (R) strategy. Comparison of genetic parameters, including polymorphic information content, Nei's genetic diversity (H), effective allele number, observed allele number, Shannon's index (I), and principal coordinate analyses, confirmed that all the core collections accurately recapitulated the diversity of the initial germplasm. Considering the loci retention ratio and trait coverage efficiency, Core1 was considered the best core collection.

Based on the three-helix theory, a two-phase evaluation model from human and financial input to knowledge output and from knowledge input to economic output was built, and an appropriate evaluation index system was selected. Data from 2016 to 2018 were used to evaluate the innovation efficiency of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region with DEA model. The results show that from the perspective of regional innovation efficiency, the innovation efficiency of Beijing and Tianjin is effective, while that of Hebei province is not, but it is not far different from that of Beijing and Tianjin. From the perspective of phase innovation efficiency, the efficiency of transforming manpower and financial resources into knowledge output is slightly higher than that of transforming knowledge input into economic output in Hebei province. The efficiency of knowledge output is much higher than that of economic output in Beijing and Tianjin. From the perspective of innovation subjects, universities and enterprises need to enhance the output capacity of scientific research results, while universities and governments need to enhance the output capacity of economy.

The traditional binary image is no longer sufficient to bring richer information in modern production and life. Color images have more information data than binary images. Based on the development of color image models and digital watermarking technology, this paper uses the Arnold scrambling and DWT-DCT method improves the robustness and invisibility of double color digital image watermarking. The encryption method improves the security of the watermark itself to a certain extent.

Sex-specific markers are essential for understanding sex determination mechanism and developing sex detection techniques in aquatic animals. The tropical sea cucumber Stichopus monotuberculatus is a fledgling aquaculture species in southern China. In this study, a total of 399 candidate male-specific and 179 candidate female-specific sequences were obtained after genome assembly, read mapping, and sequencing depth and coverage analyses of the sequenced genomes from three males and three females. Based on the k-mer distribution and sex-specific sequence length distribution, S. monotuberculatus is speculated to belong to a male heterogametic sex determination system. Next, 10 female-specific and 10 male-specific sequences were chosen for a first round verification to identify the true sex-specific markers, and only the male-specific markers could be repeated by PCR examination. The primer pairs for male-specific sequences were subjected to a second round verification, and five of them distinguished the genetic sex of S. monotuberculatus with accuracies of near 100%. Based on one of the male-specific markers (SM-M3), we constructed a rapid and nonharmful PCR-based method for sex identification that was suitable in different geographical populations, and it was successfully applied to distinguish female and male S. monotuberculatus before they were used for artificial spawning. Overall, this study provided evidence of the male heterogametic sex determination system and established an effective way to identify sex in sea cucumbers, and these results may contribute to the aquaculture of these economic species.

To optimize the expression of type A ferulic acid esterase (FaeA) from Aspergillus niger in Pichia pastoris X-33 using codon optimization. Recombinant FaeA was purified from the fermentation broth, with the maximum specific activity of 48.4 ± 0.1 U mg−1. Adding it during mashing process for beer brewing raised the filtration rate by 14.5% while the turbidity and viscosity declined by 22 and 6.9%, respectively. Addition of FaeA increased the concentrations of free ferulic acid (FA) and arabinoxylan (AX) in the wort, while the polymeric arabinoxylans content declined significantly. Recombinant FaeA was capable to prevent the oxidative gelation of PAX formation by breaking the cross-linking of FA among AX chains and improve the filtration performance of wort.

Stichopus monotuberculatus is one of the most valuable tropical sea cucumbers, with high edible, medical and ecological values. In this study, the spawning of S. monotuberculatus was induced by a modified low-temperature stimulation method. Gonadal maturation, and embryonic, larval and juvenile development were described in detail, and larval breeding was improved by diets supplemented with multiple digestive enzymes. July-September resulted as the optimal breeding period of S. monotuberculatus in Hainan Province, China. Low-temperature stimulation was more suitable than traditional dry stimulation as a method for artificially inducing S. monotuberculatus spawning since its low mortality, whose fertilized eggs took approximately 21 days to develop into juveniles. Compared to the control group, the diets with 2 mg/L α-amylase, 2 mg/L cellulase and 5 μL/L trehalase added increased the larval survival rates at 6 days by 21.37 ± 0.054%, 22.57 ± 0.088% and 29.83 ± 0.105%, respectively, and at 10 days by 24.2 ± 0.094%, 30.02 ± 0.152% and 36.44 ± 0.052%, respectively. For the larval settlement rate, supplement of 1 mg/L α-amylase, 1 mg/L cellulase and 5 μL/L trehalase in the diet could cause 5.30 ± 0.521-fold, 2.86 ± 0.521-fold and 4.66 ± 0.656-fold improvements relative to the control group, respectively. This study may contribute an advanced method for the large-scale artificial breeding and sustainable artificial culture of S. monotuberculatus.

In this paper, we propose a practical deep neural network for OFDM symbol equalization and demonstrate its advantages in combating large Doppler Shift. In particular, a novel zero-forcing initialized neural architecture named Cascaded Net (CN) is proposed for equalization, where deep trainable network is cascaded behind a zero-forcing preprocessor to prevent the network getting stuck in a saddle point or a local minimum point. In addition, we propose a sliding equalization approach to detect those OFDM symbols with large number of subcarriers. We also evaluate this novel equalizer, as well as the sliding algorithm, using Rayleigh fading channel with large Doppler shift. The numerical results show this novel equalizer can achieve better performance than zero-forcing equalizer and classical ICI cancellation methods in SISO scenario. Thanks to proper training methods, this equalizer is relatively robust to traditional methods when channel estimation is inaccurate or Doppler shift changes.

Copper (Cu) wire is a good alternative to expensive gold (Au) wire for wire bonding interconnects in many semiconductor and microelectronic applications. However, Cu wire does pose some challenges, like it is harder than Au wire and it easily oxidize in air especially with moisture. Cu oxide layer is not a passivation layer and it will continue to grow. The Cu oxide will hinder the adhesion between wire and pad and lead, causing non-stick-on-pad (NSOP) and non-stick-on-lead (NSOL). Therefore, the shelf life and floor life of Cu wire is much shorter than that of Au wire, and special package and storage techniques are needed for Cu wire. Normally, Cu wire floor life is about 7 days, which means the wire can last for 7 days in clean room after opening the vacuum package.In this work, a batch of Cu wires were found to be severely oxidized in a production clean room, where they were open and hung on the wire bonder after 2-3 days. Surface analysis was conducted on the problematic wire. Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) and X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (XPS) are employed to identify the corrosion products on the Cu wire. The results show that the corrosion products are CuCl and CuO. It is suspected that the chloride (Cl) may come from the Cl-contained floor detergent. Simulation test was conducted to verify the contamination source in the production clean room, and the simulation results match well with the actual results. It is suggested that the assembly houses should use Cl-free detergent in the production room to prevent potential Cl contamination.

The dopant detection limit of SIMS instrument is a critical factor in semiconductor implant process monitoring and control. However, after various substrates are tested in the chamber, possible cross-contamination may lead to change of the detection limit, resulting in the inaccurate measurements and conclusions. In this paper, the cross-contamination effect is simulated with Phosphorus contaminant sputtered over the SIMS chamber. The degree of the cross-contamination is quantified and correlated with the detection limits. One of the failure cases is schematically illustrated and studied.

Background Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a chronic inflammatory rheumatic disease which could lead to pain, functionally limitation and even less life expectancy. Morning stiffness often occur in the patients. Familial aggregation has been found due to genetic susceptiblity of the disease. There are certain difference in the patients with or without familal AS. For example. familial AS patients were reported to show a lower frequency of oligoarthritis [1]. Objectives Our study was to investigate the difference of morning stiffness in the patients with familial AS or sporadic AS. Methods Study participants were recruited from Department of Rheumatology in theThird Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University. Each patient was assessed by at least two qualified rheumatologists, and the diagnosis was made according to 1984 Modified New York Classification Criteria for AS. Through detailed family history, AS patients with 2 or more patients in his/her family who firstly went to our clinic were included as a possible proband. Then the probands broughtthe affected relatives to our clinic for further examination. Or three rheumatologists and two nurses drove to the places where a possible proband’s family member lived. Baseline assessments were completed by trained by using identical questionnaires including demographic information (age, gender), disease related characteristics (back pain, morning stiffness, peripheral arthritis, uveitis, etc.), Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI), and Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index (BASFI). The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 21 was used for all data management and analysis. The difference between familial and sporadic AS patients were examined by using Independent T test or M-U test. Results Of all the 264 AS patients, 175 (66.3%) were males and 89 (33.7%) were female patients. Mean age was 31.0±9.5 years, and disease duration was 7.3±6.7 years. Mean age of disease onset was 23.4±8.5 years. There was no difference between familial and sporadic AS patients in the aspects of age, sex, age of onset and disease duration. However, age of onset of male familial AS patients was significantly lower than that of female patients (21.9±8.4 VS 26.3± 8.2 , p =0.004), while no such sex difference was detected in sporadic patients (22.6±8.1 VS 25.3± 8.6 , p =0.08). Familial patients were inclined to have hip joint involvement, compared with sporadic patients (58.6% VS 9.6, p 0.05). Mean BASDAI score was 3.6±2.0, and mean BASFI score was 1.4±1.8. The BASDAI score was slightly higher in sporadic group (p=0.027). Conclusion Familial AS patients had more hip joint involvement, less morning stiffness and an earlier disease onset, especially in male patients, compared with sporadic patients. Reference [1] Kim, H.W., et al., Phenotype difference between familial and sporadic ankylosing spondylitis in Korean patients. J Korean Med Sci, 2014. 29(6): p.782-7. Disclosure of Interests None declared

During the mashing process for brewing beer, incomplete degradation of arabinoxylan in barley malt may cause an intense filterability problem. The present study cloned a putative arabinofuranosidase (AnAbf), one of the debranching enzymes, from Aspergillus niger, to explore its application for improving filterability. Recombinant AnAbf (rAnAbf) showed activity towards both synthetic and natural substrates, such as 4-nitrophenyl α- l -arabinofuranoside (pNPαAraf) and malt water extractable arabinoxylan (WEAX), which was maximized at a temperature of 50 °C and pH of 5.5. Metal ions did not increase the activity of rAnAbf, indicating a difference in its C-terminal domain from that of type II GH43 family members. rAnAbf also exhibited a synergistic effect with β-xylanase against WEAX. The filtration rate of the wort increased by 12.8% after supplementing with rAnAbf during the initial stage of mashing. A slight decrease in viscosity and an unexpected increase in turbidity were observed.

This study developed a multiple-parameter equilibration-based kilning technology optimization method with a Box–Behnken factorial design and response surface methodology, assessing 10 kinds of indexes from multiple perspectives, including malt stale flavour, malty aroma and sensory evaluation, simultaneously. The results indicated that lipoxygenase (LOX) activity, nonenal potential and sensory score had a tendency to decline, while 4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethyl-3 (2H)-furanone, thiobarbituric acid (TBZ) and stale aldehydes increased with the rise in kilning temperature, the extension of kilning time and withering time. The corresponding second-order mathematical models were established for predicting each parameter. Among them, p-values of a model equation of LOX activity, nonenal potential, 4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethyl-3(2H)-furanone, TBZ, methional and furfural were all 0.9, which indicated that these equations had higher significance and that data in excess of 90% could be explained. Subsequently, the numerical optimization of kilning technology was carried out for balancing these positive or negative parameters and the optimum kilning temperature, kilning time and withering time were found to be 86.35 °C, 3.19 h and 14.00 h, respectively. Compared with the values of the original response, the values of the 10 parameters were optimized from 2.2 to 65.2%. This method offers an ability to monitor malt characteristics to obtain higher quality malt. Further, the method will help maltsters and brewers to comprehensively understand malt with different cultivar genetics and growing environments. Copyright © 2016 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling

The malting barley cultivar greatly affects the quality traits of malt, and thus that of final beer product. A fast, sensitive and quantitative method of barley variety discrimination is needed for maltsters. In the present study, six commonly used varieties in Chinese brewing industry, including the Australia malting barley varieties (Gairdner, Baudin, Hindmarsh and Vlamingh) and Chinese ones (Supi6 and Kenpi7) were selected for new method development. A two-dimensional electrophoresis profile of seed hordeins was obtained to explore the representative markers of each variety. By comparing the hordein profiles, 43 common spots and 14 specific spots that presented in only one barley cultivar gel were investigated and identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight. The blended Gairdner barley samples with a series of purity degrees were obtained by artificial mixing Gairdner seeds with those of Supi6 and Kenpi7 in the laboratory. Standard curves regarding the transcriptional level of hordein marker BMAI-1 to the variety purity of Gairdner were set using quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). Finally, the developed method based on qRT-PCR was shown to be accurate and time-saving compared with the conventional SDS–PAGE method by a double blind experiment. Copyright © 2016 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling

The ability to continuously and reversibly tune the band gap and the strain-photonic coupling effect in optoelectronic materials is highly desirable for fundamentally understanding the mechanism of strain engineering and its applications in semiconductors. However, optoelectronic materials (i.e., GaAs) with their natural brittleness cannot be subject to direct mechanical loading processes, such as tension or compression. Here, we report a strategy to induce continuous strain distribution in GaAs nanoribbons by applying structural buckling. Wavy GaAs nanoribbons are fabricated by transfer printing onto a prestrained soft substrate, and then the corresponding photoluminescence is measured to investigate the strain-photonic coupling effect. Theoretical analysis shows the evolution of the band gap due to strain and it is consistent with the experiments. The results demonstrate the potential application of a buckling configuration to delicately measure and tune the band gap and optoelectronic performance.

As wort is the sweet starter liquid for beer, its quality needs to be strictly controlled. It is generally accepted that wort turbidity is of importance in terms of the brewing process and the resulting beer quality. This study investigated the major ingredients of wort turbidity using the malting barley cultivar Dan'er, grown in Jiangsu province, China. It was found that dextrins of low molecular weight constituted the vast majority of the polysaccharides causing wort turbidity. To solve the turbidity problem with the Dan'er malt, the present study supplemented 80 U g−1 of β-amylase, and as an activator, an extra 50 mg L−1 of Ca2+ to the malting process of Dan'er barley. The turbidity of the resulting congress wort of the Dan'er malt declined to

Polycrystalline semiconductor or metal materials are characterized with numerous grain boundaries between neighboring grains. The grain boundaries show a high degree of mismatch of grain orientation and a less efficient atomic packing. Aggressive ions can diffuse much more easily within grain boundaries; rendering the zone susceptible to oxidation and corrosion, which are one of the root causes for electronic device failures. Therefore, revealing the compositional distribution of grain boundaries can help researchers better understand and improve the chemical, physical and electrical properties of materials. This paper mainly focuses on material characterization of the corroded material, providing useful methods for physical failure analysis in real devices which will be discussed in our future work. Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) is one of the most sensitive techniques for materials analysis. One of its powerful capabilities is to provide 3D images of testing material, demonstrating elemental distribution and microstructure of polycrystalline materials. In this work, common polycrystalline materials used in semiconductors (polysilicon) and metal alloys (304 steel) were studied. TOF-SIMS 3D imaging was used to monitor the diffusion path of moisture and corrosive ions via the grain boundaries. The results indicate that the grain boundaries are vulnerable to attacks of moisture and corrosive ions (CI)

Partial discharge detection is crucial for electrical cable safety evaluation. The ultrasonic signals frequently generated in the partial discharge process contains important characteristic information. However, traditional ultrasonic transducers are easily subject to strong electromagnetic interference in environments with high voltages and strong magnetic fields. In order to overcome this problem, an optical fiber Sagnac interferometer system is proposed for partial discharge ultrasound detection. Optical fiber sensing and time-frequency analysis of the ultrasonic signals excited by the piezoelectric ultrasonic transducer is realized for the first time. The effective frequency band of the Sagnac interferometer system was up to 175 kHz with the help of a designed 10 kV partial discharge simulator device. Using the cumulative histogram method, the characteristic ultrasonic frequency band of the partial discharges was between 28.9 kHz and 57.6 kHz for this optical fiber partial discharge detection system. This new ultrasound sensor can be used as an ideal ultrasonic source for the intrinsically safe detection of partial discharges in an explosive environment.

Premature yeast flocculation (PYF) is a universal phenomenon and has caused serious problems in the brewing industry. For brewing quality control, it is of great value to investigate the PYF factors that induce this destructive phenomenon. In the present study, two barley malts (PYF+ and PYF−), made from the same barley cultivar by one maltster in China, were selected for PYF factor investigations. The results showed that considerably higher amounts of the bound ferulic acid (FA), rather than arabinoxylan (AX), existed in the PYF+ wort compared with the PYF− wort. To better understand the role of these polysaccharides in PYF+ and PYF− wort, they were fractional precipitated with graded ethanol concentrations. The AX and FA contents in each fraction, as well as the molecular weight profiles and monosaccharide composition, were determined. Furthermore, the PYF−inducing activities of each fraction were measured using a small-scale fermentation. It was found that the 40% ethanol-precipitated fraction of both the PYF+ and PYF− wort, and the 60% fraction from the PYF+ wort, could induce the severe PYF phenomenon when added to the PYF− wort. These fractions were proposed to contain PYF factors of suitable molecular weight and a sufficient amount of the polysaccharides. In addition, it was found that the bound FA in arabinoxylan behaved as an important PYF factor in barley malt. The results of this work may contribute to the further study of the PYF mechanism. Copyright © 2015 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling

The microbes associated with barley grains are known to have either deleterious or beneficial effects on the malting process, thereby affecting the quality of malt and even beer. Dan'er barley is the major cultivar grown in Jiangsu Province in China, malt derived from this cultivar, however, invariably causes filtration problems. To understand the microbial community of Dan'er barley and its probable effects on malt quality and subsequent brewing process, the present study combined culture-dependent methods and culture-independent PCR denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (PCR-DGGE) strategies. The results showed that as the dominant microbes, bacterial community structure varied considerably during the malting process, while the fungi load increased at the end of malting process, even in the kilning stage. The great abundance of gram-negative bacteria, which can produce exopolysaccharides and form biofilms, may be the main reason for the filtration defects of Dan'er malt. Pathogenic fungi may also have a negative impact on grain germination and malt nutritional value. Several beneficial lactic acid bacteria and fungi strains were also found. These results may contribute to our knowledge of barley grain-associated microbes, and help optimizing the malting process using the Dan'er barley cultivar to get malt product with better quality.

The malting process is the controlled germination, followed by drying, of the barley grain. For brewing beer, the malting process is modified according to the features of the barley variety being malted. In China, there are two schedules routinely used for malting the widely grown Dan'er cultivar, processes I and II. The quality of malt produced with process II is considered to be superior to that from process I for Dan'er by maltsters and brewers. In the present study, comparative proteomic analysis was performed between Dan'er malts produced by malting processes I and II. The data showed that enzymes and proteins responsible for cell wall polysaccharide degradation and starch and protein hydrolysis were more abundant in malt produced by process II, leading to improved quality, especially for the commercially important filterability, saccharification time, and diastatic power (DP) quality traits. In addition, to verify the proteomic results, the activities of several key enzymes (α-amylase, β-amylase, and limit dextrinase) were compared between the two malts. This enabled the influence of malting process on malt quality to be determined and suggested malting process schedule changes to optimize the malting process for the Dan'er cultivar, especially for improving filterability, which is often deemed as suboptimal by maltsters and brewers.

Barley protein Z7 (BSZ7) is a well-known serine protease inhibitor that was regarded as a major effector of beer foam stability. Moreover, it has also been suggested to participate in haze formation and affect wort filterability. The present study purified BSZ7 from barley malt and characterized its secondary structure and modification, as well as its relationship with peroxidase, to elucidate the molecular base of BSZ7 that supports its multiple roles in malt and beer. It was found that after 30 min of heating, the secondary structure was not affected. BSZ7 has no inhibiting effect on nonspecific protease originated from malt, suggesting its negative role in wort filterability was accomplished by other means. Furthermore, the glycation of BSZ7 by the Maillard reaction may make some contribution to its survival during wort boiling. The interaction of BSZ7 with polysaccharides and polyphenols found by adding experiment may explain how it acts as a negative factor on wort filterability. Greater understanding of BSZ7 and other proteins of malts will lead to better improvements in brewing quality.

In the present study, small-scale fermentations of seven malts from different maltsters in China were used to monitor their premature yeast flocculation (PYF) potential. Husk exchange was applied between PYF negative malt (PYF-) and PYF positive malt (PYF+) to investigate the PYF factors potentially present in the husk. The results showed that PYF factors were present in both malt husk and the non-husk part. The two factors showed various ratios among different PYF+ malts, and either of them could induce PYF if it reached the threshold. Moreover, the major antimicrobial substances damaging the yeast cells were in the non-husk part. Copyright © 2014 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling

Barley malt is essential for beer production. In the present study, the nonprolamin fractions including proteins with structural functions or metabolic activities were extracted from barley malts of the widely used cultivars Gangpi and Baudin in China. The metabolic proteomes (pI 4-7) were constructed and compared using two-dimensional electrophoresis (2DE) followed by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-tandem time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/TOF) identification. There were 333 and 354 spots detected in the 2DE gels of Gangpi and Baudin malts, respectively, and about 90% of these spots were shared by the two malts. For all, 377 were successfully identified to 192 proteins, most of which were enzymes and enzyme inhibitors, suggesting important roles in barley malting and the mashing stage of brewing. The Baudin malt was found to contain more spots representing amylases, pathogen-related proteins, and chaperones than the Gangpi malt. In addition, enzymes involved in glycolysis and redox pathways showed significantly different profiles between the two malts, permitting a more in-depth elucidation of the relationship between differential proteins and malt qualities.

In accordance with the new near-zero emission coal utilization system with combined gasification and combustion, which is based on the CO2 acceptor gasification process, the product gas composition of the gasifier and the combustor was calculated by means of thermodynamic equilibrium calculation software FactSage 5.2. Based on these calculations, the whole system efficiency calculation method that complies with the mass and energy conservation principle was established. To enhance the system efficiency, the system pressure and the gasifier carbon conversion ratio were optimized. The results indicate that the system efficiency increases with increasing pressure and gasifier carbon conversion ratio. After taking into consideration the influence of the pressure and carbon conversion ratio on the performance of the system, the gasifier and the combustor were synthetically studied. The optimum system pressure and carbon conversion ratio were obtained as 2.5 MPa and 0.7, respectively. The system efficiency could reach around 62.1% when operated in these two optimum parameters. If the advanced ion transport membrane (ITM) air separation technology is used, there would be an increase of another 1.3%.

As a major component of non-starch polysaccharide in barley, arabinoxylan (AX) plays an important role in quality traits of malt and the final beer product. The Chinese barley malt has encountered filterability problems for a long time. The main reason caused by barley cultivar has been accepted in the malting and brewing industries. In our previous proteomic study, the peroxidase (POD) BP1 was found to be in quite high abundant in the filterability defect Chinese barley malt. Therefore, the present study tried to verify its negative effect on filterability, by surveying its activity in different malt samples and detecting effects of POD on AX gelation and filterability. The results showed that the activity of POD, as well as the content of AX bounded ferulic acid, were both negatively correlated with filterability, while the feruloyl esterase activity was positively correlated with it. In addition, AX gelation catalyzed by POD caused worse filterability, and the natural inhibitor of POD, vitamin C, could blocked the cross linking catalyzed by POD and thus improve the filterability. These results all suggested the great negative effect of POD on malt filterability.

Flexible and stretchable optoelectronics, built-in inorganic semiconductor materials, offer a wide range of unprecedented opportunities and will redefine the conventional rigid optoelectronics in biological application and medical measurement. However, a significant bottleneck lies in the brittleness nature of rigid semiconductor materials and the performance's extreme sensitivity to the light intensity variation due to human skin deformation while measuring physical parameters. In this study, the authors demonstrate a systematic strategy to design an epidermal inorganic optoelectronic device by using specific strain-isolation design, nanodiamond thinning, and hybrid transfer printing. The authors propose all-in-one suspension structure to achieve the stretchability and conformability for surrounding environment, and they propose a two-step transfer printing method for hybrid integrating III-V group emitting elements, Si-based photodetector, and interconnects. Owing to the excellent flexibility and stretchability, such device is totally conformal to skin and keeps the constant light transmission between emitting element and photodetector as well as the signal stability due to skin deformation. This method opens a route for traditional inorganic optoelectronics to achieve flexibility and stretchability and improve the performance of optoelectronics for biomedical application.

Dan'er is a widely grown malt barley cultivar in China, but its filterability defects have severely impeded its application in beer brewing. Previous investigations have suggested that we should identify the malt filterability correlated proteins, one of which was postulated to be arabinoxylan arabinofuranohydrolase I (AXAH-I). To verify this hypothesis, we purified AXAH-I from Dan'er malt, characterised its enzyme performance, and investigated its influence on filterability by adding different amounts of purified enzyme to the mash. With 6 mU g(-1) malt AXAH-I supplemented, the wort separation rate increased by 31.8%, viscosity decreased by 3.6%, and the endosperm reserve contents declined concomitantly. Unexpectedly, the wort turbidity increased with increasing AXAH-I. We also tried to optimise the use of currently available commercial enzyme products for filterability improvement in beer brewing, by supplementing them with purified AXAH-I and β-amylase. AXAH-I could be a functional component for novel commercial enzyme products in the beer industry.

This paper proposes an optimal PMU placement (OPP) model to make power system observable for normal operation condition as well as controlled islanding scenario. The optimization objective of proposed model is to minimize the number of installed PMUs and then maximize the measurement redundancy. To take advantage of the power network topology, the effect of zero-injection bus is incorporated into the model. Furthermore, additional observability constraints for single PMU or line loss are also derived. At last, test results on IEEE 118-bus system are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

A compact thermal tactile display device with multiple heat sources is proposed in this paper. The device has a 3×3 display units array and a Peltier module. In every display unit, a wire-twined resistance is used as heat component, a minitype NTC thermistor is used as temperature sensor, and an aluminum column is used as heat conduction component for contacting. The Peltier module is used to cool the display units array. Finally, the device was installed on the hand controller, allowing operators to manipulate virtual hand to touch the heat sources in the virtual environment, and its thermal tactile display property was tested. The results showed that the thermal tactile device can display the temperature from 5°C to 55°C, and different temperature field distribution can be displayed on the contact surface of the 3×3 array.

Navigation and obstacle avoidance is essential for an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) to achieve fully autonomous flying through urban environment. For that purpose a new method for navigation and obstacle detecting is presented in this paper. In this method a camera is combined to a GPS/INS integrated navigation for improving navigation precision and detecting obstacle in the environment. A sequence of images is taken by the camera. From those images several feature points are extracted and matched. The direction of camera displacement is obtained by tracking these feature points. Meanwhile the calculated displacement of camera is computed using the output of GPS. So we can observe the error of displacement projection on the image plane to improving navigation precision. At the same time the obstacle information is gain from the sequence images.

Due to the changeability and severity of near-surface wind field, it causes many potential safety hazards when retrieving the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). This thesis designs a control method for resisting the lateral sudden wind based on the sensor on multiple barometric pressures, compared to the traditional method of resisting continuous lateral wind, this method can resist the lateral sudden wind more effectively and enables the UAV to have a faster response and be controlled more stable. Through the verification of stimulation, it shows that, when the lateral sudden wind occurs during the process of retrieving the UAV, this method can better prevent the UAV from being blown away from the airstrip so that cause safety accidents.

A new low power bootstrapped adiabatic logic circuit, Complement Pass-Transistor Bootstrapped Charge-Recovery Logic (CP-BCRL), is presented. CP-BCRL has more efficient energy transfer and recovery due to using the bootstrap technique and adiabatic logic. It consumes less energy and is insensitive to output load capacitance. The HSPICE simulation result is given which use the 0.6-um CMOS technology.