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Though nutritional, the remaining separated duck egg white in duck egg processing plants presents challenges for its transportation and use, as it spoils easily and has a strong odor. Uses for the excess egg white are of paramount concern for agricultural resource reuse. The purpose of this study was to increase its value and use efficiency. Duck egg white was mixed with sodium hydroxide to produce translucent alkali-induced egg white jelly similar to that in preserved egg whites. To develop a heatable translucent egg white jelly, their physiochemical properties and thermal stabilities were investigated. A gel prepared with 150 mM sodium hydroxide at 25°C had optimal bloom strength and the densest microstructure. Storing the jelly at 5°C helped maintain its disulfide bonds and delayed liquefaction. Although heating decreased its bloom strength and total disulfide bond content as temperature increased (P < 0.05), scanning electron microscopy of the heated jelly revealed that the protein network structure was denser than that of unheated jelly. Heating caused parts of the structure to shrink and even dehydrate, leading to a wrinkled surface. However, no signs of liquefaction or collapse were observed, and the free alkali released during heating was lower than that from the white of existing preserved eggs. These results confirmed the thermal stability of the jelly and its potential to be served hot or used in food processing. Furthermore, in addition to disguising the odor and special flavor attributable to the alkaline treatment, adding ginger juice or turmeric to the preparation yielded higher bloom strength, resulted in lower free alkalinity, and delayed liquefaction, thus improving the jelly's thermal stability. Like preserved eggs on the market that can be served in hot congee, the proposed egg white jelly is rich in proteins and suitable for hot or instant serving. These findings may help address the problem of excessive remaining duck egg white created during food processing by diversifying duck egg processing and boosting its value.

Mesoporous (N, S)-codoped TiO2 was simply prepared by a solvothermal method with thiourea as N and S source. The as-prepared products were characterized by XRD, SEM, XPS, BET and UV–vis. The results confirm that N and S have been incorporated into the lattice of anatase TiO2, which brings an obvious red-shift of the absorption edge into visible-light region. Moreover, the codoped products exhibit high photocatalytic activity under the visible-light irradiation.

Two hundred and seventy-three CIMMYT bread wheat cultivars and advanced lines grown under irrigated conditions in Mexico during the 2005-06 Yaqui crop cycle were characterized for quality-related genetic traits using gene-specific markers for some high- and low-molecular-weight glutenin subunit (HMW-GS and LMW-GS) genes, polyphenol oxidase (PPO), phytoene synthase (PSY), and waxy genes. Of them, 142 were analyzed for quality parameters including SDS sedimentation volume (SDS-SV), dough mixing time, and Alveograph parameters, and for HMW-GS and LMW-GS compositions using sodium-dodecyl-sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), and reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). For the Ppo-A1 locus tested with the marker PPO18, the frequencies of alleles Ppo-A1a and Ppo-A1b were 79.1 and 20.2%, respectively, and no PCR fragment was amplified in 2 lines (0.73%), whereas 227 lines (83.2%) contained the allele Ppo-D1a and 46 lines (16.8%) had Ppo-D1b detected by markers PPO16 and PPO29. For the marker YP7A, 142 lines (52.0%) were assumed to have the allele Psy-A1a and 131 lines (48.0%) contained the allele Psy-A1b. In the case of the marker YP7B for the gene Psy-B1, the alleles Psy-B1a and Psy-B1b were detected in 155 (56.8%) and 43 (15.8%) lines, respectively, and 75 (27.4%) lines possessed the allele Psy-B1d detected by the marker YP7B-3. All 273 lines contained the alleles Wx-A1a and Wx-D1a as determined by markers MAG264 and MAG269, respectively. Using the marker Wx-B1, 204 lines (74.7%) were presumed to have the Wx-B1a allele and 69 (25.3%) possessed Wx-B1b. The over-expressing allele of Bx7 OE and subunit By8*, not clearly seen with SDS-PAGE, were detected by RP-HPLC. The numbers of lines with subunits Ax2*, By8, By9, Bx17, Bx20, Dx5, and Glu-B3j were 90, 16, 57, 5, 46, 118, and 33, respectively, in the 142 lines analyzed with molecular markers, and were consistent with the results obtained by SDS-PAGE, except for one line with the 1A.1R translocation. Subunits Ax1 and Ax2* at the Glu-A1 locus showed significantly better effects on all quality parameters than subunit Null. Subunits 5 + 10 gave significantly better effects for all parameters. Subunit Glu-A3b showed more positive effects than its alternative alleles on SDS-SV and SDS-sedimentation volume/protein content index (SPI). The allele Glu-B3g showed the best effect on SDS-SV and Alveograph W, whereas Glu-B3j, associated with the 1B.1R translocation, exhibited a strongly negative effect on all quality parameters.

Rhodamine B (RB) was used as a molecular probe to make a comparison of the photocatalytic properties between a P-25 coated film and a dip-coated anatase Ti02 film. It was found that RB on the two illuminated TiO2 surfaces underwent very different changes. The reduction of RB concentration on a P-25 film showed pseudo first-order kinetics during all the reaction time. In contrast, the concentration of the RB aqueous solution with an anatase Ti02 film did not show exponential decay through overall illumination time, but the kinetics of RB (or rhodamine) disappearance was apparently first order with respect to time before and after blue shift of the maximum absorbance (corresponding to N-de-ethylation) ended separately.

Transparent TiO2 thin films were prepared on glass substrates by a sol-gel method. They were confirmed to be anatase crystallites by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectra analyses. The photocatalytic properties of the sol-gel derived films were assessed by measuring the photodegradative oxidation of Rhodamine A in aqueous solution and compared with Degussa P-25 coated films. These SG-TiO2 films showed much higher photoactivity than P-25 coated films at the initial time of the reaction. Results of this study also indicate that the photodegradative mechanisms assisted by the two kinds of films are obviously different: highly efficient and fast N-de-ethylation accompanied the degradation of Rhodamine B catalyzed by a SG-TiO2 thin film, whereas only degradative reaction took place when P-25 coated film existed.

The fractal dimensions of aggregates of latex particles coated by poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) have been measured in worse-than-θ-solvents for different electrolyte concentrations and temperatures. For the lowest molecular weight PEG studied (2 × 10 4 ), the measured fractal dimension of 2.1 was almost independent of temperature over the range studied. The value corresponds to partially reversible cluster aggregation, which leads to relatively compact aggregates. For the highest molecular weight PEG studied (6 × 10 5 ), the fractal dimension decreased significantly (from 2.4 to 1.7) with temperature, signifying the generation of more ramified aggregates. The results obtained for this hydrophilic polymer contrast markedly with those previously published for the aggregation or latexes coated by the hydrophobic polymer poly( N -isopropylacrylamide), which becomes hydrophobic as a result of a coil-to-globule transition.

Fulan Xie1,*, Nian Yao1,*, Yao Qin1, Qianyu Zhang1, Huali Chen1, Mingqing Yuan1, Jie Tang1, Xiankun Li1, Wei Fan1, Qiang Zhang2, Yong Wu1, Li Hai1, Qin He11Key Laboratory of Drug Targeting and Drug Delivery Systems, West China School of Pharmacy, Sichuan University, Chengdu, People's Republic of China; 2State Key Laboratory of Natural and Biomimetic Drugs, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, People's Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this workBackground: An intimidating challenge to transporting drugs into the brain parenchyma is the presence of the blood–brain barrier (BBB). Glucose is an essential nutritional substance for brain function sustenance, which cannot be synthesized by the brain. Its transport primarily depends on the glucose transporters on the brain capillary endothelial cells. In this paper, the brain-targeted properties of glucose-modified liposomes using polyethylene glycols with different chain lengths as the linkers were compared and evaluated to establish an optimized drug-delivery system.Methods: Coumarin 6-loaded liposomes (GLU200-LIP, GLU400-LIP, GLU1000-LIP, and GLU2000-LIP) composed of phospholipids and glucose-derived cholesterols were prepared by thin-film dispersion-ultrasound method. The BBB model in vitro was developed to evaluate the transendothelial ability of the different liposomes crossing the BBB. The biodistribution of liposomes in the mice brains was identified by in vivo and ex vivo nearinfrared fluorescence imaging and confocal laser scanning microscopy and further analyzed quantitatively by high-performance liquid chromatography.Results: Glucose-derived cholesterols were synthesized and identified, and coumarin 6-loaded liposomes were prepared successfully. The particle sizes of the four types of glucose-modified liposomes were around or smaller than 100 nm with a polydispersity index less than 0.300. GLU400-LIP, GLU1000-LIP, and GLU2000-LIP achieved higher cumulative cleared volumes on BBB model in vitro after 6 hours compared with GLU200-LIP (P < 0.05) and were significantly higher than that of the conventional liposome (P < 0.001). The qualitative and quantitative biodistribution results in the mice showed that the accumulation of GLU1000-LIP in the brain was the highest among all the groups (P < 0.01 versus LIP).Conclusion: The data indicated that GLU400-LIP, GLU1000-LIP, and GLU2000-LIP all possess the potential of brain targeting, among which GLU1000-LIP, as a promising drug-delivery system, exhibited the strongest brain delivery capacity.Keywords: glucose, polyethylene glycols, liposome, BBB, brain-targeted

Glucosyl derivates exhibited favorable distribution to the brain. However, bidirectional transport of glucose transporter 1 might decrease concentrations of the prodrugs in brain before the release of parent drugs. To overcome this defect, glucosyl thiamine disulfide prodrugs 1a-1c incorporating naproxen were designed and synthesized. Furthermore, prodrug 2 and 3 were also prepared as control. The favorable physicochemical properties of these prodrugs were verified by stability and metabolism studies. Results from the in vivo distribution study indicated that 1a-1c, and 1b in particular, significantly increased the level of naproxen in brain when compared to 2 and 3. The study suggested glucosyl thiamine disulfide was a promising carrier to enhance the brain bioavailability of central nervous system active drugs.

New glycosyl derivative of cholesterol was synthesized as a material for preparing novel liposome to overcome the ineffective delivery of normal drug formulations to brain by targeting the (glucose transporters) GLUTs on the BBB. Coumarin-6 was used as fluorescent probe. The results have shown that the cytotoxicity for the brain capillary endothelial cells (BCECs) of the glucose-mediated brain targeting liposome containing coumarin-6 was less than that of conventional liposome. The BBB model in vitro was established by coculturing of BCECs and astrocytes (ACs) of rat to test the transendothelial ability crossing the BBB. The transendothelial ability was confirmed strengthen alone with the amount of the new glycosyl derivative of cholesterol used in liposome. After i.v. administration of LIP, control liposome (CLP), and GLP-4, the AUC(0-t) of coumarin-6 for GLP-4 was 2.85 times higher than that of LIP, and 3.33 times higher than that of CLP. The C(max) of CLP-4 was 1.43 times higher than that of LIP, and 3.10 times higher than that of CLP. Both pharmacokinetics and distribution in mice were also investigated to show that this novel brain targeting drug delivery system was promising.

A layered superlattice, WO 3 -polymer/1,10-decanediamine (1,10-DAD) self-assembled multilayer film, has been fabricated by means of alternating adsorption of transition metal tungsten compound and 1,10-DAD. UV-visible spectra were employed to study the growth process. The well ordered superlattice multilayer structure of WO 3 -polymer/1,10-DAD SAM film was identified by small angle X-ray diffraction (SAXRD) study. The d space of the SAM film was calculated as 2.897 nm from the SAXRD data, which agrees well with the results get by thickness measurement. The SAM film showed better photochromic properties compared with those of pre-reported WO 3 /4,4′-Bis(aminomethyl)-Biphenyl (4,4′-BAMBP) system. It's found that the exciting improved photochromic properties of WO 3 -polymer/1,10-DAD films come from the polymerization of WO 3 molecules in the inorganic layers. The results clearly show that the organic molecules can efficiently manipulate the microstructure of the inorganic layer as well as the photochromic properties of the self-assembled multilayer films.

A one-pot reaction design is proposed in this paper for synthesis of layered polymer/MoO3 materials. The experimental results evidenced the availability of this design. By using acidified ammonium molybdate as precursor of the inorganic hosts and FeCl3 as the oxidizing agent of aniline, layered PANI/MoO3 has been obtained via a one-step coprecipitation route.