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Coconut chips are a popular leisure food, but the residual crumbly feeling after chewing affects the eating experience. To address this problem, we investigated the mechanism of degradation of insoluble dietary fiber (IDF) from coconut chips by ultra-high pressure (UHP). The optimal conditions for UHP treatment were 100 MPa and 40 min. After UHP treatment, the hardness decreased by 60%, and the content of soluble dietary fiber (SDF) increased by 55%. So far, the meaning of SDF has not been defined. The microstructure of IDF was damaged and the surface was rough. There was no obvious change in the chemical structure. The position of the characteristic diffraction peaks was basically unchanged, but the crystallinity dropped by almost three times. The thermal stability decreased, and the composition of the monosaccharides changed. Together, UHP treatment can improve the problem of the residual crumbly feeling after chewing coconut chips and improve the quality of the product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The inherent properties of coconut oil (CO), including its elevated saturated fatty acid content and low melting point, make it suitable for application in plastic fat processing. The present study explores the physicochemical characteristics, micromorphology and oxidative stability of oleogels produced from CO using various gelators [ethylcellulose (EC), β‐sitosterol/γ‐oryzanol (PS) and glyceryl monostearate (MG)] to elucidate the formation mechanisms of coconut oleogels (EC‐COO, PS‐COO and MG‐COO). RESULTS: Three oleogel systems exhibited a solid‐like behavior, with the formation of crystalline forms dominated by β and β′. Among them, PS‐COO exhibited enhanced capability with respect to immobilizing liquid oils, resulting in solidification with high oil‐binding capacity, moderate hardness and good elasticity. By contrast, MG‐COO demonstrated inferior stability compared to PS‐COO and EC‐COO. Furthermore, MG‐COO and PS‐COO demonstrated antioxidant properties against CO oxidation, whereas EC‐COO exhibited the opposite effect. PS‐COO and EC‐COO exhibited superior thermodynamic behavior compared to MG‐COO. CONCLUSION: Three oleogels based on CO were successfully prepared. The mechanical strength, storage modulus and thermodynamic stability of the CO oleogel exhibited concentration dependence with increasing gelling agent addition. PS‐COO demonstrated relatively robust oil‐binding capacity and oxidative stability, particularly with a 15% PS addition. This information contributes to a deeper understanding of CO‐based oleogels and offers theoretical insights for their application in food products. © 2024 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The carpet industry is no longer a small business done in the villages on a small scale; instead, it has carved an altogether different space, identity, and appreciation for itself in the cosmopolitan world. As computers are is becoming more and more ubiquitous, most industries, including the carpet industry, use computers for quality improvement, accuracy enhancement, speed development, and cost reduction purposes. Unlike traditional carpet maps, many modern maps include images of human faces for hand‐woven carpet tableau. These digital images comprise millions of colors and thousands of pixels, making it practically impossible to construct and weave the carpet in the same dimensions. Many weavers currently use manual and experience‐based methods for reducing the size and number of hues for making a hand‐woven carpet tableau map. Therefore, the outcomes are not the optimal results and can be improved. Also, many color reduction methods do not focus on the hand‐woven carpet tableau map. To overcome these problems and gaps, this research focuses on proposing a new automatic method for reducing the size of color images without compromising facial nuances, lessening the number of colors used while protecting the important areas of the images, and transforming those images into carpet tableau maps. The proposed approach inputs the original color image. It continuously detecting the face and specifying important areas, and finally, outputs carpet tableau map that is proportional to the given dimensions and color count. To evaluate the proposed method, MATLAB, as a powerful simulation tool, was employed. Final results are compared to the existing approaches in terms of face detection, size reduction, and color quantization. The obtained results have shown that the approach improves speed by 39% in face detection and increases the precision of size reduction and color quantization phases. The results have also confirmed that when images of human faces are reduced by a proposed method to form an appropriate image for tableau maps, they are nearly always perceived as more attractive than the reduced faces via traditional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The physiological characters and growth of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) were recorded to be largely affected by different levels of irrigation. The objectives of this research were to determine the effects of deficit irrigation and rain shelters on sap flow, relative water content and the relationship between sap flow and environmental parameters. Experiments under rain shelters conditions were conducted in southern China during the growing seasons in 2012. The threshold of irrigation was designed at 80% field capacity during the whole period (T1, the control), and 30%, 40% and 50% decreased water of T1 were applied as the treatments of T2, T3 and T4. The plants subjected to water stress exhibited a decrease in the values of sap flow rate and relative water content. Calculation of 95% confidence level revealed a significant difference of sap flow rate in T4 and T3 as well as the control on sunny and rainy days. The diurnal variation of the sap flow showed a single peak curve on sunny day, while it demonstrated irregular multi-peak variation on rainy days. The study also showed that the most sensitive environmental indicator affecting sap flow was solar radiation, followed by air temperature and vapour pressure deficit. Direct path coefficient was basically consistent with the coefficient of correlation, but there was slight difference between the total contribution R2 and that of variable factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sonodynamic therapy (SDT) represents a promising, noninvasive, and precise treatment modality for tumors, demonstrating significant potential in clinical applications. However, the efficiency of sonosensitizers in generating reactive oxygen species (ROS) is often limited by rapid electron-hole recombination. In this study, BiF 3 @BiOI is synthesized via a co-precipitation method, followed by in-situ reduction to decorate it with Pt nanoparticles, resulting in BiF 3 @BiOI@Pt-PVP (BBP) nanocomposite for enhancing SDT efficacy. The formation of the BiF 3 @BiOI heterojunction enhances charge separation ability. The decoration of Pt nanoparticles narrows the bandgap and alters the band positions and Fermi level of BBP, which can effectively mitigate the rapid recombination of electron-hole pairs and facilitate a cascade reaction of ROS, thereby improving ROS generation efficiency with ultrasound excitation. Additionally, bismuth ions in BBP and the generated holes consume glutathione, exacerbating cellular oxidative damage, and triggering PANoptosis and ferroptosis. Furthermore, Pt nanoparticles demonstrate peroxidase-like activity, catalyzing endogenous hydrogen peroxide to oxygen. These functions are helpful against tumors for alleviating hypoxic conditions, reshaping the microenvironment, modulating immune cell infiltration capacity, and enhancing the efficacy of immunotherapy. The dual strategy of forming heterojunctions and sensitization with noble metals effectively enhances the efficacy of sono-catalytic therapy-induced immune activation in tumor treatment., (© 2024 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Background: Primary cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is prevalent worldwide and usually results in latency in immunocompetent populations. Reactivation of latent CMV can cause life-threatening complications in immunocompromised hosts., Methods: We used the CMV Brite assay to test CMV antigenemia (pp65) in whole blood samples from 22,192 patients with or without autoimmune diseases in Beijing during 2008-2018., Results: The overall prevalence of CMV antigenemia was 19.5% (9.7%, males; 26.0%, females). The prevalence of CMV antigenemia was 35.1%, 58.6% and 11.4% in whole patients with autoimmune diseases, in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and in patients with non-SLE autoimmune diseases, respectively. All patients with non-autoimmune diseases, patients with HIV/AIDS or transplantation were found to have 5.0%, 27% or 14.8%, respectively. Patients≤20 years with SLE had a significantly higher prevalence of CMV antigenemia than did all SLE patients, on average. Patients>51 years with non-SLE autoimmune diseases had a significantly higher prevalence than did all patients with non-SLE autoimmune diseases, on average. The prevalence of CMV antigenemia in patients admitted to intensive-care units (ICUs) were 9.2%, which was significantly higher than that among all patients with non-autoimmune diseases. Patients with SLE had 23.8% of negative conversion of CMV antigenemia, significantly lower than the percentage of patients with non-SLE autoimmune (64.3%) and non-autoimmune (61.0%) diseases. The mean number of days to negative conversion of CMV antigenemia in patients with SLE was 35.3±35.8 days, which was significantly longer than that in patients with non-SLE autoimmune diseases (15.4±11.9 days) and non-autoimmune diseases (13.6±7.7 days)., Conclusions: CMV antigenemia is found more likely in women than in men, more prevalently in patients with SLE than those with HIV/AIDS or transplant recipients, more frequently in patients admitted to ICUs. Patients with SLE had prolonged CMV antigenemia. The role of CMV appears important in SLE., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Objective: To detect serum Chlamydia pneumoniae (C.pneumonia) antibodies and analyze the epidemiologic data., Methods: Micro-immunofluorescence (MIF) was used to detect IgG and IgM antibodies against C.pneumoniae in 7 802 serum specimens from May 2008 to September 2013. C.pneumoniae past or recent infections were determined based on specific IgG and IgM antibodies and their titers. The analysis of relationship between age, gender and other clinical factors associated with antibody titers was performed., Results: The positive rate of C.pneumonia IgG antibodies ( ≥ 1: 16 and <1: 512) was 87.5% (6 827/7 802). And the lowest rate of 50.6% (78/154) was shown in patients of 2-4 years age group while the highest rate of 98.7% (1 277/1 294) in those above 70 years old. The average geometric mean titer (GMT) of C.pneumonia IgG antibodies was 43.9. GMT in males was significantly higher than that in females (45.8 vs 41.9, P = 0.000 1). And 282 (3.6%) patients were diagnosed with recent C.pneumoniae infection (IgG ≥ 1: 512 or IgM ≥ 1: 16 or acute and convalescent serum antibody titers turned to positive or four times and more elevated). The lowest rate of 0.5% (2/417) was detected in < 2-year-old patients while the highest rate of 6.7% (24/357) in 10-14-year-old group patients. The miss ratio was as high as 68.1% (192/282) if C.pneumoniae IgM antibody was used as an only criteria for C. pneumoniae recent infection. The recent infection rates in patients with autoimmune diseases (7.1% (24/336) ) and those with pneumonia/chest radiological shadow findings (4.7% (69/1 467)) were statistically higher than the average rate (3.6%) of total population (P = 0.000 4, 0.014 0)., Conclusions: The positive rate of C.pneumonia IgG antibody is quite high in the population. And the GMT of C.pneumoniae IgG antibody in males is significantly high than that in females. Recent C.pneumonia infection is to be missed if IgM antibody is used as a sole criterion.