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Current non-surgical treatments for lumbar radiculopathy [e.g. epidural steroids and Tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) antagonists] are neither effective nor safe. As a non-toxic natural product, curcumin possesses an exceptional anti-inflammatory profile. We hypothesised that curcumin alleviates lumbar radiculopathy by attenuating neuroinflammation, oxidative stress and nociceptive factors. In a dorsal root ganglion (DRG) culture, curcumin effectively inhibited TNF-α-induced neuroinflammation, in a dose-dependent manner, as shown by mRNA and protein expression of IL-6 and COX-2. Such effects might be mediated via protein kinase B (AKT) and extracellular signal regulated kinase (ERK) pathways. Also, a similar effect in combating TNF-α-induced neuroinflammation was observed in isolated primary neurons. In addition, curcumin protected neurons from TNF-α-triggered excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and cellular apoptosis and, accordingly, promoted mRNA expression of the anti-oxidative enzymes haem oxygenase-1, catalase and superoxide dismutase-2. Intriguingly, electronic von Frey test suggested that intraperitoneal injection of curcumin significantly abolished ipsilateral hyperalgesia secondary to disc herniation in mice, for up to 2 weeks post-surgery. Such in vivo pain alleviation could be attributed to the suppression, observed in DRG explant culture, of TNF-α-elicited neuropeptides, such as substance P and calcitonin gene-related peptide. Surprisingly, micro-computed tomography (μCT) data suggested that curcumin treatment could promote disc height recovery following disc herniation. Alcian blue/picrosirius red staining confirmed that systemic curcumin administration promoted regeneration of extracellular matrix proteins, visualised by presence of abundant newly-formed collagen and proteoglycan content in herniated disc. Our study provided pre-clinical evidence for expediting this natural, non-toxic pleiotropic agent to become a new and safe clinical treatment of radiculopathy.

Magnetoelectric (ME) coupling in La _0.7 Sr _0.3 MnO _3 /Pb(Mg _1/3 Nb _2/3 ) _0.7 Ti _0.3 O _3 (LSMO/PMN–PT (001)) has been probed in the past years to identify the underlying mechanism behind it. PMN–PT, which is well known for its excellent piezoelectric properties, also exhibits ferroelectricity. This motivates our interest to differentiate which effect is dominant for this ‘voltage control of magnetism’. Here, we present results for the ME coupling at different temperatures: 300 K and 80 K. In this article we discuss and explain, how the nature of ME coupling is influenced by different parameters such as magnetic field, electric field, directional dependence (hard axis, easy axis) and temperature. Owing to large lattice mismatch between LSMO and PMN–PT, the strain-mediated coupling is strongly prevalent, however the change in strain behaviour from butterfly loop to linear loop is observed as a function of temperature. ME measurements are performed along hard axis [100] and easy axis [110] of LSMO in the presence of remanent magnetic field which showcases the pure influence of electric field on the system, resulting in a combination of strain- and charge-mediated coupling. The magnetic depth profile is probed by polarized neutron reflectometry as a function of electric field which demonstrates the existence of an interlayer with reduced nuclear scattering length density and reduced magnetic scattering length density at the interface. From transmission electron microscopy, stoichiometric variations are observed due to the presence of Mn _3 O _4 particles at the interface.

Controlled directional light propagation using optical nonlinearity has previously been proposed. Here, we propose a one-way optical device with linear elements controlled by synthetic magnetic fluxes. The device consists of two parity–time symmetric side-coupled resonators with balanced gain and loss. The gain and loss break the reflection symmetry and the magnetic fluxes break the transmission symmetry. Through tuning the magnetic fluxes, reflectionless full transmission in one direction and transmissionless full reflection in the opposite direction can be achieved. The device acts as a light-checking valve, preventing wave propagation in one direction. The proposed one-way transporter uses the nonreciprocity induced by non-Hermiticity and magnetic fluxes without applying nonlinearity. We anticipate that our findings will be useful for optical control and manipulation.

We established a Chinese hamster ovary cell line that constitutively expresses up to 5 mg/L of human recombinant lecithin: cholesterol acyltransferase (rLCAT). We purified the rLCAT to > 96% purity, and characterized it along with plasma LCAT (pLCAT) biochemically and biophysically. The recombinant enzyme is more heavily glycosylated and more heterogeneous in its carbohydrate content than the plasma enzyme, as revealed by differences in molecular weight and pI isoforms, determined by mass spectrometry and isoelectric focusing. Recombinant LCAT is half as active enzymatically as pLCAT. The difference in activity is due to differences in the catalytic rates rather than in the apparent K(m) values, suggesting that the binding of the rLCAT to interfaces is not altered by its different glycosylation pattern. Despite these differences, rLCAT has essentially the same intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence emission spectrum and far-UV CD spectrum as pLCAT, indicating that the tertiary and secondary structures of both enzyme forms are very similar. Both enzyme forms have a propensity to self-associate, and their multimers appear resistant to dissociation by SDS and dilution. The free energies of unfolding (delta G(H2O)) of rLCAT and pLCAT are 3.4 +/- 0.2 and 3.2 +/- 0.2 kcal/mol, respectively, as determined by guanidine hydrochloride denaturation monitored by fluorescence. These relatively low delta G(H2O) values support the notion that LCAT is capable of undergoing major conformational changes upon interaction with interfacial substrates.

Abstract This letter presents an efficient built‐in error detection methodology for 3D NAND flash memories, in which fast page‐oriented data comparison and column parallel error detection are firstly proposed. The methodology takes advantage of the characteristics of page buffer to perform fast page‐oriented comparison between test data and reference data. Thanks to that, both fine error detection mode and column parallel error detection mode can be supported for different test scenarios. Analytical results show that it costs about 164.14 μs and 460 ns in fine and column parallel mode respectively to detect a page which is 16 K bytes. Compared with previous work, the error detection time of the proposed column parallel mode is reduced 99.7% for 3D NAND flash memories.

Abstract Terrestrial soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics play an important but uncertain role in the global carbon (C) cycle. Current modeling efforts to quantify SOC dynamics in response to global environmental changes do not accurately represent the size, distribution and flux of C from the soil. Here, we modified the daily Century (DAYCENT) biogeochemical model by tuning decomposition rates of conceptual SOC pools to match measurable C fraction data, followed by historical and future simulations of SOC dynamics. Results showed that simulations using fraction‐constrained DAYCENT (DCfrac) led to better initialization of SOC stocks and distribution compared to default/SOC‐only‐constrained DAYCENT (DCdef) at long‐term research sites. Regional simulation using DCfrac demonstrated higher SOC stocks for both croplands (34.86 vs. 26.17 MgC ha−1) and grasslands (54.05 vs. 40.82 MgC ha−1) compared to DCdef for the contemporary period (2001–2005 average), which better matched observationally constrained data‐driven maps of current SOC distributions. Projection of SOC dynamics in response to land cover change under a high warming climate showed average absolute SOC loss of 8.44 and 10.43 MgC ha−1 for grasslands and croplands, respectively, using DCfrac whereas, SOC losses were 6.55 and 7.85 MgC ha−1 for grasslands and croplands, respectively, using DCdef. The projected SOC loss using DCfrac was 33% and 29% higher for croplands and grasslands compared to DCdef. Our modeling study demonstrates that initializing SOC pools with measurable C fraction data led to more accurate representation of SOC stocks and distribution of SOC into individual carbon pools resulting in the prediction of greater sensitivity to agricultural intensification and warming.

Three crops of warm-season grasses are being developed for biomass production on northern rain-fed marginal farmland: big bluestem (BBS), switchgrass (SG), and a low diversity mixture of grasses (LDM). In this study, biomass harvested from established fields were compared for pelletization and subsequent conversion to sugars and ethanol. Each biomass was successfully pelletized to similar bulk densities without adding a binder at a commercial feed operation. Pelletizing increased the bulk density by 407% on average and was equally effective on all three biomass samples (528–554 kg/m3). Chemical analysis of the samples indicated that glucan and xylan contents were slightly reduced during pelletizing (by 23 and 16 g/kg, respectively), as well as theoretical ethanol yields, which are based upon total carbohydrate contents. Pellets and milled straws were pre-treated with either liquid hot-water or low-moisture ammonium hydroxide (LMA) and subsequently hydrolyzed with cellulases. Glucose and total sugar yields were similar for non-pellets and pellets using either pre-treatment; carbohydrates present in pellets were more efficiently recovered compared to non-pellets. LMA pretreated samples were separately hydrolyzed and fermented to ethanol using Scheffersomyces stipitis yeast. Hydrolysis recovered 69.7–76.8% of the glucose and 66.5–73.3% of the xylose across all samples. Glucose yields were 251–279 g/kg, db and were significantly lower for SG as compared to the other biomass samples. Recovered sugars were fermented to ethanol at 77.7–86.7% of theoretical yield. Final ethanol yields (245.9–275.5 L/Mg, db) were similar for all of the grasses and estimated to equate to production levels for BBS, LDM, and SG of 1,952, 2,586, and 2,636 l of ethanol per ha, respectively.