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Polyphenols are known for their various health benefits. Blueberries are dietary sources of polyphenols with reported health benefits. However, the role of blueberry polyphenols in alleviating obesity is not completely understood. This study investigated the potential positive effect of blueberry polyphenol extract (PPE) on high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity in C57BL/6 J mice by modulation of the gut microbiota. Four-week-old C57BL/6 J mice were fed a normal-fat diet or HFD with or without PPE or Orlistat for 12 weeks. Mice fed HFD exhibited increased body weight and adipose tissue weight and disordered lipid metabolism. In contrast, PPE inhibited body weight gain and returned lipid metabolism to normal. Furthermore, 16S rRNA gene sequencing of the fecal microbiota suggested that PPE changed the composition of the gut microbiota in C57BL/6 J mice and modulated specific bacteria such as Proteobacteria, Deferribacteres, Actinobacteria, Bifidobacterium, Desulfovibrio, Adlercreutzia, Helicobacter, Flexispira, and Prevotella. Orlistat also improved obesity and metabolic alterations of HFD mice and modulated the composition of the gut microbiota. Our findings suggest that PPE, as a potential prebiotic agent, influences the gut microbiota to positively affect HFD-induced obesity in C57BL/6 J mice.

The space scientific payload rack is a multifunctional experimental platform, and the requirements of the environmental temperature index are different for diversified experimental modules inside. The air cooling system is an important part of the rack thermal control system. A new type of air cooling system with small size and flexible arrangement is proposed in this paper, that is, micro air ducts with pinhole-sized air vents. The rack physical models of new and traditional air cooling modes are established, respectively. The numerical simulation of the inner air flow is carried out by Ansys Fluent CFD software (Ansys Inc., Canonsburg, PA, USA), which verifies that compared with the traditional method, the temperature field and flow field of the new air cooling method are more uniform, and the heat sources located at the edge of the rack can also be cooled better.

The polyphenol profile, antioxidant activity (particularly peroxyl radical-scavenging capacity (PSC) and cellular antioxidant activity (CAA)) and cytotoxicity of extracts from seven varieties of blue honeysuckle were compared in this study. Moreover, an analysis of correlations between individual polyphenol profiles and antioxidant activities was also conducted. Seventeen components were found in the investigated blue honeysuckle extracts, with anthocyanins being the prominent bioactive components among polyphenols. Fruit peel contained higher concentrations of individual anthocyanins compared to the fruit pulp. Beilei blue honeysuckle had the highest antioxidant activity. Correlation analysis showed that antioxidant activity values were highly associated with cyanidin-3-glucoside levels. Blue honeysuckle extracts were not cytotoxic over the range of doses tested. Among the varieties analyzed, Beilei possessed the highest antioxidant properties and was found to be the most appropriate source of natural antioxidants.

This paper presents a dynamic health intelligent evaluation model proposed to analyze the health deterioration of satellites under time-varying and extreme thermal loads. New definitions such as health degree and failure factor and new topological system considering the reliability relationship are proposed to characterize the dynamic performance of health deterioration. The dynamic health intelligent evaluation model used the thermal network method (TNM) and fuzzy reasoning to solve the problem of model missing and non-quantization between temperature and failure probability, and it can quickly evaluate and analyze the dynamic health of satellite through the collaborative processing of continuous event and discrete event. In addition, the temperature controller in the thermal control subsystem (TCM) is the target of thermal damage, and the effects of different heat load amplitude, duty ratio, and cycle on its health deterioration are compared and analyzed.

This paper presents an air-oriented spray cooling system (SCS) integrated with a two-phase ejector for the thermal management system. Considering its aeronautical application, the spray nozzle in the SCS is an air-blast one. Heat transfer performance (HTP) of air-water spray cooling was studied experimentally on the basis of the ground-based test. Factors including pressure difference between water-inlet-pressure (WIP) and spray cavity one (PDWIC) and the spray volumetric flow rate (SVFR) were investigated and discussed. Under a constant operating condition, the cooling capacity can be promoted by the growth factors of the PDWIC and SVFR with the values from 51.90 kPa to 235.35 kPa and 3.91 L &sdot, h &minus, 1 to 14.53 L &sdot, 1 , respectively. Under the same heating power, HTP is proportional to the two dimensionless parameters Reynolds number and Weber number due to the growth of droplet-impacting velocity and droplet size as the increasing of PDWIC or SVFR. Additionally, compared with the factor of the droplet size, the HTP is more sensitive to the variation in the droplet-impacting velocity. Based on the experimental data, an empirical experimental correlation for the prediction of the dimensionless parameter Nusselt number in the non-boiling region with the relative error of only &plusmn, 10 % was obtained based on the least square method.

This study investigates the effects of bovine serum albumin (BSA) on blueberry anthocyanins and their interaction. Findings showed that BSA could protect blueberry anthocyanins against degradation and retain their antioxidant activity at an ideal concentration of 0.15 mg/mL under three deteriorating treatments: illumination, vitamin C + illumination, and sucrose + illumination. The fluorescence and UV absorption spectra showed that malvidin-3-o-galactoside (M3G), the major monomer in blueberry anthocyanins, led to a static quenching of BSA and the binding site of M3G to BSA was approximately one. Further, the interaction was a spontaneous process with electrostatic interactions being the main force. CD spectra and synchronous fluorescence spectra presented alterations in the secondary structure and microenvironment of Trp and Tyr residues of BSA, respectively, upon interaction with M3G. Finally, molecular docking analysis showed that M3G mainly bound the II and III domains of BSA by hydrogen bonds and electrostatic interaction. In conclusion, our study highlights the protective effects of BSA on the stability and anti-oxidant activity of blueberry anthocyanins and their interaction analysis.

The environmental safety of soil has become a severe problem in China with the boost of industrialization. Polluted-soil thermal remediation is a kind of suitable remediation technology for large-scale heavily contaminated industrial soil, with the advantages of being usable in off-grid areas and with a high fuel to energy conversion rate. Research on energy-saving strategies is beneficial for resource utilization. Focused on energy saving and efficiency promotion of polluted-soil in situ thermal remediation system, this paper presents three energy-saving strategies: Variable-condition mode (VCM), heat-returning mode (HRM) and air-preheating mode (APM). The energy analysis based on the first law of thermodynamics and exergy analysis based on the second law of thermodynamics are completed. By comparing the results, the most effective part of the energy-saving strategy for variable-condition mode is that high savings in the amount of natural gas (NG) used can be achieved, from 0.1124 to 0.0299 kg·s−1 in the first stage. Energy-saving strategies for heat-returning mode and air-preheating mode have higher utilization ratios than the basic method (BM) for the reason they make full use of waste heat. As a whole, a combination of energy-saving strategies can improve the fuel savings and energy efficiency at the same time.