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Starch from Pueraria lobata (PLS) had polyhedral or spherical granules, displaying a bimodal size distribution within 0.6-30 μm. It showed a trimodal distribution of different molecular weight peaks, with amylose fraction of 18.2 %. PLS had a high crystallinity degree of 37.76 % and consisted of C-type starch, which gelatinized at 64.46-79.61 °C, with a high range of gelatinization (15.15 °C) and high enthalpy (13.98 J/g). A 21-day supplementation of PLS presented a regulative effect on gut microbiota in normal mice, and alleviated DSS-induced murine colitis through attenuating colonic inflammation, maintaining barrier function, preventing gut dysbiosis, increasing the short-chain fatty acids production and inhibiting NF-κB/IL-1β axis. The protective effect of PLS against colitis was in a gut microbiota-dependent manner. Notably, the amylose fraction was responsible for the prebiotic effect of PLS. The results would potentiate new application of PLS and the amylose fraction as functional prebiotics for prevention of colitis.

Intestinal stem cells (ISCs) play an important role in maintaining intestinal homeostasis via promoting a healthy gut barrier. Within the stem cell niche, gut microbiota linking the crosstalk of dietary influence and host response has been identified as a key regulator of ISCs. Emerging insights from recent research reveal that ISC and gut microbiota interplay regulates epithelial self-renewal. This article reviews the recent knowledge on the key role of ISC in their local environment (stem cell niche) associating with gut microbiota and their metabolites as well as the signaling pathways. The current progress of intestinal organoid culture is further summarized. Subsequently, the key challenges and future directions are discussed.

The lateral transport of heavy metals can expand the scope of original contamination, and an accurate prediction of heavy metal migration is necessary to control heavy metal transport. However, previous studies have mainly focused on the migration of soil pollutants in the runoff-soil-groundwater system, whereas research on the lateral migration of heavy metals in surface soil driven by rainfall is relatively scarce. Therefore, in this study we analyzed the horizontal migration of water-soluble heavy metals with surface runoff and non-water-soluble heavy metals with sediment particles, investigated the main factors affecting the processes of runoff and sediment transport and the main factors affecting the mobility of heavy metals in soils, summarized the existing methods for the simulation of heavy metal transportation. The construction of a lateral migration model based on the migration mechanism of soil heavy metals, the hydrological model, and the application of the lateral migration model should be the focus of future research. This study provides a theoretical basis for establishing a model of the lateral migration of soil heavy metals and is of great significance for the prevention and control of the risks related to the lateral migration of soil heavy metals.

The prediction accuracy of the spatial distribution of soil pollutants at a site is relatively low. Related pollutants can be used as auxiliary variables to improve the prediction accuracy. However, little relevant research has been conducted on site soil pollution. To analyze the prediction accuracy of target pollutants combined with auxiliary pollutants, Cu, toluene, and phenanthrene were selected as the target pollutants for this study. Based on geostatistical analysis and spatial analysis, the following results were obtained. (1) The reduction in the root mean square errors (RMSEs) for Cu, toluene, and phenanthrene with multivariable cokriging was 68.4%, 81.6%, and 81.2%, respectively, which are proportional to the correlation coefficient of the relationship between the auxiliary pollutants and the target pollutants. (2) The RMSEs calculated for the multivariable cokriging were lower than those obtained by only combining one related pollutants, and two co-variables should be better. (3) The predicted results for Cu, phenanthrene, and toluene and their corresponding related pollutants are more accurate than the results obtained not using the related pollutants. (4) In the interpolation process, the RMSEs for Cu, toluene, and phenanthrene with multivariable cokriging basically increase as the neighborhood sample data increases, and then they become stable. (5) When 84, 61, and 34 sample points were removed, the RMSEs for Cu, toluene, and phenanthrene, respectively, with multivariable cokriging were close to the RMSEs of the target pollutants based on the total samples. The results are of great significance to improving the prediction accuracy of the spatial distribution of soil pollutants at coking plant sites.

The dried roots of Pueraria lobata (Willd.) Ohwi as an edible medicinal herb are enriched with starch. However, the structure, physiology, and biological bioactivity of P. lobata starch (PLS) has not yet been fully investigated. This study showed that PLS consisted of mixed population of granules with polyhedral or spherical surface. The apparent content of resistant starch was 23.14%, and the molecular weight was 1.93 × 10

Background: Patients who are on hemodialysis (HD) and are waiting for kidney transplantation encounter various psychological issues.Objective: The current research aimed to compare the effectiveness of regular nursing care with that of nursing care coupled with dedicated psychological counseling in patients who were on HD before they underwent kidney transplantation.Methods: Baseline data were collected 1 month before kidney transplantation in patients of both the control (patients who received general nursing care between August 2011 and June 2015) and intervention (patients who received nursing care and psychological counseling between June 2015 and July 2018) groups. The Mental Status Scale in Non-Psychiatric Settings (MSSNS) was administered to assess and record the psychological status. Clinicodemographic and end-stage renal disease (ESRD)-related details, including duration of dialysis, causes for ESRD, the number of dialysis sessions performed before transplantation, and MSSNS scores, were recorded and compared between the groups.Results: A total of 37 patients were enrolled, including 19 in the control group and 18 in the intervention group. The number of dialysis sessions performed before transplantation was 143 (26, 564) and 227.5 (39, 767), and dialysis duration was 20.4 ± 14.5 and 14.4 ± 12.1 months in the intervention and control groups, respectively. There was no significant difference in baseline negative emotions between the two groups (P > 0.05). The psychological intervention group reported significantly lower anxiety, depression, anger, and loneliness scores than the control group (P < 0.05).Conclusion: Psychological counseling before kidney transplantation in patients on HD could reduce their negative emotions and enhance mental well-being.

For the past several decades, Economic Dispatch problem has been a hot topic in the field of mathematics. In general, Economic Dispatch problem can be regarded as a quadratic optimization problem in power system. This paper utilized projected gradient descent algorithm, penalty-BFGS algorithm and KKT conditions method, which can be used to minimize the cost function with equality constraints and inequality constraints, with an attempt to explain and address Economic Dispatch problem. Based on the three methods above, the corresponding results are presented and analyzed. The results demonstrated that the three algorithms have different performances. Each can solve the quadratic problem with efficiency to different degrees.

A new methodology is presented for 3-D automated mapping of joints that are exposed primarily as traces in a rock face as opposed to planar facets. The method identifies 3-D points in a photogrammetry or a LiDAR derived point cloud that corresponds to the traces of the joints as observed in image data. First, the 2-D trace texture is extracted from image data using a hybrid global and local threshold method and integrating a series of image-processing algorithms. Second, data matching links the pixel locations corresponding to the identified traces in an image to the 3-D coordinates in the point cloud. This matching is accomplished by a coordinate transformation between the image coordinates and point cloud coordinates. Finally, a 3-D discontinuity trace map is acquired by analysing the 3-D spatial features of the traces. A case study of a rock slope along a highway is presented using the proposed method. The results demonstrate that the fusion of image data and point cloud data improves the mapping of discontinuities that primarily appear as traces in outcrops versus that achieved by existing methods that rely only on point cloud data.

Edwardsiella piscicida (formerly included in E. tarda) is the leading pathogen threatening worldwide fresh and seawater aquaculture industries and has been considered as a model organism for studying intracellular and systemic infections. Toxin-antitoxin (TA) systems are omnipresent in bacteria and participate widely in stress responses, biofilm formation and pathogenicity. However, the roles of TA systems are completely unknown in aquatic pathogenic bacteria. In this study, we identified and characterized a type II TA system HigBA in E. piscicida, where HigB is the toxin and HigA is the antitoxin. higB and higA are expressed in a bicistronic operon. To examine the biological role of HigBA, two markerless higB and higBA in-frame mutant strains, TX01ΔhigB and TX01ΔhigBA, were constructed. Compared to the wild strain TX01, TX01ΔhigB exhibited markedly reduced resistance against oxidative stress, but TX01ΔhigBA remained unchanged; the biofilm growth of TX01ΔhigB was decreased, but that of TX01ΔhigBA was increased. The deletion of higB enhanced bacterial motility but impaired bacterial resistance against host serum killing. In vitro infection experiment showed that the inactivation of higB dramatically abated bacterial capability of adhesion, invasion, and propagation in host cells. Consistently, in vivo experiment suggested that the higB mutation had an obvious negative effect on bacteria dissemination of fish tissues and general virulence. Introduction of a trans-expressed higB restored the lost virulence of TX01ΔhigB. However, the virulence of TX01ΔhigBA was compared to that of TX01. These findings indicate that HigB is essential for responding adverse circumstance and pathogenicity of E. piscicida. Based on the attenuated virulence of TX01ΔhigB, we further investigated its potential as a live vaccine. Vaccination experiment showed that TX01ΔhigB induced effective protection against lethal E. piscicida infection. In addition, we found that antitoxin HigA negatively autoregulated the expression of higBA by binding directly with own promoter, and toxin HigB promoted the regulatory function of HigA. This study provides new insights into the biological activity of type II TA system HigBA in aquatic pathogenic bacteria and contributes to understand the pathogenesis of E. piscicida.

Up to now, most of studies mainly focused on the heat transfer properties of the nanofluids, while there are very few works focusing on their rheological behavior which, however, is very crucial for the practical application of nanofluid regarding its efficient and low-cost transportation. In this work, rheological behavior of ethanol based nanofluids containing three kinds of metal oxide nanoparticles up to 0.15%wt were systematically investigated. All the ethanol-based metal oxide nanofluids were found to show the nonnewtonian behavior over a shear rate range of 50–350 s−1 at 5–20 °C. The shear stress and viscosity depend strongly on the temperature and shear rate and the temperature increase was found to lead to a sharp increase of viscosity-shear rate curve. It turned out that the concentration of nanoparticles only has the obvious effect on the viscosity rather than shear stress of the nanofluids. A higher nanoparticle concentration can reduce the viscosity but there is little difference for the rheology behavior over the investigated different types of nanoparticles. Our experimental results were found to fit well with Einstein's, Brinkman's, Batchelor's and Wang et al.'s models, which means the four models are valid in this situation. The Power law model were proves to fit the experimental results for the oxide nanofluids quite well.

Coupling chemical oxidation and biodegradation to remediate polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) contaminated soil has gained great attention in recent decades. However, there remains a knowledge gap concerning the integration of persulfate oxidation and anoxic biodegradation of PAHs in subsurface soil. In this study, the potential of integrated persulfate oxidation and anoxic biodegradation of PAHs in aged subsurface soil are investigated. Dynamic changes in the soil bacterial abundance and community composition are also examined. The soil bacterial abundance and community composition were negatively influenced following the application of different dosages of persulfate (e.g., 1% and 3% (wt/wt)), but these were found to be gradually restored after the depletion of persulfate. The bacteria that were capable of degrading PAHs under anoxic conditions were predominated by the phyla Proteobacteria and Firmicutes. The results also indicated an increasing trend in Firmicutes and a decreasing trend in Proteobacteria with increasing dosages of persulfate applied to the soil. The observations also suggested that the elimination of PAHs was primarily attributed to persulfate oxidation in the soil that received 3% (wt/wt) persulfate. However, persulfate oxidation and anoxic biodegradation were both responsible for the abatement of PAHs in the soil when 1% (wt/wt) of persulfate was applied. In addition, in the successful treatment (1% (wt/wt) persulfate), the integrated treatment was more effective in PAH removal than either one alone. The results of this study imply that integrated persulfate and anoxic biodegradation may be a promising alternative for the remediation of PAH contaminated subsurface soil.

The effect of overlying soil load around deeply buried piles is not considered in current uplift pile analyses of deformation and bearing capacity. To this end, we proposed a deformation compatibility nonlinear analysis model by taking overlying soil load into consideration and obtained load-displacement relationship of piles subjected to this load. Moreover, we experimentally obtained load-displacement curves of tension piles under different levels of overlying soil load. Both theoretical and experimental results showed (1) the initial pile displacement increases with overlying soil load increasing; (2) overlying soil load improves pile’s ability to resist uplift and reduce their deformation and failure; and (3) disregarding the presence of soil overlying load would lead to overestimation of pile body deformation and underestimation of uplift resistance. Our results prove that the new model can better reflect the actual pile-soil interaction and provides a new method for analyzing the actual working performance of tension piles. It is necessary to take the effect of overlying soil on peri-pile into consideration in practice.