Modifying the physicochemical properties,solubility and foaming capacity of milk proteins by ultrasound-assisted alkaline pH-shifting treatment

This study investigated the effects of different treatment of alkaline pH-shifting on milk protein concentrate (MPC), micellar casein concentrate (MCC) and whey protein isolate (WPI) assisted by the same ultrasound conditions, including changes in the physicochemical properties, solubility and foaming capacity. The solubility of milk proteins had a significant increase with gradual enhancement of ultrasound-assisted alkaline pH-shifting (p < 0.05), especially for MCC up to 99.50 %. Also, treatment made a significant decline in the particle size of MPC and MCC, as well as the turbidity of the proteins (p < 0.05). The foaming capacity of MPC, MCC, and WPI was all improved, especially at pH 11, and at this pH, the milk protein also showed the highest surface hydrophobicity. The best foaming capacity at pH 11 was the result of the combined effect of particle size, potential, protein conformation, solubility, and surface hydrophobicity. In conclusion, ultrasound-assisted pH-shifting treatment was found to be effective in improving the physicochemical properties and solubility and foaming capacity of milk proteins, especially MCC, with promising application prospect in food industry.     

Synthesis of Moracin C and Its Derivatives with a 2-arylbenzofuran Motif and Evaluation of Their PCSK9 Inhibitory Effects in HepG2 Cells

Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) is a key factor in several cardiovascular diseases, as it is responsible for the elevation of circulating low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels in blood plasma by direct interaction with the LDL receptor. The development of orally available drugs to inhibit this PCSK9-LDLR interaction is a highly desirable objective. Here, we report the synthesis of naturally occurring moracin compounds and their derivatives with a 2-arylbenzofuran motif to inhibit PCSK9 expression. In addition, we discuss a short approach involving the three-step synthesis of moracin C and a divergent method to obtain various analogs from one starting material. Among the tested derivatives, compound 7 (97.1%) was identified as a more potent inhibitor of PCSK9 expression in HepG2 cells than berberine (60.9%). These results provide a better understanding of the structure–activity relationships of moracin derivatives for the inhibition of PCSK9 expression in human hepatocytes.     

Transition probabilities of Lévy‐type processes: Parametrix construction

We present an existence result for Lévy‐type processes which requires only weak regularity assumptions on the symbol with respect to the space variable x. Applications range from existence and uniqueness results for Lévy‐driven SDEs with Hölder continuous coefficients to existence results for stable‐like processes and Lévy‐type processes with symbols of variable order. Moreover, we obtain heat kernel estimates for a class of Lévy and Lévy‐type processes. The paper includes an extensive list of Lévy(‐type) processes satisfying the assumptions of our results.     

The martingale problem for a class of nonlocal operators of diagonal type

We consider systems of stochastic differential equations of the form $$\begin{array}{c}\hfill d{X}_t^i=\sum _{j=1}^d{A}_{ij}\left(X_{t?}\right)d{Z}_t^j\end{array}$$ for $i=1,?,d$ with continuous, bounded and non‐degenerate coefficients. Here $Z_t^1,?,Z_t^d$ are independent one‐dimensional stable processes with ${\alpha }_1,?,{\alpha }_d\in (0,2)$. In this article we research on uniqueness of weak solutions to such systems by studying the corresponding martingale problem. We prove the uniqueness of weak solutions in the case of diagonal coefficient matrices.     

Closed‐form approximations for spread options in Lévy markets

We provide new closed‐form approximations for the pricing of spread options in three specific instances of exponential Lévy markets, ie, when log‐returns are modeled as Brownian motions (Black‐Scholes model), variance gamma processes (VG model), or normal inverse Gaussian processes (NIG model). For the specific case of exchange options (spread options with zero strike), we generalize the well‐known Margrabe formula (1978) that is valid in a Black‐Scholes model to the VG model under a homogeneity assumption.     

Weighted estimates for the multilinear maximal function on the upper half‐spaces

For a general dyadic grid, we give a Calderón–Zygmund type decomposition, which is the principle fact about the multilinear maximal function on the upper half‐spaces. Using the decomposition, we study the boundedness of . We obtain a natural extension to the multilinear setting of Muckenhoupt's weak‐type characterization. We also partially obtain characterizations of Muckenhoupt's strong‐type inequalities with one weight. Assuming the reverse Hölder's condition, we get a multilinear analogue of Sawyer's two weight theorem. Moreover, we also get Hytönen–Pérez type weighted estimates.     

Palladium catalyzed domino C-H activation strategy: An access to 9- fluorenones

Palladium catalyzed domino C-H functionalization reaction of arylaldehyde with dihaloarene has been developed to access 9-flourenone molecules. Bidentate ligand assisted strategy, single step reaction, high yield and excellent functional group tolerance make this method concise and effective for the synthesis of 9-flourenone. In addition, proposed method has been successfully employed to synthesise Tilorone in gram scale.     

Gaussian unitary ensembles with two jump discontinuities,PDEs, and the coupled Painlevé II and IV systems

We consider the Hankel determinant generated by the Gaussian weight with two jump discontinuities. Utilizing the results of Min and Chen [Math. Methods Appl Sci. 2019;42:301‐321] where a second‐order partial differential equation (PDE) was deduced for the log derivative of the Hankel determinant by using the ladder operators adapted to orthogonal polynomials, we derive the coupled Painlevé IV system which was established in Wu and Xu [arXiv: 2002.11240v2] by a study of the Riemann‐Hilbert problem for orthogonal polynomials. Under double scaling, we show that, as , the log derivative of the Hankel determinant in the scaled variables tends to the Hamiltonian of a coupled Painlevé II system and it satisfies a second‐order PDE. In addition, we obtain the asymptotics for the recurrence coefficients of orthogonal polynomials, which are connected with the solutions of the coupled Painlevé II system.     

Estimates of densities for Lévy processes with lower intensity of large jumps

We obtain general lower estimates of transition densities of jump Lévy processes. We use them for processes with Lévy measures having bounded support, processes with exponentially decaying Lévy measures for large times and for processes with high intensity of small jumps for small times.     

A Liouville theorem for weighted p−Laplace operator on smooth metric measure spaces

We prove that on a smooth metric measure space with m ?Bakry–Émery curvature bounded from below by ?(m ? 1)K for some constant K ≥0 (i.e., Ric_{f ,m} ≥?(m ? 1)K ), the following degenerate elliptic equation (0.1) has no nonconstant positive solution when p > 1 and constant λ _{f ,p} satisfies Our approach is based on the local Sobolev inequality and the Moser's iterative technique and is different from Cheng‐Yau's method, which was used by Wang‐Zhu in 2012 to derive a same Liouville theorem when 1 < p ≤2, Ric_{f ,m} ≥?(m ? 1)K and the sectional curvature is bounded from below. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.