Reduction in Allergenicity and Induction of Oral Tolerance of Glycated Tropomyosin from Crab

Tropomyosin (TM) is an important crustacean (Scylla paramamosain) allergen. This study aimed to assess Maillard-reacted TM (TM-G) induction of allergenic responses with cell and mouse models. We analyzed the difference of sensitization and the ability to induce immune tolerance between TM and TM-G by in vitro and in vivo models, then we compared the relationship between glycation sites of TM-G and epitopes of TM. In the in vitro assay, we discovered that the sensitization of TM-G was lower than TM, and the ability to stimulate mast cell degranulation decreased from 55.07 ± 4.23% to 27.86 ± 3.21%. In the serum of sensitized Balb/c mice, the level of specific IgE produced by TM-G sensitized mice was significantly lower than TM, and the levels of interleukins 4 and interleukins 13 produced by Th2 cells in spleen lymphocytes decreased by 82.35 ± 5.88% and 83.64 ± 9.09%, respectively. In the oral tolerance model, the ratio of Th2/Th1 decreased from 4.05 ± 0.38 to 1.69 ± 0.19. Maillard reaction masked the B cell epitopes of TM and retained some T cell epitopes. Potentially, Maillard reaction products (MRPs) can be used as tolerance inducers for allergen-specific immunotherapy.     

Sizes,Components, Crystalline Structure,and Thermal Properties of Starches from Sweet Potato Varieties Originating from Different Countries

Sweet potato is a root tuber crop and an important starch source. There are hundreds of sweet potato varieties planted widely in the world. Starches from varieties with different genotype types and originating from different countries have not been compared for their physicochemical properties. In the research, starches from 44 sweet potato varieties originating from 15 countries but planted in the same growing conditions were investigated for their physicochemical properties to reveal the similarities and differences in varieties. The results showed that the 44 starches had granule size (D[4,3]) from 8.01 to 15.30 μm. Starches had different iodine absorption properties with OD680 from 0.259 to 0.382 and OD620/550 from 1.142 to 1.237. The 44 starches had apparent amylose content from 19.2% to 29.2% and true amylose content from 14.2% to 20.2%. The starches exhibited A-, C_A-, C_C-, or C_B-type X-ray diffraction patterns. The thermograms of 44 starches exhibited one-, two-, or three-peak curves, leading to a significantly different gelatinization temperature range from 13.1 to 29.2 °C. The significantly different starch properties divide the 44 sweet potato varieties into different groups due to their different genotype backgrounds. The research offers references for the utilization of sweet potato germplasm.     

Perovskite-type (Ba<Subscript>0.15</Subscript>Sr<Subscript>0.85</Subscript>)(B<Subscript>0.15</Subscript>Co<Subscript>0.85</Subscript>)O<Subscript>3 − δ</Subscript> (B = Ti,Nb) oxides: structural stability,oxygen nonstoichiometry,and oxygen sorption/desorption properties

The perovskite-type Ba- and Ti/Nb-doped (Ba_0.15Sr_0.85)(B_0.15Co_0.85)O_3 ? δ (B = Ti, Nb) oxides were synthesized successfully by the solid-state reaction method. Crystal structure, elemental compositions, and oxygen nonstoichiometry of the as-synthesized (Ba_0.15Sr_0.85)(B_0.15Co_0.85)O_3 ? δ (B = Ti, Nb) oxides were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM-EDS), inductively coupled plasma (ICP)-atomic emission spectrometry, thermogravimetry (TG), and iodometric titration. XRD results demonstrate that the as-obtained (Ba_0.15Sr_0.85)(B_0.15Co_0.85)O_3 ? δ (B = Ti, Nb) oxides possess purely cubic perovskite-type structures. The temperature-swing oxygen sorption/desorption properties of the as-synthesized (Ba_0.15Sr_0.85)(B_0.15Co_0.85)O_3 ? δ (B = Ti, Nb) perovskite-type oxides were studied by the dynamic TG. Results show that the structural stability of the co-doped (Ba_0.15Sr_0.85)(B_0.15Co_0.85)O_3 ? δ (B = Ti, Nb) oxides is improved greatly, and the high oxygen sorption capacity for the perovskite-type (Ba_0.15Sr_0.85)(B_0.15Co_0.85)O_3 ? δ (B = Ti, Nb) oxides is also obtained between 300 and 950 °C in air.     

Steady vortex patches near a nontrivial irrotational flow

In this paper, we study the vortex patch problem in an ideal fluid in a planar bounded domain. By solving a certain minimization problem and studying the limiting behavior of the minimizer, we prove that for any harmonic function q corresponding to a nontrivial irrotational flow, there exists a family of steady vortex patches approaching the set of extreme points of q on the boundary of the domain. Furthermore, we show that each finite collection of strict extreme points of q corresponds to a family of steady multiple vortex patches approaching it.     

Improvement of intelligibility of ideal binary-masked noisy speech by adding background noise

When a target-speech/masker mixture is processed with the signal-separation technique, ideal binary mask (IBM), intelligibility of target speech is remarkably improved in both normal-hearing listeners and hearing-impaired listeners. Intelligibility of speech can also be improved by filling in speech gaps with un-modulated broadband noise. This study investigated whether intelligibility of target speech in the IBM-treated target-speech/masker mixture can be further improved by adding a broadband-noise background. The results of this study show that following the IBM manipulation, which remarkably released target speech from speech-spectrum noise, foreign-speech, or native-speech masking (experiment 1), adding a broadband-noise background with the signal-to-noise ratio no less than 4 dB significantly improved intelligibility of target speech when the masker was either noise (experiment 2) or speech (experiment 3). The results suggest that since adding the noise background shallows the areas of silence in the time-frequency domain of the IBM-treated target-speech/masker mixture, the abruption of transient changes in the mixture is smoothed and the perceived continuity of target-speech components becomes enhanced, leading to improved target-speech intelligibility. The findings are useful for advancing computational auditory scene analysis, hearing-aid/cochlear-implant designs, and understanding of speech perception under "cocktail-party" conditions.     

All fiber supercontinuum light source using photonic crystal fibers pumped by nanosecond fiber laser pulses

A novel compact supercontinuum (SC) source using the single mode photonic crystal fibers (PCF) pumped with an all fiber MOPA fiber laser is demonstrated experimentally. A bandwidth of 700 nm is achieved by operating the pumping fiber laser at a wavelength of 1064 nm, pulse duration of 10 ns, repetition rate of 50 kHz and peak power of 1 kW. The SC generation is initiated through modulation instability (MI) which breakups the nanosecond pump pulses into picosecond or femtosecond pulses, and further broadened through nonlinear effects of PCF.     

The structure and expression of power group

With the application of the topological upgrade, more and more experts are interested in the problems concerning the mathematical structure’s upgrade to its power set. This paper is a further study on the structure and interrelationship of a power group. By revealing the nature of relationship between the power group and a regular one, the present paper proves some theorems of the structure of the power group and constructs some theorems on its homomorphism and isomorphism as well, proposing an expression form and isomorphism replacement construct methods of the power group.     

Proportional and excess-of-loss reinsurance under investment gains

On the assumption that investment fund follows the logarithm-normal distribution, the paper derives the forms of proportional and excess-of-loss reinsurance contracts which make the convex combination of the insurer’s rate of return v₁ and the reinsurer’s rate of return v₂ exceeds R at the probability of f. In the whole paper, the premium takes the expectation principle.     

Enhanced Compression of Fundamental Solitons in Dispersion Decreasing Fibers with Negative Third-order Dispersion Ⅱ. Effects of Fiber Characteristics and Initial Soliton Width

Previous work have shown that the combined effects of negative third-order dispersion (TOD) and Raman self-scattering (RSS) can significantly enhance soliton compression in dispersion decreasing fibers (DDFs). In this paper, the effects of the negative TOD coefficient and the effective amplification of DDF′s on the performance of soliton compression are investigated. It is shown that for a given initial soliton width and a given effective amplification, there exists an optimum value of the negative TOD coefficient of the DDF at which the enhancement in soliton compression is maximum. It is also shown that the compression enhancement saturates when the effective amplification exceeds a certain value, which has been explained as a compromise between the higher-order effects induced increase of the ratio of input to output group-velocity dispersion coefficients of the DDF and the TOD induced non-adiabatic compression characteristics. The dependence of the compression enhancement on the initial soliton width have also be studied and the scheme is found works well for solitons with initial widths less than 3 ps.