Effects of dietary supplementation with antimicrobial peptide‐P5 on growth performance,apparent total tract digestibility,faecal and intestinal microflora and intestinal morphology of weanling pigs

BACKGROUND: The increase in drug‐resistant bacteria and the ban on antibiotic growth promoters worldwide make the search for novel means of preventing bacterial infection and promoting growth performance imperative. In this sense, antimicrobial peptides are thought to be ideal candidates owing to their antimicrobial properties, broad spectrum of activity and low propensity for development of bacterial resistance. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation with antimicrobial peptide‐P5 (AMP‐P5) on weanling pig nutrition. RESULTS: A total of 240 weanling pigs were allotted to four treatments on the basis of initial body weight. There were four replicates in each treatment, with 15 pigs per replicate. Dietary treatments were negative control (NC, basal diet without antimicrobial), positive control (PC, basal diet + 1.5 g kg^?1 apramycin), basal diet with 40 mg kg^?1 AMP‐P5 (P5‐40) and basal diet with 60 mg kg^?1 AMP‐P5 (P5‐60). Pigs fed the PC or P5‐60 diet showed improved (P < 0.05) overall growth performance, apparent total tract digestibility of dry matter, crude protein and gross energy and reduced (P < 0.05) faecal and intestinal coliforms compared with pigs fed the NC diet. CONCLUSION: The results obtained in this study indicate that dietary supplementation with 60 mg kg^?1 AMP‐P5 has the potential to improve the growth performance and apparent total tract digestibility of nutrients and reduce coliforms in weanling pigs. © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry     

Photovoltaics literature survey (No. 103)

In order to help keep readers up‐to‐date in the field, each issue of Progress in Photovoltaics will contain a list of recently published journal articles most relevant to its aims and scope. This list is drawn from an extremely wide range of journals, incl uding IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Journal of Applied Physics, Applied Physics Letters, Progress in Photovoltaics, and Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells. To assist the reader, the list is separated into broad categories, but please note that these classifications are by no means strict. Also, note that inclusion in the list is not an endorsement of a paper's quality. If you have any suggestions, please email Santosh Shrestha at s.shrestha@unsw.edu.au.     

Collapse Mechanism of Foam Cored Sandwich Structures Under Compressive Load

In this work the moisture absorption capability, compressive properties, collapse modes of various types of composite sandwich structures are reported. The tested sandwich structures were constructed with varieties of hybridized skin materials and different compositions of the core materials. The moisture absorption, Flatwise compression and Edgewise compression tests are conducted for core as well as sandwich structures. Comparisons of results have been between the hybridized and non-hybridized sandwich structures. Two modes of collapse were noticed in the Edgewise compressive test, one of which being progressive end-crushing of the sandwich structure featured by significant crash energy absorption. This feature was highly desired for the parts of transportation vehicles. Microscopic analysis has been carried out to know the nature of failure under compressive loads. It has been observed that with increasing the debonding strength of the core–face interface, the failure mode changes from unstable collapse mode stable progressive crushing.     

Experimental investigations on heat transfer and frictional characteristics of a turbulator roughened solar air heater duct

An experimental investigation has been carried out to study the heat transfer coefficient and friction factor by using artificial roughness in the form of specially prepared inverted U-shaped turbulators on the absorber surface of an air heater duct. The roughened wall is uniformly heated while the remaining three walls are insulated. These boundary conditions correspond closely to those found in solar air heaters.The experiments encompassed the Reynolds number range from 3800 to 18000; ratio of turbulator height to duct hydraulic mean diameter is varied from, e/D_h = 0.0186 to 0.03986 (D_h = 37.63 mm and e = 0.7 to 1.5 mm) and turbulator pitch to height ratio is varied from, p/e = 6.67 to 57.14 (p = 10 to 40 mm). The angle of attack of flow on turbulators, α = 90° kept constant during the whole experimentation. The heat transfer and friction factor data obtained is compared with the data obtained from smooth duct under similar geometrical and flow conditions. As compared to the smooth duct, the turbulator roughened duct enhances the heat transfer and friction factor by 2.82 and 3.72 times, respectively. The correlations have been developed for area averaged Nusselt number and friction factor for turbulator roughened duct.     

Anhydrous ethanol: A renewable source of energy

Anhydrous ethanol is one of the biofuels produced today and it is a subset of renewable energy. It is considered to be an excellent alternative clean-burning fuel to gasoline. Anhydrous ethanol is commercially produced by either catalytic hydration of ethylene or fermentation of biomass. Any biological material that has sugar, starch or cellulose can be used as biomass for producing anhydrous ethanol. Since ethanol–water solution forms a minimum-boiling azeotrope of composition of 89.4 mol% ethanol and 10.6 mol% water at 78.2 °C and standard atmospheric pressure, the dilute ethanol–water solutions produced by fermentation process can be continuously rectified to give at best solutions containing 89.4 mol% ethanol at standard atmospheric pressure. Therefore, special process for removal of the remaining water is required for manufacture of anhydrous ethanol. Various processes for producing anhydrous ethanol have been used/suggested. These include: (i) chemical dehydration process, (ii) dehydration by vacuum distillation process, (iii) azeotropic distillation process, (iv) extractive distillation processes, (v) membrane processes, (vi) adsorption processes and (vii) diffusion distillation process. These processes of manufacturing anhydrous ethanol have been improved continuously due to the increasingly strict requirements for quantity and quality of this product. The literature available on these processes is reviewed. These processes are also compared on the basis of energy requirements.     

Evaluation of long-term effects of rejuvenation on reclaimed binder properties based on chemical-rheological tests and analyses

This study used multiple chemical-rheological tests to investigate the long-term characteristics of rejuvenating agents in reclaimed asphalt binders. To this end, a base binder and its blending with an extracted binder obtained from recycled asphalt pavements were selected, and two different types of rejuvenating agents: agriculture-based and petroleum-based agents were used to modify the blended binder. The base binder and the blended binders that were modified by the two rejuvenators were then aged using a typical laboratory long-term aging procedure. The chemical studies included: a saturates-aromatics-resins-asphaltenes analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and elemental (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur and oxygen) analysis. The rheological tests primarily investigated the linear viscoelastic properties through aging and rejuvenation. The effects of rejuvenators on restoration were quite material-dependent, which was related to the different chemical compositions of the rejuvenators and their chemical-molecular interactions with the parent binder. The tests and analysis results showed that the immediate effects of rejuvenators are mostly the result of the addition of lighter molecules in rejuvenators, while the long-term effects were material-specific and further chemistry-driven. From the two rejuvenating agents studied herein, the petroleum-based material improves performance of the binder in the next round of service by preserving the chemical composition and maintaining the stability, whereas the agriculture-based agent used in this study might increase the aging issues because of its pre-existing high oxygen content, which could negatively affect long-term durability over service period.     

Synthesis and in Vitro Evaluation of Novel 5-Nitroindole Derivatives as c-Myc G-Quadruplex Binders with Anticancer Activity

Lead-optimization strategies for compounds targeting c-Myc G-quadruplex (G4) DNA are being pursued to develop anticancer drugs. Here, we investigate the structure-activity- relationship (SAR) of a newly synthesized series of molecules based on the pyrrolidine-substituted 5-nitro indole scaffold to target G4 DNA. Our synthesized series allows modulation of flexible elements with a structurally preserved scaffold. Biological and biophysical analyses illustrate that substituted 5-nitroindole scaffolds bind to the c-Myc promoter G-quadruplex. These compounds downregulate c-Myc expression and induce cell-cycle arrest in the sub-G1/G1 phase in cancer cells. They further increase the concentration of intracellular reactive oxygen species. NMR spectra show that three of the newly synthesized compounds interact with the terminal G-quartets (5′- and 3′-ends) in a 2 : 1 stoichiometry.     

A Drug Screening Pipeline Using 2D and 3D Patient-Derived In Vitro Models for Pre-Clinical Analysis of Therapy Response in Glioblastoma

Glioblastoma is one of the most common and lethal types of primary brain tumor. Despite aggressive treatment with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, tumor recurrence within 6–9 months is common. To overcome this, more effective therapies targeting cancer cell stemness, invasion, metabolism, cell death resistance and the interactions of tumor cells with their surrounding microenvironment are required. In this study, we performed a systematic review of the molecular mechanisms that drive glioblastoma progression, which led to the identification of 65 drugs/inhibitors that we screened for their efficacy to kill patient-derived glioma stem cells in two dimensional (2D) cultures and patient-derived three dimensional (3D) glioblastoma explant organoids (GBOs). From the screening, we found a group of drugs that presented different selectivity on different patient-derived in vitro models. Moreover, we found that Costunolide, a TERT inhibitor, was effective in reducing the cell viability in vitro of both primary tumor models as well as tumor models pre-treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. These results present a novel workflow for screening a relatively large groups of drugs, whose results could lead to the identification of more personalized and effective treatment for recurrent glioblastoma.