Altered Metabolic Flexibility in Inherited Metabolic Diseases of Mitochondrial Fatty Acid Metabolism

In general, metabolic flexibility refers to an organism’s capacity to adapt to metabolic changes due to differing energy demands. The aim of this work is to summarize and discuss recent findings regarding variables that modulate energy regulation in two different pathways of mitochondrial fatty metabolism: β-oxidation and fatty acid biosynthesis. We focus specifically on two diseases: very long-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency (VLCADD) and malonyl-CoA synthetase deficiency (acyl-CoA synthetase family member 3 (ACSF3)) deficiency, which are both characterized by alterations in metabolic flexibility. On the one hand, in a mouse model of VLCAD-deficient (VLCAD^−/−) mice, the white skeletal muscle undergoes metabolic and morphologic transdifferentiation towards glycolytic muscle fiber types via the up-regulation of mitochondrial fatty acid biosynthesis (mtFAS). On the other hand, in ACSF3-deficient patients, fibroblasts show impaired mitochondrial respiration, reduced lipoylation, and reduced glycolytic flux, which are compensated for by an increased β-oxidation rate and the use of anaplerotic amino acids to address the energy needs. Here, we discuss a possible co-regulation by mtFAS and β-oxidation in the maintenance of energy homeostasis.     

In situ incorporation and loading of copper nanoparticles into a palmitic–lauric phase-change material on polyester fibers

This article introduces a facile approach for applying a eutectic mixture of fatty acid phase-change materials (PCMs) on polyester fibers for thermal conductivity improvement via the in situ incorporation of copper nanoparticles. For this purpose, a eutectic mixture of palmitic acid and lauric acid was applied as PCMs and ascorbic acid was applied for the synthesis of copper nanoparticles. The thermal properties and stability of the treated samples were also determined by differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetry analysis. The treated samples indicated appropriate phase-transition temperatures between 29.1 and 36.8 °C, with relevant latent heats of 49.4 and 49.9 J/g, respectively. The in situ formation of copper nanoparticles into eutectic fatty acid applied on the polyester fibers resulted in the promotion of the thermal conductivity of the composite by about 100.1% with the maximum amount of nanoparticles. In addition, the treated samples maintained good thermal durability and stability after 100 melting and freezing cycles. In addition, the tensile strength of the treated samples was improved. Overall, this treatment could be used to produce promising form-stabilized composite PCMs and thermoregulated polymers and textiles with appropriate phase-transition ranges and thermal conductivity. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 46951.     

Genotypic analysis of nontuberculous mycobacteria isolated from raw milk and human cases in Wisconsin

Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) compose a group of mycobacteria that do not belong to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex group. They are frequently isolated from environmental samples such as water, soil, and, to a lesser extent, food samples. Isolates of NTM represent a major health threat to humans worldwide, especially those who have asthma or are immunocompromised. Human disease is acquired from environmental exposures and through consumption of NTM-contaminated food. The most common clinical manifestation of NTM disease in human is lung disease, but lymphatic, skin and soft tissue, and disseminated disease are also important. The main objective of the current study was to profile the farm-level contamination of cow milk with NTM by examining milk filters and bulk tank milk samples. Five different NTM species were isolated in one dairy herd in Wisconsin, with confirmed 16S rRNA genotypes including Mycobacterium fortuitum, Mycobacterium avium ssp. hominissuis, Mycobacterium abscessus, Mycobacterium simiae, and Mycobacterium avium ssp. paratuberculosis (Mycobacterium paratuberculosis). In tank milk samples, M. fortuitum was the predominant species in 48% of the samples, whereas M. chelonae/abscessus and M. fortuitum were the only 2 species obtained from 77 and 23% of the examined filters, respectively. Surprisingly, M. avium ssp. hominissuis, M. paratuberculosis, and M. simiae were isolated from 16.7, 10.4, and 4% of the examined milk samples, respectively, but not from milk filters. Interestingly, NTM isolates from human clinical cases in Wisconsin clustered very closely with those from milk samples. These findings suggest that the problem of NTM contamination is underestimated in dairy herds and could contribute to human infections with NTM. Overall, the study validates the use of bulk tank samples rather than milk filters to assess contamination of milk with NTM. Nontuberculous mycobacteria represent one type of pathogens that extensively contaminate raw milk at the farm level. The significance of our research is in evaluating the existence of NTM at the farm level and identifying a simple approach to examine the potential milk contamination with NTM members using tank milk or milk filters from dairy operations. In addition, we attempted to examine the potential link between NTM isolates found in the farm to those circulating in humans in Wisconsin.     

New and efficient blind detection algorithm for digital image forgery using homomorphic image processing

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Digital image forgery detection is an important task in digital life as the image may be easily manipulated. This paper presents a novel blind tampering...     

An optimal wavelet-based multi-modality medical image fusion approach based on modified central force optimization and histogram matching

Multimedia Tools and Applications - This paper introduces an optimal solution for wavelet-based medical image fusion using different wavelet families and Principal Component Ana1ysis (PCA) based on...     

Three-Point Bending of Heat-Treatable Aluminum Alloys: Influence of Microstructure and Texture on Bendability and Fracture Behavior

Three-point bending tests of extruded aluminum alloys showed lower bendability when the bending axis is aligned with the extrusion direction compared to the transverse direction. In the present work, three different microstructures of a commercial AA7108 aluminum alloy were studied with respect to mechanical properties, texture, constituent particles, and crack propagation. The three different microstructures were an as-cast and homogenized material, a fibrous extruded material, and a cold rolled and recrystallized material. While the mechanical properties in tension are more or less the same for the three materials, the bendability is strongly dependent on the microstructure and the global alignment of constituent particles. The as-cast and homogenized material shows poor bendability due to large grains and constituent particles on the grain boundaries, which leads to decohesion and premature failure. The response of both the fibrous and the recrystallized materials depends on the direction of the bending axis. A strong fiber texture is found to influence the bendability by initiation of shear bands. The crucial fracture mechanism, however, seems to be the global alignment of constituent particles, which is inherited from the deformation process.     

Comparison Analysis of Radio_Based and Sensor_Based Wearable Human Activity Recognition Systems

Human activity recognition (HAR) systems aim to provide low-cost, low-power, unobtrusive and non-invasive solutions to monitor and collect data accurately for human-centric applications, such as health monitoring, assisted living and rehabilitation. Although wearable sensor_based HAR systems have been demonstrated to be effective in the literature, they raise various concerns such as energy consumption and hardware cost. In this work, we examine the pattern of radio signal strength variations in different activity classes in absence of sensor hardware. We present a performance comparison analysis by setting up two testbeds to compare a sensor_based with a radio_based HAR system over a range of variable metrics such as the number of sensor nodes, and the nodes and the sink node placement with respect to the accuracy and the energy efficiency. Wearable HAR datasets are constructed based on our reported testbeds. The main contributions of this work are in two folds: (1) when eliminating the use of accelerometers in the radio_based system, beside the reduced hardware cost, prolonged lifetime of the HAR system by nearly 30% can be achieved while maintaining the accuracy. The impact of the selected overlapping window size (WS) is also investigated with respect to the accuracy level in both systems over a range of activity classes. (2) The impact of the node placement on the accuracy indicates a higher dependency to the number of nodes, the nodes and the sink node placements in the radio_based system due to the dependency of the results to the distance.     

A new method to investigate the sliding wear behaviour of materials based on energy dissipation: W–25 wt%Cu composite

A new method is proposed to explain and monitor wear behaviour based on energy dissipation. The wear of a W–25 wt%Cu composite against 52100 steel was used to demonstrate this approach with pin-on-disc tests conducted under three normal loads. An energy-dependent criterion, namely, specific wear volume (wear volume/dissipated energy (mm³/J)), was defined to evaluate the wear of the composite. The specific wear volume can be used as a substitute for the traditional wear rate due to the simultaneous expression of several wear parameters and because of its strong dependence on the wear mode. The specific wear volume appears to be constant in any particular “wear mode” regardless of the active “wear processes”. In the wear of this composite, processes such as particle pull-out, mechanically mixed layer (MML) formation, crack propagation and delamination were observed. But, combination of these processes in each test had identical specific wear volumes. Thus, all of these wear processes were considered to be consecutive stages of the same wear mode: fatigue wear. The amount of dissipated energy and the volumetric loss increased with increasing normal load. Also, changing the normal load changed the rate of energy dissipation per unit sliding distance.