Growth-inhibition of hiochi bacteria in namazake (raw sake) by bacteriocins from lactic acid bacteria

The bacteriocins produced by Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis C101910 (C101910) and NBRC 12007 (NBRC 12007) were used to prevent the growth of sake spoiling hiochi bacteria (Lactobacillus hilgardii, Lactobacillus fructivorans, and Lactobacillus paracasei) in namazake, which is raw (unpasteurized) sake. The bacteriocin concentrations required for decreasing the viable cell concentrations of L. hilgardii and L. fructivorans below the detection limit (1.0 × 10² cells/ml) in 24 h from the initial concentration of 4.0–9.5 × 10⁵ cells/ml in the namazake at pH 4.5 and at 4°C, were 18–35 U/ml and 5.6 U/ml for the bacteriocin from C101910 and NBRC 12007, respectively. To decrease the viable cell concentration of L. paracasei from the initial concentration of 7.5 × 10⁵ cells/ml to below the detection limit (1.0 × 10² cells/ml) in 24 h, 350 U/ml bacteriocin from C101910 and 140 U/ml bacteriocin from NBRC 12007 were required. In experiments using McIlvaine buffer (pH 4.5) with 15% ethanol instead of namazake as the medium, the viable cell concentrations of L. hilgardii and L. paracasei decreased to less than 1.0 × 10² cells/ml, whereas those of L. fructivorans decreased to less than 1.0 × 10³ cells/ml, when bacteriocins were added at the concentrations that had proven effective in namazake. The membrane depolarization assay using a fluorescent probe showed that the presence of ethanol stimulated the collapse of the membrane potential induced by bacteriocins. The ethanol induced collapse of the membrane potential suggests that the application of bacteriocins at the storage stage of namazake is more beneficial than when used in other stages of the sake brewing process.     

Fluorescence Imaging Using Enzyme-Activatable Probes for Detecting Diabetic Kidney Disease and Glomerular Diseases

A clear identification of the etiology of glomerular disease is essential in patients with diabetes. Renal biopsy is the gold standard for assessing the underlying nephrotic pathology; however, it has the risk for potential complications. Here, we aimed to investigate the feasibility of urinary fluorescence imaging using an enzyme-activatable probe for differentiating diabetic kidney disease and the other glomerular diseases. Hydroxymethyl rhodamine green (HMRG)-based fluorescent probes targeting gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) and dipeptidyl-peptidase (DPP) were used. Urinary fluorescence was compared between groups which were classified by their histopathological diagnoses (diabetic kidney disease, glomerulonephritis, and nephrosclerosis) as obtained by ultrasound-guided renal biopsy. Urinary fluorescence was significantly stronger in patients with diabetic kidney disease compared to those with glomerulonephritis/nephrosclerosis after DPP-HMRG, whereas it was stronger in patients with nephrosclerosis than in patients with glomerulonephritis after GGT-HMRG. Subgroup analyses of the fluorescence performed for patients with diabetes showed consistent results. Urinary fluorescence imaging using enzyme-activatable fluorescence probes thus represents a potential noninvasive assessment technique for kidney diseases in patients with diabetes.     

Optimizing service restoration in distribution systems based on scheduling of crews considering priorities of loads

The service restoration to sound sections within a short period as much as possible, performed after the permanent fault occurs in a distribution system, is significant for maintaining power supply reliability. This paper proposes an efficient method to find service restoration procedures based on fault searching and the optimal work scheduling of crews, considering the power supply priorities of loads and the probability of occurrence of faults. The proposed method is composed of two-stage problems to reduce the outage sections efficiently: (i) the problem to find a series of searching procedures for unknown fault locations in the first stage and (ii) the optimization problem of work schedules of crews in the second stage. In the first stage, the order of operation of switches opened for searching for the fault direction is determined, constituting the searching tree. After that, the proposed optimization method can efficiently solve the work scheduling problem by formulating it as a mixed-integer linear programming problem in the second stage. The computational experiments using a large-scale distribution system model with many remote and manual switches show that the proposed method can provide efficient service restoration procedures within a reasonable computational time.