Mitochondrial Dysfunction Plays Central Role in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a global pandemic that affects one-quarter of the world’s population. NAFLD includes a spectrum of progressive liver disease from steatosis to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), fibrosis, and cirrhosis and can be complicated by hepatocellular carcinoma. It is strongly associated with metabolic syndromes, obesity, and type 2 diabetes, and it has been shown that metabolic dysregulation is central to its pathogenesis. Recently, it has been suggested that metabolic- (dysfunction) associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) is a more appropriate term to describe the disease than NAFLD, which puts increased emphasis on the important role of metabolic dysfunction in its pathogenesis. There is strong evidence that mitochondrial dysfunction plays a significant role in the development and progression of NAFLD. Impaired mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation and, more recently, a reduction in mitochondrial quality, have been suggested to play a major role in NAFLD development and progression. In this review, we provide an overview of our current understanding of NAFLD and highlight how mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to its pathogenesis in both animal models and human subjects. Further we discuss evidence that the modification of mitochondrial function modulates NAFLD and that targeting mitochondria is a promising new avenue for drug development to treat NAFLD/NASH.     

Ultrafiltered milk reduces bitterness in reduced-fat Cheddar cheese made with an exopolysaccharide-producing culture

The objectives were to reduce bitterness in reduced-fat Cheddar cheese made with an exopolysaccharide (EPS)-producing culture and study relationships among ultra-filtration (UF), residual chymosin activity (RCA), and cheese bitterness. In previous studies, EPS-producing cultures improved the textural, melting, and viscoelastic properties of reduced-fat Cheddar cheese. However, the EPS-positive cheese developed bitterness after 2 to 3 mo of ripening due to increased RCA. We hypothesized that the reduced amount of chymosin needed to coagulate UF milk might result in reduced RCA and bitterness in cheese. Reduced-fat Cheddar cheeses were manufactured with EPS-producing and nonproducing cultures using skim milk or UF milk (1.2×) adjusted to a casein:fat ratio of 1.35. The EPS-producing culture increased moisture and RCA in reduced-fat Cheddar cheese. Lower RCA was found in cheese made from UF milk compared with that in cheese made from control milk. Ultrafiltration at a low concentration rate (1.2×) produced EPS-positive, reduced-fat cheese with similar RCA to that in the EPS-negative cheese. Slower proteolysis was observed in UF cheeses compared with non-UF cheeses. Panelists reported that UF EPS-positive cheese was less bitter than EPS-positive cheese made from control milk. This study showed that UF at a low concentration factor (1.2×) could successfully reduce bitterness in cheese containing a high moisture level. Because this technology reduced the RCA level (per g of protein) to a level similar to that in the control cheeses, the contribution of chymosin to cheese proteolysis would be similar in both cheeses.     

Debottlenecking procedure of effluent thermal treatment system

In this study pinch technology has been improved for wastewater temperature reduction. Having considered design grouping rules on the basis of pinch technology, a new debottlenecking procedure for thermal treatment of the wastewater network, has been introduced. In the presented procedure, better thermal treatment of effluent network using the new method can be used to avoid investment in new cooling tower capacity and to improve the performance of the tower in a systematic way. Related coding in Visual Sudio.Net 2003, C++, has been developed for the illustrative example to get optimal values in the cooling water design method computations.     

Comparison of electrothermal and hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry for the determination of total arsenic in broiler chicken

The purpose of this study was to estimate total arsenic concentration in different tissues (leg, breast, liver and heart) of broiler chicken by hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry (HGAAS) and graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GFAAS), prior to microwave assisted acid digestion. The accuracy of the techniques was evaluated by using certified reference material DORM-2. The percentage recoveries of total As were observed as 100.6% and 99.4% for HGAAS and GFAAS, respectively. The precision of the techniques, expressed as relative standard deviation, was observed as 1.71% and 4.18% for HGAAS and GFAAS measurements, respectively. The limits of detection for HGAAS and GFAAS were 0.025 μg/g and 0.052 μg/g, respectively. The concentrations of total arsenic in different tissues of broiler chicken were found in the range of 2.19–5.28, 2.15–5.22, 2.97–7.17 and 2.68–6.36 μg/g for leg, breast, liver and heart tissues, respectively. At a mean level of chicken consumption (60 g/person/day), people may ingest in the range of 72.0–85.1 μg arsenic/person/day from chicken alone.     

A coagulase-negative variant of Staphylococcus aureus from bovine mastitis milk

Bacteriological analysis of milk samples from quarters of a dairy cow suffering from subclinical mastitis yielded two isolates of Staphylococcus aureus which gave a negative reaction in the standard coagulase test. Both isolates were also clumping factor and thermonuclease negative, and gave a negative reaction in the Staphaurex? test. The isolates were identified by using commercial biochemical systems, and by PCR analysis of different staphylococcal cell surface protein and exoprotein genes. Further molecular identification of the isolates, which included sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene and RT-PCR of coagulase (coa), clumping-factor (clfA) and thermonuclease (nuc) genes, was consistent with the diagnosis phenotypically 'coagulase-negative variant of Staph. aureus'. The fact that coagulase-negative Staph. aureus variants can occur in the context of intramammary infections in cattle may result in the incorrect diagnosis 'coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS)' in routine mastitis diagnostic, at least in rare cases. To fully ensure correct species diagnosis, sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene and amplification of specific genes such as coa is necessary in these cases.     

Eco-friendly food products as source of natural colorant for wool yarn dyeing

ABSTRACT

Food products as a source of natural colorants are gaining widespread popularity around the globe due to their ayurvedic and eco-friendly nature. Current study is aimed with the utilization of food products (Saffron and madder) as a source of dye for woolen yarn. It is found that, for Saffron, irradiation of yarn for 6 min gives high color strength by dyeing for 45 min in the presence of 2% of salts using un-irradiated dye bath of 1 pH, whereas for madder, 4 min is optimal irradiation time for extract to dye irradiated yarn for 25 min in the presence of 6% of salts using the irradiated dye bath of pH 1. The mordanting carried out at optimal conditions show that using both extracts, woolen yarn dyed at optimal conditions has given good color characteristics. It is concluded that microwave radiation has not only improved natural dyeing process but also make the process more eco-friendly and sustainable as well.     

Isogeometric level set topology optimization for elastoplastic plane stress problems

International Journal of Mechanics and Materials in Design - This article aims to utilize IsoGeometric analysis (IGA) and Level set method for topology optimization of elastoplastic plane stress...     

Face Recognition Based on Gabor Feature Extraction Followed by FastICA and LDA

Over the past few decades, face recognition has become the most effective biometric technique in recognizing people’s identity, as it is widely used in many areas of our daily lives. However, it is a challenging technique since facial images vary in rotations, expressions, and illuminations. To minimize the impact of these challenges, exploiting information from various feature extraction methods is recommended since one of the most critical tasks in face recognition system is the extraction of facial features. Therefore, this paper presents a new approach to face recognition based on the fusion of Gabor-based feature extraction, Fast Independent Component Analysis (FastICA), and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). In the presented method, first, face images are transformed to grayscale and resized to have a uniform size. After that, facial features are extracted from the aligned face image using Gabor, FastICA, and LDA methods. Finally, the nearest distance classifier is utilized to recognize the identity of the individuals. Here, the performance of six distance classifiers, namely Euclidean, Cosine, Bray-Curtis, Mahalanobis, Correlation, and Manhattan, are investigated. Experimental results revealed that the presented method attains a higher rank-one recognition rate compared to the recent approaches in the literature on four benchmarked face datasets: ORL, GT, FEI, and Yale. Moreover, it showed that the proposed method not only helps in better extracting the features but also in improving the overall efficiency of the facial recognition system.     

The Investigation of the Fractional-View Dynamics of Helmholtz Equations Within Caputo Operator

It is eminent that partial differential equations are extensively meaningful in physics, mathematics and engineering. Natural phenomena are formulated with partial differential equations and are solved analytically or numerically to interrogate the system’s dynamical behavior. In the present research, mathematical modeling is extended and the modeling solutions Helmholtz equations are discussed in the fractional view of derivatives. First, the Helmholtz equations are presented in Caputo’s fractional derivative. Then Natural transformation, along with the decomposition method, is used to attain the series form solutions of the suggested problems. For justification of the proposed technique, it is applied to several numerical examples. The graphical representation of the solutions shows that the suggested technique is an accurate and effective technique with a high convergence rate than other methods. The less calculation and higher rate of convergence have confirmed the present technique’s reliability and applicability to solve partial differential equations and their systems in a fractional framework.     

阿拉伯东部地区宗教文化对传统建筑的影响

伊斯兰教和阿拉伯语是西亚地区统一的主要特征.它们构成了这些国家的共性,然而又有一些因素可将西亚世界区分开来,宗教就是其中2一。阿拉伯国家都是穆斯林国家, 它们的建筑是世界伊斯兰建筑的一部分,“伊斯兰建筑”概念本身就体现了宗教在地域建筑特征形成过程中所起的作用。地域性文化是地域性建筑的重要构成,宗教文化则是地域性文化诸因素之一。