A synbiotic containing Lactobacillus acidophilus CHO-220 and inulin improves irregularity of red blood cells

This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, and parallel-design study was conducted to investigate the effect of a synbiotic product containing Lactobacillus acidophilus CHO-220 and inulin on the irregularity in shape of red blood cells (RBC) in hypercholesterolemic subjects. The subjects (n = 32) were randomly allocated to 2 groups, a treatment group (synbiotic product) and a control group (placebo), and received 4 capsules of either synbiotic or placebo daily for 12 wk. Morphological representation via scanning electron microscopy showed that the occurrence of spur RBC was improved upon supplementation of the synbiotic. In addition, the supplementation of synbiotic reduced the cholesterol:phospholipids ratio of the RBC membrane by 47.02% over 12 wk, whereas the control showed insignificant changes. Our present study also showed that supplementation of the synbiotic reduced the concentration of saturated fatty acids (SFA), increased unsaturated fatty acids (UFA), and increased the ratio of UFA:SFA over 12 wk, whereas the control showed inconspicuous changes. The alteration of RBC membrane was assessed using fluorescence anisotropy (FAn) and fluorescence probes with different affinities for varying sections of the membrane phospholipid bilayer. A noticeable decrease in FAn of three fluorescent probes was observed in the synbiotic group compared with the control over 12 wk, indicative of increased membrane fluidity and reduced cholesterol enrichment in the RBC membrane.     

Betacyanins extraction from Hylocereus polyrhizus using alcohol/salt-based liquid biphasic partitioning system and antioxidant activity evaluation

Betacyanins have gained increasing interest as natural food dye because of their health-promoting effects. This study investigated the betacyanins extraction from peel and flesh of red–purple pitaya using ethanol/K₂HPO₄-based liquid biphasic partitioning system (LBPS) by optimised concentrations of ethanol, K₂HPO₄, NaCl and crude. Overall, the highest values of betacyanins concentration in alcohol-rich top phase (C_t), phase volume ratio (V_r) and partition coefficient (K) of betacyanins that represented an optimum betacyanins extraction from the peel (98.080%, 1.667 and 51.097, respectively) and flesh (96.256%, 2.167 and 25.764, respectively) were achieved. Lastly, conventional solvent extractions, colour characterisation and antioxidant activity evaluation were conducted.     

Unambiguously Enhanced Ultraviolet Luminescence of AlGaN Wavy Quantum Well Structures Grown on Large Misoriented Sapphire Substrate

High‐quality epitaxy consisting of Al_1?xGa_xN/Al_1?yGayN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) with sharp interfaces and emitting at ≈280 nm is successfully grown on sapphire with a misorientation angle as large as 4°. Wavy MQWs are observed due to step bunching formed at the step edges. A thicker QW width accompanied by a greater accumulation of gallium near the macrostep edge than that on the flat‐terrace is observed on 4° misoriented sapphire, leading to the generation of potential minima with respect to their neighboring QWs. Consequently, a significantly enhanced photoluminescence intensity (at least ten times higher), improved internal quantum efficiency (six times higher at low excitation laser power), and a much longer carrier lifetime are achieved. Importantly, the wafer‐level output‐power of the ultraviolet light emitting diodes on 4° misoriented substrate is nearly increased by 2–3 times. This gain is attributed to the introduction of compositional inhomogeneities in AlGaN alloys induced by gallium accumulation at the step‐bunched region thus forming a lateral potential well for carrier localization. The experimental results are further confirmed by a numerical modeling in which a 3D carrier confinement mechanism is proposed. Herein, the compositional modulation in active region arising from the substrate misorientation provides a promising approach in the pursuit of high‐efficient ultraviolet emitters.     

Passively Q-switched erbium-doped fibre laser using cobalt oxide nanocubes as a saturable absorber

We demonstrate a Q-switched Erbium-doped fibre laser (EDFL) utilizing cobalt oxide (Co₃O₄) nanocubes film based saturable absorber (SA) as a passive Q-switcher. Co₃O₄ nanocubes are embedded into a polyethylene oxide film to produce a high nonlinear optical response, which is useful for SA application. It has saturation intensity and modulation depth of 3 MW/cm² and 0.35%, respectively. The proposed laser cavity successfully generates a stable pulse train where the pulse repetition rate is tunable from 29.8 to 70.92 kHz and the pulse-width reduces from 10.9 to 5.02 μs as the 980 nm pump power increases. This result indicates that the Co₃O₄ is excellent for constructing an SA that can be used in producing a passively Q-switched fibre laser operating at a low pump intensity. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of Co₃O₄ film based fibre laser.     

Charge-trapping effects caused by ammonia in carbon nanotubes

Hysteretic behaviors caused by low-concentration ammonia gas are found in single-walled carbon nanotube based field-effect transistors. The transfer curves are found to shift towards negative gate voltage when the gate voltage is swept forwardly upon introducing ammonia. In contrast, no significant change in the transfer curves is observed for the backward sweeping of the gate voltage. This phenomenon is repeatable even after the devices are annealed in dry air at 200 degrees C for 2 hrs. Our findings can be interpreted in terms of additional charge traps induced by the adsorbed ammonia molecules. The observed hysteretic behavior enables the devices to work as memory cells, in which the carbon nanotube field-effect transistors act as readout and ammonia molecules play roles of charge storage.     

The indispensability of dispensable indexes

The design of new indexes has been driven by many factors, such as data types, operations, and application environment. The increasing demand for database systems to support new applications such as online analytical processing (OLAP), spatial databases, and temporal databases has continued to fuel the development of new indexes. In this paper, we summarize the major considerations in developing new indexes, paying particular attention to progress made in the design of indexes for spatial, temporal databases, and object-oriented databases (OODB). Our discussion focuses on the general concepts or features of these indexes, thus presenting the building blocks for meeting the challenges of designing new indexes for novel applications to be encountered in the future     

Current equalization in SPWM FACTS controllers at lowest switchingrates

This paper shows that sinusoidal pulsewidth modulation (SPWM) flexible AC transmission system (FACTS) controllers can be synthesized by employing the phase-shifted triangle carrier technique to multiconverters at a switching rate of only three pulses. The options of parallel, series and series/parallel module connections are examined for current equalization. This paper presents simulation and experimental results     

Carboxylated polysulfone membranes having a chiral recognition site induced by an alternative molecular imprinting technique

SUMMARY Molecularly imprinted polymeric membranes were prepared from carboxylated polysulfone. Membranes imprinted by Z-D-Glu recognize the D-isomer in preference to the corresponding L-isomer, and vice versa. The amino acid preferentially adsorbed by the membrane was also selectively permeated by electrodialysis. Received: 22 January 1998/Accepted: 20 February 1998     

S-parameter based technique for simultaneous switching noiseanalysis in electronic packages

A method based on S-parameters is developed for the analysis of simultaneous switching noise (SSN) in electronic packages. A two-port Z matrix of the package pin/trace, and the coupling between the pins/traces are modeled by analytical equations. SSN is analyzed as a function of the number of switching drivers and switching time. Frequency domain measurements are performed to demonstrate the accuracy of the model. The modeling methodology is applied to both leaded and area array packages     

Efficient Join Processing Using Partial Precomputation

In this paper, we generalize conventional join indexes to a cluster-based join index, in which objects are grouped into clusters based on proximity. Each record of our join index represents a pair of clusters in which the join condition is satisfied by some members of the cluster. This strategy is especially useful for spatial and high-dimensional databases because of their typically large data volume and complex operations. Our approach leverages on the structure of R-trees by exploiting the internal nodes of an R-tree in effectively determining the precomputed clusters which can be used in our join index. By varying the size of the cluster, we are able to fine-tune the join index to achieve a balance between update cost and retrieval cost to suit individual applications. Different implementations of the join index are examined to determine how the join index can be efficiently maintained. To this end, we also conduct a number of experiments on intersection join and window queries, and the results confirm that semi-precomputation of join results is a robust and cost effective approach to join processing.