Auraptene regulates gene expression involved in lipid metabolism through PPARα activation in diabetic obese mice

Scope: Peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor‐α (PPARα) is a key regulator of circulating lipid level. Thus, various food‐derived compounds that activate PPARα as agonists have been screened and characterized. Methods and results: We investigated the effects of auraptene, a citrus‐derived compound serving as a PPARα agonist in vitro, on abnormalities in lipid and glucose metabolisms. In high‐fat‐diet (HFD)‐fed KK‐Ay diabetic obese mice, auraptene treatment suppressed hyperlipidemia and triglyceride accumulation in the liver and skeletal muscle, and increased the mRNA expression levels of the PPARα target genes involved in fatty acid oxidation in the liver and skeletal muscle. Moreover, the adipocyte size in the auraptene‐treated mice was significantly smaller than that in the control HFD‐fed mice resulting in the improvement of HFD‐induced hyperglycemia and abnormalities in glucose tolerance. Conclusions: These findings indicate that auraptene activates PPARα also in vivo and its treatment may improve abnormalities in lipid and glucose metabolisms, suggesting that auraptene is a valuable food‐derived compound for managing metabolic disorders.     

Polypeptide aptamer selection using a stabilized ribosome display

A newly developed ribosome display protocol was applied to the in vitro selection of polypeptide aptamers to small molecular weight chemicals, 6-[hydroxy(4-nitrobenzyl)phosphonyl]hexanoic acid and vitamin B12, chosen from a peptide library of random sequences. New peptide sequences binding to the targets were found after six rounds of this protocol.     

Effects of active dried Saccharomyces cerevisiae on ruminal fermentation and bacterial community during the short-term ruminal acidosis challenge model in Holstein calves

We investigated the effects of active dried Saccharomyces cerevisiae (ADSC) on ruminal pH, fermentation, and the fluid bacterial community during the short-term ruminal acidosis challenge. Five rumen-fistulated male Holstein calves (147.0 ± 5.8 kg of body weight; 3.6 ± 0.2 mo of age) were used in a crossover design, and 0 g (control group, n = 5) or 2 g (SC group, n = 5) of ADSC (1 × 10¹⁰ cfu/g) was administered twice daily for 21 consecutive days. Calves were fed a high-forage diet during the first 15 d (d –14 to d 0; prechallenge), a high-grain diet for 2 d (d 1 and 2; ruminal acidosis challenge), and a high-forage diet for 4 d (d 3 to 6; postchallenge). Ruminal pH was measured continuously. Rumen fluid samples were collected once daily (0800 h) on d 0, 3, 4, and 6 and twice daily (0800 and 1100 h) on d 1 and 2. Bacterial DNA was extracted from fluid samples collected on d 0 and 3. The 24-h and 1-h mean ruminal pH was significantly depressed during the ruminal acidosis challenge in each group, although the changes were more severe in the SC group, consistent with a significant increase in lactic acid on d 2 (1100 h) compared with d 0 and a significantly higher proportion of butyric acid on d 2 (1100 h) compared with the control group. Feeding a high-grain diet caused a decrease in bacterial diversity due to high acidity in both groups. The relative abundances of the genus Bifidobacterium and operational taxonomic unit (OTU) 3 (Bifidobacterium species) increased significantly in both groups but were higher in the SC group. Correlation analyses indicated that OTU3 (Bifidobacterium species) were positively correlated with lactic acid concentration and that OTU1 (Prevotella species) and OTU5 (Succinivibrio species) were correlated with the proportion of butyric acid. These results suggest that ADSC supplementation induced the intense decreases in ruminal pH by increased butyric and lactic acid production through a high-grain diet fermentation by rumen fluid bacterial species during the short-term ruminal acidosis challenge in Holstein calves after weaning.     

Effect of non-equilibrium condensation of moist air on unsteady behaviour of shock waves around a circular arc blade

The unsteady phenomena in the transonic flow around airfoils are observed in the flow field of fan,compressorblades and butterfly valves,and this often causes serious problems such as the aeroacoustic noise,the vibration.In the transonic or supersonic flow where vapour is contained in the main flow,the rapid expansion of the flowmay give rise to a non-equilibrium condensation.However,the effect of non-equilibrium condensation on thetransonic internal flows around the airfoil has not yet been clarified satisfactorily.In the present study,the effectof non-equilibrium condensation of moist air on the self-excited shock wave oscillation on a circular arc bladewas investigated numerically.The results showed that in the case with non-equilibrium condensation,frequenciesof the flow oscillation became smaller than those without the non-equilibrium condensation.     

Effect of nozzle geometry on the flow characteristics of spiral flow generated through an annular slit

In comparison with previous researches of swirling flow,spiral flow generated in the spiral nozzle has some differentflow characteristics.It does not need a forced tangential momentum to generate its velocity and has some differentmerits from the swirling flow such as long potential core and low tangential velocity.In this study,the effect of noz-zle geometry on the flow characteristics in spiral nozzle was investigated by experiment and computation.As a result,the flow characteristics obtained by experiment has a satisfactory agreement with computational results,quantita-tively and qualitatively.     

Impact of alloying duration of an electrodeposited Cu/Sn/Zn metallic stack on properties of Cu2ZnSnS4 absorbers for thin‐film solar cells

The impacts of preheating of an electrodeposited Cu/Sn/Zn (CTZ) stack precursor on structural changes of the CTZ precursor and the impact on structural and electric properties of the finally obtained Cu₂ZnSnS₄ (CZTS) films are discussed in detail. We found that preheating for relatively long durations improved the qualities of CZTS films: these films were composed of large grains and had compact and flat surface morphologies. The best solar cell with efficiency of 8.1% was obtained on the basis of a CZTS film derived from the CTZ precursor preheated for 200 min. The external quantum efficiency response of the cell indicated efficient utilization of photons with relatively long wavelength regions because of its good structural and electronic properties. On the other hand, a short circuit current density–temperature property of one of the best cells in this study suggested that the CZTS film had deep acceptor levels and/or an appreciable energy barrier to the Mo back contact. Moreover, an open circuit voltage–temperature property of the corresponding device showed activation energy of 1.18 eV, indicating preferential occurrence of CdS–CZTS interface recombination. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of Axisymmetric Sonic Nozzle Geometry on Characteristics of Supersonic Air Jet

The effect of nozzle geometry on sonic line and characteristics of supersonic air jet was studied. Computational fluid dynamics was applied in this study. The axisymmetric nozzle geometries investigated were two different contour converging nozzles, two different conically converging sharp-edged nozzles and a sharp-edged orifice. The results show that the supersonic jet structure, sonic line and streamlines in supersonic jet are strongly influenced by the nozzle geometry, and the total pressure loss increases with the increase of Mach disk diameter. The present numerical simulation is an effective tool to evaluate compressible flows in supersonic air jet.     

Development of a PCR assay for detection of Enterobacteriaceae in foods

A broad-range PCR assay for the detection of bacteria belonging to the Enterobacteriaceae family was developed in this study. Primers targeting the bacterial 16S rRNA gene were newly designed and used in this PCR assay. To determine the specificity of the assay, 72 different bacterial species (of 49 genera), 2 fungi, 3 animals, and 4 plants were tested. Results were positive for every tested Vibrioaceae or Enterobacteriaceae strain except Proteus mirabilis. For all other bacterial strains and eukaryotes tested, results were negative. Bacterial DNA for PCR was prepared by a simple procedure with the use of Chelex 100 resin from culture after growth in brain heart infusion medium. To test this PCR assay for the monitoring of the Enterobacteriaceae family, either Escherichia coli or Salmonella Enteritidis was inoculated into various foods as an indicator. Prior to the PCR, the inoculation of 10 to 40 CFU of bacteria per g of food was followed by a 5-h enrichment culture step, and the PCR assay allowed the detection of bacterial cells. When actual examinations of the contamination of 15 noodle foods with Enterobacteriaceae by this PCR assay were conducted, 33% (5 of 15) of the samples tested positive. These results agreed with those of the Petrifilm Enterobacteriaceae Count Plate assay. Including the enrichment culture step, the entire PCR detection process can be completed within 7 h.     

Effect of Nonequilibrium Homogenous Condensation on Flow Fields in a Supersonic Nozzle

INTRODUCTIONManystudies[1-131onthecondensationshockwaveoccurringinthecaseoftheraPidexPansionofmoistairorsteaminasupersonicnozzlehavebeenper-formed,andthecharacteristicsofcondensationshock'wavehavenearlybeenclarilied.Acondensationshockwavealsooccursinthebladepassageinasteamturbinel14,15]andsuchacondensationshockwavinteractswiththeboundarylayeronthesurfaceoftheblade.Thus,thefiowinthebladepassageofthesteamturbinewiththecondensationshockwavehasnotyetbeenclariliedl16'17].InthepreseDtstudythee…     

An efficient handover decision method based on frame retransmission and data rate for multi-rate WLANs

To enhance the communication performance at handover between multi-rate WLANs, we propose a new handover decision method that can be applied to our previously reported handover management scheme, which handled a handover by utilizing two WLAN interfaces (IFs) through cross-layer collaboration between layer 2 and layer 4. It should be noted that we here propose a new handover decision scheme for traversing between multi-rate WLANs, while our previous decision scheme works only in fixed-rate WLANs. In this paper, to treat a handover between multi-rate WLANs, we employ two kinds of information: (1) the most frequently used data rate (MFDR) for assessing the stable communication performance of a multi-rate WLAN, and (2) the frame retransmission ratio (FRR) for assessing its exact communication performance. The MFDR enables us to estimate the area where we should start handover. If the MFDRs of two interfaces are same in the area, the FRR allows us to compare the wireless condition on the two interfaces precisely to give an optimal handover point. Through simulation experiments, we show that our proposed scheme certainly estimates an appropriate handover point as a result of multi-path transmission (s), thereby providing handover successfully. That is, the proposed method can determine handover at an optimal point depending on the various distances between access points, the mobile node (MN) velocity, and the MN moving pattern. Moreover, our proposed scheme prevents the redundant network load caused by multi-path transmission as much as possible, thereby providing the ideal TCP communication performance.