Fermented Pineapple Juice Consumption Limits Metabolic Disorders Associated to Sugary Drinks on High-Fat Diet-Fed Mice

Scope

Lactic acid fermentation (LAF) modulates the composition of food, leading to changes in safety, sensory, and nutritional properties. The effects of lactic fermented pineapple juice (FJ) supplementation on energetic metabolism of high-fat diet (HFD) fed mice are compared with either water (control), sweetened water (SW), bacteria in SW, and pineapple juice (J) supplementation.

Methods and results

Drink consumption and body weight are measured during the 6 weeks of experiment, whereas glycemia and lipid content are determined at the beginning and at the end of the experiment. Total energy intake is similar between all groups though the volume of juice consumed is lower than that of SWs. Weight gain is higher for mice provided with sugary drinks (5.65 ± 1.32 to 7.74 ± 2.98 g) compared to water (4.68 ± 0.93 g). The FJ is less detrimental to blood carbohydrate regulation than other sugary drinks. Triglyceride (TG) and total cholesterol content are not modified following fermented juice or water consumption, contrarily to other sugary drinks. Whatever the drink, intestinal permeability is preserved. Lactic acid bacterium (LAB) population in feces is not affected by the beverage but species composition is modified.

Conclusion

From a health perspective, FJ is preferable to other sugary drinks to limit metabolic disorders related to HFD.     

Evaluation of commercial lithium-ion cells based on composite positive electrode for plug-in hybrid electric vehicle applications. Part II. Degradation mechanism under 2 C cycle aging

Degradation phenomena and inference of their underlying mechanisms during 2 C cycle aging in a cell design comprising {LiMn_1/3Ni_1/3Co_1/3O₂ + LiMn₂O₄} composite positive electrode are studied and reported in this work. We describe how aging phenomena in the cells were studied and incremental capacity analysis applied to infer cell degradation mechanisms in the cycle aging process. Two stages of degradation were observed in the life cycle under this aging regime. In the first stage, we conclude that loss of lithium inventory was the cause of capacity fade. As a result of such parasitic loss, the cell further suffered from loss of active materials in the second stage, in which the positive electrode kinetics was hampered and the capacity loss accelerated.     

Explainability of Deep Vision-Based Autonomous Driving Systems: Review and Challenges

International Journal of Computer Vision - This survey reviews explainability methods for vision-based self-driving systems trained with behavior cloning. The concept of explainability has several...     

Multidisciplinary design methodology for mechatronic systems based on interface model

Mechatronic system is considered as the resulting integration of electrical/electronic system, mechanical parts and information processing. Therefore, to enable a systematic design process of mechatronic systems with a high-level integration, the so-called multidisciplinary integrated design is required. However, neither academia nor industry has yet provided an effective solution, which can fully support the whole design process to achieve such multidisciplinary integrated design. In order to organise the design activities from different disciplines and to aid the designers to achieve the multidisciplinary integrated design, the authors propose a design methodology based on a multidisciplinary interface model. In line with the systems engineering practices, an extended V-model is used as the macro-level process in the proposed design methodology. It starts with identification of requirements on the entire system and ends with a user-validated system. The hierarchical design model is adopted as the micro-level process. It supports the specific design phases where individual designers can structure design sub-tasks and proceed and react in unforeseen situations. To ensure the consistency and traceability between the two levels, the multidisciplinary interface model is proposed. This design methodology is demonstrated by studying the design process of a quadrotor.     

Variable temperature characterization of N,N′-Bis(n-pentyl)terrylene-3,4:11,12-tetracarboxylic diimide thin film transistor

Organic thin film transistors (OTFT) based on N,N′-Bis(n-pentyl)terrylene-3,4:11,12-tetracarboxylic diimide (TTCDI-5C) with Al or Au top-contact electrodes were deposited on SiO₂ (200 nm)/p-Si (0 0 1) substrates. Carrier mobility was examined as a function of temperature in the range from 50 to 310 K. Two distinct carrier transfer behaviours were observed: temperature independent behaviour below 150 K and thermally activated behaviour above 150 K. Activation energies presented values of 85–130 meV depending on the metal electrodes (Au, Al), which can be attributed to the carrier traps at the interface and the energy-level offset between the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) and the work functions of the respective metals.     

The influence of molar mass on rheological and dilute solution properties of poly(butylene succinate)

The fundamental rheological properties of a wide molar mass M_w range of poly(butylene succinate)s (PBSs) are investigated. For entangled samples and a reference temperature of 140°C, the shear viscosity is described by the Carreau–Yasuda model. The plateau modulus is estimated at 1.5 × 10⁵ Pa, the average activation energy of PBS melt is , and the critical molar mass for entanglement M_c is found to be 16,000 g mol^?1 (PS equivalent). The dilute solution properties of PBS are also studied. A size exclusion chromatography equipped with a triple detection system is used to estimate the Mark–Houwink–Sakurada (MHS) parameters of PBS in solution in chloroform at 30°C. The exponent a and the coefficient K of the MHS relationship are found to be 0.71 ± 0.1 and 39.94 × 10^?5 ± 6.31 × 10^?5 dL g^?1(g mol^?1)^?a, respectively. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 40887.     

The kinetics of poly(butylene succinate) synthesis and the influence of molar mass on its thermal properties

The synthesis of poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) of M_w ranging from 4000 to 180,000 g mol^?1 is realized with molar ratios [COOH]₀/[OH]₀ of 1 and 0.98, and varying amounts of titanium (IV) tetrabutoxide (TBT) catalyst. Polycondensation kinetics are followed by chemical titration of carboxylic groups, and the kinetic rate constants of self‐catalyzed and external‐catalyzed reactions are calculated. The synthesis of PBS with high molar mass follows the classical Flory theory. The effect of molar mass on PBS thermal properties is also studied. A faster crystallization rate and a higher temperature of crystallization are observed, for very high molar masses. This behavior could be due to a memory effect of the polymer. Complex melting behavior of PBS is induced by a continuous reorganization of the crystalline phase, as observed by MTDSC. DSC measurements also reveal that the crystallinity—and so the amorphous phase—is limited to about 35% when the molar mass M_n is higher than 40,000 g mol^?1. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 40639.     

Resource Allocation in High Data Rate Mesh WPAN: A Survey Paper

IEEE 802.15.3 High data rate wireless personal area networks (HDR WPANs) have been developed to communicate with devices within 10 m at high speed. A mesh network made up of a parent piconet and several child piconets can support multi-hop communications. Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have been expected to be the ultimate solution for the next decade wireless networking, showing rapid progress and many new inspiring applications. The international standardization organizations formed working groups to address the problem of standardization for WMNs. These groups were the IEEE 802.15.5 (mesh extensions for WPANs),the IEEE 802.11s (mesh extensions for WLANs), and the IEEE 802.16a (mesh extensions for WiMAX). The IEEE 802.15.5 standard is the standard which defines specifications for including multi-hop functionality in the legacy 802.15.3 and 802.15.4 low data rate (LDR) WPAN networks. The impetus for a WPAN to operate in a mesh topology is to increase the network coverage without increasing the transmit power, to increase the route reliability via route redundancy, self-configuration, and efficient use of device battery life. In the case of meshed WPANs, multiple WPAN clusters compete for channel time in a shared superframe. Therefore, it is essential to determine the channel time requirements of each cluster with a certain number of devices and to determine how these clusters can compete to the shared channel time. In this paper, we investigate the different resource allocation mechanisms related to the meshed HDR WPANs for the 802.15.3 and the 802.15.5 standards. We introduce the single hop and the multi-hop IEEE 802.15.3 WPAN architectures. This is followed by the introduction of the IEEE 802.15.5 standard that provides the mesh capabilities for extending the coverage area of HDR WPANs. The current on-going research issues for resource allocation, including beacon interference, reservation collision etc., in both meshed 802.15.3 and 802.15.5 are alluded to.     

Multi-disciplinary characterisation of a sandstone surface crust

Sandstones are used in many contemporary and historical buildings. With time, these buildings become dark and a surface crust is formed. Generally, these crusts mainly consist of minerals of which the constituents were mobilised from the interior of the stone, and material from the surrounding environment like air pollutants and dust. Many traditional techniques, such as optical microscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy and the Drilling Resistance Measurement System, have been used to study these crusts in the past. The advent of more advanced techniques allows a better characterisation of sandstone surface crusts, commonly present in urban stone decay. High-resolution X-ray radiography and tomography, micro X-ray absorption spectroscopy (µ-XANES) and 2D micro-XRF scanning at laboratory and synchrotron sources, combined with more traditional research methods were applied to the study of a sandstone surface crust. This shows that the combination of these highly advanced techniques, which were not designed with the purpose of answering geological or environmental questions, can generate complementary 2D and 3D imagery of geological materials, opening up new approaches in the study of element migration inside porous geomaterials.Capsule: I hereby state that this work is significant to the rest of the scientific community.