Regulatory role of phosphoproteins in the development of bovine small intestine during early life

The small intestine is the primary site of nutrient digestion and absorption, which plays a key role in the survival of neonatal calves. A comprehensive assessment of the phosphoproteomic changes in the small intestine of neonatal calves is unavailable; therefore, we used phosphopeptide enrichment coupled with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry to investigate the changes in the phosphoproteome profile in the bovine small intestine during the first 36 h of life. Twelve neonatal male calves were assigned to one of the following groups: (1) calves not fed colostrum and slaughtered approximately 2 h postpartum (n = 3), (2) calves fed colostrum at 1 to 2 h and slaughtered 8 h postpartum (n = 3), (3) calves fed 2 colostrum meals (at 1–2 and 10–12 h) and slaughtered 24 h postpartum (n = 3), (4) calves fed 3 colostrum meals (at 1–2, 10–12, and 22–24 h) and slaughtered 36 h postpartum (n = 3). Mid-duodenal, jejunal, and ileal samples of the calves were collected after slaughter. We identified 1,678 phosphoproteins with approximately 3,080 phosphosites, which were mainly Ser (89.9%), Thr (9.8%), and Tyr (0.3%) residues; they belonged to the prodirected (52.9%), basic (20.4%), acidic (16.6%), and Tyr-directed (1.7%) motif categories. The regional differentially expressed phosphoproteins included zonula occludens 2, sorting nexin 12, and protein kinase C, which are mainly associated with developmental processes, intracellular transport, vesicle-mediated transport, and immune system process. They are enriched in the endocytosis, tight junction, insulin signaling, and focal adhesion pathways. The temporal differentially expressed phosphoproteins included occludin, epsin 1, and bridging integrator 1, which were mainly associated with macromolecule metabolic process, cell adhesion, and growth. They were enriched in the spliceosomes, adherens junctions, and tight junctions. The observed changes in the phosphoproteins in the tissues of small intestine suggest the protein phosphorylation plays an important role in nutrient transport and immune response of calves during early life, which needs to be confirmed in a larger study.     

Network-coding based event diffusion for wireless networks using semi-broadcasting

Publish/subscribe is a well known and powerful distributed programming paradigm with many potential applications. Publish/subscribe content dissemination techniques based on opportunistic networking and network coding-based epidemic routing are key techniques for optimizing network resources, simplifying network architecture, and providing a platform for realizing innovative networking applications and service.In this paper we consider the central problem of any pub/sub implementation, namely the problem of event dissemination, in the case of a wireless mesh network. We propose a new dissemination strategy based on the notion of semi-broadcast. In a semi-broadcast based protocol the actual content is disseminated in two phases. In the first phase only a fraction of the content is broadcasted (pushed) over the network and stored inside any node, whereas in the second phase the missed part is retried (pulled) on demand from other nodes. Thanks to network coding the partial content stored in each node at the end of the first phase is a set of random linear combinations over the whole content. This allows a very efficient recovery strategy as the missed part is found in nearby nodes with a high probability.The benefit of this approach is that only the interested subscribers, which can vary in number and position over time, can engage the pulling phase.We propose several protocols based on non-trivial forwarding mechanisms that employ network coding as a central tool for supporting adaptive event dissemination while exploiting the broadcast nature of wireless transmissions and guided to the semi-broadcast principle. We show a considerable enhancement in term of total flooding costs and full decoding rates by a self parameter control deployment during the dissemination procedure.     

A Homogeneous Fluorescence Polarization Immunoassay for the Determination of Cephalexin and Cefadroxil in Milk

A new monoclonal antibody (mAb) against cephalexin (CEX), named 1F3, was produced by immunizing mice with immunogen CEX–keyhole limpet hemocyanin. Two fluorescein-labeled tracers (CEX–fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) and cefadroxil (CDX)–FITC) were synthesized and purified by thin-layer chromatography. A homogeneous fluorescence polarization immunoassay (FPIA) based on the new mAb and the selected tracer for the simultaneous determination of CEX and CDX was developed and optimized. The optimized FPIA provided a limit of detection of 1.8 and 2.3 ng ml^?1 for CEX and CDX and exhibited cross-reactivities of 100 and 63.16 % for CEX and CDX, respectively, and <1 % for other 11 cephalosporins. Recoveries from fortified milk were ranged from 82 to 125 % with coefficient of variations of 3.2–14.2 %. The results indicated that the homogeneous FPIA we developed was enough sensitive to rapidly monitor CEX and CDX in milk.     

Digital image splicing detection based on Markov features in block DWT domain

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Image splicing is very common and fundamental in image tampering. Many splicing detection schemes based on Markov features in transform domain have been...     

Automated quantitative model-based fault diagnosistic protocol via Assumption State Differences

This treatment describes the details of a systematic protocol useful for performing optimal automated process fault analysis. This implementation generalizes the underlying Boolean logic version of the Method of Minimal Evidence (MOME) developed previously to a highly comprehensive algorithm for performing model-based fault diagnostics. This generalization allows for a more compact treatment of potential single and multiple fault situations, at all levels of possible diagnostic resolution, with both elegant and efficient uniform sensor validation and proactive fault analysis (SV&PFA) diagnostic rules for diagnosing those situations. This Assumption State Differences (ASD) Protocol version of the MOME algorithm thus automates the diagnostic reasoning necessary to continuously perform optimal process fault analysis so that only the underlying well-formulated models are required to achieve such performance. Using this algorithm consequently directly simplifies the solution of the more complicated problem of automated process fault analysis into the much more tractable, and incrementally solvable, problem of adequately modeling normal process operations.     

High hydrostatic pressure treatment as an alternative to pasteurization to maintain bioactive compound content and texture in red sweet pepper

Red sweet peppers (Capsicum annuum) are an excellent source of essential nutrients and bioactive compounds. High hydrostatic pressures (HHP) not only increase shelf-life but also maintain nutritional and organoleptic properties better in a number of food products. The aim of this work was to measure the effect of HHP and a thermal treatment, pasteurization (PA) in a water bath at 70 °C for 10 min, on some bioactive compounds (fibre, carotenoids and antioxidant activity) and on the texture (TPA; firmness and shear force) of red Lamuyo-type sweet peppers, in order to discover the relationship between treatment (HHP and PA), tissue microstructure and bioactive compound extractability. The results show that HHP at 500 MPa and PA treatments had less impact on the microstructure, bioactive compound content (fibre and antioxidant activity) and texture of red sweet peppers, than when low pressures were used. Consequently, new functional foods could be developed using red sweet pepper tissues treated with high pressures (500 MPa) and/or PA.Industrial relevanceToday’s consumers demand foods that are rich in bioactive compounds with beneficial health effects and safer, more natural, minimally-processed food products. Red sweet peppers (Capsicum annuum) are an excellent source of essential nutrients and bioactive compounds such as carotenoids and fibre. High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) processing is considered one of the most economically viable of the non-thermal technologies that helps to preserve red sweet peppers with high nutritional and quality parameters. Therefore, it would be interesting to study the microstructure of HHP-treated red sweet pepper tissues in order to discover whether this treatment promotes the extractability of bioactive compounds, and to compare the results with those obtained by pasteurizing the red sweet pepper. Thus, these enhanced red sweet peppers could be used as ingredients in the formulation of new functional foods.     

New privilege-based visual cryptography with arbitrary privilege levels

Recently, Hou et al. introduced a novel (2, n) privilege-based visual cryptography scheme (PVCS) with various privilege levels of shadow images. In this scheme, a shadow with a higher privilege contributes more recovered information, while a lower privileged shadow has the less recovery capability. Moreover, the visual quality of stacked result depends on the total sum of privilege levels for all involved shadows in reconstruction. Unfortunately, the PVC scheme has the inconsistency of the contrast of recovered image and the sum of privilege levels. Accordingly, an enhanced Hou et al.’s (2, n)-PVC scheme (EPVCS) is proposed to solve this inconsistency problem. However, the EPVCS is not a general solution to implement all PVCSs with arbitrary privilege levels, and it also has the unequal whiteness of shadows. In this paper, we first extend Hou et al.’s (2, n)-EPVCS with a correct privilege levels achieving the consistency of the contrast and the sum of privilege levels. Then we construct a (2, n)-PVCS to allow arbitrary privilege levels and provide the equal whiteness for each shadow.     

A genetic strategy to design cellular automata based block ciphers

We propose an evolutionary computation approach to design a fast and secure block cipher using non-uniform second-order cellular automata. We build a flexible block ciphering model that permit the construction of a huge space of possible instances defined each one by a finite set of elementary transition rules. The constructed space is explored using a genetic algorithms strategy in order to find an optimal solution with respect to the strict avalanche criterion used as fitness measurements. The genetically designed cipher is benchmarked experimentally using conventional statistical tests, and shown to have very admissible characteristics leading to a very acceptable level of cryptographic security. Moreover, performances analysis shows that the designed cipher permit to achieve a high encryption/decryption speed, and compete many of the existing standardized ciphers.     

基于MAS和Petri-net技术的新能源电网协调控制策略

为提高新能源微电网电力供应的安全性和经济性,提出了一种基于Multi-Agent和Petri-net技术的协调控制策略。微电网是一个典型的混合系统,包括多种分布式发电和储能单元,它们具有不同行为特征和多种运行模态。考虑到这些分布式单元模态运行和逻辑切换的复杂性,构建了Multi-Agent系统(MAS),通过多Agent的交互作用来实现分布式协调控制策略。由于Petri-net模型是表述多模态运行系统的最有效工具之一,所以采用petr-net模型来描述各分布式单元的模态切换行为并以此设计其单元Agent模态切换控制策略。在此基础上,基于Multi-Agent系统框架在上层中心Agent中构建各分布式能源单元之间的模态协调切换控制策略,来实现整个微电网运行模态的有效切换。最后仿真验证了所提出的控制策略的有效性。