Bee Bread Ameliorates Vascular Inflammation and Impaired Vasorelaxation in Obesity-Induced Vascular Damage Rat Model: The Role of eNOS/NO/cGMP-Signaling Pathway

Obesity and hyperlipidemia are major risk factors for developing vascular diseases. Bee bread (BB) has been reported to exhibit some biological actions, including anti-obesity and anti-hyperlipidemic. This study aims to investigate whether bee bread can ameliorate vascular inflammation and impaired vasorelaxation activity through eNOS/NO/cGMP pathway in obese rats. Forty male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into four groups (n = 10/group), namely: control (normal group), obese rats (OB group), obese rats treated with bee bread (0.5 g/kg/day, OB/BB group) and obese rats treated with orlistat (10 mg/kg/day, OB/OR group). The latter three groups were given a high-fat diet (HFD) for 6 weeks to induced obesity before being administered with their respective treatments for another 6 weeks. After 12 weeks of the total experimental period, rats in the OB group demonstrated significantly higher Lee obesity index, lipid profile (total cholesterol, triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein), aortic proinflammatory markers (tumor necrosis factor-α, nuclear factor-κβ), aortic structural damage and impairment in vasorelaxation response to acetylcholine (ACh). Bee bread significantly ameliorated the obesity-induced vascular damage manifested by improvements in the lipid profile, aortic inflammatory markers, and the impaired vasorelaxation activity by significantly enhancing nitric oxide release, promoting endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) and cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) immunoexpression. These findings suggest that the administration of bee bread ameliorates the impaired vasorelaxation response to ACh by improving eNOS/NO/cGMP-signaling pathway in obese rats, suggesting its vascular therapeutic role.     

Application of novel extractants for actinide(III)/ lanthanide(III) separation in hollow-fibre modules

Separation tests using hollow-fibre modules were performed for the difficult selective extraction of trivalent actinides over fission lanthanides from acidic media. This article shows that with 2,6-di(5,6-dipropyl-1,2,4-triazin-3-yl)pyridine as the extractant, up to 94% americium could be extracted from 1.0 kmol/m³ HNO₃, with minimal lanthanide co-extraction. Using a synergistic mixture of bis(chlorophenyl)dithiophosphinic acid and tri-n-octyl phosphine oxide, tests were performed on extraction, lanthanide scrubbing and stripping. In the extraction test, up to 99.99% americium could be extracted from 0.5 kmol/m³ HNO₃, with approximately one third of the lanthanides being co-extracted. Mass transfer calculations using a consistent set of input data showed good agreement with the experiments.     

Amiloride inhalation therapy in mucoviscidosis

The defective regulation of the secretory chloride channel and the accelerated rate of sodium absorption in the airway epithelia of patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) contribute to the dehydration of airway secretions which is responsible for secondary damage in the respiratory tract. The sodium-blocker amiloride inhibits sodium absorption depending on the dosage of the drug. This effect is documented by means of measuring transepithelial potential difference which is decreased following to inhalative amiloride administration in CF patients. Clinical long term efficiency has been shown to be probable, but has to be confirmed. Investigation in this field is difficult, because there are some other important factors which influence viscosity of mucus. The use of amiloride can best be evaluated, if it is given immediately after birth. However, the answer to some important questions has to be found before.     

Discrete Chemical Release From a Microfluidic Chip

We demonstrate a discrete chemical release method, capable of delivering picoliter volumes of chemical solutions with 100 mum of spatial resolution and 20 mus of response time. The releasing mechanism is based on the transfer of pulsed liquid plugs through a hydrophobic air chamber. A microfluidic chip consisting of such a releasing array (2 times 10) is designed and fabricated. Numerical simulation and experimental testing are performed to verify the working principle. Advantages of this release-on-demand technology include leakage-free, fast response and versatile control of release profile. This new method could be a key enabling technology for precisely controlled release of biochemicals for modern pharmacological and biological research.     

Multiple Na,K-ATPase Subunits Colocalize in the Brush Border of Mouse Choroid Plexus Epithelial Cells

(1) Background: The unusual accumulation of Na,K-ATPase complexes in the brush border membrane of choroid plexus epithelial cells have intrigued researchers for decades. However, the full range of the expressed Na,K-ATPase subunits and their relation to the microvillus cytoskeleton remains unknown. (2) Methods: RT-PCR analysis, co-immunoprecipitation, native PAGE, mass spectrometry, and differential centrifugation were combined with high-resolution immunofluorescence histochemistry, proximity ligase assays, and stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy on mouse choroid plexus cells or tissues in order to resolve these issues. (3) Results: The choroid plexus epithelium expresses Na,K-ATPase subunits α1, α2, β1, β2, β3, and phospholemman. The α1, α2, β1, and β2, subunits are all localized to the brush border membrane, where they appear to form a complex. The ATPase complexes may stabilize in the brush border membrane via anchoring to microvillar actin indirectly through ankyrin-3 or directly via other co-precipitated proteins. Aquaporin 1 (AQP1) may form part of the proposed multi-protein complexes in contrast to another membrane protein, the Na-K-2Cl cotransporter 1 (NKCC1). NKCC1 expression seems necessary for full brush border membrane accumulation of the Na,K-ATPase in the choroid plexus. (4) Conclusion: A multitude of Na,K-ATPase subunits form molecular complexes in the choroid plexus brush border, which may bind to the cytoskeleton by various alternative actin binding proteins.     

Desiderata for Languages to be Used in the Defnition of Reference Business Processes

In many modern enterprises, explicit business process de nitions facilitate the pursuit of business goals in such ways as best practice reuse, process analysis, processe ciency improvement, and automation. Most real-world business processes are large and complex. Successfully capturing, analysing, and automating these processes requires process de nition languages that capture a variety of process aspects with a wealth of details. Mostcurrent process modelling languages, such as Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN),focus on structural control ows among activities while providing inadequate support for other process de nition needs. In this paper, we rst illustrate these inadequacies through our experiences with a collection of real-world reference business processes from the Aus-tralian lending industry. We observe that the most signi cant inadequacies include lack of resource management, exception handling, process variation, and data ow integration.These identi ed shortcomings led us to consider the Little-JIL language as a vehicle forde ning business processes. Little-JIL addresses the afore-mentioned inadequacies with a number of innovative features. Our investigation concludes that these innovative features are e ective in addressing a number of key reference business process de nition needs.     

Rapid solidification in the Al2O3ZrO2 system

Eutectic compositions of Al₂O₃ and ZrO₂ have been melted and rapidly solidified by shock-wave quenching, flame-pressure atomization and high-pressure water atomization. Quenching rates > 10⁴ K/s resulted in amorphous particles which, on annealing, crystallized at 1310°C. Microcrystalline particles with tetragonal ZrO₂ distributed in an ?-Al₂O₃ matrix formed at lower quenching rates. ?-Al₂O₃ transformed into α-Al₂O₃ on annealing at 953°C.     

Flow shop batching and scheduling with sequence-dependent setup times

This paper addresses the flow shop batching and scheduling problem where sequence-dependent family setup times are present and the objective is to minimize makespan. We consider violating the group technology assumption by dividing product families into batches. In order to reduce setup times, inconsistent batches are formed on different machines, which lead to non-permutation schedules. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the splitting of job families into inconsistent batches has been considered in a flow shop system. A tabu search algorithm is developed which contains several neighbourhood functions, double tabu lists and a multilevel diversification structure. Compared to the state-of-the-art meta-heuristics for this problem, the proposed tabu search algorithm achieves further improvement when the group scheduling assumption is dropped. Also, various experiments conducted on the benchmark problem instances confirm the benefits of batching. Therefore, it will be prudent for the practitioners to consider adopting inconsistent batches and non-permutation schedules to improve their operational efficiency within a reasonable amount of computational effort.