Combination of vegetable soup and glucan demonstrates synergistic effects on macrophage-mediated immune responses

Vegetable soup (VS), a plant-based functional food, has been used as a traditional folk medicine and is attracting attention for its ability to enhance the immune response. β-Glucan, a well-established and effective immunomodulator, has synergistic effects when used in combination with some bioactive compounds. In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the synergistic immunomodulatory effects of the combination of VS and β-glucan on macrophage-mediated immune responses. β-Glucan was demonstrated to synergistically enhance the VS-stimulated immune response, including the production of interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-α, and nitric oxide, mainly through the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway in macrophages. In addition, this combination has the potential for further development in functional foods with immune-enhancing activity.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10068-021-00888-x.     

High hydrostatic pressure extract of Siegesbeckia orientalis inhibits adipogenesis through the activation of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway

Food Science and Biotechnology - St. Paul’s Wort (Siegesbeckia orientalis L.) confers anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic, anti-infertility, and immunosuppressive properties....     

Small‐Sized High‐Power PIN Diode Switch with Defected Ground Structure for Wireless Broadband Internet

This letter presents a small‐sized, high‐power single‐pole double‐throw (SPDT) switch with defected ground structure (DGS) for wireless broadband Internet application. To reduce the circuit size by using a slow‐wave characteristic, the DGS is used for the quarter‐wave (°/4) transmission line of the switch. To secure a high degree of isolation, the switch with DGS is composed of shunt‐connected PIN diodes. It shows an insertion loss of 0.8 dB, an isolation of 50 dB or more, and power capability of at least 50 W at 2.3 GHz. The switch shows very similar performance to the conventional shunt‐type switch, but the circuit size is reduced by about 50% simply with the use of DGS patterns.     

Identification of the adverse effect of nitrate on the phosphate release rate and improvement of EBPR process models.

The adverse effect of nitrate on the phosphate release rate in the anaerobic phase was observed and was hardly explainable with conventional EBPR process models. Four possible mechanisms were proposed including substrate competition, reduced fermentation, parallel reaction and sequential reaction. Batch experiments were designed and conducted to identify the dominant mechanism. Results showed that the sequential reaction was the only possible mechanism where only denitrification occurred if any nitrate existed in the anaerobic phase. Then the phosphate release following after the nitrate was completely removed. Nitrate inhibition effect was added into the PHA storage rate to incorporate the sequential reaction in the conventional ASM3 plus EAWAG bio-P module (ASM3 + P). Nitrate inhibition coefficient, K(I,NO,PAO) was found to be as low as 0.05 mg/L. This correlated well with experimental observation where no also meant that the anaerobic compartment of a continuous flow reactor could be seriously affected by the residual nitrate contained in the sludge recycle flow. This phenomenon caused overestimation of the phosphate uptake rate and consequently underestimation of PO4(3-) -P concentration. This problem was resolved by incorporation of a nitrate inhibition term in the ASM3 + P for more accurate simulation of the EBPR process.     

A Least Squares Approach to Escalator Algorithms for Adaptive Filtering

In this paper, we introduce an escalator (ESC) algorithm based on the least squares (LS) criterion. The proposed algorithm is relatively insensitive to the eigenvalue spread ratio (ESR) of an input signal and has a faster convergence speed than the conventional ESC algorithms. This algorithm exploits the fast adaptation ability of least squares methods and the orthogonalization property of the ESC structure. From the simulation results, the proposed algorithm shows superior convergence performance.     

Effects of surface charge, micro-bubble size and particle size on removal efficiency of electro-flotation.

Flotation is a water treatment alternative to sedimentation, and uses small bubbles to remove low-density particles from potable water and wastewater. The effect of zeta potential, bubble size and particle size on removal efficiency of the electro-flotation process was investigated because previous model-simulations indicated that these attributes are critical for high collision efficiency between micro-bubbles and particles. Solutions containing Al3+ as the metal ion were subjected to various conditions. The zeta potentials of bubbles and particles were similar under identical conditions, and their charges were influenced by metal ion concentration and pH. Maximum removal efficiency was 98 and 12% in the presence and absence of flocculation, respectively. Removal efficiency was higher when particle size was similar to bubble size. These results agree with modelling simulations and indicate that collision efficiency is greater when the zeta potential of one is negative and that of the other is positive and when their sizes are similar.     

Assessing stem cell research productivity

Honour Index (HoI), a method to evaluate research performance within different research fields, was derived from the impact factor (IF). It can be used to rate and compare different categories of journals. HoI was used in this study to determine the scientific productivity of stem cell research in the Asian Four Dragons (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) from 1981 to 2001. The methodology applied in this study represents a synthesis of universal indicator studies and bibliometric analyses of subfields at the micro-level. We discuss several comparisons, and conclude the developmental trend in stem cell research for two decades. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

An MPEG‐4 Compliant Interactive Multimedia Streaming Platform Using Overlay Networks

This paper presents a multimedia streaming platform for efficiently transmitting MPEG‐4 content over IP networks. The platform includes an MPEG‐4 compliant streaming server and client, supporting object‐based representation of multimedia scenes, interactivity, and advanced encoding profiles defined by the ISO standard. For scalability purposes, we employ an application‐layer multicast scheme for media transmission using overlay networks. The overlay network, governed by the central entity of the network distribution manager, is dynamically deployed according to a set of pre‐defined criteria. The overlay network supports both broadcast delivery and video‐on‐demand content. The multimedia streaming platform is standards‐compliant and utilizes widespread multimedia protocols such as MPEG‐4, real‐time transport protocol, real‐time transport control protocol, and real‐time streaming protocol. The design of the overlay network was architected with the goal of transparency to both the streaming server and the client. As a result, many commercial implementations that use industry‐standard protocols can be plugged into the architecture relatively painlessly and can enjoy the benefits of the platform.     

A New Comb Circular Polarizer Suitable for Millimeter‐Band Application

This letter presents a new polarizer which has a simple comb structure inside a circular waveguide. The electrical performance of the proposed comb polarizer is optimized by a circular waveguide radius and by the physical parameters of the comb plates. This polarizer is suitable for providing good performance in millimeter‐band application because of its simple structure and low fabrication cost. In our experiments the dual‐band comb polarizer designed in band 1(K) and band 2(Ka) showed good electrical performance without any tuning elements.     

Analysis of Distributed DDQ for QoS Router

In a packet switching network, congestion is unavoidable and affects the quality of real‐time traffic with such problems as delay and packet loss. Packet fair queuing (PFQ) algorithms are well‐known solutions for quality‐of‐service (QoS) guarantee by packet scheduling. Our approach is different from previous algorithms in that it uses hardware time achieved by sampling a counter triggered by a periodic clock signal. This clock signal can be provided to all the modules of a routing system to get synchronization. In this architecture, a variant of the PFQ algorithm, called digitized delay queuing (DDQ), can be distributed on many line interface modules. We derive the delay bounds in a single processor system and in a distributed architecture. The definition of traffic contribution improves the simplicity of the mathematical models. The effect of different time between modules in a distributed architecture is the key idea for understanding the delay behavior of a routing system. The number of bins required for the DDQ algorithm is also derived to make the system configuration clear. The analytical models developed in this paper form the basis of improvement and application to a combined input and output queuing (CIOQ) router architecture for a higher speed QoS network.