Microbial Succession and Metabolite Changes during Long‐Term Storage of Kimchi

Kimchi is often stored for a long period of time for a diet during the winter season because it is an essential side dish for Korean meals. In this study pH, abundance of bacteria and yeasts, bacterial communities, and metabolites were monitored periodically to investigate the fermentation process of kimchi for 120 d. Bacterial abundance increased quickly with a pH decrease after an initial pH increase during the early fermentation period. After 20 d, pH values became relatively stable and free sugars were maintained at relatively constant levels, indicating that kimchi fermentation by lactic acid bacteria (LAB) was almost completed. After that time, a decrease in bacterial abundance and a growth in Saccharomyces occurred concurrently with increased free sugar consumption and production of glycerol and ethanol. Finally, after 100 d, the growth of Candida was observed. Community analysis using pyrosequencing revealed that diverse LAB including Leuconostoc citreum, Leuconostoc holzapfelii, Lactococcus lactis, and Weissella soli were present during the early fermentation period, but the LAB community was quickly replaced with Lactobacillus sakei, Leuconostoc gasicomitatum, and Weissella koreensis as the fermentation progressed. Metabolite analysis using ¹H‐NMR showed that organic acids (lactate, acetate, and succinate) as well as bioactive substances (mannitol and gamma‐aminobutyric acid (GABA)) were produced during the kimchi fermentation, and Leuconostoc strains and Lactobacillus sakei were identified as the producers of mannitol and GABA, respectively. Practical Application In this study, we have shown that the growth inhibition of yeasts including Saccharomyces and Candida is necessary to extend the shelf life of kimchi in long‐term storage. Additionally, we have shown that a mixed culture of Leuconostoc strains and Lactobacillus sakei is necessary to produce kimchi that contains both mannitol and gamma‐aminobutyric acid.     

Drugs,Guts, Brains,but Not Rock and Roll: The Need to Consider the Role of Gut Microbiota in Contemporary Mental Health and Wellness of Emerging Adults

Emerging adulthood (ages 18–25) is a critical period for neurobiological development and the maturation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis. Recent findings also suggest that a natural perturbation of the gut microbiota (GM), combined with other factors, may create a unique vulnerability during this period of life. The GM of emerging adults is thought to be simpler, less diverse, and more unstable than either younger or older people. We postulate that this plasticity in the GM suggests a role in the rising mental health issues seen in westernized societies today via the gut–brain–microbiota axis. Studies have paid particular attention to the diversity of the microbiota, the specific function and abundance of bacteria, and the production of metabolites. In this narrative review, we focus specifically on diet, physical activity/exercise, substance use, and sleep in the context of the emerging adult. We propose that this is a crucial period for establishing a stable and more resilient microbiome for optimal health into adulthood. Recommendations will be made about future research into possible behavioral adjustments that may be beneficial to endorse during this critical period to reduce the probability of a “dysbiotic” GM and the emergence and severity of mental health concerns.     

Novel preparation and high electrical performance effect of Mn-doped ultra-high surface area activated carbon (USAC) as an additive for Ni hybrid capacitors

This paper reports the synthesis of various molar concentrations of manganese (Mn)-doped Ultra-High Surface area Activated Carbon (USAC) additives and their efficient use as cathode materials for supercapacitors. We synthesized the nanoparticles via a novel and facile dip-coating process and characterized them in detail by various analytical techniques. The SEM, EDAX, and XPS results showed that the Mn ions were successfully substituted on the USAC additives’ layered structure without any structural changes. The long cyclic stability of the as-prepared Mn-doped USAC additives was tested as a cathode material for supercapacitors at different current densities. The detailed experimental results showed that the Mn dopant content crucially determines the electrochemical performances of the USAC additives. Electrochemical measurements showed that the MnCEP-S600HTT with 0.10 mol% molar concentration of Mn dopant gives the best cycling performances. It delivers a discharge capacity of 262.9 mAh g^?1 after 100 cycles. Further increasing the current density to 1000 mA g^?1 allowed it to still maintain 253.6 mAh g^?1 after 200 cycles. We confirmed that the structure of Mn-doped USAC additives is an important pole to improve the structural stability and electrochemical properties.     

Enhancement of total phenolic and isoflavone-aglycone contents and antioxidant activities during Cheonggukjang fermentation of brown soybeans by the potential probiotic Bacillus subtilis CSY191

Changes in β-glycosidase activity, total phenolic and isoflavone contents, and antioxidant activities during the fermentation of brown soybeans (Galmi) fermented food cheonggukjang by the potential probiotic Bacillus subtilis CSY191 were investigated. The total phenolic and isoflavone-glycoside and -aglycone contents as well as ABTS radical scavenging activity and FRAP assays of extracts increased, but malonylglycoside content decreased after a steaming process. It was found that fermentation enhanced the total phenolic and isoflavone-aglycone and -malonylglycoside contents, corresponding to antioxidant activities increased, but isoflavone-glycoside content decreased. The highest levels of daidzein, glycitein, and gensitein were present at concentrations of 156.5 μg/g, 10.2 μg/g, and 2.5 μg/g after 48 h of fermentation. In addition, ABTS radical scavenging activity and FRAP assay increased significantly during fermentation. We suggest that the high antioxidant activity of cheonggukjang of brown soybeans might be related to the markedly higher levels of total phenolic content and isoflavone-aglycones achieved during fermentation.     

Interface characterization of Al/Cu 2-ply composites under various loading conditions

The effects of reduction ratio during roll bonding on the microstructural evolution at interface and subsequent mechanical properties of roll-bonded Al/Cu 2-ply sheets were investigated. The interface microstructures for several Al/Cu 2-ply sheets fabricated under different reduction ratios between 30% and 65% were verified by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Taking the difference of interface microstructure into consideration, 3-point bending and peel tests were performed for obtaining flexural and bonding strengths for Al/Cu 2-ply sheets. The effect of the quantified areas of metallurgical bonding at interfaces on the bonding strength was also discussed. The results show that both the bonding and flexural strengths for Al/Cu 2-ply sheets are reduced by decreasing the reduction ratio during the roll bonding process, which is strongly correlated with the interface microstructure. This was especially verified by observing the interface delamination from the 3-point bent samples.     

The characteristics of Li(CoxNi1 − x)O2 cathode powders formed from the fine-sized Co3O4/NiO precursor powders

Li(Co_xNi_1 − x)O₂ (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) cathode powders were prepared by solid state reaction method using Co₃O₄/NiO precursor powders obtained by spray pyrolysis. The effect of the ratios of cobalt and nickel components on the characteristics of Co₃O₄/NiO precursor and Li(Co_xNi_1 − x)O₂ cathode powders were investigated. The Co₃O₄/NiO precursor powders with the ratios of cobalt and nickel components as 1/0, 0.75/0.25 and 0.5/0.5 had submicron size and regular morphologies. On the other hand, the Co₃O₄/NiO powders with the high contents of nickel component had aggregated morphologies of submicron size primary powders. The fine-sized precursor powders formed the fine-sized LiCoO₂ and Li(Co_0.75Ni_0.25)O₂ cathode powders by solid state reaction with LiOH powders. However, the high contents of the nickel component of the Co₃O₄/NiO precursor powders formed the Li(Co_xNi_1 − x)O₂ (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.5) cathode powders with aggregated morphologies and large sizes. The discharge capacities of the powders increased with increasing the nickel content into the Li(Co_xNi_1 − x)O₂ cathode powders up to 188 mAh/g.     

Combined Application of Antibrowning,Heat Treatment and Modified‐Atmosphere Packaging to Extend the Shelf Life of Fresh‐Cut Lotus Root

This work aimed to determine the effects of different concentrations of antibrowning treatments (that is, distilled water [DW], 1% ascorbic acid [AA], 0.5% chamomile [CM], and 1% AA + 0.5% CM) and heat‐treatment (55 °C for 45 s) combined with packaging under 4 different modified‐atmosphere gas compositions (that is, air, vacuum, 100% CO₂, 50% CO₂/50% N₂) on the quality and microbiological characteristics of fresh‐cut lotus root. The quality characteristics (that is, color, weight loss, texture, pH, polyphenoloxidase activity, and total phenolic content) of the AA + CM‐dipped sample in 100% CO₂ packaging were maintained significantly better than those of the other samples (P < 0.05). The microbiological counts observed in the DW‐dipped sample during storage were higher than those of the AA, CM, and AA + CM samples, and heat‐treatment retarded the microbiological deterioration of fresh‐cut lotus root. Therefore, the results revealed that dipping in an antibrowning treatment (AA + CM), and 100% CO₂ MAP with heat treatment effectively extend the shelf life of fresh‐cut lotus root to 21 d at 5 °C.     

Energy-Efficient Thermal-Aware Autonomic Management of Virtualized HPC Cloud Infrastructure

Virtualized datacenters and clouds are being increasingly considered for traditional High-Performance Computing (HPC) workloads that have typically targeted Grids and conventional HPC platforms. However, maximizing energy efficiency and utilization of datacenter resources, and minimizing undesired thermal behavior while ensuring application performance and other Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees for HPC applications requires careful consideration of important and extremely challenging tradeoffs. Virtual Machine (VM) migration is one of the most common techniques used to alleviate thermal anomalies (i.e., hotspots) in cloud datacenter servers as it reduces load and, hence, the server utilization. In this article, the benefits of using other techniques such as voltage scaling and pinning (traditionally used for reducing energy consumption) for thermal management over VM migrations are studied in detail. As no single technique is the most efficient to meet temperature/performance optimization goals in all situations, an autonomic approach that performs energy-efficient thermal management while ensuring the QoS delivered to the users is proposed. To address the problem of VM allocation that arises during VM migrations, an innovative application-centric energy-aware strategy for Virtual Machine (VM) allocation is proposed. The proposed strategy ensures high resource utilization and energy efficiency through VM consolidation while satisfying application QoS by exploiting knowledge obtained through application profiling along multiple dimensions (CPU, memory, and network bandwidth utilization). To support our arguments, we present the results obtained from an experimental evaluation on real hardware using HPC workloads under different scenarios.     

Integration of piezoelectric tunable capacitors and bonded-wire inductors for contactless RF switch and tunable filter

This paper presents the design, fabrication, and characterization of a contactless radio frequency (RF) microelectromechanical system (MEMS) switch, composed of two surface-micromachined piezoelectric tunable capacitors and two bonded-wire inductors. The measured insertion loss and power isolation of the fabricated switch are 2.2 and 10.1 dB, respectively, with a capacitance variation of 4:1 over a narrow bandwidth near 2.2 GHz. This novel approach of using inductors eases the deflection requirement for the deformable bridge of the variable capacitor, and allows piezoelectric ZnO film to be used to deflect the capacitor bridge to vary the air gap, thus yielding a contactless RF switch.