Novel enzyme-fermentation process for bioconversion of restaurant food waste into isomaltooligosaccharide-and L-lactic acid-enriched animal feed

IntroductionConsidering the valuable organic fraction contained, restaurant food waste (RFW) has attracted more attention as an alternative substrate for animal feed production. In this work, a new enzyme-fermentation process (EFP) for diverting RFW into synbiotic animal feed was developed, and its economic and environmental benefits were evaluated.MethodsThe process initiated with enzymatic hydrolysis of RFWs, intending to convert starch into isomaltooligosaccharides (IMOs) via simultaneous saccharification and transglycosylation (SST). Subsequently, the hydrolysate underwent fermentation with engineered Pichia pastoris GSL to form L-lactic acid (L-LA) from the free glucose and to biologically enhance the nutritional value.Results and discussionThe results indicated that employing the EFP yielded the highest IMOs levels, ranging from 17.10–38.00 g/L. Simultaneously, the process achieved the maximum L-LA concentration (20.75–27.16 g/L), with a conversion efficiency of 0.64–0.78 g/g. Additionally, 5.0–8.5 g/L of yeast biomass was generated. Economic estimates elucidated that the cost of RFW-derived animal feed through EFP was about $0.16/kg, signifying a substantial cost reduction (≥ 70%) compared to traditional feeds. Achieving complete conversion of RFW into animal feed while eliminating residual waste highlights the significant environmental benefits and the compatibility of the present technology with the zero-waste concept

Highly efficient enzymatic preparation of isomalto-oligosaccharides from starch using an enzyme cocktail

Background: Current commercial production of isomalto-oligosaccharides (IMOs) commonly involves a lengthy multistage process with low yields. Results: To improve the process efficiency for production of IMOs,we developed a simple and efficient method by using enzyme cocktails composed of the recombinant Bacillus naganoensis pullulanase produced by Bacillus licheniformis , \u3b1-amylase from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens , barley bran \u3b2-amylase, and \u3b1-transglucosidase from Aspergillus niger to perform simultaneous saccharification and transglycosylation to process the liquefied starch. After 13 h of reacting time, 49.09% IMOs (calculated from the total amount of isomaltose, isomaltotriose, and panose) were produced. Conclusions: Our method of using an enzyme cocktail for the efficient production of IMOs offers an attractive alternative to the process presently in use

The Abnormality of Topological Asymmetry in Hemispheric Brain Anatomical Networks in Bipolar Disorder

Convergent evidences have demonstrated a variety of regional abnormalities of asymmetry in bipolar disorder (BD). However, little is known about the alterations in hemispheric topological asymmetries. In this study, we used diffusion tensor imaging to construct the hemispheric brain anatomical network of 49 patients with BD and 61 matched normal controls. Graph theory was then applied to quantify topological properties of the hemispheric networks. Although small-world properties were preserved in the hemispheric networks of BD, the degrees of the asymmetry in global efficiency, characteristic path length, and small-world property were significantly decreased. More changes in topological properties of the right hemisphere than those of left hemisphere were found in patients compared with normal controls. Consistent with such changes, the nodal efficiency in patients with BD also showed less rightward asymmetry mainly in the frontal, occipital, parietal, and temporal lobes. In contrast to leftward asymmetry, significant rightward asymmetry was found in supplementary motor area of BD, and attributed to more deficits in nodal efficiency of the left hemisphere. Finally, these asymmetry score of nodal efficiency in the inferior parietal lobule and rolandic operculum were significantly associated with symptom severity of BD. Our results suggested that abnormal hemispheric asymmetries in brain anatomical networks were associated with aberrant neurodevelopment, and providing insights into the potential neural biomarkers of BD by measuring the topological asymmetry in hemispheric brain anatomical networks

Modification of PEDOT: PSS to enhance device efficiency and stability of the Quasi-2D perovskite light-emitting diodes

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxy thiophene): poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS) is a hole transport layer (HTL) that is often employed in a diverse array of optoelectronic devices, such as perovskite solar cells and perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs). By simply doping lithium fluoride (LiF) into PEDOT: PSS, we demonstrate that the electrical characteristics of the HTL can be modified. Especially in quasi-2D perovskite LEDs, the crystallization process is regulated by LiF modification, leading to reduced phase impurity defects and improved carrier transport in the perovskite emission layer. Therefore, the luminance and efficiency of the quasi-2D PeLEDs are notably enhanced. The optimized PeLED with LiF modification exhibits a peak luminance of 21517 cd m−2 with 317% higher than the standard PeLED; and a high current efficiency of 39.8 cd A−1 with 237% higher than the standard PeLED. Moreover, the device stability is also improved with a nearly doubled half lifetime due to the reduced phase impurities. The work demonstrates a facile yet effective method for altering PEDOT: PSS hole transport layer, emphasizing the critical role of the underneath layer in the crystallization of quasi-2D perovskites

Abnormal Entropy Modulation of the EEG Signal in Patients With Schizophrenia During the Auditory Paired-Stimulus Paradigm

The complexity change in brain activity in schizophrenia is an interesting topic clinically. Schizophrenia patients exhibit abnormal task-related modulation of complexity, following entropy of electroencephalogram (EEG) analysis. However, complexity modulation in schizophrenia patients during the sensory gating (SG) task, remains unknown. In this study, the classical auditory paired-stimulus paradigm was introduced to investigate SG, and EEG data were recorded from 55 normal controls and 61 schizophrenia patients. Fuzzy entropy (FuzzyEn) was used to explore the complexity of brain activity under the conditions of baseline (BL) and the auditory paired-stimulus paradigm (S1 and S2). Generally, schizophrenia patients showed significantly higher FuzzyEn values in the frontal and occipital regions of interest (ROIs). Relative to the BL condition, the normalized values of FuzzyEn of normal controls were decreased greatly in condition S1 and showed less variance in condition S2. Schizophrenia patients showed a smaller decrease in the normalized values in condition S1. Moreover, schizophrenia patients showed significant diminution in the suppression ratios of FuzzyEn, attributed to the higher FuzzyEn values in condition S1. These results suggested that entropy modulation during the process of sensory information and SG was obvious in normal controls and significantly deficient in schizophrenia patients. Additionally, the FuzzyEn values measured in the frontal ROI were positively correlated with positive scores of Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), indicating that frontal entropy was a potential indicator in evaluating the clinical symptoms. However, negative associations were found between the FuzzyEn values of occipital ROIs and general and total scores of PANSS, likely reflecting the compensation effect in visual processing. Thus, our findings provided a deeper understanding of the deficits in sensory information processing and SG, which contribute to cognitive deficits and symptoms in patients with schizophrenia

Beta-informativeness-diffusion multilayer graph embedding for brain network analysis

Brain network analysis provides essential insights into the diagnosis of brain disease. Integrating multiple neuroimaging modalities has been demonstrated to be more effective than using a single modality for brain network analysis. However, a majority of existing brain network analysis methods based on multiple modalities often overlook both complementary information and unique characteristics from various modalities. To tackle this issue, we propose the Beta-Informativeness-Diffusion Multilayer Graph Embedding (BID-MGE) method. The proposed method seamlessly integrates structural connectivity (SC) and functional connectivity (FC) to learn more comprehensive information for diagnosing neuropsychiatric disorders. Specifically, a novel beta distribution mapping function (beta mapping) is utilized to increase vital information and weaken insignificant connections. The refined information helps the diffusion process concentrate on crucial brain regions to capture more discriminative features. To maximize the preservation of the unique characteristics of each modality, we design an optimal scale multilayer brain network, the inter-layer connections of which depend on node informativeness. Then, a multilayer informativeness diffusion is proposed to capture complementary information and unique characteristics from various modalities and generate node representations by incorporating the features of each node with those of their connected nodes. Finally, the node representations are reconfigured using principal component analysis (PCA), and cosine distances are calculated with reference to multiple templates for statistical analysis and classification. We implement the proposed method for brain network analysis of neuropsychiatric disorders. The results indicate that our method effectively identifies crucial brain regions associated with diseases, providing valuable insights into the pathology of the disease, and surpasses other advanced methods in classification performance

Increased Functional Brain Network Efficiency During Audiovisual Temporal Asynchrony Integration Task in Aging

Audiovisual integration significantly changes over the lifespan, but age-related functional connectivity in audiovisual temporal asynchrony integration tasks remains underexplored. In the present study, electroencephalograms (EEGs) of 27 young adults (22–25 years) and 25 old adults (61–76 years) were recorded during an audiovisual temporal asynchrony integration task with seven conditions [auditory (A), visual (V), AV, A50V, A100V, V50A and V100A]. We calculated the phase lag index (PLI)-weighted connectivity networks modulated by the audiovisual tasks and found that the PLI connections showed obvious dynamic changes after stimulus onset. In the theta (4–7 Hz) and alpha (8–13 Hz) bands, the AV and V50A conditions induced stronger functional connections and higher global and local efficiencies, reflecting a stronger audiovisual integration effect, which was attributed to the auditory information arriving at the primary auditory cortex earlier than the visual information reaching the primary visual cortex. Importantly, the functional connectivity and network efficiencies of old adults revealed higher global and local efficiencies and higher degree in both the theta and alpha bands. These larger network efficiencies indicated that old adults might experience more difficulties in attention and cognitive control during the audiovisual integration task with temporal asynchrony than young adults. There were significant associations between network efficiencies and peak time of integration only in young adults. We propose that an audiovisual task with multiple conditions might arouse the appropriate attention in young adults but would lead to a ceiling effect in old adults. Our findings provide new insights into the network topography of old adults during audiovisual integration and highlight higher functional connectivity and network efficiencies due to greater cognitive demand