Effect of Fish Oil on Enteritis Damage and Intestinal Gene Expression Profiles in Vibrio parahaemolyticus Infected Mice

Fish oil (FO) can modulate the gut ecosystem and improve intestinal health, but the specific role and mechanism of FO in preventing foodborne pathogen infection are still unclear. In this study, the effect of FO on enteritis damage and intestinal gene expression profiles in Vibrio parahaemolyticus (Vp) infected mice was investigated. The disease activity index (DAI) score, the colonic histopathological score (HIS), the expression of intestinal fibrosis biomarkers (type I and type III collagen), the contents of the cytokines interleukin-1β (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα), the activities of the antioxidant enzymes catalase (AT), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and total antioxidant enzymes (TAE) and the colonic gene expression profiles in the mouse model of Vp infection were measured before and after FO intervention. The results showed that gavage with 4.0 mg/d FO significantly reduced DAI scores and HIS, and alleviated colonic pathological damage. FO could also significantly down-regulate the expression of intestinal fibrosis-related proteins (P < 0.05), maintain intestinal barrier functions, and inhibit cytokine-mediated excessive inflammation and oxidative stress. Thus, FO reduced body damage induced by Vp infection by altering the gene expression pattern in the colon, up-regulating the gene expression of peroxisome proliferator activated receptor (PPAR), enriching the PPAR signaling pathway, and inhibiting the nuclear factor-κB signaling pathway. Hence, dietary supplementation of FO can protect the body against foodborne pathogens

Fungal diversity and mycotoxin contamination in dried fish products in Zhanjiang market, China

Dried fish are important dietary protein and income sources in Zhanjiang, China. Mycotoxins produced by pathogenic fungi that contaminate fish during processing can cause considerable hazard to consumer health. This study reports fungal diversity, total fungal counts and mycotoxin contamination of dried fish sold at the seafood market in Zhanjiang. Seven dried fish products (Hemibarbus maculatus, Pseudosciaena crocea, Lutjanus erythopterus, Thunnus thynnus, Scomberomorus niphonius, Eleutheronema tetradactylum, Trichiurus lepturus, n = 10) from seven retailers were analyzed for contaminated fungal species, occurrence frequency and residues analysis of four mycotoxins. Using potato dextrose agar (PDA) plate purification, morphology observation, internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence analysis, 25 fungal strains representing 12 genera from dried fish were systematically isolated and identified. Three dominant genera in dried fish were Fusarium sp. (80.4%), Penicillium sp. (70.7%) and Aspergillus sp.(63.9%). Other fungal genera were Neoscytalidium sp.(38.1%), Cutaneotrichosporon sp. (38.1%), Trichoderma sp.(20.3%), Naganishia sp.(15.3%), Kodamaea sp. (10.8%), Phialemoniopsis sp.(9.2%), Nigrospora sp.(7.3%), Ceriporia sp.(6.3%), Phellinus sp.(4.5%). Aspergillus flavus contamination was the higher and ranged from 1.10 × 10³ to 2.40 × 10⁴ cfu/g. The mean fungal contamination of other fungal species in dried fish ranged from 1.07 × 10² to 4.58 × 104 cfu/g. The total fungal counts of Fusarium sp. ranged from 1.09 × 10² to 2.11 × 10⁴ cfu/g, but the occurrence frequency is relatively high. Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analyses showed that mycotoxin residues were present in 12 out of the 25 dried fish tested. Aflatoxin B1 (AFB₁) was the most frequently detected and the concentration ranged from 0.03 to 3.52 μg/kg. T-2 toxin (T-2), ochratoxin A (OTA), and deoxynivalenol (DON) concentrations ranged from 0.21 to 1.53, 0.03–2.21 and 0.71 μg/kg respectively. High occurrence of fungal populations and mycotoxins in dried fish sold in the Zhanjiang market pose a potential threat to consumer health. It is recommended that in future, advanced processing methods and controlled storage condition need to be used to minimize and if possible eliminate fungal contamination during dried fish processing

Neural Chinese Word Segmentation with Lexicon and Unlabeled Data via Posterior Regularization

Existing methods for CWS usually rely on a large number of labeled sentences to train word segmentation models, which are expensive and time-consuming to annotate. Luckily, the unlabeled data is usually easy to collect and many high-quality Chinese lexicons are off-the-shelf, both of which can provide useful information for CWS. In this paper, we propose a neural approach for Chinese word segmentation which can exploit both lexicon and unlabeled data. Our approach is based on a variant of posterior regularization algorithm, and the unlabeled data and lexicon are incorporated into model training as indirect supervision by regularizing the prediction space of CWS models. Extensive experiments on multiple benchmark datasets in both in-domain and cross-domain scenarios validate the effectiveness of our approach.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures, accepted by the 2019 World Wide Web Conference (WWW '19

Optimal Operation Strategy for Multi-Energy Microgrid Participating in Auxiliary Service

Since multi-energy microgrid (MEMG) can coordinate various resources to operate as a virtual power plant (VPP), it is an important way to maintain the stable and economic operation of the power systems and decrease the impact of intermittence of distributed energy resources (DERs). However, the potential of MEMG as a VPP has not been thoroughly explored since auxiliary service (AS) market is not fully open for MEMG at present. The relevant challenges include balancing conflict of interests among multiple energy entities, motivating users to adjust flexible loads, integrating multiple flexible resources in energy supply/demand sides and formulating specific policies, etc. To handle these tasks, an optimal operation strategy for MEMG participating in AS is proposed by considering Stackelberg game theory and integrated demand response (IDR). The feasibility of the proposed strategy is validated by a practical MEMG in Hunan, China. The results show that the economic benefits of energy entities are effectively raised and the peak-shaving AS is realized while user satisfaction is also maintained. This work would give reference to the constructor of future AS market to formulate polices about the operation modes and pricing schemes of MEMG

Additives for Realistic Biodegradable Cellulose-based Film with Mechanical and Antibacterial Properties

Developing the biodegradable and renewable materials in the food packaging industry has become one of the most important topics in modern society, where has attracted a lot of efforts in this field. In this review, we have discussed the additives that used to regulate the mechanical and antimicrobial properties by blending into cellulose and its derivatives. Cellulose is one of the best biomass composites for film formation with resource abundance and biodegradability. To realize the further benefits of cellulose and its derivatives in the food packaging manufacture, there are still a quantity of opportunities in improving the practicality and cost of the additives

Comparative Analysis of Flavor, Taste, and Volatile Organic Compounds in Opossum Shrimp Paste during Long-Term Natural Fermentation Using E-Nose, E-Tongue, and HS-SPME-GC-MS

The present study focused on the determination of color, flavor, taste, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) changes of shrimp paste fermented for 1, 2, 3, and 8 years by E-nose, E-tongue, and headspace solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS). During fermentation, the color of shrimp paste turned dark brown with decreases in L*, a*, and b* values. Inorganic sulfide odor was dominant in all fermented samples. The umami, richness, and aftertaste-B reached a maximum in year 3 of fermentation. A total of 182 volatiles, including long-chain alkanes, esters, aldehydes, olefins, ketones, acids, furans, and pyrazines, were detected. Sixteen VOCs including dimethyl disulfide, methional, trimethyl-pyrazine, (E,E)-2,4-heptadienal, benzeneacetaldehyde were selected as flavor markers. Correlation analysis showed that 94 VOCs were related to saltiness while 40, 17, 21, 22, and 24 VOCs contributed to richness, umami, aftertase-B, sourness, and bitterness, respectively. These novel data may help in optimizing fermentation duration to achieve target flavor indicators in opossum shrimp paste production

Spatiotemporal Pattern Evolution and Driving Factors of Brucellosis in China, 2003&ndash;2019

Brucellosis is a prevalent zoonotic disease worldwide. However, the spatiotemporal patterns evolution and its driving factors of Brucellosis have not been well explored. In this study, spatiotemporal scan statistics were applied to describe the spatiotemporal pattern of evolution in Brucellosis from 2003 to 2019 in mainland China, and GeoDetector analysis was further conducted to explore the driving effects of environmental, meteorological, and socioeconomic factors. We identified a distinct seasonal pattern for Brucellosis, with a peak in May and lowest incidence between September and December. High-risk clusters were first observed in the northwestern pastoral areas and later expanded to the southern urban areas. The spatiotemporal heterogeneity was mainly explained by total SO2 emissions, average annual temperature, sheep output, and consumption of meat per capita with explanatory powers of 45.38%, 44.60%, 40.76%, and 30.46% respectively. However, the explanatory power changed over time. Specifically, the explanatory power of average annual temperature tended to decrease over time, while consumption of meat per capita and total output of animal husbandry tended to increase. The most favorable conditions for the spread of Brucellosis include 0.66&ndash;0.70 million tons of SO2 emissions, 9.54&ndash;11.68 &deg;C of average annual temperature, 63.28&ndash;72.40 million heads of sheep output, and 16.81&ndash;20.58 kg consumption of meat per capita. Brucellosis remains more prevalent in traditional pastoral areas in Northwest China, with the tendency of spreading from pastoral to non-pastoral, and rural to urban, areas. Total SO2 emission, average annual temperature, sheep output, and consumption of meat per capita dominated the spatial heterogeneity of Brucellosis with changes in explanatory power over time

Effects of Special Economic Zones on FDI in Emerging Economies: Does Institutional Quality Matter?

This study attempts to prove that emerging markets could partially improve institutional quality in a specific area and benefit the local economy despite the rest of the area having poor institutions. Interestingly, we observed that despite the presence of institutions of comparative disadvantage, emerging economies continue to constantly attract significant foreign direct investment. Hence, this study focuses on a type of place-based policy in China that provides a standard favorable institutional environment in a specific area. Using data from China&rsquo;s Annual Survey of Industrial Firms and combining official lists of Chinese special economic zones (SEZs), we obtained a dataset of 2660 SEZs from 1998 to 2018, and a sample of 37,251 from 1998 to 2013. Then, we empirically examined the impact and mechanism of SEZs on foreign investment by using time-varying difference-in-difference specification. After a sequence of validity and robustness checks, we found that the establishment of SEZs significantly enhances foreign entry. We also found that partial institutional quality improvement of SEZs is a key mechanism in the location of foreign investment. We conclude that it is beneficial for the government to impose place-based policies such as SEZs that improve partial institutional quality efficiently and promote the local economy