Mixed organic acids improve nutrients digestibility, volatile fatty acids composition and intestinal microbiota in growing-finishing pigs fed high-fiber diet

Objective The objective of this study was to investigate effects of mixed organic acids (MOA) on nutrient digestibility, volatile fatty acids composition and intestinal microbiota in growing-finishing pigs fed high wheat bran diet. Methods Six crossbred barrows (Duroc×Landrace×Yorkshire), with an average body weight 78.8±4.21 kg, fitted with T-cannulas at the distal ileum, were allotted to a double 3×3 Latin square design with 3 periods and 3 diets. Each period consisted of a 5-d adjustment period followed by a 2-d total collection of feces and then a 2-d collection of ileal digesta. The dietary treatments included a corn-soybean-wheat bran basal diet (CTR), mixed organic acid 1 diet (MOA1; CTR+3,000 mg/kg OA1), mixed organic acid 2 diet (MOA2; CTR+2,000 mg/kg OA2). Results Pigs fed MOA (MOA1 or MOA2) showed improved (p<0.05) apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of gross energy, dry matter and organic matter, and pigs fed MOA2 had increased (p<0.05) ATTD of neutral detergent fiber compared to CTR. Dietary MOA supplementation decreased (p<0.05) pH value, and improved (p<0.01) concentrations of lactic acid and total volatile fatty acids (TVFA) in ileum compared to CTR. Pigs fed MOA showed higher (p<0.05) concentration of acetic acid, and lower (p<0.05) content of formic acid in feces compared to CTR. Pigs fed MOA1 had increased (p<0.05) concentration of TVFA and butyric acid in feces. Pigs fed MOA1 showed higher concentration of Lactobacillus and lower concentration of Escherichia in feces compared to CTR. Conclusion Dietary supplementation of MOA 1 or 2 could improve nutrients digestibility, TVFA concentration and intestinal flora in growing-finishing pigs fed high fiber diet

All‐In‐One OsciDrop Digital PCR System for Automated and Highly Multiplexed Molecular Diagnostics

Digital PCR (dPCR) holds immense potential for precisely detecting nucleic acid markers essential for personalized medicine. However, its broader application is hindered by high consumable costs, complex procedures, and restricted multiplexing capabilities. To address these challenges, an all‐in‐one dPCR system is introduced that eliminates the need for microfabricated chips, offering fully automated operations and enhanced multiplexing capabilities. Using this innovative oscillation‐induced droplet generation technique, OsciDrop, this system supports a comprehensive dPCR workflow, including precise liquid handling, pipette‐based droplet printing, in situ thermocycling, multicolor fluorescence imaging, and machine learning‐driven analysis. The system's reliability is demonstrated by quantifying reference materials and evaluating HER2 copy number variation in breast cancer. Its multiplexing capability is showcased with a quadruplex dPCR assay that detects key EGFR mutations, including 19Del, L858R, and T790M in lung cancer. Moreover, the digital stepwise melting analysis (dSMA) technique is introduced, enabling high‐multiplex profiling of seven major EGFR variants spanning 35 subtypes. This innovative dPCR system presents a cost‐effective and versatile alternative, overcoming existing limitations and paving the way for transformative advances in precision diagnostics

XOR multiplexing technique for nanocomputers

In emerging nanotechnologies, due to the manufacturing process, a significant percentage of components may be faulty. In order to make systems based on unreliable nano-scale components reliable, it is necessary to design fault-tolerant architectures. This paper presents a novel fault-tolerant technique for nanocomputers, namely the XOR multiplexing technique. This hardware redundancy technique is based on a numerous duplication of faulty components. We analyze the error distributions of the XOR multiplexing unit and the error distributions of multiple stages of the XOR multiplexing system, then compare them to the NAND multiplexing unit and the NAND multiplexing multiple stages system, respectively. The simulation results show that XOR multiplexing is more reliable than NAND multiplexing. Bifurcation theory is used to analyze the fault-tolerant ability of the system and the results show that XOR multiplexing technique has a high fault-tolerant ability. Similarly to the NAND multiplexing technique, this fault-tolerant technique is a potentially effective fault tolerant technique for future nanoelectronics

Can we find steady-state solutions to multiscale rarefied gas flows within dozens of iterations?

One of the central problems in the study of rarefied gas dynamics is to find the steady-state solution of the Boltzmann equation quickly. When the Knudsen number is large, i.e. the system is highly rarefied, the conventional iterative scheme can lead to convergence within a few iterations. However, when the Knudsen number is small, i.e. the flow falls in the near-continuum regime, hundreds of thousands iterations are needed, and yet the “converged” solutions are prone to be contaminated by accumulated error and large numerical dissipation. Recently, based on the gas kinetic models, the implicit unified gas kinetic scheme (UGKS) and its variants have significantly reduced the number of iterations in the near-continuum flow regime, but still much higher than that of the highly rarefied gas flows. In this paper, we put forward a general synthetic iterative scheme (GSIS) to find the steady-state solutions of rarefied gas flows within dozens of iterations at any Knudsen number. The key ingredient of our scheme is that the macroscopic equations, which are solved together with the Boltzmann equation and help to adjust the velocity distribution function, not only asymptotically preserve the Navier-Stokes limit in the framework of Chapman-Enskog expansion, but also contain the Newton's law for stress and the Fourier's law for heat conduction explicitly. For this reason, like the implicit UGKS, the constraint that the spatial cell size should be smaller than the mean free path of gas molecules is removed, but we do not need the complex evaluation of numerical flux at cell interfaces. What's more, as the GSIS does not rely on the specific collision operator, it can be naturally extended to quickly find converged solutions for mixture flows and even flows involving chemical reactions. These two superior advantages are expected to accelerate the slow convergence in the simulation of near-continuum flows via the direct simulation Monte Carlo method and its low-variance version

Clinical features and markers to identify pulmonary lesions caused by infection or vasculitis in AAV patients

Abstract Objectives Pulmonary lesion is frequently seen in ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) patients primarily due to AAV lung involvement or infection, which are hard to differentiate due to their high similarity in clinical manifestations. We aimed to analyze the clinical features of pulmonary lesions consequent to AAV involvement or infection in AAV patients and further identify the markers for differential diagnosis. Methods 140 AAV patients who admitted to the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University from January 2016 to July 2021 were included in this study. According to the nature of lung conditions, these patients were divided into the non-pulmonary lesion group, the lung infection group and the non-pulmonary infection group, and their demographics, clinical symptoms, imaging features, as well as laboratory findings were compared. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn, and the diagnostic efficacy of single biomarker and composite biomarkers on pulmonary infection was then evaluated. Results The patients in the lung infection group were significantly older than those in the no lesion group (63.19 ± 14.55 vs 54.82 ± 15.08, p = 0.022). Patients in the lung infection group presented more frequent symptoms and more obvious pulmonary image findings. Compared with patients in the non-pulmonary infection group, patients in the lung infection group showed a higher symptom incidence of fever, chest tightness, cough and expectoration, and hemoptysis (52.94% vs 16.00%, 61.76% vs 40.00%, 72.06% vs 46.00%, 27.94% vs 8.00%, p < 0.05, respectively), and more changes in pulmonary CT scanning images in terms of patched/striped compact opacity, alveolar hemorrhage, bronchiectasis, pleural effusion, as well as mediastinal lymphadenopathy (89.71% vs 52.00%, 11.76% vs 2.00%, 22.06% vs 8.00%, 50.00% vs 20.00%, 48.53% vs 24.00%, p < 0.05, respectively). In addition, patients in the lung infection group had significantly higher levels of serum pro-calcitonin (PCT), C-reactive protein (CRP), amyloid A (SAA), blood neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLCR), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), as well as Birmingham vasculitis activity score (BVAS) than patients in the other two groups (p < 0.05). Among all biomarkers, PCT exhibited the highest diagnostic efficacy (0.928; 95%CI 0.89–0.97) for pulmonary infected AAV patients at a cut-off score of 0.235 ng/ml with 85.3% sensitivity and 84% specificity. Moreover, the composite biomarker of PCT-CRP-NLCR showed more diagnostic efficacy (0.979; 95% CI 0.95–1.00) in distinguishing the infectious and non-infectious lung injuries in AAV patients. Conclusions AAV patients with lung infection manifested more clinical symptoms and prominent lung image changes. The PCT and composite biomarker PCT-CRP-NLCR showed high diagnostic efficacy for a lung infection in AAV patients. Pulmonary lesion caused by either infection or AAV involvement is commonly seen and difficult to distinguish. We aim to identify the biomarkers that can be applied in the differentiation diagnosis of pulmonary lesions in AAV patients

Assessment of Coproduction of Ethanol and Methane from Pennisetum purpureum: Effects of Pretreatment, Process Performance, and Mass Balance

To overcome the structural complexity and improve the bioconversion efficiency of Pennisetum purpureum into bioethanol or/and biomethane, the effects of ensiling pretreatment, NaOH pretreatment, and their combination on digestion performance and mass flow were comparatively investigated. The coproduction of bioethanol and biomethane showed that 65.2 g of ethanol and 102.6 g of methane could be obtained from 1 kg of untreated Pennisetum purpureum, and pretreatment had significant impacts on the production; however, there is no significant difference between the results of NaOH pretreatment and ensiling-NaOH pretreatment in terms of production improvement. Among them, 1 kg of ensiling-NaOH treated Pennisetum purpureum could yield 269.4 g of ethanol and 144.5 g of methane, with a respective increase of 313.2% and 40.8% compared to that from the untreated sample; this corresponded to the final energy production of 14.5 MJ, with the energy conversion efficiency of 46.8%. In addition, for the ensiling-NaOH treated Pennisetum purpureum, the energy recovery from coproduction (process III) was 98.9% higher than that from enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation only (process I) and 53.6% higher than that from anaerobic digestion only (process II). This indicated that coproduction of bioethanol and biomethane from Pennisetum purpureum after ensiling and NaOH pretreatment is an effective method to improve its conversion efficiency and energy output

Artemisitene suppresses rheumatoid arthritis progression via modulating METTL3‐mediated N6‐methyladenosine modification of ICAM2 mRNA in fibroblast‐like synoviocytes

Abstract Background Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease. We previously revealed that the natural compound artemisitene (ATT) exhibits excellent broad anticancer activities without toxicity on normal tissues. Nevertheless, the effect of ATT on RA is undiscovered. Herein, we aim to study the effect and potential mechanism of ATT on RA management. Methods A collagen‐induced arthritis (CIA) mouse model was employed to confirm the anti‐RA potential of ATT. Cell Counting Kit‐8 (CCK‐8) and 5‐ethynyl‐2'‐deoxyuridine (EdU) assays, cell cycle and apoptosis analysis, immunofluorescence, migration and invasion assays, quantitative real‐time PCR (RT‐qPCR), Western blot, RNA‐sequencing (RNA‐seq) analysis, plasmid construction and lentivirus infection, and methylated RNA immunoprecipitation and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays, were carried out to confirm the effect and potential mechanism of ATT on RA management. Results ATT relieved CIA in mice. ATT inhibited proliferation and induced apoptosis of RA‐fibroblast‐like synoviocytes (FLSs). ATT restrained RA‐FLSs migration and invasion via suppressing epithelial–mesenchymal transition. RNA‐sequencing analysis and bioinformatics analysis identified intercellular adhesion molecule 2 (ICAM2) as a promoter of RA progression in RA‐FLSs. ATT inhibits RA progression by suppressing ICAM2/phosphoinositide 3‐kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (AKT)/p300 pathway in RA‐FLSs. Moreover, ATT inhibited methyltransferase‐like 3 (METTL3)‐mediated N6‐methyladenosine methylation of ICAM2 mRNA in RA‐FLSs. Interestingly, p300 directly facilitated METTL3 transcription, which could be restrained by ATT in RA‐FLSs. Importantly, METTL3, ICAM2 and p300 expressions in synovium tissues of RA patients were related to clinical characteristics and therapy response. Conclusions We provided strong evidence that ATT has therapeutic potential for RA management by suppressing proliferation, migration and invasion, in addition to inducing apoptosis of RA‐FLSs through modulating METTL3/ICAM2/PI3K/AKT/p300 feedback loop, supplying the fundamental basis for the clinical application of ATT in RA therapy. Moreover, METTL3, ICAM2 and p300 might serve as biomarkers for the therapy response of RA patients