Comparison of a solvent mixture assisted dilute acid and alkali pretreatment in sugar production from hybrid Pennisetum

Abstract(#br)The effects of an acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) mixture on dilute H 2 SO 4 and NaOH pretreatment for enzymatic saccharification of hybrid Pennisetum (HP) were investigated. The results showed that ABE assisted the removal of xylan and lignin during H 2 SO 4 and NaOH pretreatment, respectively. The glucose yield of HP increased from 33.6% to 52.9% with the assistance of a relatively higher concentration of ABE mixture (ABE4) during H 2 SO 4 pretreatment, and during NaOH pretreatment, a lower concentration of ABE (ABE2) increased the glucose yield from 64.6% to 80.2%. The hydrolysis yield increases were related to the compositional change and surface characteristics of the pretreated materials. As observed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, ABE4 resulted in a greater lignin content on the surface of materials than that produced by ABE2 during NaOH pretreatment, which possibly increased the non-productive adsorption of cellulase, thus decreasing the hydrolysis yield. The results suggested that an ABE mixture could be used as an auxiliary agent for further increasing of the digestibility of acid- and alkali-pretreated lignocellulosic materials. However, the digestibility was different depending on the concentrations of ABE during acid and alkali pretreatments

Image Inpainting Anti-Forensics Network via Attention-Guided Hierarchical Reconstruction

Privacy security and property rights protection have gradually attracted the attention of people. Users not only hope that the images edited by themselves will not be forensically investigated, but also hope that the images they share will not be tampered with. Aiming at the problem that inpainted images can be located by forensics, this paper proposes a general anti-forensics framework for image inpainting with copyright protection. Specifically, we employ a hierarchical attention model to symmetrically reconstruct the inpainting results based on existing deep inpainting methods. The hierarchical attention model consists of a structural attention stream and a texture attention stream in parallel, which can fuse hierarchical features to generate high-quality reconstruction results. In addition, the user’s identity information can be symmetrically embedded and extracted to protect copyright. The experimental results not only had high-quality structural texture information, but also had homologous features with the original region, which could mislead the detection of forensics analysis. At the same time, the protection of users’ privacy and property rights is also achieved

Reversible Privacy Protection with the Capability of Antiforensics

In this paper, we propose a privacy protection scheme using image dual-inpainting and data hiding. In the proposed scheme, the privacy contents in the original image are concealed, which are reversible that the privacy content can be perfectly recovered. We use an interactive approach to select the areas to be protected, that is, the protection data. To address the disadvantage that single image inpainting is susceptible to forensic localization, we propose a dual-inpainting algorithm to implement the object removal task. The protection data is embedded into the image with object removed using a popular data hiding method. We further use the pattern noise forensic detection and the objective metrics to assess the proposed method. The results on different scenarios show that the proposed scheme can achieve better visual quality and antiforensic capability than the state-of-the-art works

Identification of Reference and Biomarker Proteins in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Cultured under Different Stress Conditions

Reference proteins and biomarkers are important for the quantitative evaluation of protein abundance. Chlamydomonas reinhardtii was grown under five stress conditions (dark, cold, heat, salt, and glucose supplementation), and the OD750 and total protein contents were evaluated on days 0, 1, 2, 4, and 6 of culture. Antibodies for 20 candidate proteins were generated, and the protein expression patterns were examined by western blotting. Reference protein(s) for each treatment were identified by calculating the Pearson’s correlation coefficient (PCC) between target protein abundance and total protein content. Histone H3, beta tubulin 1 (TUB-1), ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase large subunit (RBCL), and mitochondrial F1F0 ATP synthase subunit 6 (ATPs-6) were the top reference proteins, because they were expressed stably under multiple stress conditions. The average relative-fold change (ARF) value of each protein was calculated to identify biomarkers. Heat shock protein 90B (HSP90B), flagellar associated protein (FAP127) and ATP synthase CF0 A subunit (ATPs-A) were suitable biomarkers for multiple treatments, while receptor of activated protein kinase C1 (RCK1), biotin carboxylase (BCR1), mitochondrial phosphate carrier protein (MPC1), and rubisco large subunit N-methyltransferase (RMT1) were suitable biomarkers for the dark, cold, heat, and glucose treatments, respectively

Characterization of Chlorella sorokiniana growth properties in monosaccharide-supplemented batch culture.

To reveal growth properties of Chlorella sorokiniana UTEX 1230, four monosaccharides (glucose, fructose, galactose and xylose) were individually supplemented into medium as carbon sources for the cultivation of C. sorokiniana UTEX 1230. Supplementation with glucose increased OD750, biomass and lipid yield but decreased protein abundance per unit dry weight of biomass under all concentrations examined, the maximum OD750, biomass and lipid yield increased 2.04, 6.78 and 12.43 times, respectively, compared with autotrophic controls. A low concentration of glucose (<4 g/L) simultaneously promoted the biosynthesis of chlorophylls and protein abundance per unit culture volume, but decreased the lipid content per unit dry weight of biomass and all supplemented glucose can be exhausted within 7 days. Higher glucose concentrations (≥4 g/L) decreased the biosynthesis of chlorophylls and protein abundance per unit culture volume, but increased the lipid content per unit dry weight of biomass. In glucose supplemented scenario, C. sorokiniana UTEX 1230 growth was light-independent. Supplementation with fructose promoted C. sorokiniana UTEX 1230 growth to a much lesser extent compared with glucose, whereas supplementation with galactose had no effect and supplementation with xylose even inhibited growth. Our findings represent basic experimental data on the effect of monosaccharides and can serve as the basis for a robust cultivation system to increase biomass and lipid yield

An optimized LC-MS/MS method for determination of HYNIC-3PRGD

HYNIC-3PRGD2 is used to prepare a new 99mTc-radiolabeled tracer. HYNIC-3PRGD2, which has a high binding affinity for the integrin αvβ3due to its special structure, has become a promising tumor imaging agent for diagnosis and monitor of the clinical response to therapeutic effects of anti-tumor agents. Here, we developed and validated a method for determination of HYNIC-3PRGD2 concentration in rat plasma using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry system. Following sample extraction by methanol precipitation, satisfactory separation through chromatography was achieved on an hydrophilic reverse-phase C18 column AQ (2.1 mm × 100 mm, 2.7 μm) at a flow rate of 0.2 mL·min-1 with an gradient elution using mobile phase consisting of ultrapure water and acetonitrile fortified with 0.1% formic acid respectively. The calibration curve was developed over a linear range of 3.125-100 ng·mL-1 with the lower limit of quantification of 3.125 ng·mL-1. The HYNIC-3PRGD2 and its internal standard c(RGDfK)(RK5) were detected and quantified with the multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode on a triple-quadrupole tandem mass spectrometer. This method was successfully validated and applied for pharmacokinetic evaluation of HYNIC-3PRGD2 during pre-clinical experiments

Pigment contents of <i>Chlorella</i>. <i>sorokiniana</i> UTEX 1230 grown in monosaccharides-supplemented mediums.

<p>The contents of DMSO extracted pigment from <i>C</i>. <i>sorokiniana</i> UTEX 1230 were determined by the optical density under corresponding wavelength. The line graph was drawn, x- and y-axes on the graph correspond to monosaccharide concentration and pigment contents, respectively. The left panel (black bar) showed the pigment extracted from cultures under dark condition. The right panel (blank bar) showed the pigment extracted from cultures under light condition. Data shown as mean +/-SD, n = 3. ChlA: chlorophyll a; ChlB: chlorophyll b; Carot: total carotenoid.</p

Biomass analysis of <i>Chlorella sorokiniana</i> UTEX 1230 in monosaccharide-supplemented medium.

<p><i>C</i>. <i>sorokiniana</i> UTEX 1230 cells were collected after 7 days and dried to a constant weight at 80 °C to weigh biomass. X- and y-axes on the graph correspond to monosaccharide concentration and biomass (g/L), respectively. a, b, c and d show the biomass of cells cultivated in glucose-, fructose-, galactose- and xylose-supplemented media, respectively. Data shown as mean +/-SD, n = 3. Black bar: dark conditions; white bar: light conditions.</p