Research Progress in Food Allergen Labeling Management and Its Enlightenment to China

In recent years, the incidence of food allergy has continued to rise globally. Food allergy has become a global food safety and public health problem. Currently, avoiding allergens is the best way to deal with food allergy, and food allergen labeling plays an important role in protecting allergic consumers. This paper reviews recent progress in food allergen risk assessment from the perspectives of the establishment of the food allergens list, the soring-out and utilization of national nutrition and diet survey results, and the population threshold for food allergens. Furthermore, the problems existing in China’s food allergen management are discussed. It is expected that this review will provide information for scientific research and a theoretical reference to strengthen the management of food allergens

Research Progress on Nano-Delivered Plant Polyphenols in the Prevention and Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative diseases with a complex pathological mechanism, and as the incidence of AD has increased recently, there is an urgent need to develop more effective prevention and treatment methods. Many studies have shown that plant polyphenols have great potential in the prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, but their bioavailability is poor, limiting their practical applications. The application of nanotechnology can be helpful for the delivery of plant polyphenols. This article aims to elaborate recent progress and challenges in the development of nano-delivery systems for plant polyphenols, and review the common plant polyphenols used for AD treatment and their action mechanisms

Multidifferential study of identified charged hadron distributions in ZZ-tagged jets in proton-proton collisions at s=\sqrt{s}=13 TeV

Jet fragmentation functions are measured for the first time in proton-proton collisions for charged pions, kaons, and protons within jets recoiling against a $Z$ boson. The charged-hadron distributions are studied longitudinally and transversely to the jet direction for jets with transverse momentum 20 $< p_{\textrm{T}} < 100$ GeV and in the pseudorapidity range $2.5 < \eta < 4$. The data sample was collected with the LHCb experiment at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.64 fb$^{-1}$. Triple differential distributions as a function of the hadron longitudinal momentum fraction, hadron transverse momentum, and jet transverse momentum are also measured for the first time. This helps constrain transverse-momentum-dependent fragmentation functions. Differences in the shapes and magnitudes of the measured distributions for the different hadron species provide insights into the hadronization process for jets predominantly initiated by light quarks.Comment: All figures and tables, along with machine-readable versions and any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-013.html (LHCb public pages

Study of the B−→Λc+Λˉc−K−B^{-} \to \Lambda_{c}^{+} \bar{\Lambda}_{c}^{-} K^{-} decay

The decay $B^{-} \to \Lambda_{c}^{+} \bar{\Lambda}_{c}^{-} K^{-}$ is studied in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 $\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$ collected by the LHCb experiment. In the $\Lambda_{c}^+ K^{-}$ system, the $\Xi_{c}(2930)^{0}$ state observed at the BaBar and Belle experiments is resolved into two narrower states, $\Xi_{c}(2923)^{0}$ and $\Xi_{c}(2939)^{0}$, whose masses and widths are measured to be $$m(\Xi_{c}(2923)^{0}) = 2924.5 \pm 0.4 \pm 1.1 \,\mathrm{MeV}, \\ m(\Xi_{c}(2939)^{0}) = 2938.5 \pm 0.9 \pm 2.3 \,\mathrm{MeV}, \\ \Gamma(\Xi_{c}(2923)^{0}) = \phantom{000}4.8 \pm 0.9 \pm 1.5 \,\mathrm{MeV},\\ \Gamma(\Xi_{c}(2939)^{0}) = \phantom{00}11.0 \pm 1.9 \pm 7.5 \,\mathrm{MeV},$$ where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second systematic. The results are consistent with a previous LHCb measurement using a prompt $\Lambda_{c}^{+} K^{-}$ sample. Evidence of a new $\Xi_{c}(2880)^{0}$ state is found with a local significance of $3.8\,\sigma$, whose mass and width are measured to be $2881.8 \pm 3.1 \pm 8.5\,\mathrm{MeV}$ and $12.4 \pm 5.3 \pm 5.8 \,\mathrm{MeV}$, respectively. In addition, evidence of a new decay mode $\Xi_{c}(2790)^{0} \to \Lambda_{c}^{+} K^{-}$ is found with a significance of $3.7\,\sigma$. The relative branching fraction of $B^{-} \to \Lambda_{c}^{+} \bar{\Lambda}_{c}^{-} K^{-}$ with respect to the $B^{-} \to D^{+} D^{-} K^{-}$ decay is measured to be $2.36 \pm 0.11 \pm 0.22 \pm 0.25$, where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second systematic and the third originates from the branching fractions of charm hadron decays.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-028.html (LHCb public pages

Measurement of the ratios of branching fractions R(D∗)\mathcal{R}(D^{*}) and R(D0)\mathcal{R}(D^{0})

The ratios of branching fractions $\mathcal{R}(D^{*})\equiv\mathcal{B}(\bar{B}\to D^{*}\tau^{-}\bar{\nu}_{\tau})/\mathcal{B}(\bar{B}\to D^{*}\mu^{-}\bar{\nu}_{\mu})$ and $\mathcal{R}(D^{0})\equiv\mathcal{B}(B^{-}\to D^{0}\tau^{-}\bar{\nu}_{\tau})/\mathcal{B}(B^{-}\to D^{0}\mu^{-}\bar{\nu}_{\mu})$ are measured, assuming isospin symmetry, using a sample of proton-proton collision data corresponding to 3.0 fb${ }^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity recorded by the LHCb experiment during 2011 and 2012. The tau lepton is identified in the decay mode $\tau^{-}\to\mu^{-}\nu_{\tau}\bar{\nu}_{\mu}$. The measured values are $\mathcal{R}(D^{*})=0.281\pm0.018\pm0.024$ and $\mathcal{R}(D^{0})=0.441\pm0.060\pm0.066$, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. The correlation between these measurements is $\rho=-0.43$. Results are consistent with the current average of these quantities and are at a combined 1.9 standard deviations from the predictions based on lepton flavor universality in the Standard Model.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-039.html (LHCb public pages

Identification of Allergens in White- and Red-Fleshed Pitaya (<i>Selenicereus undatus</i> and <i>Selenicereus costaricensis</i>) Seeds Using Bottom-Up Proteomics Coupled with Immunoinformatics

White-fleshed pitaya (Selenicereus undatus) and red-fleshed pitaya (Selenicereus costaricensis) are becoming increasingly popular because of their nutritional and medicinal benefits. However, in addition to their beneficial properties, allergy to pitaya fruits has occurred in daily life. In this study, we investigated the protein profile of pitaya fruit seeds and focused on the most reactive proteins against immunoglobulin E (IgE) in sera from allergic patients by immunoblotting. A protein band of approximately 20 kDa displayed a clear reaction with the serum IgE. The protein bands of interest were excised, in-gel digested, and analyzed using liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS), followed by data searching against a restricted database (Caryophyllales in UniProtKB) for protein identification. Immunoinformatic tools were used to predict protein allergenicity. The potential allergens included cupin_1 and heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) in white-fleshed pitaya seeds, and cupin_1, heat shock protein 70, and heat shock protein sti1-like in red-fleshed pitaya seeds are potential allergens. The expression of potential allergens was further verified at the transcriptional level in the species of S. undatus and S. costaricensis.</i

Recent progress of PY-IT-based all-polymer solar cells

All-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs), with their specific merits of superior operation stability and remarkable mechanical flexibility, have made significant progress and become an indispensable part of the field of organic solar cells (OSCs) in recent years. This progress has established them as an indispensable component of the OSC landscape. One of the key driving forces behind this advancement is the development of high-performance polymer acceptor materials. Notably, the emergence of cutting-edge Y series polymerized small-molecule acceptors such as PY-IT, PYT, PY-2Cl, PY-V-γ, and PYF-T-o has significantly narrowed the efficiency gap when compared to the OSCs relying on small-molecule acceptors. Here, we systematically delve into the recent development of PY-IT-based OSCs. First, we offer a detailed discussion about the device physics of PY-IT-based OSCs and then illustrate their achievements from three aspects: binary systems, ternary systems, and layer-by-layer structures. Moreover, current challenges and outlooks are proposed for future research directions. We expect that our work will inspire further breakthroughs and improvements in the fields of all-PSCs

A Comparative Analysis of Novel Deep Learning and Ensemble Learning Models to Predict the Allergenicity of Food Proteins

Traditional food allergen identification mainly relies on in vivo and in vitro experiments, which often needs a long period and high cost. The artificial intelligence (AI)-driven rapid food allergen identification method has solved the above mentioned some drawbacks and is becoming an efficient auxiliary tool. Aiming to overcome the limitations of lower accuracy of traditional machine learning models in predicting the allergenicity of food proteins, this work proposed to introduce deep learning model—transformer with self-attention mechanism, ensemble learning models (representative as Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LightGBM) eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost)) to solve the problem. In order to highlight the superiority of the proposed novel method, the study also selected various commonly used machine learning models as the baseline classifiers. The results of 5-fold cross-validation showed that the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of the deep model was the highest (0.9578), which was better than the ensemble learning and baseline algorithms. But the deep model need to be pre-trained, and the training time is the longest. By comparing the characteristics of the transformer model and boosting models, it can be analyzed that, each model has its own advantage, which provides novel clues and inspiration for the rapid prediction of food allergens in the future

Crystallinity and phase separation induced morphological modulation for efficient ternary all-polymer solar cells

All-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) have attracted enormous attention and achieved significant progress in recent years due to their long-term stability and excellent film stretchability. However, the problem of morphology control in bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) films due to highly entangled polymeric chains hinders the further improvement of device performance. In this work, we obtained fine-tuned photoactive layer morphology through reconstructed microstructure induced by steric effects to realize an improved device performance in ternary all-PSCs. The large tetrahexylphenyl substituents on the backbone of naphthalene diimide–indacenodithienothiophene based copolymer acceptor BL-102 bring forth the steric-hindrance effect and influence intermolecular interactions. Therefore, the copolymer BL-102 delivers the property of suppressed self-aggregation, causing reconstructed crystalline features and morphology in blending films. The ternary devices tended to reduce the excessive phase separation by suppressing the aggregation of original polymers but to promote intermixing behaviors. Therefore, the optimal BHJ film manifested a well-formed bi-continuous interpenetrating nanoscale network with a larger π–π stacking coherence length and ordered face-on molecular orientation. Hence, a faster electron transfer (ET) and hole transfer (HT) process combined with balanced charge carrier mobilities can be achieved to enhance the overall device performance. This work provides an effective method to regulate the photoactive layer morphology of all-PSCs through structurally steric hindrance effects and demonstrate the significance of ternary-blending strategy induced nanoscale morphology modulation for fabricating highly efficient all-PSCs