Shiitake cultivation as biological preprocessing of lignocellulosic feedstocks – Substrate changes in crystallinity, syringyl/guaiacyl lignin and degradation-derived by-products

Formulation of substrates based on three hardwood species combined with modulation of nitrogen content by whey addition (0–2%) was investigated in an experiment designed in D-optimal model for their effects on biological preprocessing of lignocellulosic feedstock by shiitake mushroom (Lentinula edodes) cultivation. Nitrogen loading was shown a more significant role than wood species for both mushroom production and lignocellulose degradation. The fastest mycelial colonization occurred with no nitrogen supplementation, but the highest mushroom yields were achieved when 1% whey was added. Low nitrogen content resulted in increased delignification and minimal glucan consumption. Delignification was correlated with degradation of syringyl lignin unit, as indicated by a significant reduction (41.5%) of the syringyl-to-guaiacyl ratio after cultivation. No significant changes in substrate crystallinity were observed. The formation of furan aldehydes and aliphatic acids was negligible during the pasteurization and fungal cultivation, while the content of soluble phenolics increased up to seven-fold.publishedVersio

Enabling efficient bioconversion of birch biomass by Lentinula edodes regulatory roles of nitrogen and bark additions on mushroom production and cellulose saccharification

Pretreatment with edible white-rot fungi has advantages in low inputs of energy and chemicals for reducing the recalcitrance of woody biomass for bioethanol production while harvesting protein-rich food. The effectiveness of fungal pretreatment may vary with substrate composition. In this study, birch with or without bark and nitrogen additives were experimentally studied for their effects on shiitake production, substrate lignocellulosic degradation and enzymatic convertibility with cellulolytic enzymes. Whey was added as protein nitrogen and led to successful outcomes, while non-protein nitrogen urea and ammonium-nitrate resulted in mortality of fungal mycelia. The mushroom yields of one harvest were generally comparable between the treatments, averaging 651 g fresh weight per kilogram dry substrate, and high enough as to be profitable. Nitrogen loading (0.5-0.8%, dry mass) negatively affected lignin degradation and enzymatic convertibility and prolonged cultivation/pretreatment time. The added bark (0-20%) showed quadratic correlation with degradation of lignin, xylan and glucan as well as enzymatic digestibility of glucan. Nitrogen loading of < 0.6% led to maximal mass degradation of xylan and lignin at bark ratios of 4-9% and 14-19%, respectively, peak saccharification of glucan at 6-12% and the shortest pretreatment time at 8-13% bark. The designed substrates resulted in 19-35% of glucan mass loss after fungal pretreatment, less than half of the previously reported values. Nitrogen and bark additions can regulate lignocellulose degradation and saccharification of birch-based substrates. The designed substrate composition could considerably reduce cellulose consumption during fungal pretreatment, thus improving bioconversion efficiency

Boosting with Incomplete Information

In real-world machine learning problems, it is very common that part of the input feature vector is incomplete: either not available, missing, or corrupted. In this paper, we present a boosting approach that integrates features with incomplete information and those with complete information to form a strong classifier. By introducing hidden variables to model missing information, we form loss functions that combine fully labeled data with partially labeled data to effectively learn normalized and unnormalized models. The primal problems of the proposed optimization problems with these loss functions are provided to show their close relationship and the motivations behind them. We use auxiliary functions to bound the change of the loss functions and derive explicit parameter update rules for the learning algorithms. We demonstrate encouraging results on two real-world problems — visual object recognition in computer vision and named entity recognition in natural language processing — to show the effectiveness of the proposed boosting approach

Spent mushroom substrates for ethanol production – Effect of chemical and structural factors on enzymatic saccharification and ethanolic fermentation of Lentinula edodes-pretreated hardwood

Spent mushroom substrates (SMS) from cultivation of shiitake (Lentinula edodes) on three hardwood species were investigated regarding their potential for cellulose saccharification and for ethanolic fermentation of the produced hydrolysates. High glucan digestibility was achieved during enzymatic saccharification of the SMSs, which was related to the low mass fractions of lignin and xylan, and it was neither affected by the relative content of lignin guaiacyl units nor the substrate crystallinity. The high nitrogen content in SMS hydrolysates, which was a consequence of the fungal pretreatment, was positive for the fermentation, and it ensured ethanol yields corresponding to 84–87% of the theoretical value in fermentations without nutrient supplementation. Phenolic compounds and acetic acid were detected in the SMS hydrolysates, but due to their low concentrations, the inhibitory effect was limited. The solid leftovers resulting from SMS hydrolysis and the fermentation residues were quantified and characterized for further valorisation

Cytoreductive Surgery and Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy for Pseudomyxoma Peritonei of Appendiceal Origin - 801 Cases from a Single Institution in China

Aim: As more and more centers has published their treatment results ofpseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP) with cytoreductive surgery (CRS) andhyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC), the data from Chinais missing. Myxoma Department of Aerospace Hospital is the biggestcenter treating PMP in China. The purpose of this study is to report theearly and long-term outcomes for PMP from this single center. Methods:801 appendix-derived PMP out of 1008 consecutive patients treated inMyxoma Department of Aerospace Hospital between 2008 and 2019 wereretrospectively analyzed. Results: Complete cytoreductive surgery (CCRS)was achieved in 240 (30%) patients with median PCI of 14(1~39), andthe rest had maximal tumor debulking (MTD), HIPEC was implementedin 96.3% of CCRS and 78.6% of MTD. The major morbidity (gradeIII/IV) was 11.4% and the 30-day operative mortality is 0.7%. The 5-and 10-year OS of CCRS was 76.9% and 64.1%, which is significantlyhigher than MTD (5-, 10-year OS as 36.1%, 27.1%; p20, MTD, high pathologic grade and without HIPECwere independent factors predicting poorer prognosis. Conclusions: CCRS+HIPEC can benefit PMP well with controllable risks. MTD+HIPEC maybenefit PMP as well when CCRS cannot be achieved after fully asscessmentby an experienced peritoneal maglignacy center, but the surgery should beperformed as limited as possible

PROTECTIVE ROLE OF XINNAONING TABLET IN ISCHEMIC STROKE IN RAT MODEL

Background: Stroke has been considered as the second leading cause of death worldwide. The survivors of stroke experience different level of impair brain function. In China, Chinese traditional medicine had been widely accepted for stroke therapy and prevention. In this study, we developed Traditional Chinese Medicine based Xinnaoning (peace of heart and brain) Tablet and tested its protective role for ischemic stroke in rat model. Material and Methods: Male Wistar rats (n=60) with 12 weeks old and weight from 180 to 200 gram were randomly divided to five groups (n=12). For the groups with Xinaoning administration, the drug was administrated to rats once per day for 7 consecutive days. The blood clotting time and the thrombus wet weight was measured. Serum samples were collected from each rat for further Measurement of biochemical indicators. Results: Our results demonstrated that Xinnaoning tablet reduced lactate acid (LD) level and increased lactic acid dehydrogenase (LDH) in cerebral ischemia model as well as reduced the infarct size caused by stroke. Besides, evaluation of the level of different ATPases suggested Xinnaoning tablet could modulate ATPases activity and confer a protective role in brain. Moreover, analysis indicated Xinnaoning tablet have the anti-coagulation effect in vivo which may contribute to the protection of ischemia. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that Xinnaoning tablet may be a potential way for cerebral ischemia prevention

Nucleated red blood cells as a novel biomarker in the diagnosis and prediction of sepsis severity in children

IntroductionSepsis is a vitally serious disease leading to high mortality. Nucleated red blood cells (NRBCs) are present in some noninfectious diseases, but the relationship between NRBCs and sepsis in children remains unknown. The purpose of this study was to compare the clinical characteristics and outcomes of sepsis with positive NRBCs and negative NRBCs in children, and to further explore whether the count of NRBCs has a relationship with the severity of sepsis.MethodsWe enrolled children with sepsis who were admitted to the Children’s Hospital of Chongqing Medical University between January 2020 and December 2022. The children’s clinical data, laboratory data and outcomes were recorded and analyzed.ResultsOne hundred and fifteen children met the inclusion criteria in our study. Compared to negative NRBCs patients, the C-reactive protein, alanine transaminase, urea nitrogen values, mortality rate and length of hospitalization were found to be significantly increased, while platelet counts, and hemoglobin were significantly decreased in sepsis patients with positive NRBC (P &lt; 0.05). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves analysis showed that the optimal cutoff value of the NRBC count in the diagnosis of severe sepsis was 3, with a sensitivity of 87.5% and specificity of 94.9%. The area under the ROC curve was 0.877 (95% CI: 0.798-0.957).DiscussionThese findings demonstrated that NRBC count has the potential to be a biomarker for the diagnosis of sepsis in children, especially an NRBC count greater than 3, which may predict the severity and poor prognosis in children suffering from sepsis

Synthesis and structural characterization of CuAl2O4 spinel with an unusual cation distribution

A CuAl2O4&nbsp;spinel with unusual cation distribution has been synthesized for the first time by the solid phase reaction of copper hydroxide and pseudo-boehmite with both stoichiometric (Cu/Al = 1/2) and non-stoichiometric (Cu/Al = 1/3) ratios. Instead of characterizing one cation for the determination of cations distribution as generally performed in previous literatures, both cations in the synthesized spinel have been characterized with 27Al NMR for Al ions and EXAFS for Cu ions, respectively. The characterization data reveal that nearly all Al3+&nbsp;ions are octahedrally coordinated while most Cu2+&nbsp;occupy the tetrahedral sites, giving a (Cu0.8)[Cu0.2Al2]O4&nbsp;spinel which has been supported by the Rietveld refinement. The unusual cation distribution, which has been rarely reported before, presents abnormal site occupancies in Cu-Al spinel oxide. Hence, the findings of this work may invoke further explorations on other spinel oxides for targeting novel distinctive properties and applications