Composition and Antioxidant Activity of Rice Fermented with Saccharifying Organisms from Asian Countries

In recent years, more effective use of rice has become important because of an annual increase in surplus rice. We fermented rice in pure cultures of eight organisms (Aspergillus oryzae, Monaseus pilosus, Absidia corymbifera, Mucor circinelloides, Mucor racemosus, Rhizopus oligosporus, Rhizopus oryzae, and Saccharomycopsis fibuligera), which were isolated from molded rice and soybean products in Asian countries, and evaluated the composition and antioxidant activity of the products. Rice fermented with the two Rhizopus species had a high methanol extract yield, implying good fermentation properties. High saccharification and increased levels of total amino acids and total polyphenols were also found in Rhizopus-fermented rice samples. Ethyl acetate extracts of rice fermented with Ab. corymbifera and Mu. circinelloides had enhanced antioxidant activity compared to unfermented rice, and some fractions obtained from the extracts by high performance liquid chromatography exhibited high antioxidant activity. Based on these results, Ab. corymbifera, Mu. circinelloides, R. oligosporus, and R. oryzae are promising starter organisms for the development of new fermented rice products.ArticleFOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH. 19(5):893-899 (2013)journal articl

Personalized Federated Learning with Multi-branch Architecture

Federated learning (FL) is a decentralized machine learning technique that enables multiple clients to collaboratively train models without requiring clients to reveal their raw data to each other. Although traditional FL trains a single global model with average performance among clients, statistical data heterogeneity across clients has resulted in the development of personalized FL (PFL), which trains personalized models with good performance on each client's data. A key challenge with PFL is how to facilitate clients with similar data to collaborate more in a situation where each client has data from complex distribution and cannot determine one another's distribution. In this paper, we propose a new PFL method (pFedMB) using multi-branch architecture, which achieves personalization by splitting each layer of a neural network into multiple branches and assigning client-specific weights to each branch. We also design an aggregation method to improve the communication efficiency and the model performance, with which each branch is globally updated with weighted averaging by client-specific weights assigned to the branch. pFedMB is simple but effective in facilitating each client to share knowledge with similar clients by adjusting the weights assigned to each branch. We experimentally show that pFedMB performs better than the state-of-the-art PFL methods using the CIFAR10 and CIFAR100 datasets.Comment: Accepted by IJCNN 202

Molecular analysis of cyclic α-maltosyl-(1→6)-maltose binding protein in the bacterial metabolic pathway

Cyclic α-maltosyl-(1→6)-maltose (CMM) is a cyclic glucotetrasaccharide with alternating α-1,4 and α-1,6 linkages. Here, we report functional and structural analyses on CMM-binding protein (CMMBP), which is a substrate-binding protein (SBP) of an ABC importer system of the bacteria Arthrobacter globiformis. Isothermal titration calorimetry analysis revealed that CMMBP specifically bound to CMM with a Kd value of 9.6 nM. The crystal structure of CMMBP was determined at a resolution of 1.47 Å, and a panose molecule was bound in a cleft between two domains. To delineate its structural features, the crystal structure of CMMBP was compared with other SBPs specific for carbohydrates, such as cyclic α-nigerosyl-(1→6)-nigerose and cyclodextrins. These results indicate that A. globiformis has a unique metabolic pathway specialized for CMM

HIV-1 Derivatives in Rhesus Macaques

A major issue for present HIV-1 research is to establish model systems that reflect or mimic viral replication and pathogenesis actually observed in infected humans. To this end, various strategies using macaques as infection targets have long been pursued. In particular, experimental infections of rhesus macaques by HIV-1 derivatives have been believed to be best suited, if practicable, for studies on interaction of HIV-1 and humans under various circumstances. Recently, through in vitro genetic manipulations and viral cell-adaptations, we have successfully generated a series of HIV-1 derivatives with CXCR4-tropism or CCR5-tropism that grow in macaque cells to various degrees. Of these viruses, those with best replicative potentials can grow comparably with a pathogenic SIVmac in macaque cells by counteracting major restriction factors TRIM5, APOBEC3, and tetherin proteins. In this study, rhesus macaques were challenged with CXCR4-tropic (MN4/LSDQgtu) or CCR5-tropic (gtu + A4CI1) virus. The two viruses were found to productively infect rhesus macaques, being rhesus macaque-tropic HIV-1 (HIV-1rmt). However, plasma viral RNA was reduced to be an undetectable level in infected macaques at 5–6 weeks post-infection and thereafter. While replicated similarly well in rhesus peripheral blood mononuclear cells, MN4/LSDQgtu grew much better than gtu + A4CI1 in the animals. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating that HIV-1 derivatives (variants) grow in rhesus macaques. These viruses certainly constitute firm bases for generating HIV-1rmt clones pathogenic for rhesus monkeys, albeit they grow more poorly than pathogenic SIVmac and SHIV clones reported to date

Geochemistry of shield stage basalts from Baluran volcano, East Java, Sunda arc

We report petrography and geochemistry of basaltic lava flows from the shield stage of Baluran, a Quaternary volcanic center in the rear of East Java, Sunda Arc, Indonesia. These basalts contain abundant plagioclase, clinopyroxene, olivine, and minor magnetite. Geochemically, they resemble other medium-K calc alkaline basalts from eastern Java’s volcanoes, but they are less enriched in light ion lithophile elements (LILE) and Pb. The predicted primary basalt of Baluran lavas can be sourced to a more primitive primary melt composition which may also generate medium-K calc-alkaline magmas in the region. The fractionation trajectory of these primary magmas shows the importance of plagioclase, clinopyroxene, olivine, and magnetite phase removal from the melt. Regardless of the diverse composition of the derivatives, the calculated primary basalts from the eastern Java are all in the field of nepheline-normative. This finding suggests variably small degree of melting of clinopyroxene-rich mantle source is at play in the generation of these magmas. Our result further suggests that the clinopyroxene source rock is possibly present as veins in peridotite mantle which have experienced metasomatism by addition of slab-derived fluids at differing proportion