Explore the vast range of titles available.

The study aimed to investigate the optimal baking condition using optimal custom design of Design expert software, and the properties of the optimized and control biscuits were determined. Sorghum, grass pea, and orange-peel flour were blended with three different proportions to prepare sorghum-based biscuits. The study was based on three factors in which the blend ratio was used as a categorical factor. The factors were baking temperature (180 °C, 200 °C, 220 °C), baking time (15 min, 20 min, 25 min) and blend ratio (B1 = (80:15:5), B2 = (65:25:10) and B3 = (50:35:15)). The variance of the data was analyzed using Minitab statistical software (version 21). The results showed that the process parameters had a significant (p < .05) effect on the characteristics of the biscuits. The results of chemical analysis showed that biscuit baked with blend one (B1 = (80% S, 15% G, 5% O) was the optimized product baked at a baking temperature of 180 °C and time of 15 minutes. Compared to baking temperature and time, blend ratio resulted in superior biscuit quality in terms of chemical characteristics, and lower biscuit acceptance in terms of sensory characteristics. A shortage of protein is one of the challenges for consumers in their diets that will be served for consumption Consequently, using the flour of sorghum and grass pea as an ingredient in bakery products such as biscuits solve the problem of shortage of plant protein within the diet served for consumption. Gluten-free flour such as Sorghum, grass pea and orange-peel flour can be used to produce different food products such as biscuits, as a means to reduce wheat imports, Celiac disease, and wastes such as orange peel. Sorghum is a potential food grain crop in Sub-Saharan Africa, where many of the world most food-insecure people live. Orange peels have long been regarded as a waste and an environmental issue. The peels are an excellent source of antioxidants and nutritional fiber.

This study presents a novel design method for the finger body of Exo‐Glove Poly II (EGP II) that enhances functionality and wearability by minimizing distortion and achieving user‐preferred stretchability. Minimizing distortion restores the intended flexion moment arms at the finger joints, ensuring target functionality. User‐preferred stretchability minimizes constraints on the user's finger flexion, improving wearability. To satisfy these conflicting goals, the finger body as a longitudinally periodic structure and develop a corresponding unit cell‐level optimization is developed. Specifically, finger body‐level evaluations are converted into equivalent unit cell‐level analyses. A novel metric, distortional compliance—defined as a weighted sum of unit cell‐level compliances—is introduced as the optimization objective. To account for large deformation effects, a two‐step optimization approach is employed: topology optimization under a linear elastic assumption, followed by size optimization considering material and geometric nonlinearities. Experimental validation considers three users with different hand sizes. Results show that the optimized designs reduce distortion by 54.9% on average compared to the previous version, while achieving target stretchability within a 4.43% error. The optimized EGP II exhibits minimal distortion, increased grasping force (15.3% on average), and user‐preferred wearability, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed method. This study proposes a topology optimization method for Exo‐Glove Poly II to enhance functionality and wearability. By modeling its finger body as a longitudinally periodic structure, a unit cell‐level optimization—aimed at minimizing distortion and achieving user‐preferred stretchability—is established. Experimental validation shows reduced distortion, increased grasping force, and improved wearability, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Infertility is a global healthcare problem, which affects men and women equally. With the advance of genome-wide analysis, an increasing list of human genes involved in infertility is now available. In order to evaluate the diagnostic interest to analyze these genes, we have designed a gene panel allowing the analysis of 51 genes involved in non-syndromic human infertility. In this initial evaluation study, a cohort of 94 non-syndromic infertility cases with a well-defined infertility phenotype was examined. Five patients with previously known mutations were used as positive controls. With a mean coverage of 457×, and 99.8% of target bases successfully sequenced with a depth coverage over 30×, we prove the robustness and the quality of our panel. In total, we identified pathogenic or likely pathogenic variations in eight patients (five male and three female). With a diagnostic yield of 8.5% and the identification of a variety of variants including substitution, insertion, deletion, and copy number variations, our results demonstrate the usefulness of such a strategy, as well as the efficiency and the quality of this diagnostic gene panel.

Glycosylation is the most abundant and diverse form of post-translational modification of proteins that is common to all eukaryotic cells. Enzymatic glycosylation of proteins involves a complex metabolic network and different types of glycosylation pathways that orchestrate enormous amplification of the proteome in producing diversity of proteoforms and its biological functions. The tremendous structural diversity of glycans attached to proteins poses analytical challenges that limit exploration of specific functions of glycosylation. Major advances in quantitative transcriptomics, proteomics and nuclease-based gene editing are now opening new global ways to explore protein glycosylation through analysing and targeting enzymes involved in glycosylation processes. In silico models predicting cellular glycosylation capacities and glycosylation outcomes are emerging, and refined maps of the glycosylation pathways facilitate genetic approaches to address functions of the vast glycoproteome. These approaches apply commonly available cell biology tools, and we predict that use of (single-cell) transcriptomics, genetic screens, genetic engineering of cellular glycosylation capacities and custom design of glycoprotein therapeutics are advancements that will ignite wider integration of glycosylation in general cell biology.Glycosylation is the most abundant and diverse form of protein post-translational modification. Recent technical developments are enabling the dissection of the glycome in single cells, providing new insights into its regulation and roles in physiology and disease, and new possibilities for controlling glycosylation for therapy.

The scission of chemical bonds in materials can lead to catastrophic failure, with weak bonds typically undermining the materials’ strength. Here we demonstrate how weak bonds can be leveraged to achieve self-strengthening in polymer network materials. These weak sacrificial bonds trigger mechanochemical reactions, forming new networks rapidly enough to reinforce the material during deformation and significantly improve crack resistance. This rapid strengthening exhibits strong rate dependence, dictated by the interplay between bond breaking and the kinetics of force-induced network formation. As the network formation is generally applicable to diverse monomers and crosslinkers with different kinetics, a wide range of mechanical properties can be obtained. These findings may inspire the design of tough polymer materials with on-demand, rate-dependent mechanical behaviours through mechanochemistry, broadening their applications across various fields. Weak bonds enable self-strengthening in polymers by triggering mechanochemical reactions during deformation, forming new networks that enhance strength and crack resistance. This rate-dependent process allows custom design of tough polymers.

HighlightsCellulose aerogels were prepared by hydrogen bonding driven self-assembly, gelation and freeze-drying.The skin-core structure of CCA@rGO aerogels can form a perfect three-dimensional bilayer conductive network.Outstanding EMI SE (51 dB) is achieved with 3.05 wt% CCA@rGO, which is 3.9 times higher than that of the co-blended composites.In order to ensure the operational reliability and information security of sophisticated electronic components and to protect human health, efficient electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials are required to attenuate electromagnetic wave energy. In this work, the cellulose solution is obtained by dissolving cotton through hydrogen bond driving self-assembly using sodium hydroxide (NaOH)/urea solution, and cellulose aerogels (CA) are prepared by gelation and freeze-drying. Then, the cellulose carbon aerogel@reduced graphene oxide aerogels (CCA@rGO) are prepared by vacuum impregnation, freeze-drying followed by thermal annealing, and finally, the CCA@rGO/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) EMI shielding composites are prepared by backfilling with PDMS. Owing to skin-core structure of CCA@rGO, the complete three-dimensional (3D) double-layer conductive network can be successfully constructed. When the loading of CCA@rGO is 3.05 wt%, CCA@rGO/PDMS EMI shielding composites have an excellent EMI shielding effectiveness (EMI SE) of 51 dB, which is 3.9 times higher than that of the co-blended CCA/rGO/PDMS EMI shielding composites (13 dB) with the same loading of fillers. At this time, the CCA@rGO/PDMS EMI shielding composites have excellent thermal stability (THRI of 178.3 °C) and good thermal conductivity coefficient (λ of 0.65 W m-1 K-1). Excellent comprehensive performance makes CCA@rGO/PDMS EMI shielding composites great prospect for applications in lightweight, flexible EMI shielding composites.Graphic abstract

A scalable and modular LED illumination dome for microscopic scientific photography is described and illustrated, and methods for constructing such a dome are detailed. Dome illumination for insect specimens has become standard practice across the field of insect systematics, but many dome designs remain expensive and inflexible with respect to new LED technology. Further, a one-size-fits-all dome cannot accommodate the large breadth of insect size encountered in nature, forcing the photographer to adapt, in some cases, to a less than ideal dome design. The dome described here is scalable, as it is based on a isodecahedron, and the template for the dome is available as a downloaded file from the internet that can be printed on any printer, on the photographer's choice of media. As a result, a photographer can afford, using this design, to produce a series of domes of various sizes and materials, and LED ring lights of various sizes and color temperatures, depending on the need.

BackgroundInherited retinal diseases (IRDs) are a clinically and genetically heterogeneous set of disorders, for which diagnostic second-generation sequencing (next-generation sequencing, NGS) services have been developed worldwide.MethodsWe present the molecular findings of 537 individuals referred to a 105-gene diagnostic NGS test for IRDs. We assess the diagnostic yield, the spectrum of clinical referrals, the variant analysis burden and the genetic heterogeneity of IRD. We retrospectively analyse disease-causing variants, including an assessment of variant frequency in Exome Aggregation Consortium (ExAC).ResultsIndividuals were referred from 10 clinically distinct classifications of IRD. Of the 4542 variants clinically analysed, we have reported 402 mutations as a cause or a potential cause of disease in 62 of the 105 genes surveyed. These variants account or likely account for the clinical diagnosis of IRD in 51% of the 537 referred individuals. 144 potentially disease-causing mutations were identified as novel at the time of clinical analysis, and we further demonstrate the segregation of known disease-causing variants among individuals with IRD. We show that clinically analysed variants indicated as rare in dbSNP and the Exome Variant Server remain rare in ExAC, and that genes discovered as a cause of IRD in the post-NGS era are rare causes of IRD in a population of clinically surveyed individuals.ConclusionsOur findings illustrate the continued powerful utility of custom-gene panel diagnostic NGS tests for IRD in the clinic, but suggest clear future avenues for increasing diagnostic yields.

Background Neuroinflammation is one of the most important pathogeneses in secondary brain injury after traumatic brain injury (TBI). Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) forming neutrophils were found throughout the brain tissue of TBI patients and elevated plasma NET biomarkers correlated with worse outcomes. However, the biological function and underlying mechanisms of NETs in TBI-induced neural damage are not yet fully understood. Here, we used Cl-amidine, a selective inhibitor of NETs to investigate the role of NETs in neural damage after TBI. Methods Controlled cortical impact model was performed to establish TBI. Cl-amidine, 2′3′-cGAMP (an activator of stimulating Interferon genes (STING)), C-176 (a selective STING inhibitor), and Kira6 [a selectively phosphorylated inositol-requiring enzyme-1 alpha [IRE1α] inhibitor] were administrated to explore the mechanism by which NETs promote neuroinflammation and neuronal apoptosis after TBI. Peptidyl arginine deiminase 4 (PAD4), an essential enzyme for neutrophil extracellular trap formation, is overexpressed with adenoviruses in the cortex of mice 1 day before TBI. The short-term neurobehavior tests, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI), Evans blue extravasation assay, Fluoro-Jade C (FJC), TUNEL, immunofluorescence, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), western blotting, and quantitative-PCR were performed in this study. Results Neutrophils form NETs presenting in the circulation and brain at 3 days after TBI. NETs inhibitor Cl-amidine treatment improved short-term neurological functions, reduced cerebral lesion volume, reduced brain edema, and restored cerebral blood flow (CBF) after TBI. In addition, Cl-amidine exerted neuroprotective effects by attenuating BBB disruption, inhibiting immune cell infiltration, and alleviating neuronal death after TBI. Moreover, Cl-amidine treatment inhibited microglia/macrophage pro-inflammatory polarization and promoted anti-inflammatory polarization at 3 days after TBI. Mechanistically, STING ligand 2′3′-cGAMP abolished the neuroprotection of Cl-amidine via IRE1α/ASK1/JNK signaling pathway after TBI. Importantly, overexpression of PAD4 promotes neuroinflammation and neuronal death via the IRE1α/ASK1/JNK signaling pathway after TBI. However, STING inhibitor C-176 or IRE1α inhibitor Kira6 effectively abolished the neurodestructive effects of PAD4 overexpression after TBI. Conclusion Altogether, we are the first to demonstrate that NETs inhibition with Cl-amidine ameliorated neuroinflammation, neuronal apoptosis, and neurological deficits via STING-dependent IRE1α/ASK1/JNK signaling pathway after TBI. Thus, Cl-amidine treatment may provide a promising therapeutic approach for the early management of TBI. Graphical Abstract