Breeding of Buckwheat to Reduce Bitterness and Rutin Hydrolysis

Buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) is recognized as an important traditional crop in some regions, and its taste is an important characteristic. Of the three cultivated buckwheat species, Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum) and perennial buckwheat (Fagopyrum cymosum) have strong bitterness in their seeds, which has prevented the wider use of the seeds of these varieties. In Tartary buckwheat, some studies have focused on the cause of strong bitterness generation. Tartary buckwheat seeds contain large amounts of the functional compounds rutin and rutinosidase, and rutin hydrolysis by rutinosidase has been found to be the trigger of rutin hydrolysis. Therefore, a variety with only a trace of rutinosidase and with reduced bitterness is required. The rutinosidase in Tartary buckwheat seeds consists of two major isozymes with very similar enzymatic characteristics, which can hydrolyze flour rutin within several minutes after the addition of water. Recently, the trace-rutinosidase variety Manten-Kirari in Tartary buckwheat was developed. The trace-rutinosidase characteristics were dominated by a single recessive gene. In ‘Manten-Kirari’ dough and foods, such as breads, confectionaries, and noodles, the rutin residual ratio was higher and bitterness was reduced compared to that of the normal-rutinosidase variety. In this review, we summarize the detailed research on the breeding of buckwheat related to reducing bitterness and rutin hydrolysis.

Performance-Based Seismic Fragility and Residual Seismic Resistance Study of a Long-Span Suspension Bridge

Earthquakes can cause serious damage to traffic infrastructure and even induce the collapse of bridges, which is even worse. At the same time, earthquakes are key factors to the overall service capacity of the traffic network. Therefore, mastering the failure mechanism and evaluating accurate residual seismic resistance of a bridge under earthquakes are of great significance to the rapid recovery of traffic network function. For this reason, a performance-based methodology for the evaluation of the residual seismic resistance of a suspension bridge is proposed. In this paper, we provide the fragility curves of the key sections of the pier by incremental dynamic analysis (IDA), mathematical statistical analysis, and the damage law and obtained the failure state of the structure and the overall seismic capacity residual ratio and the stage seismic capacity residual ratio of the structure. Then, based on the research results of IDA, the reserve seismic capacity is analyzed as well. The research results explore a new method to accurately estimate the residual seismic capacity for resilience assessment.

Necessity of revascularization for acute mesenteric ischemia in symptomatic patients with spontaneous isolated dissection of the superior mesenteric artery

Objectives We evaluated the necessity of revascularization for acute mesenteric ischemia in symptomatic patients with spontaneous isolated dissection of the superior mesenteric artery. Methods This retrospective study included 28 consecutive, symptomatic patients with spontaneous isolated dissection of the superior mesenteric artery treated at our hospital between December 2005 and December 2017. Patients with concomitant aortic dissection were excluded. We reviewed the patients’ clinical presentation; laboratory evaluations; computed tomography findings, including the true lumen residual ratio (i.e., the minimum true lumen size compared to the diameter of the transverse section of the dissected artery) at the time of admission; the number of patients who were suspected of having bowel ischemia; and the number of patients who required surgical or endovascular treatment and their outcomes. Additionally, to evaluate the true lumen residual ratio in symptomatic patients with bowel ischemia, the true lumen residual ratio in those with abnormal laboratory data were compared with that in those without abnormal laboratory data. Initial true lumen residual ratio values were also compared with final values. Furthermore, we assessed the clinical details of patients who had bowel necrosis. Categorical variables were compared using the χ2 test or Fisher’s exact test, and continuous values were presented as either the mean ± standard deviation or median (interquartile range 25–75%). Variables were analyzed using Student’s t-test or the Mann–Whitney U test. Results The patients’ age ranged between 41 and 85 years, and 25 were men. Although nine patients were suspected of having acute mesenteric ischemia, only one underwent bowel resection. None of the patients had an indication for revascularization. The true lumen residual ratio of the nine patients with abnormal laboratory data were significantly lower than those of the 19 without abnormal laboratory data (10 [0–25]% vs. 40 [20–50]%, p = 0.005). The patient who underwent bowel resection had a true lumen residual ratio of 10%; however, there was no obvious abnormal laboratory data suggestive of bowel necrosis. Dissections were managed conservatively in all patients. True lumen residual ratio increased from initial value of 30 (10–48)% to 98 (60-100)%at the final imaging study ( p < 0.0001). There were no adverse events related to the mesenteric circulation during the follow-up period of 2–11 years. Conclusions Reintervention is rarely required for spontaneous isolated dissection of the superior mesenteric artery, even in symptomatic patients, and spontaneous resolution of the luminal compromise is the rule.

Wireless Multimedia Sensor Network Image De-Noising via a Detail-Preserving Sparse Model

In this paper, we propose a Detail-Preserving Sparse Model (DPSM) for de-noising of images that are usually interfered by noise on the Wireless Multimedia Sensor Network (WMSN). Specifically, based on the Structural SIMilarity (SSIM), the DPSM first incorporates a structural-preserving constraint, which enables the structure in the reconstructed image to be close to the ideal no-noise image. In addition, the DPSM adopts a residual ratio as the stopping condition of the sparse solution algorithm (e.g., Orthogonal Matching Pursuit), which enables the structures to be reconstructed under high noise conditions. The experimental results on several WMSN images have demonstrated the superiority of the proposed DPSM method over several well-known de-noising approaches in terms of PSNR and SSIM.