In situ electro-generated Ni(OH)2 synergistic with Cu cathode to promote direct ammonia oxidation to nitrogen.

To solve the problem of low removal rate and poor N2 selectivity in direct electrochemical ammonia oxidation (EAO), commercial Ni foam and Cu foam were used as anode and cathode of the EAO system, respectively. The coupling effect between the cathode and anode promoted nitrogen cycling during the reaction process, which improved N2 selectivity of the reaction system and promoted it to achieve a high ammonia removal rate. This study showed that the thin Ni(OH)2 with oxygen vacancy formed on the surface of Ni foam anode played an effective role in the dimerization of intermediate products in ammonia oxidation to form N2. This electrochemical system was used to treat real goose wastewater containing 422.5 mg/L NH4+-N and 94.5 mg/L total organic carbon (TOC). After treatment, this electrochemical system achieved good performance with an ammonia removal rate of 87%, N2 selectivity of 77%, and TOC removal rate of 72%. Therefore, this simple and efficient system with Ni foam anode and Cu foam cathode is a promising method for treating ammonia nitrogen wastewater.

Microbial Community Succession and Its Correlation with Quality Characteristics during Gray Sufu Fermentation.

Gray sufu, a traditional fermented food derived from soybeans, undergoes a complex fermentation process. This study aimed to investigate the dynamics of the microbial community during sufu fermentation and its relationship with key quality characteristics. Through systematic sampling of sufu at different phases of fermentation, 143 bacterial genera and 84 fungal genera involved in the process were identified. Among these, Chishuiella, Enterococcus, Lactococcus, and Weissella emerged as the predominant bacterial communities. After seven days of ripening fermentation, Trichosporon supplanted Diutina as the predominant fungus, accounting for more than 84% of all fungi. Using redundancy analysis, significant correlations between microbiota and physicochemical properties were uncovered. Chishuiella and Empedobacter displayed positive relationships with pH, soluble protein, and amino nitrogen content. In addition, five biogenic amines were detected, and it was determined that tyramine accounted for more than 75% of the total biogenic amines in the final gray sufu products. Spearman correlation analysis revealed significant positive relationships between Lactococcus, Enterococcus, Tetragenococcus, Halanaerobium, and Trichosporon and the five biogenic amines examined. These findings shed light on the complex interactions between microorganisms and biogenic amines during the fermentation of gray sufu, thereby facilitating the development of microbial regulation strategies for better quality control.

Effects of inter-stimulus intervals on concurrent P300 and SSVEP features for hybrid brain-computer interfaces.

BACKGROUND: Recently, we have implemented a high-speed brain-computer interface (BCI) system with a large instruction set using the concurrent P300 and steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) features (also known as hybrid features). However, it remains unclear how to select inter-stimulus interval (ISI) for the proposed BCI system to balance the encoding efficiency and decoding performance. NEW METHOD: This study developed a 6 * 9 hybrid P300-SSVEP BCI system and investigated a series of ISIs ranged from -175-0 ms with a step of 25 ms. The influence of ISI on the hybrid features was analyzed from several aspects, including the amplitude of the induced features, classification accuracy, information transfer rate (ITR). Twelve naive subjects were recruited for the experiment. RESULTS: The results showed the ISI factor had a significant impact on the hybrid features. Specifically, as the values of ISI decreased, the amplitudes of the induced features and accuracies decreased gradually, while the ITRs increased rapidly. It's achieved the highest ITR of 158.50 bits/min when ISI equal to - 175 ms. COMPARISON WITH EXISTING METHOD: The optimal ISI in this study achieved superior performance in comparison with the one we used in the previous study. CONCLUSIONS: The ISI can exert an important influence on the P300-SSVEP BCI system and its optimal value is - 175 ms in this study, which is significant for developing the high-speed BCI system with larger instruction sets in the future.

Flaked sorghum biscuits increase postprandial GLP-1 and GIP levels and extend subjective satiety in healthy subjects.

SCOPE: Sorghum grain components may play a role in mechanisms that protect against development of obesity-related chronic diseases. We conducted a randomized, cross-over trial (40 healthy subjects) using whole grain sorghum flaked biscuits to investigate mechanisms related to satiety. METHODS AND RESULTS: Subjects were tested on four occasions after a 12-h fast. At baseline, they consumed 50 grams of one of four treatment meals: white, red, or brown sorghum biscuits or a wheat control. Subjective satiety was measured at 8 time-points over four hours. In a subset of 20 subjects, plasma glucose, insulin, gastric inhibitory peptide (GIP), glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), peptide-tyrosine-tyrosine (PYY), and ghrelin were measured. Subjects reported significantly lower subjective satiety ratings after consuming wheat compared to sorghum biscuits. Incremental area under the plasma concentration-time curve of postprandial GLP-1, GIP and in males, PYY, were significantly higher (p = 0.018, p = 0.031, p = 0.036, respectively) for sorghum breakfasts compared to wheat. Energy intake at a subsequent meal did not differ between treatments. CONCLUSIONS: Sorghum whole grain is a promising novel ingredient in foods targeting satiety as an adjunct for weight control. Evidence is now required from randomized controlled trials that aim to examine specific effects on health outcomes from a sorghum-enriched intervention diet.