Using vibrational infrared biomolecular spectroscopy to detect heat-induced changes of molecular structure in relation to nutrient availability of prairie whole oat grains on a molecular basis

Background： To our knowledge, there is little study on the interaction between nutrient availability and molecular structure changes induced by different processing methods in dairy cattle. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of heat processing methods on interaction between nutrient availability and molecular structure in terms of functional groups that are related to protein and starch inherent structure of oat grains with two continued years and three replication of each year.Method： The oat grains were kept as raw（control） or heated in an air-draft oven（dry roasting： DO） at 120 °C for 60 min and under microwave irradiation（MIO） for 6 min. The molecular structure features were revealed by vibrational infrared molecular spectroscopy.Results： The results showed that rumen degradability of dry matter, protein and starch was significantly lower（P 〈0.05） for MIO compared to control and DO treatments. A higher protein α-helix to β-sheet and a lower amide I to starch area ratio were observed for MIO compared to DO and/or raw treatment. A negative correlation（-0.99, P 〈 0.01）was observed between α-helix or amide I to starch area ratio and dry matter. A positive correlation（0.99, P 〈 0.01） was found between protein β-sheet and crude protein.Conclusion： The results reveal that oat grains are more sensitive to microwave irradiation than dry heating in terms of protein and starch molecular profile and nutrient availability in ruminants.

Ultra-wideband bilateral tapered slot-line antenna fed by coplanar waveguide

In order to broaden the bandwidth of a tapered slot- line antenna （TSA）, a bilateral tapered slot-line antenna （BTSA） with a new feeding structure of coplanar waveguide （CPW） is developed. Based on the fact that the bandwidth limitation of TSA mainly depends on its feeding structure, an improved CPW-based feed structure etched on the backboard of the BTSA is adopted to perform traveling-wave transition. Both the simulation results and measurement data verify that the proposed feeding structure results in ＂high-pass＂ frequency response for antenna impedance matching. The voltage standing wave ratio （VSWR） is less than 2：1 when the frequency is higher than 3 GHz. The antenna gain exceeds 7 dBi with good radiation patterns when the bandwidth is from 4 to 16 GHz. This ultra wideband （UWB） antenna with a compact size is specially available for the electronic systems of counter-measure and microwave imaging.