Viscosity of food boluses affects the axial force in the esophagus

AIM: To study the effect of viscosity on axial force in the esophagus during primary peristalsis using a newly validated impedance-based axial force recording technique. METHODS: A probe able to simultaneously measure both axial force and manometry was positioned above the lower esophageal sphincter. Potable tap water and three thickened fluids were used to create boluses of different viscosities. Water has a viscosity of 1 mPa·s. The three thickened fluids were made with different concentrations of Clinutren Instant thickener. The viscous fluids were in appearance comparable to pudding (2 kPa·s), yogurt (6 kPa·s) and slush ice (10 kPa·s). Six healthy volunteers swallowed 5 and 10 mL of boluses multiple times. RESULTS: The pressure amplitude did not increase with the bolus viscosity nor with the bolus volume whereas the axial force increased marginally with bolus volume (0.1 > P > 0.05). Both techniques showed that contraction duration increased with bolus viscosity (P < 0.01). Association was found between axial force and pressure but the association became weaker withincreasing viscosity. The pressure amplitude did not increase with the viscosity or bolus volume whereas the axial force increased marginally with the bolus size. CONCLUSION: This indicates a discrepancy between the physiological functions that can be recorded with axial force measurements and pressure measurements.

Real-time impact of power balancing on power system operation with large scale integration of wind power

Highly wind power integrated power system requires continuous active power regulation to tackle the power imbalances resulting from the wind power forecast errors. The active power balance is maintained in real-time with the automatic generation control and also from the control room, where regulating power bids are activated manually. In this article, an algorithm is developed to simulate the activation of regulating power bids, as performed in the control room, during power imbalance between generation and load demand. In addition, the active power balance is also controlled through automatic generation control, where coordinated control strategy between combined heat and power plants and wind power plant enhances the secure power system operation. The developed algorithm emulating the control room response,to deal with real-time power imbalance, is applied and investigated on the future Danish power system model. The power system model takes the hour-ahead regulating power plan from power balancing model and the generation and power exchange capacities for the year 2020 into account.The real-time impact of power balancing in a highly wind power integrated power system is assessed and discussed by means of simulations for different possible scenarios.

Quantifying and sorting of gold nanoparticle dimers from complex reaction mixtures using flow cytometry

The formation, characterization, and purification of well-defined stoichiometric clusters of metallic nanoparticles, particularly in the form of dimers or trimers, are important and formidable challenges in nanoscience. Here we show that flow cytometry can be used as a high-throughput method to determine the relative distribution of oligomeric clusters of molecularly linked gold nano- particles in bulk solution at the single-particle level with good statistics. This unique information would be near impossible to obtain using traditional characterization techniques. The flow cytometric approach is utilized to provide fast feedback for the synthesis optimization of the complex reaction between citrate-stabilized gold nanoparticles and bi-functional molecular wires with dithiocarbamate anchoring groups. Finally, we demonstrate that flow cytometry can be used to significantly increase the proportion of AuNP dimers from an oligomer-rich polydisperse sample by size-selective sorting.

C1q recognizes antigen-bound IgG in a curvature-dependent manner

Nano Research volume 13,pages1651–1658(2020)Cite this article 109 Accesses Metrics details Abstract C1q is an important recognition protein in the complement system,which is a major protein cascade in the innate immune system.Upon recognition of a target by C1q,the target is marked for opsonization and destruction.C1q recognizes many pathogenic patterns directly,but an important target is the Fc domain of antibodies binding to their antigen.In this paper,the curvature-dependence of the interaction between IgG and C1q is studied by surface plasmon resonance and quartz crystal microbalance.IgG is organized in similar surface coverage densities on flat polystyrene surfaces and polystyrene nanoparticles of different sizes,and the amount of C1q binding to the IgG is investigated.Nanoparticles in solution were found to aggregate upon incubation with IgG,and therefore a new technique utilizing nanoparticles binding to antifouling polymer brush functionalized surfaces was used to prepare surfaces with nanoparticles for measurements with surface plasmon resonance.Interestingly antigen-bound IgG at the curved surface of nanoparticles showed 5.6 times lower binding of C1q compared to at matched flat surfaces.There was no significant difference between the binding at 100 and 200 nm polystyrene particles.These findings are important for designing drug delivery systems to evade the complement system.

The industrial dynamics of water innovation:A comparison between China and Europe

The expansion of the green economy agenda has increased the attention on ecoinnovations globally,with issues related to water stress identified as one of the major bottlenecks for sustainable economic growth.Using evolutionary economic theory,this study investigates the industrial dynamics of the water sector,comparing China and Europe using patent data.This comparison feeds into the“catching up”literature,addressing the challenges of the“green economy”agenda in different regions in various stages of development.We highlight the neglected micro-dynamics of water innovation,investigating the roles of different innovators in the development of water technological trajectories,with a special focus on water innovations closely related to climate change adaptation and mitigation technologies.Public water innovators(universities)were found to be more important in China than in Europe.Similarities were also identified between Europe and China;big companies were found to be the main innovative leaders with no substantial changes documented over the timeframe investigated.Overall,the finding implies a rapid Chinese technological catching up of water technologies in the last three decades,where our research has pointed towards the role of redirection of Chinese policies with a stronger focus on sustainable development.The analysis,overall,sheds light on the state and nature of the globalizing green growth agenda.