Applied Sciences最新文献

{"title":"Exploration of Aflatoxin B1 Degradation Products via Kocuria rosea: Structure Elucidation and Toxicity Analysis","authors":"J. Wang, Jun Nan, Qiqi Chen, Ying Zhou, Xiujun Gao, Yuexin Li","doi":"10.3390/app142311024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/app142311024","url":null,"abstract":"Aflatoxin B1, a natural mycotoxin produced by Aspergillus fungi with high toxicity and carcinogenicity to humans and animals, has attracted more and more attention in the past 40 years. In the study of the biological detoxification of aflatoxin B1—although it has been confirmed that Kocuria rosea has the ability to efficiently remove aflatoxin B1—the degradation products, degradation pathways, and toxicity of the degradation products of aflatoxin B1 have not been clarified. Therefore, in this study, it was found that the functional groups of aflatoxin B1 changed after being cultured with Kocuria rosea, indicating the production of aflatoxin B1 degradation products. Ten main AFB1 degradation products (including aflatoxicol, aflatoxin D1, and aflatoxin D2) were identified, and their structures and fragmentation mechanisms were further elucidated by the parent ions and fragment ions of the products. The possible degradation pathway of aflatoxin B1 was proposed according to the structure of the degradation products. Additionally, the toxicity of the degradation products was analyzed according to the quantitative structure–activity relationship theory, and cytotoxicity experiments and dead–live cell staining experiments showed that the toxicity of the degradation products was significantly less than that of aflatoxin B1. In this study, the mechanism of aflatoxin B1 degradation by Kocuria rosea was explored from several perspectives, indicating that aflatoxin B1 degradation by Kocuria rosea is a promising biological method.","PeriodicalId":8224,"journal":{"name":"Applied Sciences","volume":"14 23","pages":"11024-11024"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/23/11024/pdf?version=1732775606","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147900307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How Resilient Are Kolmogorov–Arnold Networks in Classification Tasks? A Robustness Investigation","authors":"Ahmed Dawod Mohammed Ibrahum, Zhengyu Shang, Jang‐Eui Hong","doi":"10.3390/app142210173","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/app142210173","url":null,"abstract":"Kolmogorov–Arnold Networks (KANs) are a novel class of neural network architectures based on the Kolmogorov–Arnold representation theorem, which has demonstrated potential advantages in accuracy and interpretability over Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) models. This paper comprehensively evaluates the robustness of various KAN architectures—including KAN, KAN-Mixer, KANConv_KAN, and KANConv_MLP—against adversarial attacks, which constitute a critical aspect that has been underexplored in current research. We compare these models with MLP-based architectures such as MLP, MLP-Mixer, and ConvNet_MLP across three traffic sign classification datasets: GTSRB, BTSD, and CTSD. The models were subjected to various adversarial attacks (FGSM, PGD, CW, and BIM) with varying perturbation levels and were trained under different strategies, including standard training, adversarial training, and Randomized Smoothing. Our experimental results demonstrate that KAN-based models, particularly the KAN-Mixer, exhibit superior robustness to adversarial attacks compared to their MLP counterparts. Specifically, the KAN-Mixer consistently achieved lower Success Attack Rates (SARs) and Degrees of Change (DoCs) across most attack types and datasets while maintaining high accuracy on clean data. For instance, under FGSM attacks with ϵ=0.01, the KAN-Mixer outperformed the MLP-Mixer by maintaining higher accuracy and lower SARs. Adversarial training and Randomized Smoothing further enhanced the robustness of KAN-based models, with t-SNE visualizations revealing more stable latent space representations under adversarial perturbations. These findings underscore the potential of KAN architectures to improve neural network security and reliability in adversarial settings.","PeriodicalId":8224,"journal":{"name":"Applied Sciences","volume":"14 22","pages":"10173-10173"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147915886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Organic Amendments Improve the Quality of Coal Gob Spoils: A Sustainable Mining Waste Reclamation Method","authors":"Zhiming Zhang, Anshuman Satpathy, Kirby Morris, Abhishek RoyChowdhury, Rupali Datta, Dibyendu Sarkar","doi":"10.3390/app14219723","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/app14219723","url":null,"abstract":"Coal mine tailings can lead to a range of environmental problems, including toxic metal contamination, soil erosion, acid mine drainage, and increased salinity. Mine spoils from coal mining activities accumulated as gob piles are difficult to reclaim due to constraints such as a steep slope, unsuitable pH, insufficient nutrient supply, metal toxicity, low water-holding capacity, and poor soil structure. We investigated the efficiency of low-cost amendments on coal gob spoils from Carthage Coal Field (CCF) in New Mexico in improving the quality of coal gob spoils. Gob spoil was incubated for 90 days with various rates of organic amendments such as biochar, compost, and a biochar–compost mix. Gob spoil quality parameters such as the pH, water-holding capacity, and total and plant-available nitrogen and phosphorus content of the gob spoil were measured over a period of 90 days. Both biochar and compost amendment led to a significant increase (40–60% for biochar and 70% for compost, p < 0.05) in water-holding capacity of the coal gob spoil. Plant-available nitrogen content increased from <200 mg N/kg to between 400 and 800 mg N/kg in the amended gob spoil. The period of incubation was a significant factor in the improvement of plant-available nitrogen content. Plant-available phosphorus content also increased; compost amendment was more effective than biochar in increasing plant-available P. This study provides crucial information about the optimum organic amendments that would help in optimizing a sustainable reclamation method for CCF.","PeriodicalId":8224,"journal":{"name":"Applied Sciences","volume":"14 21","pages":"9723-9723"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/21/9723/pdf?version=1729762512","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147910054","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Application of Network Pharmacology, Molecular Docking, and In Vitro Experimental Evaluation to Decipher the Anti-Inflammatory Mechanisms of Cirsium japonicum","authors":"Jiaxue Wang, Hui Tao, Zhenlong Wang, Wei An, Ya Zhao, Bing Han, Jinquan Wang, Xiuzhu Sun, Xiumin Wang","doi":"10.3390/app14219687","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/app14219687","url":null,"abstract":"Cirsium japonicum, a traditional herb, exhibits significant anti-inflammatory activity. However, the main components and potential mechanisms of C. japonicum remain unclear. The aim of this study is to investigate the anti-inflammatory mechanism of Cirsium japonicum through network pharmacology and cellular experiments. The effective components of and potential targets for the anti-inflammatory activity of C. japonicum were identified using a traditional Chinese medicine systematic pharmacology database, the TCMSP analysis platform, and the GeneCards database. The drug–component–target–disease network diagram was constructed using Cytoscape 3.8.0 software, while the protein interaction network diagram was created using the STRING database and Cytoscape 3.8.0 software. Gene ontology (GO) enrichment and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis were carried out using the DAVID database. Molecular docking between key targets and active components was constructed with AutoDock 4.2.6 software to determine the best binding target. The results revealed that 14 active components of C. japonicum targeted 171 anti-inflammatory proteins. GO function enrichment analysis yielded 173 items, while KEGG pathway enrichment analysis identified 48 signaling pathways related to inflammation regulation. Molecular docking showed a strong affinity of sitosterol, stigmasterol, and other components with key targets such as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α recombinant protein (PPARA) and cyclooxygenase-2 (PTGS2). Vanillin, one active ingredient of C. japonicum, inhibited the release of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced inflammatory factors in RAW264.7 cells. These findings suggest that C. japonicum may exert its anti-inflammatory effects by modulating the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt) signal pathway (PI3K-Akt) and apoptin signal pathway, highlighting the multi-component, multi-target, and multi-channel molecular mechanism underlying its anti-inflammatory properties. Finally, the anti-inflammatory effect of vanillin, an effective component of C. japonicum, was verified by cell experiments. This study provides a new understanding of the pharmacological mechanisms of C. japonicum in the treatment of inflammatory conditions.","PeriodicalId":8224,"journal":{"name":"Applied Sciences","volume":"14 21","pages":"9687-9687"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/21/9687/pdf?version=1729685074","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147879489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Optimization of the Process for Slow-Release Urea Fertilizer with Water Absorption Based on Response Surface Methodology","authors":"Yan Li, Yu Ma, Yan Wang, Fan Chang, Jiakun Dai","doi":"10.3390/app14209352","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/app14209352","url":null,"abstract":"Fertilizers that release nutrients slowly can provide crops with consistent nutrients, while soils with good water-holding capacity can alleviate the impact of droughts on crops. Sodium alginate/carboxymethyl starch sodium/polydopamine/urea (SCPU) is a new kind of slow-release fertilizer with water absorption property. In this study, the Box–Behnken response surface methodology (RSM) was used to reveal the effects of concentrations of sodium alginate, carboxymethyl starch sodium, urea, calcium chloride and dopamine on the encapsulation efficiency and water absorption of SCPU. The results show that the optimum preparation conditions to obtain the highest level of encapsulation efficiency (89.27%) and water absorption (167.05%) are 2.2% sodium alginate, 5% carboxymethyl starch sodium, 30% urea, 1.9% calcium chloride and 0.52% dopamine.","PeriodicalId":8224,"journal":{"name":"Applied Sciences","volume":"14 20","pages":"9352-9352"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147882270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Distillers’ Grains Peptides Scavenge Free Radicals and Influence Volatile Compounds of Chi-Aroma Baijiu","authors":"Renjie Zhang, Xi Hu, You Luo, Siqin Zheng, Zhenqiang Wu","doi":"10.3390/app14209326","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/app14209326","url":null,"abstract":"The production of Chi-aroma Baijiu generates free radicals, which may pose potential health risks. This study aimed to scavenge free radicals in Chi-aroma Baijiu and assess the impact on the composition of volatile compounds (VOCs) by using distillers’ grains-derived homologous peptides. Five peptides—Pro-Ala (PA), Pro-Val (PV), Gly-Leu (GL), Asp-Phe (DF), and Pro-Leu (PL)—were isolated from the distillers’ grain filtrate. These peptides are present in trace amounts in Chi-aroma Baijiu. By supplementing five peptides to Chi-aroma Baijiu, they could completely scavenge hydroxyl radicals. The rate of scavenging alkoxy radicals ranged from 10.84% to 35.66%. Furthermore, these peptides had an impact on ethyl nonanoate, diethyl acetal, and octanal, which were recognized as characteristic compounds. Ultraviolet spectroscopy simulation revealed that the highest absorption peaks of certain peptides shift when they interact with various esters. Those peptides interact with ethyl acetate and ethyl lactate via hydrogen bonding and Van der Waals forces, demonstrating their influence on VOCs. These findings offer new insights into free radical scavenging, flavor compound regulation, and the valorization of Baijiu by-products in Chi-aroma Baijiu production.","PeriodicalId":8224,"journal":{"name":"Applied Sciences","volume":"14 20","pages":"9326-9326"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/20/9326/pdf?version=1728808051","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147879564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Determination of Compressed Liquid Densities for CO2 + n-Decane Using a Vibrating Tube Densimeter","authors":"Tao Jia, Jinpeng Yang, Yu Jia","doi":"10.3390/app14209232","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/app14209232","url":null,"abstract":"Understanding the density of CO2 + n-decane is crucial for designing and operating CO2 capture, transport, and storage. The safety and effectiveness of CO2 burial is directly affected by the density of CO2 + n-decane mixtures. The liquid densities of CO2(1) + n-decane(2) mixtures with mole fractions of CO2 x1 = 0, 0.2032, 0.4434, 0.7589, and 0.8947 were measured using a vibrating tube densimeter. The combined expanded uncertainties of density with a level of confidence of 0.95 are estimated to be 0.6 kg·m−3. A total of 221 compressed liquid densities of CO2(1) + n-decane(2) mixtures along the five isotherms between T = (283 and 363) K with pressures up to 100 MPa were presented. The densities of mixtures were correlated by the modified Tait equation, resulting in absolute average deviations between the experimental and calculated values of 0.028%, 0.013%, 0.017%, 0.044%, and 0.042%. In addition, the isothermal compressibility, isobaric thermal expansivity, and excess molar volume were derived from the modified Tait equation.","PeriodicalId":8224,"journal":{"name":"Applied Sciences","volume":"14 20","pages":"9232-9232"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/20/9232/pdf?version=1728634107","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147883058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Biomineralization Process Inspired In Situ Growth of Calcium Carbonate Nanocrystals in Chitosan Hydrogels","authors":"Xinyue Zeng, Zheng Zhu, Wei Chang, Bin Wu, Wei Huang","doi":"10.3390/app14209193","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/app14209193","url":null,"abstract":"Biological composites such as bone, nacre, and teeth show excellent mechanical efficiency because of the incorporation of biominerals into the organic matrix at the nanoscale, leading to hierarchical composite structures. Adding a large volume of ceramic nanoparticles into an organic molecular network uniformly has been a challenge in engineering applications. However, in natural organisms, biominerals grow inside organic fibers, such as chitin and collagen, forming perfect ceramic/polymer composites spontaneously via biomineralization processes. Inspired from these processes, the in situ growth of calcium carbonate nanoparticles inside the chitosan network to form ceramic composites was proposed in the current work. The crystal growth of CaCO3 nanoparticles in the chitosan matrix as a function of time was investigated. A weight percentage of ~35 wt% CaCO3 composite was realized, resembling the high weight percentage of mineral phase in bones. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy indicated the integration of CaCO3 nanocrystals with chitosan macromolecules. By growing CaCO3 minerals inside the chitosan matrix, the elastic modulus and tensile strength increases by ~110% and ~90%, respectively. The in situ crystal growth strategy was also demonstrated in organic frameworks prepared via 3D printing, indicating the potential of fabricating ceramic/polymer composites with complicated structures, and further applications in tissue engineering.","PeriodicalId":8224,"journal":{"name":"Applied Sciences","volume":"14 20","pages":"9193-9193"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147903882","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Simvastatin and Captopril Combined Transdermal Delivery System for Controlling Blood Pressure and Fat: Design, Characterization, and In Vivo Pharmacokinetic Evaluation","authors":"Ya-jing Ni, Run-jia Wang, Zhao Liu, Li-hui Xiao, Yan‐qiang Liu","doi":"10.3390/app14199092","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/app14199092","url":null,"abstract":"We developed a sustained-release transdermal drug delivery system (TDDS) containing simvastatin (SIM) and captopril (CAP) to treat hypertension and hyperlipidemia and overcome treatment drawbacks, including significant liver first-pass effects, low bioavailability, and the short half-life of SIM and CAP oral tablets. We used a transdermal diffusion meter to preselect the formula of the SIM-CAP TDDS. Based on in vitro permeation experiments, we optimized the formula of the SIM-CAP TDDS to include 24% SIM, 24% CAP, 34% polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), 16% oleic acid (OA)–azone, and 2% polyacrylic acid resin II. We evaluated the optimized SIM-CAP TDDS formula by its appearance, stability, stickiness, drug content, in vivo pharmacokinetics, and skin irritation tests. The results indicated that the patch had good stability and stickiness. The SIM and CAP contents were 5.02 ± 0.41 mg/cm2 in the 1 cm2 SIM-CAP TDDS. The pharmacokinetic results indicated that the system continuously released SIM and CAP for 24 h and significantly enhanced their bioavailability, with a higher area under the curve. The SIM-CAP TDDS exhibits a sustained-release effect with good characteristics and pharmacokinetics. And it is safe and has no irritating effects on the skin; therefore, it is an ideal formulation.","PeriodicalId":8224,"journal":{"name":"Applied Sciences","volume":"14 19","pages":"9092-9092"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/19/9092/pdf?version=1728383337","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147906172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dual-Layer Reinforcement Learning for Quadruped Robot Locomotion and Speed Control in Complex Environments","authors":"Yilin Zhang, Jiayu Zeng, Huimin Sun, Honglin Sun, Kenji Hashimoto","doi":"10.3390/app14198697","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/app14198697","url":null,"abstract":"Walking robots have been widely applied in complex terrains due to their good terrain adaptability and trafficability. However, in some environments (such as disaster relief, field navigation, etc.), although a single strategy can adapt to various environments, it is unable to strike a balance between speed and stability. Existing control schemes like model predictive control (MPC) and traditional incremental control can manage certain environments. However, they often cannot balance speed and stability well. These methods usually rely on a single strategy and lack adaptability for dynamic adjustment to different terrains. To address this limitation, this paper proposes an innovative double-layer reinforcement learning algorithm. This algorithm combines Deep Double Q-Network (DDQN) and Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO), leveraging their complementary strengths to achieve both fast adaptation and high stability in complex terrains. This algorithm utilizes terrain information and the robot’s state as observations, determines the walking speed command of the quadruped robot Unitree Go1 through DDQN, and dynamically adjusts the current walking speed in complex terrains based on the robot action control system of PPO. The speed command serves as a crucial link between the robot’s perception and movement, guiding how fast the robot should walk depending on the environment and its internal state. By using DDQN, the algorithm ensures that the robot can set an appropriate speed based on what it observes, such as changes in terrain or obstacles. PPO then executes this speed, allowing the robot to navigate in real time over difficult or uneven surfaces, ensuring smooth and stable movement. Then, the proposed model is verified in detail in Isaac Gym. Wecompare the distances walked by the robot using six different control methods within 10 s. The experimental results indicate that the method proposed in this paper demonstrates excellent speed adjustment ability in complex terrains. On the designed test route, the quadruped robot Unitree Go1 can not only maintain a high walking speed but also maintain a high degree of stability when switching between different terrains. Ouralgorithm helps the robot walk 25.5 m in 10 s, outperforming other methods.","PeriodicalId":8224,"journal":{"name":"Applied Sciences","volume":"14 19","pages":"8697-8697"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/14/19/8697/pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147894765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}