For decades, fructose intake has been recognized as an environmental risk for metabolic syndromes and diseases. Here, we comprehensively examined effects of fructose intake on mice liver transcriptomes. Fructose supplemented water (34%; wt/vol) was fed to both male and female C57BL/6N mice at their free will for six weeks, followed by hepatic transcriptomics analysis. Based on our criteria, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were selected and subjected to further computational analyses to predict key pathways and upstream regulator(s). Subsequently, predicted genes and pathways from the transcriptomics dataset were validated via quantitative RT-PCR analyses. As results, we identified 89 down-regulated and 88 up-regulated mRNAs in fructose-fed mice livers. These DEGs were subjected to bioinformatic analysis tools in which DEGs were mainly enriched in xenobiotic metabolic processes; further, in the Ingenuity Pathway Analysis software, it was suggested that the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is an upstream regulator governing overall changes, while fructose suppresses the AhR signaling pathway. In our quantitative RT-PCR validation, we confirmed that fructose suppressed AhR signaling through modulating expressions of transcription factor (Arnt) and upstream regulators (Ncor2, and Rb1). Altogether, we demonstrated that ad libitum fructose intake suppresses the canonical AhR signaling pathway in C57BL/6N mice liver. Based on our current observations, further studies are warranted, especially with regard to the effects of co-exposure to fructose on 1) other types of carcinogens and 2) inflammation inducing agents (or even diets such as a high-fat diet), to find implications of fructose induced-AhR suppression.

Liquid films on wettable solid surfaces can be disturbed to dewet when low surface tension liquids or surfactants are added because the surface tension difference gives rise to stresses on the film interface. Here we consider an alcohol drop placed above a thin aqueous film, which punctures a hole in the film starting from underneath the alcohol drop. Such film dewetting is attributed to the Marangoni effects caused by the spatial gradient of alcohol vapour concentration. We measure the liquid–gas interfacial tension of aqueous liquids rapidly responding to the surrounding isopropyl alcohol vapour concentration, and observe evolution of the film morphology consisting of central hole, fringe film, thinning region and bulk. We construct scaling laws to predict the dewetting rates of the film by considering the Marangoni stress, viscous shear stress and evaporation. It is shown that our experiments are consistent with our theory.

We introduce the notion of Lie invariant structure Jacobi operators for real hypersurfaces in the complex quadric $Q^{m}=SO_{m+2}/SO_{m}SO_{2}$ . The existence of invariant structure Jacobi operators implies that the unit normal vector field $N$ becomes $\mathfrak{A}$ -principal or $\mathfrak{A}$ -isotropic. Then, according to each case, we give a complete classification of real hypersurfaces in $Q^{m}=SO_{m+2}/SO_{m}SO_{2}$ with Lie invariant structure Jacobi operators.

Treatment of liver fibrosis is very limited as there is currently no effective anti-fibrotic therapy. Spirulina platensis (SP) is a blue-green alga that is widely supplemented in healthy foods. The objective of this study was to determine whether SP supplementation can prevent obesity-induced liver fibrosis in vivo. Male C57BL/6J mice were randomly assigned to a low-fat or a high-fat (HF)/high-sucrose/high-cholesterol diet or an HF diet supplemented with 2·5 % SP (w/w) (HF/SP) for 16 or 20 weeks. There were no significant differences in body weight, activity, energy expenditure, serum lipids or glucose tolerance between mice on HF and HF/SP diets. However, plasma alanine aminotransferase level was significantly reduced by SP at 16 weeks. Expression of fibrotic markers and trichrome stains showed no differences between HF and HF/SP. Splenocytes isolated from HF/SP fed mice had lower inflammatory gene expression and cytokine secretion compared with splenocytes from HF-fed mice. SP supplementation did not attenuate HF-induced liver fibrosis. However, the expression and secretion of inflammatory genes in splenocytes were significantly reduced by SP supplementation, demonstrating the anti-inflammatory effects of SP in vivo. Although SP did not show appreciable effect on the prevention of liver fibrosis in this mouse model, it may be beneficial for other inflammatory conditions.

This study investigates Spanish heritage speakers' perception and production of Spanish lexical stress. Stress minimal pairs in various prosodic contexts were used to examine whether heritage speakers successfully identify the stress location despite varying suprasegmental cues (Experiment 1) and whether they use these cues in their production (Experiment 2). Heritage speakers' performance was compared to that of Spanish monolinguals and English L2 learners. In Experiment 1, the heritage speakers showed a clear advantage over the L2 learners and their performance was comparable to that of the monolinguals. In Experiment 2, both the heritage speakers and the L2 learners showed deviating patterns from the monolinguals; they produced a large overlap between paroxytones and oxytones, especially in duration. The discrepancy between heritage speakers' perception and production suggests that, while early exposure to heritage language is beneficial for the perception of heritage language speech sounds, this factor alone does not guarantee target-like production.

We have developed new flexible dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) comprising organic dye (JH-1), cobalt redox electrolyte and hierarchically structured TiO2 (HS-TiO2) photoelectrode prepared using an electrostatic spray method. The performance of JH-1 sensitized flexible DSSC with a cobalt redox electrolyte was compared with those of N719-based DSSC and DSSC with I-/ I3- redox electrolyte. As a result, JH-1 sensitized flexible DSSC with [Co(Ⅲ/Ⅱ)(bpy-pz)3](PF6)3/2 redox system exhibited a high photocurrent density of 9.17 mA cm-2, an open circuit voltage of 0.953 V, a fill factor of 0.70, and a power conversion efficiency of 6.12% under 1 sun illumination (100 mW cm-2). The incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency was measured to explain the photocurrent generation difference by different dyes and electrolytes. The electron recombination lifetime of cells was measured by intensity-modulated photovoltage spectroscopy. Mass transport in DSSCs employing cobalt redox electrolytes was also investigated by the photocurrent transient measurements and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) analysis.

Residual stress is generally evaluated using indentation by comparing the indentation curves of stressed and stress-free states. Here, we suggest a new method that can evaluate surface residual stress without indentation testing on stress-free specimen using stress-independent indentation parameters and an analysis of indentation contact morphology for the stress-free state. We found that several indentation parameters are independent of the stress by Vickers indentation testing on various stress states. The indentation contact morphology can be represented by indentation parameters including stress-independent ones, and by applying the stress-independent parameters obtained from the stressed state to the indentation contact depth function, we can estimate an indentation curve for stress-free state. The estimated curve matches well with the experimental stress-free indentation curve, and it was also confirmed that the applied stress values evaluated by comparing the estimated curve with the stressed indentation curve agree well with the reference values obtained from strain gauge.

This paper aims to test two types of legislative shirking in a new democracy, South Korea. Using the lame-duck sessions of the Korean National Assembly, we test whether a legislator shirks in voting participation and in voting decisions. We weave two competing motivations of legislative shirking in voting participation – that to secure more leisure time and that to utilize the last, valuable voting opportunity – into a synthetic hypothesis and test it with two-part hurdle models. To test a shirking in voting participation hypothesis, we analyze legislators’ choices on bills that are supposedly related to the interests of constituents or political parties. Empirical results strongly support our shirking in voting participation claims, while only partial evidence is found on shirking in voting decisions. The findings suggest that, besides the trade-off between labor and leisure, some legislators deem the lame-duck sessions an opportunity to express their own preferences unconstrained.