In this study, three carriers (glass microsphere, cellulose beads and AlgNa/PVA beads) were evaluated as phytase solid carriers for reduction of phytic acid within soymilk. Phytase was covalently immobilized onto or entrapped within carriers for repeated use. Glass microsphere was chosen due to its high catalytic efficiency. Optimal operating condition (pH 6.0, 60°C) was determined using 4-Nitrophenyl phosphate disodium salt hexahydrate as an indicator. Operational reusability was confirmed for more than seven batch reactions and the storage stability was capable of sustaining 70% of its catalytic activity for 40 days. The kinetic parameters including rate constant (K), time (τ 50 ) in which 50% of phytic acid hydrolysis was reached, and time (τ complete ) required to achieve complete phytic acid hydrolysis, were 0.023 min −1 , 35.7 min, 110 min. The current procedure provides a cheap as well as an easy way to carry out the reduction of phytic acid in soymilk, which has great potential in practical application.

Androgen-independent prostate cancer accounts for mortality in the world. In this study, various extracts of a medical fungus dubbed Ganoderma formosanum were screened for inhibition of DU145 cells, an androgen-independent prostate cancer cell line. Results demonstrated that both hexane (GF-EH) and butanol (GF-EB) fraction of G. formosanum ethanol extract inhibited DU145 cell viability in a dose-dependent manner. GF-EH induced cell-cycle arrest in G1 phase of DU145 cells via downregulation of cyclin E2 protein expression. In addition, GF-EB triggered extrinsic apoptosis of DU145 cells by activating caspase 3 gene expression resulting in programed cell death. Above all, both GF-EH and GF-EB show lower toxicity to normal human fibroblast cell line compared to DU145 cell, implying that they possess specific drug action on cancer cells. This study provides a molecular basis of G. formosanum extract as a potential ingredient for treatment of androgen-independent prostate cancer. ARTICLE HISTORY

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is a powerful tool for studying natural environments under all-weather and day-andnight conditions. SAR system design and data-processing algorithm simulation is noted for its controllable parameters. The satellite SAR echo signal simulation framework has been successfully applied to target recognition based on Radarsat-2 and TerraSAR-X images and in strip map mode. However, such SAR image simulation works only on CPU or GPU (graphics processing units) and requires huge calculations. We developed a "Load-Balancing Model (LBM)" algorithm that uses Message Passing Interface GPU (MPI-GPU) to reduce the inner loop load and improve the computational performance. The LBM algorithm uses MPI-GPU technology to build the simple GPU cluster system. The LBM algorithm is used to separate the intensive computing and controlling tasks for each node, and exploit the contemporary GPU computation capability to accelerate the computing tasks. We conducted a relevant experiment on a target radar cross section (RCS) and improved the performance by a factor of > 40 compared to a 4-core CPU accelerated program.