No abstract

Protein hydrolysis is widely used in the food industry to improve food or industrial quality, and processing is carried out concurrently or subsequently to starch pasting. In this study, QTL mapping of the pasting properties of natural wheat flour (NWF) and papain‐treated flour (PTF) was performed in three environments. These analyses involved a set of 173 F9:10 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from “Shannong01‐35 × Gaocheng9411” with a genetic linkage map consisting of 6248 molecular markers. The additive, epistatic, and epistatic × environment interaction effects of QTLs for pasting properties were analyzed. A total of 43 and 31 additive QTLs for pasting properties were detected using NWF and PTF, respectively. QPv1A.4‐1, QPv4B.4‐17, QTv1A.4‐1, QTv4B.4‐17, QSb4B.4‐17, QPt1A.4‐1, and QPt4B.4‐17 were identified using both NWF and PTF. In contrast, QPv6A.2‐128, QTv6A.2‐128, QFv6A.2‐75, and QBd6A.2‐128 were only identified in wheat flour; thus, these QTLs are related to the papain digestion site. Five and eight pairs of epistatic interaction QTLs were identified in NWF and PTF, respectively. QPv1A.4‐1/QPv4B.4‐17 and QTv1A.4‐1/QTv4B.4‐17 were identified in NWF and PTF, whereas, QInA1A.4‐1 and QInA4B.4‐17 were only detected in PTF. Two and three pairs of epistatic × environment interactions were detected in NWF and PTF, respectively. In the present study, two important QTL clusters (≥3 QTLs) were detected from NWF, and three clusters were detected from PTF. The results of the comprehensive evaluation of protein hydrolysis and starch pasting provide valuable information to facilitate the improvement of wheat flour quality and promote the molecular breeding of wheat.

Trucking is a key industry in Canada with around 180 000 professional drivers. As an industry it has a disproportionately high injury claim rate, particularly for back injuries. Whole-body vibration (WBV) can contribute to the onset and development of low back disorders, and is a well-documented exposure among driving professions. A widely adopted WBV mitigation measure focuses on hydraulic and/or pneumatic passive suspension systems both in the driver’s seat and underneath the vehicle cab. Passive suspension ‘air-ride’ seats are the current industry standard but new technologies such as the electromagnetic active vibration cancelling (EAVC) seats offer potentially substantial improvements in WBV reduction. In this paper, we evaluate and compare four commonly used truck seats (three air-ride, one EAVC) for their vibration damping characteristics and WBV exposure attenuation in on- and off-road conditions. We recruited 24 professional truck drivers who drove 280 km (mixed on-road and off-road) in ore-haul trucks under four different seating conditions. Following the ISO 2631-1 WBV standard, vibration measurements were made on the cab floor and seat pad, and 8-h average weighted vibration (A(8)) and 8-h vibration dose values (VDV(8)) were calculated, as well as the Seat Effective Amplitude Transmissibility (SEAT), and daily vibration action limits (DVALs). These measures were compared between seat types, as well as road conditions. The EAVC seat gave best performance for both A(8) (0.27 m s−2) and VDV(8) (6.6 m s−1.75). The EAVC also had the highest SEAT of the seats tested (36.2%) and the longest DVAL. However, among the three passive air-suspension seats, two showed significantly reduced A(8) (0.43 and 0.44 m s−2) and VDV(8) (9.1 and 9.3 m s−1.75) exposures relative to the third passive air-suspension seats [A(8) (0.54 m s−2) and VDV(8) (11.1 m s−1.75)]. These differences in exposures among the three passive air-suspension seats resulted in varying DVAL times, with the worst performing seat reaching the DVAL after only 6.3 h of driving. There was also a seat by road type interaction; there were performance differences between the passive air-suspension seats on-road, but not off-road. The observed reduction of the WBV exposures measured from the EAVC seat was consistent with previous results. But we showed that there can also be substantive differences among seats that are the current industry standard. These differences were more evident on-road than off-road, which suggests that more work needs to be done to understand seat performance characteristics, and in matching the correct seat technology to the driving task. We demonstrated that WBV exposures in current industry conditions may exceed health-based exposure limits; this has policy relevance because WBV exposures are linked to prevalent and costly adverse health conditions in a working population that is ageing. Increased WBV measurement collection is recommended to ensure the anticipated exposure attenuations are achieved when seats are relied upon as an engineered control against WBV.

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This paper proposed an optimal prepositive distance of crosswalk warning markings for unsignalized road section under three different design speeds based on the mathematical modelling and driving simulation. To set up the most efficient mathematical modelling for calculating the layout interval of prepositive distance, the vehicles slowing down behaviour characteristics in front of crosswalk were explored. According to the layout interval, the simulation experiment was carried out in the UC-win/Road version 13.0 driving simulator. The rate of speed reduction and the times of maximum deceleration obtained from simulation experiments were selected as evaluation indicators to compare and analyse the deceleration effect related with the prepositive distances of the crosswalk warning markings under three design speeds. The results show that when the design speeds are 30 km/h, 40 km/h, and 50 km/h, the optimal prepositive distances of the crosswalk warning markings are 30 m, 40 m, and 60 m, respectively.

No abstract

Background and aim: Intraabdominal infection (IAI) is a common and important disease worldwide. An increasing number of related guidelines/consensuses have been published in recent years, the quality evaluation for these guidelines/consensuses is necessary to identify lower-quality documents and explore the quality distribution in different time range and areas in this field. Methods: The Appraisal of Guidelines for Research & Evaluation Instrument tool was adopted to assess the quality of IAI guidelines/consensuses by 3 researchers independently. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) among the researchers were retrieved to reflect reliability. The quality differences of these guidelines/consensuses issued before and after May 2009, both international and non-international, were compared by a Mann–Whitney U test. Results: Fourteen IAI guidelines/consensuses published in English were obtained following a literature search. The ICCs among the researchers were all above 0.75, indicating satisfactory reliability. This outcome showed that the overall quality of these guidelines/consensuses was mediocre and considered acceptable in all items. A few guidelines/consensuses were better in their scientific and methodological characteristics than the others. Moreover, there were no significant differences in the scores between the guidelines/consensuses issued before and after May 2009 or between international vs regional guidelines/consensuses. Conclusions: Overall, the quality of the IAI guidelines/consensuses was generally acceptable and applicable, with a few deficiencies. Therefore, continuous improvement is essential. The guideline assessment tools should be applied in guideline/consensus development both widely and strictly to improve the methodological quality.