Abstract Dried radish is a kind of pickled vegetable product with a unique taste made from radish via traditional solid-state spontaneous fermentation. In this study, the effects of variety on physicochemical indexes, texture properties, and taste substances of spontaneous fermented dried radish were investigated. As a result, processing and fermentation had similar trends for all radish varieties. The pH value decreased slightly, soluble solid increased with the decrease of moisture content, the hardness and chewiness decreased, while the content of organic acids and free amino acids increased. Furthermore, the variety of raw material is the key to affecting product quality and taste. The dried radish processed by the variety P21-25 presents the best texture, the highest content of sweet amino acids, the most abundant component of organic acids, while having the lowest salinity. These results indicated that radish varieties could significantly influence the quality and taste of dried radishes under the same processing and fermentation conditions. These findings reveal the importance of variety selection for the quality and taste of spontaneous fermented dried radish, and provide theoretical support for the processing and application of green radish varieties.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to identify the most useful ultrasound (US) features associated with definite neonatal necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and their prognostic values, particularly the calculated markers combined with important features. METHODS: A total of 213 suspected NEC cases were collected from the neonatal department of our hospital from January 2015 to August 2017. Each infant received both X-ray and US examinations. RESULTS: No differences were found in sex composition and delivery modes between groups. NEC-positive neonates had poorer prognosis compared to negative ones. The NEC group showed a higher frequency of abnormal signals. US showed higher NEC-related frequencies in different parameters. A variable (named predictor in US [PUS]) with five features was constructed. For NEC diagnosis, this variable provided a much higher area under the curve Q2 (AUC) (0.965) than other parameters. In this model, PUS had a cutoff value of 0.376 with a 0.900 sensitivity and 0.922 specificity. In prognosis, the closest factors were selected to draw a receiver operating characteristic curve, as well as a novel calculated variable US prognostic (USPro) marker. USPro had a much higher AUC (0.86) than other single features and showed a cutoff value of 0.18145, with 0.75 sensitivity and 0.84 specificity. This variable had a weaker power in prognosis when compared with PUS in diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: The application of abdominal color Doppler US can provide high accuracy and sensitivity in NEC diagnosis and also contribute to its prognosis, without induction of radiation. Suspected neonates should be examined using this technique as early as possible.

In this study, we propose a novel method to determine the vitamin C content in fruits and vegetables. The proposed method exploits the image and data processing abilities of computers by coupling a digital camera and a color reaction. An image acquisition device was developed to collect the image information of the solution to be measured after the color reaction. The corresponding RGB and Lab color components were obtained by an image analysis software. Further, the standard curves of the vitamin C concentration and color component were established by nonlinear, linear, and multivariate data fitting. The detection range was 0.81-20.00 µg mL-1 (R2 = 0.9994), LOD was 0.24 µg mL-1, LOQ was 0.81 µg mL-1, accuracy was 98.95%, and precision was determined with an RSD of 0.73%. A comparison of the results confirmed that the proposed method’s accuracy was higher than that of the spectrophotometric method. The proposed method has a simple design and facilitates easy operation, and the cost of the equipment is only US$ 31.43. Therefore, it can replace the traditional spectrophotometric method for the determination of vitamin C content in fruits and vegetables and is highly applicable in the food, chemical, and medical fields.

The plant Rhodiola crenulata is a perennial herbaceous species distributed in the plateau region of southwestern China, especially the Hengduan Mountains region. It has been one of the most important traditional herbal remedies in Tibet for more than one thousand years, but the accelerated and uncontrolled collection of this plant since the 1980s has lead to deforestation. We used inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR) to assess levels of genetic variation in R. crenulata from nine diverse natural populations in eastern Tibet and northern Yunnan, the first time such a study has been carried out. The 12 primers we used were able to detect 184 polymorphic loc. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) indicated that species level genetic diversity was relatively high (p = 97.83%, and Ho = 0.464) and analysis using Shannon’s index showed that the within and between genetic diversity of R. crenulata are approximately equal. Nei’s genetic distance and unweighted pair-group method with arithmetic averages (UPGMA) cluster analysis showed that the three populations from Tibet and the six populations from Yunnan form two major clusters. The Yunnan populations from three locations were further divided into three corresponding groups, indicating that genetic differentiation was correlated to geographic distribution. Understanding the genetic structure of R. crenulata provides insight for the conservation and management of this endangered species.