starch is a versatile and useful polymer having physicochemical properties that can be altered by chemicals or enzymatic modification and/or physical treatment. native starches possess many disadvantages that decrease their application and industrial use, but could be modified to obtain the desired properties to meet industrial needs for a wide range of starch applications. physically modified ...

Mimosa pudica is a plant that rapidly shrinks its body in response to external stimuli. M. pudica does not perform merely simple movements, but exhibits a variety of movements that quickly change depending on the type of stimuli. Previous studies have investigated the motile mechanism of the plants from a biochemical perspective. However, an interdisciplinary study on the structural characteris...

Salvinorin A (SalA) is a plant metabolite that agonizes the human kappa-opioid receptor (κ-OR) with high affinity and high selectivity over mu- and delta-opioid receptors. Its therapeutic potential has stimulated extensive semisynthetic studies and total synthesis campaigns. However, structural modification of SalA has been complicated by its instability, and efficient total synthesis has been ...

In the Chinese linguistic tradition, term ‘structural particle(s)’ ( jiégòu zhùcí 结构助词) is used to refer functional elements that mainly act as markers of adnominal modification, nominalisation, adverbial modification and in so-called verb complement constructions. Standard Mandarin, three commonly structural particles are all realised /tə/, but they written with different characters (的, 地 得), ...

Gene therapy as a modern therapeutic approach has not yet advanced to a globally-approved therapeutic approach. Lack of adequate reliable gene delivery system seems to be one of the major reasons from the pharmaceutical biotechnology point of view. Main obstacles delaying successful application of human gene therapy are presented in this review. The unique advantages of non-biological gene carr...

Structural modification of salvinorin A, the active component of Salvia divinorum, has resulted in the synthesis of novel neoclerodane diterpenes with opioid receptor affinity and activity. We report in this study a nonnitrogenous neoclerodane diterpene with mu opioid receptor affinity (13) that is an agonist at mu opioid receptors. This represents the identification of a novel structural class...

The development of a modal model, from either frequency response measurements or from a finite element model, is useful for simulation and design studies. One of these studies is structural dynamics modification. This is a mathematical process which uses modal data (frequency, damping and mode shapes) to determine the effects of changes in the system characteristics due to physical structural c...

This report shows that safe extension of the service life of existing bridge structures is possible through bridge health monitoring and structural response modification. To understand bridge health monitoring and structural response modification and control, it is necessary to examine: 1) common bridge vulnerabilities, 2) bridge loading models, 3) response modification devices, and 4) bridge m...