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The objective of the present study is to enhance the resistant starch (RS) content of high amylose rice starch with heat–moisture treatment (HMT) for industrial application. The optimized HMT condition for achieving the highest RS content established using response surface methodology (RSM) was a temperature of 100 °C, moisture content of 24.2%, and a time of 11.5 h. Upon HMT, the RS content increased from 32.1% for native starch to 46.4% in HMT starch with optimized condition. HMT of the starches reduced the solubility and swelling power. The surface of HMT starch granules was more irregular than native starch. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) peak intensity at 2θ = 5° was greatly reduced by HMT, and the peaks at 22.7° and 24.2° were merged. HMT increased the gelatinization temperature and reduced the gelatinization enthalpy. HMT provides a method for the production of high-yield RS2 with high amylose rice starch in industrial application.

Targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) is widely used for simultaneously detecting clinically informative genetic alterations in a single assay. Its application in clinical settings requires the validation of NGS gene panels. In this study, we aimed to validate a targeted hybridization capturebased DNA panel (ONCOaccuPanel) using the Illumina MiSeq sequencing platform. The panel allows the simultaneous detection of single-nucleotide variants (SNVs), insertions, deletions, and copy number changes of 323 genes and fusions of 17 genes in solid tumors. Materials and MethodsWe used 16 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tumor samples with previously known genetic mutations and one reference material (HD827) for validation. Moreover, we sequenced an additional 117 FFPE tumor samples to demonstrate the clinical utility of this panel. ResultsValidation revealed a 100% positive percentage agreement and positive predictive value for the detection of SNVs, insertions, deletions, copy number changes, fusion genes, and microsatellite instability-high types. We observed high levels of reproducibility and repeatability (R 2 correlation coefficients=0.96-0.98). In the limit of detection assessment, we identified all clinically relevant genes with allele frequencies >3%. Furthermore, the clinical application of ONCOaccuPanel using 117 FFPE samples demonstrated robust detection of oncogenic alterations. Oncogenic alterations and targetable genetic alterations were detected in 98.2% and 27.4% cases, respectively. ConclusionONCOaccuPanel demonstrated high analytical sensitivity, reproducibility, and repeatability and is feasible for the detection of clinically relevant mutations in clinical settings.

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The present study is aimed to investigate the effect of fin geometry on the performance of a concentric heat exchanger with the commercial CFD software of Star CCM+. In general, the concentric heat exchanger consists of inner and outer tubes. The inner tube has a lot of serrated fins spirally manufactured on its surface in order to increase the heat transfer performance. A simplified simulation model has been applied to simulate the performance of the concentric heat exchanger in this study. Both inner and outer tubes have the same length of 60 mm. The inner diameter of outer tube is 17.05 mm. The outer diameter of inner tube before manufacturing fins is 11.5 mm. Water is used as a working fluid and the concentric heat exchanger has a counter-flow configuration. The simulation parameters were fin height, fin thickness and fin width. It was found that heat transfer rate increased by 3–4% as the fin height increased from 0.95 to 1.15 mm. However, pressure drop increased highly by 39–41%. The effectiveness, which could be evaluated by calculating the ratio of enhancement of heat transfer rate to that of pressure drop, was about 74% for the fin height of 1.15 mm. In case of fin height of 1.05 mm, the effectiveness was 88% due to the increase in pressure drop, about 15%, compared with the base fin height of 0.95 mm. Also, it was noted that the effectiveness was about 88% and 95% for the fin thickness of 0.5 and 0.4 mm, respectively, compared with the base fin thickness of 0.3 mm. In case of increasing the fin width from 0.8 to 1.2 mm, the heat transfer rates slightly increased by 1–2% and the pressures drops increased by 3–4%. Hence, the effectiveness was about 98% for the fin width of 1.2 mm. And the effectiveness for the fin width of 1.0 mm was 97%. Based on the simulation results, it was concluded that maximum heat transfer rate has been obtained when the fin height is 1.15 mm. However, pressure drop is considerably increased by 39–41%. Therefore, the fin height should be carefully determined according to the criteria of pressure drop.