Barley is an ancient and important functional crop. In this study, the biochemical and antioxidant dynamics of dehusked barley during co-fermentation with Lactobacillus plantarum and Rhizopus oryzae were investigated. Results showed that amino acid nitrogen, soluble protein, <10 kDa peptide, and free phenolic contents increased with fermentation time; whereas the lactic acid bacteria count, reducing sugar, and free flavonoid contents showed a tendency to increase first and then decrease. SDS-PAGE analysis indicated that bands at >25 and <18.4 kDa were shown with improved intensity with time, whereas bands at 18.4-25 kDa were disappeared. Additionally, fermentation time led to an increase in DPPH, hydroxyl, ABTS + radical scavenging activity, and ferric reducing antioxidant power. Thus, this study demonstrated that co-fermentation with L. plantarum and R. oryzae could improve nutrition and potential bioactivity of barley, and use barley as a good solid-state food carrier for probiotics. Practical applicationsBarley is rich in nutrition and has a huge production. However, due to its high-fiber and special protein composition, there is a certain palatability problem whether it is used to produce flour or other products. Therefore, most of the barley is destined to animal feed and malt, and only a small part is used directly for human consumption.Aiming at this problem, on the basis of the optimization of the fermentation process at early stage, our results further demonstrated co-fermentation with L. plantarum and R. oryzae could enhance the nutritional value and potential bioactivity of barley, thus providing a novel approach to develop functional barley food and improve the direct utilization rate of barley in food processing. K E Y W O R D S antioxidant activity, barley, biochemical dynamics, solid-state fermentation Highlights 1. L. plantarum and R. oryzae were used to make a novel functional barley food. 2. Barley was developed as a food carrier for probiotics. 3. Fermentation significantly improves the generation of peptides and free phenolics. 4. Partial free phenolic compounds were significantly increased during fermentation. 5. Co-fermentation led to a marked increase in the antioxidant activity of barley in vitro. How to cite this article: Wang K, Niu M, Song D, et al. Evaluation of biochemical and antioxidant dynamics during the co-fermentation of dehusked barley with Rhizopus oryzae and Lactobacillus plantarum. J Food Biochem. 2020;44:e13106.

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Cemetery landscapes are austere and generally require maintenance. The materials and equipment used for maintenance emit greenhouse gases (GHGs). This research aimed to quantify the annual GHG emissions and global warming potential (GWP) indices of traditional and natural cemeteries for more environmentally friendly green and grey facility planning of cemetery areas. Based on life cycle assessment (LCA), in Yorkshire, UK, as an example, traditional cemeteries were found to be mostly established with landscaped cemetery facilities, and natural cemeteries were found to include mostly underground burials covered with wild plants. The average GHG emissions per hm2 in traditional cemetery maintenance (1,552.88 kg/CO2-e) were 1.8 times those in natural cemeteries (870.88 kg/CO2-e). In the cemetery plant community, the mean GHG emissions for grassland maintenance (1,867.65 kg/CO2-e) were 6.7, 2.8 and 2.3 times higher than the woodland, meadow and shrub maintenance values of 280.77, 673.03 and 821.00 kg/CO2-e, respectively. The mean GWP indexes for traditional and natural cemetery green space maintenance were 0.027 and 0.015, respectively, which were generally higher than those for urban green space maintenance (0.010). This research recommends replacing grasslands with wild meadows, reducing the size of ground cemetery facilities and limiting the application of maintenance materials (i.e., irrigation water and pesticides) to reduce the environmental impact of green space in cemeteries.

Green infrastructure is imperative for efficiently mitigating flood disasters in urban areas. However, inadequate green space planning under rapid urbanization is a critical issue faced by most Chinese cities. Aimed at theoretically understanding the rainwater storage capacity and improvement potential of urban green spaces, a synthetic simulation model was developed to quantify rainfall surface flow accumulation (FA) based on the morphological factors of a flow basin: the area, circumference, maximum basin length, and stream length sum. This model consisted of applying the Urban Forest Effects-Hydrology model (UFORE-Hydro) to simulate the actual precipitation-to-surface runoff ratio through a procedure involving canopy interception, soil infiltration, and evaporation; additionally, a relatively accurate multiple flow direction-maximum downslope (MFD-md) algorithm was applied to distribute the surface flow in a highly realistic manner, and a self-built “extraction algorithm” extracted the surface runoff corresponding to each studied basin alongside four fundamental morphological parameters. The various nonlinear regression functions were assessed from both univariable and multivariable perspectives. We determined that the Gompertz function was optimal for predicting the theoretical quantification of surface FA according to the morphological features of any given basin. This article provides parametric vertical design guidance for improving the rainwater storage capacities of urban green spaces.