Teff (Eragrostis tef) processing,utilization and future opportunities: a review

The demand for food production has been constantly increasing due to rising population. In developed countries, for example, the emergence of regional production of old grains that are rarely utilized, along with the production of commonly consumed grains, has gained importance in recent years. These grains, known collectively as ancient or heirloom grains, have offered both farmers and consumers novel ways of cultivation and products with interesting taste, characteristics and nutritional value. Among the 30 000 plant species known, only five cereals currently provide more than 50% of the world's energy intake – bread wheat (Triticum aestivum), rice (Oryza sativa), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), millets (Panicum sp.) and maize (Zea mays). The excessive utilization of these selected species has a great potential to cause genetic losses and difficulty in bridging future agricultural demands. Teff (Eragrostis tef), an ancient grain extensively cultivated in countries like Eritrea and Ethiopia, provides promising alternatives for new food uses since its nutritional value is significantly higher than most others cereal grains. The absence of gluten allows flexibility in food utilization since it can be directly substituted to gluten-containing products. The grain also offers an excellent balance of essential amino acids and minerals, which can fulfil the recommended daily intake and eliminates the need for fortification and enrichment. This review provides a general overview of the physical properties and nutritional composition of teff grains related to processing and applications in the food and feed industries. The current status of teff utilization, as well as the challenges in production and commercialization, and future opportunities is presented and discussed.     

Composing RESTful Services and Collaborative Workflows: A Lightweight Approach

The use of RESTful Web services has gained momentum in the development of distributed applications based on traditional Web standards such as HTTP. In particular, these services can integrate easily into various applications, such as mashups. Composing RESTful services into Web-scale workflows requires a lightweight composition language that's capable of describing both the control and data flow that constitute a workflow. The authors address these issues with Bite, a lightweight and extensible composition language that enables the creation of Web-scale workflows and uses RESTful services as its main composable entities.     

Fusion of thermal infrared and visible spectra for robust moving object detection

The detection of moving objects is a crucial step for many video surveillance applications whether using a visible camera (VIS) or an infrared (IR) one. In order to profit from both types, several fusion methods were proposed in the literature: low-level fusion, medium-level fusion and high-level fusion. The first one is the most used for moving objects’ detection in IR and VIS spectra. In this paper, we present an overview of the different moving object detection methods in IR and VIS spectra and a state of the art of the low-level fusion techniques. Moreover, we propose a new method for moving object detection using low-level fusion of IR and VIS spectra. In order to evaluate quantitatively and qualitatively our proposed method, three series of experiments were carried out using two well-known datasets namely “OSU Color-Thermal Database” and “INO-Database”; the results of these evaluations show promising results and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

TMT-HCC: A tool for text mining the biomedical literature for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) biomarkers identification

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. New insights into the pathogenesis of this lethal disease are urgently needed. Chromosomal copy number alterations (CNAs) can lead to activation of oncogenes and inactivation of tumor suppressors in human cancers. Thus, identification of cancer-specific CNAs will not only provide new insight into understanding the molecular basis of tumor genesis but also facilitate the identification of HCC biomarkers using CNA.     

Multi-breath dry powder inhaler for delivery of cohesive powders in the treatment of bronchiectasis

A series of co-engineered macrolide–mannitol particles were successfully prepared using azithromycin (AZ) as a model drug. The formulation was designed to target local inflammation and bacterial colonization, via the macrolide component, while the mannitol acted as mucolytic and taste-masking agent. The engineered particles were evaluated in terms of their physico-chemical properties and aerosol performance when delivered via a novel high-payload dry powder Orbital^? inhaler device that operates via multiple inhalation manoeuvres. All formulations prepared were of suitable size for inhalation drug delivery and contained a mixture of amorphous AZ with crystalline mannitol. A co-spray dried formulation containing 200?mg of 50:50?w/w AZ: mannitol had 57.6%?±?7.6% delivery efficiency with a fine particle fraction (≤6.8?µm) of the emitted aerosol cloud being 80.4%?±?1.1%, with minimal throat deposition (5.3?±?0.9%). Subsequently, it can be concluded that the use of this device in combination with the co-engineered macrolide–mannitol therapy may provide a means of treating bronchiectasis.     

Tunning the Physical Properties of PVDF/PVC/Zinc Ferrite Nanocomposites Films for More Efficient Adsorption of Cd (II)

This work deals with the synthesis of ZnFe₂O₄ NPs and studies the effect of addition on the physical properties PVDF/PVC blend. XRD affirmed the formation of ZnFe₂O₄ NPs and HRTEM shows that the size of the prepared ZnFe₂O₄ NPs ranged from 20 to 55 nm. The effect of ZnFe₂O₄ on the behavior of PVDF/PVC was studied through XRD, ATR-FTIR, FESEM and UV–Visible spectroscopy. XRD revealed that the addition of ZnFe₂O₄ NPs enhanced the crystallinity of PVDF/PVC blend system and also confirmed the incorporation of ZnFe₂O₄ NPs by appearing a diffraction peak at 2θ equals 35°. ATR-FTIR affirmed the interaction between blend sample and ZnFe₂O₄ NPs by appearing new bands 554 cm^?1 and 421 cm^?1 which are corresponded to ZnFe₂O₄ NPs functional group with appearing a new band at 603 cm^?1. FESEM showed that the addition of ZnFe₂O₄ to PVDF/PVC blend improved surface properties, for example, roughness average has been increased from 319 to 414 nm while maximum height increased from 260 to 473 nm for PVDF/PVC and PVDF/PVC/10% ZnFe₂O₄, respectively. Optical properties and band gap calculations revealed that addition of ZnFe₂O₄ NPs changes the structure of polyblend samples which results due to the formation of localized states. The removal efficiency of Cd (II) by using PVDF/PVC/10% ZnFe₂O₄ reached about 50% at pH 6 after 60 min. the absorption mechanism as well as kinetics isotherm have been studied. It is found that adsorption of Cd (II) occurred through the Langmuir mechanism and fellow pseudo-second order isotherm.

     

Characterization of aromatic compounds and biological activities of essential oils from Tunisian aromatic plants

The aromatic compounds and biological activities of essential oils from six Tunisian aromatic plants including Artemisia herba-alba, Rosmarinus officinalis, Thymus capitatus, Mentha piperita, Ocimum basilicum and Artemisia absinthium were investigated. Hydro-distillation was used to extract essential oil from these plants. The identification of compounds from essential oils was performed using GC–MS analysis. Camphor (28.47%) was the major compound of A. absinthium essential oil. High contents of verbenone (20.99%) and camphor (19.72%) were found in R. officinalis. In the case of T. capitatus, carvacrol (81.09%), gamma terpinene (6.61%) and caryophyllene (4.87%) were identified as the major compounds. While eugenol (24.69%), linalool (18.00%) were characteristic compounds of O. basilicum essential oil, camphor (39.10%) and farnesol (14.25%) together with bornyl acetate (12.31%) were the main constituents of A. absinthium. These oils were also subjected to a screening for their antioxidant activity and essential oil from A. absinthium showed a greater antioxidant activity (IC₅₀?=?0.0063 mg/mL) compared to the standard Vitamin E (IC₅₀?=?0.019 mg/mL). The antibacterial activities of the oils against seven pathogenic strains, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus cereus, Salmonella, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis and Micrococcus luteus, were tested. The highest and broadest activity was shown by M. piperita; however, Ocimum basilicum was inactive against all strains. Essential oils were also evaluated for antidiabetic and anti-acetylcholinesterase activities. The IC₅₀ values of A. herba-alba and O. basilicum against α-amylase were respectively 17.76 and 16.32 µg/mL suggesting a powerful anti-diabetic effect comparable to that of acarbose (IC₅₀?=?14.88 µg/mL). R. officinalis, M. piperita and A. absinthium exhibited an interesting acetylcholinesterase inhibition with IC₅₀ equal to 22, 24 and 58 µg/mL respectively.     

Optimization of alkylresorcinols extraction from triticale bran using response surface methodology

Optimization conditions for alkylresorcinols (ARs) extraction from triticale bran were determined using response surface methodology. A central composite design was used to determine the effects of extraction temperature (degrees Celsius) and solid-to-solvent ratio (weight per volume) on yield of saturated, unsaturated and total ARs. Extraction of ARs was affected significantly (p value????0.05) by temperature and solid-to-solvent ratio on the yield of saturated, unsaturated and total ARs. The highest quantity of total ARs from triticale bran was extracted at 24?°C between 16 and 24?h at a solid-to-solvent ratio (weight per volume) of 1:40 and ranged from 278 to 308?mg/100?g, while saturated and unsaturated ARs were 163 to 225?mg/100?g and 22 to 29?mg/100?g, respectively. The ARs identified by high-performance liquid chromatography included: C15:0, C17:0, C19:0, C21:0, C23:0 and C25:0. Also some unsaturated analogues (12.4% to 14.0%) were found including C17:1, C19:1, C21:1 and C23:1. Analysis of variance (p value?=?0.05) indicated that the response surface methodology (RSM) developed for saturated, unsaturated and total ARs were adequate and explained most of the variability (85% to 89%) with high coefficient of multiple determination (R ²?=?0.89). The main effect of the response variable was quadratic rather than a linear function. Our results showed that RSM is a tool that is useful to optimise experimental conditions for the extraction of ARs.     

Detection of Streptococcus macedonicus in Greek cheeses

The aim of the present work was the detection and enumeration of Streptococcus macedonicus in Greek traditional cheeses. A total of 68 traditional cheese samples have been examined. Enumeration was performed by plating on the S. macedonicus differential medium Bromothymol Blue Streptococcus macedonicus (BBSM). Detection of S. macedonicus was confirmed by species-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR), using as template either cheese DNA or DNA from colonies isolated from the BBSM medium. Counts of S. macedonicus on BBSM medium ranged from less than 1 to 6.84 log cfu g^?1. S. macedonicus has been detected in 15 samples out of the 68 tested, corresponding to 13 out of the 20 different cheese varieties examined, originating from various geographical areas in Greece. This indicates that S. macedonicus is widespread in Greek cheeses. However, its presence could not be correlated either with the cheese variety or the cheese manufacturing procedures.