Chemical composition and starch digestibility in flours from Polish processed legume seeds

The study was undertaken to determine the effect of various treatments, i.e. cooking after soaking, freezing after cooking and storage at a low temperature (-18°C, 21days), and autoclaving, of Polish cultivars of bean, pea and lentil seeds on the chemical composition and starch digestibility of the resultant flours. The cooking of seeds caused a significant decrease in contents of ash (by 11-48%), polyphenols (by 10-70%) and protein (to 19%) in flours made of bean. In addition, analyses demonstrated significantly decreased contents of resistant starch, RS (by 61-71%) and slowly digestible starch, SDS (by 56-84%). Storage of frozen seeds resulted in insignificant changes in the chemical composition, and in increased contents of both RS and SDS. The flours produced upon the autoclaving process were characterized by similar changes in the contents of ash and protein as in cooked seeds, yet losses of polyphenols were lower and, simultaneously, contents of RS and SDS were higher. All the analyzed flours were shown to be characterized by a reduced content of amylose in starch, which might have affected its digestibility. This was indicated by a strict negative correlation reported between the value of the starch digestion index (SDRI) and amylose content of starch (r=0.84, p>0.05).     

The etiology of oxidative stress in the various species of animals,a review

Oxidative stress is the consequence of an imbalance of pro‐oxidants and antioxidants leading to cell damage and tissue injury. The exhaustion of antioxidant systems is one of the reasons for the occurrence of oxidative stress, which results in avalanche production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) or free radicals. High oxidative stress is common in organs and tissues with high metabolic and energy demands, including skeletal and heart muscle, liver and blood cells. Stress arises in animals in response to unavoidable or adverse environmental conditions. In the external environment, which affects the body of the cow, there are four main groups of stressors: physical, chemical, biological and psychological. Physical stressors include fluctuations in ambient temperature as well as mechanical injuries. High ambient temperature is one of the factors affecting the productivity of cows. Biological stressors are conditioned by errors and irregularities in habits. Both of these phenomena have an adverse impact on both the resistance of animals and fertility and are the etiological agent of oxidative stress. Various mechanisms may be responsible for metal‐induced oxidative stress: direct or indirect generation of ROS, depletion of glutathione and inhibition of antioxidant enzymes are well known for all redox‐active and redox‐inactive metals. © 2014 Society of Chemical Industry     

Novel Nontoxic 5,9-Disubstituted SN38 Derivatives: Characterization of Their Pharmacological Properties and Interactions with DNA Oligomers

Novel nontoxic derivatives of SN38 with favorable antineoplastic properties were characterized in water solution using NMR. The phenomena observed by NMR were linked to basic pharmacological properties, such as solubility, bioavailability, chemical and stereochemical stability, and binding to natural DNA oligomers through the terminal G-C base pair, which is commonly considered a biological target of Topo I inhibitors. Compound 1, with bulky substituents at both C5(R) and C20(S) on the same side of a camptothecin core, manifests self-association, whereas diastereomers 2, with bulky C5(S) and C20(S) substituents are mostly monomeric in solution. The stereogenic center at C5 is stable in water solution at pH 5–6. The compound with an (N-azetidinyl)methyl substituent at C9 can undergo the retro Mannich reaction after a prolonged time in water solution. Both diastereomers exhibit different abilities in terms of binding to DNA oligomers: compound 1 is strongly bound, whereas the binding of compound 2 is rather weak. Molecular modeling produced results consistent with NMR experiments. These complementary data allow linking of the observed phenomena in NMR experiments to basic preliminary information on the pharmacodynamic character of compounds and are essential for planning further development research.     

Regional cardiac motion and strain estimation in three-dimensional echocardiography: a validation study in thick-walled univentricular phantoms

Automatic quantification of regional left ventricular deformation in volumetric ultrasound data remains challenging. Many methods have been proposed to extract myocardial motion, including techniques using block matching, phase-based correlation, differential optical flow methods, and image registration. Our lab previously presented an approach based on elastic registration of subsequent volumes using a B-spline representation of the underlying transformation field. Encouraging results were obtained for the assessment of global left ventricular function, but a thorough validation on a regional level was still lacking. For this purpose, univentricular thick-walled cardiac phantoms were deformed in an experimental setup to locally assess strain accuracy against sonomicrometry as a reference method and to assess whether regions containing stiff inclusions could be detected. Our method showed good correlations against sonomicrometry: r(2) was 0.96, 0.92, and 0.84 for the radial (ε(RR)), longitudinal (ε(LL)), and circumferential (ε(CC)) strain, respectively. Absolute strain errors and strain drift were low for ε(LL) (absolute mean error: 2.42%, drift: -1.05%) and ε(CC) (error: 1.79%, drift: -1.33%) and slightly higher for ε(RR) (error: 3.37%, drift: 3.05%). The discriminative power of our methodology was adequate to resolve full transmural inclusions down to 17 mm in diameter, although the inclusion-to-surrounding tissue stiffness ratio was required to be at least 5:2 (absolute difference of 39.42 kPa). When the inclusion-to-surrounding tissue stiffness ratio was lowered to approximately 2:1 (absolute difference of 22.63 kPa), only larger inclusions down to 27 mm in diameter could still be identified. Radial strain was found not to be reliable in identifying dysfunctional regions.     

Elemental composition of Physarum compressum Alb. et Schw. sporocarps and their structures cultivated on rabbit dung and agar substrates

The elemental composition of spores, peridium walls, and lime nodes of Physarum compressum sporocarps, cultivated on rabbit dung as a natural growing environment for the slime mold and on artificial agar medium, was compared to evaluate differences that may be dependent on substrates. Whole fruiting bodies and samples of both experimental media were extracted with nitric acid or Parr digest bomb, respectively, and analyzed by means of total X-ray reflection fluorescence (TXRF). Electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) of spores, peridium walls, and lime nodes structure was carried out with the scanning electron microscope equipped with energy-dispersive spectrometer. Because of minute sizes and roughness of investigated structures, Monte Carlo simulations were utilized to establish analytical conditions of EPMA. Biological and geological standards were used in the quantification of element concentrations. According to TXRF, the fruiting bodies from agar medium revealed lower concentrations of K, Ca, Cr, Mn, and Fe in relation to fruiting bodies from the dung, reflecting elemental relationships in the experimental media. According to EPMA, the highest Ca concentration was found in the lime nodes followed by the peridium and the spores. Culturing of the slime molds on the rabbit dung indicated higher concentration of Ca in the lime nodes and peridium walls when compared with those obtained from the sporocarps grown on agar media. The opposite relation was found for the spores. The concentration of Na, Mg, P, S, and Cl was generally lower in all structures of the sporocarps harvested from the dung than from the agar medium. K was in higher concentration in analyzed structures from dung than from agar. Different element uptake (except for Ca and K) was revealed by the two methods: TXRF and EPMA.     

Photocatalytic hydrogen generation over alkaline-earth titanates in the presence of electron donors

The efficiency of alkaline-earth titanate-based compounds (Ca, Sr, Ba) for catalysts in photocatalytic hydrogen generation has been investigated. In this report, we have shown that the addition of organic donors (such as formic acid, acetic acid, methanol, 2-propanol and formaldehyde) enhanced the efficiency of the studied process. The systematic study has shown that the most efficient organic donor in regards to its hydrogen generation efficiency is formic acid. Of the catalysts explored, the highest photocatalytic activity was shown by SrTiO₃:TiO₂. Additionally, the effects of photocatalyst quantity and formic acid concentration on hydrogen evolution have been investigated.     

Effect of the Additive Fire Retardants on the Properties of Rigid Polyurethane Foams,Obtained Using Hydroxyethyl Derivatives of Oxamide and Polymeric 4,4′-diphenylmethane Diisocyanate

The present work investigates the effect of polyol structure and physical addition of boric acid and N,N′-bis(2-hydroxyethyl)oxamide on the properties of rigid polyurethane foams. The product of hydroxyalkylation of oxamide by ethylene carbonate has been used as a polyol component. The new polyol has been foamed using polymeric 4,4′-diphenylmethane diisocyanate, water, and triethylamine. To decrease the flammability of the foams, boric acid, and N,N′-bis(2-hydroxyethyl)oxamide were used as the additive flame retardants. It has been found, that chemical modification of the foam structure by means of oxamide groups decreases their flammability only to a small extent, whereas physical addition of N,N′-bis(2-hydroxyethyl)oxamide does not influence the flammability. However, the addition of boric acid to the foam composition resulted in a distinct decrease of foam flammability, according to the amount of boric acid added. All the foams, modified and nonmodified by boron, have been categorized into flammability class HF-1, according to the applicable standard. The introduction of flame retardants had its impact on the properties of polyurethane foams obtained, as described in this work.     

Influence of a graphene oxide additive and the conditions of membrane formation on the morphology and separative properties of poly(vinylidene fluoride) membranes

In this article, we present our study of the influence of a graphene oxide (GO) additive and the method of preparation on the properties of membranes. Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)/GO membranes were obtained by an inverse phase method, which was conducted by two different methods. The first one was based on solvent evaporation, and the second method was a coagulation bath in distilled water. Our studies clearly showed that the introduction of the GO nanoadditive into the polymer membrane matrix played a major role in the pore process formation, and it also contributed to the reduction of the contact angle, and this led to an improvement in the hydrophilic properties of the obtained membranes. Furthermore, the PVDF/GO membrane preparation process had a direct influence on the thickness and porosity. Both of these factors had a direct influence on the transport properties of the membrane. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42789.