Is there any interaction of resistin and adiponectin levels with protein‐energy wasting among patients with chronic kidney disease

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of adipocytokines including adiponectin, leptin, resistin, neuropeptide Y and ghrelin in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients on appearance of protein‐energy wasting (PEW). One hundred fifty patients with mean age of 45.4 ± 15.9 years, without active infections or chronic inflammatory conditions were recruited into the study. Study groups were control group (consisting of 30 healthy volunteers with normal kidney functions), hemodialysis group, predialysis group, peritoneal dialysis group and kidney transplant group. Fasting morning serum leptin, ghrelin, acylated ghrelin, neuropeptide Y, adiponectin, resistin levels of all of the groups were measured. Anthropometric and nutritional assessments of all patients were obtained. Diagnosis of PEW was made according to definition recommended by the International Society of Renal Nutrition and Metabolism. Presence of PEW in hemodialysis (23.3%) and peritoneal dialysis (26.7%) groups were significantly higher than those of predialysis (3.3%), and transplantation (0%) groups. Adiponectin and resistin levels in predialysis, peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis patients were significantly higher than control group (p: 0.0001). This study had given significant positive correlations between presence of PEW and serum resistin (r: 0.267, p: 0.001), and serum adiponectin levels (r: 0.349, p: 0.0001). There were no relationship between presence of PEW and ghrelin, acylated‐ghrelin, neuropeptide Y, and leptin levels of the groups. CKD patients except transplant patients had higher adiponectin and resistin levels than control group. PEW was found to be linearly correlated with resistin and adiponectin. High serum resistin and adiponectin levels might have a role in development of PEW among dialysis patients.     

Microencapsulation of Extra Virgin Olive Oil by Spray Drying: Effect of Wall Materials Composition,Process Conditions,and Emulsification Method

Food and Bioprocess Technology - The objective of the study was to investigate the microencapsulation of extra virgin olive oil by spray drying to increase its stability and application area. The...     

Influence of carbon and nitrogen source on production of volatile fragrance and flavour metabolites by the yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus

The yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus produces a range of volatile molecules with applications as fragrances or flavours. The purpose of this study was to establish how nutritional conditions influence the production of these metabolites. Four strains were grown on synthetic media, using a variety of carbon and nitrogen sources and volatile metabolites analysed using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). The nitrogen source had pronounced effects on metabolite production: levels of the fusel alcohols 2‐phenylethanol and isoamyl alcohol were highest when yeast extract was the nitrogen source, and ammonium had a strong repressing effect on production of 2‐phenylethyl acetate. In contrast, the nitrogen source did not affect production of isoamyl acetate or ethyl acetate, indicating that more than one alcohol acetyl transferase activity is present in K. marxianus. Production of all acetate esters was low when cells were growing on lactose (as opposed to glucose or fructose), with a lower intracellular pool of acetyl CoA being one explanation for this observation. Bioinformatic and phylogenetic analysis of the known yeast alcohol acetyl transferases ATF1 and ATF2 suggests that the ancestral protein Atf2p may not be involved in synthesis of volatile acetate esters in K. marxianus, and raises interesting questions as to what other genes encode this activity in non‐Saccharomyces yeasts. Identification of all the genes involved in ester synthesis will be important for development of the K. marxianus platform for flavour and fragrance production. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Occurrence of ochratoxin A in cereal-derived food products commonly consumed in Turkey

Ochratoxin A (OTA) is a mycotoxin that can be found in several food commodities including cereals, wine, coffee, cacao, spices or dried fruits, resulting in chronic human exposure. The aim of our study was to investigate the presence of OTA in widely consumed cereal-derived products commercialized in Turkey. A total of 142 samples were collected from different supermarkets and traditional bazaars in Istanbul during 2008-2010 years. The analytical methods used in our study involved the liquid/liquid extraction of OTA, immunoaffinity clean-up and high performance liquid chromatography determination with fluorescence detection. The frequencies of OTA contamination were 21.62%, 19.05% and 55.95% and the mean concentrations of positive samples were 0.32 μg/kg, 0.14 μg/kg, 0.41 μg/kg for breakfast cereals, cereal-based baby foods and tarhana samples, respectively. Our findings show that contamination levels of OTA in all cereal-derived products were lower than the permitted level by European Commission Regulation.     

The use of sulphuric acid-carbonization products of sugar beet pulp in Cr(VI) removal

A carbon rich adsorbent prepared from the reaction of sugar beet pulp with sulphuric acid and gas formed during carbonization process have been studied for Cr(VI) removal from aqueous solutions. The SO(2) rich gas was shown to be an excellent Cr(VI) reductant. The equilibrium and kinetic studies were conducted by using the carbonaceous adsorbent derived from sugar beet pulp. The lower pH favoured Cr(VI) adsorption but substantial Cr(VI) reduction was observed. The Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models were applied and the Langmuir model best fit the equilibrium isotherm data. The maximum adsorption capacity of chromium calculated from Langmuir isotherm is about 24 mgg(-1) for 25 degrees C. The adsorption of Cr(VI) is an endothermic process and follows the pseudo-second-order rate kinetics. The sulphuric acid-carbonization is an economical method for particularly chromium removal because the gas generated during carbonization exhibits good Cr(VI) reduction properties and carbonaceous material obtained is an efficient Cr(VI) adsorbent.     

Crystal Structures and Magnetic Properties of the Co2Mn1−x V x Sb (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) Heusler Compounds

Crystal structure and magnetic properties of the Co₂Mn_1?x V _x Sb (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) Heusler compounds have been studied by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), magnetometric measurements, and full-potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP–LAPW) method. All compounds crystallize in a cubic Cu₂MnAl-type crystal structure with the space group Fm–3m. The samples for x<0.8 have the Curie temperatures above room temperature, while the Curie temperature is observed at 68 K for the sample with x = 0.8. The saturation magnetization at 5 K decreases linearly with increasing vanadium concentration x. The values of the saturation magnetization obtained by FP–LAPW–local density approximation (LDA) calculations are in better agreement with the experimental results compared with the results obtained by FP–LAPW–generalized gradient approximation (GGA) calculations.     

Automatic environmental noise source classification model using fuzzy logic

Noise classification is very important nowadays. Fuzzy logic has been applied to many interesting problems in different areas including noise identification/recognition. With this study, we propose an automatic environmental noise source classifier based on fuzzy logic. The proposed classifier uses the feature parameters that are extracted using short-time auto-correlation function. Six commonly encountered non-stationary noise sources are chosen to recognize. These are subway, airport, inside car, inside train, restaurant, and rain. Classification accuracy of the proposed classifier ranged from 62% to 90% rates.     

New transformed features generated by deep bottleneck extractor and a GMM–UBM classifier for speaker age and gender classification

Neural Computing and Applications - Speaker age and gender classification is one of the most challenging problems in speech signal processing. Recently with developing technologies, identifying...     

Economic performance assessment of residential building retrofits: a case study of Istanbul

This paper presents an approach proposed for assessing economic performance of retrofit applications performed at functional building element level in residential buildings and exemplifies it for the city of Istanbul, which has a temperate-humid climate. This approach covers three steps. In the first step, typical buildings and their properties are determined by analysing the residential buildings in Istanbul, and then the retrofit alternatives are generated. In the second step, an economic impact analysis is performed for typical buildings by considering the costs during their life cycle phases. In the third step, a life cycle cost assessment is done according to the variables, which are defined as window-to-wall ratio (WWR), window system, thermal insulation material, orientation and building age. The most beneficial retrofits are lastly determined depending on their economic performance ratios (EPRs). In conclusion, insulating exterior wall, projected floors, floors above unheated space and roof floors separately provide the highest benefits at the age of 30, and the lowest benefits occur at the age of 15 for all WWRs. The highest EPRs are obtained for the WWR of 10% at all ages. The renewal with PVC frame provides benefit while the renewal with wooden frame causes losses. Orientation slightly affects the EPRs. The use of stone wool in the retrofit causes a reduction in the EPRs due to high investment cost of stone wool. When the 20-year-old building which has the WWR of 10% is insulated with extruded polystyrene and renewed with PVC, it provides the highest benefit of about 45%.