Response surface optimisation of extraction of antioxidants from strawberry fruit, and lipid peroxidation inhibitory potential of the fruit extract in cooked chicken patties

BACKGROUND: Strawberries contain high levels of antioxidants and have beneficial effects against oxidative stress‐mediated diseases, such as cancer. They contain multiple phenolic compounds, which contribute to their biological properties. Hence, a study was carried out to optimise the extraction of antioxidants and evaluate the antioxidant potential of strawberry fruit extract (SE) in cooked chicken patties during refrigerated storage. The activity of SE was compared with that of butylhydroxytoluene (BHT). RESULTS: The effect of solvent type (MeOH and EtOH), concentration (0–70%) of EtOH in the system, temperature (30–60 °C), and time (30–150 min) on DPPH^?‐scavenging activity of SE was investigated. Response surface methodology was used to estimate the optimum extraction conditions for each parameter. The maximum predicted DPPH^? scavenging under the optimised conditions (100% MeOH, 30 °C, 150 min) was 43% at 1 mg SE mL^?1. Freshly prepared chicken patties were treated with 5% and 10% SE and 2% BHT, and stored aerobically at 4 °C for 6 days. SE had no influence (P < 0.05) on any of the sensory attributes of the patties. The values of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances reduced significantly (P < 0.05) from 2.47 mg in control patties to 0.312 mg and 0.432 mg malonaldehyde kg^?1 sample in 5‐SE and 10‐SE patties, respectively, on the day 6 of storage. CONCLUSION: The optimised model depicted MeOH at 30 °C with an extended time of 150 min as the optimum settings for extraction of compounds from strawberry that had the scavenging activity. The study shows that the extraction of natural antioxidants from strawberry can be improved by optimising several key extraction parameters. SE also acted as an effective antioxidant and suppressed lipid peroxidation in cooked chicken patties. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry     

Highly Conducting Transparent Indium-Doped Zinc Oxide Thin Films

Highly conducting transparent indium-doped zinc oxide (IZO) thin films have been achieved by controlling different growth parameters using radio frequency magnetron sputtering. The structural, electrical, and optical properties of the IZO thin films have been investigated for varied indium content and growth temperature (T _G) in order to find out the optimum level of doping to achieve the highest conducting transparent IZO thin films. The highest mobility and carrier concentration of 11.5 cm²/V-s and 3.26 × 10²⁰ cm^?3, respectively, have been achieved in IZO doped with 2% indium. It has been shown that as T _G of the 2% IZO thin films increase, more and more indium atoms are substituted into Zn sites leading to shift in (002) peaks towards higher angles which correspond to releasing the stress within the IZO thin film. The minimum resistivity of 5.3 × 10^?4 Ω-cm has been achieved in 2% indium-doped IZO grown at 700°C.     

An analytical subthreshold current modeling of cylindrical gate all around (CGAA) MOSFET incorporating the influence of device design engineering

An analytical model of CGAA MOSFET incorporating material engineering, channel engineering and stack engineering has been proposed and verified using ATLAS 3D device simulator. A comparative study of short channel effects for various device structures has also been carried out incorporating the effect of drain induced barrier lowering (DIBL), threshold voltage lowering and degradation of subthreshold slope. The effectiveness of applying the three region doping profile concept in the channel such as high-medium-low and low-high-low and its comparison with Gaussian doping profile to the cylindrical GAA MOSFET has been examined in detail. Reduced SCEs have been evaluated in combined designs i.e. TM–GC–GS, GCGS and DM–GC–GS. Out of several design engineering, GC–GS CGAA gives nearly ideal subthreshold slope whereas TM–GC–GS CGAA provides overall superior performance to reduce SCEs in deep nano-meter. The results so obtained are in good agreement with the simulated data which validate the model.     

Combined XPS and first principles study of double-perovskite Ca2GdTaO6

The electronic structure and the vibrational property of the double perovskite oxide, Ca₂GdTaO₆ (CGT), synthesized by solid-state reaction technique are investigated. Density functional theory calculations performed by the VASP show a direct band gap energy of 3.2 eV. The calculated density of states (DOS) has been compared to the valence band spectrum measured by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The calculated electronic structures of CGT are qualitatively similar to those of the XPS spectra in terms of spectral features and relative intensities. The DOS of CGT shows that the Gd f, Ta d and O 2p states are hybridized. The band-structure calculation is used to obtain the optical dielectric constant of the sample. The inter-band contributions to the optical properties of CGT have been analysed. Raman spectrum of the sample taken at 488 nm excitation wavelength shows five primary strong peaks at 112, 215, 320, 458 and 767 cm^?1. Lorentzian lines with 17 bands have been used to fit the Raman spectrum. The eigen frequencies of different phonon modes have been theoretically calculated. The calculated results are compared with the experimental data.     

Magnetically Retrievable Nano Crystalline Nickel Ferrite‐ Catalyzed Aerobic,Ligand‐Free C?N,C?O and C?C Cross‐ Coupling Reactions for the Synthesis of a Diversified Library of Heterocyclic Molecules

A new nickel ferrite nano‐crystal‐catalyzed, ligand‐free strategy for the construction of C N, C O, and C C bonds is presented, in which easily available nitrogen and oxygen nucleophiles, aryl/heteroaryl halides and arylboronic acids are used for the cross‐coupling reactions. The reactions can be performed at low catalyst loadings with excellent functional group tolerance and chemoselectivity. A variety of functional groups are compatible with the reaction conditions, including nitro, methoxy, as well as acid‐ and base‐sensitive heteroaromatic groups. This unprecedented chemistry nicely complements classical methods for the N‐arylation of amines/heteroamines, the O‐arylation of phenols/hydroxycoumarins and biaryl/heteroaryl synthesis. The low cost, easy to handle nature and the simplicity of this catalytic system render the method competitive with comparable copper‐ and palladium‐based protocols which require the presence of sophisticated ligands. Nickel ferrite magnetic nanoparticles were prepared by a simple hydrothermal method and characterized by using XRD, TEM image, energy dispersive X‐ray analysis, XPS and FT‐IR. The easy recovery of the catalyst and high yield of the products make the protocol attractive, sustainable and economic. The catalyst was reused for five cycles with almost unaltered catalytic activity.

     

A trust enhanced secure clustering framework for wireless ad hoc networks

Secure clustering in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks is a very important issue. Traditional cryptographic solution is useless against threats from internal compromised nodes. In light of this, we propose a novel distributed secure trust aware clustering protocol that provides secure solution for data delivery. A trust model is proposed that computes the trust of a node using self and recommendation evidences of its one-hop neighbors. Therefore, it is lightweight in terms of computational and communication requirements, yet powerful in terms of flexibility in managing trust. In addition, the proposed clustering protocol organizes the network into one-hop disjoint clusters and elects the most qualified, trustworthy node as a Clusterhead. This election is done by an authenticated voting scheme using parallel multiple signatures. Analysis of the protocol shows that it is more efficient and secure compared to similar existing schemes. Simulation results show that proposed protocol outperforms the popular ECS, CBRP and CBTRP in terms of throughput and packet delivery ratio with a reasonable communication overhead and latency in presence of malicious nodes.     

Growth of Vertically Aligned Tunable Polyaniline on Graphene/ZrO2 Nanocomposites for Supercapacitor Energy‐Storage Application

In‐situ hydrothermal method is employed to synthesize graphene/zirconium oxide composite from respective precursors graphene oxide and zirconium oxy‐nitrate. In this method, the graphene oxide is reduced itself to graphene and simultaneously metal oxide gets anchor on the graphene sheets. A novel method is also developed for the preparation of vertically aligned tunable polyaniline on the graphene/zirconium oxide nanocomposite, which leads to achieve high surface area (207.1 m² g^?1), high electrical conductivity (70.8 S cm^?1), high specific capacitance (1359.99 Fg^?1 at 1 mV s^?1), and high electrochemical performances as supercapacitor electrode materials. This vertically aligned conducting polymer gets easy contact with electrolyte ions and provides numerous redox active sites during charging and discharging. Moreover, such a simple and low cost assembly approach can be a pioneer for the large‐scale production of various functional architectures for energy storage and conversions.     

Hybrid White Light Emitting Diode Based on Silicon Nanocrystals

A novel design of white light emitting diodes (WLEDs) emerges to meet the growing global demand for resource sustainability while preserving health and environment. To achieve this goal, a facile method is developed for the chemical synthesis of a luminescent silicon nanocrystal (ncSi) with a large Stokes shift between absorption and emission. The WLED is prepared by a simple spin‐coating method, and contains a hybrid‐bilayer of the ncSi and luminescent polymer in its device active region. Interestingly, a well‐controlled ultrathin ncSi layer on the polymer makes possible to recombine electrons and holes in both layers, respectively. Combining red and blue‐green lights, emitted from the ncSi and the polymer layers, respectively, produces the emission of white electroluminescence. Herein, a hybrid‐WLED with a sufficiently low turn‐on voltage (3.5 V), produced by taking advantages of the large Stokes shift inherent in ncSi, is demonstrated.