Suitability of Different Food Grade Materials for the Encapsulation of Some Functional Foods Well Reported for Their Advantages and Susceptibility

Functional foods find a very important place in the modern era, where different types of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, etc. are on a high. Irrespective of the abundance of bioactive components in different fruits and vegetables, their low solubility in aqueous solution, vulnerability to destruction in different environmental and gastrointestinal conditions and a low intestinal absorption becomes a concern. Because it is quite difficult to commercialize non food materials for the food encapsulation purposes due to their safety concerns in the human body, scientists in the recent times have come up with the idea of encapsulating the different bioactive components in different food grade materials that are able to safeguard these bioactive components against the different environmental and gastrointestinal conditions and ensure their safe and targeted delivery at their absorption sites. Different food grade encapsulation materials including various oligosaccharides, polysaccharides (starch, cyclodextrins, alginates, chitosan, gum arabic, and carboxymethyl cellulose) and proteins and their suitability for encapsulating various bioactive components like flavonoids (catechins, rutin, curcumin, hesperetin, and vanillin), nonflavonoids (resveratrol), carotenoids (β-carotene, lycopene, and lutein), and fatty acids (fish oil, flaxseed oil, and olive oil) of high medical and nutritional value are reviewed here.     

Potent Antidiabetic Activity and Metabolite Profiling of Melicope Lunu‐ankenda Leaves

Diabetes mellitus is normally characterized by chronic hyperglycemia associated with disturbances in the fat, carbohydrate, and protein metabolism. There is an increasing trend of using natural products instead of synthetic agents as alternative therapy for disorders due to their fewer side effects. In this study, antidiabetic and antioxidant activities of different Melicope lunu‐ankenda (ML) ethanolic extracts were evaluated using inhibition of α‐glucosidase and 2,2‐diphenyl‐l‐picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radicals scavenging activity, respectively; whereas, proton nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H NMR) and ultra‐high performance liquid chromatography‐tandem mass spectrometric (UHPLC‐MS/MS) techniques were used for metabolite profiling of ML leaf extracts at different concentrations of ethanol and water. Sixty percent of ethanolic ML extract showed highest inhibitory effect against α‐glucosidase enzyme (IC₅₀ of 37 μg/mL) and DPPH scavenging activity (IC₅₀ of 48 μg/mL). Antidiabetic effect of ML extracts was also evaluated in vivo and it was found that the high doses (400 mg/Kg BW) of ML extract exhibited high suppression in fasting blood glucose level by 62.75%. The metabolites responsible for variation among ML samples with variable ethanolic levels have been evaluated successfully using ¹H‐NMR–based metabolomics. The principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares(PLS) analysis scores depicted clear and distinct separations into 4 clusters representing the 4 ethanolic concentrations by PC1 and PC2, with an eigenvalue of 69.9%. Various ¹H‐NMR chemical shifts related to the metabolites responsible for sample difference were also ascribed. The main bioactive compounds identified attributing toward the separation included: isorhamnetin, skimmianine, scopoletin, and melicarpinone. Hence, ML may be used as promising medicinal plant for the development of new functional foods, new generation antidiabetic drugs, as a single entity phytomedicine or in combinational therapy.     

Genetic Algorithm and Simulated Annealing to estimate optimal process parameters of the abrasive waterjet machining

In this study, two computational approaches, Genetic Algorithm and Simulated Annealing, are applied to search for a set of optimal process parameters value that leads to the minimum value of machining performance. The objectives of the applied techniques are: (1) to estimate the minimum value of the machining performance compared to the machining performance value of the experimental data and regression modeling, (2) to estimate the optimal process parameters values that has to be within the range of the minimum and maximum coded values for process parameters of experimental design that are used for experimental trial and (3) to evaluate the number of iteration generated by the computational approaches that lead to the minimum value of machining performance. Set of the machining process parameters and machining performance considered in this work deal with the real experimental data of the non-conventional machining operation, abrasive waterjet. The results of this study showed that both of the computational approaches managed to estimate the optimal process parameters, leading to the minimum value of machining performance when compared to the result of real experimental data.     

Automatic computer-aided caries detection from dental x-ray images using intelligent level set

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Dental diseases have high risk of affection across the globe and mostly in adult population. The analysis of dental X-ray images has some difficulties in...     

Implementation of genetic algorithm in an embedded microcontroller-based polarization control system

Implementation of genetic algorithm in a PIC32MX microcontroller-based polarization control system is proposed and demonstrated. The controller measures the signal intensity that is used to estimate the genetic value. This process is controlled by the genetic algorithm rather than referring to the Look-Up-Table as implemented in existing solutions. To reach optimum performance, the code is optimized by using the best genetic parameters so that the fastest execution time can be achieved. An ability of genetic algorithm to work efficiently in polarization control system possesses many advantages including easy code construction, low memory consumption and fast control speed. Genetic algorithm is intelligent enough to be used for endless polarization stabilization and in the worst case, able to stabilize the polarization changes in 300 μs. In the best case the response time can reach 17 μs.     

Electrical Conductivity and Sensitive Characteristics of Ag-Added BaTiO_3-CuO Mixed Oxide for CO_2 Gas Sensing

Carbon dioxide gas sensors based on BaTiO3-CuO composite with different concentrations of Ag addition(1,1.5 and 2 wt%) have been prepared by stander ceramic method and sintered at 500 and 700℃ for 5 h.Electrical conductivity and gas sensing properties of the prepared samples were investigated.Electrical conductivity measurement was used to characterize the obtained sintered sensor pellets.It was found that electrical conductivity and the sensitivity to CO2 were improved with Ag addition and sintering.The correlation between Ag content at different sintering temperature and sensing characteristics towards CO2 is discussed.