Oxidative stability enhancement of broiler bird meats with α-lipoic acid and α-tocopherol acetate supplemented feed

Depression of meat quality is known to be caused by lipid peroxidation occurring in meat. Supplementation of antioxidants in feed decreases lipid peroxidation and improves the oxidative stability of meat after slaughtering. The present study demonstrated that meat obtained from broiler birds fed feed supplemented with α-tocopherol acetate (200 mg/kg feed) along with α-lipoic acid (25, 75, or 150 mg/kg feed) exhibited increased oxidative stability and reduced fat content. The total phenolic content and α-lipoic acid content increased in the meat as the concentration of α-lipoic acid supplementation increased. The protein content in the meat was not changed by the supplementation of α-lipoic acid and α-tocopherol acetate. The results of DPPH and TBA assays demonstrated that feed supplemented with α-lipoic acid and α-tocopherol acetate also enhanced the antioxidant activity of broiler meat. On the other hand, the meat from broiler birds fed feed supplemented with oxidised oil (4% in feed) reduced its oxidative stability.     

Wheat gluten: high molecular weight glutenin subunits--structure, genetics, and relation to dough elasticity

ABSTRACT:  Gluten proteins, representing the major protein fraction of the starchy endosperm, are predominantly responsible for the unique position of wheat amongst cereals. These form a continuous proteinaceous matrix in the cells of the mature dry grain and form a continuous viscoelastic network during the mixing process of dough development. These viscoelastic properties underline the utilization of wheat to prepare bread and other wheat flour based foodstuffs. One group of gluten proteins is glutenin, which consists of high molecular weight (HMW) and low molecular weight (LMW) subunits. The HMW glutenin subunits (HMW-GS) are particularly important for determining dough elasticity. The common wheat possesses 3 to 5 HMW subunits encoded at the Glu-1 loci on the long arms of group 1 chromosomes (1A, 1B, and 1D). The presence of certain HMW subunits is positively correlated with good bread-making quality. Glutamine-rich repetitive sequences that comprise the central part of the HMW subunits are actually responsible for the elastic properties due to extensive arrays of interchain hydrogen bonds. Genetic engineering can be used to manipulate the amount and composition of the HMW subunits, leading to either increased dough strength or more drastic changes in gluten structure and properties.     

Protein–Energy Malnutrition: A Risk Factor for Various Ailments

The wheel of industrialization that spun throughout the last century resulted in urbanization coupled with modifications in lifestyles and dietary habits. However, the communities living in developing economies are facing many problems related to their diet and health. Amongst, the prevalence of nutritional problems especially protein–energy malnutrition (PEM) and micronutrients deficiencies are the rising issues. Moreover, the immunity or susceptibility to infect-parasitic diseases is also directly linked with the nutritional status of the host. Likewise, disease-related malnutrition that includes an inflammatory component is commonly observed in clinical practice thus affecting the quality of life. The PEM is treatable but early detection is a key for its appropriate management. However, controlling the menace of PEM requires an aggressive partnership between the physician and the dietitian. This review mainly attempts to describe the pathophysiology, prevalence and consequences of PEM and aims to highlight the importance of this clinical syndrome and the recent growth in our understanding of the processes behind its development. Some management strategies/remedies to overcome PEM are also the limelight of the article. In the nutshell, early recognition, prompt management, and robust follow up are critical for best outcomes in preventing and treating PEM.     

Robust Diversity-based Sine-Cosine Algorithm for Optimizing Hydropower Multi-reservoir Systems

Hydropower energy generation depends on the available water resources. Therefore, planning and operation of the water resource systems are paramount tasks for energy management. Since reservoirs are one of the important components of water resources systems, extracting optimal operating policies for proper management of energy generated from these systems is an imperative step. Optimizing reservoir system operation (ORSO) is a non-linear, large-scale, and non-convex problem with a large number of constraints and decision variables. To solve ORSO problem effectively, a robust diversity-based, sine-cosine algorithm (RDB-SCA) is developed in the present study by introducing several strategies to balance the global exploration and local exploitation ability and to achieve accurate and reliable solutions. An efficient linear operation rule is coupled with the RDB-SCA to maximize the energy generation. The proposed method is then applied to a real-world, multi-reservoir system to extract optimal operational policies and, consequently, maximize the energy production. It is shown that the RDB-SCA is able to generate 24, 14, and 6% more energy than the original SCA, respectively for 2-, 3-, and 4-reservoir systems. The present findings are useful to suggest guidelines for efficient operation of hydropower multi-reservoir systems. This paper is supported by https://imanahmadianfar.com/codes.

     

A study on the efficiency of a capped hardening elasto-plastic model for soft clays

It is well known that the deformation and stress-resistant characteristics of fine-grained soils, especially soft clays, are significantly influenced by the soil softness. It is therefore very important to employ a model which can accurately simulate the effects of this phenomenon. A constitutive model must be able to create a balance among stress paths, the number of parameters, the process of parameter determination, and finally, the simplicity of the computational calculations.The current study investigates the performance of a two-yield surface (cone and cap yield surface) model for soft soils. The efficiency of the cap yield surface has been studied as well. The model has been calibrated by employing the data derived from previous researches for Bangkok clay. The incorporated data have been obtained from the results of CD triaxial, CU triaxial, and oedometer tests. The proposed method for the model calibration can accurately predict the triaxial test results and oedometer test stress path simultaneously. This method for predicting the soil behavior is based on the main soil characteristics taken from common soil mechanics tests. It can be widely employed for engineering practices, especially when complicated soil behavior is encountered.     

Thermal Expansion of Alkaline‐Doped Lanthanum Ferrite Near the Néel Temperature

The thermal expansion and magnetic behaviors of divalent, alkaline‐doped lanthanum ferrites (La_0.9M_0.1FeO₃, M=Ca, Sr, Ba) were assessed using a combination of dilatometry, magnetometry, time‐of‐flight neutron diffraction, and high‐temperature X‐ray diffraction. Néel temperatures were determined through vibrating sample magnetometry and correlated well with changes in thermal expansion behavior observed during both dilatometry and X‐ray diffraction. The Néel temperatures observed for pure, Ca‐doped, Sr‐doped, and Ba‐doped lanthanum ferrites were 471°C, 351°C, 465°C, and 466°C, respectively. The effect of divalent substitutions on the magnetic behavior are attributed to charge compensation mechanisms and structural changes in the material.     

Concurrent cell formation and layout design using scatter search

Two key decisions in designing cellular manufacturing systems are cell formation and layout design problems. In the cell formation problem, machine groups and part families are determined while in the facility layout problem the location of each machine in each cell (intra-cell layout) and the location of each cell (inter-cell layout) are decided. Owing to the fact that there are interactions between two problems, cell formation and layout design problem must be tackled concurrently to design a productive manufacturing system. In this research, two problems are investigated concurrently. Some important and realistic factors such as inter-cell layout, intra-cell layout, operations sequence, part demands, batch size, number of cells, cell size, and variable process routings are incorporated in the problem. The problem is formulated as a mathematical model. Three different methods are described to solve the problem: multi-objective scatter search (MOSS), non-dominated genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), and the ε-constraint method. The methods are employed to solve nine problems generated and adopted from the literature. Sensitivity analysis is accomplished on the parameters of the problem to investigate the effects of them on objective function values. The results show that the proposed MOSS algorithm performs better than NSGA-II and produces better solutions in comparison to multi-stage approaches.