Polyphenols from Cocoa and Vascular Health��A Critical Review

Cocoa is a rich source of dietary polyphenols. In vitro as well as cell culture data indicate that cocoa polyphenols may exhibit antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, as well as anti-atherogenic activity. Several molecular targets (e.g., nuclear factor kappa B, endothelial nitric oxide synthase, angiotensin converting enzyme) have been recently identified which may partly explain potential beneficial cardiovascular effects of cocoa polyphenols. However cocoa polyphenol concentrations, as used in many cell culture studies, are not physiologically achievable. Bioavailability studies indicate that plasma concentrations of cocoa polyphenols following dietary intake are low and in the nanomolar range. Human studies regarding the effect of cocoa polyphenols on vascular health are often underpowered and lack a rigorous study design. If dietary cocoa polyphenol intake is due to chocolate its high energy content needs to be taken into account. In order to determine potential health benefits of cocoa polyphenols large scale, long term, randomized, placebo controlled studies, (ideally with a cross-over design) as well as prospective studies are warranted.     

Swarmic autopoiesis and computational creativity

ABSTRACT

In this paper two swarm intelligence algorithms are used, the first leading the “attention” of the swarm and the latter responsible for the tracing mechanism. The attention mechanism is coordinated by agents of Stochastic Diffusion Search where they selectively attend to areas of a digital canvas (with line drawings) which contains (sharper) corners. Once the swarm's attention is drawn to the line of interest with a sharp corner, the corresponding line segment is fed into the tracing algorithm, Dispersive Flies Optimisation which “consumes” the input in order to generate a “swarmic sketch” of the input line. The sketching process is the result of the “flies” leaving traces of their movements on the digital canvas which are then revisited repeatedly in an attempt to re-sketch the traces they left. This cyclic process is then introduced in the context of autopoiesis, where the philosophical aspects of the autopoietic artist are discussed. The autopoetic artist is described in two modalities: gluttonous and contented. In the Gluttonous Autopoietic Artist mode, by iteratively focussing on areas-of-rich-complexity, as the decoding process of the input sketch unfolds, it leads to a less complex structure which ultimately results in an empty canvas; therein reifying the artwork's “death”. In the Contented Autopoietic Artist mode, by refocussing the autopoietic artist's reflections on “meaning” onto different constitutive elements, and modifying her reconstitution, different behaviours of autopoietic creativity can be induced and therefore, the autopoietic processes become less likely to fade away and more open-ended in their creative endeavour.     

Proteolysis and antioxidant activity of peptic,tryptic and chymotryptic hydrolysates of cow,buffalo, goat and camel caseins

Caseins of cow, buffalo, goat and camel milks were hydrolysed using pepsin, trypsin and chymotrypsin. The rate and degree of casein hydrolysis and the antioxidant activity (AA) of the casein hydrolysates (CH) were followed. Camel casein showed the highest rate and degree of hydrolysis with pepsin and trypsin, while cow casein was more rapidly hydrolysed with chymotrypsin than other caseins studied. The AA of all CH increased to a maximum after 24 h of hydrolysis. The AA of tryptic hydrolysates was higher (P < 0.002) than that of peptic hydrolysates. Camel CH exhibited higher AA than hydrolysates of other caseins.     

Physically cross-linked polyvinyl alcohol for the topical delivery of fluconazole

The aim of this study was to develop fluconazole in an ultrapure polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogel able to deliver the drug in a sustained release pattern for local treatment of skin fungal infections. The topical fluconazole hydrogels were prepared using PVA hydrogels physically cross-linked by freeze-thaw technique. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) was added as a hydrophilic excipient as a release enhancer of fluconazole. The effects of PVA molecular weight, PEG molecular weight, and PEG concentration were studied using a 2 x 4 x 2 factorially designed experiment. The selected fluconazole hydrogel proved to be physically stable over a period of 6 months and to be effective in the topical treatment of cutaneous candidiasis. Therefore, it could be concluded that the formula composed of 10% PVA 205000 and 1.5% PEG 4000 and 2% fluconazole and prepared by three cycles of freezing, and thawing is very promising in the local treatment of skin fungal infection as an alternative to the systemic use of fluconazole.     

Polyethylenimine-functionalized magnetic amorphous carbon fabricated from oil palm leaves as a novel adsorbent for Hg(II) from aqueous solutions

PEI (polyethylenimine) functionalized magnetic amorphous carbon thin film nano composite (Fe₃O₄-PEI-ACTF NC), was successfully synthesized and characterized by High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscope (HR-TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR), and Thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA). The synthesized nano composite Fe₃O₄-PEI-ACTF was developed as a highly efficient adsorbent for Hg(II) from aqueous samples. Effect of pH, contact time, adsorbent dose, initial concentration and temperature were investigated and optimized through batch adsorption technique. Besides, good magnetic performance of Fe₃O₄-PEI-ACTF NC makes it easily recovered from water with magnetic separation at low magnetic field. The adsorption kinetic data described well with the pseudo-second-order model and the equilibrium data fitted well to Langmuir isotherm model. The maximum adsorption capacity was 714?µg/g of Hg(II). Thermodynamic studies (ΔG°?<?0, ΔH°?>?0, ΔS°?>?0) implied an endothermic and spontaneous adsorption process in nature. Furthermore, the excellent reproducibility indicated that Fe₃O₄-PEI-ACTF NC has a promising application for removing heavy metals from aqueous environments due to high adsorption capacity and easily and quick separation.     

Evaluation of a mutual help network for the elderly residents of planned housing.

We set up a mutual help network among the elderly residents of a government-subsidized apartment building and evaluated its impact on their social ties, social support satisfaction, and depression. A quasi-experimental design was used, with the residents of a similar building located in the same neighborhood serving as the control group. A total of 230 individual services were exchanged, and 28 group activities were organized during the study period. There was almost no difference between experimental and control groups with respect to the change over the study period in the number of social ties with other residents of the building. Support satisfaction decreased in both groups, but the decrease was larger in the experimental group. The control group had a slight decrease in the frequency of their depressive symptoms, whereas the experimental group had a moderate increase. More research is needed on the ability of social support interventions to produce beneficial effects on mental health among individuals who are not experiencing a particular life stress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's responses to adult–adult and mother–child arguments: The role of parental marital conflict and distress.

Children's responses to verbal and physical conflict between adult–adult, mother–girl, and mother–boy participants were examined as a function of parental marital conflict. Seven- to 9-year-olds viewed videotaped arguments and were then interviewed. In comparison with children from low-conflict homes, children from high-conflict homes perceived the actors engaged in both the interadult and mother–child disputes as more angry and reported feeling more fearful during these arguments. The results extend support for the sensitization hypothesis and indicate that parental marital conflict exacerbates children's perceptions of conflict and fear responding to not only interadult disputes but also to mother–girl and mother–boy conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is speed of processing information related to intelligence and achievement?

Speed of processing information, measured by mean response time and slope of response times for tasks of varying levels of complexity, was correlated with intelligence (measured by the Lorge-Thorndike Intelligence Test, which emphasizes power rather than speed) and with achievement (measured by Stanford Achievement Test scores in reading and mathematics). Three tasks (sentence–picture comparison, pictorial similarities and differences, and matrix analysis) were individually administered to 94 6th graders, 51 males and 43 females. Reliability of mean response time was greater than that of slope and correlated significantly with IQ (–.6) and with achievement (–.4–.5). Correlations with achievement dropped to near zero with IQ partialled out. Speed of processing information was found to generalize across experimental tasks and to reliably indicate intellectual ability. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of feeding muscovy ducklings different protein sources: Performance, θ-3 fatty acid contents, and acceptability of their tissues

One hundred Muscovy ducklings, 5-wk-old, from each gender were assigned to five dietary treatments. Each treatment of each sex contained two replicates of 10 ducklings each. Ducks were fed, from 4–9 wk of age, five isonitrogenous diets that differed in protein source, i.e., commercial protein concentrate (CPC), soybean meal, meat meal (MM), herring fish meal (HFM), and mixed herring fish and meat meals (HFM + MM). At the end of the experiment, four ducks per treatment were slaughtered for carcass evaluation and the fatty acid profiles of their meat, adipose tissue, and plasma. Final body weight of both sexes showed no difference among protein sources, although males fed CPC or MM diets had the largest weight gain. No differences in feed consumption and conversion between sexes were shown, although differences in θ-3 fatty acid consumption due to protein source were significant. Feeding fish meal reduced the sensory acceptance of meat, whereas the plant protein diet improved it. Total lipid and cholesterol contents of the meat of males showed no differences between protein sources. Correlation between θ-3 fatty acid consumption and plasma cholesterol was negative (r=0.91; P=0.03). Moreover, correlation between plasma cholesterol and plasma lipid was positive (r=0.97; P=0.01). Feeding fish meal enriched total unsaturated fatty acid of adipose tissues, θ-3 fatty acid of adipose and meat tissues, and total unsaturated fatty acid of thigh meat. Total unsaturated fatty acid and θ-3 fatty acid of blood plasma from females were also enriched by feeding fish meal-containing diets. This work was presented at the 21st World Congress and Exhibition of the International Society for Fat Research (ISF) October 1–6, 1995, The Netherlands Congress Center, The Hague.     

Antifibrinolytic effect of single apo(a) kringle domains: relationship to fibrinogen binding

Elevated plasma concentrations of lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] areassociated with an increased risk for the development of atheroscleroticdisease which may be attributable to the ability of Lp(a) toattenuate fibrinolysis. A generally accepted mechanism for thiseffect involves direct competition of Lp(a) with plasminogenfor fibrin(ogen) binding sites thus reducing the efficiencyof plasminogen activation. Efforts to determine the domainsof apolipoprotein(a) [apo(a)] which mediate fibrin(ogen) interactionshave yielded conflicting results. Thus, the purpose of the presentstudy was to determine the ability of single KIV domains ofapo(a) to bind plasmin-treated fibrinogen surfaces as well todetermine their effect on fibrinolysis using an in vitro clotlysis assay. A bacterial expression system was utilized to expressand purify apo(a) KIV ₂ , KIV ₇ , KIV ₉ Cys (which lacks theseventh unpaired cysteine) and KIV ₁₀ which contains a stronglysine binding site. We also expressed and examined three mutantderivatives of KIV ₁₀ to determine the effect of changing criticalresidues in the lysine binding site of this kringle on bothfibrin(ogen) binding and fibrin clot lysis. Our results demonstratethat the strong lysine binding site in apo(a) KIV ₁₀ is capableof mediating interactions with plasmin-modified fibrinogen ina lysine-dependent manner, and that this kringle can increase in vitro fibrin clot lysis time by ~43% at a concentrationof 10 µM KIV ₁₀ . The ability of the KIV ₁₀ mutant derivativesto bind plasmin-modified fibrinogen correlated with their lysinebinding capacity. Mutation of Trp ⁷⁰ to Arg abolished bindingto both lysine–Sepharose and plasmin-modified fibrinogen,while the Trp ⁷⁰ Phe and Arg ³⁵ Lys substitutions each resultedin decreased binding to these substrates. None of the KIV ₁₀ mutant derivatives appeared to affect fibrinolysis. Apo(a) KIV ₇ contains a lysine- and proline-sensitive site capable of mediatingbinding to plasmin-modified fibrinogen, albeit with a lowerapparent affinity than apo(a) KIV ₁₀ . However, apo(a) KIV ₇ had no effect on fibrinolysis in vitro . Apo(a) KIV ₂ andKIV ₉ Cys did not bind measurably to plasmin-modified fibrinogensurfaces and did not affect fibrinolysis in vitro .