Phytochemical composition and bioactivities of lupin: a review

Lupin is a nonstarchy grain legume with high protein, dietary fibre and low fat contents. The industrial shift of lupin seed utilisation from feed to food has recently increased the scientific interest to explore its phytochemical composition and biological activities. Lupin seeds contain significant amounts of polyphenols, carotenoids, phytosterols, tocopherols, alkaloids and peptides with antioxidant, antimicrobial, anticarcinogenic and anti‐inflammatory activities. Among polyphenols, genistein and their derivatives (isoflavones) are of great importance because of their phytoestrogenic potential. This comprehensive review will help out the readers in understanding the phytochemicals present in lupin and their benefits.     

Rapid quantitative method for total brominated vegetable oil in soft drinks using ion chromatography

A simple, quantitative and rapid method for total brominated vegetable oil (BVO) using ion chromatography (IC) with suppressed conductivity detection was developed and successfully applied to soft drinks with results expressed as inorganic bromide anion. The procedure involves extraction of BVO with diethyl ether and treatment with zinc dust in a solution of acetic acid, giving recoveries ranging between 92.5 and 98.5%. The calibration curves obtained were linear with correlation coefficients (r (2)) of 0.998, a coefficient of variation (CV) of less than 5% and limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) of 250 and 750?μg?l(-1), respectively. The method was successfully applied to the determination of BVO in several commercial soft drinks which were found to contain BVO in the range 1.8-14.510?mg?l(-1). The method has less sources of error compared to previously published methods.     

梓树果实中黄酮类化合物提取工艺研究

以梓树果实为原料,对黄酮类化合物提取工艺进行研究,采用单因素试验法对影响梓树果实中黄酮类化合物提取率的主要因素进行了分析,利用正交试验优化了提取总黄酮的最佳工艺条件.研究表明,梓树果实中提取黄酮类化合物的最佳条件为:乙醇浓度60%,提取温度70"C,料液比1:20,提取时间2.Oh,在最佳条件下总黄酮的提取率为4.83%.     

Bimetal cup hydroforming of Al/St and Cu/St composites: Adaptive finite element analysis and experimental study

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - An adaptive Finite element analysis (FEA) was proposed in this paper for the industrial design of bimetal conical-cylindrical cup hydroforming....     

New syntheses of pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyrimidine,pyrazolo[3,4-d]pyridazine,isoindolinedione and pyrazole derivatives

Phenacylmalononitriles 2 react with hydrazines, acetic-hydrochloric acid and with diazotised primary aromatic amines to afford phenacylpyrazole ( 5a,b ), aminofurans ( 6a,b ) and aminopyrazole derivatives ( 3a,d ) respectively. The synthesised derivatives ( 3d, 6a ) were the key materials for the synthesis of isoindolinedione, ( 7a – c ) pyrazolopyrimidine ( 9, 10 ), and pyrazolopyridazine derivatives ( 11 ). The structures of the newly synthesised heterocycles were established on the basis of elemental analyses and spectral data besides synthesis via other routes.     

Biofilm and Small Colony Variants—An Update on Staphylococcus aureus Strategies toward Drug Resistance

Recently, the drawbacks arising from the overuse of antibiotics have drawn growing public attention. Among them, drug-resistance (DR) and even multidrug-resistance (MDR) pose significant challenges in clinical practice. As a representative of a DR or MDR pathogen, Staphylococcus aureus can cause diversity of infections related to different organs, and can survive or adapt to the diverse hostile environments by switching into other phenotypes, including biofilm and small colony variants (SCVs), with altered physiologic or metabolic characteristics. In this review, we briefly describe the development of the DR/MDR as well as the classical mechanisms (accumulation of the resistant genes). Moreover, we use multidimensional scaling analysis to evaluate the MDR relevant hotspots in the recent published reports. Furthermore, we mainly focus on the possible non-classical resistance mechanisms triggered by the two important alternative phenotypes of the S. aureus, biofilm and SCVs, which are fundamentally caused by the different global regulation of the S. aureus population, such as the main quorum-sensing (QS) and agr system and its coordinated regulated factors, such as the SarA family proteins and the alternative sigma factor σB (SigB). Both the biofilm and the SCVs are able to escape from the host immune response, and resist the therapeutic effects of antibiotics through the physical or the biological barriers, and become less sensitive to some antibiotics by the dormant state with the limited metabolisms.     

pH Responsive Abelmoschus esculentus Mucilage and Administration of Methotrexate: In-Vitro Antitumor and In-Vivo Toxicity Evaluation

The rapid progression in biomaterial nanotechnology apprehends the potential of non-toxic and potent polysaccharide delivery modules to overcome oral chemotherapeutic challenges. The present study is aimed to design, fabricate and characterize polysaccharide nanoparticles for methotrexate (MTX) delivery. The nanoparticles (NPs) were prepared by Abelmoschus esculentus mucilage (AEM) and chitosan (CS) by the modified coacervation method, followed by ultra-sonification. The NPs showed much better pharmaceutical properties with a spherical shape and smooth surface of 213.4–254.2 nm with PDI ranging between 0.279–0.485 size with entrapment efficiency varying from 42.08 ± 1.2 to 72.23 ± 2.0. The results revealed NPs to possess positive zeta potential and a low polydispersity index (PDI). The in-vitro drug release showed a sustained release of the drug up to 32 h with pH-dependence. Blank AEM -CS NPs showed no in-vivo toxicity for a time duration of 14 days, accompanied by high cytotoxic effects of optimized MTX loaded NPs against MCF-7 and MD-MBA231 cells by MTT assay. In conclusion, the findings advocated the therapeutic potential of AEM/CS NPs as an efficacious tool, offering a new perspective for pH-responsive routing of anticancer drugs with tumor cells as a target.     

Tepary Bean Starch Part III: In vitro Digestibility

In vitro digestibility of starch from tepary bean, Phaseolus acutifolius var. latifolius, was determined in comparison with tepary bean flour and maize starch. The extent of sample hydrolysis by α-amylase was measured as mg reducing sugar (maltose) released per 100 mg substrate. After 2 h incubation at 37°C, values obtained for tepary starch, tepary flour and maize starch treated in various ways were as follows: raw 8.0, 8.6 and 25.6; freeze dried 2.6, 3.2 and 17.8; autoclaved 7.4, 5.7 and 27.7; cooked (15 min) 81.7, 23.1 and 87.8; resp. Raw tepary starch was more resistant to hydrolysis than maize starch due, perhaps, to differences in granule structure and amylose content. Freeze-drying and autoclaving slightly decreased digestibility of both tepary starch and flour. Cooking greatly increased susceptibility to hydrolysis for each substrate. The rate of increase was reduced after 15 min exposure to enzymes, and no appreciable difference was found between cooked tepary and maize starches.     

The effect of microencapsulation with nitrocellulose on thermal properties of sodium azide particles

Based on the coacervation principle a solvent/non-solvent method has been used for microencapsulation of sodium azide (NaN₃) with fibrous nitrocellulose (NC). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was employed to examine the coating morphology. The thermal behavior of solid samples has been studied by means of thermogravimetry (TG) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The results of TG–DTA analysis revealed that the main thermal degradation for the pure NC and NaN₃ occurs in the temperature ranges of 192–220 and 415–420 °C, respectively. The effects of some parameters, such as NC to NaN₃ weight ratio and volume and addition time of non-solvent, on coating quality and thermal properties have been investigated by SEM and thermal methods. The results of these experiments showed that the decomposition temperature of most stabilized coated sodium azide is about 50 °C higher than that of the pure sample. The DSC experiments were conducted to study the influence of the heating rate (5, 10, 15 and 20 °C/min) on the thermal decomposition processes of the pure NC, coated and pure NaN₃ samples. The results revealed that, as the heating rate was increased, decomposition temperature of the compounds was increased. Also, the kinetic parameters such as activation energy and frequency factor of the decomposition processes were obtained from the DSC data by non-isothermal methods proposed by ASTM E696 and Ozawa. Our finding showed that coated NaN₃ has lower decomposition rate with respect to the pure one.     

Three dimensional discrete element modeling of granular media under cyclic constant volume loading: A micromechanical perspective

Discrete element modeling is employed to investigate the micromechanics of two granular assemblies subjected to constant-volume cyclic loading. For this purpose, two assemblies of spherical particles are modeled at the same confining pressure but with two different void ratios. The cyclic behaviors of the assemblies are inspected and the micromechanical parameters and their variations during cyclic loading are carefully observed and analyzed. The evolution of contact force networks with the progression of the loading cycles confirms that the contact force networks are hysteretic and their formation depends on the previous strain conditions of the assemblies. The distributions of the contact normals and their normal forces are also investigated to obtain a quantitative insight of the changes in the contact force networks. The probability distributions of the normal and tangential forces during cyclic loading are similar to the results of previous experimental studies that were conducted on two-dimensional specimens of granular materials. In addition, variations of the fabric tensors, which were calculated for strong contacts, are studied to trace the changes of the structural anisotropy of the specimens. The results suggest that the structural anisotropy of the specimens increases dramatically when they approach the state of liquefaction and that the degree of anisotropy is more profound in the strong contacts. Finally, the displacements of the particles during specific loading cycles are calculated to determine the relation between the movements of the particles and the changes in the macro-scale behavior of the two assemblies. The results of this study elaborate the origin of liquefaction phenomena with respect to the microstructure of the granular soils, showing the role of different mode of contacts failure in micro-scale (sliding and rolling) on the overall observed behavior of granular soils with two different relative densities, moreover the importance of strong and weak contacts in cyclic constant-volume loading of the media. It also emphasizes on the variation of structural anisotropy in undrained cyclic loading of granular media and its relationship with common soil behavior in macro-scale during liquefaction failure.