EFFECT OF GROWTH TEMPERATURE AND MEDIA ON INACTIVATION OF LISTERIA MONOCYTOGENES BY CHLORINE

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of growth environment on the susceptibility of Listeria monocytogenes to inactivation by hypochlorite sanitizer. Cells were grown in tryptic soy broth (TSB) at 35, 21, and 6°C and in 1:15 dilution of TSB (low nutrient medium, LNM) at 35°C. Late exponential phase cells were harvested, washed, and exposed to a 1 ppm sodium hypochlorite solution for periods up to 5 min. After 30 s exposure, cells grown at 35°C in TSB were reduced in number by 2.1 ± .3, at 21°C, 3.1 ± .3 and at 6°C, 3.4 ± .3 log units. After 30 s exposure to 5 ppm free chlorine cells grown at 35°C in TSB were reduced in number by 5.2 ± .2 and in LNM by 3.1 ± .1 log units. These data demonstrate that growth environment has a significant effect on chlorine inactivation of L. monocytogenes.     

ANGIOTENSIN I-CONVERTING ENZYME (ACE) INHIBITORY PEPTIDES FROM WHEY FERMENTED BY LACTOBACILLUS SPECIES

From 2% (w/w) whey powder in growth media, inhibitory peptides against angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) were studied with nine Lactobacillus species. Lb. brevis, Lb. helveticus and Lb. paracasei were proved to be the most effective strains in liberating ACE inhibitory peptides from whey protein. The inhibition rates of these peptides against ACE ranging from 93.3 to 100%. Several distinct peaks were eluted when the whey proteins were fractionated on a Delta Pak C₁₈ column by reversed phase-high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). Among ACE inhibitory activities of 14 peptides purified by dialysis and by fractionation using RP-HPLC, two peptide fractions (H5 and H7) of Lb. helveticus showing IC₅₀ values of 5.3 and 7.8 were the most potent ACE inhibitors.
All of these peptides including some other peptides (H1 and B1), having strong inhibitory activities against ACE were pentapeptides positioning with Ala at their N-terminal and these petapeptides had mostly hydrophobic (Pro, Val and Leu) or aromatic (Phe) amino acids at the C-terminal.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

There is a significant amount of research and interest in developing and charactering the peptides that inhibit angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) activity as these natural products may have a role in blood pressure control in man. This study revealed that the identification of peptides, mostly composed of pentapeptides following fermentation of whey protein in growth medium with different strains have the ACE inhibitory activities. These peptides may have antihypertensive effect as natural and safe nutraceutical/functional ingredients, though the exact potency of the pentapeptides isolated in this experiment has not been determined.     

鼓泡床内气泡-液体两相湍流代数应力模型的数值模拟

现有的气泡 -液体两相流动的数值模拟中 ,或者不考虑湍流 ,或者仅仅考虑液体湍流 ,但是直接模拟和PIV测量结果都表明气泡由于尾迹的作用有强烈的湍流脉动 .本文首次推导和封闭了同时模拟气泡湍流脉动和液体湍流脉动的二阶矩输运方程两相湍流模型 ,并在此基础上建立了代数应力气泡 -液体两相湍流模型 .用代数应力模型模拟了二维矩形断面鼓泡床内气泡 -液体两相流动 .预报结果给出了气泡和液体两相速度场、两相Reynolds应力及湍动能分布和气泡体积分数分布 .模拟结果与PIV测量结果符合很好 ,表明了模型的合理性 .研究结果表明 ,原先静止的液体在气泡因浮力而产生的上升运动的作用下产生回流流动 ,而气泡则只有上升运动 .气泡速度始终大于液体速度 .在床内气泡湍流脉动确实始终很强烈 .液体则由于气泡的作用以及自身速度梯度产生的双重作用而发生湍流脉动 .气泡的脉动显著地大于液体的脉动 .两相湍流脉动都是各向异性的 ,而且气泡湍流脉动的各向异性比液体的更强烈     

Performance improvement using time delays in multivariable controller design

A new controller for linear multivariable ordinary systems is suggested in which distributed delays are included in the feedback loop. A general design approach to obtain this type of controller is suggested. It is shown that the resulting closed-loop system is asymptotically stable under some sufficient conditions. Sufficient conditions are derived under which the disturbance attenuation, the robustness against parameter variations, and the time-delay stability margins are improved by the proposed controller. The state feedback tracking controller and the dual-state observer are obtained by modification of the proposed controller.     

FROM ARTIFICIAL LIFE TO REAL LIFE: COMPUTER SIMULATION OF PLANT GROWTH∗

Artificial life is by itself an important area of scientific investigation. However, this scientific discipline will be more effective if it can also help one to understand how natural living systems really work. It is argued that plant growth is an area where the studies in artificial life lend themselves to computer modeling of what really happens in nature. An approach for such modeling is described, and the initial results of implementing this approach for a corn plant growth are presented.     

New results for the stability of uncertain time-delay systems

In this paper, based on the Lyapunov stability theorem associated with matrix measure techniques, some new delay-independent criteria for asymptotic stability of linear perturbed time-delay systems are proposed. Furthermore, the stability degree testing problem of the above systems is also investigated. From the given examples, we demonstrate the superiority of these quantitative results by comparing them with other approaches presented in the literature     

Impact of JIT on organizational performance of U.S. firms

This empirical study utilized concrete financial/accounting data concerning measures of organizational performance, as reported in Standard & Poors Compustat, to examine the impact of Just-in-Time production on organizational performance. Matching groups of JIT implementing and non-implementing firms were formed from a cross sectional survey, and a comparative analysis was made for the two groups. The result of the study shows that JIT firms have not achieved better organizational performance in terms of sales in $/employee, operating profit margin, and return on investment than non-JIT firms; but achieved better performances in terms of finished goods inventory turnover, raw materials inventory turnover, and work in process inventory turnover. In addition, this study ascertained that JIT firms have achieved much better performance in terms of quality and flexibility than non-JIT firms.     

Efficiency enhancement of dye-sensitized solar cells with addition of additives (single/binary) to ionic liquid electrolyte

The effect of addition of single and binary additives on the performance of dye-sensitized TiO₂ solar cells based on electrolytes containing an ionic liquid (IL), 1,2-dimethyl-3-propylimidazolium iodide (DMPII) has been studied. Among the seven additives used, the addition of 2-(dimethylamino)-pyridine (DMAP) to IL resulted in best cell efficiency, which showed further enhancement with the addition of 5-chloro-1-ethyl-2-methylimidazole (CEMI) as second additive. The efficiency of the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) based on an electrolyte containing binary additives (DMAP and CEMI in equal molar ratios) has been found to increase by 62·5% from 4·35 to 7·07%. The dependence of different photovoltaic performance parameters (V _oc, J _sc, ff, η) of DSC upon temperature has been studied over a 30–120°C range and only a small decrease in conversion efficiency has been observed. The electrolyte containing binary additives (DMAP and CEMI) shows best cell performance up to 120°C.