Antidiarrheal Effect of Food Fermented by Various Strains of Lactobacillus

Various Lactobacillus species possess antidiarrheal properties due to their probiotic effects and could be utilized in the form of fermented foods for the treatment of diarrheal disease. Diarrhea is the condition of having 3 or more loose or watery bowel movements per day. This disease is a global problem causing several million deaths each year, and the major victims are children. So its prevention and control is crucial. For the treatment of diarrheal disease, antibiotics and oral rehydration solutions are used, but these therapies are not always effective to reduce the duration and frequency of diarrhea and of increase consistency. Recent studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of the natural mode (fermented food) of disease management because of its easy availability, low cost, and efficacy against diarrhea.     

Base‐Pairing Behavior of a Carbocyclic Janus‐AT Nucleoside Analogue Capable of Recognizing A and T within a DNA Duplex

Janus‐type nucleosides are heterocycles with two faces, each of which is designed to complement the H‐bonding interactions of natural nucleosides comprising a canonical Watson–Crick base pair. By intercepting all of the hydrogen bonds contained within the base pair, oligomeric Janus nucleosides are expected to achieve sequence‐specific DNA recognition through the formation of J‐loops that will be more stable than D‐loops, which simply replaces one base‐pair with another. Herein, we report the synthesis of a novel Janus‐AT nucleoside analogue, J_AT, affixed on a carbocyclic analogue of deoxyribose that was converted to the corresponding phosphoramidite. A single J_AT was successfully incorporated into a DNA strand by solid phase for targeting both A and T bases, and characterized through biophysical and computational methods. Experimental UV‐melting and circular dichroism data demonstrated that within the context of a standard duplex, J_AT associates preferentially with T over A, and much more poorly with C and G. Density functional theory calculations confirm that the J_AT structure is well suited to associate only with A and T thereby highlighting the importance of the electronic structure in terms of H‐bonding. Finally, molecular dynamics simulations validated the observation that J_AT can substitute more effectively as an A‐analogue than as a T‐analogue without substantial distortion of the B‐helix. Overall, this new Janus nucleotide is a promising tool for the targeting of A–T base pairs in DNA, and will lead to the development of oligo‐Janus‐nucleotide strands for sequence‐specific DNA recognition.     

Cracking cone fracture after cold compaction of argillaceous particles

Cold uniaxial pressing of powder into a green body is a common forming process used in ceramic and pharmaceutical industries. Argillaceous particles are used as a model system to investigate granule failure during compaction. Indeed, the volume enclosed between the die and punches is reduced and the powder consolidates until a final height is obtained or a prescribed compacting pressure is reached. Desired properties of the green body are high strength, uniform density, no defects and fracture. In this work an experimental investigation has been focused on the ‘cracking cone’ fracture in powder compacts. This includes studies of crack propagation and determination of operating conditions to avoid the green body fracture. The numerical modelling is implemented using a finite element method based on the Von Mises criterion. A case of simulation is presented to demonstrate the ability of the model to compute the distribution of the relative stresses.     

Glucose-sensitive holographic sensors for monitoring bacterial growth

A glucose sensor comprising a reflection hologram incorporated into a thin, acrylamide hydrogel film bearing the cis-diol binding ligand, 3-acrylamidophenylboronic acid (3-APB), is described. The diffraction wavelength (color) of the hologram changes as the polymer swells upon binding cis-diols. The effect of various concentrations of glucose, a variety of mono- and disaccharides, and the alpha-hydroxy acid, lactate, on the holographic response was investigated. The sensor displayed reversible changes in diffraction wavelength as a function of cis-diol concentration, with the sensitivity of the system being dependent on the cis-diol tested. The effect of varying 3-APB concentration in the hydrogel on the holographic response to glucose was investigated, and maximum sensitivity was observed at a functional monomer concentration of 20 mol %. The potential for using this holographic sensor to detect real-time changes in bacterial cell metabolism was demonstrated by monitoring the germination and subsequent vegetative growth of Bacillus subtilis spores.     

Sustaining a Community Computing Infrastructure for Online Teacher Professional Development: A Case Study of Designing Tapped In

Community computing has recently grown to become a major research area in human–computer interaction. One of the objectives of community computing is to support computer supported cooperative work among distributed collaborators working toward shared professional goals in online communities of practice. A core issue in designing and developing community computing infrastructures – the underlying socio-technical layer that supports communitarian activities – is sustainability. Many community computing initiatives fail because the underlying infrastructure does not meet end user requirements; the community is unable to maintain a critical mass of users consistently over time; it generates insufficient social capital to support significant contributions by members of the community; or, as typically happens with funded initiatives, financial and human capital resource become unavailable to further maintain the infrastructure. Based on more than nine years of design experience with Tapped In – an online community of practice for education professionals – we present a case study that discusses four design interventions that have sustained the Tapped In infrastructure and its community to date. These interventions represent broader design strategies for developing online environments for professional communities of practice.     

Generating Silicon Nanoparticles Using Spark Erosion by Flushing High-Pressure Deionized Water

Nanoparticles (NPs) are typically materials with dimensions less than 100 nm. In this work, silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs) were produced by electrical discharge machining of boron doped Si ingot (resistivity 0.01 Ω cm^?1). The “top-down” process used in this work involved vaporizing bulk Si material with spark erosion and rapidly cooling the vapors in the presence of deionized water at high-pressure of up to 0.8 MPa, to produce nanosized spheres. The microtopology and element composition analysis of the SiNPs were done by using scanning electron microscopy/energy-dispersive spectroscopy. It was observed that processing under high-pressure flushing conditions ensured production of SiNPs with average diameter of 30 ～ 50 nm and productivity of 1.5 g h^?1. SiNPs generated were spherical in shape due to the rapid solidification and surface tension. The structure of SiNPs was found to remain crystalline, according to the X-ray diffraction profiles. Transmission electron microscopy verified identical morphology and size for the SiNPs. The results demonstrate great potential for this process to be an industrialized SiNPs preparation method in terms of both particle size and productivity.     

The data warehouse virtualization framework for operational business intelligence

In order to explore the most current information and react faster to changing business conditions, organizations consider real‐time data warehousing a powerful technique to achieve operational business intelligence (BI). We propose in this paper a novel real‐time data warehouse (RTDW) framework based on the virtualization concept. Our approach introduces a conceptual modelling technique, known as ring modelling, for real‐time data management and multidimensional analysis. This technique produces a flexible semi‐structured data model that accommodates unknown business process data and relationships as they evolve, handles schema changes and aggregate‐management efficiently, and scales well with the large size of increasing data volumes. With the help of a telecommunication business example, We evaluated our proposed approach in an extensive experimental study where we compared our approach Ring Model with existing structured multidimensional conceptual models (MCMs), i.e. relational OLAP and multidimensional OLAP, and with semi‐structured MCM, i.e. XML Cubes, in terms of scalability, data storage estimations, data updates loading time, and query response times. Our performance results show that encouraging speedups are achieved.     

Chemical composition, in vitro cytotoxic and antioxidant activities of the essential oil and major constituents of Cymbopogon jawarancusa (Kashmir)

The chemical composition of the hydrodistillate of aerial parts of Cymbopogon jawarancusa, a natural grass considered as major forage for animal nutrition, used in food because of the presence of sufficient concentration of minerals like calcium and potassium was analysed by capillary GC–FID, GC–MS and ¹³C NMR. Seventeen constituents representing 97.8% of the total oil with piperitone (58.6%) and elemol (18.6%) as major constituents were identified. In vitro cytotoxicity of the oil and its constituents on human cancer cell lines THP-1 (leukemia), A-549 (lung), HEP-2 (liver) and IGR-OV-1 (ovary) was evaluated by Sulphorhodamine-B assay. The oil was found to be more potent than its components against cancer cell lines tested with IC₅₀ of 6.5 μg/ml (THP-1), 6.3 μg/ml (A-549), 7.2 μg/ml (HEP-2) and 34.4 μg/ml (IGR-OV-1). Antioxidant activity of oil and its constituents was evaluated by DPPH assay. In conclusion, the results demonstrate potent cytotoxic and antioxidant effects of oil, and its components like piperitone, α-pinene, β-caryophyllene and β-elemene.     

Effect of curing conditions and ionic additives on properties of fly ash-lime compacts

In the present work the reaction between fly ash and lime in fly ash-lime compacts under water curing and steam curing conditions was studied thoroughly in relation to the processing conditions. Fly ash from different sources were collected, characterized, mixed with lime in different ratios and compacted. The compacts were cured with water and steam separately. The reduction in the free CaO content in these compacts was measured as a function of curing time and curing process. Role of two ionic additives, FeCl₃ and MgCl₂, on the reaction between fly ash and lime was also investigated by measuring the free CaO content. Kinetics of these reactions was studied by determining the reaction order and rate constants with respect to the free CaO content and it was observed that the curing conditions and additives affected the reaction kinetics significantly.