PEG-based hydrogel-coated test strip for on-site urea determination

The urea test strip was prepared using polyethyleneglycol based hydrogel, urease and commercial pH-indicator paper. The swelling behavior of hydrogel indicated the ability of the urea to penetrate into the matrix and allowing the test strip to respond in a short time. The color formed on the strip was distinguished by naked eyes in one minute at room temperature. The linear range for urea was 20–200?mg/dL. The assays have good reproducibility. Relative standard deviation values were found within the range of 3.37–12.95% and 1.68–9.54% for intra- and inter-day assays, respectively.     

Fast-dissolving carvacrol/cyclodextrin inclusion complex electrospun fibers with enhanced thermal stability,water solubility,and antioxidant activity

Carvacrol is a known antioxidant molecule and commonly used in food and cosmetics as a flavor and fragrance agent; however, carvacrol has major issues such as high volatility, low water solubility, and stability. In this study, carvacrol/cyclodextrin inclusion complex fibers (carvacrol/CD-IC fibers) were produced via electrospinning in order to enhance thermal stability, water solubility and shelf-life of carvacrol having antioxidant activity. The phase solubility and computational modeling studies showed that carvacrol can form inclusion complexes with two types of modified CDs, hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (HPβCD) and hydroxypropyl-γ-cyclodextrin (HPγCD). The carvacrol/cyclodextrin inclusion complex electrospun fibers (carvacrol/HPβCD-IC fibers and carvacrol/HPγCD-IC fibers) were obtained as free-standing fibrous webs. Although pure carvacrol is highly volatile, the electrospun carvacrol/CD-IC fibers were quite effective to preserve high amount of carvacrol due to the inclusion complexation. In addition, carvacrol/CD-IC fibers have shown higher temperature stability for carvacrol. Moreover, carvacrol/CD-IC fibers showed more effective antioxidant activity as compared to pure carvacrol. The carvacrol/CD-IC fibrous webs have shown fast-dissolving character in water due to the enhanced water solubility of carvacrol/CD-IC and their ultrafine fiber structure. In short, encapsulation of carvacrol in electrospun CD-IC fibrous webs has shown potentials for food and oral care applications due to free-standing and fast-dissolving character along with high water solubility, high temperature stability and enhanced antioxidant by carvacrol/cyclodextrin inclusion complexation.     

Effects of gutting and ungutting on microbiological, chemical, and sensory properties of aquacultured sea bream (Sparus aurata) and sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) stored in ice

The effect of gutting and ungutting on microbiological, chemical, and sensory properties of aqua-cultured sea bream (Sparus aurata) and sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) stored in ice were studied. The total viable mesophilic and psychrophilic bacterial counts increased throughout the storage period of gutted and ungutted sea bream and sea bass. The mesophilic counts reached 8.19 log cfu/g for ungutted sea bream and 7.93 log cfu/g for ungutted sea bass after 14 days of storage. The mesophilic counts reached 8.89 log cfu/g for gutted sea bream and 8.16 log cfu/g for gutted sea bass after 14 days of storage. On day 14 of storage the psychrophilic counts of ungutted sea bream and sea bass were 8.24 log cfu/g and 8.03 log cfu/g, respectively, and for gutted sea bream and sea bass were 8.93 and 8.22, respectively. At the end of the storage period of 14 days, TVB-N, TBA, and TMA-N values of ungutted sea bass were determined as 50.13 +/- 0.25 mg/100 g, 2.66 +/- 0.06 mg malonaldehit/kg, 9.86 +/- 0.01 mg/100 g respectively. TVB-N, TBA, and TMA-N values of ungutted sea bream reached 55.90 +/- 0.36 mg/100g, 2.51 +/- 0.21 mg malonaldehit/kg, 9.79 +/- 0.01 mg/100 g on day 14 respectively. And also at the end of the storage period of 14 days, TVB-N, TBA, and TMA-N values of gutted sea bass were determined as 48.00 +/- 0.26 mg/100 g, 2.48 +/- 0.03 mg malonaldehit/kg, 8.71 +/- 0.06 mg/100 g respectively. TVB-N, TBA, and TMA-N values of gutted sea bream reached 49.66 +/- 0.77 mg/100g, 2.64 +/- 0.07 mg malonaldehit/kg, 8.97 +/- 0.01 mg/100 g on day 14 respectively. The result of this study indicates that the shelf-life of whole ungutted sea bass and sea bream stored in ice as determined by the overal acceptibility sensory scores, chemical quality, and microbiological results show us that the fish were spoilt on day 14. Each chemical, sensory, and microbiological result for sea bream showed us that there was a correlation and similarity and on day 14 it was spoilt.     

Phytosterols in 17 Turkish hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) cultivars

The phytosterol contents of the oils from 17 Turkish hazelnut cultivars were determined by gas chromatography with a flame ionization detector. The total phytosterol content varied from 1180.4 (Uzunmusa‐Ordu) to 2239.4 mg/kg (Cavcava), and the average was 1581.6 ± 265.1 mg/kg. One of the most significant commercial cultivars, Tombul, contained quite low total phytosterols (1297.7 mg/kg). Total and individual phytosterol contents of hazelnut cultivars were significantly different at p <0.01, except for phytostanol and campestanol. The main component was β‐sitosterol which ranged from 82.8 to 86.7% in all cultivars. This was followed by campesterol, Δ⁵‐avenasterol, sitostanol and stigmasterol. Interestingly, the same cultivars from different regions showed similar total phytosterol contents, and fall almost within the same range according to Duncan's test, which may indicate that the phytosterol content is highly related to the cultivar.     

An improved lumped element nonlinear circuit model for a circular CMUT cell

This paper describes a correction and an extension in the previously published large signal equivalent circuit model for a circular capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) cell. The force model is rederived so that the energy and power is preserved in the equivalent circuit model. The model is able to predict the entire behavior of CMUT until the membrane touches the substrate. Many intrinsic properties of the CMUT cell, such as the collapse condition, collapse voltage, the voltage-displacement interrelation and the force equilibrium before and after collapse voltage in the presence of external static force, are obtained as a direct consequence of the model. The small signal equivalent circuit for any bias condition is obtained from the large signal model. The model can be implemented in circuit simulation tools and model predictions are in excellent agreement with finite element method simulations.     

Analysis of modeling effort and impact of different levels of detail in building information models

The main objectives of this paper are to evaluate the modeling effort associated with generating building information modeling (BIM) at different levels of detail (LoD) and the impact of LoD in a project in supporting mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) design coordination. Results show an increase in total modeling time ranging from doubling the modeling effort to eleven folding it, when going from one LoD to another. When comparing modeling time per object, rates ranged from 0.2 (decreased modeling time) to 1.56 (increased modeling time). Based on the experiments done in MEP design coordination, it was observed that the automatic clash detection process using BIMs, with its consistently higher recall rate, provides a more complete identification of clashes, with the cost of false positives (low precision). This study showed that additional modeling effort can lead to more comprehensive analyses and better decision support during design and construction.     

Development of cross-linguistic variation in speech and gesture: Motion events in English and Turkish.

The way adults express manner and path components of a motion event varies across typologically different languages both in speech and cospeech gestures, showing that language specificity in event encoding influences gesture. The authors tracked when and how this multimodal cross-linguistic variation develops in children learning Turkish and English, 2 typologically distinct languages. They found that children learn to speak in language-specific ways from age 3 onward (i.e., English speakers used 1 clause and Turkish speakers used 2 clauses to express manner and path). In contrast, English- and Turkish-speaking children's gestures looked similar at ages 3 and 5 (i.e., separate gestures for manner and path), differing from each other only at age 9 and in adulthood (i.e., English speakers used 1 gesture, but Turkish speakers used separate gestures for manner and path). The authors argue that this pattern of the development of cospeech gestures reflects a gradual shift to language-specific representations during speaking and shows that looking at speech alone may not be sufficient to understand the full process of language acquisition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)