High‐order simulation of polymorphic crystallization using weighted essentially nonoscillatory methods

Most pharmaceutical manufacturing processes include a series of crystallization processes to increase purity with the last crystallization used to produce crystals of desired size, shape, and crystal form. The fact that different crystal forms (known as polymorphs) can have vastly different characteristics has motivated efforts to understand, simulate, and control polymorphic crystallization processes. This article proposes the use of weighted essentially nonoscillatory (WENO) methods for the numerical simulation of population balance models (PBMs) for crystallization processes, which provide much higher order accuracy than previously considered methods for simulating PBMs, and also excellent accuracy for sharp or discontinuous distributions. Three different WENO methods are shown to provide substantial reductions in numerical diffusion or dispersion compared with the other finite difference and finite volume methods described in the literature for solving PBMs, in an application to the polymorphic crystallization of L ‐glutamic acid. © 2008 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2009     

Nanotubes-/nanowires-based,microfluidic-integrated transistors for detecting biomolecules

Nanotubes and nanowires have sparked considerable interest in biosensing applications due to their exceptional charge transport properties and size compatibility with biomolecules. Among the various biosensing methodologies incorporating these nanostructured materials in their sensing platforms, liquid-gated field-effect transistors (LGFETs)-based device configurations outperform the conventional electrochemical measurements by their ability in providing label free, direct electronic read-out, and real-time detection. Together with integration of a microfluidic channel into the device architecture, nanotube- or nanowires-based LGFET biosensor have demonstrated promising potential toward the realization of truly field-deployable self-contained lab-on-chip devices, which aim to complement the existing lab-based methodologies. This review addresses the recent advances in microfluidic-integrated carbon nanotubes and inorganic nanowires-based LGFET biosensors inclusive of nanomaterials growth, device fabrication, sensing mechanisms, and interaction of biomolecules with nanotubes and nanowires. Design considerations, factors affecting sensing performance and sensitivity, amplification and multiplexing strategies are also detailed to provide a comprehensive understanding of present biosensors and future sensor systems development.     

Extracting text from scanned Arabic books: a large-scale benchmark dataset and a fine-tuned Faster-R-CNN model

Datasets of documents in Arabic are urgently needed to promote computer vision and natural language processing research that addresses the specifics of the language. Unfortunately, publicly available Arabic datasets are limited in size and restricted to certain document domains. This paper presents the release of BE-Arabic-9K, a dataset of more than 9000 high-quality scanned images from over 700 Arabic books. Among these, 1500 images have been manually segmented into regions and labeled by their functionality. BE-Arabic-9K includes book pages with a wide variety of complex layouts and page contents, making it suitable for various document layout analysis and text recognition research tasks. The paper also presents a page layout segmentation and text extraction baseline model based on fine-tuned Faster R-CNN structure (FFRA). This baseline model yields cross-validation results with an average accuracy of 99.4% and F1 score of 99.1% for text versus non-text block classification on 1500 annotated images of BE-Arabic-9K. These results are remarkably better than those of the state-of-the-art Arabic book page segmentation system ECDP. FFRA also outperforms three other prior systems when tested on a competition benchmark dataset, making it an outstanding baseline model to challenge.

     

Screening of selected Asian spices for anti obesity-related bioactivities

The potential health effects of 30 spices, commonly used for daily consumption, were submitted to bioactivity screening with several anti-obesity related bioassays: adenosine A1 receptor binding, cannabinoid CB1 receptor binding, TNF-α and 3T3-L1 adipocytes differentiation induction. Sesame seed and red chilli exhibited high binding activity to the adenosine A1 receptor and nutmeg, mace, black pepper and turmeric to the cannabinoid CB1 receptor, while piment and turmeric showed high inhibition of TNF-α accumulation. Black onion seed proved to be the only spice with high 3T3-L1 adipocyte differentiation induction activity. Several well known major compounds found in these active spices were tested with the respective bioassays but did not show activity. Thus, it appears that other minor compounds or the synergistic effects of different constituents are responsible for the observed activity.     

Dominant Enterobacteriaceae in tempeh were primarily originated from soybean

Food Science and Biotechnology - During tempeh production, boiling was considered as heat treatment that could significantly reduce or eliminate bacterial population in soybean before fungal...     

Synchrotron-based XANES speciation of chromium in the oxy-fuel fly ash collected from lab-scale drop-tube furnace

Speciation of chromium (Cr) in the fly ash collected from oxy-firing of Victorian brown coal has been reported for the first time to address the potential formation of toxic Cr(VI) and the variation of the quantities of Cr(III)-bearing species with flue gas composition. Synchrotron-based X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) was employed for Cr speciation. Apart from a pure O(2)/CO(2) mixture (27/73, v/v) versus air, the O(2)/CO(2) mixtures doped with SO(2), HCl, and steam individually or together to simulate real flue gas have also been tested. Under all of the conditions tested here, the fractions of Cr(VI) in the fly ashes are insignificant, constituting no more than 5% of the total Cr. The test of Cr-doped brown coal in pyrolysis further confirmed that the Cr(VI) formation preferentially occurred through a local oxidation of Cr(III) at the oxygen-containing functions sites within coal matrix, rather than through an oxidation by external bulk O(2). This reaction is also highly temperature-dependent and slower than the interaction between Cr(III) and other metals such as iron oxide. Increasing temperature to 1000 °C inhibited the oxidation of Cr(IIII) to Cr(VI). Shifting the combustion gas from air to O(2)/CO(2) exerted little effect on the Cr(VI) formation. Instead, the formation of iron chromite (FeCr(2)O(4)) was facilitated in O(2)/CO(2), probably due to a strong reducing microenvironment formed by the CO(2) gasification reaction within the char matrix. The accumulation of HCl in flue gas favored the vaporization of chromium as gaseous chloride/oxychloride, as expected. The coexistence of SO(2) inhibited this phenomenon by promoting the formation of sulfate. The presence of steam was even beneficial for the inhibition of water-soluble Cr sulfate through stabilizing the majority of Cr into alumino-silicate which is in the slagging phase.     

Rapid Detection of Acetamiprid in Foods using Surface‐Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS)

Acetamiprid is a neonicotinoid pesticide that is commonly used in modern farming. Acetamiprid residue in food commodities can be a potential harm to human and has been implicated in the honey bee hive die off crisis. In this study, we developed rapid, simple, and sensitive methods to detect acetamiprid in apple juice and on apple surfaces using surface‐enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). No pretreatment of apple juice sample was performed. A simple surface swab method was used to recover acetamiprid from the apple surface. Samples were incubated with silver dendrites for several minutes and SERS spectra were taken directly from the silver surface. Detection of a set of 5 apple juice samples can be done within 10 min. The swab‐SERS method took 15 min for a set of 5 samples. Resulting spectral data were analyzed using principal component analysis. The highest acetamiprid peak at 634 cm^?1 was used to detect and quantify the amount of acetamiprid spiked in 1:1 water–methanol solvent, apple juice, and on apple surface. The SERS method was able to successfully detect acetamiprid at 0.5 μg/mL (0.5 ppm) in solvent, 3 μg/mL (3 ppm) in apple juice, and 0.125 μg/cm² on apple surfaces. The SERS methods provide simple, rapid, and sensitive ways to detect acetamiprid in beverages and on the surfaces of thick skinned fruits and vegetables.     

Flavonoid content and antioxidant activity of vegetables from Indonesia

Extracts from 11 vegetables of Indonesian origin were screened for flavonoid content, total phenolics, and antioxidant activity. The flavonols myricetin, quercetin, and kaempferol and flavones luteolin and apigenin were quantified by HPLC. Flavonoid content in mg/100 g fresh weight (fw) was apparently initially reported for Cosmos caudatus H.B.K. (52.19), Polyscias pinnata (52.19), Pluchea indica Less. (6.39), Nothopanax scutellarius (Burm.f.) Merr (5.43), Talinum triangulare (Jacq.) Willd. (3.93), Pilea melastomoides (Poir.) Bl. (2.27), and Etlingera elatior (Jack) R.M.Sm (1.18). The flavonoid content of the vegetables studied were mainly quercetin and kaempferol and ranged from 0.3 to 143 mg/100 g fw, with the highest level found in Sauropus androgynus (L) Merr. C. caudatus H.B.K. had the greatest total phenols among the vegetables analysed, with 1.52 mg GAE/100 g fw. P. indica Less. and C. caudatus H.B.K. had the highest antioxidant activity as measured by ferric cyanide reducing power, DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) and ABTS (2,2′-azino-bis-(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) scavenging, and inhibition of linoleic acid oxidation. Therefore, S. androgynus (L) Merr, C. caudatus H.B.K., and P. pinnata were identified as potentially rich sources of dietary flavonoids and antioxidants.     

Physical properties characterization of fuel briquette made from spent bleaching earth

Cooking oil industry in Indonesia produces a massive amount of solid waste, called Spent Bleaching Earth (SBE). Briquetting of this waste can be a good alternative to achieve zero-waste, as well as minimizing energy cost, in this industry. Therefore, the valorization of SBE as briquette was studied using different pressure and maltodextrin dosage. The results show that the physical characteristics of SBE briquette were similar to that of standard value for the wood briquette (Indonesian National Standard or SNI 1-6235-2000).     

Silica-Based Solid Acid Catalyst with Different Concentration of H2SO4 and Calcination Temperature: Preparation and Characterization

Silicon - Silica-based solid acid catalysts have been successfully prepared and characterized. This research aimed to study the effect of sulfuric acid and calcination temperature on the properties...