Efficacy of standard glucose-based and reduced-osmolarity maltodextrin-based oral rehydration solutions: effect of sugar malabsorption

Previously we reported that standard oral rehydration salts (ORS) solution is not as effective as a reduced-osmolarity glucose-based ORS for the treatment of children with acute noncholera diarrhoea: with standard ORS the diarrhoea lasts longer, stool output is greater, serum sodium is higher, and there is more need for supplemental intravenous infusion. We studied a reduced-osmolarity maltodextrin (MD)-based ORS to determine whether it had similar benefits, and also the effect of sugar malabsorption on the efficacy of standard and MD-based ORS. A total of 90 boys aged 3-24 months with acute noncholera diarrhoea and moderate dehydration were randomly assigned to either standard ORS (glucose 20 g/l, osmolarity 311 mmol/l) or MD-ORS (MD 50 g/l, osmolarity 227 mmol/l). There were no differences in treatment results. Some 46% of subjects had a high total stool output (> 300 g/kg), which was unrelated to the type of ORS given. High stool output was significantly associated with a longer duration of diarrhoea (33 vs. 15 hours; P < 0.001), a persistently elevated serum sodium (149 vs. 144 mmol/l at 24 h; P < 0.02), the need for intravenous infusion (11/41 vs. 0/48; P < 0.002), and an increase in faecal reducing substances (10.8 vs. 3.4 g/l at 24 h; P < 0.001). We conclude that some children given standard ORS develop osmotic diarrhoea owing to the combined effect of transient sugar malabsorption and slight hypertonicity of the ORS. Earlier studies show that this adverse outcome can largely be avoided when extra water is given in reduced-osmolarity glucose-based ORS. Reduced osmolarity has no benefit, however, when glucose is replaced by maltodextrin, probably because the sugars released by hydrolysis of MD, when malabsorbed, raise the intraluminal osmolarity to equal or exceed that of standard ORS. Thus, reduced-osmolarity glucose-based ORS is superior to both standard ORS and reduced-osmolarity solutions based on maltodextrin and probably other complex carbohydrates. Studies are in progress to define the optimal formulation of reduced-osmolarity glucose-based ORS.     

Effect of cell-free milk culture liquid of Enterococcus faecalis subsp. liquefaciens on growth,acid production and proteolysis of some commercial starter cultures in milk

Inclusion of 50 μl/ml cell-free culture liquid of Enterococcus faecalis var. liquefaciens in skim milk intended for culturing separately 20 multi- and single-strain starters did not increase the acid production by the starters and neither the cell growth nor the proteolysis was stimulated. On the contrary, both growth and acid production were variably inhibited, with the reduction in acid production not always resulting from growth inhibition. The inhibition ranged from 0 to 99% for growth and 0.5 to 62% for acid production and was maximum by heating the cell-free culture liquid at 100°C for 5 min. Growth of the single-strain starter cultures was affected by the heated but not the unheated culture liquid in general. The crude inhibitor proved to be non-neutralizable, non-dialyzable, sensitive to proteolysis and resistant to heat (100°C for 30 min) at 0.59% acidity, implicating bacteriocin-like agent as a participant in the antimicrobial activity. Enterococcin positive strains of Enterococcus faecalis are, therefore, unsuitable for inclusion in the multi-strain starter cultures in cheese making even though these variants might have a good ability to grow at low temperatures and exhibit excellent fermentative and proteolytic characteristics in addition to high salt-tolerance. Multiplication of these strains in raw milk might also result in failure of the growth and acid production by the starter cultures.     

Utilization of GC/AED for Investigating the Effect of Maturity on the Distribution of Thiophenic Compounds in Egyptian Crude Oils

The polyaromatic compositions of 12 Egyptian crude oil samples from the Western Desert and Gulf of Suez regions were analyzed using gas chromatography in conjunction with sulfur-selective atomic emission detection. The results show the variation in distributions of benzothiophenes and dibenzothiophenes in oils with different maturity levels. The ratio of benzothiophenes to dibenzothiophenes has been applied successfully as tool to evaluate maturity changes where it correlates well with other maturity parameters. A cross-plot of benzothiophenes/dibenzothiophenes versus isoprenoid/n-alkane ratios consistently classified oils according to their maturity rank.     

A technique for truly linear LC VCO tuning, a proof of concept

Based on the understanding of the relation between the shape of the LC VCO tuning curve and the varactor characteristics, a technique using an array of unequal varactors with different bias was found to obtain a truly linear tuning curve. An LC VCO was designed using TSMC 0.13 μm 1.2 V/3.3 V IO process, the VCO frequency varies from 1.9 to 2.7 ghz as its control voltage varies from 0 to 1.2 V. The tuning gain was K_VCO=630 MHz/V ±9.5%.     

Factors affecting the caseinolytic activity of Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus plantarum

Whole cell suspensions of some strains of each Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus plantarum were assayed for their caseinolytic activity in 0.1 M NaH₂PO₄ buffer, pH 6.5, at 30 °C, using different assay methods. Azocasein was not as sensitive as casein (Hammarsten) as a substrate. Inclusion of glucose in the assay mixture reduced the released α-amino groups as evidenced by fluorescent labelling, but generally increased the amounts of excreted amino acids. Divalent cations, including calcium ions, played only a minor role in the activation of the cell-bound proteinase, whereas NaCl inhibited it markedly. Inhibitor studies suggest that the enzyme is a serine proteinase. The different assay methods used did not give identical results. Fluorescent labelling of the free α-amino groups at pH 6.0 appears, on the contrary, to be a more reliable method.     

Proteolytic activity of crude cell-free extract of Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus plantarum

Crude cell-free extracts of some strains of each L. casei and L. plantarum were assayed for their amino-, imino- and endopeptidase as well as the caseinolytic activity. L-alanine-, L-phenylalanine- and L-leucine-p-nitroanilide but not L-glutamic acid-p-nitroanilide, were hydrolyzed by all the strains indicating an amino-peptidase activity. The activity of proline iminopeptidase was very low compared to that of the aminopeptidase. L. casei could be distinguished from L. plantarum by its high endopeptidase activity against succinyl-phenylalanine- and glutaryl-phenylalanine-p-nitroanilide. The caseinolytic activity of cell-free extract of L. casei ATCC 393 was about one seventh the caseinolytic activity of intact cells, suggesting that the bulk of the cellular proteinase activity is located in the cell wall. It appears that a metallo aminopeptidase and a probable cysteine one are involved in the hydrolysis of amino acid-p-nitroanilide, whereas the endopeptidase activity appears to be related to a cysteine enzyme. Incubation of gels with L-leucine-p-nitroanilide after electrophoresis allowed the revealing of 2 zones of aminopeptidase activity in a strain of L. casei and only one in two others, but in L. plantarum it did not allow the revealing of any. The high proteolytic activities of L. casei compared to those of L. plantarum may explain its more frequent occurence in cheese and its probable role in the ripening of many cheese varities.     

W-band monolithic frequency doubler using vertical GaAs varactor diode with n/sup +/ buried layer

A W-band monolithic frequency doubler was designed and fabricated using a vertical GaAs varactor diode that has an n/sup +/ buried layer and uses a mesa isolation process. An output power of 30 mW was obtained from this chip at 93 GHz with a conversation efficiency of 12%. This is believed to be the first reported W-band monolithic varactor diode frequency doubler.<>     

A Dynamic Load Balancing Framework for Real-time Applications in Message Passing Systems

Load balancing algorithms are designed essentially to equally distribute the load on processors and maximize their utilities while minimizing the total task execution time. In order to achieve these goals, the load-balancing mechanism should be “fair” in distributing the load across the different processors. This implies that the difference between the heaviest-loaded and the lightest-loaded processors should be minimized. Therefore, the load information on each processor must be updated such that the load-balancing mechanism can be more effective. In this work, we present an application independent dynamic algorithm for scheduling tasks and load- balancing in message passing systems. We propose a DAG-based Dynamic Load Balancing algorithm for Real time applications (DAG-DLBR) that is designed to work dynamically to cope with possible changes in the load that might occur during runtime. This algorithm addresses the challenge of devising a load balancing scheme which judicially deals with the hybrid execution of existing real-time application (represented by a Direct Acyclic Graph (DAG)) together with newly arriving jobs. The main objective of this algorithm is to reduce response times of the newly arriving jobs while maintaining the time constrains of the existing DAG. To evaluate the performance of the DAG-DLBR algorithm, a comparison with the performance of two common dynamic load balancing algorithms is presented. This comparison is performed by evaluating, experimentally, the execution time of different load balancing algorithms on a homogenous real parallel machine. In addition, the values of load imbalance, the execution time, and the communication overhead time are evaluated analytically using different benchmarks as test-bed workloads. These workloads cover a wide range of dynamic applications with different task types. Experimental results illustrate the improved performance of the DAG-DLBR algorithm compared to both distributed and hierarchal based algorithms by at least 12 and 19%, respectively. This improvement is true for all workloads, even with highly dependent workload. The DAG-DLBR algorithm achieves lower computation time than its corresponding values of both the distributed and the hierarchical-based algorithms for 4, 8, 12 and 16 processors.     

Effect of Zn,Cu,Cr and Pb Chlorides on the Formation of Tricalcium Aluminate Trisulfate Hydrate

The effect of addition of Zn, Cu, Pb and Cr chlorides as admixtures on the hydration reaction of the system 3CaO·Al2O3-gypsum with molar ratio 1：3 was studied. Different ratios of each salt were used, namely 0.5%, 2% and 4% by weight of the solid mixture. Hydration reaction was carried out at 35℃ for various time intervals from 0.5 h to up to 7 d. Hydration rate of the system 3CaO·Al2O3-CaSO4·2H2O in absence and presence of different salts was studied via the determination of the combined water contents. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the ettringite was the only hydration product formed in the different mixes. The hydration products were investigated by scanning electron microscopy （SEM） and thermal gravimetric analysis. The results indicated that the rate of formation of ettringite and its microstructure depend on the admixture and its dosage.