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.     

Determinants of rural household food security: a comparative analysis of African and Asian studies

This paper reviews the determinants of rural household food security in Africa and Asia where more than 88% of the world's undernourished people live. A conceptual model is proposed on the basis of the three widely known components of food security: food availability, accessibility and utilisation. This model is used to select a total of 40 peer‐reviewed studies carried out over the last decade (20 each from Africa and Asia). A meta‐analysis technique is then used to identify which determinants of food security have been highlighted and how well the causality is demonstrated. Food availability is the most studied component in both regions, followed by food accessibility, while food utilisation is the most neglected component in these studies. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry     

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.     

Evaluation of the differencing pixel-by-pixel change detection method in mapping irrigated areas in dry zones

Geographic information system (GIS) and change detection techniques were used in this study to evaluate the efficiency of an automatic change detection method in detecting and mapping the changes that took place after the implementation of newly irrigated areas in dry zones. Two satellite images were used: Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) 1983 and Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) 2004. The newly implemented irrigated areas were identified using the differencing pixel-by-pixel change detection method. All of these areas were detected over the period 1983–2004. The accuracy of the results obtained from the change detection method applied was determined by spectral and spatial assessment (image interpretation and field surveying). It was shown that all the newly implemented irrigated areas were detected. The assessment of the areas of the new implemented parcels obtained by the current change detection method showed an error of less than 8%. This result is reasonably good if we consider the speed of the process and its low cost for large zones.     

Effect of cobalt-60 γ radiation on the physical and chemical properties of poly(ethylene terephthalate) polymer

The structural, optical, and morphological properties of Co⁶⁰ γ irradiation on poly(ethylene terephthalate) polymer samples were studied with X-ray diffraction (XRD), ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Raman spectroscopy. The diffraction pattern of virgin sample showed that the polymer was semicrystalline in nature. However, because of irradiation, the crystallinity decreased up to a dose level of 110 kGy and increased up to 300 kGy. The crystallite size, strain, and dislocation were calculated from the XRD data, and the crystallite size decreased from 291.07 to 346.90 Å. The absorption edge shifted from 315 to 330 nm, and the band gap of the samples decreased from 3.79 to 3.66 eV. The SEM micrographs showed radial bulging along with inhomogeneous liner exfoliation, and also, a rocky shape pattern with different sizes was observed. A significant change was found in the Raman spectra of the γ-irradiated polymer at the highest dose. The results of the structural, optical, and morphological studies show recovery characteristics at the highest dose level of 300 kGy. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012     

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.