Productions and monomer compositions of exopolysaccharides by Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus strains isolated from traditional home-made yoghurts and raw milk

In this study, a total of forty‐five strains of lactobacilli and streptococci were determined exopolysaccharide (EPS) production in skim milk and Man Rogosa and Sharpe (MRS)/M17 medium, viscosity and proteolytic activity. The exopolysaccharide production by lactobacilli strains during growth in MRS medium was twenty‐one to 211 mg L^?1, while in skim milk was to thirty‐six to 315 mg L^?1. The EPS production by streptococci strains during growth in M17 medium was sixteen to 114 mg L^?1, while in skim milk was to twenty‐four to 140 mg L^?1. The EPS production of strains was lower in MRS/M17 medium than skim milk. Results showed that it was not clear correlation between the viscosity and EPS production of some strains. All strains were shown proteolytic activity. Positive correlations between exopolysaccharide production and proteolytic activity in skim milk were found some strains of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. These results indicated that the high exocellular protease‐producing strains can produce high EPS in skim milk. The monomer compositions of the EPSs formed by selected five strains were analysed. Mannose dominated (99–100%) on the EPS produced by L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and S. thermophilusstrains (except L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus 22) in skim milk and MRS/M17 medium. Besides, the EPSs of strains in skim milk contained small amount of lactose.     

Applied Genetic Algorithm for Solving Rich VRP

In this article, we present a study of the effectiveness of a genetic algorithm (GA) to solve a combinatorial problem, that is, a vehicle routing problem (VRP). We propose a new selection method, called “rank and select,” based on selection rate, and we compare it with roulette wheel selection. In this article, we use two types of crossover method and two types of mutation method. These are applied for comparing the best fitness at the end of a generation. The problem solved in this study is how to generate feasible route combinations for a rich VRP and meet all the requirements with an optimum solution. Initial test results show that the route produced by the GA was effectively used for solving rich VRP and especially for a large number of customers, depots, and vehicles. Fuel consumption by proposed routes was lower by about 20.38% compared to that of an existing route.     

Dual Activity BLEG-1 from Bacillus lehensis G1 Revealed Structural Resemblance to B3 Metallo-β-Lactamase and Glyoxalase II: An Insight into Its Enzyme Promiscuity and Evolutionary Divergence

Metallo-β-lactamases (MBLs) are class B β-lactamases from the metallo-hydrolase-like MBL-fold superfamily which act on a broad range of β-lactam antibiotics. A previous study on BLEG-1 (formerly called Bleg1_2437), a hypothetical protein from Bacillus lehensis G1, revealed sequence similarity and activity to B3 subclass MBLs, despite its evolutionary divergence from these enzymes. Its relatedness to glyoxalase II (GLXII) raises the possibility of its enzymatic promiscuity and unique structural features compared to other MBLs and GLXIIs. This present study highlights that BLEG-1 possessed both MBL and GLXII activities with similar catalytic efficiencies. Its crystal structure revealed highly similar active site configuration to YcbL and GloB GLXIIs from Salmonella enterica, and L1 B3 MBL from Stenotrophomonas maltophilia. However, different from GLXIIs, BLEG-1 has an insertion of an active-site loop, forming a binding cavity similar to B3 MBL at the N-terminal region. We propose that BLEG-1 could possibly have evolved from GLXII and adopted MBL activity through this insertion.     

Optimization of spray drying process of Sargassum muticum color extract

ABSTRACT

Sargassum muticum is categorized as a brown seaweed species which has been used as a dye fabric colorant in certain regions of Asia. The brown extracts of S. muticum also have antioxidant properties, which could enhance the color and nutrients in food products. However, the color extract is unstable, and also limits the application. This study was performed to encapsulate the color extract with maltodextrin and stabilize the color extract by spray drying technique using combinations of various levels of inlet temperature and feed flow rate. Initially, S. muticum powder was analyzed for moisture content, water activity, solubility, and color properties for optimization purposes. This study showed that the optimum inlet temperature and feed flow rate of the spray drying process to produce good-quality, stable, and acceptable powder properties were at 140°C and 3?rpm, respectively, with 4% of maltodextrin. Then, the powder was analyzed for density, compressibility index, hygroscopicity, particle size, and antioxidant properties. This study represents an interesting food additive to be incorporated in functional food due to the attractive brown colorant and the presence of antioxidants.     

Dynamic tensile and shear storage moduli of PEG/silica-polymorph composites

The effect of silica polymorphs on the thermomechanical properties of 0, 5, 10, and 20 wt % silica particles-reinforced-based poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) composites have been studied as a function of temperature using dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). The silica polymorphs exhibited quartz (Q), cristobalite (C), and amorphous (A) phases, which were obtained by processing natural silica sand. The DMA thermomechanical properties were determined in tensile (E) and shear (G) modes. The maximum storage moduli (E′ and G′) were achieved by samples with 20 wt % silica for all type of fillers. These values increased approximately 12 times for PEG/Q, 10 times for PEG/A, and 11 times for PEG/C composites compared to the pure PEG. Furthermore, the Poisson's ratio values of the composites were filler phase dependent, that is, 0.39–0.47 for PEG/Q, 0.15–0.18 for PEG/A, and somewhat anomalous for PEG/C composites. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47372.     

Synthesis of Schiff base–containing benzoxazine derivatives

The excellent chemical and physical properties of benzoxazine resins and the functionality of Schiff bases were combined in one compound's structure, creating newly designed benzoxazine derivatives that can form complexes with metals. The new type of benzoxazine monomer was synthesized via the ring-closure reaction of formaldehyde, aniline, and three newly designed Schiff bases. The presence of the Schiff base in the molecular structure of these novel benzoxazine monomers enables them to trap metals as the functional compounds, like Cu, from a solution. Thermally initiated polymerization occurs at a lower temperature by the formation of intermolecular and intramolecular hydrogen bonds between imine, oxazine, Schiff base hydroxyl groups, and the newly generated hydroxyl groups. The thermal behavior of the bisbenzoxazine monomers was investigated with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and differential scanning calorimetry, and then they were cured at 120, 180, and 230°C. According to the magnetic susceptibility, FTIR, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, TGA, and microwave plasma atomic emission spectroscopy results, it is shown that Cu(II) complexes of the compounds were also succesfully synthesized, and they proved to be successful in catching metal. This is due to the functionality of Schiff bases forming the metal complexation in the compounds. The poly(bisbenzoxazine)s also showed high limiting oxygen index (31–37), low ring-opening temperature (150–190°C), high char yield (35%–49%), and excellent thermal stability, due to the highly crosslinked nature of the polymers. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47908.     

Synthesis and application of phenylcarbamodithioate compound for steel protection

Phenyldithiocarbamate compound has been synthesized and studied as corrosion inhibitor for steel. Dithiocarbamate (DTC) compounds with linear alkyl groups are good inhibitors, but their stability is quite low in acidic solutions. It should be noted that long-term stability is important for practical applications, in order to avoid excess use of chemicals. So, we have synthesized phenyl substituted DTC which offers strong inhibition efficiency and extra stability. This new inhibitor is chemically adsorbed on steel through its DTC group, while the aromatic ring provides extra stability and long-term efficiency. For the assessment of corrosion kinetics, we have utilized potentiodynamic and ac impedance studies; also solution assay analysis was realized with atomic absorption spectroscopy. It was revealed that inhibitor exhibits remarkably high efficiency, even under elevated temperature conditions. At 55 °C temperature conditions, i_corr value decreased from 5050 to 154 μA cm^?2, with the addition of 500 ppm inhibitor. The long-term stability of inhibitor was also tested and 85.93% efficiency was obtained after three days of exposure period for 500 ppm concentration.     

An encoding scheme based on fractional number for querying and updating XML data

In order to facilitate the XML query processing, several labeling schemes have been proposed to directly determine the structural relationships between two arbitrary XML nodes without accessing the original XML documents. However, the existing XML labeling schemes have to re-label the pre-existing nodes or re-calculate the label values when a new node is inserted into the XML document during an update process. In this paper, we devise a novel encoding scheme based on the fractional number to encode the labels of the XML nodes. Moreover, we propose a mapping method to convert our proposed fractional number based encoding scheme to bit string based encoding scheme with the intention to minimize the label size and save the storage space. By applying our proposed bit string encoding scheme to the range-based labeling scheme and the prefix labeling scheme, the process of re-labeling the pre-existing nodes can be avoided when nodes are inserted as leaf nodes and sibling nodes without affecting the order of XML nodes. In addition, we propose an algorithm to control the increment of label size when new nodes are inserted frequently at a fix place of an XML tree. Experimental results show that our proposed bit string encoding scheme provides efficient support to the process of XML updating without sacrificing the query performance when it is applied to the range-based labeling schemes.     

Selective determination of urea using urease immobilized on ZnO nanowires

Well-aligned zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowire arrays were fabricated on gold-coated plastic substrates using a low-temperature aqueous chemical growth (ACG) method. The ZnO nanowire arrays with 50–130 nm diameters and ∼1 μm in lengths were used in an enzyme-based urea sensor through immobilization of the enzyme urease that was found to be sensitive to urea concentrations from 0.1 mM to 100 mM. Two linear sensitivity regions were observed when the electrochemical responses (EMF) of the sensors were plotted vs. the logarithmic concentration range of urea from 0.1 mM to 100 mM. The proposed sensor showed a sensitivity of 52.8 mV/decade for 0.1–40 mM urea and a fast response time less than 4 s was achieved with good selectivity, reproducibility and negligible response to common interferents such as ascorbic acid and uric acid, glucose, K⁺ and Na⁺ ions.     

Using tchebichef moment for fast and efficient image compression

Orthogonal moment is known as better moment functions compared to the non-orthogonal moment. Among all the orthogonal moments, Tchebichef Moment appear to be the most recent moment functions that still attract the interest among the computer vision researchers. This paper proposes a novel approach based on discrete orthogonal Tchebichef Moment for an efficient image compression. The image compression is useful in many applications especially related to images that are needed to be seen in small devices such as in mobile phone. Meanwhile, the method incorporates simplified mathematical framework techniques using matrices, as well as a block-wise reconstruction technique to eliminate possible occurrences of numerical instabilities at higher moment orders. In addition, a comparison between Tchebichef Moment compression and JPEG compression is conducted. The result shows significant advantages for Tchebichef Moment in terms of its image quality and compression rate. Tchebichef moment provides a more compact support to the image via sub-block reconstruction for compression. Tchebichef Moment Compression is able to perform potentially better for a broader domain on real digital images and graphically generated images.