Traditionally Processed Beverages in Africa: A Review of the Mycotoxin Occurrence Patterns and Exposure Assessment

African traditional beverages are widely consumed food‐grade liquids processed from single or mixed grains (mostly cereals) by simple food processing techniques, of which fermentation tops the list. These beverages are very diverse in composition and nutritional value and are specific to different cultures and countries. The grains from which home‐processed traditional beverages are made across Africa are often heavily contaminated with multiple mycotoxins due to poor agricultural, handling, and storage practices that characterize the region. In the literature, there are many reports on the spectrum and quantities of mycotoxins in crops utilized in traditional beverage processing, however, few studies have analyzed mycotoxins in the beverages themselves. The available reports on mycotoxins in African traditional beverages are mainly centered on the finished products with little information on the process chain (raw material to final product), fate of the different mycotoxins during processing, and exposure estimates for consumers. Regulations targeting these local beverages are not in place despite the heavy occurrence of mycotoxins in their raw materials and the high consumption levels of the products in many homes. This paper therefore comprehensively discusses for the 1st time the available data on the wide variety of African traditional beverages, the mycotoxins that contaminate the beverages and their raw materials, exposure estimates, and possible consequent effects. Mycotoxin control options and future directions for mycotoxin research in beverage production are also highlighted.     

"Approach and avoidance coping responses among older problem and nonproblem drinkers": Clarification.

Reports a clarification in the article by R. H. Moos et al (Psychology and Aging, 1990[Mar], Vol 5[1], 31–40). The authors wish to note that research reported in the article by P. L. Brennan and R. H. Moos (see record 1991-10154-001) was based on the sample used in the research reported by Moos et al and that this information was inadvertently deleted in the Brennan and Moos article. (The following abstract of the article by Moos et al originally appeared in PA, Vol 77:14961.) The Coping Responses Inventory (CRI) was used to study coping among older problem and nonproblem drinkers. The CRI organizes coping efforts according to their focus (approach or avoidance) and method (cognitive or behavioral). Compared with nonproblem drinkers, older problem drinkers were more likely to use cognitive and behavioral avoidance responses to manage life stressors. Problem drinkers who experienced more negative life events and more severe stressors used both more approach and more avoidance coping. Those who had more financial and social resources relied more on approach and less on avoidance coping. Problem drinkers who relied more on avoidance coping tended to have more drinking problems and to report more depression and physical symptoms and less self-confidence. Positive reappraisal was associated with less depression and more self-confidence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Acute Antiallodynic Effect of Tolperisone in Rat Neuropathic Pain and Evaluation of Its Mechanism of Action

Current treatment approaches to manage neuropathic pain have a slow onset and their use is largely hampered by side-effects, thus there is a significant need for finding new medications. Tolperisone, a centrally acting muscle relaxant with a favorable side effect profile, has been reported to affect ion channels, which are targets for current first-line medications in neuropathic pain. Our aim was to explore its antinociceptive potency in rats developing neuropathic pain evoked by partial sciatic nerve ligation and the mechanisms involved. Acute oral tolperisone restores both the decreased paw pressure threshold and the elevated glutamate level in cerebrospinal fluid in neuropathic rats. These effects were comparable to those of pregabalin, a first-line medication in neuropathy. Tolperisone also inhibits release of glutamate from rat brain synaptosomes primarily by blockade of voltage-dependent sodium channels, although inhibition of calcium channels may also be involved at higher concentrations. However, pregabalin fails to affect glutamate release under our present conditions, indicating a different mechanism of action. These results lay the foundation of the avenue for repurposing tolperisone as an analgesic drug to relieve neuropathic pain.     

The influence of the microstructure of high noble gold-platinum dental alloys on their corrosion and biocompatibility in vitro

The aim of this work was to compare the microstructures of two high noble experimental Au-Pt alloys with similar composition with their corrosion and biocompatibility in vitro. We showed that Au-Pt II alloy, composed of 87.3 wt.% Au, 9.9 wt.% Pt, 1.7 wt.% Zn and 0.5 wt.% Ir + Rh + In, although possessing better mechanical properties than the Au-Pt I alloy (86.9 wt.% Au, 10.4 wt.% Pt, 1.5 wt.% Zn and 0.5 wt.% Ir + Rh + In), exerted higher adverse effects on the viability of L929 cells and the suppression of rat thymocyte functions, such as proliferation activity, the production of Interleukin-2 (IL-2), expression of IL-2 receptor and activation — induced apoptosis after stimulation of the cells with Concanavalin-A. These results correlated with the higher release of Zn ions in the culture medium. As Zn²⁺, at the concentrations which were detected in the alloy’s culture media, showed a lesser cytotoxic effect than the Au-Pt conditioning media, we concluded that Zn is probably not the only element responsible for alloy cytotoxicity. Microstructural characterization of the alloys, performed by means of scanning electron microscopy in addition to energy dispersive X-ray and X-ray diffraction analyses, showed that Au-Pt I is a two-phase alloy containing a dominant Au-rich α₁ phase and a minor Pt-rich α₂ phase. On the other hand, the Au-Pt II alloy additionally contained three minor phases: AuZn3, Pt₃Zn and Au_1.4Zn_0.52. The highest content of Zn was identified in the Pt₃Zn phase. After conditioning, the Pt₃Zn and AuZn₃ phases disappeared, suggesting that they are predominantly responsible for Zn loss, lower corrosion stability and subsequent lower biocompatibility of the Au-Pt II alloy.     

Assessing physical activity in the daily life of cystic fibrosis patients

Physical Activity (PA) plays an important role in the health and quality of life of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients, but little is known about their PA in daily living. With the use of accelerometers it is now possible to monitor activity profiles in detail. The goals of this study are to assess feasibility and acceptance of a longer-term use of accelerometers in daily living in CF patients, study the possibility of detecting changes in PA in relation to the patients’ clinical state and compare the findings between a CF and an age-matched healthy control group. We asked 15 CF patients to wear two accelerometers for 21 days and fill in a diary. Ten of them (age 21 to 40, mean 29.5 years) participated and delivered data that could be evaluated. We also recruited 10 age-matched control subjects. Data was processed for calculating usage time and features extracted to construct models of activity. The younger patients, particularly females, were concerned with fashion and style and considered wearing the sensors a challenge. Overall, the compliance of patients with CF seemed to be lower than reported for elder subjects in the literature. Time-series analysis of the data indicated characteristic patterns of PA over time, provided that data pre-processing and noise-filtering had been optimized. Further studies have to assess whether the continuous recording of PA yields additional clinical information in CF and in particular, whether it is possible to detect or even predict exacerbations in patients with CF or other diseases.     

Recommendations in a heterogeneous service environment

This paper presents novel algorithms which are able to generate recommendations within a heterogeneous service environment. In this work explicitly set preferences as well as implicitly logged viewing behavior are employed to generate recommendations for Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) content. This paper also discusses the similarity between the DVB genres and YouTube categories. In addition it presents results to show the comparison between well known collaborative filtering methods. The outcome of this comparison study is used to identify the most suitable filtering method to use in the proposed environment. Finally the paper presents a novel Personal Program Guide (PPG), which is used as a tool to visualize the generated recommendations within a heterogeneous service environment. This PPG is also capable of showing the linear DVB content and the non-linear YouTube videos in a single view.     

Intrinsic isotopic C labelling of polyphenols

The intrinsic isotopic labelling of plants with ¹³CO₂ is an effective method to generate highly labelled compounds using photosynthesis and avoiding labour-intensive complex organic syntheses. In this study, the intrinsic isotopic labelling of polyphenols in parsley, spinach and peppermint is shown for the first time. The plants were grown in an atmosphere where ¹²CO₂ was replaced by ¹³CO₂, in order to generate highly labelled compounds. The total content of ¹³C as well as the individual polyphenols were analysed by Isotopic Ratio-MS and HPLC–Iontrap-MSⁿ.     

The virtual production simulation platform: from collaborative distributed simulation to integrated visual analysis

Computational simulations are used for the optimization of production processes in order to significantly reduce the need for costly experimental optimization approaches. Yet individual simulations can rarely describe more than a single production step. A set of simulations has to be coupled to each other to form a contiguous representation of a process chain. Eventually, simulated results have to be analyzed by domain experts to gather insight from the preformed computations. In this paper, we propose an IT infrastructure and software tools that aim at a rather non-intrusive way of coupling resources and domain expert’s knowledge to enable the collaborative setup, execution and analysis of distributed simulation chains. We illustrate the approach in the domain of materials processing. Beyond means originating from the domain of GRID computing for resource management, a data integration component assures semantic data integrity between the simulation steps and stores simulation data in an application independent way. Thus, we can transform this data into native formats for each simulation tool, and finally into a format that allows for contiguous visualizations and an intuitive, comprehensive analysis of complete simulated process chains.