Arbutin determination in medicinal plants and creams

A simple flow injection (FI) manifold with spectrophotometric detection was fabricated and tested for arbutin determination. It is based on the measurement of a red-coloured product at 514 nm formed by the complexation reaction between arbutin and 4-aminoantipyrine (4-AP) in the presence of hexacyanoferrate (III) in an alkaline medium. On injecting 300 μL standard solutions at various concentrations of arbutin into the FI system under optimum conditions, a linear calibration graph over the range of 1.0–30.0 μg mL⁻¹ arbutin was established. It is expressed by the regression equation y  = 0.2188 ± 0.0036 x  + 0.1019 ± 0.0366 ( r ²   = 0.9990, n  = 5). The detection limit (3σ) and the limit of quantitation (10σ) were 0.04 μg mL⁻¹ and 0.13 μg mL⁻¹, respectively. The RSD of intraday and interday precisions were found to be 1.2–1.4% and 1.7–2.7%, respectively. The method was successfully applied in the determination of arbutin in four selected fruits and three commercial whitening cream extracts with the mean recoveries of the added arbutin over the range of 96.2–99.0%. No interference effects from some common excipients used in commercial whitening creams were observed. The method is simple, rapid, selective, accurate, reproducible and relatively inexpensive.     

Laboratory Investigation on Lightning Flashes to High Voltage Transmission Lines

This paper presents an investigation on the attractive width of high voltage transmission lines to lightning strikes. In order to design the optimal lightning protection, the estimated number of lightn...     

Flow injection analysis of total curcuminoids in turmeric and total antioxidant capacity using 2,2′-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl assay

A simple flow injection analysis procedure is proposed for the determination of curcuminoids content in turmeric extracts. The method is based on the formation of a coloured complex between 4-aminoantipyrine and curcuminoids, in the presence of an oxidising reagent such as potassium hexacyanoferrate (III) in alkaline media. Conditions selected as a result of these trials were implemented in a flow injection analytical system in which the influence of injection volume, flow rate, reagent concentration and mixing coil length, was evaluated. Under the optimum conditions the total amount of curcuminoids could be determined within a concentration range of 5–50 μg mL⁻¹ which can be expressed by the regression equation y = 0.003x − 0.0053 (r² = 0.9997). The limits of detection and quantitation were found to be 0.6 μg mL⁻¹ and 1.8 μg mL⁻¹, respectively. The reproducibility of analytical readings was indicative of standard deviations <2%. The sample was extracted and analysed by using the proposed method. The percentage recoveries were found to be 94.3–108.0. The proposed system was applied to the determination of curcuminoids content in turmeric. The total curcuminoid contents in turmeric extract were found to be 0.9–4.3% (w/w). The development method is simple, economic, rapid and especially suitable for quality control in pharmaceutical plants.     

An Intelligence Computational Approach for the Fractional 4D Chaotic Financial Model

The main purpose of the study is to present a numerical approach to investigate the numerical performances of the fractional 4-D chaotic financial system using a stochastic procedure. The stochastic procedures mainly depend on the combination of the artificial neural network (ANNs) along with the Levenberg-Marquardt Backpropagation (LMB) i.e., ANNs-LMB technique. The fractional-order term is defined in the Caputo sense and three cases are solved using the proposed technique for different values of the fractional order α. The values of the fractional order derivatives to solve the fractional 4-D chaotic financial system are used between 0 and 1. The data proportion is applied as 73%, 15%, and 12% for training, testing, and certification to solve the chaotic fractional system. The acquired results are verified through the comparison of the reference solution, which indicates the proposed technique is efficient and robust. The 4-D chaotic model is numerically solved by using the ANNs-LMB technique to reduce the mean square error (MSE). To authenticate the exactness, and consistency of the technique, the obtained performances are plotted in the figures of correlation measures, error histograms, and regressions. From these figures, it can be witnessed that the provided technique is effective for solving such models to give some new insight into the physical behavior of the model.     

Swarming Computational Techniques for the Influenza Disease System

The current study relates to designing a swarming computational paradigm to solve the influenza disease system (IDS). The nonlinear system’s mathematical form depends upon four classes: susceptible individuals, infected people, recovered individuals and cross-immune people. The solutions of the IDS are provided by using the artificial neural networks (ANNs) together with the swarming computational paradigm-based particle swarm optimization (PSO) and interior-point scheme (IPA) that are the global and local search approaches. The ANNs-PSO-IPA has never been applied to solve the IDS. Instead a merit function in the sense of mean square error is constructed using the differential form of each class of the IDS and then optimized by the PSOIPA. The correctness and accuracy of the scheme are observed to perform the comparative analysis of the obtained IDS results with the Adams solutions (reference solutions). An absolute error in suitable measures shows the precision of the proposed ANNs procedures and the optimization efficiency of the PSOIPA. Furthermore, the reliability and competence of the proposed computing method are enhanced through the statistical performances.     

Intelligent Networks for Chaotic Fractional-Order Nonlinear Financial Model

The purpose of this paper is to present a numerical approach based on the artificial neural networks (ANNs) for solving a novel fractional chaotic financial model that represents the effect of memory and chaos in the presented system. The method is constructed with the combination of the ANNs along with the Levenberg-Marquardt backpropagation (LMB), named the ANNs-LMB. This technique is tested for solving the novel problem for three cases of the fractional-order values and the obtained results are compared with the reference solution. Fifteen numbers neurons have been used to solve the fractional-order chaotic financial model. The selection of the data to solve the fractional-order chaotic financial model are selected as 75% for training, 10% for testing, and 15% for certification. The results indicate that the presented approximate solutions fit exactly with the reference solution and the method is effective and precise. The obtained results are testified to reduce the mean square error (MSE) for solving the fractional model and verified through the various measures including correlation, MSE, regression histogram of the errors, and state transition (ST).     

Temperature effect on microbial community of enhanced biological phosphorus removal system

Microbial population dynamics to gradual temperature change in an enhanced biological phosphorus removal system was kinetically investigated. As the temperature rose from 20.0 degrees C to 30.0 degrees C, and to 35.5 degrees C, the predominant microbial group changed from the phosphorus-accumulating organisms, PAOs (47-70% of total VSS) to the glycogen-accumulating organisms (64-75% of total VSS), and to the ordinary heterotrophs (90% of total VSS), respectively. Despite the species alteration, the phosphorus contents of the PAOs appeared to be steady within 0.182-0.308 mg/mg VSS(PAO) regardless of the temperature level. The initial specific phosphorus release rates, which are solely due to the PAOs activities, increased with the temperature from 37.5-55.9 to 51.8-61.3, 52.0-76.9, 147.2-210.3, and 374.2-756.3 mgP/gmVSS(PAO) h, at 20.0 degrees C, 25.0 degrees C, 30.0 degrees C, 32.5 degrees C, and 35.0 degrees C, respectively. On the other hand, mean initial specific phosphorus uptake rates of the biomass decreased as the temperature increased; however, the data implied that the rate of the PAOs was higher than the other two microbial groups. These results indicate that the PAOs are lower-range mesophiles or possibly psychrophiles. As the temperature rises, the portion of energy required for maintenance increases substantially which reduces the energy availability for cell reproduction; hence, the PAOs are washed out from the system.     

Rheological characterisation of almost intact and stirred yogurt by imperfect squeezing flow viscometry

Samples of plain yogurt of two national brands, almost intact and after stirring for 1 min by hand and with a domestic blender, were placed in a wide shallow Teflon^R container. They were subsequently compressed with a wide Teflon^R plate to induce imperfect lubricated ‘squeezing flow’. The recorded force versus height relationships were plotted on logarithmic co‐ordinates. The resulting curves all had a clear linear part indicating the region where squeezing flow was dominant. Its slope was on the order of −1.2 to −1.3 in the almost intact specimens and −0.5 to −0.9 in the stirred samples. The test reproducibility, expressed in terms of the coefficient of variation (100σ/ x ) was on the order of about 15% more than sufficient to detect textural differences between the two brands and to monitor textural changes caused by stirring. These were expressed in terms of the apparent compressive stress at two preselected heights (1 and 2 mm) and the residual stress after relaxation for two preselected times (60 and 120 s). The flowability of the stirred samples was also expressed in terms of apparent elongational viscosity versus biaxial elongational strain rate relationships. All these mechanical parameters had a modest dependence on the upper plate diameter but the latter had no effect on their sensitivity as measures of yogurt consistency. © 1999 Society of Chemical Industry