Effects of approved dose of e-beam irradiation on microbiological and physicochemical qualities of dried laver products and detection of their irradiation status

Food Science and Biotechnology - Most commercial dried laver products show higher microbial contamination. This work evaluated effects of approved dose (7 kGy)—recommended in the...     

Nutritional and storage stability of wheat-based crackers incorporated with brown rice flour and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC)

A study was conducted to develop brown rice flour (BRF) incorporated wheat-based crackers. Central composite rotatable design with three independent variables – BRF (10–40%), carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) (1–3%), and shortening (5–12%) – produced 20 different combinations. Response surface methodology was used to study the effect of different levels of BRF, CMC, and shortenings on product characteristics like spread ratio, volume index, density, width, thickness, and puffiness. All the three independent variables significantly (p < 0.05) affected the product characteristics. However, BRF had more pronounced effect on product characteristics than other two independent variables. The optimum level of ingredients obtained by numerical optimization for development of crackers was – BRF to wheat flour ratio (10:90), CMC (1.8%), and shortening (5%). The optimized product packed in cellophane bags was found shelf stable for a period of 3 months under ambient conditions. The present study, therefore, confirms the feasibility of BRF incorporation (10%) in development of wheat-based crackers.     

LC-MS/MS-based determination of chloramphenicol,thiamphenicol, florfenicol and florfenicol amine in poultry meat from the Punjab-Pakistan

A simple, reliable and sensitive liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry-based confirmatory method was redeveloped and validated for the simultaneous determination of chloramphenicol, thiamphenicol, florfenicol and florfenicol amine in chicken muscles. The analytes were extracted from minced chicken muscle with acetonitrile and ammoniated water mixture. A second extraction with ethyl acetate was followed by evaporation and dissolution of the residue in ammoniated methanol before defatting with n-hexane. Finally, the extract was further cleaned up by dispersive solid phase extraction using C-18 end-capped dispersive material. The validation protocol was adapted from the European Commission Decision 2002/657/EC and all the performance characteristics were successfully satisfied. The recoveries of all the analytes were found to be in the range of 86.4–108.1% and the precision values, within day and between days, ranged from 2.7% to 11% and 4.4% to 16.3%, respectively. The method was tested in various incurred samples and applied to analyse a wide range of random poultry market samples (n = 120) collected from three cities of the Punjab, Pakistan. Chloramphenicol and florfenicol residues were detected at low levels in less than 11% of the samples. Chloramphenicol was detected only in 4 samples with the concentration range of 0.17–0.477 µg kg^–1, whereas the levels of florfenicol/florfenicol amine residues detected in 9 samples ranged from 8.7 to 32.8 µg kg^–1. Moreover, most of the florfenicol residues were identified as tissue bound, extractable only after strong acid hydrolysis.     

Structural,Electrical, and Magnetic Properties of Ferrite–Polymer Composites

Six samples consisting of polypyrrole (PPy), pure NiFe₂O₄ ferrite, and their composites at ratio of 1:4 (PF1), 1:2 (PF2), 3:4 (PF3), and 1:1 (PF4) have been prepared by a coprecipitation method and their structural, electrical, dielectric, and magnetic properties measured experimentally. The direct-current (DC) resistivity was enhanced with increasing ferrite content, while the dielectric constant and loss decreased. The magnetic properties of all the composites and the ferrite revealed a narrow loop, confirming their soft nature. The saturation magnetization, remanence, and coercivity values increased with increasing ferrite content. The obtained parameter values suggest that such materials might be suitable for use in high-frequency applications.     

Forensic investigation to detect forgeries in ASF files of contemporary IP cameras

Recent years have seen tremendous increase in crime and terrorism all over the world which has necessitated continuous surveillance of public spaces, commercial entities and residential areas. CCTV cameras are an integral part of any modern surveillance system and have evolved significantly. They are a vital part of any investigation that follows a criminal or terrorism incident by providing invaluable evidence. In this paper, we show that the Advance Systems Format (ASF) file used in most IP cameras, which is also the main file containing metadata about the streaming packets, is vulnerable to forgery. This file is stored in plain text and any technically savvy person can forge it; therefore, a mechanism is needed to prevent it. To that end, we have gathered critical artifacts from an ASF file of IP cameras and carried out their forensic analysis. The analysis performed during this study demonstrates successful detection of forgery/tampering of evidence in IP cameras.     

Low-cost sustainable wireless Internet service for rural areas

Deploying and maintaining an Internet service in remote rural and mountainous areas is a challenging task specifically in developing countries. In this paper, we present a study to realize a low-cost sustainable Wireless Internet Service Provider (ISP) built for rural areas of developing countries. There was no Internet access in the area prior to this project. The solution consists of a Wi-Fi based networking system that covers three remote far away villages (Koi-Barmol, Piple and Baboozo) in the Pakistani province of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa. The contributions of this study include the details of step-by-step design, implementation and the issues faced to the rural WISP during long-term operation with recommendations to mitigate these issues. Apart from sharing practical insights we also make technical contributions in the form of throughput and latency analysis of IEEE 802.11n with the proprietary TDMA MAC protocol called airMAX over long-distance point-to-point links. We hope that the study will help people to quickly built and deploy a low-cost sustainable Internet service in the remote rural areas using off-the-shelf devices.     

Multi-metric geographic routing for vehicular ad hoc networks

Wireless Networks - Maintaining durable connectivity during data forwarding in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks has witnessed significant attention in the past few decades with the aim of supporting most...     

Galvanic Corrosion of Steel–Brass Couple in Petroleum Waste Water in Presence of a Green Corrosion Inhibitor: Electrochemical,Kinetics, and Mathematical View

Journal of Failure Analysis and Prevention - Control of galvanic corrosion of steel–brass couples in petroleum waste water solution by Curcuma longa was studied at different temperatures,...     

Identification of pork in beef meatballs using Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometry and real-time polymerase chain reaction

A study on development of Fourier-transform infrared spectrophotometric method combined with principle component analysis as well as real-time polymerase chain reaction for determination of pork–beef mixture in meatballs has been performed. A lipid component extracted from pork and beef in meatballs is analyzed using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, while DNA extracted from meatball was analyzed using real-time polymerase chain reaction. The correlation between actual and predicted concentration of lard using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy was performed by aid of partial least squares, while grouping of lard and beef fat components in meatball was carried out by Fourier-transform infrared spectra coupled with principle component analysis. The results showed that Fourier-transform infrared spectra at wavenumbers of 1000–1200 cm^?1 coupled with partial least square and principle component analysis are successfully used for quantification and classification of pork in beef meatballs. The relationship between actual value and predicted value of lard (lipid fraction obtained from meatballs containing pork) with Fourier-transform infrared spectrophotometric method revealed good correlation, with coefficient determination (R²) value of 0.997 and standard error of calibration of 0.04%. Principle component analysis is able to classify samples containing pork and beef meatballs. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy using normal spectra is fast technique for identification and quantification of lard extracted from pork in meatball. In addition, real-time polymerase chain reaction using Leptin Primer–AJ 865080 can be used for amplification of pork DNA specifically in meatballs containing pork.