Effect of reconditioning and reuse of sucrose syrup in quality properties and retention of nutrients in osmotic dehydration of guava

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of reconditioning and reuse (RR) of sucrose syrup in quality properties and retention of nutrients in guava during osmotic dehydration (OD). Two trials of 15 OD cycles were conducted with RR of osmotic solution. The parameters of water loss (WL) and solid incorporation (SI), as well as microbial load and physical–chemical properties of syrup and fruit were evaluated. The results showed that the RR did not modify the parameters WL and SI, and the microbial load remained low. The RR did not influence the color of osmodehydrated fruit, as well as the nutrient retentions, but probably it influenced the citric acid and reduced sugar retentions. At the end, the syrup was enriched of vitamin C, polyphenols, potassium, with traces of lycopene, β-carotene, and other minerals (Fe, Mg, Mn, and Zn) and could be used to formulate new products.     

Sequencing of a 17·6 kb segment on the right arm of yeast chromosome VII reveals 12 ORFs,including CCT,ADE3 and TR-I genes,homologues of the yeast PMT and EF1G genes,of the human and bacterial electron-transferring flavoproteins (β-chain) and of the Escherichia coli phosphoserine phosphohydrolase,and five new ORFs

A 17·6 kb DNA fragment from the right arm of chromosome VII of Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been sequenced and analysed. The sequence contains twelve open reading frames (ORFs) longer than 100 amino acids. Three genes had already been cloned and sequenced: CCT, ADE3 and TR-I. Two ORFs are similar to other yeast genes: G7722 with the YAL023 (PMT2) and PMT1 genes, encoding two integral membrane proteins, and G7727 with the first half of the genes encoding elongation factors 1γ, TEF3 and TEF4. Two other ORFs, G7742 and G7744, are most probably yeast orthologues of the human and Paracoccus denitrificans electron-transferring flavoproteins (β chain) and of the Escherichia coli phosphoserine phosphohydrolase. The five remaining identified ORFs do not show detectable homology with other protein sequences deposited in data banks. The sequence has been deposited in the EMBL data library under Accession Number Z49133.     

A study of pipe interacting corrosion defects using the FEM and neural networks

In this paper we present an application of the neural network technology for the assessment of pipes with interacting defects. Finite element simulations are carried out on a pipe containing two aligned and equally shaped defects of 80 × 32 mm and various defect spacing, providing a database containing the relation between the failure pressures of pipes with multiple and single defects. Neural networks are conceived by using this database, establishing interaction rules and a pipe assessment of interacting defects in the longitudinal and circumferential directions. The neural networks results are compared with those derived from the Det Norske Veritas code (DNV RP-F101).     

Polyline Spatial Join Evaluation Using Raster Approximation

The main subject of spatial joins is polygons and polylines. Typical polygons and polylines can occupy several Kbytes. Since approximations use much less space, the processing of spatial joins can be greatly improved by the use of filters that reduce the need for examining the exact geometry of spatial objects in order to find the intersecting ones. Candidate pairs of approximations of spatial objects are evaluated using such filters. As a result, three possible sets of answers are identified: the positive one, composed of intersecting pairs; the negative one, composed of non-intersecting pairs; and the inconclusive one, composed of the remaining pairs of candidates. There are many approximations designed for polygons, but few are suitable for approximating polylines. This paper presents a spatial join processor based on the multi step query processor (MSQP) architecture [24]. We have developed a new polyline approximation, named five color direction raster signature (5CDRS) [18]. It is used as the filter of MSQPs second step. The performance of the join processor and the approximation was evaluated with real world data sets. The results showed that our approach, when compared to others presented in the literature, reduced the inconclusive answers by 29% in the average. Consequently, the need for retrieving the representation of polylines and carrying out exact geometry tests is reduced by the same factor. As the exact geometry test is the most time consuming step, we have noticed that the overall time is also reduced by 38% in the average. The disk accesses are reduced by 41% in the average.     

Effect of personalized nutritional counseling in maintenance hemodialysis patients

Monitoring nutritional parameters is an integral part of hemodialysis (HD) patient treatment program. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of the personalized nutritional counseling (PNC) on calcium–phosphorus metabolism, potassium, albumin, protein intake, interdialytic weight gain (IDWG), body composition parameters and fluid overload in HD patients. This was a multicenter longitudinal intervention study with 6 months of follow‐up and 731 patients on maintenance HD from 34 dialysis units in Portugal were enrolled. Biochemical and body composition parameters were measured at baseline, 1, 3 and 6 months after the PNC. Patient's mean age was 64.9 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 63.8–66.0) years and mean HD time was 59.8 (95% CI: 55.3–64.3) months. Regarding data comparison collected before PNC vs. 6 months after, we obtained, respectively, the following results: patients with normalized protein catabolic rate (nPCR) ≥ 1 g/kg/day = 66.5% vs. 73.5% (P = 0.002); potassium > 5.5 mEq/L = 52% vs. 35.8% (P < 0.001); phosphorus between 3.5 and 5.5 mg/dL = 43.2% vs. 52.5% (P < 0.001); calcium/phosphorus (Ca/P) ratio ≤ 50 mg/dL = 73.2 % vs. 81.4% (P < 0.001); albumin ≥ 4.0 g/dL = 54.8% vs. 55% (P = 0.808); presence of relative overhydration = 22.4% vs. 25% (P = 0.283); IDWG > 4.5% = 22.3% vs. 18.2% (P = 0.068). PNC resulted in a significant decrease in the prevalence of hyperkalemia, hypophosphatemia and also showed amelioration in Ca/P ratio, nPCR and an increase in P of hyphosphatemic patients. Our study suggests that dietetic intervention contributes to the improvement of important nutritional parameters in patients receiving hemodialysis treatment.     

Phenolic Compounds from the Leaves of Vitis labrusca and Vitis vinifera L. as a Source of Waste Byproducts: Development and Validation of LC Method and Antichemotactic Activity

The cultivation of Vitis (Vitaceae) grape varieties is one of the most important economic activities in agribusiness in southern Brazil. Vitis varieties are rich in polyphenolic compounds with several pharmacological and biological activities, such as antioxidant action. In this context, this study analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively the anthocyans and flavonoids found in the leaves of grape varieties Vitis vinifera and Vitis labrusca. For this purpose, vine leaf extracts were prepared and the chemical profile of each was characterized by LC/MS-MS. Two high performance liquid chromatography-validated methods were performed using UV/VIS-LC-DAD detector to quantify phenolic compounds. The main anthocyanins isolated from vine leaves were cyanidin-3-O-glucoside and peonidin-3-O-glucoside. The flavonoids identified were rutin, quercetin-3-O-galactoside, quercetin-3-O-glucoside, and quercetin-3-O-glucuronide, which was the predominant compound. The Waters X-Terra® RP18 column allowed the effective separation of quercetin-3-O-glucuronide from the other flavonoids for the first time, besides the partial separation of quercetin-3-O-galactoside from quercetin-3-O-glucoside. Furthermore, another phenolic compound was confirmed by MS spectrometry, using direct infusion, as being trans-caftaric acid. The present study also investigates the antichemotactic activity in vitro of grape crude extracts, fractions, and isolated compounds. It was demonstrated that almost all fractions and isolated compounds showed increased antichemotactic effect in response to LPS with a more pronounced values of IC₅₀ for anthocyanins fraction, rutin, quercetin-3-O-galactoside, and trans-caftaric acid (0.9, 1.6, 3.7, and 5.1 ng/mL, respectively).     

Acute bacterial meningitis: vascular complications

The authors present the study of four children with arteritis as vascular complication of acute bacterial meningitis. They report pathophysiological mechanisms involved in vascular lesions, and progress in the understanding of these complications.     

Solid waste from leather industry as adsorbent of organic dyes in aqueous-medium

The industrial tanning of leather usually produces considerable amounts of chromium-containing solid waste and liquid effluents and raises many concerns on its environmental effect as well as on escalating landfill costs. Actually, these shortcomings are becoming increasingly a limiting factor to this industrial activity that claims for alternative methods of residue disposals. In this work, it is proposed a novel alternative destination of the solid waste, based on the removal of organic contaminants from the out coming aqueous-residue. The adsorption isotherm pattern for the wet blue leather from the Aurea tanning industry in Erechim-RS (Brazil) showed that these materials present high activity on adsorbing the reactive red textile dye as well as other compounds. The adsorbent materials were characterized by IR spectroscopy and SEM and tested for the dye adsorption (reactive textile and methylene blue dyes). The concentrations of dyes were measured by UV-vis spectrophotometry and the chromium extraction from leather waste was realized by basic hydrolysis and determined by atomic absorption. As a low cost abundant adsorbent material with high adsorption ability on removing dye methylene blue (80mgg(-1)) and textile dye reactive red (163mgg(-1)), the leather waste is revealed to be a interesting alternative relatively to more costly adsorbent materials.