Quality and safety of irradiated food regarding biogenic amines: Ras cheese

Food safety and quality became very important, especially with the challenge to ensure safe and healthy foods in regard to chemical hazards. So, this study was conducted to evaluate the quality and safety of irradiated Ras cheese during the storage period, with respect to biogenic amines (BAs). Ras cheese was manufactured, ripened and irradiated by γ‐irradiation at 0, 5, 10 and 15 kGy. The samples were stored in refrigerator at 5 ± 1 °C from where samples were withdrawn at 0, 2, 4 and 6 months for analysis. The results revealed that most sensory scores and chemical properties showed insignificant differences (P ≤ 0.05). The microbial counts were reduced with different degrees according to both storage period and irradiation dose. Also, irradiation was effective in reducing the content of BAs without harming the chemical properties of Ras cheese. The total content of BAs reflects the safety of irradiated Ras cheese and also indicates a high‐quality product in comparison with nonirradiated samples.     

Characterization of Gamma Irradiated Plasticized Carboxymethyl Cellulose (CMC)/Gum Arabic (GA) Polymer Blends as Absorbents for Dyestuffs

Polymer blends based on carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and gum arabic (GA) were prepared by solution casting method. Glycerol was added to the polymer blend solution as a plasticizer with different ratios (2·5, 5, 10 and 20%). Then, the plasticized blends were exposed to gamma irradiation at different doses (5, 10 and 20 kGy). The physical properties of the plasticized polymer blends were investigated in terms of gel fraction (%) and swelling percent (%). Thermal properties were investigated by TGA. Also, the structure of the plasticized polymer blends was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Scanning electron microscope was investigated in order to examine the compatibility between two polymers in the blend and also between polymer blend and plasticizer. The prepared plasticized polymer blends were used as an adsorbent for different dyestuffs. The sorption of dyestuffs by the plasticized polymer blend was determined by a method based on spectroscopic analysis. The results showed that the plasticized polymer blend has a high affinity for basic, acid, reactive and direct dyes. The obtained results showed that using glycerol as plasticizer improved the swellability of polymer blend and also the dye uptake (%).     

Evaluation Releasing Efficiency of Selected Micronutrients from Natural Polymer Complex in Laboratory and Field Conditions

This work is a part of long program for producing natural polymers which is used for application in different purposes in agriculture fields. A part of this program was the preparation of various compositions of Gum Arabic (GA) and Poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) with studying its physical and chemical characters. Whereas, the present work was concerning with the evaluation of released amount of selected micronutrients from the same complex under laboratory and field conditions.

In the laboratory, the prepared complex containing copper (Cu) or manganese (Mn) separately, were tested at different pH values for releasing at intervals.

The obtained results showed the possibility of using the Mn⁺² complex at 3000 mg kg^?1. Moreover, the obtained results showed that the maximum released amount was obtained at pH 7.0. A field experiment was planed according to the resulted data obtained in laboratory.

Samples were taken for elemental analysis either from soil or plants during all growth stages likeas vegetative, flowering, bear pods, full pods and harvesting. This analysis involved some selected macro- and micro nutrients such as N, P, K, Fe and Mn either in soil or plants (straw and seed). These results proved that efficiency of Mn-complex can release 1.0 and 34.0% to soil, and plants from used complex, respectively. Some increase in most of other elements compared with untreated plants was also obtained. The presence of the absorbed Mn⁺² from this complex activate the growth of plants and consequently increased the yield of seed than untreated samples. There is a linear relationship between the amount of absorbed Mn⁺² and the growth stages of the plants. This linear relationship has significant correlation coefficient (R ² = 0.5) of Mn⁺² uptake by straw or seed plants after end of stages.     

Mechanical and thermal properties of gamma irradiated ethylene propylene diene monomer rubber/vermiculite clay/maleic anhydride composites

Vermiculite clay (VMT) was first treated with 2 M of hydrochloric acid. The VMT, before and after acid‐treatment, was characterized by X‐ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy. The untreated (VMT) and acid‐treated vermiculite clay DVMT) at different contents (2.5–10 phr) and maleic anhydride (MA) at different contents (3–10 phr) were mixed with ethylene polyethylene diene rubber (EPDM) via direct melt compounding in an internal mixer. The mechanical and thermal properties of gamma irradiated composites were studied. The results indicated that the physical properties of gamma irradiated EPDM/DVMT/MA nanocomposites were greatly improved after loading with either DVMT or MA. The improvement was achieved when the content of DVMT clay was 5 phr, MA 7 phr and irradiation dose at 75 kGy. J. VINYL ADDIT. TECHNOL., 25:E3–E11, 2019. © 2018 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Identification and Classification of Crowd Activities

The identification and classification of collective people's activities are gaining momentum as significant themes in machine learning, with many potential applications emerging. The need for representation of collective human behavior is especially crucial in applications such as assessing security conditions and preventing crowd congestion. This paper investigates the capability of deep neural network (DNN) algorithms to achieve our carefully engineered pipeline for crowd analysis. It includes three principal stages that cover crowd analysis challenges. First, individual's detection is represented using the You Only Look Once (YOLO) model for human detection and Kalman filter for multiple human tracking; Second, the density map and crowd counting of a certain location are generated using bounding boxes from a human detector; and Finally, in order to classify normal or abnormal crowds, individual activities are identified with pose estimation. The proposed system successfully achieves designing an effective collective representation of the crowd given the individuals in addition to introducing a significant change of crowd in terms of activities change. Experimental results on MOT20 and SDHA datasets demonstrate that the proposed system is robust and efficient. The framework achieves an improved performance of recognition and detection people with a mean average precision of 99.0%, a real-time speed of 0.6 ms non-maximum suppression (NMS) per image for the SDHA dataset, and 95.3% mean average precision for MOT20 with 1.5 ms NMS per image.     

Synthesis,characterisation, and applications of isoindigo/Pechmann dye heteroanalogue hybrid dyes on polyester fabric

A series of new dyes based on the N‐analogue of Pechmann hybrid dyes were prepared by the condensation of different 5‐aryl derivatives of pyrrolinone ester (phenyl, 4‐bromophenyl, thienyl, and biphenyl) with isatin. N‐Alkylated derivatives were also prepared using bromoethyl acetate. Full ¹H and ¹³C NMR assignment was performed. All prepared dyes were soluble in most organic solvents: N‐alkylated derivatives had better solubility than non‐alkylated derivatives. The UV‐vis absorption spectra of the derivatives under study are quite similar and exhibit maxima in the 509–526 nm range. No E/Z photoisomerisation is observed. The dyeing process, dye exhaustion on polyester, and the fastness properties of the dyes were examined.     

Effect of gamma irradiation on the thermal and dyeing properties of blends based on waste poly(ethylene terephthalate) blends

The effect of gamma irradiation on the properties of virgin, waste poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), and their blends was characterized by IR spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry. The dye affinity for disperse dyes of the different PET polymers, before and after gamma irradiation was also studied. The results showed that the thermal stability of virgin, waste PET, and their blends was improved after gamma irradiation. The dye affinity for the disperse dye in terms of color intensity was improved after the exposure to gamma irradiation. The dye ability with disperse dye, in terms of color intensity (ΔE*), for virgin/waste PET (80/20%) blend, as an example, was improved by ～ 53 and 98% after the exposure to doses 30 and 50 kGy of gamma irradiation, respectively. In conclusion, the modification of waste PET or its blends with virgin PET by gamma irradiation may provide a practical method for the recycling to obtain useful products. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010     

Antimicrobial finishing of cotton fabrics based on gamma irradiated carboxymethyl cellulose/poly(vinyl alcohol)/TiO2 nanocomposites

Synthesis of nanoparticles with antibacterial properties is of great interest for the development of textiles finishing, in general, and cotton fabric, in particular. In this work, TiO₂ nanoparticles at different concentrations were synthesized using nitric acid as a reducing and stabilizing agent. Cotton fabrics were first impregnated, to a pick-up of 100%, in colloidal solutions containing carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC)/polyvinyl alcohol(PVA)/TiO₂ nanocomposites. After that, the coated fabrics were exposed to gamma irradiation to produce TiO₂ nanoparticles stabilized in cross-linked CMC/PVA hydrogel. The formation of TiO₂ nanoparticles was confirmed by ultra violet/visible (UV/vis) and transmission electron microscopy, and the particle size distribution of the nanoparticles was determined using the dynamic light scattering. The surface morphology of the finished fabrics was examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The SEM micrographs revealed that TiO₂ nanoparticles were deposited on the surface of cotton fibers. The antibacterial activity of the treated fabrics loaded with TiO₂ nanoparticles was evaluated against Escherichia coli (Gram -ve) bacteria.