Apple phytochemicals and their health benefits

Evidence suggests that a diet high in fruits and vegetables may decrease the risk of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer, and phytochemicals including phenolics, flavonoids and carotenoids from fruits and vegetables may play a key role in reducing chronic disease risk. Apples are a widely consumed, rich source of phytochemicals, and epidemiological studies have linked the consumption of apples with reduced risk of some cancers, cardiovascular disease, asthma, and diabetes. In the laboratory, apples have been found to have very strong antioxidant activity, inhibit cancer cell proliferation, decrease lipid oxidation, and lower cholesterol. Apples contain a variety of phytochemicals, including quercetin, catechin, phloridzin and chlorogenic acid, all of which are strong antioxidants. The phytochemical composition of apples varies greatly between different varieties of apples, and there are also small changes in phytochemicals during the maturation and ripening of the fruit. Storage has little to no effect on apple phytochemicals, but processing can greatly affect apple phytochemicals. While extensive research exists, a literature review of the health benefits of apples and their phytochemicals has not been compiled to summarize this work. The purpose of this paper is to review the most recent literature regarding the health benefits of apples and their phytochemicals, phytochemical bioavailability and antioxidant behavior, and the effects of variety, ripening, storage and processing on apple phytochemicals.     

Failure of triiodothyronine to inhibit TSH-mediated thyroid hormone release in man

We studied the effect of short-term triiodothyronine administration on thyroid gland responsivity to exogenous thyrotropin in four euthyroid human subjects. Thyroidal iodine release and serum thyroxine during daily im injections of bovine TSH were not significantly inhibited, despite a four-fold elevation in serum T3 concentrations. This negative finding contrasts with earlier positive reports of a regulatory "short-loop" effect of elevated circulating T3 on the thyroid gland. This difference may be due either to the use in previous murine or in vitro studies of non-physiologic, high doses of exogenous T3, or failure to control the withdrawal of the trophic effect of endogenous TSH in man on the subsequent glandular response.     

Solving knapsack problems on GPU

A parallel implementation via CUDA of the dynamic programming method for the knapsack problem on NVIDIA GPU is presented. A GTX 260 card with 192 cores (1.4 GHz) is used for computational tests and processing times obtained with the parallel code are compared to the sequential one on a CPU with an Intel Xeon 3.0 GHz. The results show a speedup factor of 26 for large size problems. Furthermore, in order to limit the communication between the CPU and the GPU, a compression technique is presented which decreases significantly the memory occupancy.     

Radio frequency identification (RFID) performance: the effect of tag orientation and package contents

The objective of this research was to determine the relationship between different product types and tag orientations on the readability of RFID tags on shipping containers in a palletload that is driven through a portal type reader. This research finds that the content of packages can dramatically reduce the read rate. Only 25% of the tags on shipping containers containing water‐filled bottles could be read. Rice‐filled jars had a higher read rate (80.6%). Even empty boxes did not have a 100% read rate. For the variables without appreciable package contents, only 74–79% of loads had all of their tags read. The orientation of the tag does make a difference, especially when coupled with a filled package between it and the reader antennae. Tags facing outwards, towards the reader antennae, had the highest likelihood of a successful read. When tags for the boxes of water‐filled bottles were all facing downwards, no tags were read. Supply chain managers need to understand these limitations of the technology and find ways to overcome them before RFID can be successfully implemented in supply chains. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Discontinuity-Preserving Surface Reconstruction Using Stochastic Differential Equations

We address the problem of reconstructing a surface from irregularly spaced sparse and noisy range data while concurrently identifying and preserving the significant discontinuities in depth. It is well known that, starting from either the probabilistic Markov random field model or the mechanical membrane or thin plate model for the surface, the solution of the reconstruction problem can be eventually reduced to the global minimization of a certain “energy” function. Requiring the preservation of depth discontinuities makes the energy function nonconvex and replete with multiple local minima. We present a new method for obtaining discontinuity-preserving reconstruction based on the numerical solution of an appropriate Ito vector stochastic differential equation (SDE). The reconstructed surface is found by following the sample path of the (stochastic) diffusion process that solves the SDE in question. Our central contribution is the demonstration of the efficacy of the stochastic differential equation technique for solving a vision problem. Through comparisions of the results of our method to those of the two well-known existingglobalminimization based reconstruction techniques, we show a significant improvement in the final reconstructions obtained.     

Finite element of slender beams in finite transformations: a geometrically exact approach

This article is devoted to the modelling of thin beams undergoing finite deformations essentially due to bending and torsion and to their numerical resolution by the finite element method. The solution proposed here differs from the approaches usually implemented to treat thin beams, as it can be qualified as ‘geometrically exact’. Two numerical models are proposed. The first one is a non‐linear Euler–Bernoulli model while the second one is a non‐linear Rayleigh model. The finite element method is tested on several numerical examples in statics and dynamics, and validated through comparison with analytical solutions, experimental observations and the geometrically exact approach of the Reissner beam theory initiated by Simo. The numerical result shows that this approach is a good alternative to the modelling of non‐linear beams, especially in statics. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Statistical analysis of achievable resolution limit in the near field source localization context

In this fast communication, we derive the statistical resolution limit (SRL), characterizing the minimal parameter separation, to resolve two closely spaced known near-field sources impinging on a linear array. Toward this goal, we conduct on the first-order Taylor expansion of the observation model a Generalized Likelihood Ratio Test (GLRT) based on a Constrained Maximum Likelihood Estimator (CMLE) of the SRL. More precisely, the minimum separation between two near-field sources, that is detectable for a given probability of false alarm and a given probability of detection, is derived herein. Finally, numerical simulations are done to quantify the impact of the array geometry of the signal sources power distribution and of the array aperture on the statistical resolution limit.     

Dynamic optical trap generation using FLC SLMs for the manipulation of cold atoms

Abstract

Trapping and manipulation of cold atoms using optical potentials require the ability to generate and control a time varying light intensity distribution. Such an application demands that fast changing intensity distributions are generated, which are however free from flickering, or noise in general. Ferroelectric spatial light modulators are good candidates to achieve this because of their high refresh rate but they suffer from noise due to changes in the state of individual pixels during an animated sequence. A direct binary search based optimization routine was developed which minimizes the noise during such sequences. Filter sequences designed using this technique have been tested experimentally and the results demonstrated that flicker noise was eliminated.     

Starch Granule-Bound Proteins and Polypeptides: The Influence of the waxy Mutations

Proteins are found as integral components of starch granule structure. The starch granule-bound proteins from the endosperm of nonmutant (normal) and waxy (glutinous) cereals were extracted and subsequently separated by electrophoresis on denaturing SDS-polyacrylamide gels. The silver stained gels revealed that for cereals the waxy protein (starch granule-bound starch synthase) was approximately 60 kD. The cereals containing the waxy mutation do not show this protein. Compared to the nonmutant genotypes of other cereals, the waxy protein of barley, Hordeum vulgare is greatly diminished. Based on this observation, there may be reason to suspect that starch synthesis in barley varies from that of other cereals. There are minor homologous proteins among the cereals studied, including, maize, teosinte, rice, millet, sorghum, and barley. Starch granules from all cereal genotypes studied exhibited a minor protein at 68 kD. Most (81%) genotypes showed a 65 kD protein, which may correspond to a minor isozyme of starch granule-bound starch synthase. Minor proteins occurred at 70 kD and 72 kD in 71% and 57% of the genotypes studied, respectively. The minor proteins could be isozymes of starch granule-bound starch synthase or the proposed granule-bound forms of branching enzyme and oligosaccharide synthase.