Modeling and simulation of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Bacillus cereus</Emphasis> chitosanase activity during purification using expanded bed chromatography

A phenomenological model was used to describe sequentially the three steps (flowthrough, washing and elution) of expanded bed adsorption chromatography for recovery of chitosanases from Bacillus cereus. Additionally, a hybrid strategy for model parameter estimation was carried out using particle swarm optimization and Gauss-Newton algorithms. The model was validated with independent experimental data and the statistical criteria (χ ² and mean squared error tests) showed that the hybrid strategy was more promising than just the heuristic method. With the calibrated model, surface response methodology was applied to obtain the optimal operational conditions, and experiments were performed to confirm these results. Overall, a value of 41.08% for yield was obtained using 700 mM NaCl during elution. In summary, all approach employed in this work was relevant for maximizing the yield of the chromatographic process.     

Melatonin intake and potential chronobiological effects on human health

Melatonin is an indolamine with a recognized chronobiotic role. In turn, the supplementation of melatonin through capsules has been shown to be efficient in the modulation of inflammatory markers, oxidative stress, as well as in the control of hypertension and metabolic syndrome. However, the science of nutrition is interested in the study of the food sources of this hormone and its possible therapeutic effects. Thus, this review aimed to identify and present scientific papers that quantified melatonin in foods and evaluated its application in intervention studies. In total, 278 studies were found, of which 17 were included in this review. The results show that meats, fish, eggs, cereals, tubers, oilseeds, mushrooms, fruits, vegetables, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages and dairy products had some items analyzed for their melatonin concentrations. The concentrations reported presented considerable amplitude among different foods and even within the same species, possibly due to differences in cultivation and different hormonal dosing techniques. Also, different concentrations of melatonin can be presented for the same food when submitted to processes such as cooking, roasting or fermentation. The intervention studies presented positive results regarding the consumption of foods rich in melatonin and clinical-metabolic indicators. However, in order to guide nutritional behavior, it is necessary to consult a composition table that makes melatonin concentrations available and considers the processes involved in the preparation of the food. With this table, it will be possible to analyze the real effect of habitual consumption of melatonin from food on health.     

Importance of Matrix Cues on Intervertebral Disc Development,Degeneration, and Regeneration

Back pain is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide and is frequently caused by degeneration of the intervertebral discs. The discs’ development, homeostasis, and degeneration are driven by a complex series of biochemical and physical extracellular matrix cues produced by and transmitted to native cells. Thus, understanding the roles of different cues is essential for designing effective cellular and regenerative therapies. Omics technologies have helped identify many new matrix cues; however, comparatively few matrix molecules have thus far been incorporated into tissue engineered models. These include collagen type I and type II, laminins, glycosaminoglycans, and their biomimetic analogues. Modern biofabrication techniques, such as 3D bioprinting, are also enabling the spatial patterning of matrix molecules and growth factors to direct regional effects. These techniques should now be applied to biochemically, physically, and structurally relevant disc models incorporating disc and stem cells to investigate the drivers of healthy cell phenotype and differentiation. Such research will inform the development of efficacious regenerative therapies and improved clinical outcomes.     

Application of Ultrasound‐Assisted Supercritical Extraction to Soil Remediation

The coupling of ultrasound to supercritical extraction with carbon dioxide has been evaluated as a green remediation technique for soils contaminated with pesticides. The study used samples of soil spiked with atrazine, an organophosphate and contaminant of widespread use. The influence of the operating temperature and pressure on the extraction of atrazine was studied. The extraction of atrazine was enhanced with the use of ultrasound relative to the results obtained from conventional supercritical extraction. This study, operated in semi‐continuous mode, demonstrates the possibility of increasing the yield of supercritical extraction by coupling with ultrasound instead of adding co‐solvents, which is a greener alternative for removing contaminants such as pesticides from soil matrices.     

Solution blow spinning: parameters optimization and effects on the properties of nanofibers from poly(lactic acid)/dimethyl carbonate solutions

Solution blow spinning (SBS) is a process to produce non-woven fiber sheets with high porosity and an extremely large amount of surface area. In this study, a Box–Behnken experimental design (BBD) was used to optimize the processing parameters for the production of nanofibers from polymer solutions consisting of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) dissolved in dimethyl carbonate. In addition, a comparative study between SBS fibers and cast film was performed to verify the influence of the SBS process on the crystallinity and thermal properties of PLA. The PLA concentration in polymer solutions was the most significant parameter affecting fiber diameter. The BBD analysis revealed that small diameter fibers were best obtained by a combination of 8 % w/v PLA concentration, 80 psi air pressure, and a feed rate of 50 µL min^?1. The comparative study showed that both the SBS and the film casting processes increased the PLA crystallinity. However, the PLA films had a higher degree of crystallinity compared with the fibers made by the SBS process (39 and 17 %, respectively), which was attributed to the high shear created at the SBS nozzle inducing orientation and chain alignment. During the fiber formation, crystals formed with varied morphology including the α′-crystals, which have a less ordered structure and lower thermal stability compared to the α-crystals. The lower thermal stability of SBS fibers compared to the films can be explained by the lower degree of crystallinity and also by the higher surface area which can accelerate the weight loss process.     

3D Printing of Freestanding MXene Architectures for Current‐Collector‐Free Supercapacitors

Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies appear as a paradigm for scalable manufacture of electrochemical energy storage (EES) devices, where complex 3D architectures are typically required but are hard to achieve using conventional techniques. The combination of these technologies and innovative material formulations that maximize surface area accessibility and ion transport within electrodes while minimizing space are of growing interest. Herein, aqueous inks composed of atomically thin (1–3 nm) 2D Ti₃C₂T_x with large lateral size of about 8 µm possessing ideal viscoelastic properties are formulated for extrusion‐based 3D printing of freestanding, high specific surface area architectures to determine the viability of manufacturing energy storage devices. The 3D‐printed device achieves a high areal capacitance of 2.1 F cm^?2 at 1.7 mA cm^?2 and a gravimetric capacitance of 242.5 F g^?1 at 0.2 A g^?1 with a retention of above 90% capacitance for 10 000 cycles. It also exhibits a high energy density of 0.0244 mWh cm^?2 and a power density of 0.64 mW cm^?2 at 4.3 mA cm^?2. It is anticipated that the sustainable printing and design approach developed in this work can be applied to fabricate high‐performance bespoke multiscale and multidimensional architectures of functional and structural materials for integrated devices in various applications.     

Unsupervised segmentation method for cuboidal cell nuclei in histological prostate images based on minimum cross entropy

This paper presents a novel segmentation method for cuboidal cell nuclei in images of prostate tissue stained with hematoxylin and eosin. The proposed method allows segmenting normal, hyperplastic and cancerous prostate images in three steps: pre-processing, segmentation of cuboidal cell nuclei and post-processing. The pre-processing step consists of applying contrast stretching to the red (R) channel to highlight the contrast of cuboidal cell nuclei. The aim of the second step is to apply global thresholding based on minimum cross entropy to generate a binary image with candidate regions for cuboidal cell nuclei. In the post-processing step, false positives are removed using the connected component method. The proposed segmentation method was applied to an image bank with 105 samples and measures of sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were compared with those provided by other segmentation approaches available in the specialized literature. The results are promising and demonstrate that the proposed method allows the segmentation of cuboidal cell nuclei with a mean accuracy of 97%.     

A less conservative LMI condition for the robust stability of discrete-time uncertain systems

In this paper, a less conservative condition for the robust stability of uncertain discrete-time linear systems is proposed. The uncertain parameters, assumed to be time-invariant, are supposed to belong to convex bounded domains (polytope type uncertainty). The stability condition is formulated in terms of a set of linear matrix inequalities involving only the vertices of the polytope domain. A simple and numerically efficient feasibility test provides a set of Lyapunov matrices whose convex combination can be used to assess the stability of any dynamic matrix inside the uncertainty domain. Examples illustrate the results.