Effects of heating method and conditions on the quality attributes of black mulberry (Morus nigra) juice concentrate

Black mulberry juice was concentrated by different heating methods including conventional heating and microwave heating at different operational pressures (7.3, 38.5 and 100 kPa). The effects of each method of heating on the quality attributes of the concentrated juice were investigated. The final juice concentration of 42°Brix was achieved in 140, 120 and 95 min at 100, 38.5, and 7.3 kPa, respectively, by using a rotary evaporator. Applying microwave energy decreased the required times to 115, 95, and 60 min. The changes in anthocyanin, antioxidant, phenolic content, turbidity, pH value, and acidity during concentration were investigated. Results showed that the degradation of anthocyanins was more pronounced in rotary evaporation comparing to microwave heating method. The higher phenolic concentrations resulted in a smaller EC₅₀ value, which corresponds to a higher antioxidant activity of the mulberry extract.     

Improvement properties of nylon fabric by corona pre-treatment and nano coating

This article tries to represent a supplemental method based on surface modification in order to optimizing the per cent of nano cohesion to give the better performances, such as antibacterial resistance and UV-blocking characteristic (especially in nano-ZnO), which nanoparticles carry inherently. Corona treatment was used to modify the surface of Nylon 6 fabrics in Sixdifferent conditions (related to power and passages). Treated fabrics were dyed with acidic dye and imbued with nano-ZnO simultaneously and antibacterial property, dye absorption and UV-blocking characteristic of samples were investigated. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to observe a porous Nylon fibre consisting of nano-ZnO. By increasing the power and number of passages of the corona atmosphere in which samples were contacted with, the water absorption increased. The result demonstrated that by increasing power and passages of corona treatment, dye absorption decrease likely due to the increase of the nano-ZnO cohesion. UV blocking increased in relation with increasing power and passages of corona treating. Results from antibacterial property on samples showed that by increasing the power and passages of corona treatment, the fabrics became more resistance to Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli bacteria.     

GLINT: GlucoCEST in neoplastic tumors at 3 T—clinical results of GlucoCEST in gliomas

Objective

Clinical relevance of dynamic glucose enhanced (DGE) chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) imaging has mostly been demonstrated at ultra-high field (UHF) due to low effect size. Results of a cohort study at clinical field strength are shown herein.

Materials and methods

Motion and field inhomogeneity corrected T1ρ‐based DGE (DGE⍴) images were acquired before, during and after a d-glucose injection with 6.3 s temporal resolution to detect accumulation in the brain. Six glioma patients with clear blood–brain barrier (BBB) leakage, two glioma patients with suspected BBB leakage, and three glioma patients without BBB leakage were scanned at 3 T.

Results

In high-grade gliomas with BBB leakage, d-glucose uptake could be detected in the gadolinium (Gd) enhancing region as well as in the tumor necrosis with a maximum increase of ∆DGE⍴ around 0.25%, whereas unaffected white matter did not show any significant DGE⍴ increase. Glioma patients without Gd enhancement showed no detectable DGE⍴ effect within the tumor.

Conclusion

First application of DGE⍴ in a patient cohort shows an association between BBB leakage and DGE signal irrespective of the tumor grade. This indicates that glucoCEST corresponds more to the disruptions of BBB with Gd uptake than to the molecular tumor profile or tumor grading.

     

A constitutive model of thermoviscoelastic semicrystalline shape memory polymer considering viscous dissipation in the amorphous phase

Mathematical modeling has increasingly recognized as a powerful tool that could aid the understanding of shape memory behavior in semicrystalline shape memory polymer (SMP). Up to now, studies have not fully taken into account the viscous effect of the amorphous phase in the whole shape memory cycle, which causes a more realistic prediction of the SMP behavior. In this work, a constitutive thermoviscoelastic model was developed to predict the thermomechanical behavior of semicrystalline SMP. The simulated results of the proposed model for a typical uniaxial deformation were compared with the case having no dissipation effect, also with experimental data. The accuracy improvements in the results of the stress–strain trends together with fixing ratio and recovery ratio obtained from the modified model were significant. The results were in good agreement with the experimental data. The modified model revealed a real and more accurate trend by considering viscous dissipation.     

Towards a self-adaptive service-oriented methodology based on extended SOMA

We propose a self-adaptive process (SAP) that maintains the software architecture quality using the MAPE-K standard model. The proposed process can be plugged into various software development processe...     

Development of a Green Chromatographic Method for Simultaneous Determination of Food Colorants

A green chromatographic method for the successful separation and determination of eight synthetic food colorants (Tartrazine E 102, Quinoline Yellow E 104, Sunset Yellow E 110, Carmoisine E 122, Ponceau 4R E 124, Allura Red E 129, Indigo Carmine E 132 and Brilliant Blue E 133) was developed. A C8 stationary phase was used and the mobile phase was a mixture of 50 mM phosphate buffer at pH 7 containing triton X-100 (0.25% v/v). The method was validated as regards its selectivity, linearity, precision, accuracy, limit of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ). LOD of colorants varied between 0.17 μg mL⁻¹ in Allura Red and 1.91 μg mL⁻¹ in Quinoline Yellow. In the case of LOQ, it was ranged from 0.52 in the Allura Red to 5.79 in the Quinoline Yellow. The method applicability was verified by the determination of colorants present in 22 samples. The 15 samples were only unicolor and the color concentration in these samples varied from 18.426 ± 0.100 to 610.390 ± 4.711 ppm. The method can be used successfully to the determination of binary and ternary color food and drug samples too. This method provides substantial green benefits without using organic solvents in extraction procedure and in both liquid and paper chromatographic methods.     

A new surrogate placement algorithm for cloud-based content delivery networks

Cloud-based content delivery networks (CCDNs) have been developed as the next generation of content delivery networks (CDNs). In CCDNs, the cloud contributes to the cost-effective, pay-as-you-go model, and virtualization and the traditional CDNs contribute to content replications. Delivering infrastructure as a service in a networked cloud computing environment requires mapping virtual resources to physical resources, as well as traditional surrogate placement. In this paper, we develop a novel algorithm for virtual surrogate placement that combines multiple knapsack and competitive facility location problems. Moreover, we provide new formulations and theories for this problem. Finally, we compare our algorithm with the previous heuristics. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves significantly better results in terms of a decreased number of surrogate servers, decreased total path length between end users and surrogate servers, decreased average workload variance and CCDN deployment cost.