Microbiological safety of kinema, a fermented soya bean food

Kinema is a fermented soya bean food of Nepal and the hilly regions of North-eastern States of India. Generally, the fermentation is dominated by Bacillus spp. that often cause alkalinity and desirable stickiness in the product. The present study was undertaken in a limited number of commercial (market) kinema samples to test for the presence of foodborne pathogens and their properties. Bacillus cereus was present in numbers exceeding 10⁴ cfu/g product in five of the tested 15 market samples. Enterobacteriaceae and coliform bacteria exceeded 10⁵ cfu/g in 10 of the 15 samples. Escherichia coli exceeding 10⁵ cfu/g was found in two samples. Staphylococcus aureus was not detected in any of the tested samples. Of 31 isolated typical and atypical strains of B. cereus, 18 representative strains were tested qualitatively for the ability to produce diarrhoeal type enterotoxin (BCET) using an Oxoid BCET-RPLA test kit. Overall, BCET was formed by 12 strains in BHIG (brain heart infusion broth +1% glucose), by seven strains on sterilized cooked rice, and by five strains on sterilized cooked soya beans. Semi-quantitative tests on BCET revealed that levels exceeding 256 ng/g soya beans, produced by single pure culture inoculation with the isolated B. cereus strains, were reduced to ≤ 8 ng/g by frying kinema in oil, a common procedure when making kinema curry. It was also shown in a mixed pure culture experiment that a kinema strain B. Subtilis DK-W1, is able to suppress growth and BCET formation by a selected toxin producing strain (BC7-5) of B. cereus. It is concluded that the traditional way of making kinema and its culinary use in curries is safe. However, for novel applications of kinema, safety precautions are advisable.     

Virus load as a marker of disease progression in HIV-infected children

The relationship of virus load to clinical disease progression in HIV-infected children remains to be elucidated. In this study, HIV-1 proviral DNA load was determined in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) by the quantitative competitive DNA polymerase chain reaction assay (QC-PCR) in 47 HIV-infected children subdivided by age (group I, < or = 2 years; group II, > or = 5 years), who were further categorized to include 12 rapid progressors (RP, age < or = 2 years, Centers for Disease Control [CDC] defined clinical category C and/or immune category 3, or death before age 2 years) and slow progressors (SP, age > or = 5 years, excluding CDC categories C and/or immune category 3). Significantly higher mean proviral copies/10(3) PBMCs were detected in group I versus group II (75.4 +/- 104.3 and 13.0 +/- 17.8 respectively, p < 0.0001) and in RP (158.0 +/- 118.2) as compared to either SP (11.8 +/- 18.8, p < 0.0001) or other age-matched infected children (20.3 +/- 38.8, p < 0.0001). Thus HIV-infected children appear to have a higher cell-associated virus load early in life, especially in association with rapid disease progression.     

Au and Au-Ag bimetallic nanoparticles synthesized by using 12-3-12 cationic Gemini surfactant as template

A seed-growth method has been applied to synthesize gold (Au) and Au-silver (Ag) bimetallic nanoparticles (NP) by using 12-3-12, a cationic Gemini surfactant, as a capping agent as well as micellar template. A systematic increase in the [12-3-12] from pre- to post-micellar region (up to 5 times the critical micelle concentration, cmc) produces Au NP from spherical to large plate like structures. Keeping [12-3-12] constant (equal to 1 / 2 cmc) and increasing ascorbic acid (AA) concentration lead to the formation of core shell type Au-Ag bimetallic NP. At maximum AA concentration (i.e. [AA] = 5.6 mM), fused bimetallic Au-Ag NP are obtained. The anisotropic growth of such materials is a key factor for various applications in nanotechnology.     

Cationic surfactant-selective potentiometric sensors based on neutral ion-pair carrier complexes

Poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) membrane electrodes to determine monomer concentrations of tetradecyltrimethylammonium ion (TTA⁺) and hexadecylpyridinium ion (HPy⁺) based on neutral ion-pair carrier complexes of tetradecyltrimethylammonium dodecyl sulfate (TTA⁺-DS⁻) and hexadecylpyridinium dodecyl sulfate (HPy⁺-DS⁻), respectively, are reported here. The electrodes exhibit a Nernstian slope of 59 mV per decade for TTA⁺ and a sub-Nernstian slope of 34.5 mV per decade for HPy⁺ ions. The TTA⁺ ion-selective electrode (ISE) and the HPy⁺-ISE can determine the monomer units down to concentrations as low as 4.0×10⁻⁴M and 1.66×10⁻⁵ M, respectively. The effect of various additives, such as the anionic polyelectrolyte sodium dextran sulfate and macrocyclic β-cyclodextrin, on the surface activity exhibited by the cationic surfactants TTA⁺-DS⁻ and HPy⁺-DS⁻, in the presence of background concentrations of NaCl was also examined with surfactant-selective sensors. The Gibbs free energy of micelle formation (ΔG _m ) of both surfactants in the presence of various additives was calculated and found to be less favorable with respect to an increase in the amount of additives due to less availability of cationic surfactant monomer units. The ion-pair complexes TTA⁺-DS⁻ and HPy⁺-DS⁻ were found to behave as selective carrier compounds in PVC membranes in determining the concentration of monomer units of both TTA⁺ and HPy⁺, respectively. The proposed sensors worked well at a fairly acidic pH of 1–6.5 with response time of 60 s. The sensors responded well to the surfactant ions even in the presence of additives at lower concentration. The lifetime of the sensors is 3 mon.     

Improvement in galvannealed coating of IF-HS steel strips by combined GDOES and colour-etching method

Galvannealed coating of high strength interstitial free (IF-HS) steel was characterised by Glow Discharge Optical Emission Spectroscopy (GDOES) and colour-etching techniques. Overalloyed galvannealed coatings with considerably high amount of Γ and Γ1 phases were detected in the first set of experiments. Necessary process modifications in galvannealing furnace were made to maximise the ä phase in the galvannealed coating, which was confirmed through GDOES and colour-etching techniques. As a result, an improvement in galvannealed product quality with a better powdering resistance property during forming has been achieved.     

Grain growth in the two-phase Al-Cu alloys

Grain and phase growth in the two-phase Al-Cu alloys containing 6, 11, 1 7, 24 and 33 wt % Cu were investigated by annealing at 535 °C for 0.5–100 h. The grain and phase sizes of the phase are seen to be larger than that of the phase. The size of phase decreases whereas the size of phase increases with increasing copper content in the alloy. As such, the phase- and grain-size distributions are broader than the phase- and grain-size distributions, but the size range depends on annealing time and alloy composition. The grain sizes of the ,d , and ,d , phases can be related to the volume fraction of the phase,f , according to the equationd = 0.497d /f .     

Face expression recognition system based on ripplet transform type II and least square SVM

Multimedia Tools and Applications - This paper discusses the development of an efficient and automated system for the recognition of facial expressions, which is essentially an application...     

Poly(ethylene oxide)‐g‐gellan polysaccharide nanocarriers for controlled gastrointestinal delivery of simvastatin

Herein, a novel gellan polysaccharide‐based amphiphilic copolymer was synthesized for the development of simvastatin‐loaded micellar nanoparticles. The nanoparticles were explored for their controlled drug release and improved pharmacodynamic potentials. The copolymer was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and elemental analysis. The onset of copolymer micellization was detected by fluorescence spectroscopy. Simvastatin was loaded into micellar particles by solvent evaporation method and the particles were then characterized by microscopic and light scattering techniques. The physical state of drug was studied by X‐ray diffraction analysis. Pharmacodynamic assessment of the micellar preparations was done on rabbit models. The copolymer formed micellar nanoparticles in water. Critical micellar concentration was 9.12mg/l. The micellar particles (426.8–912.6nm) entrapped a maximum of 18.86% drug. Higher negative zeta potential indicated physical stability of micellar systems. A simple diffusion mechanism was operative in the event of comparatively faster drug release in pH6.8 phosphate buffer solution. No significant drug‐copolymer interaction was traced by FTIR spectroscopy. The amorphization of drug into micellar particles reduced LDL‐cholesterol level by ～45% in hyperlipidemic rabbits and this was about 2.5 times higher than pure drug dispersion. Copolymer micellar nanoparticles of simvastatin could control cholesterol level in hyperlipidemic rabbits and thus had potential in drug delivery applications. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42399.     

Hidden Relationships between N-Glycosylation and Disulfide Bonds in Individual Proteins

N-Glycosylation (NG) and disulfide bonds (DBs) are two prevalent co/post-translational modifications (PTMs) that are often conserved and coexist in membrane and secreted proteins involved in a large number of diseases. Both in the past and in recent times, the enzymes and chaperones regulating these PTMs have been constantly discovered to directly interact with each other or colocalize in the ER. However, beyond a few model proteins, how such cooperation affects N-glycan modification and disulfide bonding at selective sites in individual proteins is largely unknown. Here, we reviewed the literature to discover the current status in understanding the relationships between NG and DBs in individual proteins. Our results showed that more than 2700 human proteins carry both PTMs, and fewer than 2% of them have been investigated in the associations between NG and DBs. We summarized both these proteins with the reported relationships in the two PTMs and the tools used to discover the relationships. We hope that, by exposing this largely understudied field, more investigations can be encouraged to unveil the hidden relationships of NG and DBs in the majority of membranes and secreted proteins for pathophysiological understanding and biotherapeutic development.