Purification,structural data and biological properties of polysaccharide from Prunus amygdalus gum

This work demonstrates the efficiency of almond gum polysaccharides (AGPs) as bioactive compounds. AGPs were first extracted using H₂O₂, in the presence of NaOH, at different times and temperatures. The optimal extraction conditions were 4% H₂O₂ and 2 N NaOH, for 7 h at 50 °C, leading to an extraction yield of 58.2% (w/w). After a purification step, the retained AGPs were characterised using high‐performance liquid chromatography showing a molecular weight of 99.3 kDa. The monosaccharide composition of AGPs were assessed using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. AGPs were found to be a complex heteropolysaccharide with a repeating unit mainly composed of galactose, arabinose, xylose, mannose, rhamnose, and glucuronic acid with the respective ratios: 45:26:7:10:1:11. The acidic nature of the polysaccharide is due to the presence of glucuronic acid. Total antioxidant activity, free radical‐scavenging activity and reducing power assay of AGPs were investigated. The obtained results showed high antioxidant activities of AGPs. Furthermore, beyond 60 mg mL^?1, AGPs exhibited bacterial growth inhibition for five pathogenic strains: Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus feacalis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Salmonella typhimurium.     

Adhesion, growth and differentiation of human bone marrow stromal cells on non-porous calcium carbonate and plastic substrata: effects of dexamethasone and 1,25dihydroxyvitamin D3

Bone marrow contains stromal fibroblastic stem cells which have the potential to differentiate into bone-forming cells. Therefore addition of bone marrow to porous bone substitutes such as coral or coralline hydroxyapatite may be expected to enhance bone ingrowth into these implants. This study was designed to evaluate the possibility of growing human bone marrow stromal fibroblastic cells (HBMC) on a calcium carbonate substrate. For this purpose, HBMC were cultured for 20 days on plastic or calcium carbonate and cell adhesion, growth, and differentiation were studied. It was concluded that calcium carbonate is a highly compatible material for the growth of HBMC. Cells were capable of adhesion within 30 min and were spread within 24 h on this material. However, plating efficiency was decreased in comparison to plastic. Population doubling times (PDT) showed that they were similar when the cells were grown on plastic or calcium carbonate as substratum (PDT=4, 5.5 days). Early protein synthesis included collagen I, collagen III, osteopontin and bone sialoprotein. To induce differentiation of HBMC on plastic and calcium carbonate the influence of dexamethasone (Dex) and 1,25dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25(OH)₂D₃) on alkaline phosphatase (ALP) expression was studied. Basic ALP activity was similar when cells were grown on plastic or calcium carbonate. However, Dex and 1,25(OH)₂D₃ increased ALP activity of HBMC which could be driven best towards osteogenesis in the presence of Dex and 1,25(OH)₂D₃.     

Fast approximation algorithms to minimize a special weighted flow-time criterion on a single machine with a non-availability interval and release dates

This paper is the first attempt to successfully design efficient approximation algorithms for the single-machine weighted flow-time minimization problem when jobs have different release dates and weights equal to their processing times under the assumption that one job is fixed (i.e., the machine is unavailable during a fixed interval corresponding to the fixed job). Our work is motivated by an interesting algorithmic application to the generation of valid inequalities in a branch-and-cut method. Our analysis shows that the trivial FIFO sequence can lead to an arbitrary large worst-case performance bound. Hence, we modify this sequence so that a new 2-approximation solution can be obtained for every instance and we prove the tightness of this bound. Then, we propose a fully polynomial-time approximation algorithm with efficient running time for the considered problem. Especially, the complexity of our algorithm is strongly polynomial.     

Absolute Stability of Nonlinear Systems with Two Additive Time-varying Delay Components

In this paper, we present a new sufficient condition for absolute stability of Lure system with two additive time-varying delay components. This criterion is expressed as a set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), which can be readily tested by using standard numerical software. We use this new criterion to stabilize a class of nonlinear time-delay systems. Some numerical examples are given to illustrate the applicability of the results using standard numerical software.     

Absolute stability of nonlinear systems with two additive time-varying delay components

In this paper, we present a new sufficient condition for absolute stability of Lure system with two additive time-varying delay components. This criterion is expressed as a set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), which can be readily tested by using standard numerical software. We use this new criterion to stabilize a class of nonlinear time-delay systems. Some numerical examples are given to illustrate the applicability of the results using standard numerical software.     

Modeling heterogeneous photocatalytic inactivation of E. coli using suspended and immobilized TiO2 reactors

A study was carried out to develop a kinetic model of the photocatalytic inactivation of Escherichia coli using different TiO₂ catalysts. The model developed is based on a reaction scheme that involves effectively coupling mass‐transfer fluxes between bacteria and catalyst surface on one hand and bacterial degradation reaction on the other. The photocatalytic results were derived from experiments led in a batch reactor under both dark and Ultra Violet (UV) irradiation conditions. Using a reference catalyst, the robustness of the developed model was tested under solar conditions. The experimental data validated the model as successfully able to reproduce evolutions in the viable bacteria concentration in the range of parameters studied without any further adjustment of the kinetic parameters. The model was used to simulate the bacterial degradation kinetics under different working conditions to describe the partitioning of both bacterial adhesion and photocatalytic reaction in the solution to be treated © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 61: 2532–2542, 2015     

A comparative study of the removal of trivalent chromium from aqueous solutions by bentonite and expanded perlite

Local bentonite and expanded perlite (Morocco) have been characterised and used for the removal of trivalent chromium from aqueous solutions. The kinetic study had showed that the uptake of Cr(III) by bentonite is very rapid compared to expanded perlite. To calculate the sorption capacities of the two sorbents, at different pH, the experimental data points have been fitted to the Freundlich and Langmuir models, respectively, for bentonite and expanded perlite. For both sorbents the sorption capacity increases with increasing the pH of the suspensions. The removal efficiency has been calculated for both sorbents resulting that bentonite (96% of Cr(III) was removed) is more effective in removing trivalent chromium from aqueous solution than expanded perlite (40% of Cr(III) was removed). In the absence of Cr(III) ions, both bentonite and expanded perlite samples yield negative zeta potential in the pH range of 2-11. The changes of expanded perlite charge, from negative to positive, observed after contact with trivalent chromium(III) solutions was related to Cr(III) sorption on the surface of the solid. Thus, it was concluded that surface complexation plays an important role in the sorption of Cr(III) species on expanded perlite. In the case of bentonite, cation-exchange is the predominate mechanism for sorption of trivalent chromium ions, wherefore no net changes of zeta potential was observed after Cr(III) sorption. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements, at different pH values, were also made to corroborate the zeta potential results.