The important role of crystallinity and amylose ratio in thermal stability of starches

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - The thermal features of potato, banana, corn and cassava starches were correlated with structural properties. These starches were characterized by SEM,...     

Simultaneous determination of aluminoxamine and ferrioxamine in post-hemodialysis fluids by spectrophotometry and multivariate calibration

A spectrophotometric method for simultaneous determination of Al(III) and Fe(III) using the chelator Desferal® (desferrioxamine B) was developed. Partial least squares (PLS) regression was performed to resolve the overlapped signals obtained from Al(III) and Fe(III) complexes. The parameters controlling behavior of the system were investigated and optimum conditions were selected. PLS was the choice for the analysis of binary mixtures of Fe(III) and Al(III) over the range of 0.1 to 0.8 mg L^?1 by using the data of first derivative spectra. Absorbance data were taken between 200 and 600 nm. The calculated sensitivity values for the multivariate method were 4.88 and 5.64 for Al(III) and Fe(III), respectively. Multivariate detection limits were 0.075 and 0.064 mg L^?1 for Al(III) and Fe(III), respectively. The method was applied to real post-hemodialysis samples, and sample digestion by UV irradiation was discussed.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>-additive games: a class of totally balanced games arising from inventory situations with temporary discounts

We introduce a new class of totally balanced cooperative TU games, namely p-additive games. It is inspired by the class of inventory games that arises from inventory situations with temporary discounts (Toledo Ph.D. thesis, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche, 2002) and contains the class of inventory cost games (Meca et al. Math. Methods Oper. Res. 57:481–493, 2003). It is shown that every p-additive game and its corresponding subgames have a nonempty core. We also focus on studying the character of concave or convex and monotone p-additive games. In addition, the modified SOC-rule is proposed as a solution for p-additive games. This solution is suitable for p-additive games, since it is a core-allocation which can be reached through a population monotonic allocation scheme. Moreover, two characterizations of the modified SOC-rule are provided. This work was partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and Generalitat Valenciana (grants MTM2005-09184-C02-02, ACOMP06/040, CSD2006-00032). Authors acknowledge valuable comments made by the Editor and the referee.     

The two-echelon production-routing problem

This paper introduces the Two-Echelon Production-Routing Problem. This problem is motivated from the petrochemical industry, enlarging the supply chain integration by taking into account production, inventory, and routing decisions in a two-echelon vendor-managed inventory system. We describe, model, and design a branch-and-cut (B&C) to solve the problem under different inventory policies. We also propose a novel exact algorithm, by employing parallel computing techniques, in order to combine local search procedures within a traditional B&C scheme. We evaluate the performance of our methods through extensive computational experiments, both by comparing the algorithms, the effectiveness of the different inventory policies, and the impact of these policies on the partial costs. We derive many managerial insights based on the results. We also validate our new exact algorithm by solving similar problems from the literature, such as the two-echelon multi-depot inventory-routing (2E-MDIRP) and the classical multi-vehicle production-routing problem (MV-PRP). Computational experiments show that our method is very competitive. Based on 512 experiments for the 2E-MDIRP, our algorithm was able to find 111 new best known solutions (BKS), besides proving 412 optimal solutions, against 298 from the literature. For 336 experiments over small and medium size MV-PRP instances, we proved 242 optimal solutions, 11 more than the exact methods from the literature, besides providing 95 new BKS. Moreover, we were the first to tackle large MV-PRP instances exactly, and in this case, our algorithm provides all BKS for instances up to 50 customers, 20 periods and 5 vehicles, outperforming all meta/matheuristics procedures from the literature.     

Cannabidiol Discovery and Synthesis—a Target-Oriented Analysis in Drug Production Processes

The current state of evidence and recommendations for cannabidiol (CBD) and its health effects change the legal landscape and aim to destigmatize its phytotherapeutic research. Recently, some countries have included CBD as an antiepileptic product for compassionate use in children with refractory epilepsy. The growing demand for CBD has led to the need for high-purity cannabinoids on the emerging market. The discovery and development of approaches toward CBD synthesis have arisen from the successful extraction of Cannabis plants for cannabinoid fermentation in brewer's yeast. To understand different contributions to the design and enhancement of the synthesis of CBD and its key intermediates, a detailed analysis of the history behind cannabinoid compounds and their optimization is provided herein.