The Chemical Composition of Oils and Cakes of Ochna serrulata (Ochnaceae) and Other Underutilized Traditional Oil Trees from Western Zambia

Currently, the negative effects of unified and intensive agriculture are of growing concern. To mitigate them, the possibilities of using local but nowadays underused crop for food production should be more thoroughly investigated and promoted. The soybean is the major crop cultivated for vegetable oil production in Zambia, while the oil production from local oil-bearing plants is neglected. The chemical composition of oils and cakes of a three traditional oil plant used by descendants of the Lozi people for cooking were investigated. Parinari curatellifolia and Schinziophyton rautanenii oils were chiefly composed of α-eleostearic (28.58–55.96%), linoleic (9.78–40.18%), and oleic acid (15.26–24.07%), whereas Ochna serrulata contained mainly palmitic (35.62–37.31%), oleic (37.31–46.80%), and linoleic acid (10.61–18.66%); the oil yield was high (39–71%). S. rautanenii and O. serrulata oils were rich in γ-tocopherol (3236.18 μg/g, 361.11 μg/g, respectively). The O. serrulata oil also had a very distinctive aroma predominantly composed of p-cymene (52.26%), m-xylene (9.63%), γ-terpinene (9.07%), o-xylene (7.97), and limonene (7.23%). The cakes remaining after oil extraction are a good source of essential minerals, being rich in N, P, S, K, Ca, and Mg. These plants have the potential to be introduced for use in the food, technical, or pharmaceutical industries.     

On Vector Integral Inequalities

The first author introduced an integration theory of vector functions with respect to an operator-valued measure in complete bornological locally convex vector spaces. In this paper some important results behind this Dobrakov-type integration technique in non-metrizable spaces are given. Received: December 10, 2007., Accepted: May 6, 2008.     

Direct sulfenylation of acetone with benzothiazolesulfenamides to benzothiazolylthio-substituted alkylaminopropene: synthesis and application

N-Substituted derivatives of 2-benzothiazolesulfenamides give high yields of 1-(2′-benzothiazolylthio)-2-alkylaminoprop-1-ene and 1,1-bis-(2′-benzothiazolylthio)-2-alkylaminoprop-1-ene in a reaction with acetone in the temperature range from 56°C to 70°C and in the presence of a small amount of water. The α-sulfenylated carbonyl product, 2′-benzothiazolylthiopropan-2-one, is supposed to be an intermediate of this one-pot synthesis. 1,1-Bis-(2′-benzothiazolylthio)-2-tert-butylaminoprop-1-ene has been proved an accelerator of sulfur curing of rubber composites with high processing safety.     

Dual-pump coherent anti-Stokes-Raman scattering microscopy

We introduce dual-pump coherent anti-Stokes-Raman scattering (dual-CARS) microscopy. This new technique permits simultaneous imaging of two species characterized by different molecular vibrations, as well as the removal of nonresonant background. This is achieved by using three synchronized laser pulses probing two different vibrations. We demonstrate the virtues of the method by imaging a mixture of nondeuterated and deuterated lipids, clearly distinguishing the individual components and their organization in the mixed arrangement. Further, dual-CARS images of lipid stores in living Caenorhabditis elegans nematodes show that the suppression of the nonresonant background results in significantly enhanced image contrast.     

On convergences of measurable functions in Archimedean vector lattices

For Archimedean vector lattices X, Y and the positive cone \mathbbL{\mathbb{L}} of all regular linear operators L : X → Y, a theory of sequential convergences of functions connected with an \mathbbL{\mathbb{L}} -valued measure is introduced and investigated.     

Verification of cheeses authenticity by mass spectrometry

Cheeses are a group of fermented dairy products that are produced all over the world in various forms and flavours. Milk, especially sheep or goat milk, is still regarded as an expensive raw material in the world, which makes milk and milk products highly attractive as a fraud target. Most often, such fraud includes partial or complete substitution with cheaper sorts of milk (e.g. bovine milk). The aim of this work was to verify the authenticity of 27 cheeses commonly emerging on the Czech food market. The cheeses were distinguished on the basis of milk animal species origin. For this purpose, two mass spectrometry techniques were used: matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization with time of flight mass spectrometry together with principal component analysis method and liquid chromatography coupled with electrospray ionization and quadrupole time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry. The results were a partial success, because the cheeses could only be partially distinguished with the first mass spectrometry technique probably because of the influence of some protein additive materials in cheeses. The second technique allowed for collecting higher quality results and thus appears to be highly suitable for the research task.     

Existence of global mild and strong solutions to stochastic hyperbolic evolution equations driven by a spatially homogeneous Wiener process

Semilinear second order stochastic hyperbolic equations driven by a spatially homogeneous Wiener process are studied. Sufficient conditions in terms of Lyapunov functions for the equation to have global mild or strong solutions are found. In particular, the results apply to equations with polynomial drift and diffusion coefficients.     

Dimension zero vs measure zero

The following problem is discussed: If is a topological space of universal measure zero, does it have also dimension zero? It is shown that in a model of set theory it is so for separable metric spaces and that under the Martin's Axiom there are separable metric spaces of positive dimension yet of universal measure zero. It is also shown that for each finite measure in a metric space there is a zero-dimensional subspace that has full measure. Similar questions concerning perfectly meager sets and other types of small sets are also discussed.

     

Controllable Growth of Perovskite Films by Room‐Temperature Air Exposure for Efficient Planar Heterojunction Photovoltaic Cells

A two‐step solution processing approach has been established to grow void‐free perovskite films for low‐cost high‐performance planar heterojunction photovoltaic devices. A high‐temperature thermal annealing treatment was applied to drive the diffusion of CH₃NH₃I precursor molecules into a compact PbI₂ layer to form perovskite films. However, thermal annealing for extended periods led to degraded device performance owing to the defects generated by decomposition of perovskite into PbI₂. A controllable layer‐by‐layer spin‐coating method was used to grow “bilayer” CH₃NH₃I/PbI₂ films, and then drive the interdiffusion between PbI₂ and CH₃NH₃I layers by a simple air exposure at room temperature for making well‐oriented, highly crystalline perovskite films without thermal annealing. This high degree of crystallinity resulted in a carrier diffusion length of ca. 800 nm and a high device efficiency of 15.6 %, which is comparable to values reported for thermally annealed perovskite films.     

Assessment of single extractions for the determination of mobile forms of metals in highly polluted soils and sediments--analytical and thermodynamic approaches

Highly polluted forest/tilled soils and stream sediments from a mining and smelting area were subjected to single-extraction procedures to determine the extractable contents of Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn. The results obtained from four widely used operationally defined single extraction tests were compared: deionised water, 0.01 mol L⁻¹ CaCl₂, 1 mol L⁻¹ NH₄NO₃ and 0.005 mol L⁻¹ DTPA. The analytical data were coupled with measurement of the pH and Eh in extracts, mineralogical investigations and thermodynamic modelling using the PHREEQC-2 code. The changes in the pH of the equilibrated suspensions significantly influenced the metal extractabilities, with higher values in the lower pH regions. Although the DTPA procedure generally extracted the highest amounts of metals, it was found to be unsuitable for highly organic acidic forest soils, where anionic metal-DTPA complexes are assumed to be re-adsorbed on the positively charged surfaces of soil organic matter and oxides. The NH₄NO₃ extraction was also unsuitable due to the high ionic strength (1 mol L⁻¹), limiting the use of the thermodynamic speciation model and the formation of the Cu(NH₃)²⁺ complex, leading to acidification of the suspension. 0.01 mol L⁻¹ CaCl₂ can be proposed as the most appropriate extraction medium, suitable for speciation modelling and analytical determinations using ICP-techniques and having an ionic strength similar to that of the soil solution. The metals are present in free ionic forms or chlorocomplexes in the CaCl₂ extracts, preventing their re-adsorption on the positively charged surfaces of soil solids (organic matter, Fe- and Mn-oxides) in acidic and circum-neutral conditions.