Synthesis of Citric Acrylate Oligomer and Its In-Situ Reaction with Chrome Tanned Collagen (Hide Powder)

Summary: The purpose of this study was to formulate the new combined system of acrylic and citric acids, which was prepared by free radical polymerization and esterification reaction at the same time to form citric-acrylate CAC oligomer. The presumable chemical structure of this oligomer and the reaction mechanism were investigated by different spectroscopic tools (¹H,¹³C-NMR and ATR-IR), GPC and TGA/DTA. The effect as masking agent of the eco-friendly oligomer (CAC) in the chrome tanning of the collagen and the pickling of the hide was approached by the study of the hydrothermal and mechanical properties of in-situ treated/grafted chrome tanned collagen (hide powder) and pickled hide, respectively. The use of citric acrylate CAC oligomer instead of the traditional strong acids resulted in significant improvement in chrome exhaustion and physical properties of the leather.     

Dynamic response of rocking cracked masonry walls

The behaviour of masonry constructions results to be very far from the one characterizing ductile structures. In masonry constructions, the seismic action activates a rocking motion rather than a dissipating mechanism. A strength resource of masonry structures, properly reinforced in order to avoid early local failures, consists in exhibiting rocking behaviour, until a failure condition is attained. Aim of the paper is to investigate the dynamic behaviour of masonry single storey walls, according to Housner’s studies and innovatively introducing the effect of diagonal cracks developing from the toes of the piers and shown by typical post-earthquake cracking patterns. The proposed procedure can be easily applied to the case of multi-storey regular masonry walls with openings representing the main resistant structural components of a masonry building. Starting from the evaluation of the incipient rocking acceleration of the system, the free and forced motions of the wall are examined. In the paper, according to the classical Housner’s approach, the energy dissipation occurring during the impact is modelled. Finally, a numerical application, considering a simple constant horizontal acceleration impulse of given duration has been carried out.

     

The Multifunctional Role of Herbal Products in the Management of Diabetes and Obesity: A Comprehensive Review

Obesity and diabetes are the most demanding health problems today, and their prevalence, as well as comorbidities, is on the rise all over the world. As time goes on, both are becoming big issues that have a big impact on people’s lives. Diabetes is a metabolic and endocrine illness set apart by hyperglycemia and glucose narrow-mindedness because of insulin opposition. Heftiness is a typical, complex, and developing overall wellbeing worry that has for quite some time been connected to significant medical issues in individuals, all things considered. Because of the wide variety and low adverse effects, herbal products are an important hotspot for drug development. Synthetic compounds are not structurally diverse and lack drug-likeness properties. Thus, it is basic to keep on exploring herbal products as possible wellsprings of novel drugs. We conducted this review of the literature by searching Scopus, Science Direct, Elsevier, PubMed, and Web of Science databases. From 1990 until October 2021, research reports, review articles, and original research articles in English are presented. It provides top to bottom data and an examination of plant-inferred compounds that might be utilized against heftiness or potentially hostile to diabetes treatments. Our expanded comprehension of the systems of activity of phytogenic compounds, as an extra examination, could prompt the advancement of remedial methodologies for metabolic diseases. In clinical trials, a huge number of these food kinds or restorative plants, as well as their bioactive compounds, have been shown to be beneficial in the treatment of obesity.     

Biotechnological Innovations from Ocean: Transpiring Role of Marine Drugs in Management of Chronic Disorders

Marine drugs are abundant in number, comprise of a diverse range of structures with corresponding mechanisms of action, and hold promise for the discovery of new and better treatment approaches for the management of several chronic diseases. There are huge reserves of natural marine biological compounds, as 70 percent of the Earth is covered with oceans, indicating a diversity of chemical entities on the planet. The marine ecosystems are a rich source of bioactive products and have been explored for lead drug molecules that have proven to be novel therapeutic targets. Over the last 70 years, many structurally diverse drug products and their secondary metabolites have been isolated from marine sources. The drugs obtained from marine sources have displayed an exceptional potential in the management of a wide array of diseases, ranging from acute to chronic conditions. A beneficial role of marine drugs in human health has been recently proposed. The current review highlights various marine drugs and their compounds and role in the management of chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, and cardiovascular disorders, which has led to the development of new drug treatment approaches.     

The Use of Constituent Spectra and Weighting in Extended Multiplicative Signal Correction in Infrared Spectroscopy

Extended multiplicative signal correction (EMSC) is a widely used preprocessing technique in infrared spectroscopy. EMSC is a model-based method favored for its flexibility and versatility. The model can be extended by adding constituent spectra to explicitly model-known analytes or interferents. This paper addresses the use of constituent spectra and demonstrates common pitfalls. It clarifies the difference between analyte and interferent spectra, and the importance of orthogonality between model spectra. Different normalization approaches are discussed, and the importance of weighting in the EMSC is demonstrated. The paper illustrates how constituent analyte spectra can be estimated, and how they can be used to extract additional information from spectral features. It is shown that the EMSC parameters can be used in both regression tasks and segmentation tasks.     

Analysis of Fatty Acids,Amino Acids and Volatile Profile of Apple By-Products by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Apple industrial by-products are a promising source of bioactive compounds with direct implications on human health. The main goal of the present work was to characterize the Jonathan and Golden Delicious by-products from their fatty acid, amino acid, and volatile aroma compounds’ point of view. GC-MS (gas chromatography-mass spectrometry) and ITEX/GC-MS methods were used for the by-products characterization. Linoleic and oleic were the main fatty acids identified in all samples, while palmitic and stearic acid were the representant of saturated ones. With respect to amino acids, from the essential group, isoleucine was the majority compound identified in JS (Jonathan skin) and GS (Golden skin) samples, lysine was the representant of JP (Jonathan pomace), and valine was mainly identified in GP (Golden pomace). A total number of 47 aroma volatile compounds were quantified in all samples, from which the esters groups ranged from 41.55–53.29%, aldehydes 29.75–43.99%, alcohols from 4.15 to 6.37%, ketones 4.14–5.72%, and the terpenes and terpenoids group reached values between 2.27% and 4.61%. Moreover, the by-products were valorized in biscuits manufacturing, highlighting their importance in enhancing the volatile aroma compounds, color, and sensorial analysis of the final baked goods.     

Ferroptosis: A New Road towards Cancer Management

Ferroptosis is a recently described programmed cell death mechanism that is characterized by the buildup of iron (Fe)-dependent lipid peroxides in cells and is morphologically, biochemically, and genetically distinct from other forms of cell death, having emerged to play an important role in cancer biology. Ferroptosis has significant importance during cancer treatment because of the combination of factors, including suppression of the glutathione peroxidase 4 (Gpx4), cysteine deficiency, and arachidonoyl (AA) peroxidation, which cause cells to undergo ferroptosis. However, the physiological significance of ferroptosis throughout development is still not fully understood. This current review is focused on the factors and molecular mechanisms with the diagrammatic illustrations of ferroptosis that have a role in the initiation and sensitivity of ferroptosis in various malignancies. This knowledge will open a new road for research in oncology and cancer management.     

Analysis of complex mixtures by capillary gas chromatography with statistical estimation of the number of components

Evaluation of the number of components by the Davis-Giddings single chromatogram method is applied to capillary gas chromatograms of a dichloromethane extract of camomile. Various runs with OV-1 or Carbowax 20M as the stationary phase were done under different experimental conditions (column temperature programming rate and column length). The results showed that the number of components obtained by this statistical procedure does not depend greatly on the nature of the stationary phase or on the experimental conditions. The component number of the camomile extract was about 200 and the stand-alone probability at unit resolution was 0.2–0.3.     

Sodium citrate as an eco-friendly complexing agent for the bioscouring treatment of the cellulosic/lignocellulosic fabrics

A 50% of cotton–50% of flax fabric was subjected to an enzymatic treatment (bioscouring) in ultrasound for removing the compounds which could negatively affect the further specific technological processes as whitening and dyeing. During the scouring process, some parameters of the fabrics are improved. Even EDTA is usually used as a chelating agent in the pretreatments of the fabrics, recent studies aimed to identify new biodegradable complexing agents. In this study, we present the results obtained for bioscouring treatment of the cellulosic/lignocellulosic fabrics in the presence of sodium citrate as a complexing agent. The treatments were made in 0.1 M phosphate buffer of pH 8 and ultrasound media. The samples were immersed in an aliquot containing the commercial pectinolytic product BEISOL PRO, Denimcol Wash-RGN as a surfactant and sodium citrate or EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid). The reactions were conducted by varying the enzyme concentration and action time using a central, rotatable second-order compound program. All the parameters determined after bioscouring [weight loss, hydrophilicity, whiteness index, yellowness index, tensile strength, elongation at break, the relative absorbance (A₁₇₃₁) from FT-IR spectra, color strength (K/S) and color difference (ΔE*ab)] of the investigated samples showed in the case of sodium citrate (an eco-friendly biodegradable compound) treatments better or comparable values to treatments conducted using EDTA (non-biodegradable compound).