Aqueous extracts of Agave sisalana boles have prebiotic potential

Abstract

This work aimed at evaluating the prebiotic potential of the aqueous extract and crude polysaccharides from Agave sisalana boles by an in vitro screening. Crude polysaccharides were obtained from the aqueous bole extract by precipitation with acetone and resuspension in water. The liquid extract and the polysaccharide solution were then spray dried and submitted to thermal analysis and quantification of metabolites. Prebiotic activity was checked on probiotic strains belonging to the Lactobacillus genus using inulin, fructo-oligosaccharides, fructose and glucose as positive controls. The powder of A. sisalana bole extract, which has recently been identified as a rich source of inulin, exhibited higher potential of fermentation compared with crude polysaccharides.     

Development of Phenothiazine Hybrids with Potential Medicinal Interest: A Review

The molecular hybridization approach has been used to develop compounds with improved efficacy by combining two or more pharmacophores of bioactive scaffolds. In this context, hybridization of various relevant pharmacophores with phenothiazine derivatives has resulted in pertinent compounds with diverse biological activities, interacting with specific or multiple targets. In fact, the development of new drugs or drug candidates based on phenothiazine system has been a promising approach due to the diverse activities associated with this tricyclic system, traditionally present in compounds with antipsychotic, antihistaminic and antimuscarinic effects. Actually, the pharmacological actions of phenothiazine hybrids include promising antibacterial, antifungal, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antimalarial, analgesic and multi-drug resistance reversal properties. The present review summarizes the progress in the development of phenothiazine hybrids and their biological activity.     

Development of Disposable Carbon Nanofibers Electrodes Supported on Filters

The purpose of this work is to develop simple and reproducible ways to fabricate carbon nanofibers (CNFs) electrodes. Disposable CNFs electrodes were fabricated after filtering CNFs through polytetrafluoroethylene filters (PTFE), using directly as electrodes these filters with the CNFs film. The electrochemical behaviour of CNFs/PTFE electrodes were tested with ferrocenemethanol and tris(2,2′‐bypyridyl)dichlororuthenium(II) (Ru(bipy)₃²⁺). As a proof of concept of the analytical usefulness of the CNFs/PFTE electrodes, the study of vitamin B₁₂ was carried out. Multivariate calibrate has been successfully used to determine vitamin B₁₂ in a complex medium with vitamins B₁ and B₆ as interferents.     

Novel bis-betaines and betaines within [1(4)]meta-heterophane frameworks

After prior selection of betaine building blocks for the construction of quadrupolar heterophane frameworks, a convergent "3+1" synthetic strategy is reported for the synthesis of the title macrocycles composed of heterocyclic betaine subunit(s). These typify the first example of simple cyclophanes constructed out of both highly pi-excessive and highly pi-deficient heteroaromatic moieties linked in a 1,3-alternating fashion. The chemical reactivity of the quadrupolar heterophanes 1a and 1c toward electrophiles under neutral conditions corroborated their bis-betaine structure. The structural features of the bis-betaines 1, betaines 2 x PF6 and 5 x X, and the corresponding dicationic [1(4)]heterophanes 3 x 2X and 4 x 2Cl were studied by 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, and confirmed by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis of macrocycles 1a and 2a x PF6.     

Rheological properties of paraffin suspensions of surface-modified alumina powder for low-pressure injection moulding

Due to the hygroscopic nature of fine alumina powders, the presence of water may have a detrimental effect on the rheological properties of a suspension in melted paraffin for low-pressure injection moulding (LPIM). For this reason, a modification of the powder surface from hydrophilic to hydrophobic is essential for the production of high-quality moulded ceramics. In our paper, the efficiency of the application and the chemisorption of protective monomolecular layers of a long-chain carboxylic acid or its salts will be presented. The effect of the powder treatment on the shear viscosity and the viscoelastic properties of the suspensions for LPIM as well as on their stability in terms of the detrimental effect of water will be discussed.This paper was presented at the first Annual European Rheology Conference (AERC) held in Guimarães, Portugal, September 11-13, 2003.     

A new concept in lightning parameters measurement

Nowadays the electrical activity measured in tall objects has been widely characterized, but the collected data of lightning rods installed in buildings do not amount to enough to obtain reliable statistics. The measures stored at relatively few points are not representative of the different types of installations. Furthermore, the protection model applied for lightning air terminal installations is based on theoretical models. This paper describes the design of a micro-station to measure some lightning parameters in real lightning air terminal installations correlated to the nature of emplacement instead of triggering lightning or choosing points with a high number of lightning impacts.     

Boundary value problems on weighted networks

We present here a systematic study of general boundary value problems on weighted networks that includes the variational formulation of such problems. In particular, we obtain the discrete version of the Dirichlet Principle and we apply it to the analysis of the inverse problem of identifying the conductivities of the network in a very general framework. Our approach is based on the development of an efficient vector calculus on weighted networks which mimetizes the calculus in the smooth case. The key tool is an adequate construction of the tangent space at each vertex. This allows us to consider discrete vector fields, inner products and general metrics. Then, we obtain discrete versions of derivative, gradient, divergence and Laplace-Beltrami operators, satisfying analogous properties to those verified by their continuous counterparts. On the other hand we develop the corresponding integral calculus that includes the discrete versions of the Integration by Parts technique and Green’s Identities. Finally, we apply our discrete vector calculus to analyze the consistency of difference schemes used to solve numerically a Robin boundary value problem in a square.     

QUENCHING OF PYRENE FLUORESCENCE BY TRYPTOPHAN IN MICELLAR SOLUTIONS

Deactivation of excited pyrene incorporated to cationic (cetyltrimethylammonium chloride), anionic (sodium dodecyl sulfate) and neutral (Triton X-100) micelles by tryptophan has been investigated over a wide pH range. Data obtained allow an estimation of the tryptophan association to the micelles, of the tryptophan apparent p K in the micellar solutions, and of the dynamics of tryptophan incorporation to the micellar pseudophase. In particular, the data obtained at pH 7 allow an estimation of the effect of the micellar charge upon the binding capacity of the tryptophan zwitterion.     

Efficient and reliable mixture critical points calculation by global optimization

Multicomponent systems may exhibit several critical points or no critical point at all. Local methods can find only one critical point for a given initial guess. Recently, several global methods have been proposed for finding all the solutions of the problem. In the present work, we propose a gradient-based calculation method using global optimization, with temperature and molar volume as primary variables, and with analytical partial derivatives calculated from a two-parameter cubic equation of state. The Tunneling global optimization method is used for finding all the global minima. The implementation is based on a unique feature of the Tunneling method, which is able to find efficiently and reliably multiple minima at the same level. Several mixtures from binaries to petroleum reservoir fluids are used to test the proposed method. Numerical experiments proved the efficiency and reliability of the Tunneling method for finding all mixture critical points.