Fruits Vinegar: Quality Characteristics,Phytochemistry, and Functionality

The popularity of fruits vinegar (FsV) has been increased recently as a healthy drink wealthy in bioactive compounds that provide several beneficial properties. This review was designed in the frame of valorization of fruits vinegar as a by-product with high value added by providing overall information on its biochemical constituents and beneficial potencies. It contains a cocktail of bioactive ingredients including polyphenolic acids, organic acids, tetramethylperazine, and melanoidins. Acetic acid is the most abundant organic acid and chlorogenic acid is the major phenol in apple vinegar. The administration of fruits vinegar could prevent diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, oxidative stress, cancer, and boost immunity as well as provide a remarkable antioxidant ability. The production techniques influence the quality of vinegar, and consequently, its health benefits.     

On the numerical structure preservation of nonlinear damped stochastic oscillators

The paper is focused on analyzing the conservation issues of stochastic ??-methods when applied to nonlinear damped stochastic oscillators. In particular, we are interested in reproducing the long-term properties of the continuous problem over its discretization through stochastic ??-methods, by preserving the correlation matrix. This evidence is equivalent to accurately maintaining the stationary density of the position and the velocity of a particle driven by a nonlinear deterministic forcing term and an additive noise as a stochastic forcing term. The provided analysis relies on a linearization of the nonlinear problem, whose effectiveness is proved theoretically and numerically confirmed.

     

Effective Critical Micellar Concentration of a Zwitterionic Detergent: A Fluorimetric Study on <Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">n</Emphasis>-Dodecyl Phosphocholine

We have investigated the effect of ionic strength on the aggregation behavior of n-dodecyl phosphocholine. On the basis of the classical Corrin–Harkins relation, the critical micellar concentration of this detergent decreases with a biphasic trend on lithium chloride addition. It is nearly constant below 150 mM salt, with a mean value of 0.91 mM, whereas it undergoes a dramatic 80-fold decrease in 7 M LiCl. Such a drop in the critical micellar concentration could be explained by the effect of salting out and the implication of phosphocholine head groups on the organization of surrounding water. Knowledge of the effective critical micellar concentration of n-dodecyl phosphocholine could be useful in the purification of membrane proteins in non-denaturing conditions.     

Non-compensatory composite indicators for the evaluation of urban planning policy: The Land-Use Policy Efficiency Index (LUPEI)

In this research paper, we define and test an ELECTRE III-based approach to the construction of non-compensatory composite indicators; these indicators are used for the evaluation of environmental and social performances of urban and regional planning policies. We tested the methodology for the construction of the Land-Use Policy Efficiency Index (LUPEI) on the municipal scale applied to a sample of municipalities in the Apulia Region (Southern Italy). Based on the literature review concerning composite indicators, we found that linear aggregation rules are the most widely applied aggregation procedures for composite indicators. However, their applicability depends on a set of strong theoretical and operational conditions. If these conditions do not hold, then other aggregation and weighting procedures must be applied to construct the composite indicators. We tested the ELECTRE III via a fruitful interaction with three experts who were participating in a focus group. We found that composite indicators are powerful tools when it comes to the assessment of multidimensional planning issues. Since each sub-indicator provides different information and responds to different goals, rankings and assessment based on mono-indicator frameworks can lead to incomplete or even biased results that do not consider an integrated approach to land-use policy efficiency. Moreover, both experts and decision-makers appreciated the role of composite indicators in increasing knowledge and providing deeper insights into complex phenomena in the domains of urban and regional planning.     

Singular Hartree equation in fractional perturbed Sobolev spaces

We establish the local and global theory for the Cauchy problem of the singular Hartree equation in three dimensions, that is, the modification of the non-linear Schrödinger equation with Hartree non-linearity, where the linear part is now given by the Hamiltonian of point interaction. The latter is a singular, self-adjoint perturbation of the free Laplacian, modelling a contact interaction at a fixed point. The resulting non-linear equation is the typical effective equation for the dynamics of condensed Bose gases with fixed point-like impurities. We control the local solution theory in the perturbed Sobolev spaces of fractional order between the mass space and the operator domain. We then control the global solution theory both in the mass and in the energy space.     

Self-rewetting carbon nanofluid as working fluid for space and terrestrial heat pipes

Thermal management is very important in modern electronic systems. Recent researches have been dedicated to the study of the heat transfer performances of binary heat transfer fluids with peculiar surface tension properties and in particular to that of “self-rewetting fluids”, i.e., liquids with a surface tension increasing with temperature and concentration. Since in the course of liquid/vapor-phase change, self-rewetting fluids behavior induces a rather strong liquid inflow (caused by both temperature and concentration gradients) from the cold region (where liquid condensates) to the hot evaporator region, this fluids have been proposed and investigated as new heat transfer fluids for advanced heat transfer devices, e.g., heat pipes or heat spreaders for terrestrial and space applications (Savino et al. in Space Technol 25(1):59–61, 2009). The present work is dedicated to the study of the thermophysical properties of a new class of heat transfer fluids based on water/alcohol solutions with suspended carbon nanostructures, in particular single-wall carbon nanohorns (SWNH), synthesized by a homemade apparatus with an AC arc discharge in open air (Mirabile Gattia et al. in Nanotechnology 18:255604, 2007). SWNHs are cone-shaped nanoparticles with diameters between 1 and 5 nm and lengths in the range of 20–100 nm. SWNHs could be found in the form of quite-spherical aggregates with diameters ranging from 20 to 100 nm. The paper also discusses the results of these investigations and laboratory characterization tests of different heat pipes, including reference ordinary heat pipes and innovative pipes filled with self-rewetting fluids and self-rewetting nanofluids. The potential interest of the proposed studies stems from the large number of possible industrial applications, including space technologies and terrestrial applications, such as cooling of electronic components.     

Computation of many-center exchange integrals over Slater orbitals up to 4d by means of optimized Gaussian expansions

The previously described optimization of small Gaussian expansions, to be employed for the computation of many-center two-electron integrals over Slater basis sets, has been extended, with some refinements, up 4d orbitals. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

RESOLUTION OF OVERLAPPING BANDS IN THE NEAR-UV ABSORPTION SPECTRUM OF INDOLE DERIVATIVES

Abstract— The second derivative spectra of tryptophan in water and in ethylene glycol at 22°C have been integrated in order to obtain the corresponding primitive functions. The integration was carried out by making use of Tchebychev polynomials. The results show that the integrated primitive functions do not correspond to the original absorption spectra of tryptophan in various solvents, but they reflect only the contributions of the ¹L_b bands of the indolic chromophore. The identification of the electronic component, which generates the second derivative spectrum, was based on the solvent insensitivity of the derivative peaks. The comparison between the absorption spectra reported in this paper and those calculated for the ¹L_b←¹A electronic transition of indole confirmed the assumption that the derivation process eliminates the broad, although more intense, contributions coming from the ¹L_a←¹A electronic transition.     

Approximate calculation of the matrix elements of Coulomb and exchange operators for the “core” electrons of the atoms Ga through Kr

A method which allows to approximate the Coulomb and exchange integrals employed in valence-electron-only SCF calculations with a few parameters, as described in previous papers, is extended to the atoms from Ga to Kr. All the necessary parameters for these atoms are given. Extension to other atoms is in progress.     

Approximate calculation of the matrix elements of Coulomb and exchange operators for the “core” electrons of the atoms Rb through Cd

Following a previously described method which approximates the Coulomb and exchange integrals in valence-electron-only SCF calculations, the necessary parameters for the atoms from Rb to Cd are reported. Extension to other atoms is in progress.