Fermentation of Jamaican Cherries Juice Using Lactobacillus plantarum Elevates Antioxidant Potential and Inhibitory Activity against Type II Diabetes-Related Enzymes

Jamaican cherry (Muntinga calabura Linn.) is tropical tree that is known to produce edible fruit with high nutritional and antioxidant properties. However, its use as functional food is still limited. Previous studies suggest that fermentation with probiotic bacteria could enhance the functional properties of non-dairy products, such as juices. In this study, we analyze the metabolite composition and activity of Jamaican cherry juice following fermentation with Lactobacillus plantarum FNCC 0027 in various substrate compositions. The metabolite profile after fermentation was analyzed using UPLC-HRMS-MS and several bioactive compounds were detected in the substrate following fermentation, including gallic acid, dihydrokaempferol, and 5,7-dihydroxyflavone. We also found that total phenolic content, antioxidant activities, and inhibition of diabetic-related enzymes were enhanced after fermentation using L. plantarum. The significance of its elevation depends on the substrate composition. Overall, our findings suggest that fermentation with L. plantarum FNCC 0027 can improve the functional activities of Jamaican cherry juice.     

The influence of water molecule coordination to a metal ion on water hydrogen bonds

The geometry of hydrogen bonds in the crystal structures from the Cambridge Structural Database and calculated data show that water coordination to a metal ion has a remarkable influence on hydrogen bonds. The calculated energies of hydrogen bonds of coordinated water are much stronger, even if the aqua complex is neutral.     

Quantum collective field and 1N correction

The collective field method and the large-N limit are applied to go beyond the Hartree-Fock approximation. The correction to the ground-state energy is presented and explicit results are calculated for interacting oscillators and the Bose gas with the δ interaction.     

Determination of coupling constants from superconvergence sum rules in vector meson — Vector meson scattering

Dynamical relations between masses and coupling constants have been studied using the superconvergent sum rule technique in vector meson — vector meson scattering. Unessential complications due to the spin have been removed by defining a set of 25 KSF invariant amplitudes. Commonly accepted analyticity properties and asymptotics estimated arguing along the line of unitarity then lead to superconvergent sum rules for three amplitudes. Their saturation by one-intermediate-particle contributions in the processesωρ→ ωρ, ωB→ωB andωA ₁→ωA ₁ results in a system of nine coupled equations which have been approximately solved for coupling constants and aρ-ω-B- A ₁ mass sum rule.     

Uranium in ground water samples of Northern Greece

In this study, a gamma–gamma coincidence spectrometry was developed and examined for environmental low-level cosmogenic ²²Na monitoring purposes. The spectrometry consists of two bismuth germanate scintillators (BGO) and XIA LLC Digital Gamma Finder (DGF)/Pixie-4 software and card package. The developed spectrometry was optimized according to the considerations of output count rate and gamma peak energy resolution. This spectrometry provides a more sensitive and effective way to quantify even trace amounts of ²²Na with critical detection limit of 9 mBq. A sophisticated computer simulation was also created with the goal of obtaining a better understanding of the experimental results and gamma–gamma coincidence efficiencies at different sample geometries.     

Atmospheric deposition of trace elements in Greece using moss Hypnum cupressiforme Hedw. as biomonitors

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - Mosses have been used for monitoring trace elements airborne pollution due to their ability to accumulate elements directly from wet and dry...     

Bulk and shear mechanical loss of titania-doped tantala

We report on the mechanical loss from bulk and shear stresses in thin film, ion beam deposited, titania-doped tantala. The numerical values of these mechanical losses are necessary to fully calculate the Brownian thermal noise in precision optical cavities, including interferometric gravitational wave detectors like LIGO. We found the values from measuring the normal mode mechanical quality factors, Q's, in the frequency range of about 2000-10,000 Hz, of silica disks coated with titania-doped tantala coupled with calculating the elastic energy in shear and bulk stresses in the coating using a finite element model. We fit the results to both a frequency independent and frequency dependent model and find ${?}_{\mathrm{shear}}=(8.3\pm 1.1)\times {10}^{?4}$, ${?}_{\mathrm{bulk}}=(6.6\pm 3.8)\times {10}^{?4}$ with a frequency independent model and ${?}_{\mathrm{shear}}\left(f\right)=(5.0\pm 0.7)\times {10}^{?4}+(5.4\pm 1.1)\times {10}^{?8}f$, ${?}_{\mathrm{bulk}}\left(f\right)=(11\pm 2.8)\times {10}^{?4}?(8.7\pm 4.7)\times {10}^{?8}f$ with a frequency dependent (linear) model. The ratio of these values suggest that modest improvement in the coating thermal noise may be possible in future gravitational wave detector optics made with titania-doped tantala as the high index coating material by optimizing the coating design to take advantage of the two different mechanical loss angles.     

Reduced coupled flapping wing-fluid computational model with unsteady vortex wake

Insect flight research is propelled by their unmatched flight capabilities. However, complex underlying aerodynamic phenomena make computational modeling of insect-type flapping flight a challenging task, limiting our ability in understanding insect flight and producing aerial vehicles exploiting same aerodynamic phenomena. To this end, novel mid-fidelity approach to modeling insect-type flapping vehicles is proposed. The approach is computationally efficient enough to be used within optimal design and optimal control loops, while not requiring experimental data for fitting model parameters, as opposed to widely used quasi-steady aerodynamic models. The proposed algorithm is based on Helmholtz–Hodge decomposition of fluid velocity into curl-free and divergence-free parts. Curl-free flow is used to accurately model added inertia effects (in almost exact manner), while expressing system dynamics by using wing variables only, after employing symplectic reduction of the coupled wing-fluid system at zero level of vorticity (thus reducing out fluid variables in the process). To this end, all terms in the coupled body-fluid system equations of motion are taken into account, including often neglected terms related to the changing nature of the added inertia matrix (opposed to the constant nature of rigid body mass and inertia matrix). On the other hand—in order to model flapping wing system vorticity effects—divergence-free part of the flow is modeled by a wake of point vortices shed from both leading (characteristic for insect flight) and trailing wing edges. The approach is evaluated for a numerical case involving fruit fly hovering, while quasi-steady aerodynamic model is used as benchmark tool with experimentally validated parameters for the selected test case. The results indicate that the proposed approach is capable of mid-fidelity accurate calculation of aerodynamic loads on the insect-type flapping wings.