Applications of Fruit Polyphenols and Their Functionalized Nanoparticles Against Foodborne Bacteria: A Mini Review

The ingestion of contaminated water and food is known to cause food illness. Moreover, on assessing the patients suffering from foodborne disease has revealed the role of microbes in such diseases. Concerning which different methods have been developed for protecting food from microbes, the treatment of food with chemicals has been reported to exhibit an unwanted organoleptic effect while also affecting the nutritional value of food. Owing to these challenges, the demand for natural food preservatives has substantially increased. Therefore, the interest of researchers and food industries has shifted towards fruit polyphenols as potent inhibitors of foodborne bacteria. Recently, numerous fruit polyphenols have been acclaimed for their ability to avert toxin production and biofilm formation. Furthermore, various studies have recommended using fruit polyphenols solely or in combination with chemical disinfectants and food preservatives. Currently, different nanoparticles have been synthesized using fruit polyphenols to curb the growth of pathogenic microbes. Hence, this review intends to summarize the current knowledge about fruit polyphenols as antibacterial agents against foodborne pathogens. Additionally, the application of different fruit extracts in synthesizing functionalized nanoparticles has also been discussed.     

Remote sample characterization based on fluorescence monitoring

The possibilities and limitations of remote sample characterization using induced fluorescence are discussed. General equations for remote sensing of fluorescence are presented and discussed. The implications of different elements of a system for remote fluorescence sensing on different parameters of the equations are treated. Background light influence and signal processing are considered. Pulsed lasers, flashlamps and cw lamps as excitation sources are compared when matched to the proper detection scheme employing boxcar integration or lock-in detection. Model experiments have been performed to demonstrate different measurement strategies. Examples from remote oil-slick characterization are chosen as illustrations.     

Acetone,butanone, pentanone,hexanone and heptanone in the headspace of aqueous solution and urine studied by selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry

Urine is commonly analysed in clinical practice by a variety of liquid‐phase techniques to check for excessive ketone bodies, proteins and salts to name just a few compounds. However, little work has been carried out to measure the volatile compounds emitted by urine since these do not yet have an established role in clinical diagnosis. There is, however, a growing body of evidence that these volatile compounds can be indicators of adverse physiological conditions and disease and with the advent of sensitive gas‐phase analytical methods they can be quickly quantified in urine headspace and potentially provide valuable support for clinical diagnosis. Thus, we are developing selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry, SIFT‐MS, for the real‐time analysis of urine headspace, ultimately to support rapid diagnosis in the clinical environment. In this paper we focus on volatile ketones in the headspace of aqueous solutions and urine donated by three healthy volunteers. Using SIFT‐MS, we have unambiguously quantified in urine headspace acetone, by far the most abundant ketone, butanone, pentanone, hexanone and heptanone using NO⁺ precursor ions. Further to this, we have determined the Henry's Law coefficients, HLC, for these ketones in aqueous solution to allow the liquid‐phase concentrations in urine to be estimated from headspace levels of their vapours. In addition, the influence of the addition of physiological amounts of dissolved urea, sodium chloride and hydrochloric acid on the partitioning of these ketones between the aqueous phase and gas phase has been investigated and found to be small, which gives greater credence to the use of the HLC obtained using aqueous solutions for the estimation of ketone concentrations in urine. Finally, parallel measurements of the levels of acetone in exhaled breath and urine headspace have been obtained and shown to be very similar, which gives support to the previous deduction from breath analysis that acetone is a truly systemic compound. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coherence effects in deep inelastic scattering

A superfield action for the relativistic massless superparticle as a spinning particle is presented in the new gauge. The symmetries in the relativistic superparticle theory, that is to say, the invariances under, the reparametrization and the local supersymmetry-transformation in the parameter space, are manifest in this formalism. It is clear how these two kinds of transformations descend from a unified origin to be called “super-reparametrization”, which is a restricted form of the general coordinate transformation in the superspace. The action is manifestly invariant under these transformation by its constructions The minimal coupling with electromagnetic field is also constructed in the superfield formalism, and a manifestly invariant superfield action for the interacting superparticle is presented in our gauge. The formalism is extended to the construction of an action for theN=2 superparticle.     

A new material for hydrogen storage; ScAl0.8Mg0.2

A novel aluminium rich alloy for hydrogen storage has been discovered, ScAl_0.8Mg_0.2, which has very promising properties regarding hydrogen storage capacity, kinetics and stability towards air oxidation in comparison to hydrogen absorption in state-of-the-art intermetallic compounds. The absorption of hydrogen was found to be very fast, even without adding any catalyst, and reversible. The discovered alloy crystallizes in a CsCl-type structure, but decomposes to ScH₂ and Al(Mg) during hydrogen absorption. Detailed analysis of the hydrogen absorption in ScAl_0.8Mg_0.2 has been performed using in situ synchrotron radiation powder X-ray diffraction, neutron powder diffraction and quantum mechanical calculations. The results from theory and experiments are in good agreement with each other.     

Mass transfer to blood flowing through arterial stenosis

The present investigation deals with a mathematical model representing the mass transfer to blood streaming through the arteries under stenotic condition. The mass transport refers to the movement of atherogenic molecules, that is, blood-borne components, such as oxygen and low-density lipoproteins from flowing blood into the arterial walls or vice versa. The blood flowing through the artery is treated to be Newtonian and the arterial wall is considered to be rigid having differently shaped stenoses in its lumen arising from various types of abnormal growth or plaque formation. The nonlinear unsteady pulsatile flow phenomenon unaffected by concentration-field of the macromolecules is governed by the Navier–Stokes equations together with the equation of continuity while that of mass transfer is controlled by the convection-diffusion equation. The governing equations of motion accompanied by appropriate choice of the boundary conditions are solved numerically by MAC(Marker and Cell) method and checked numerical stability with desired degree of accuracy. The quantitative analysis carried out finally includes the respective profiles of the flow-field and concentration along with their distributions over the entire arterial segment as well. The key factors like the wall shear stress and Sherwood number are also examined for further qualitative insight into the flow and mass transport phenomena through arterial stenosis. The present results show quite consistency with several existing results in the literature which substantiate sufficiently to validate the applicability of the model under consideration.