Polyphenol Profiling of Chestnut Pericarp,Integument and Curing Water Extracts to Qualify These Food By-Products as a Source of Antioxidants

Plant polyphenols have beneficial antioxidant effects on human health; practices aimed at preserving their content in foods and/or reusing food by-products are encouraged. The impact of the traditional practice of the water curing procedure of chestnuts, which prevents insect/mould damage during storage, was studied to assess the release of polyphenols from the fruit. Metabolites extracted from pericarp and integument tissues or released in the medium from the water curing process were analyzed by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight-mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) and electrospray-quadrupole-time of flight-mass spectrometry (ESI-qTOF-MS). This identified: (i) condensed and hydrolyzable tannins made of (epi)catechin (procyanidins) and acid ellagic units in pericarp tissues; (ii) polyphenols made of gallocatechin and catechin units condensed with gallate (prodelphinidins) in integument counterparts; (iii) metabolites resembling those reported above in the wastewater from the chestnut curing process. Comparative experiments were also performed on aqueous media recovered from fruits treated with processes involving: (i) tap water; (ii) tap water containing an antifungal Lb. pentosus strain; (iii) wastewater from a previous curing treatment. These analyses indicated that the former treatment determines a 6–7-fold higher release of polyphenols in the curing water with respect to the other ones. This event has a negative impact on the luster of treated fruits but qualifies the corresponding wastes as a source of antioxidants. Such a phenomenon does not occur in wastewater from the other curing processes, where the release of polyphenols was reduced, thus preserving the chestnut’s appearance. Polyphenol profiling measurements demonstrated that bacterial presence in water hampered the release of pericarp metabolites. This study provides a rationale to traditional processing practices on fruit appearance and qualifies the corresponding wastes as a source of bioactive compounds for other nutraceutical applications.     

Wavelength dependent mass-specific optical absorption coefficients of laser generated coal aerosols determined from multi-wavelength photoacoustic measurements

Applied Physics A - Mass-specific optical absorption coefficients (MSOAC) of aerosols generated from samples of coal used for residential purposes by UV laser ablation are measured as a function of...     

Ternary Hybrid γ‐Fe2O3/CrVI/Amine Oxidase Nanostructure for Electrochemical Sensing: Application for Polyamine Detection in Tumor Tissue

Dichromate binds to surface‐active maghemite nanoparticles (SAMNs) to form a stable core–shell nanostructures (SAMN@Cr^VI). The hybrid was characterized by Mössbauer spectroscopy, high‐angle annular dark‐field imaging, electron energy‐loss spectroscopy, and electrochemical techniques, which revealed a strong interaction of dichromate with the nanoparticle surface. Electrochemical characterization showed lower charge‐transfer resistance, better electrochemical performance, and more reversible electrochemical behavior with respect to naked SAMNs. Moreover, SAMN@Cr^VI is an excellent electrocatalyst for hydrogen peroxide reduction. Furthermore, an enzyme, namely, bovine serum amine oxidase (BSAO: EC 1.4.3.6), was immobilized on SAMN@Cr^VI by self‐assembly to give a ternary hybrid nanostructured catalyst for polyamine oxidation (SAMN@Cr^VI‐BSAO). SAMN@Cr^VI‐BSAO was applied for the development of a reagentless, fast, inexpensive, and interference‐free polyamine biosensor, which was successfully exploited for the discrimination of tumorous tissue from healthy tissue in human crude liver extracts.     

Simultaneous determination of praziquantel,pyrantel embonate,febantel and its active metabolites,oxfendazole and fenbendazole,in dog plasma by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry

A liquid chromatography–electrospray–mass spectrometry method (LC/MS) has been developed and validated for determination of praziquantel (PZQ), pyrantel (PYR), febantel (FBT), and the active metabolites fenbendazole (FEN) and oxfendazole (OXF), in dog plasma, using mebendazole as internal standard (IS). The method consists of solid‐phase extractions on Strata‐X polymeric cartridges. Chromatographic separation was carried out on a Phenomenex Gemini C₆‐Phenyl column using binary gradient elution containing methanol and 50 mm ammonium–formate (pH 3). The method was linear (r² ≥ 0.990) over concentration ranges of 3–250 ng/mL for PYR andFEB, 5–250 ng/mL for OXF and FEN, and 24–1000 ng/mL for PZQ. The mean precisions were 1.3–10.6% (within‐run) and 2.5–9.1% (between‐run), and mean accuracies were 90.7–109.4% (within‐run) and 91.6–108.2% (between‐run). The relative standard deviations (RSD) were <9.1%. The mean recoveries of five targeted compounds from dog plasma ranged from 77 to 94%.The new LC/MS method described herein was fully validated and successfully applied to the bioequivalence studies of different anthelmintic formulations such as tablets containing PZQ, PYR embonate and FBT in dogs after oral administration. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Readily Processable Hole‐Transporting Peropyrene Gels

The development of organic electronics requires scalable solution‐processing methods that enable the fabrication of electronic devices over large areas at low cost. The preparation of peropyrene gels constituted of 3D networks of entangled 1D ribbon‐like fibrils that extend over the μm scale are now reported. OFETs were easily fabricated by depositing the gels in the sol state over bottom‐gate bottom‐contact transistors and by allowing its gelation thereafter. Electrical characterisation of such field‐effect transistors shows a good balance between processability and performance with hole mobilities that are two orders of magnitude higher than those observed in thin films obtained from non‐gelating solvents under the same conditions.     

A hybrid method for hydrodynamic-kinetic flow Part I: A particle-grid method for reducing stochastic noise in kinetic regimes

In this work we present a hybrid particle-grid Monte Carlo method for the Boltzmann equation, which is characterized by a significant reduction of the stochastic noise in the kinetic regime.     

Aspects of the planetary Birkhoff normal form

The discovery of the Birkhoff normal form around circular, co-planar motions for the planetary system opened new insights and hopes for the comprehension of the dynamics of this problem. Remarkably, it allowed to give a direct proof (after the proof in [18]) of the celebrated Arnold’s Theorem [5] on the stability of planetary motions. In this paper, after reviewing the story of the proof of this theorem, we focus on technical aspects of this normal form. We develop an asymptotic formula for it that may turn to be useful in applications. Then we provide two simple applications to the three-body problem: we prove that the “density” of the Kolmogorov set of the spatial three-body problem does not depend on eccentricities and the mutual inclination but depends only on the planets’ masses and the separation among semi-axes (going in the direction of an assertion by V. I.Arnold [5]) and, using Nehoro?ev Theory [33], we prove, in the planar case, stability of all planetary actions over exponentiallylong times, provided mean-motion resonances are excluded. We also briefly discuss difficulties for full generalization of the results in the paper.     

Degradation Products from Naturally Aged Paper Leaves of a 16th‐Century‐Printed Book: A Spectrochemical Study

In this work, we present a wide‐range spectrochemical analysis of the degradation products from naturally aged paper. The samples obtained from wash waters used during the de‐acidification treatment of leaves from a 16th‐century‐printed book were analysed through NMR, IR, Raman UV/Vis, EPR and X‐ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy and HPLC‐MS and inductively coupled plasma (ICP) analysis. By these methods we also studied some of the previous samples treated by acidification (sample AP) and catalytic hydrogenation (sample HP). Crossing all the data, we obtained precise indications about the main functional groups occurring on the degraded, water‐soluble cellulose oligomers. These results point out that the chromophores responsible for browning are conjugated carbonyl and carboxyl compounds. As a whole, we show that the analysis of wash waters, used in the usual conservation treatments of paper de‐acidification, gives much valuable information about both the conservation state of the book and the degradation reactions occurring on the leaves, due to the huge amount of cellulose by‐products contained in the samples. We propose therefore this procedure as a new very convenient general method to obtain precious and normally unavailable information on the cellulose degradation by‐products from naturally aged paper.