Purge and trap with monolithic sorbent for gas chromatographic analysis of pesticides in honey

Polydivinylbenzene (P-DVB) and silica monolithic materials were synthesised in capillaries and then used to adsorb nine organonitrogen pesticides extracted from honey. After adsorption, each monolith-capillary was connected to a gas chromatograph (GC) with nitrogen-phosphorous detector (NPD). The silica monolith gave better peak shape and intensity than the P-DVB monolith. Formulation of silica monolith with tetramethoxysilane (TMOS) as a sole initiator provided better separation and higher peak intensity, compared to those with methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMS) and (3:1) TMOS/MTMS initiators. The optimum internal diameter and length of silica monolith-capillary were 0.25 mm and 5 cm, respectively. The purge and trap conditions were optimised by purging with nitrogen and heating the honey sample solution at 100 °C for 60 min. Recovery of the method was in a range of 84.95–99.71% and the detection limits of the pesticides determined by using GC-NPD and GC-mass spectrometric detector (MSD) ranged between 0.36–1.75 and 0.13–0.25 ng g⁻¹, respectively.     

Antioxidant Potential and Cytotoxic Effect of Isoflavones Extract from Thai Fermented Soybean (Thua-Nao)

Thua-nao, or Thai fermented soybeans, is a traditional Lanna fermented food in Northern Thailand. It is produced by using a specific bacterial species called Bacillus subtilis var. Thua-nao. We investigated the antioxidant activity and cytotoxic effect of isoflavones from Thua-nao. The phenolic compound contents and total flavonoid contents were determined by spectrophotometry. The antioxidant activity was examined using the ABTS, FRAP, and DPPH assays. The isoflavone contents and phenolic compositions were examined by the high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) techniques. The ability of isoflavones to inhibit human cancer cell growth was assessed by the MTT assay. The total phenolic content, total flavonoid content, and antioxidant activities of the isoflavones were 49.00 ± 0.51 mg GAE/g of dry extract (DE), 10.76 ± 0.82 mg QE/g of DE, 61.03 ± 0.97 µmol Trolox/g of DE, 66.54 ± 3.97 µM FeSO₄/g of DE, and 22.47 ± 1.92% of DPPH inhibition, respectively. Additionally, the isoflavone extracts from Thua-nao had high isoflavone contents and polyphenolic compound compositions, especially daidzein and genistein. The isoflavone demonstrated a weak inhibition of MCF-7 and HEK293 cancer cell growth. It has a high antioxidant component, which is beneficial and can be developed for new therapeutic uses. However, further studies on the benefits of Thua-nao should be performed for realizing better and more effective uses soon.     

Solving boundary value problems of ordinary differential equations with non-separated boundary conditions

This paper focuses on solving the two point boundary value problem, in which boundary conditions are systems of nonlinear equations. The shooting method was used together with a combination of Newton’s method and Broyden’s method, to update the initial values of the differential equations. The experiments showed that the proposed method performed well, in the sense that the overall amount of work was less than that of the Newton Shooting method.