The Role of Polyphenols, β-Carotene, and Lycopene in the Antioxidative Action of the Extracts of Dried, Edible Mushrooms

One of the nutritional benefits of mushrooms is the presence of bioactive secondary metabolites which have been reported to exert various beneficial effects in vivo. Therefore, we selected thirteen frequently consumed species of Polish mushrooms and determined the concentration of polyphenols, flavonoids, β-carotene, and lycopene in aqueous and methanolic extracts of dried fruiting bodies as well as their reducing power and ability to scavenge ABTS cation radical. We found that the concentration of antioxidants is different in different species and in various parts of the fruiting body of mushrooms. We observed a strong correlation (r > 0.9) between the concentration of total phenolics and reducing power/scavenging effects in both aqueous and methanolic extracts, while this correlation was moderate for flavonoids. Beta-carotene did not contribute discernibly to the antioxidative properties of the extracts, while lycopene had a significant contribution to the scavenging activity of methanolic mushroom extracts

The genus <i>Elaphomyces </i>(<i>Ascomycota</i>, <i>Eurotiales</i>):a ribosomal DNA-based phylogeny and revised systematics of European 'deer truffles'

Elaphomyces (‘deer truffles’) is one of the most important ectomycorrhizal fungal genera in temperate and subarctic forest ecosystems, but also one of the least documented in public databases. The current systematics are mainly based on macromorphology, and is not significantly different from that proposed by Vittadini (1831). Within the 49 species recognised worldwide, 23 were originally described from Europe and 17 of these were described before the 20th century. Moreover, very recent phylogenetic treatments of the genus are mainly based on a few extra-European species and most common European species are still poorly documented. Based on an extensive taxonomic sampling mainly made in the biogeographically rich Cantabrian area (Spain), complemented with collections from France, Greece, Italy, Norway, Portugal and Sweden, all currently recognized species in Europe have been sequenced at the ITS and 28S of the rDNA. Combined phylogenetic analyses yielded molecular support to sections Elaphomyces and Ceratogaster (here emended), while a third, basal lineage encompasses the sections Malacodermei and Ascoscleroderma as well as the tropical genus Pseudotulostoma. Species limits are discussed and some taxa formerly proposed as genuine species based on morphology and biogeography are re-evaluated as varieties or forms. Spore size and ornamentation, features of the peridial surface, structure of the peridium, and the presence of mycelium patches attached to the peridial surface emerge as the most significant systematic characters. Four new species: E. barrioi, E. quercicola, E. roseolus and E. violaceoniger, one new variety: E. papillatus var. sulphureopallidus, and two new forms: E. granulatus forma pallidosporus and E. anthracinus forma talosporus are introduced, as well as four new combinations in the genus: E. muricatus var. reticulatus, E. muricatus var. variegatus, E. papillatus var. striatosporus and E. morettii var. cantabricus. Lectotypes and epitypes are designated for most recognised species. For systematic purposes, new infrageneric taxa are introduced: E. sect. Ascoscleroderma stat. nov., E. subsect. Sclerodermei stat. nov., E. subsect. Maculati subsect. nov., E. subsect. Muricati subsect. nov., and E. subsect. Papillati subsect. nov. Lastly, E. laevigatus, E. sapidus, E. sulphureopallidus and E. trappei are excluded from the genus and referred to Rhizopogon roseolus, Astraeus sapidus comb. nov., Astraeus hygrometricus and Terfezia trappei comb. nov. (syn.: Terfezia cistophila), respectively

Structure fractals and para-quaternionic geometry

It is well known that starting with real structure, the Cayley-Dickson process gives complex, quaternionic, and octonionic (Cayley) structures related to the Adolf Hurwitz composition formula for dimensions $p = 2, 4$ and $8$, respectively, but the procedure fails for $p = 16$ in the sense that the composition formula involves no more a triple of quadratic forms of the same dimension; the other two dimensions are $n = 2^7$. Instead, Ławrynowicz and Suzuki (2001) have considered graded fractal bundles of the flower type related to complex and Pauli structures and, in relation to the iteration process $p \to p + 2 \to p + 4 \to ...$, they have constructed $2^4$-dimensional “bipetals” for $p = 9$ and $2^7$-dimensional “bisepals” for $p = 13$. The objects constructed appear to have an interesting property of periodicity related to the gradating function on the fractal diagonal interpreted as the “pistil” and a family of pairs of segments parallel to the diagonal and equidistant from it, interpreted as the “stamens”. The first named author, M. Nowak-Kepczyk, and S. Marchiafava (2006, 2009a, b) gave an effective, explicit determination of the periods and expressed them in terms of complex and quaternionic structures, thus showing the quaternionic background of that periodicity. In contrast to earlier results, the fractal bundle flower structure, in particular petals, sepals, pistils, and stamens are not introduced ab initio; they are quoted a posteriori, when they are fully motivated. Physical concepts of dual and conjugate objects as well as of antiparticles led us to extend the periodicity theorem to structure fractals in para-quaternionic formulation, applying some results in this direction by the second named author. The paper is concluded by outlining some applications

Closed-world concept induction for learning in OWL knowledge bases

We present a general-purpose method for inducing OWL class descriptions over data and knowledge captured with RDF and OWL in a closed-world way. We combine our approach with a top-down refinement-based search with Description Logic (DL) expressions whic

Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of ADI Depending on Austenitization Methods and Parameters

Ductile iron was quenched using two-variant isothermal transformation. The first treatment variant consisted of one-phase austenitization at a temperature t = 830, 860 or 900 C, cooling down to an isothermal transformation temperature of 300 or 400 C and holding from 8 to 64 minutes. The second treatment variant consisted of two-phase austenitization. Cast iron was austenitizied at a tem- perature t = 950 C and cooled down to a supercritical temperature t ’ = 900, 860 or 830 C. Isothermal transformation was conducted under the same conditions as those applied to the first variant. Ferrite cast iron was quenched isothermally. Basic strength (Rp0.2, Rm) and plastic (A5) properties as well as matrix microstructure and hardness were examined.As a result of heat treatment, the following ADI grades were obtained: EN-GJS-800-8, EN-GJS-1200-2 and EN-GJS-1400-1 in accordance with PN–EN 1564:2000 having plasticity of 1.5÷4 times more than minimum requirements specified in the standard

Network ranking assisted semantic data mining

Semantic data mining (sdm) uses annotated data and interconnected background knowledge to generate rules that are easily interpreted by the end user. However, the complexity of sdm algorithms is high, resulting in long running times even when applied to relatively small data sets. On the other hand, network analysis algorithms are among the most scalable data mining algorithms. This paper proposes an effective sdm approach that combines semantic data mining and network analysis. The proposed approach uses network analysis to extract the most relevant part of the interconnected background knowledge, and then applies a semantic data mining algorithm on the pruned background knowledge. The application on acute lymphoblastic leukemia data set demonstrates that the approach is well motivated, is more efficient and results in rules that are comparable or better than the rules obtained by applying the incorporated sdm algorithm without network reduction in data preprocessing