Changes in Polyphenolic Content and Antioxidant Activity of Grapes cv Vranac During Ripening

This study characterised and evaluated the phenolic composition and antioxidant activity of the redwine grape Vranac (Vitis vinifera L.) from the southern Serbian vineyard region during grape ripening.Polyphenol composition at different harvest dates was determined by HPLC-DAD analysis. Antioxidantactivity was estimated by DPPH assay. The study demonstrates that the Vranac variety representsimportant sources of dietary antioxidants. The results show that (+)-catechin, (-)-epicatechin andprocyanidin dimer B2 were the most prevalent in the seeds, and quercetin and malvidin glucosides in thegrape skins. All grape extracts were shown to have high radical-scavenging activity. Strong correlationsbetween radical-scavenging activity and polyphenols suggest that the phenolic composition of the Vranacvariety contributes significantly to the antioxidant capacities of grape extracts. During grape ripeningthere were significant changes in physiological properties and phenolic content, and it is important todetermine optimal harvest time, which will ensure grapes with very good quality parameters (in our studyat the 30th day after véraison)

Functional Geometry of Human Connectomes

Mapping the brain imaging data to networks, where nodes represent anatomical brain regions and edges indicate the occurrence of fiber tracts between them, has enabled an objective graph-theoretic analysis of human connectomes. However, the latent structure on higher-order interactions remains unexplored, where many brain regions act in synergy to perform complex functions. Here we use the simplicial complexes description of human connectome, where the shared simplexes encode higher-order relationships between groups of nodes. We study consensus connectome of 100 female (F-connectome) and of 100 male (M-connectome) subjects that we generated from the Budapest Reference Connectome Server v3.0 based on data from the Human Connectome Project. Our analysis reveals that the functional geometry of the common F&M-connectome coincides with the M-connectome and is characterized by a complex architecture of simplexes to the 14th order, which is built in six anatomical communities, and linked by short cycles. The F-connectome has additional edges that involve different brain regions, thereby increasing the size of simplexes and introducing new cycles. Both connectomes contain characteristic subjacent graphs that make them 3/2-hyperbolic. These results shed new light on the functional architecture of the brain, suggesting that insightful differences among connectomes are hidden in their higher-order connectivity

The Effect of Hive Volume on Efficiency and Strength Conservation and Restoration of Food Supplies During the Wintering in Langstroth Hives

The influence of volume of the hive on wintering, colony strength and food supply was observed during the three-year period. Standard LR hives were used for the experiment. Colonies were tested based on the number of hive bodies and the number of frames in the brood hive bodies. The colonies were divided into two groups based on the number of frames: group I had eight frames in the brood bodies, the second group included 10 frames in the brood bodies. Based on the number of hive bodies, colonies were also divided into two groups: colonies with a single hive body and colonies with two hive bodies. The inspections were carried out in the autumn in late August and early September, and in the spring in late March and early April. Colony strength was determined by the amount of brood and food supplies through the amount of honey and pollen. It was found that the number of frames in the brood bodies had almost no impact on the colony strength and the amount of food in the autumn and spring inspections. Percentage ratio in spring and autumn inspections was more favourable in ten-frame hives considering the amount of bees and pollen. The ratio for the amount of brood between the two inspections was higher in eight-frame hives. The colonies replenished bees more rapidly and foraged pollen more efficiently in ten-frame hives while the colonies in eight-frame hives replenished brood quicker. It was found that, during the three-year period, the hive volume had impact on strength and food supply of colonies. Colonies that have wintered in two hive bodies had favourable ratio of spring and autumn inspections for the amount of bees, brood and pollen, while the ratio for the amount of honey was more favourable in the colonies with a single hive body. The colonies with two hive bodies quicker restored strength and pollen supply, while the colonies with a single hive body consumed honey supply more rationally

Quality of Honey Bee Bread Collected in Spring

Pollen is the only source of protein that honey bees collect from nature. It is very important for the development of brood, and consequently, for the development of the colony. Honey bee bread is the pollen which the bees collect from flowers and store in honeycomb cells. Honey bee bread has a modified structure due to the fermentation process under the influence of enzymes it passes through. For this study, ten honey bee colonies were selected. Honey bee bread was sampled from the combs. The quality of pollen and honey bee bread was determined by the chemical composition, using standard methods used in food analysis. Total nitrogen was determined by Kjeldahl method. Micro- and macroelements were determined by spectrophotometric method. The pollen collected from two sites had rich protein content (29.93 % and 27.63 % on average)

Effect of Consecutive Cut and Vegetation Stage on Cncps Protein Fractions in Alfalfa (Medicago Sativa L.)

Crude protein (CP) of forages can be separated into fractions of differentiated abilities to provide available amino acids in the lower gut of ruminants. This knowledge is critical to develop feeding systems and to predict animal responses. The objective of this research was to asses whether CP concentrations and the relative proportion of CP fractions by CNCPS in alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) cv K-28 were affected by different cuts and vegetation stages. Fraction B2, which represents true protein of intermediate ruminal degradation rate, was the largest single fraction in all cuts except in the third cut. Soluble fraction A was less than 400 g kg-1 CP in all cuts except in the third cut, while the unavailable fraction C ranged from 56 g kg-1 CP in the first cut to 134.8 g kg-1 CP in the fourth cut. The remaining fraction B3 (true protein of very low degradation rate) only represented less than 60 g kg-1 of total CP. Results showed that undegraded dietary protein represented a small proportion of total CP in alfalfa from the first to the fourth cut

Insecticidal Activity of Sage (Salvia Officinalis) Essential Oil to Varroa Destructor (Acari: Varroidae) and Apis Mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

The need to find alternative systems of the fight against Varroa mite without application of chemicals and provide healthy bee products resulted in investigation of application of different plant essences to arthropod control. In order to perceive the sage essential oil (Salvia officinalis) bioactivity, contact residual toxicity of mites and bees was examined in the laboratory conditions. The chemical composition of essential oil was determined by standard GC and GC/MS methods. Different doses of the sage essential oil dissolved in acetone (0.1–10 μl/Petri dish) were applied in Petri dishes and left to dry for 20 minute at a room temperature. Following this period of time, ten honey bees and five adult female mites were added in each Petri dish and they were all maintained in controlled conditions (T = 30°C, Relative humidity = 60%). Survival of examined honey bees and Varroa mites was recorded two times, after 24 h and 48 h. The most prominent toxic effect on the examined Varroa mites was observed after 24 h and 48 h, with application of 10 μl of sage oil (the average values for dead mite individuals were 3.25 and 3.50, respectively). Recorded biological activities of the oil tested in different doses on both honey bee and Varroa mite revealed opportunity to proceed with further investigation by selecting the most appropriate variants and combinations of the most prominent individual components of the examined sage oil

The Effect of Addition of Lucerne Biomass and NPN Substances on Quality of Grape Pomace Silage

Grape pomace (GP) of white varieties without stalks was ensiled by the method of single factor trial in the two treatments: in the first treatment, with the addition of lucerne biomass (L) of the last cut, which was harvested at the stage of forming pods with equal shares in the weight ratio and in the second with the addition of Benural S (B) in the amount of 1%. Chemical analyses were conducted on GP and L to determine the suitability of biomass for silage and to determine the chemical composition and nutritional value and the process of lactic acid fermentation. It has been found that the biomass of GP had 2 times higher concentration of water-soluble carbohydrates (WSC 140.5:69.4 gkg-1DM) relative to L, and a lower buffer capacity (BC) what makes it 10 times more favourable for ensiling (ratio WSC/BC 13.1 : 1.3). GP, as compared to L, had lower contents of CP, CF, and a lower nutritional value expressed in NEL and NEM units and a higher content of crude fat. Silage with the equal share of GP + L compared to silage with GP + B had a slightly lower CF and significantly less crude fat and ash, especially Ca. More favourable ratio Ca : P (2.93 : 1) was established in silage GP + L compared to 10.1:1 silage GP + B. Silages GP + L in the fermentation process were scored/rated one class higher according to the DLG and Zelter assessment methods, compared to the silages GP + B. The aim of the study was to investigate the possibility of ensiling grape pomace with equal proportion of biomass of lucerne and added NPN substances and to determine the detailed chemical composition, nutritive value and silage quality on the basis of the process of lactic acid fermentation

The Energy Value and Energy Yields of Alfalfa Forage Depending on the Cutting Time in Forage-Seed Production System

Economic importance of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is reflected in the production of high-quality forage, however, the seeds of alfalfa are valuable commodity in the domestic and international markets. In Serbia, the seed is produced in forage-seed mode of exploitation where the second or third growth is used for seed production, and the remaining growths are used for fodder. The aim of this work was to determine the influence of cuttings and time of cutting on total energy value of hay in a model of forage and seed production. The second and third cuts were used as seed cut. In the variant where the second cut was used as seed cut, the first cut was harvested at different times (A1-early, A2-medium early, A3-late and A4- very late). In the model where the third cut was used for seed, two pre-cuts were used for forage production (A5). In all the following variants, seed cut was followed by one more cutting (final cut), used for the production of fodder. The highest average total production (from pre-cut and final cut) of NEL (34606 MJha-1) and NEM (33811 MJha-1) was realized in the system of cutting with two pre-cuts. In the variant with single pre-cut, the highest yield was formed in the early system. Later cutting of the first cut causes decline of NEL production and it was the lowest in the system of very late cutting or 15.1 % less than in the early system and 38% lower than in the system of cutting with two pre-cuts. Delaying of utilization of alfalfa to the later stages of exploitation has contributed to the lower yield of NEM and in the medium early system and late system and especially in the very late cutting system, where by 22.2 % less was realized than in the early production system. Studies have shown that late cutting of first cut resulted in the reduction of nutritional value expressed in the amount of net energy per unit area

Magnetisation processes in geometrically frustrated spin networks with self-assembled cliques

(c) 2020 by the authors. Functional design of nanostructured materials seeks to exploit potential of complex morphologies and disorder. In this context, the spin dynamics in disordered antiferromagnetic materials present a significant challenge due to induced geometric frustration. Here we analyse the processes of magnetisation reversal driven by an external field in generalised spin networks with higher-order connectivity and antiferromagnetic defects. Using the model in [Tadic´ et al. Arxiv:1912.4331v1], we grow nanonetworks with geometrical constraint self-assembly of simplexes (cliques) of a given size n; with probability p each simplex possesses a defect edge affecting its binding, leading to a tree-like pattern of defects. The Ising spins are attached to vertices and have ferromagnetic interactions, while antiferromagnetic couplings apply between pairs of spins along each defect edge. Thus, a defect edge induces n −2 frustrated triangles per n-clique participating in a larger-scale complex. We determine several topological, entropy, and graph-theoretic measures to characterise the structure of these assemblies. Further, we show how the size of simplexes building the aggregates with a given pattern of defects affects the magnetisation curves, the length of the domain walls, and the shape of the hysteresis loop. The hysteresis shows a sequence of plateaus of fractional magnetisation and multi-scale fluctuations in the passage between them. For fully antiferromagnetic interactions, the loop splits into two parts only in mono-disperse assemblies of cliques consisting of an odd number of vertices n. At the same time, remanent magnetisation occurs when n is even, as well as in poly-disperse assemblies of cliques in the range n 2 [2, 10]. These results shed light on spin dynamics in complex nano-magnetic assemblies in which geometric frustration arises in the interplay of higher-order connectivity and antiferromagnetic interactions.Slovenian Research Agency; Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbi

Recycling bins, garbage cans or think tanks? Three myths regarding policy analysis institutes

The phrase 'think tank' has become ubiquitous – overworked and underspecified – in the political lexicon. It is entrenched in scholarly discussions of public policy as well as in the 'policy wonk' of journalists, lobbyists and spin-doctors. This does not mean that there is an agreed definition of think tank or consensual understanding of their roles and functions. Nevertheless, the majority of organizations with this label undertake policy research of some kind. The idea of think tanks as a research communication 'bridge' presupposes that there are discernible boundaries between (social) science and policy. This paper will investigate some of these boundaries. The frontiers are not only organizational and legal; they also exist in how the 'public interest' is conceived by these bodies and their financiers. Moreover, the social interactions and exchanges involved in 'bridging', themselves muddy the conception of 'boundary', allowing for analysis to go beyond the dualism imposed in seeing science on one side of the bridge, and the state on the other, to address the complex relations between experts and public policy