Chemical composition and antifungal effects of three species of Satureja (S. hortensis, S. spicigera, and S. khuzistanica) essential oils on the main pathogens of strawberry fruit

Due to an increasing risk of chemical contamination upon the application of synthetic fungicides to preserve fresh fruits and vegetables, essential oils are gaining increasing attentions. In this research, besides chemical analysis of the essential oils of three Satureja species (S. hortensis, S. spicigera, and S. khuzistanica) by GC-MS, their fungicidal and/or fungistatic effects on postharvest pathogens of strawberry were investigated. Essential oils were extracted by means of hydro-distillation and afterwards GC/MS analysis was performed to identify their components. Carvacrol, γ-terpinene and p-cymene were detected as the repeating main constituents of the spices, while thymol and carvacrol methyl ether were found as major components only in S. spicigera oil. In vitro results showed that at the maximum concentration, the essential oils did not possess fungicidal effects on Aspergillus niger but they exhibited fungicidal activities against Penicillium digitatum, Botrytis cinerea and Rhizopus stolonifer. However, S. khuzistanica was the strongest oil in fungicidal activity. S. hortensis oil was more effective than S. spicigera against B. cinerea whereas S. spicigera oil showed stronger fungicidal activity against R. stolonifer. In conclusion, essential oils isolated from three savory species could be suitable for applications in the food industry to control molds and improve the safety of fruits and vegetables. © 2015 Elsevier B.V

Morphological instability of the solid-liquid interface in crystal growth under supercooled liquid film flow and natural convection airflow

Ring-like ripples on the surface of icicles are an example of morphological instability of the ice-water interface during ice growth under supercooled water film flow. The surface of icicles is typically covered with ripples of about 1 cm in wavelength, and the wavelength appears to be almost independent of external temperature, icicle radius, and volumetric water flow rate. One side of the water layer consists of the water-air surface and growing ice is the other. This is one of the more complicated moving phase boundary problems with two interfaces. A recent theoretical work [K. Ueno, Phys. Rev. E 68, (2003) 021603] to address the underlying instability that produces ripples is based on the assumption of the absence of airflow around icicles. In this paper, we extend the previous theoretical framework to include a natural convection airflow ahead of the water-air surface and consider whether the effect of natural convection airflow on the wavelength of ripples produced on an ice surface is essential or not.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure

Biodegradation of dodecylbenzene solfonate sodium by Stenotrophomonas maltophilia Biofilm

Immobilization for microbial cultures has proved to be advantageous in municipal and industrial sewage treatment because of high degradation efficiency and good operational stability. In this survey, a bacterial strain was isolated from activated sludge that utilized branched anionic surfactants (BAS) as a sole carbon source. Identification of isolated strain was from 16S rRNA sequencing method. The immobilized cells on silanized glass beads as support and unmodified surfaces were used for removal of BAS; both types showed effective biodegrading of BAS. The removal rate in silanized surface was about 2 fold of unmodified surface. The result of biodegradation was studied by HPLC method and scanning electron microscope

A Pilot Study on Facial Expression Recognition Ability of Autistic Children Using Ryan, a Rear-Projected Humanoid Robot

Rear-projected robots use computer graphics technology to create facial animations and project them on a mask to show the robot’s facial cues and expressions. These types of robots are becoming commercially available, though more research is required to understand how they can be effectively used as a socially assistive robotic agent. This paper presents the results of a pilot study on comparing the facial expression recognition abilities of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) with typically developing (TD) children using a rear-projected humanoid robot called Ryan. Six children with ASD and six TD children participated in this research, where Ryan showed them six basic expressions (i.e. anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) with different intensity levels. Participants were asked to identify the expressions portrayed by Ryan. The results of our study show that there is not any general impairment in expression recognition ability of the ASD group comparing to the TD control group; however, both groups showed deficiencies in identifying disgust and fear. Increasing the intensity of Ryan’s facial expressions significantly improved the expression recognition accuracy. Both groups were successful to recognize the expressions demonstrated by Ryan with high average accuracy

Numerical and experimental verification of a theoretical model of ripple formation in ice growth under supercooled water film flow

Little is known about morphological instability of a solidification front during the crystal growth of a thin film of flowing supercooled liquid with a free surface: for example, the ring-like ripples on the surface of icicles. The length scale of the ripples is nearly 1 cm. Two theoretical models for the ripple formation mechanism have been proposed. However, these models lead to quite different results because of differences in the boundary conditions at the solid-liquid interface and liquid-air surface. The validity of the assumption used in the two models is numerically investigated and some of the theoretical predictions are compared with experiments.Comment: 30 pages, 9 figure

Role of oxygen concentration in the osteoblasts behavior: A finite element model

Oxygen concentration plays a key role in cell survival and viability. Besides, it has important effects on essential cellular biological processes such as cell migration, differentiation, proliferation and apoptosis. Therefore, the prediction of the cellular response to the alterations of the oxygen concentration can help significantly in the advances of cell culture research. Here, we present a 3D computational mechanotactic model to simulate all the previously mentioned cell processes under different oxygen concentrations. With this model, three cases have been studied. Starting with mesenchymal stem cells within an extracellular matrix with mechanical properties suitable for its differentiation into osteoblasts, and under different oxygen conditions to evaluate their behavior under normoxia, hypoxia and anoxia. The obtained results, which are consistent with the experimental observations, indicate that cells tend to migrate toward zones with higher oxygen concentration where they accelerate their differentiation and proliferation. This technique can be employed to control cell migration toward fracture zones to accelerate the healing process. Besides, as expected, to avoid cell apoptosis under conditions of anoxia and to avoid the inhibition of the differentiation and proliferation processes under conditions of hypoxia, the state of normoxia should be maintained throughout the entire cell-culture process

Using a developed PM in order to optimize the production productivity in a cement industry

Cement factories are highly energy and cost intensive industries. Producing the cement requires a lot of energy to transform the raw material into final product. One major area to improve the production productivity is preventive maintenance (PM). It helps to protect assets, increase the useful life ofequipment, improve system reliability, decrease cost of replacement and finally improve system energy consumption. In this paper, the theory of microeconomics firm was used to find a model of optimal production productivity in cement industry. To show the effect of preventive maintenance system in the model, energy consumption of equipment is considered as a function of failure rate of equipment and then added to the set of constraints.Using this model energy consumption is reduced up to 15% and total annual cost is reduced up to 12.7%

How Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Recognize Facial Expressions Displayed by a Rear-Projection Humanoid Robot

Background: Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience reduced ability to perceive crucial nonverbal communication cues such as eye gaze, gestures, and facial expressions. Recent studies suggest that social robots can be used as effective tools to improve communication and social skills in children with ASD. One explanation has been put forward by several studies that children with ASD feel more contented and motivated in systemized and predictable environment, like interacting with robots. Objectives: There have been few research studies evaluating how children with ASD perceive facial expression in humanoid robots but no research evaluating facial expression perception on a rear-projected (aka animation-based) facially-expressive humanoid robot, which provide more life-like expressions. This study evaluates how children with high functioning autism (HFA) differ from their typically developing (TD) peers in recognition of facial expressions demonstrated by a life-like rear-projected humanoid robot, which is more adjustable and flexible in terms of displaying facial expressions for further studies. Methods: Seven HFA and seven TD children and adolescents aged 7-16 participated in this study. The study uses Ryan, a rear-projection, life-like humanoid robot. Six basic emotional facial expressions (happy, sad, angry, disgust, surprised and fear) with four different intensities (25%, 50%, 75% and 100% in ascending order) were shown on Ryan’s face. Participants were asked to choose the expression they perceived among seven options (six basic emotions and none). Responses were recorded by a research assistant. Results were analyzed to obtain the accuracy of facial expression recognition in ASD and TD children on humanoid robot face. Results: We evaluated the intensity of expression in which participants required to reach the peak accuracy. They were best for happy and angry expressions in which the peak accuracy of 100% was reached with at least 50% of expression intensity. The same peak accuracy was reached for surprised and sad expressions in the intensity of 75% and 100%, respectively. But fear and disgust recognition accuracy never reached above 75%, even in the maximum intensity. The experiment is still in progress for TD children. Results will be compared to a TD sample and implication for intervention and clinical work will be discussed. Conclusions: Overall, these results show that children with ASD recognize negative expressions such as fear and disgust with a slightly lower accuracy than other expressions. On the other hand, during the test, children showed engagement and excitement toward the robot. Besides, most of the expressions were sufficiently recognizable for children in higher intensities, which means, Ryan, a rear projected life-like robot could be able to successfully communicate with children in terms of facial expression, though more investigations and improvements should be done. These results serve as a basis to advance the promising field of socially assistive robotics for autism therapy

Study Clinical Symptoms and Para-Clinical Findings in Poisoning Patient with Aluminum Phosphide in Patients Referred to Imam Khomeini Hospital in Ardabil (Northwest of Iran)

Background: Aluminum phosphide is used in different area in Iran. According to that the herbal form of these pills are used increasingly, comparison and evaluation of these patients in terms of clinical and laboratory symptoms are important. We studied on clinical and Para-clinical findings in patients who had taken aluminum phosphide and its herbal form in this study.Methods: This is a descriptive and analytic study which carried out during 2006-2012. In this study, laboratory variables, white blood cell count, hematocrit, blood glucose, sodium, potassium and bicarbonate, arterial blood gas also clinical finding after taking aluminum phosphide pills, and vital signs of poisoned patients were extracted.Results: In this study 386 poisoned patients were evaluated. We divided poisoned patients in two groups, case and herbal. 35% had been taking original Aluminum phosphide (case group) and 65% herbal form (herbal group). In totally 18.7% of poisoned patients were male. The average age of patients in herbal group was 23.22 ±8.20 years and in case group was 24.78±7.04 years. In both groups, nausea and vomiting were the most prevalent clinical signs. Experiments in a separate group showed significant different in blood pressure upper (P<0.001), Po2 level lower (P<0.001), pH lower (P<0.001) and bicarbonate lower (P<0.001) but there was no significant difference in respiratory rate, temperature, hemoglobin level and hematocrit. Also was observed that 70.4% of patients in case group died but all patients in herbal group survived (P<0.001).Conclusion: The results of this study indicated that arterial blood gas of patients is a useful tool for differentiating oral poisoning with original and herbal rice pill. Hence, in patients with clinical toxicity of rice tablet can be used to differentiate these two tablets

Evaluation of ultrasound technology to break seed dormancy of common lambsquarters (Chenopodium album)

Although seed dormancy is advantageous for annual plants in the wild, unsynchronized germination in the laboratory leads to increased error in measurements. Therefore techniques to promote and synchronize germination are routinely used. Ultrasound is one of the newest methods for breaking dormancy in weed seeds. We have investigated whether ultrasonic waves can be used to break seed dormancy of common lambsquarters (Chenopodium album), a highly competitive annual weed that leads to significant reduction of yields of corn, soybeans, and sugar beets. Ultrasonic waves with frequency of 35kH were applied for 0 (control), 5, 10, 15 and 30 minutes using a completely randomized design. The results showed that the use of ultrasound waves generally enhanced the traits under investigation in the treated samples compared to the control sample. The maximum enhancement of germination percentage (180%), seedling dry weight (78%), and seedling vigor index I (271%) and II (392%) was seen in the common lambsquarters samples treated with ultrasound for 15 minutes and seedling length (40%) at 30 minutes compared to the control samples. Radical lengths were not statistically different from controls under any treatment and plumule length only increased marginally. These changes are reflected in seedling vigor index I and II measurements. For some of these traits, increasing the length of ultrasound treatment to 30 minutes had negative effects. These results demonstrate that ultrasound technology can be used as a quick, and efficient non-destructive method to break seed dormancy in common lambsquarters