Oxidation in Low Moisture Foods as a Function of Surface Lipids and Fat Content

Lipid oxidation is a major limitation to the shelf-life of low moisture foods and can lead to food waste. Little is known of whether the surface lipids in low moisture foods are more susceptible to oxidation since they are exposed to the environment. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to compare the rate of oxidation in surface and total lipids. Lipids in crackers were found to be in a heterogeneous matrix with proteins and starch, as determined by confocal microscopy. However, unlike spray-dried powders, both surface and interior lipids oxidized at similar rates, suggesting that the cracker matrix was not able to protect lipids from oxidation. Increasing the fat content of the crackers increased oxidation rates, which could be due to differences in the lipid structure or higher water activities in the high-fat crackers

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles for magnetic hyperthermia: recent advancements, molecular effects, and future directions in the omics era

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) have attracted attention in the biomedical field thanks to their ability to prompt hyperthermia in response to an alternated magnetic field. Hyperthermia is well known for inducing cell death, in particular in tumour cells, which seem to have a higher sensitivity to temperature increases. For this reason, hyperthermia has been recommended as a therapeutic tool against cancer. Despite the potentialities of this approach, little is still known about the effects provoked by magnetic hyperthermia at the molecular level, and about the particular cell death mechanisms that are activated. Nevertheless, in-depth knowledge of this aspect would allow improvement of therapeutic outcomes and favour clinical translation. Moreover, in the last few decades, a lot of effort has been put into finding an effective delivery strategy that could improve SPION biodistribution and localisation at the action site. The aim of this review is to provide a general outline of magnetic hyperthermia, focusing on iron oxide nanoparticles and their interactions with magnetic fields, as well as on new strategies to efficiently deliver them to the target site, and on recent in vitro and in vivo studies proposing possible cell death pathways activated by the treatment. We will also cover their current clinical status, and discuss the contributions of omics in understanding molecular interactions between iron oxide nanoparticles and the biological environment

The application of data mining techniques in manipulated financial statement classification: The case of turkey

Predicting financially false statements to detect frauds in companies has an increasing trend in recent studies. The manipulations in financial statements can be discovered by auditors when related financial records and indicators are analyzed in depth together with the experience of auditors in order to create knowledge to develop a decision support system to classify firms. Auditors may annotate the firms’ statements as “correct” or “incorrect” to add their experience, and then these annotations with related indicators can be used for the learning process to generate a model. Once the model is learned and tested for validation, it can be used for new firms to predict their class values. In this research, we attempted to reveal this benefit in the framework of Turkish firms. In this regard, the study aims at classifying financially correct and false statements of Turkish firms listed on Borsa İstanbul, using their particular financial ratios as indicators of a success or a manipulation. The dataset was selected from a particular period after the crisis (2009 to 2013). Commonly used three classification methods in data mining were employed for the classification: decision tree, logistic regression, and artificial neural network, respectively. According to the results, although all three methods are performed well, the latter had the best performance, and it outperforms other two classical methods. The common ground of the selected methods is that they pointed out the Z-score as the first distinctive indicator for classifying financial statements under consideration

Recursive Partitioning Analysis of Mediastinal N2 Lymph Node Involvement with Selected Biological Markers in Operable Non-small Cell Lung Cancer: A Correlative Study

Background: Expressions of various biomarkers in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have been linked with the prognosis and involvement of mediastinal lymph nodes.Methods: In this study, we utilized recursive partitioning analysis (RPA) by using P53, c-erb-B2, and P-glycoprotein (PGP) expressions evaluated by immunohistochemistry to estimate retrospectively the likelihood of the occult N2 mediastinal lymph node involvement in patients with operable NSCLC.Results: In univariate tests, immunohistochemical staining of the primary tumor for these 3 markers in 61 patients undergoing surgery revealed no direct relationship with the N2 involvement. However, RPA demonstrated in patients aged 75 and with 4 mediastinal lymph nodes removed that, high PGP expression frequency (20%) predicted an increased likelihood of the N2 involvement (46.7%, R2 = 0.25). Univariate nominal logistic regression analysis revealed that RPA group affiliation, and the number of mediastinal lymph nodes resected (logarithmic transformation) were associated with the metastasis to N2 lymph nodes (χ2 = 17.59, p = 0.0005, and χ2 = 2.40, p = 0.0654, respectively). Multivariate analysis confirmed that only RPA group affiliation predicted the N2 involvement (χ2 = 14.63, p = 0.0022).Conclusion: This study shows for the first time that PGP expression of the primary tumor may help to predict the occult N2 mediastinal lymph node involvement in NSCLC. Thus, further research is required to understand whether PGP expression may aid in the decision process for preoperative mediastinoscopy

Modular logic gates: cascading independent logic gates via metal ion signals

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Abstract Systematic cascading of molecular logic gates is an important issue to be addressed for advancing research in this field. We have demonstrated that photochemically triggered metal ion signals can be utilized towards that goal. Thus, independent logic gates were shown to work together while keeping their identity in more complex logic designs. Communication through the intermediacy of ion signals is clearly inspired from biological processes modulated by such signals, and implemented here with ion responsive molecules. © 2014 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Micro-Analytical Data of Au Mineralization at Atud Gold Deposit, Eastern Desert, Egypt

Atud gold deposits located at the central part of the Egyptian Eastern Desert of Egypt. It represents the vein-type gold mineralization at the Arabian-Nubian Shield in North Africa. Furthermore, this Au mineralization was closely associated with intense hydrothermal alteration haloes along the NW-SE brittle-ductile shear zone at the mined area. This study reports new data about the mineral chemistry of the hydrothermal and metamorphic minerals as well as the geothermobarometry of the metamorphism and determines the paragenetic interrelationship between Au-bearing sulfides and gangue minerals in Atud gold mine by using the electron microprobe analyses (EMPA). These analyses revealed that the ore minerals associated with gold mineralization are arsenopyrite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite, pyrrhotite, tetrahedrite and gersdorffite-cobaltite. Also, the gold is highly associated with arsenopyrite and As-bearing pyrite as well as sphalerite with an average ~70 wt.% Au (+26 wt.% Ag) whereas it occurred either as disseminated grains or along microfractures of arsenopyrite and pyrite in altered wallrocks and mineralized quartz veins. Arsenopyrite occurs as individual rhombic or prismatic zoned grains disseminated in the quartz veins and wallrock and is intergrown with euhedral arsenian pyrite (with ~2 atom % As). Pyrite is As-bearing pyrite that occurs as disseminated subhedral or anhedral zoned grains replacing by chalcopyrite in some samples. Inclusions of sphalerite and pyrrhotite are common in the large pyrite grains. Secondary minerals such as sericite, calcite, chlorite and albite are disseminated either in altered wallrocks or in quartz veins. Sericite is the main secondary and alteration mineral associated with Au-bearing sulfides and calcite. Electron microprobe data of the sericite show that its muscovite component is high in all analyzed flakes (XMs= an average 0.89) and the phengite content (Mg+Fe a.p.f.u.) varies from 0.10 to 0.55 and from 0.13 to 0.29 in wallrocks and mineralized veins respectively. Carbonate occurs either as thin veinlets or disseminated grains in the mineralized quartz vein and/or the wallrocks. It has higher amount of calcite (CaCO3) and low amount of MgCO3 as well as FeCO3 in the wallrocks relative to the quartz veins. Chlorite flakes are associated with arsenopyrite and their electron probe data revealed that they are generally Fe-rich composition (FeOt 20.64–20.10 wt.%) and their composition is clinochlore either pycnochlorite or ripidolite with Al (iv) = 2.30-2.36 pfu and 2.41-2.51 pfu and with narrow range of estimated formation temperatures are (289–295°C) and (301-312°C) for pycnochlorite and ripidolite respectively. Albite is accompanied with chlorite with an Ab content is high in all analyzed samples (Ab= 95.08-99.20)

Consumer bankruptcy: Decision, choice and access to credit afterwards

Data availability statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS). Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for this study. Data are available from https://beta.ukdataservice.ac.uk/datacatalogue/series/series?id=2000056#!/access-data with the permission of ONS and UK Data Service.Copyright © 2023 The Authors. We examine the effects of the bankruptcy benefit and adverse events on the consumer bankruptcy decision. Employing zero-inflated ordered probit models and a unique longitudinal survey of approximately 66,000 individuals in Great Britain, we find that consumers are more likely to enter into bankruptcy proceedings when the bankruptcy benefit increases and when they become unemployed. We find that the effects of adverse events differ across bankruptcy types. Individuals who experience the onset of health problems are more likely to choose reorganization of debts (i.e., income gleaning), whereas individuals who get divorced or separated are more likely to prefer the discharge of debts (i.e., fresh start). We also examine access to credit after bankruptcy. We find that individuals are excluded from the credit markets post-bankruptcy and the impact differs across bankruptcy types. Credit exclusion for fresh starters is dramatic, swift but short-lived, while for income gleaners, it is gradual, slow but lasts longer

A parametric integer programming algorithm for bilevel mixed integer programs

We consider discrete bilevel optimization problems where the follower solves an integer program with a fixed number of variables. Using recent results in parametric integer programming, we present polynomial time algorithms for pure and mixed integer bilevel problems. For the mixed integer case where the leader's variables are continuous, our algorithm also detects whether the infimum cost fails to be attained, a difficulty that has been identified but not directly addressed in the literature. In this case it yields a ``better than fully polynomial time'' approximation scheme with running time polynomial in the logarithm of the relative precision. For the pure integer case where the leader's variables are integer, and hence optimal solutions are guaranteed to exist, we present two algorithms which run in polynomial time when the total number of variables is fixed.Comment: 11 page

Flood Vulnerability and Risk Assessment: A Case Study of Yenagoa and Its Environs, Bayelsa State, Nigeria.

Staff PublicationThe perennial flooding in Bayelsa State and its attendant threats to life, property and socio-economic existence have been a major problem for the inhabitants and Government. This study was undertaken to assess the flood vulnerability and risks posed by it to Yenagoa and its environs, using Remote Sensing and GIS applications. The study covered 16 towns - 14 in Yenagoa Local Government Area, Opuama in Nembe and Ogbia in Ogbia Local Government Areas. It was discovered that all the towns covered were more vulnerable to flood with increasing severity in places with elevation ranging between 5-15.5m above sea level while places with elevation ranging between 15.5-26m above sea level were ranked as very highly vulnerable to flood based on standard proedures. The study area exhibited similar soil compositions like alluvial soil, silty clay, floodplain soil and others which combine with heavy annual rainfall pattern in the area to enhance flooding. Risk assessment of the study area showed that public utilities, services, business and commercial activities and general infrastructures were at a high risk of flood vulnerability due to their location in the nucleus of Yenagoa, known for high flood vulnerability. The outcome of this study provide relevant information useful for planning purposes by government and corporate bodies as well as their preparedness and response to flood in the State

Searching for Lee-Wick Gauge Bosons at the LHC

In an extension of the Standard Model(SM) based on the ideas of Lee and Wick, Grinstein, O'Connell and Wise have found an interesting way to remove the usual quadratically divergent contributions to the Higgs mass induced by radiative corrections. Phenomenologically, the model predicts the existence of Terascale, negative-norm copies of the usual SM fields with rather unique properties: ghost-like propagators and negative decay widths, but with otherwise SM-like couplings. The model is both unitary and causal on macroscopic scales. In this paper we examine whether or not such states with these unusual properties can be uniquely identified as such at the LHC. We find that in the extended strong and electroweak gauge boson sector of the model, which is the simplest one to analyze, such an identification can be rather difficult. Observation of heavy gluon-like resonances in the dijet channel offers the best hope for this identification.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figs; discussion adde