Quenching of singlet oxygen by extract of peels of the fruit of syzygium cumini

Recent research has shown the importance of plant extracts as powerful antioxidants owing to the presence of chemically active components such as polyphenols, anthocyanins, flavonoids, among others. This synergy of the components becomes a possible alternative to the use of antioxidants of synthetic origin. In this study, Syzygium cumini fruit peel was used to determine the antioxidant activity against singlet oxygen. The extract showed appreciable amounts of phenolic groups (about 8.55 AGE mg/g fruit weight). HPLC-DAD characterization showed at least 3 anthocyanins of higher relative abundance (malvidin 3,5-diglucoside, delphinidin 3,5-diglucoside and petunidin 3,5-diglucoside). The percentage of quenching of singlet oxygen was determined at different concentrations of the ethanolic extract, finding a value of 60% at a concentration of 0.39 mg/mL.Recientes investigaciones demuestran la importancia de los extractos de origen vegetal como potentes antioxidantes, debido a la presencia de componentes químicamente activos, como los polifenoles, antocianinas, flavonoides, entre otros. Esta sinergia de los componentes se convierte en una posible alternativa frente al uso de antioxidantes de origen sintético. En este trabajo la cáscara de la fruta Syzygium cumini fue utilizada para determinar la actividad antioxidante frente al oxígeno singulete. El extracto mostró cantidades apreciables de grupos fenólicos (alrededor de 8,55 AGE mg/g peso fruta). La caracterización por HPLC-DAD muestra por lo menos 3 antocianinasde mayor abundancia relativa (la malvidina 3,5-diglucósido, la delfinidina 3,5- diglucósido y la petunidina 3,5-diglucósido). El porcentaje de desactivación del oxígeno singulete fue determinado a diferentes concentraciones del extracto etanólico, encontrándose un valor del 60% a una concentración 0.39 mg/mL

Producción y procesamiento del maíz en Colombia

El maíz se ha convertido en uno de los cereales más consumidos en el mundo. Es utilizado para la alimentación humana y animal y como materia prima en la producción de almidón industrial y alimenticio, en la elaboración de edulcorantes, dextrinas, aceite y otros productos derivados de su proceso de fermentación, como son el etanol, el alcohol industrial, el dióxido de carbono (CO2), diversos aminoácidos, antibióticos y plásticos, y como sustituto del petróleo y sus derivados que son recursos no renovables. Para la obtención de estos productos se lleva a cabo un proceso de molienda húmeda que comprende una serie de etapas importantes para la producción de almidón y sus derivados. Esta exploración se relaciona con el origen, estructura, procesamiento y aplicaciones del maíz y algunos de sus derivados

Cacao Pod Husk Flour as an Ingredient for Reformulating Frankfurters: Effects on Quality Properties

The cocoa pod husk is considered a source of dietary fiber with a high content of water-soluble pectins, bioactive compounds which should be viewed as a by-product with the potential to be incorporated into food. This study aimed to investigate the effect of adding different cocoa pod husk flour (CPHF) levels as a starch replacement for reformulating frankfurters. Results showed that the addition of 1.5 and 3.0% pod husk proportionally increased the frankfurter's fiber content by 0.49 ± 0.08 and 0.96 ± 0.19 g/100 g, which is acceptable for a product that does not contain fiber. Textural properties and sensory characteristics were affected when substituting the starch with CPHF, either totally or partially, although these samples had higher water content, hardness, and adhesiveness while springiness decreased. Non-adverse effects of nitrite on polyphenolic compounds content were evidenced in samples enriched with CPHF. The incorporation of CPHF did not significantly affect the color parameters (DeltaE < 3). Finally, the panelists indicated a sensation of the unsalted sausage, suggesting that CPHF may have natural mucoadhesion properties. In conclusion, in formulated meat products such as sausages, plant co-products such as cacao pod husks could be a valid new ingredient to improve technological parameters, functional characteristics, and stability

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Why Are Outcomes Different for Registry Patients Enrolled Prospectively and Retrospectively? Insights from the Global Anticoagulant Registry in the FIELD-Atrial Fibrillation (GARFIELD-AF).

Background: Retrospective and prospective observational studies are designed to reflect real-world evidence on clinical practice, but can yield conflicting results. The GARFIELD-AF Registry includes both methods of enrolment and allows analysis of differences in patient characteristics and outcomes that may result. Methods and Results: Patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and ≥1 risk factor for stroke at diagnosis of AF were recruited either retrospectively (n = 5069) or prospectively (n = 5501) from 19 countries and then followed prospectively. The retrospectively enrolled cohort comprised patients with established AF (for a least 6, and up to 24 months before enrolment), who were identified retrospectively (and baseline and partial follow-up data were collected from the emedical records) and then followed prospectively between 0-18 months (such that the total time of follow-up was 24 months; data collection Dec-2009 and Oct-2010). In the prospectively enrolled cohort, patients with newly diagnosed AF (≤6 weeks after diagnosis) were recruited between Mar-2010 and Oct-2011 and were followed for 24 months after enrolment. Differences between the cohorts were observed in clinical characteristics, including type of AF, stroke prevention strategies, and event rates. More patients in the retrospectively identified cohort received vitamin K antagonists (62.1% vs. 53.2%) and fewer received non-vitamin K oral anticoagulants (1.8% vs . 4.2%). All-cause mortality rates per 100 person-years during the prospective follow-up (starting the first study visit up to 1 year) were significantly lower in the retrospective than prospectively identified cohort (3.04 [95% CI 2.51 to 3.67] vs . 4.05 [95% CI 3.53 to 4.63]; p = 0.016). Conclusions: Interpretations of data from registries that aim to evaluate the characteristics and outcomes of patients with AF must take account of differences in registry design and the impact of recall bias and survivorship bias that is incurred with retrospective enrolment. Clinical Trial Registration: - URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov . Unique identifier for GARFIELD-AF (NCT01090362)

Risk profiles and one-year outcomes of patients with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation in India: Insights from the GARFIELD-AF Registry.

BACKGROUND: The Global Anticoagulant Registry in the FIELD-Atrial Fibrillation (GARFIELD-AF) is an ongoing prospective noninterventional registry, which is providing important information on the baseline characteristics, treatment patterns, and 1-year outcomes in patients with newly diagnosed non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). This report describes data from Indian patients recruited in this registry. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 52,014 patients with newly diagnosed AF were enrolled globally; of these, 1388 patients were recruited from 26 sites within India (2012-2016). In India, the mean age was 65.8 years at diagnosis of NVAF. Hypertension was the most prevalent risk factor for AF, present in 68.5% of patients from India and in 76.3% of patients globally (P < 0.001). Diabetes and coronary artery disease (CAD) were prevalent in 36.2% and 28.1% of patients as compared with global prevalence of 22.2% and 21.6%, respectively (P < 0.001 for both). Antiplatelet therapy was the most common antithrombotic treatment in India. With increasing stroke risk, however, patients were more likely to receive oral anticoagulant therapy [mainly vitamin K antagonist (VKA)], but average international normalized ratio (INR) was lower among Indian patients [median INR value 1.6 (interquartile range {IQR}: 1.3-2.3) versus 2.3 (IQR 1.8-2.8) (P < 0.001)]. Compared with other countries, patients from India had markedly higher rates of all-cause mortality [7.68 per 100 person-years (95% confidence interval 6.32-9.35) vs 4.34 (4.16-4.53), P < 0.0001], while rates of stroke/systemic embolism and major bleeding were lower after 1 year of follow-up. CONCLUSION: Compared to previously published registries from India, the GARFIELD-AF registry describes clinical profiles and outcomes in Indian patients with AF of a different etiology. The registry data show that compared to the rest of the world, Indian AF patients are younger in age and have more diabetes and CAD. Patients with a higher stroke risk are more likely to receive anticoagulation therapy with VKA but are underdosed compared with the global average in the GARFIELD-AF. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION-URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT01090362

Bionanocompuestos de quitosano-óxido de grafeno: una alternativa novedosa para la conservación de alimentos

The bionanocomposites are an emerging alternativeto a new era of materials with excellent mechanical properties,thermal, gas permeability and moisture, but above all,biodegradable and bio compatible. In this research, packagingsynthesis was studied from graphene chitosan (CFGO)oxide nanocomposites and its potential application inthe food packaging industry. Nanocomposites were preparedby a thermal cross linking reaction between chitosanand graphene oxide at 120 ° C. The mechanical propertiesof the films obtained were studied, where it was observedthat the mechanical strength increased from 1.2 to 22.7 ±6471.6 ± 1775.5 MPa when 0.1% of GO was added to thefilms. Similarly, the increased stability of the packagingwas evidenced by the increase in thermal stability, as evidencedin the gradual increase in glass transition temperature(Tg) with increasing the GO. Finally, the antimicrobialproperties of the films were evaluated against E. coli K-12MG 1655 (Gram-negative) and B. subtilis 102 (Gram-positive).The CF-GO sheet with 0.6% had the highest inhibitionagainst E. coli and B. subtilis, with 22.86% and 54.93% inhibition,respectively. Thus, the addition of GO within thefilms significantly increased the thermal and mechanicalstability and added antimicrobial properties, which makesthe use of these films in food preservation industry have agreat prospect.Los bionanocompuestos son una alternativa emergente de una nueva era de materiales con excelentes propiedades mecánicas, térmicas, de permeabilidad a gases y a la humedad, pero sobre todo, biodegradables y biocompatibles. En la presente investigación se estudió la síntesis de empaques a partir de nanocompuestos de óxido de grafeno-quitosano (CF-GO) y su potencial aplicación en la industria de empaques de alimentos. Los nanocompuestos se prepararon por una reacción térmica de entrecruzamiento entre el quitosano y el óxido de grafeno a 120°C. Las propiedades mecánicas de las láminas obtenidas se estudiaron, de donde se pudo observar que la resistencia mecánica se incrementó desde 22,7 ± 1.2 hasta 6471,6 ± 1775,5 MPa cuando se adicionó 0.1% de GO a las láminas. De igual forma, el incremento en la estabilidad de los empaques se evidenció con el aumento en la estabilidad térmica, evidenciada en el aumento gradual de la temperatura de transición vítrea (Tg) con el aumento de GO. Por último, las propiedades antimicrobianas de las láminas fueron evaluadas contra E. coli K-12 MG 1655 (Gram-negativa) y B. subtilis 102 (Gram-positiva). La lámina CF-GO con 0,6% presentó la mayor inhibición contra E. coli y B. subtilis, con 22,86% y 54,93% de inhibición, respectivamente. De esta manera, la incorporación de GO dentro de las láminas aumentó significativamente la estabilidad térmica y mecánica y adicionó propiedades antimicrobianas, lo cual hace que la aplicación de estas láminas en la conservación de alimentos tenga gran proyección en la industria alimentaria

Residuos animales y vegetales. Una alternativa para el desarrollo sostenible de la agroindustria

El aprovechamiento de residuos agroindustriales es un foco de gran interés e importancia para el país y el mundo, pues permite disponer de manera adecuada los residuos de diferentes agroindustrias como materia prima para generar diversos productos de interés, disminuyendo así la contaminación y optimizando los procesos, con la consecuente mejora en la rentabilidad de las empresas. Una disposición y aprovechamiento adecuados de los residuos provenientes del procesamiento de materias primas de origen biológico, hace de las agroindustrias entes más competitivos, lo cual se traduce en una mejora sustancial de su rentabilidad y en un impulso para la economía de las regiones en las que se asientan y para la productividad del país.Universidad de San Buenaventura - Cal

Synthesis of Chitosan Beads Incorporating Graphene Oxide/Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles for In Vivo Studies

Scaffold development for cell regeneration has increased in recent years due to the high demand for more efficient and biocompatible materials. Nanomaterials have become a critical alternative for mechanical, thermal, and antimicrobial property reinforcement in several biopolymers. In this work, four different chitosan (CS) bead formulations crosslinked with glutaraldehyde (GLA), including titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2), and graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets, were prepared with potential biomedical applications in mind. The characterization of by FTIR spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), demonstrated an efficient preparation of nanocomposites, with nanoparticles well-dispersed in the polymer matrix. In vivo, subdermal implantation of the beads in Wistar rat&prime;s tissue for 90 days showed a proper and complete healing process without any allergenic response to any of the formulations. Masson&prime;s trichrome staining of the histological implanted tissues demonstrated the presence of a group of macrophage/histiocyte compatible cells, which indicates a high degree of biocompatibility of the beads. The materials were very stable under body conditions as the morphometry studies showed, but with low resorption percentages. These high stability beads could be used as biocompatible, resistant materials for long-term applications. The results presented in this study show the enormous potential of these chitosan nanocomposites in cell regeneration and biomedical applications