First derivative prediction of raw broiler shear force using visible short wave near infrared spectroscopy

A non-destructive,fast, reliable and low cost technique which is Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) is required to replace conventional destructive texture analyser in shear force measurement. The combination of visible and shortwave near infrared (VIS-SWNIR) spectrometer and principal component regression (PCR) to assess the quality attribute of raw broiler meat texture (shear force value (kg)) was investigated. Wavelength region of visible and shortwave 662-1005 nm was selected for prediction after pre-processing. Absorbance spectra was pre-processed using the optimal Savitzky-Golay smoothing mode with 1st order derivative, 2nd degree polynomial and 31 filter points to remove the baseline shift effect. Potential outliers were identified through externally studentised residual approach. The PCR model were trained with 90 samples in calibration and validated with 44 samples in prediction datasets. From the PCR analysis, correlation coefficient of calibration (RC), the root mean square calibration (RMSEC), correlation coefficient of prediction (RP) and the root mean square prediction (RMSEP) of visible and shortwave (662-1005 nm) with 4 principal components were 0.4645,0.0898, 0.4231 and 0.0945. The predicted results can be improved by applying the 2nd order derivative and the non-linear model

OPTIMIZATION PRODUCTION CONDITIONS OF ANTIBACTERIAL METABOLITE FROM STREPTOMYCES SP.

  Objectives: The paper aimed to isolate Streptomyces strain having the ability to produce antibacterial metabolites and optimize some environmental parameters for excellent antibiotic production.Methods: Different soil samples were collected from extreme environments of desert regions at Karbala Province, Iraq. Actinomycetes were isolated using different media. The primary screening for antibacterial production was accomplished, and the antibacterial activities were tested against pathogenic bacteria, including Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus agalactiae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The most potent strain was chosen for optimizing some of environmental parameters to increase the bioactive metabolite production. Different parameters were studied such as culture media, temperature, pH, and agitation rate.Results: About eight Streptomyces strains were isolated from soil samples. All isolates appeared variable levels of antibiotic productions against Gram-positive and negative pathogenic bacteria, and the best one was Streptomyces sp. LHR 9. The antibacterial metabolite production from Streptomyces sp. LHR 9 was affected by various cultural parameters. Glucose soybean meal broth as a fermentation medium at pH 7 yielded the highest antibiotic production under the optimal fermentation conditions, including the temperature at 35°C with 200 rpm (revolution/min) agitation rate and 7 days incubation period.Conclusion: The Streptomyces sp. LHR 9 showed antibacterial activity against both Gram-positive and negative pathogenic bacteria. It may consider as a potential source of drug production. Further study needs to purification and characterization of antibiotic and analyzes the mechanism for the antimicrobial activity of this bioactive compound

Measurement of brix level of Malaysian local oranges at resonance frequency

The production of citrus in worldwide has increased over the years. This is due to demandfrom consumer as well as positive progress in agriculture-related industry. Malaysia alsoproduces a lot of citrus but at the same time statistics shows that the number of citrus beingimported from other countries is also high. In order to maintain the quality of citrusproduction, a non-destructive method by using monopole antenna is used in this study. Thereflection coefficient is measured at range operating frequency of 8MHz to 5 GHz. Therelationship between dielectric constant and S11 is determined. The other variables arecompared during S11 at resonance.S11 of oranges is the highest at 2.6 GHz with a value of -42.84 dB.Keywords: citrus; monopole antenna; reflection coefficien

OPTIMIZATION OF MEDIUM COMPOSITION FOR ANTIBACTERIAL METABOLITE PRODUCTION FROM STREPTOMYCES SP.

  Objectives: This paper aimed to optimize some essential nutritional components (carbon, nitrogen, and phosphate) of fermentation medium necessary for the production of antibacterial metabolites from Streptomyces sp.Materials and Methods: Streptomyces sp. LH9 previously isolated from desert soil in Karbala Province, Iraq. This strain produced antibiotic against 4 pathogenic bacteria, including Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus agalagtiae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. For optimizing, the essential nutritional requirements such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphate in fermentation media different concentrations of these sources were used to improve the antibacterial metabolite production.Results: All the studied nutritional parameters were had impacts on the antibacterial metabolite production from Streptomyces sp. LH9. The actinobacterial strain produced a highest antibiotic metabolites when was grown in the fermentation medium supplemented with 2% dextrose (as a sole carbon source), 0.05% peptone (as a sole nitrogen source), and 0.05% K2HPO4 at pH 7 and incubated under optimal conditions; at 30°C with 250 rpm (revolutions/min) agitation for 7 days.Conclusion: Streptomyces sp. LH9 was a good producer for antibacterial against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, which required simple nutritional supplements in the fermentation medium. Furthermore, could be utilized the industrial waste for improving the production in the most economic manner

Histological analysis of motoneuron survival and microglia inhibition after nerve root avulsion treated with nerve graft implantation and minocycline: an experimental study

Motor vehicle accidents are the most common cause of injuries involving avulsion of the brachial plexus in humans, resulting in debilitating motor dysfunction. Lack of an established animal model to test drug treatments hinders the introduction of new pharmacological agents. Avulsion injury of cervical ventral roots can be replicated in rats, resulting in a progressive loss of the motoneurons and increase in neurotoxic expression of microglia. This is a report on the effect of prompt nerve implantation and minocycline treatment on the suppression of microglia activation and survival of motoneurons. 20 adult female Sprague-Dawley rats were used for this study, which was approved by the Animal Ethical Committee, USM (approval number /2011/(73)(346)). The animals underwent surgical avulsion of the C6 nerve root, followed by reimplantation with peripheral nerve graft and treatment with intraperitoneal minocycline. At 6 weeks postoperatively, immunohistochemistry using primary antibody Iba1 (microglia) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate diaphorase (NADPh) with neutral-red staining (motoneuron) under flourescence microscopy was performed at the C6 spinal cord segment and then quantified. This study showed signifi cant reduction of microglia expression in the study group; mean ranks of control and study group were 15.2 and 11.6, respectively; U=9.5, Z=3.02, p0.05. This may be due to the effect of the surgery; the surgery has the potential to cause additional trauma to the cord parenchyma, leading to further motoneuron loss and an increase in scarring around the avulsed region, thus impeding regeneration of the motoneuron

Ensemble machine-learning-based geospatial approach for flood risk assessment using multi-sensor remote-sensing data and GIS

© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. In this paper, an ensemble method, which demonstrated efficiency in GIS based flood modeling, was used to create flood probability indices for the Damansara River catchment in Malaysia. To estimate flood probability, the frequency ratio (FR) approach was combined with support vector machine (SVM) using a radial basis function kernel. Thirteen flood conditioning parameters, namely, altitude, aspect, slope, curvature, stream power index, topographic wetness index, sediment transport index, topographic roughness index, distance from river, geology, soil, surface runoff, and land use/cover (LULC), were selected. Each class of conditioning factor was weighted using the FR approach and entered as input for SVM modeling to optimize all the parameters. The flood hazard map was produced by combining the flood probability map with flood-triggering factors such as; averaged daily rainfall and flood inundation depth. Subsequently, the hydraulic 2D high-resolution sub-grid model (HRS) was applied to estimate the flood inundation depth. Furthermore, vulnerability weights were assigned to each element at risk based on their importance. Finally flood risk map was generated. The results of this research demonstrated that the proposed approach would be effective for flood risk management in the study area along the expressway and could be easily replicated in other areas

Kebijakan Utang dan Beberapa Faktor yang Mempengaruhi: Studi Kasus Perusahaan Pertambangan di Indonesia

This study examined the influence of dividend policy, asset structure, and managerial ownership on debt policy in mining companies listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange. This study used secondary data obtained from the financial statements and annual reports of each company as many as 23 mining companies as the sample. The data analysis method used was a multiple linear regression analysis with the help of Eviews 10. The results partially showed that dividend policy and asset structure partially did not influence debt policy, while ownership partially positively and significantly influence debt policy. Meanwhile simultaneously, dividend policy, asset structure, and ownership affected the debt policy of mining companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange

Optical characterization on ITO/TiO2/P3HT/Areca Catechu/au for thin film hybrid solar cell

In this research, dye sensitized solar cell is fabricated by a combination of inorganic titanium dioxide nanoparticles sensitized by a locally available natural dye extract from organic Areca Catechu nut. This hybrid solar cells are fabricated accordingly by deposition of ITO/TiO2/P3HT/Areca Catechu/Au by using electrochemical method. The deposition rates of TiO2 are varied from 0.05, 0.07, 0.09 to 0.11 vs-1 whereas the number of scan of each layers are fixed to 5. The absorption spectra analysis is carried out in the wavelength range 200 to 600 nm, showed a wide and significant absorption spectrum in UV and visible regions. Analysis shows that scan rate affects the electrical conductivity of hybrid solar cell. The highest conductivity is recorded at 0.278 Scm-1 corresponding to the scan rate of 0.07 Vs-1at a potential value of 3.5 V