Chrysanthemum species used as food and medicine: Understanding quality differences on the global market

Background Chrysanthemum flowers [Ch. x morifolium (Ramat.) Hemsl. and Ch. indicum L.] are a globally used and pharmacologically interesting botanical drug, however, with variable product quality. Objective We aim at understanding the chemical variability of primary material available commercially based on different origins and associated quality problems like contamination with heavy metals. This needs to be assessed in the context of the current regulations for this botanical drug and associated problems. Material and Methods 15 C. indicum L. and 50 C. x morifolium (Ramat.) Hemsl., including a range of geographical cultivars recognized in China, samples from the USA, Europe and China were analyzed using High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) to compare their general chemical profile. Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) was used to quantify heavy metal contamination. Results The: HPTLC fingerprints of C. indicum samples are clearly distinguishable from C. x morifolium. Fingerprints of samples from the same cultivars collected from markets in different countries (USA and China) show different patterns. Large variance of fingerprints within each cultivar group was observed. The heavy metal analysis showed excessive amounts of some harmful heavy metal in some commercial products with excessive cadmium being the most frequent problem. Conclusions The Chinese medicinal cultivars vary. Differences between samples sourced from the USA and China might be ascribable to geographical factors (e.g. soil composition), degradation during transport/storage or adulteration, but geographical differences should also be taken into account. Importantly, a much more detailed definition of the drug are needed for better quality control. In addition, with continuous contamination problem observed, a more widespread regulation is an essential requirement for better quality

Dynamics of offset bearings: parametric studies

Novel "offset" designs offer greatly improved durability in applications fo

Activation energy for fluorine transport in amorphous silicon

The transport of ion implanted F in amorphous Si is studied using secondary ion mass spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Significant redistribution of F is observed at temperatures in the range 600°C to 700°C. The measured F depth-profiles are modelled using a simple Gaussian solution to the diffusion equation, and the diffusion coefficient is deduced at each temperature. An activation energy of 2.2eV±0.4eV for F transport is extracted from an Arrhenius plot of the diffusion coefficients. It is shown that the F transport is influenced by implantation induced defects

Criminal narrative experience: relating emotions to offence narrative roles during crime commission

A neglected area of research within criminality has been that of the experience of the offence for the offender. The present study investigates the emotions and narrative roles that are experienced by an offender while committing a broad range of crimes and proposes a model of Criminal Narrative Experience (CNE). Hypotheses were derived from the Circumplex of Emotions (Russell, 1997), Frye (1957), Narrative Theory (McAdams, 1988) and its link with Investigative Psychology (Canter, 1994). The analysis was based on 120 cases. Convicted for a variety of crimes, incarcerated criminals were interviewed and the data were subjected to Smallest Space Analysis (SSA). Four themes of Criminal Narrative Experience (CNE) were identified: Elated Hero, Calm Professional, Distressed Revenger and Depressed Victim in line with the recent theoretical framework posited for Narrative Offence Roles (Youngs & Canter, 2012). The theoretical implications for understanding crime on the basis of the Criminal Narrative Experience (CNE) as well as practical implications are discussed

The Genome Sequence DataBase: towards an integrated functional genomics resource

During 1998 the primary focus of the Genome Sequence DataBase (GSDB; http://www.ncgr.org/gsdb ) located at the National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR) has been to improve data quality, improve data collections, and provide new methods and tools to access and analyze data. Data quality has been improved by extensive curation of certain data fields necessary for maintaining data collections and for using certain tools. Data quality has also been increased by improvements to the suite of programs that import data from the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (IC). The Sequence Tag Alignment and Consensus Knowledgebase (STACK), a database of human expressed gene sequences developed by the South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI), became available within the last year, allowing public access to this valuable resource of expressed sequences. Data access was improved by the addition of the Sequence Viewer, a platform-independent graphical viewer for GSDB sequence data. This tool has also been integrated with other searching and data retrieval tools. A BLAST homology search service was also made available, allowing researchers to search all of the data, including the unique data, that are available from GSDB. These improvements are designed to make GSDB more accessible to users, extend the rich searching capability already present in GSDB, and to facilitate the transition to an integrated system containing many different types of biological data