Aircraft measurements of the latitudinal, vertical, and seasonal variations of NMHCs, methyl nitrate, methyl halides, and DMS during the First Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE 1)

Canister sampling for the determination of atmospheric mixing ratios of nonmethane hydrocarbons (NMHCs), selected halocarbons, and methyl nitrate was conducted aboard the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) C-130 aircraft over the Pacific and Southern Oceans as part of the First Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE 1) during November and December 1995. A latitudinal profile, flown from 76°N to 60°S, revealed latitudinal gradients for most trace gases. NMHC and halocarbon gases with predominantly anthropogenic sources, including ethane, ethyne, and tetrachloroethene, exhibited significantly higher mixing ratios in the northern hemisphere at all altitudes. Methyl chloride exhibited its lowest mixing ratios at the highest northern hemisphere latitudes, and the distributions of methyl nitrate and methyl iodide were consistent with tropical and subtropical oceanic sources. Layers containing continental air characteristic of aged biomass burning emissions were observed above about 3 km over the remote southern Pacific and near New Zealand between approximately 19°S and 43°S. These plumes originated from the west, possibly from fires in southern Africa. The month-long intensive investigation of the clean marine southern midlatitude troposphere south of Australia revealed decreases in the mixing ratios of ethane, ethyne, propane, and tetrachloroethene, consistent with their seasonal mixing ratio cycle. By contrast, increases in the average marine boundary layer concentrations of methyl iodide, methyl nitrate, and dimethyl sulfide (DMS) were observed as the season progressed to summer conditions. These increases were most appreciable in the region south of 44°S over Southern Ocean waters characterized as subantarctic and polar, indicating a seasonal increase in oceanic productivity for these gases. Copyright 1999 by the American Geophysical Union

Chemical ordering in PtNi nanocrystals

We investigated the chemical ordering in PtNi nanocrystals fabricated on sapphire substrate using in-situ synchrotron X-ray scattering. Nanocrystals with composition close to 1:1 were ordered in the tetragonal L1(0) structure at low temperatures. The transition to disordered FCC structure occurred at around 640 degrees C and substantial hysteresis of about 50 K was observed. Nanocrystals of smaller sizes fabricated under the same conditions were Ni rich and ordered into Cu3Au type L1(2) structure. Significantly higher degree of chemical ordering was observed in L1(2) structure than in L1(0) structure. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.1144Ysciescopu

Influence of Social and Behavioural Characteristics of Users on Their Evaluation of Subjective Loudness and Acoustic Comfort in Shopping Malls

A large-scale subjective survey was conducted in six shopping malls in Harbin City, China, to determine the influence of social and behavioural characteristics of users on their evaluation of subjective loudness and acoustic comfort. The analysis of social characteristics shows that evaluation of subjective loudness is influenced by income and occupation, with correlation coefficients or contingency coefficients of 0.10 to 0.40 (p<0.05 or p<0.01). Meanwhile, evaluation of acoustic comfort evaluation is influenced by income, education level, and occupation, with correlation coefficients or contingency coefficients of 0.10 to 0.60 (p<0.05 or p<0.01). The effect of gender and age on evaluation of subjective loudness and acoustic comfort is statistically insignificant. The effects of occupation are mainly caused by the differences in income and education level, in which the effects of income are greater than that of education level. In terms of behavioural characteristics, evaluation of subjective loudness is influenced by the reason for visit, frequency of visit, and length of stay, with correlation coefficients or contingency coefficients of 0.10 to 0.40 (p<0.05 or p<0.01). Evaluation of acoustic comfort is influenced by the reason for visit to the site, the frequency of visit, length of stay, and also season of visit, with correlation coefficients of 0.10 to 0.30 (p<0.05 or p<0.01). In particular, users who are waiting for someone show lower evaluation of acoustic comfort, whereas users who go to shopping malls more than once a month show higher evaluation of acoustic comfort. On the contrary, the influence of the period of visit and the accompanying persons are found insignificant

Ear, nose and throat injuries at Bugando Medical Centre in northwestern Tanzania: a five-year prospective review of 456 cases.

Injuries to the ear, nose and throat (ENT) regions are not uncommon in clinical practice and constitute a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in our setting. There is dearth of literature on this subject in our environment. This study was conducted to describe the causes, injury pattern and outcome of these injuries in our setting and proffer possible preventive measures. This was a descriptive prospective study of patients with ear, nose and throat injuries managed at Bugando Medical Centre between May 2007 and April 2012. Ethical approval to conduct the study was sought from relevant authorities. Statistical data analysis was performed using SPSS computer software version 17.0. A total of 456 patients were studied. The median age of patients at presentation was 18 years (range 1 to 72 years). The male to female ratio was 2:1. The commonest cause of injury was foreign bodies (61.8%) followed by road traffic accidents (22.4%). The ear was the most common body region injured accounting for 59.0% of cases. The majority of patients (324, 71.1%) were treated as an outpatient and only 132(28.9%) patients required admission to the ENT wards after definitive treatment. Foreign body removal and surgical wound debridement were the most common treatment modalities performed in 61.9% and 16.2% of cases respectively. Complication rate was 14.9%. Suppurative otitis media (30.9%) was the commonest complication in the ear while traumatic epistaxis (26.5%) and hoarseness of voice (11.8%) in the aero-digestive tract were commonest in the nose and throat. The overall median length of hospital stay for in-patients was 8 days (range 1 to 22 days). Patients who developed complications and those who had associated injuries stayed longer in the hospital (P < 0.001).Mortality rate related to isolated ENT injuries was 1.3% (6 deaths). The majority of patients (96.9%) were treated successfully and only 3.1% of cases were discharged with permanent disabilities. Injuries to the ENT regions are not uncommon in our environment and foreign bodies constitute a significant cause of injury. Majority of these injuries can be prevented through public enlightenment campaigns

Variation in flavonoids in a collection of peppers (Capsicum sp.) under organic and conventional cultivation: effect of the genotype, ripening stage, and growing system

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Ribes-Moya, A.M., Adalid, A.M., Raigón, M.D., Hellín, P., Fita, A. and Rodríguez-Burruezo, A. (2020), Variation in flavonoids in a collection of peppers (Capsicum sp.) under organic and conventional cultivation: effect of the genotype, ripening stage, and growing system. J Sci Food Agric, 100: 2208-2223, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.10245. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.[EN] BACKGROUND In recent years, the acreage used for organic agriculture and the demand for organic fruit and vegetables have increased considerably. Given this scenario, landraces, such as Capsicum landraces, can provide valuable germplasm. Capsicum peppers are very interesting because of their high phenolic content, and particularly their flavonoid content, which provides a high added value. Moreover, the broad genetic diversity in local varieties expands the opportunities for adaptation to organic production and for exploiting genotype x environment interactions to select peppers with the highest phenolic content. RESULTS In this work, the main flavonoids of peppers were exhaustively evaluated over 2 years in a wide collection of heirlooms, both unripe and fully ripe, under organic and conventional cultivation. The genotype and ripening stage contributed to a high degree to the variation in flavonoids. The growing system influenced this variation to a lesser extent. Luteolin and quercetin showed the highest contributions to total phenolic content (70% and > 20%, respectively) at both ripening stages, while myricetin, apigenin, and kaempferol showed lower contributrions. The average flavonoid content was higher in ripe fruits, and organic management significantly increased the accumulation of total flavonoids and luteolin. Positive correlations between flavonoids were found at both ripening stages, especially between main flavonoids luteolin and quercetin and between kaempferol and quercetin (rho > 0.7). CONCLUSION Genotype x environment interaction enabled the identification of accessions with high flavonoid content grown under organic conditions at both ripening stages, particularly total flavonoids and luteolin at the fully ripe stage. Our results reinforce the importance of a wide genetic variation and of considering different ripening stages and growing conditions for breeding high-quality peppers.This work has been funded by the Instituto Nacional de Investigacion y Tecnologia Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA) project RTA2014-00041-C02-02, Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) funds. A.M. Ribes-Moya expresses her gratitude to the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (UPV) for her scholarship FPI-UPV-2017 (PAID-01-17). The authors also thank the farmers' association Unio de Llauradors i Ramaders (LA UNI) for the arrangement and management of fields - specifically Manuel Figueroa, Rafael Hurtado, Ricard Ballester, and Antonio Munoz, and seed providers P.W. Bosland, S. Lanteri, Francois Jourdan, Santiago Larregla, and the Regulatory Boards of the PDOs and PGIs included in this work. The authors are also grateful for the support of Professor Jaime Prohens with statistical methods.Ribes Moya, AM.; Adalid-Martinez, AM.; Raigón Jiménez, MD.; Hellín, P.; Fita, A.; Rodríguez Burruezo, A. (2020). Variation in flavonoids in a collection of peppers (Capsicum sp.) under organic and conventional cultivation: effect of the genotype, ripening stage, and growing system. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. 100(5):2208-2223. https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.10245S220822231005WillerH European organic market grew by double digits and organic area reached 13.5 million hectares in2016 [Online]. 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M., Máñez, S., Tournier, H., Schinella, G., & Ríos, J.-L. (2002). Anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties of Helichrysum italicum. Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, 54(3), 365-371. doi:10.1211/0022357021778600Cai, Y., Luo, Q., Sun, M., & Corke, H. (2004). Antioxidant activity and phenolic compounds of 112 traditional Chinese medicinal plants associated with anticancer. Life Sciences, 74(17), 2157-2184. doi:10.1016/j.lfs.2003.09.047WOJDYLO, A., OSZMIANSKI, J., & CZEMERYS, R. (2007). Antioxidant activity and phenolic compounds in 32 selected herbs. Food Chemistry, 105(3), 940-949. doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2007.04.038Bae, H., Jayaprakasha, G. K., Jifon, J., & Patil, B. S. (2012). Extraction efficiency and validation of an HPLC method for flavonoid analysis in peppers. Food Chemistry, 130(3), 751-758. doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2011.07.041Jeong, W. Y., Jin, J. S., Cho, Y. A., Lee, J. H., Park, S., Jeong, S. W., … Shin, S. C. (2011). Determination of polyphenols in three Capsicum annuum L. (bell pepper) varieties using high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry: Their contribution to overall antioxidant and anticancer activity. Journal of Separation Science, 34(21), 2967-2974. doi:10.1002/jssc.201100524Materska, M. (2014). Bioactive phenolics of fresh and freeze-dried sweet and semi-spicy pepper fruits (Capsicum annuum L.). Journal of Functional Foods, 7, 269-277. doi:10.1016/j.jff.2014.02.002Plazas, M., Prohens, J., Cuñat, A., Vilanova, S., Gramazio, P., Herraiz, F., & Andújar, I. (2014). Reducing Capacity, Chlorogenic Acid Content and Biological Activity in a Collection of Scarlet (Solanum aethiopicum) and Gboma (S. macrocarpon) Eggplants. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 15(10), 17221-17241. doi:10.3390/ijms151017221Wickham, H. (2011). ggplot2. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Computational Statistics, 3(2), 180-185. doi:10.1002/wics.147Ribes-Moya, A. M., Raigón, M. D., Moreno-Peris, E., Fita, A., & Rodríguez-Burruezo, A. (2018). Response to organic cultivation of heirloom Capsicum peppers: Variation in the level of bioactive compounds and effect of ripening. PLOS ONE, 13(11), e0207888. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0207888Rodríguez-Burruezo, A., Prohens, J., & Nuez, F. (2002). Genetic Analysis of Quantitative Traits in Pepino (Solanum muricatum) in Two Growing Seasons. Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science, 127(2), 271-278. doi:10.21273/jashs.127.2.271Metsalu, T., & Vilo, J. (2015). ClustVis: a web tool for visualizing clustering of multivariate data using Principal Component Analysis and heatmap. Nucleic Acids Research, 43(W1), W566-W570. doi:10.1093/nar/gkv468Bhandari, S. R., Jung, B.-D., Baek, H.-Y., & Lee, Y.-S. (2013). Ripening-dependent Changes in Phytonutrients and Antioxidant Activity of Red Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) Fruits Cultivated under Open-field Conditions. HortScience, 48(10), 1275-1282. doi:10.21273/hortsci.48.10.1275Howard, L. R., Talcott, S. T., Brenes, C. H., & Villalon, B. (2000). Changes in Phytochemical and Antioxidant Activity of Selected Pepper Cultivars (Capsicum Species) As Influenced by Maturity. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 48(5), 1713-1720. doi:10.1021/jf990916tBae, H., Jayaprakasha, G. K., Crosby, K., Yoo, K. S., Leskovar, D. I., Jifon, J., & Patil, B. S. (2014). Ascorbic acid, capsaicinoid, and flavonoid aglycone concentrations as a function of fruit maturity stage in greenhouse-grown peppers. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis, 33(2), 195-202. doi:10.1016/j.jfca.2013.11.009Ghasemnezhad, M., Sherafati, M., & Payvast, G. A. (2011). Variation in phenolic compounds, ascorbic acid and antioxidant activity of five coloured bell pepper (Capsicum annum) fruits at two different harvest times. Journal of Functional Foods, 3(1), 44-49. doi:10.1016/j.jff.2011.02.002Hallmann, E., & Rembiałkowska, E. (2012). Characterisation of antioxidant compounds in sweet bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) under organic and conventional growing systems. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 92(12), 2409-2415. doi:10.1002/jsfa.5624Slimestad, R., & Verheul, M. (2009). Review of flavonoids and other phenolics from fruits of different tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) cultivars. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 89(8), 1255-1270. doi:10.1002/jsfa.3605NAVARRO, J., FLORES, P., GARRIDO, C., & MARTINEZ, V. (2006). Changes in the contents of antioxidant compounds in pepper fruits at different ripening stages, as affected by salinity. Food Chemistry, 96(1), 66-73. doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2005.01.057Martí, M. C., Camejo, D., Vallejo, F., Romojaro, F., Bacarizo, S., Palma, J. M., … Jiménez, A. (2011). Influence of Fruit Ripening Stage and Harvest Period on the Antioxidant Content of Sweet Pepper Cultivars. 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3D multi-agent models for protein release from PLGA spherical particles with complex inner morphologies

In order to better understand and predict the release of proteins from bioerodible micro- or nanospheres, it is important to know the influences of different initial factors on the release mechanisms. Often though it is difficult to assess what exactly is at the origin of a certain dissolution profile. We propose here a new class of fine-grained multi-agent models built to incorporate increasing complexity, permitting the exploration of the role of different parameters, especially that of the internal morphology of the spheres, in the exhibited release profile. This approach, based on Monte-Carlo (MC) and Cellular Automata (CA) techniques, has permitted the testing of various assumptions and hypotheses about several experimental systems of nanospheres encapsulating proteins. Results have confirmed that this modelling approach has increased the resolution over the complexity involved, opening promising perspectives for future developments, especially complementing in vitro experimentation

Advantages of venous bypass during orthotopic transplantation of the liver.

Venous bypass restores normal hemodynamic physiology during the critical anhepatic phase of orthotopic transplantation of the liver. Its routine use in adults undergoing transplantation in Pittsburgh has resulted in lower operative blood losses, a lower frequency of postoperative renal failure, and a greater probability of survival for all but the highest risk patients. Because it allows for a longer anhepatic phase, the surgeon has the option of tailoring the native hepatectomy to the needs of the individual case, even to the point, in difficult cases, of obtaining most of the hemostasis after removal of the native liver, but before sewing in the donor organ. Selective use of bypass in children may offer similar advantages

Electron-Spin Excitation Coupling in an Electron Doped Copper Oxide Superconductor

High-temperature (high-Tc) superconductivity in the copper oxides arises from electron or hole doping of their antiferromagnetic (AF) insulating parent compounds. The evolution of the AF phase with doping and its spatial coexistence with superconductivity are governed by the nature of charge and spin correlations and provide clues to the mechanism of high-Tc superconductivity. Here we use a combined neutron scattering and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) to study the Tc evolution of electron-doped superconducting Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4-delta obtained through the oxygen annealing process. We find that spin excitations detected by neutron scattering have two distinct modes that evolve with Tc in a remarkably similar fashion to the electron tunneling modes in STS. These results demonstrate that antiferromagnetism and superconductivity compete locally and coexist spatially on nanometer length scales, and the dominant electron-boson coupling at low energies originates from the electron-spin excitations.Comment: 30 pages, 12 figures, supplementary information include