Determination of Macronutrient Compositions in Selected, Frequently Consumed Leafy Vegetables, Prepared According to Common Culinary Methods in Sri Lanka

Information regarding realistic macronutrient gains by consuming cooked Sri Lankan leafy vegetables are rare. Some available information often overestimates available carbohydrate contents and under-estimates dietary fibre contents, as a result of not using in-vitro digestion models prior to proximate analysis. In aim to address this issue, nine most frequently consumed leafy vegetables types in Sri Lanka were cooked and analysed for their moisture, digestible carbohydrate, protein, fat, soluble fibre and insoluble fibre contents. All vegetables were prepared in most frequently practiced culinary methods by the local community such as salads, tempered with oils, or as curries/gravies. Dry weights of all macronutrients were determined using six replicates to maximize the accuracy of results.Majority of the leafy vegetable types selected elicited substantial amounts of dietary fibre. The highest content of insoluble dietary fibre was present in Centella asiatica (centella) leaves salad (51.0±3.4%), whereas highest percentage of soluble dietary fibre was in Heracleum sphondylium (hogweed) leaves prepared as a curry (16.4±1.7%). H. sphondylium curry (20.7±1.3%) and Sesbania grandiflora (Hummingbird) leaves salad (20.7±0.9%) resulted in greatest amounts of digestible carbohydrates.The highest fat content (12.6±0.5%) was in Ipomoea aquatic (water spinach) since it was tempered with coconut oil as it is the mostly practiced local culinary method for Ipomoea. Spinacia oleracea (spinach) curry elicited the highest protein content (4.8±0.9%) among all leafy vegetables.Keywords: Dietary fibre, leafy vegetables, digestible carbohydrates, Centella asiatica, Heracleum sphondylium, Sesbania grandiflor

Investigation of Daily Macronutrient intakes by Sri Lankan Managerial Level Employees working in the Private Sector

With changes of lifestyles and social values in the food culture, many individuals working as managerial level employees in the as private sector are seemingly selecting more improper daily meal combinations. This study was designed to determine whether this occurrence can have a severe impact to imbalance the daily nutrient intakes by the individuals in the mentioned social segment, which increase the tendency of having nutrition related chronic diseases. In a hierarchy range from junior executives to CEOs of private sector organizations, 800 individuals were selected by disproportionate stratified random sampling. Selected individuals are interviewed using a structured questionnaire to assess their daily food combinations and their consumed portion sizes. Frequently consumed meal combinations were then analyzed for their macronutrient composition, to compare with world Health organizations’ (WHO) Reference Dietary Intake (RDI) levels of nutrients. The results reveal of significantly (p<0.05) higher daily fat (45.3 ±1.7 g/day) and protein (65.2 ±1.4 g/day) intakes than the WHO recommendation levels and significantly (p<0.05) lower in dietary fibre (22.3 ±1.1 g/day) contents by selected participants. Carbohydrate intake (133.1 ±2.2 g/day) was higher than reference levels but was not significant (p>0.05). This indicates of a considerable risk for many individuals in the concerned social segment, of having non-communicable diseases, if observed dietary patterns are continued

Computerized System to Manage Business Functionalities for a Gymnasium

Sri Lanka as a still developing country must keep up with modern technologies. Computers in this advanced world are more and more famous and turning essential to our way of life. In these modern days, people are very much concerned about their health and diet, also they are looking for a gym. This Gymnasium management system is a combination of wellness centers designed to deal with customers easier and more efficiently. A gymnasium is a must-go place for any person who loves to live a fit and healthy bodybuilding lifestyle. This system is developed for Fitness Factory Gymnasium located in the Galle district in Sri Lanka. The gym is equipped with all modern machinery and other supporting items to provide better service to its customers. So, the number of members is increasing day by day and the gym management has decided to move to an IT solution to handle the increasing volumes. Improvement was finished after distinguishing client needs utilizing different information assortment innovations. Because of the prerequisites, the product was planned and created with an iterative and steady advancement technique. The system was created determined to supplant the ongoing manual framework utilized in the fitness center. The framework expresses that the fitness center's assets ought to be effectively available to its individuals while engaging the fitness center's administration cycle. Key functions such as trainer’s membership management, customer management, workout plans management (workout management), Customer workout schedule management, Nutrition plan management (Customer meal management), trainer leave management, Q & A management, BMI Calculator, memo and reminder management, inquiry management and report generation were identified. Access control is achieved with a username and password to the admin, trainer, and customer. The system can suggest the best workout schedules for the members. Researchers’ primary goal in developing this system is to make things that were previously done manually in the gym easier. Researchers expect that all system users will benefit from a better service

An Efficient Fuel Management System to Address the Ongoing Fuel Crisis in Sri Lanka

The economic crisis has made huge impacts on people’s lives to the extent that certain daily tasks no longer feel normal, like pumping fuel from a fuel station. Mental and health conditions of people are deteriorating due to these types of issues which must immediately be addressed. This paper discusses about a proposed fuel management system to eliminate or at least reduce this unnecessary hassle for the public and fuel stations also illustrating and discussing the available systems for the same. New innovative features have been proposed to this system respective to the system already in use which is believed that it will vastly help in managing fuel more efficiently for both distribution and pumping. We also believe that the data collected through the system will also be very useful in making prediction models for the government as well, to make certain decisions. Another aim of this system is eliminating the black market for fuel which has been created putting more pressure on people and the government by a complaint management feature and tracking fraudulent fuel stations using a formula which has been proposed. Thus, we hope this system will aid both for the government and the public for an efficient fuel management

Travel Planning Management System

This project, "TRAVEL PLANNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM", is used to automate all processes of travel and tourism, which deals with the creation, booking, confirmation, and user details. The project is designed with React JS as the front end and Spring boot as the backend, which works in any browser. A travel planning management system is used to book a tour from anywhere in the world by a single dynamic website which will help the user to know all about the places and travel details in a single web application. The admin can add travel packages to the system, transport services, place management, and hotels to create travel packages. Then the users can sign in and book each travel package, and also, they can book custom travel packages. The user can confirm their bookings by paying for the package. It is the most accessible platform for travellers who can easily book and know all details

Physico-chemical Characterization of Cookies Supplemented with Sugarcane Bagasse Fibres

Sugarcane bagasse is a by-product of sugarcane processing and it is rich in insoluble dietary fibers. The objective of this study was to develop cookies enriched with sugarcane bagasse as a fiber source with no added sugars. Bagasses with or without peel were collected from a jaggery manufacturing plant and they were dried, grinded, and sieved to obtain powder (moisture content, 3%). The fiber content (%, wet weight basis) of bagasse powders with and without peel were 12.43±0.30 and 8.61±0.38, respectively. Furthermore, the bagasse with peel contained the highest total phenolic content (1270.89±3.36 µg GAE/ g) than bagasse without peel (721.41±0.33 µg GAE/g). In addition, water holding capacities (WHC) of with peel and without peel bagasse were 4.85±2.91 and 8.04±1.78 g of water/g of bagasse powder, respectively. These two types of bagasse powders at 0% (control), 5%, and 10% (w/w) ratios were enriched to develop cookies. Texture analysis revealed that bagasse with peel enriched cookies were shown optimum hardness compare to the bagasse without peel cookies. According to the sensory evaluation, the 5% bagasse with peel enriched cookies showed the highest overall acceptability than other bagasse enriched cookies but lesser overall acceptability than the control. Collectively, these results suggest that the potential incorporation of sugarcane bagasse (with peel at 5%, w/w) is acceptable in cookies manufacturing.Keywords: bagasse, by-products, cookies, sugarcane, value-additio

Multi-scale approaches for the simulation of cardiac electrophysiology: I – sub-cellular and stochastic calcium dynamics from cell to organ

Computational models of the heart at multiple spatial scales, from sub-cellular nanodomains to the whole-organ, are a powerful tool for the simulation of cardiac electrophysiology. Application of these models has provided remarkable insight into the normal and pathological functioning of the heart. In these two articles, we present methods for modelling cardiac electrophysiology at all of these spatial scales. In part one, presented here, we discuss methods and approaches for modelling sub-cellular calcium dynamics at the whole-cell and organ scales, valuable for modelling excitation–contraction coupling and mechanisms of arrhythmia triggers

Peptide ligands of the cardiac ryanodine receptor as super-resolution imaging probes

To study the structural basis of pathological remodelling and altered calcium channel functional states in the heart, we sought to re-purpose high-affinity ligands of the cardiac calcium channel, the ryanodine receptor (RyR2), into super-resolution imaging probes. Imperacalcin (IpCa), a scorpion toxin peptide which induces channel sub-conduction states, and DPc10, a synthetic peptide corresponding to a sequence of the RyR2, which replicates arrhythmogenic CPVT functional changes, were used in fluorescent imaging experiments. Isolated adult rat ventricular cardiomyocytes were saponin-permeabilised and incubated with each peptide. IpCa-A546 became sequestered into the mitochondria. This was prevented by treatment of the permeabilised cells with the ionophore FCCP, revealing a striated staining pattern in confocal imaging which had weak colocalisation with RyR2 clusters. Poor specificity (as an RyR2 imaging probe) was confirmed at higher resolution with expansion microscopy (proExM) (~70 nm). DPc10-FITC labelled a striated pattern, which had moderate colocalisation with RyR2 cluster labelling in confocal and proExM. There was also widespread non-target labelling of the Z-discs, intercalated discs, and nuclei, which was unaffected by incubation times or 10 mM caffeine. The inactive peptide mut-DPc10-FITC (which causes no functional effects) displayed a similar labelling pattern. Significant labelling of structures unrelated to RyR2 by both peptide conjugates makes their use as highly specific imaging probes of RyR2 in living isolated cardiomyocytes highly challenging. We investigated the native DPc10 sequence within the RyR2 structure to understand the domain interactions and proposed mechanism of peptide binding. The native DPc10 sequence does not directly interact with another domain, and but is downstream of one such domain interface. The rabbit Arg2475 (equivalent to human Arg2474, mutated in CPVT) in the native sequence is the most accessible portion and most likely location for peptide disturbance, suggesting FITC placement does not impact peptide binding

Rab46 integrates Ca2+ and histamine signaling to regulate selective cargo release from Weibel-Palade bodies

Endothelial cells selectively release cargo stored in Weibel-Palade bodies (WPBs) to regulate vascular function, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Here we show that histamine evokes the release of the proinflammatory ligand, P-selectin, while diverting WPBs carrying non-inflammatory cargo away from the plasma membrane to the microtubule organizing center. This differential trafficking is dependent on Rab46 (CRACR2A), a newly identified Ca2+-sensing GTPase, which localizes to a subset of P-selectin–negative WPBs. After acute stimulation of the H1 receptor, GTP-bound Rab46 evokes dynein-dependent retrograde transport of a subset of WPBs along microtubules. Upon continued histamine stimulation, Rab46 senses localized elevations of intracellular calcium and evokes dispersal of microtubule organizing center–clustered WPBs. These data demonstrate for the first time that a Rab GTPase, Rab46, integrates G protein and Ca2+ signals to couple on-demand histamine signals to selective WPB trafficking