Microencapsulation of saffron petal anthocyanins with cress seed gum compared with Arabic gum through freeze drying

In this research, encapsulation efficiency of cress seed gum (CSG) as a native hydrocolloid was compared with Arabic gum (AG) and maltodextrin (dextrose equivalent of 20 (M20), and 7 (M7)) for saffron (Crocus sativus) petal's extract by freeze drying method. Combinations of CSG-M20, AG-M20, and M7-M20 with ratios of 50:50 and M20 alone (100%) were used as wall materials. A mixture of 1:5 (based on dry matter) between core (concentrated anthocyanin extract of saffron petal) and wall materials were freeze dried and stability of encapsulated anthocyanins along with color parameters (a∗, b∗, L∗, C, H° and TCD) of final powders were measured during 10 weeks of storage (at 35 °C as an accelerated method). Total anthocyanins were determined through pH differential method every week. Four prepared formulations of encapsulated powders didn't show any significant differences (P > 0.01) in terms of total anthocyanin content measured immediately after production and after 10 weeks storage. AG-M20 mixture and M20 alone showed the highest and lowest TCD, respectively. The mixture of CSG-M20 in comparison with AG-M20 and M20 had the same protecting effect (P < 0.01) but showed a relatively high TCD (9.33). © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Global prostate cancer incidence and mortality rates according to the human development index

Background: Prostate cancer (PC) is one of the leading causes of death, especially in developed countries. The human development index (HDI) and its dimensions seem correlated with incidence and mortality rates of PC. This study aimed to assess the association of the specific components of HDI (life expectancy at birth, education, gross national income per 1000 capita, health, and living standards) with burden indicators of PC worldwide. Materials and Methods: Information of the incidence and mortality rates of PC was obtained from the GLOBOCAN cancer project in year 2012 and data about the HDI 2013 were obtained from the World Bank database. The correlation between incidence, mortality rates, and the HDI parameters were assessed using STATA software. Results: A significant inequality of PC incidence rates was observed according to concentration indexes=0.25 with 95 CI (0.22, 0.34) and a negative mortality concentration index of -0.04 with 95 CI (-0.09, 0.01) was observed. Conclusions: A positive significant correlation was detected between the incidence rates of PC and the HDI and its dimensions including life expectancy at birth, education, income, urbanization level and obesity. However, there was a negative significant correlation between the standardized mortality rates and the life expectancy, income and HDI

High Performance Control of Grid Connected Cascaded H-Bridge Active Rectifier Based on Type II-Fuzzy Logic Controller with Low Frequency Modulation Technique

This paper tries to employ a fuzzy logic (FL) controller type II to control the Cascaded H-Bridge (CHB) active rectifier. This controller has strong performance, specially, when a low switching frequency Selective Harmonic Elimination (SHE) method is used. In order to regulate all of the DC link voltages, the optimum voltage balancing strategy in the low frequency modulation technique is used in the proposed method. Finally, the performance and effectiveness of the proposed method is validated in MATLAB environment.   All the simulation and result has been simulated by MATLAB software

Estimation of the population attributable fraction of road-related injuries due to speeding and passing in Iran

OBJECTIVES: Speeding and passing are considered to be the main human factors resulting in road traffic injuries (RTIs). This study aimed to estimate the population attributeable fraction (PAF) of speeding and passing in RTIs in rural Iran during 2012. METHODS: The contribution of speeding and passing to RTI-related morbidity and mortality was estimated using the PAF method. The prevalence of speeding and passing was obtained from the national traffic police data registry. A logistic regression model was used to measure the association between the above risk factors and RTIs. RESULTS: Speeding accounted for 20.96 and 16.61 of rural road-related deaths and injuries, respectively. The corresponding values for passing were 13.50 and 13.44, respectively. Jointly, the PAF of these factors was 31.63 for road-related deaths and 27.81 for injuries. CONCLUSIONS: This study illustrates the importance of controlling speeding and passing as a high-priority aspect of public-health approaches to RTIs in Iran. It is recommended that laws restricting speeding and passing be enforced more strictly

Recent advances in MXenes: from fundamentals to applications

The family of MAX phases and their derivative MXenes are continuously growing in terms of both crystalline and composition varieties. In the last couple of years, several breakthroughs have been achieved that boosted the synthesis of novel MAX phases with ordered double transition metals and, consequently, the synthesis of novel MXenes with a higher chemical diversity and structural complexity, rarely seen in other families of two-dimensional (2D) materials. Considering the various elemental composition possibilities, surface functional tunability, various magnetic orders, and large spin$-$orbit coupling, MXenes can truly be considered as multifunctional materials that can be used to realize highly correlated phenomena. In addition, owing to their large surface area, hydrophilicity, adsorption ability, and high surface reactivity, MXenes have attracted attention for many applications, e.g., catalysts, ion batteries, gas storage media, and sensors. Given the fast progress of MXene-based science and technology, it is timely to update our current knowledge on various properties and possible applications. Since many theoretical predictions remain to be experimentally proven, here we mainly emphasize the physics and chemistry that can be observed in MXenes and discuss how these properties can be tuned or used for different applications

Making Code Voting Secure against Insider Threats using Unconditionally Secure MIX Schemes and Human PSMT Protocols

Code voting was introduced by Chaum as a solution for using a possibly infected-by-malware device to cast a vote in an electronic voting application. Chaum's work on code voting assumed voting codes are physically delivered to voters using the mail system, implicitly requiring to trust the mail system. This is not necessarily a valid assumption to make - especially if the mail system cannot be trusted. When conspiring with the recipient of the cast ballots, privacy is broken. It is clear to the public that when it comes to privacy, computers and "secure" communication over the Internet cannot fully be trusted. This emphasizes the importance of using: (1) Unconditional security for secure network communication. (2) Reduce reliance on untrusted computers. In this paper we explore how to remove the mail system trust assumption in code voting. We use PSMT protocols (SCN 2012) where with the help of visual aids, humans can carry out $\mod 10$ addition correctly with a 99\% degree of accuracy. We introduce an unconditionally secure MIX based on the combinatorics of set systems. Given that end users of our proposed voting scheme construction are humans we \emph{cannot use} classical Secure Multi Party Computation protocols. Our solutions are for both single and multi-seat elections achieving: \begin{enumerate}[i)] \item An anonymous and perfectly secure communication network secure against a $t$-bounded passive adversary used to deliver voting, \item The end step of the protocol can be handled by a human to evade the threat of malware. \end{enumerate} We do not focus on active adversaries