Effect of heat treatment on the antioxidant activities of two cultivars of sweet potatoes

Natural sources of antioxidants are derived from fruits, vegetables and wine, whilst artificial supplements are from teas and spices. Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is an excellent natural source of vitamins and minerals, and likely a great source of antioxidant. The objective of this study is to analyze the antioxidant activity of orange sweet potato (Vitato) and purple sweet potato (All purple), prepared as heat dry and moist heat for 30 minutes at 100oC. All the samples were obtained from Pasir Puteh and MARDI Telong, Bachok, Kelantan, respectively. Both samples were soaked into methanol to obtain the crude extract prior to analyzing for antioxidant activity by using 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH). IC50 values of dry heat and moist heat Vitato were 0.40mg/L and 0.20mg/L while dry heat and moist heat, All purple were 0.32mg/L and 0.19mg/L, respectively. Both moist heat samples enjoyed higher scavenging activities compared to dry heat samples. However, the All purple sample of moist heat is the most superior one. Significant difference of IC50 values between dry heat and moist heat sample differ significantly. Thus, this study clearly demonstrated that moist heat sweet potato exhibited excellent increase in antioxidant activity

A DNA sequence design for DNA computation based on binary vector evaluated particle swarm optimization

Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) has certain unique properties such as selfassembly and self-complementary in hybridization, which are important in many DNA-based technologies. DNA computing, for example, uses these properties to realize a computation, in vitro, which consists of several chemical reactions. Other DNA-based technologies such as DNAbased nanotechnology and polymerase chain reaction also depend on hybridization to assemble nanostructure and to amplify DNA templates, respectively. Hybridization of DNA can be controlled by properly designing DNA sequences. In this study, sequences are designed such that each sequence uniquely hybridizes to its complementary sequence, but not to any other sequences. This objective can be formulated using four objective functions, namely, similarity, H measure, continuity, and hairpin. Binary vector evaluated particle swarm optimization (Binary VEPSO) is employed to solve the DNA sequence design problem by minimizing the objective functions subjected to two constraints: melting temperature and GC content. Several set of good sequences are produced, which are better than other research works where only a set of sequences is generated

AN UNUSUAL CASE OF COGNITIVE DECLINE AND DYSPNEA IN AN ELDERLY HYPERTENSIVE WOMAN

AN UNUSUAL CASE OF COGNITIVE DECLINE AND DYSPNEA : A LARGE LEFT ATRIAL MYXOMA WITH CEREBRAL MICROEMBOLIZATION AND LEFT VENTICLE INFLOW DISTURBANCE COULD REPRESENT THE UNIQUE EXPLANATION OF THE CLINICAL PATTERN IN AN ELDERLY HYPERTENSIVE WOMA

Assessment of left and right atrial function by three-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography following percutaneous closure of patent foramen ovale

Background. The purpose of the present study was to analyze segmental atrial function by three-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (3DSTE) in patients with patent foramen ovale six months after the implantation of occluder devices.. Methods. Patients with atrial septal devices (n = 65) were followed up for six months after device implantation and compared with a normal age-matched group (n = 35). A subgroup of 12 patients who developed paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF) after device insertion were also studied. Atrial peak ventricular systolic longitudinal strain (LS), circumferential strain (CS), and area strain (AS) and peak pre–atrial contraction longitudinal strain, circumferential strain, and area strain were determined using 3D STE, and SDs of times to peaks of regional atrial strain were calculated as indices of dyssynchrony. 3DSTE was able to measure atrial strain in 62 of the 65 implanted patients and in all patients with PAF. Results. The mean time for analysis with 3D STE was 20% shorter than with two-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (p<0.05). Values of interobserver and intraobserver variability of atrial strain by 3DSTE were <11% and <13%, respectively. LS, CS, and AS were reduced in patients with atrial devices compared with controls, and further reductions of these parameters were observed in patients with PAF. By multivariate analysis, LS (p=0.002), AS (p<0.001), and CS (p<0.05) were independent predictors of PAF. Patients with PAF showed smaller peak pre–atrial contraction longitudinal strain and peak pre–atrial contraction area strain compared with controls. Conclusions. Patients with atrial septal devices have significant global and segmental atrial dysfunction as assessed by 3DSTE. The localized regional dysfunction is likely due to the direct mechanical effect associated with occluder implantation. This may have implications for the evaluation of long term atrial function and selection of devices of appropriate sizes

Probability distribution of arm trajectory for motion estimation and gesture recognition

In the human motion measurement, motion capture system is used to record the movement of the human body by using different types of sensors such as a magnetic position sensor, a mechanical motion detector and a vision sensor. The most challenging task in human motion measurement is to achieve the ability and reliability of a motion capture system for tracking and recognizing dynamic gestures, because human body structure has many degrees of freedom. This paper introduces a 3D motion measurement of the human upper body by using an optical motion capture system for the purpose of the estimation of human upper body motions, which is based on the probability distribution of arm trajectories. In this study, by examining the characteristic of the arm trajectory, motion features are selected and classified by using the fuzzy technique. The posture of the occluded body part is probabilistically estimated by using the aggregation of the fuzzy information of arm trajectories and the constructed human upper body model. Experimental results show that the use of the system effectively works for classifying various motion patterns and estimating the occluded posture in the motion

Effect of heat treatment on the antioxidant activities of two cultivars of sweet potatoes

Natural sources of antioxidants are derived from fruits, vegetables and wine, whilst artificial supplements are from teas and spices. Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is an excellent natural source of vitamins and minerals, and likely a great source of antioxidant. The objective of this study is to analyze the antioxidant activity of orange sweet potato (Vitato) and purple sweet potato (All purple), prepared as heat dry and moist heat for 30 minutes at 100oC. All the samples were obtained from Pasir Puteh and MARDI Telong, Bachok, Kelantan, respectively. Both samples were soaked into methanol to obtain the crude extract prior to analyzing for antioxidant activity by using 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH). IC50 values of dry heat and moist heat Vitato were 0.40mg/L and 0.20mg/L while dry heat and moist heat, All purple were 0.32mg/L and 0.19mg/L, respectively. Both moist heat samples enjoyed higher scavenging activities compared to dry heat samples. However, the All purple sample of moist heat is the most superior one. Significant difference of IC50 values between dry heat and moist heat sample differ significantly. Thus, this study clearly demonstrated that moist heat sweet potato exhibited excellent increase in antioxidant activity