The Anti-Inflammatory Role of Vitamin E in Prevention of Osteoporosis

There is growing evidence that inflammation may be one of the causal factors of osteoporosis. Several cytokines such as IL-1, IL-6, RANKL, OPG, and M-CSF were implicated in the pathogenesis of osteoporosis. These cytokines are important determinants of osteoclast differentiation and its bone resorptive activity. Anticytokine therapy using cytokine antagonists such as IL-receptor antagonist and TNF-binding protein was able to suppress the activity of the respective cytokines and prevent bone loss. Several animal studies have shown that vitamin E in the forms of palm-derived tocotrienol and α-tocopherol may prevent osteoporosis in rat models by suppressing IL-1 and IL-6. Free radicals are known to activate transcription factor NFκB which leads to the production of bone resorbing cytokines. Vitamin E, a potent antioxidant, may be able to neutralise free radicals before they could activate NFκB, therefore suppressing cytokine production and osteoporosis. Vitamin E has also been shown to inhibit COX-2, the enzyme involved in inflammatory reactions. Of the two types of vitamin E studied, tocotrienol seemed to be better than tocopherol in terms of its ability to suppress bone-resorbing cytokines

Disease Detection of Solanaceous Crops Using Deep Learning for Robot Vision

Traditionally, the farmers manage the crops from the early growth stage until the mature harvest stage by manually identifying and monitoring plant diseases, nutrient deficiencies, controlled irrigation, and controlled fertilizers and pesticides. Even the farmers have difficulty detecting crop diseases using their naked eyes due to several similar crop diseases. Identifying the correct diseases is crucial since it can improve the quality and quantity of crop production. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, all crop-managing tasks can be automated using a robot that mimics a farmer's ability. However, designing a robot with human capability, especially in detecting the crop's diseases in real-time, is another challenge to consider. Other research works are focusing on improving the mean average precision and the best result reported so far is 93% of mean Average Precision (mAP) by YOLOv5. This paper focuses on object detection of the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture-based to detect the disease of solanaceous crops for robot vision. This study's contribution involved reporting the developmental specifics and a suggested solution for issues that appear along with the conducted study. In addition, the output of this study is expected to become the algorithm of the robot's vision. This study uses images of four crops (tomato, potato, eggplant, and pepper), including 23 classes of healthy and diseased crops infected on the leaf and fruits. The dataset utilized combines the public dataset (PlantVillage) and self-collected samples. The total dataset of all 23 classes is 16580 images divided into three parts: training set, validation set, and testing set. The dataset used for training is 88% of the total dataset (15000 images), 8% of the dataset performed a validation process (1400 images), and the rest of the 4% dataset is for the test process (699 images). The performances of YOLOv5 were more robust in terms of 94.2% mAP, and the speed was slightly faster than Scaled-YOLOv4. This object detection-based approach has proven to be a promising solution in efficiently detecting crop disease in real-time

Fabrication Rutile-Phased TiO2 Film with Different Concentration of Hydrochloric Acid Towards the Performance of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell

In this study, one-step hydrothermal method is demonstrated to synthesis TiO2 double-layer structure by modifying the concentration of hydrochloric acid (HCl). The X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern analysis suggested that the dominant peak is rutile phase. Interesting morphologies such as cauliflower, chrysanthemum flower or dandelion structures over the nanorods layer were revealed by FE-SEM images and showed substantial effects to the thin film performance. UV-vis absorption spectra of prepared TiO2 film is in UV limitation with band gap energy (Eg) range from 2.57eV to 3.0eV. The optimum photoelectric conversion efficiency of DSSC is 42.5% that exhibited the efficiency of 6.41% for the sample synthesized using equal proportion of de-ionized water and HCl amount or in another word in accordance of ratio 1:1. These results serve as a guidance principle for preparing high quality DSSC thin film

Assessing the significance of rate and time pulse spraying in top spray granulation of urea fertilizer using Taguchi Method

Studies in urea granulation process using Top Spray Fluidized Bed Granulator (TSFBG) is still limited and requires in-depth research about the effectiveness and influence of droplets to the formation of urea granule (UG). Rate and time interval of spraying technique (Pulse) significantly influence the physical properties of urea granules. Cassava starch dissolves in water was selected as the binder released at various time interval to observe impact of spray droplet on UG size formation. Using Taguchi Method, the study had identified three leading factors contributed to the formation of droplet size namely volume of binder (VOB), time pulse of spraying (TPS) and spraying rate (SR). These factors were then evaluated in terms of the influence on response as signal-to-noise analysis (S/N ratios) from Taguchi to validate UG size in range 2 mm to 4 mm from screening process with respect to the actual experimental data. These results were useful for future experiment reference to determine pressure drop and surface contact during interaction between droplet and urea powder partic

Degradability studies of PLA nanocomposites under controlled water sorption and soil burial conditions

Polymer blended nanocomposites based on polylactic acid (PLA) were prepared via a simple melting process and investigated for its biodegradation behaviour. The treated CNTs were surface modified by using acid treatment and characterisations of composites were done by using Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) and UV-Vis. FTIR spectra and UV-Vis peak confirmed the surface modification of CNTs. The water uptake and weight loss behaviour based on CNTs and m-CNTs loading at different temperatures (25° and 45°C) were studied. It was found that the water absorption and weight loss of nanocomposites increased by the incorporation of CNTs and m-CNTs. Moisture induced degradation of composite samples was significant at elevated temperature. The addition of treated CNTs successfully reduced the water uptake and weight loss of nanocomposites due to less hydrolytic effect of water on nanocomposites. In soil burial test, the weight loss increases with addition of nanofiller. The loading of m-CNT reduced the ability of nanocomposites degradation

Consumers’ purchasing decision towards food products of small and medium enterprises

The gross domestic product (GDP) of Malaysia has continuously increased from year to year. All industry sectors are responsible for contributing to Malaysia’s GDP, including the food and beverage (F&B) industry. The sales within the Malaysian F&B retail industry were forecast to grow yearly. This study is to examine Malaysian consumers’ acceptance of F&B products of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In depth, this study also tries to investigate whether consumers use experience when making a decision to buy SMEs’ F&B products in the hypermarket. Results from structural equation modeling shows that consumers are barely aware of the existence of SMEs’ F&B products and prefer to buy establish brands’ products in the hypermarket. Hence, we suggest SMEs be more prominent in marketing their products. This action will influence consumer decisions in choosing SMEs brands over established brands’ products

Characterization and nutritional content of Terminalia catappa kernel and its oil from Sabah, Malaysia

This study was aimed to evaluate the nutritional quality of Terminalia catappa kernel oil (TCKO) and its characterization as well as total phenolic content cultivated in two different locations in Sabah, Malaysia. TCK contained 6.87 to 6.92% moisture, 4.54 to 4.77% ash, 21.98 to 22.44% protein, 5.13 to 5.36% total fibre, 6.88 to 7.01% carbohydrate, and 49.45 to 54.47% oil. The iodine value (IV), free fatty acid (FFA), peroxide value (PV), refractive index (RI), and total phenolic content (TPC) were found to be comparable to that of edible oils. The FFA, IV, PV, color, and TPC values showed significant differences. These results also revealed that the oil from Kota Kinabalu TCK contain more unsaturated fatty acids and display lower oxidative stability as compared to oil extracted from Keningau TCK. From the nutritional point of view, TCK oil had interesting fatty acid composition, displaying the lowest atherogenicity and thrombogenicity indices, highest polyunsaturated/saturated fatty acids and hypocholesterolemic/hypocholesterolemic ratios, respectively. This is suggested that TCK oil have potential to become a new source of healthy edible oil

Application of response surface methodology (RSM) in analyzing the hydrolytic degradation of plasticized MWCNTs nanocomposites

The present research goals are to investigate how several parameters became the factor to maximize the degradation ability of biopolymer. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) was blended in poly(lactic acid (PLA) assisted by poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) as a plasticizer. PLA/PEG/mCNTs from the melt blending technique was used for analysis in hydrolysis degradation purposely to discover how the time, temperature and pH of media solution could affect the weight loss and validate by Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The hydrolysis study was examined at three parameters of immersion; time from 7 to 28 days; the temperature at 25 °C, 45 °C and 65 °C; and pH of the solution at pH 3 (HCl), pH 6.5 (deionized water) and pH 10 (NaOH). The maximum weight loss, 22.53 % was observed after 28 days of immersion at 65 °C of immersion temperature and pH 3 of solution. The quadratic model developed was reasonably accurate based on the R2 value of 0.966, insignificant lack of fit, and low percentage error during validation experiment from the predicted values (< 5 %)

Changes in microstructures of rambutan seed and the quality of its fat during drying

The application of pre-treatment on oilseeds prior to extraction process may exert undesirable impact towards the quality of oils as well as microstructures of seed. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the efects of three drying methods on the microstructures of rambutan seeds and its efects on physicochemical properties of rambutan seed fat (RSF). The fats that being pre-treated with three diferent drying methods showed shrinkage or alteration of porous structure in terms of size, shape, and diameter. The diferences between the RSF pre-treated with oven-, freeze-, and cabinet drying RSF were in fatty acids (oleic and arachidic acids), and free fatty acid (1.56–1.80 mg KOH/g fat). From the results obtained, the useful information regarding to the efects of pre-treatment on RSF, which is a potent ingredient to be used as a cocoa butter substitute in the formulation of chocolate in the confectionery industries. Moreover, the outcomes of this work able to provide information for better grasp about the correlation of drying methods and quality of RSFs, as well as its applications in other food industries

Optimization of drilling process parameters on delamination factor of Jute reinforced unsaturated polyester composite using Box-Behnken design of experiment

This paper presents an investigation on the influence of the drilling parameters such as feed rate, spindle speed and drill tool diameter onto the delamination factor of the jute reinforced unsaturated polyester composite. Natural fibre based composite are mostly used for commodity application and often subjected to drilling during applications and may generate delamination of drilled holes on the workpiece. The composite was fabricated using woven jute fibre via vacuum bagging method followed a high temperature curing using hot press. The fibre was kept at 40 vol. %. The main effect and the interaction between the specified factors of feed rate (20-100mm/min), spindle speed (500-1500 rpm) and drill tool diameter (4-8 mm) with delamination factor as corresponding respond was structured via the Response Surface Methodology (RSM) based on three-level Box-Behnken design of experiment and the ANOVA. The levels of importance of the process parameters on flexural properties are determined by using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The optimised drilling process parameters obtained as 24.38 mm/min of feed rate, 1146.14 rpm of spindle speed and 5.51 mm drill tool diameter achieved the most minimal delamination factor. The feed rate and spindle speed were perceived as the most influential drilling parameters on the delamination factor of the jute reinforced unsaturated polyester composite