Development, characterization, and stability of O/W pepper nanoemulsions produced by high-pressure homogenization

Interest in the utilization of bioactive plant compounds in foods has increased due to their biochemical activities (antioxidant, antimicrobial, etc.), and as alternatives in the reduction of the use of high concentrations of chemical substances. However, some of these additives are hydrophobic, thus being harder to disperse into the food matrix, which is generally water-based. A good alternative is the use of low concentrations of these compounds as nanoemulsions. The objective of the present study was to develop oil-in-water nanoemulsions containing dedo-de-moça pepper extract for food applications. Research in the development of these nanoemulsions was carried out using a high-speed homogenizer, followed by a high-pressure homogenizer. The influence of the following parameters was assessed: type and concentration of surfactants, hidrophilic-lipophilic balance, lipid/aqueous phase ratio, surfactant/oil ratio, pepper extract composition in nanoemulsion, and processing conditions. Nanoemulsions were evaluated by environmental (centrifugal and thermal) and storage stabilities, characterized by average droplet size and -potential measurements, color, interfacial tension, atomic force, and cryo-scanning electron microscopy. Those with average droplet size between 132 ± 2.0 and 145 ± 1.0 nm were developed depending on working pressure and number of cycles; -potential was around 36.71 ± 0.62 mV and the best nanoemulsion was stable to centrifugation and most of the thermal stresses. Droplets were characterized with cryo-scanning electron microscopy as being spherical, homogeneous, and stable, and remained stable when stored at 4 °C and room temperature for over 120 days. The pepper nanoemulsion, developed in the present study, has potential applications in the food industry.The first author gratefully acknowledges the CNPq and CAPES (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, Program Science without Boarder) for the BSWE^ PhD (Process 236877/2012-1) fellowship, and CAPES for the national PhD fellowship. The last author acknowledges the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) Brazil, for the grant (CEPID-FoRC, 2013/07914-8).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Saturação e cinética da decomposição de ozônio em meio poroso contendo diferentes híbridos de milho

Objetivou-se neste estudo avaliar a saturação e a cinética de decomposição do ozônio em meio poroso contendo grãos de diferentes híbridos de milho. Foram utilizados híbridos de milho comum, AG 1051, e os de milho super doce, Tropical Plus, GSS 42072, GSS 41499 e GSS 41243. Foram usadas amostras de 1 kg de milho, com teores de água de 13,0% (b.u.), acondicionadas em recipientes de vidro com capacidade de 3,25 L. Os grãos foram ozonizados na concentração de 1,28 mg L-1, a 25 ºC e vazão do gás de 5,0 L min-1. Foram determinados o tempo e a concentração de saturação, o tempo de meia-vida, e as propriedades físicas massa específica aparente, massa específica real, porosidade, esfericidade e circularidade de cada um dos híbridos. O experimento foi realizado com delineamento experimental inteiramente casualizado, com três repetições, utilizando-se análise de regressão dos dados. No que se refere ao tempo de saturação do gás, os valores obtidos permaneceram entre 6,6 e 163,9 min, com concentração de saturação variando de 0,34 a 1,12 mg L-1. Quanto ao tempo de meia-vida do ozônio, o maior valor obtido foi 10,5 min para o híbrido de milho comum AG 1051 e o menor valor 0,16 min, para o híbrido de milho super doce GSS 41499. Verificou-se que a saturação e cinética de decomposição do ozônio em milho é dependente do híbrido contido no meio poroso. A decomposição do ozônio é mais rápida em meio poroso contendo híbridos de milho super doce.The objective of this study was to evaluate ozone saturation and decomposition kinetics in porous medium containing grains of different hybrids of maize. The following hybrids were used: common maize hybrid AG 1051, super sweet maize hybrids Tropical Plus, GSS 42072, GSS 41499 and GSS 41243. 1 kg grain samples with water contents of 13.0% (w.b.) were placed in glass containers with 3.25 L capacity. The grains were ozonized at the concentration of 1.28 mg L-1, at 25 ºC, with gas flow rate of 5.0 L min-1. Saturation time and concentration, half-life time and physical properties such as apparent specific weight, actual specific weight, porosity, sphericity and circularity of each maize hybrid were determined. The experiments were conducted in a completely randomized design with three replicates, using regression analysis of the data. Ozone saturation times remained between 6.6 and 163.9 min, with saturation concentration varying from 0.34 to 1.12 mg L-1. As for the ozone half-life time, the highest value was 10.5 min for the common maize hybrid AG 1051 and the lowest value was 0.14 min for the super sweet maize hybrid GSS 41499. It was concluded that ozone saturation and decomposition kinetics in maize depends on the hybrid contained in the porous medium. Ozone decomposition is faster in porous medium containing super sweet maize hybrids compared with the common maize hybrid

CUBES: a UV spectrograph for the future

In spite of the advent of extremely large telescopes in the UV/optical/NIR range, the current generation of 8-10m facilities is likely to remain competitive at ground-UV wavelengths for the foreseeable future. The Cassegrain U-Band Efficient Spectrograph (CUBES) has been designed to provide high-efficiency (>40%) observations in the near UV (305-400 nm requirement, 300-420 nm goal) at a spectral resolving power of R>20,000, although a lower-resolution, sky-limited mode of R ~ 7,000 is also planned. CUBES will offer new possibilities in many fields of astrophysics, providing access to key lines of stellar spectra: a tremendous diversity of iron-peak and heavy elements, lighter elements (in particular Beryllium) and light-element molecules (CO, CN, OH), as well as Balmer lines and the Balmer jump (particularly important for young stellar objects). The UV range is also critical in extragalactic studies: the circumgalactic medium of distant galaxies, the contribution of different types of sources to the cosmic UV background, the measurement of H2 and primordial Deuterium in a regime of relatively transparent intergalactic medium, and follow-up of explosive transients. The CUBES project completed a Phase A conceptual design in June 2021 and has now entered the Phase B dedicated to detailed design and construction. First science operations are planned for 2028. In this paper, we briefly describe the CUBES project development and goals, the main science cases, the instrument design and the project organization and management

Abundance analysis of APOGEE spectra for 58 metal-poor stars from the bulge spheroid

The central part of the Galaxy hosts a multitude of stellar populations, including the spheroidal bulge stars, stars moved to the bulge through secular evolution of the bar, inner halo, inner thick disc, inner thin disc, as well as debris from past accretion events. We identified a sample of 58 candidate stars belonging to the stellar population of the spheroidal bulge, and analyse their abundances. The present calculations of Mg, Ca, and Si lines are in agreement with the ASPCAP abundances, whereas abundances of C, N, O, and Ce are re-examined. We find normal α-element enhancements in oxygen, similar to magnesium, Si, and Ca abundances, which are typical of other bulge stars surveyed in the optical in Baade’s Window. The enhancement of [O/Fe] in these stars suggests that they do not belong to accreted debris. No spread in N abundances is found, and none of the sample stars is N-rich, indicating that these stars are not second generation stars originated in globular clusters. Ce instead is enhanced in the sample stars, which points to an s-process origin such as due to enrichment from early generations of massive fast rotating stars, the so-called spinstars.RR acknowledges a CNPq master fellowship. TM acknowledges FAPESP postdoctoral fellowship no. 2018/03480-7. HE acknowledges a CAPES PhD fellowship. A.P.-V. and S.O.S. acknowledge the DGAPA-PAPIIT grant IA103122. SOS acknowledges a FAPESP PhD fellowship no. 2018/22044-3. SOS and MV acknowledge the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, project number: 428473034). BB acknowledges grants from FAPESP, CNPq, and CAPES – Financial code 001. J.G.F-T gratefully acknowledges the grant support provided by Proyecto Fondecyt Iniciación No. 11220340, and also from ANID Concurso de Fomento a la Vinculación Internacional para Instituciones de Investigación Regionales (Modalidad corta duración) Proyecto No. FOVI210020, and from the ESO – Government of Chile Joint Committee 2021 (ORP 023/2021). D.G. gratefully acknowledges support from the ANID BASAL project ACE210002. D.G. also acknowledges financial support from the Dirección de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Universidad de La Serena through the Programa de Incentivo a la Investigación de Académicos (PIA-DIDULS). The work of V.M.P. is supported by NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. MZ was funded by ANID FONDECYT Regular 1191505, ANID Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS) under grant ICN12_009, the ANID BASAL Center for Astrophysics and Associated Technologies (CATA) through grants AFB170002, ACE210002 and FB210003. DM gratefully acknowledges support by the ANID BASAL projects ACE210002 and FB210003 and by Fondecyt Project No. 1220724. RR, BB, TM, HE, SOS, are part of the Brazilian Participation Group (BPG) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), from the Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia – LIneA, Brazil. Funding for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, and the Participating Institutions. SDSS acknowledges support and resources from the Center for High-Performance Computing at the University of Utah. The SDSS web site is www.sdss.org. SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS Collaboration including the Brazilian Participation Group, the Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), the Chilean Participation Group, the French Participation Group, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, The Johns Hopkins University, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) / University of Tokyo, the Korean Participation Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Leibniz Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (MPIA Heidelberg), Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik (MPA Garching), Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE), National Astronomical Observatories of China, New Mexico State University, New York University, University of Notre Dame, Observatório Nacional / MCTI, The Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, United Kingdom Participation Group, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, University of Arizona, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Oxford, University of Portsmouth, University of Utah, University of Virginia, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Vanderbilt University, and Yale University. This work makes use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) space mission Gaia. The Gaia mission website is https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia. The Gaia archive website is https://archives.esac.esa.int/gaia.Peer reviewe

Light elements Na and Al in 58 bulge spheroid stars from APOGEE

We identified a sample of 58 candidate stars with metallicity [Fe/H] ≲ −0.8 that likely belong to the old bulge spheroid stellar population, and analyse their Na and Al abundances from Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) spectra. In a previous work, we inspected APOGEE-Stellar Parameter and Chemical Abundance Pipeline abundances of C, N, O, Mg, Al, Ca, Si, and Ce in this sample. Regarding Na lines, one of them appears very strong in about 20 per cent of the sample stars, but it is not confirmed by other Na lines, and can be explained by sky lines, which affect the reduced spectra of stars in a certain radial velocity range. The Na abundances for 15 more reliable cases were taken into account. Al lines in the H band instead appear to be very reliable. Na and Al exhibit a spread in abundances, whereas no spread in N abundances is found, and we found no correlation between them, indicating that these stars could not be identified as second-generation stars that originated in globular clusters. We carry out the study of the behaviour of Na and Al in our sample of bulge stars and literature data by comparing them with chemodynamical evolution model suitable for the Galactic bulge. The Na abundances show a large spread, and the chemodynamical models follow the main data, whereas for aluminum instead, the models reproduce very satisfactorily the nearly secondary-element behaviour of aluminum in the metallicity range below [Fe/H] ≲ −1.0. For the lower-metallicity end ([Fe/H < −2.5), hypernovae are assumed to be the main contributor to yields.BB acknowledges grants from FAPESP, CNPq, and CAPES – Financial code 001. SOS acknowledges the FAPESP PhD fellowship no. 2018/22044-3. JGF-T gratefully acknowledges the grant support provided by Proyecto Fondecyt Iniciación no. 11220340, and from the Joint Committee ESO-Government of Chile 2021 (ORP 023/2021), and from Becas Santander Movilidad Internacional Profesores 2022, Banco Santander Chile. DG gratefully acknowledges the support provided by FONDECYT regular no. 1220264. The work of VMP is supported by NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. MZ was funded by ANID FONDECYT Regular 1191505, ANID Millennium Institute of Astrophysics (MAS) under grant ICN12_009, the ANID BASAL Center for Astrophysics and Associated Technologies (CATA) through grants AFB170002, ACE210002, and FB210003. TCB acknowledges partial support from grant PHY 14-30152; Physics Frontier Center/JINA Center for the Evolution of the Elements (JINA-CEE), and from OISE-1927130: The International Research Network for Nuclear Astrophysics (IReNA), awarded by the US National Science Foundation.Peer reviewe

Abundances of iron-peak elements in 58 bulge spheroid stars from APOGEE

Context. Stars presently identified in the bulge spheroid are probably very old, and their abundances can be interpreted as due to the fast chemical enrichment of the early Galactic bulge. The abundances of the iron-peak elements are important tracers of nucleosynthesis processes, in particular oxygen burning, silicon burning, the weak s-process, and α-rich freeze-out. Aims. The aim of this work is to derive the abundances of V, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, and Cu in 58 bulge spheroid stars and to compare them with the results of a previous analysis of data from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE). Methods. We selected the best lines for V, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, and Cu located within the H-band of the spectrum, identifying the most suitable ones for abundance determination, and discarding severe blends. Using the stellar physical parameters available for our sample from the DR17 release of the APOGEE project, we derived the individual abundances through spectrum synthesis. We then complemented these measurements with similar results from different bulge field and globular cluster stars, in order to define the trends of the individual elements and compare with the results of chemical-evolution models. Results. We verify that the H-band has useful lines for the derivation of the elements V, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, and Cu in moderately metalpoor stars. The abundances, plotted together with others from high-resolution spectroscopy of bulge stars, indicate that: V, Cr, and Ni vary in lockstep with Fe; Co tends to vary in lockstep with Fe, but could be showing a slight decrease with decreasing metallicity; and Mn and Cu decrease with decreasing metallicity. These behaviours are well reproduced by chemical-evolution models that adopt literature yields, except for Cu, which appears to drop faster than the models predict for [Fe/H]<- 0.8. Finally, abundance indicators combined with kinematical and dynamical criteria appear to show that our 58 sample stars are likely to have originated in situ.B.B. and A.C.S.F. acknowledge grants from FAPESP, Con selho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) - Financial code 001. P.S. acknowledges Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) post-doctoral fellowships 2020/13239-5 and 2022/14382-1. S.O.S. acknowledges a FAPESP PhD fellowship no. 2018/22044- 3. A.P.-V., B.B., and S.O.S. acknowledge the DGAPA-PAPIIT grant IA103224. P.S., B.B., H.E., and S.O.S. are part of the Brazilian Participation Group (BPG) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), from the Laboratório Interinstitu cional de e-Astronomia – LIneA, Brazil. J.G.F-.T. gratefully acknowledges the grant support provided by Proyecto Fondecyt Iniciación No. 11220340, Proyecto Fondecyt Postdoc No. 3230001 (Sponsored by J.G.F-.T.) and from the Joint Committee ESO-Government of Chile 2021 (ORP 023/2021), and 2023 (ORP 062/2023). F.A. acknowledges partial supported by the Spanish MICIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe” by the “European Union” through grant PID2021-122842OB-C21, and the Insti tute of Cosmos Sciences University of Barcelona (ICCUB, Unidad de Excelencia ’María de Maeztu’) through grant CEX2019-000918-M. FA acknowledges the grant RYC2021-031683-I funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR. D.M. gratefully acknowledges support from the Center for Astrophysics and Associated Technologies (CATA) by ANID BASAL projects ACE210002 and FB210003, and Fondecyt Project No. 1220724. D.G. gratefully acknowledges the support provided by Fondecyt regular n. 1220264. D.G. also acknowledges financial support from the Direc ción de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Universidad de La Serena through the Programa de Incentivo a la Investigación de Académicos (PIA-DIDULS). The work of V.V.S. and V.M.P. is supported by NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a coopera tive agreement with the U.S. National Science Foundation. T.C.B. acknowledges support from grant PHY 14-30152; Physics Frontier Center/JINA Center for the Evolution of the Elements (JINA-CEE), and from OISE-1927130: The Inter national Research Network for Nuclear Astrophysics (IReNA), awarded by the US National Science Foundation. Apogee project: funding for the Sloan Digi tal Sky Survey IV has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, and the Participating Institutions. SDSS acknowledges support and resources from the Center for High-Performance Computing at the University of Utah. The SDSS web site is www.sdss.org. SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Insti tutions of the SDSS Collaboration including the Brazilian Participation Group, the Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), the Chilean Participation Group, the French Participation Group, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, The Johns Hopkins University, Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Uni verse (IPMU) / University of Tokyo, the Korean Participation Group, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Leibniz Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (MPIA Heidelberg), Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik (MPA Garching), Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE), National Astronomical Observatories of China, New Mexico State Uni versity, New York University, University of Notre Dame, Observatório Nacional / MCTI, The Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, United Kingdom Participation Group, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, University of Arizona, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Oxford, University of Portsmouth, University of Utah, University of Virginia, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Vanderbilt University, and Yale University.With funding from the Spanish government through the "María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence" accreditation (CEX2019-000918-M)Peer reviewe