Sorting of Coffee Beans for 'Potato Defect' in East African Countries

Since ancient times, coffee has been a savory drink for most of the world's population. It is the second most widely distributed commodity after crude oil in the world. Hence, there has always been a pressure on the coffee industry to produce more volume of good quality coffee. The coffee industry has not been able to meet this increasing coffee demand due to various reasons, such as low crop yield, high coffee rejection rate etc. Historically, the coffee production industry has had high rejection rates due to inadequate knowledge about the defects that plague coffee and the lack of research to detect and eliminate the defective coffee beans. In this thesis, an attempt has been made to minimize the rejection rate of coffee beans due to a specific defect called "Potato Defect". Potato defect is very prominent in East African countries for reasons not yet known. It is caused by an increase in the concentration of 2-isopropyl -3-methoxypyrazine (IPMP), present in parts per billion concentration in coffee beans. In this thesis, various techniques have been evaluated to detect the increased concentration of IPMP, and then eliminate the 'potato defect' infected coffee beans. As these proposed techniques need to be implemented on an industrial scale, special care has been taken to keep the inspection time of coffee beans as low as possible to minimize its negative impact on the overall coffee production rate. Considering both sensitivity and time, non destructive methods such as ion mobility spectrometry, cavity ring down spectrometry and electronic nose were assessed for their suitability to identify low concentrations of IPMP in the complex matrix of coffee volatiles. Experiments were also conducted by Solid Phase Micro Extraction (SPME), followed by multidimensional gas chromatography with simultaneous olfactory and mass spectrometric detection (GC- MS-O) technology to validate information related to the 'potato defect'. GC-MS-O could detect IPMP present in whole green coffee beans while other researchers only detected IPMP in ground coffee. The findings of this thesis opens the doors for the coffee industry to establish non destructive, sensitive methodology to analyze further coffee aroma

Common variants in CLDN2 and MORC4 genes confer disease susceptibility in patients with chronic pancreatitis

A recent Genome-wide Association Study (GWAS) identified association with variants in X-linked CLDN2 and MORC4 and PRSS1-PRSS2 loci with Chronic Pancreatitis (CP) in North American patients of European ancestry. We selected 9 variants from the reported GWAS and replicated the association with CP in Indian patients by genotyping 1807 unrelated Indians of Indo-European ethnicity, including 519 patients with CP and 1288 controls. The etiology of CP was idiopathic in 83.62% and alcoholic in 16.38% of 519 patients. Our study confirmed a significant association of 2 variants in CLDN2 gene (rs4409525—OR 1.71, P = 1.38 x 10-09; rs12008279—OR 1.56, P = 1.53 x 10-04) and 2 variants in MORC4 gene (rs12688220—OR 1.72, P = 9.20 x 10-09; rs6622126—OR 1.75, P = 4.04x10-05) in Indian patients with CP. We also found significant association at PRSS1-PRSS2 locus (OR 0.60; P = 9.92 x 10-06) and SAMD12-TNFRSF11B (OR 0.49, 95% CI [0.31–0.78], P = 0.0027). A variant in the gene MORC4 (rs12688220) showed significant interaction with alcohol (OR for homozygous and heterozygous risk allele -14.62 and 1.51 respectively, P = 0.0068) suggesting gene-environment interaction. A combined analysis of the genes CLDN2 and MORC4 based on an effective risk allele score revealed a higher percentage of individuals homozygous for the risk allele in CP cases with 5.09 fold enhanced risk in individuals with 7 or more effective risk alleles compared with individuals with 3 or less risk alleles (P = 1.88 x 10-14). Genetic variants in CLDN2 and MORC4 genes were associated with CP in Indian patients

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Minor trauma triggering cervicofacial necrotizing fasciitis from odontogenic abscess

Necrotizing fasciitis (NF) of the face and neck is a very rare complication of dental infection. Otolaryngologists and dentists should be familiar with this condition because of its similarity to odontogenic deep neck space infection in the initial stages, its rapid spread, and its life-threatening potential. Trauma has been reported to be an important predisposing factor for NF of the face. In this paper, we describe the presentation and treatment of a 62-year-old man who developed NF of the face and neck following bilateral odontogenic deep neck space abscesses. The disease progressed rapidly, with necrosis of the skin, after the patient inflicted minor trauma in the form of application of heated medicinal leaves. The organism isolated in culture from pus was Acinetobacter sp . The comorbid conditions in our patient were anemia and chronic alcoholism. The patient was managed by immediate and repeated extensive debridements and split-skin grafting

Boron Carbon Nitride Based Metal-Insulator-Metal Uv Detectors For Harsh Environment Applications

A metal-insulator-metal (MIM) structure using boron carbon nitride (BCN) was tested for its UV detection capability. Since BCN is one of the hardest and chemically robust materials, it is expected to be a potential choice for a UV detector in extreme and harsh conditions. The BCN thin films were deposited using a dual target RF magnetron sputtering process. The optoelectronic performance of the BCN MIM devices were examined through UV photocurrent measurements. A UV photocurrent of two orders of magnitude higher with respect to dark current was achieved in the range of -3 to 3 V

The ion transporter superfamily

AbstractWe define a novel superfamily of secondary carriers specific for cationic and anionic compounds, which we have termed the ion transporter (IT) superfamily. Twelve recognized and functionally defined families constitute this superfamily. We provide statistical sequence analyses demonstrating that these families were in fact derived from a common ancestor. Further, we characterize the 12 families in terms of (1) the known substrates transported, (2) the modes of transport and energy coupling mechanisms used, (3) the family sizes (in numbers of sequenced protein members in the current NCBI database), (4) the organismal distributions of the members of each family, (5) the size ranges of the constituent proteins, (6) the predicted topologies of these proteins, and (7) the occurrence of non-homologous auxiliary proteins that may either facilitate or be required for transport. No member of the superfamily is known to function in a capacity other than transport. Proteins in several of the constituent families are shown to have arisen by tandem intragenic duplication events, but topological variation has resulted from a variety of dissimilar genetic fusion, splicing and insertional events. The evolutionary relationships between the members of each family are defined, leading to predictions of functionally relevant orthologous relationships. Some but not all of the families include functionally dissimilar paralogues that arose by early extragenic duplication events

Work Function Extraction Of Indium Tin Oxide Films From Mosfet Devices

Recent commercialization has increased the research interest in transparent conducting oxides like indium tin oxide being implemented in display technologies and sensors. A wide range of values (4.2-5 eV) for the work function of ITO films are reported in literature. In this paper, we present an approach to extract the work function of indium tin oxide films from MOSFET devices. RF sputtered indium tin oxide is used as a transparent gate electrode to fabricate n-MOSFET. For the fabrication of the MOSFET, a four-level mask is used. Electrical characterization is performed on these MOSFET devices. We obtained work function value in the range between 4.62-4.81 eV using this technique

Epilepsy: the next generation drugs (a review)

Epilepsy is a disease characterized by spontaneous recurrence of unprovoked seizures. Seizures and epilepsy are different disorders, and the terms should not be used interchangeably. It is not accurate to refer to seizures as epilepsy, although “seizure disorder” refers to epilepsy. Seizures are common and are treated in all branches of medicine. Approximately 10% of the population will have one or more seizures during their lifetime. Seizures are symptoms that occur in acute illness, i.e., provoked seizures, or in epilepsy, ie, unprovoked seizures. Antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) are pharmacologic agents used to reduce the frequency of epileptic seizures. “Antiepileptic” drug is a misnomer, because these drugs are effective as symptomatic treatment of seizures, i.e., the symptoms of epilepsy, not as treatment of epilepsy itself. Recent discoveries in molecular biology and genetics have elucidated a genetic basis for some epilepsy syndromes, which will lead to new treatments. This review include new AEDs viz; Ganaxolone, Eslicarbazepine acetate, Fluorofelbamate, Huperzine A, Carisbamate (RWJ-333369), Brivaracetam (ucb 34714), 2-Deoxy-D-glucose, Retigabine, T2000 , T2007, Valrocemide, Tonabersat (SB-220453), YKP3089, Propyl isopropyl acetamide, JZP-4, ICA-105665, NAX-5055, Perampanel and Valpromide.&nbsp