Chemical changes in skin mucin as an index of early stages of spoilage in fish

Results of a preliminary investigation on the overall chemical nature of fish skin mucin in lung fish, Clarias batrachus, with special reference to water soluble low molecular weight compounds, are presented. Changes observed during room temperature spoilage have been studied with a view to present a new approach towards the assessment of freshness in fish inspection. pH of the mucin was distinctly alkaline (8.2) and remained unchanged during spoilage. Much of the nitrogen was found to be present in the glycoprotein fraction. Free amino acids and purine bases were present in appreciable quantities in the aqueous extracts which registered a significant increase after 10 hrs. Post-mortem increase in total solids was accompanied by a slight rise in protein nitrogen which may indicate tissue breakdown. Increase in TVN was also observed to occur earlier in the outside mucin as compared to the inside muscle. Presence of free sugars or sialic acid could not be confirmed nor was there any indication of cholesterol and lipoid material as stated in earlier literature

Analysis of Acoustic Emission Signals using WaveletTransformation Technique

Acoustic emission (AE) monitoring is carried out during proof pressure testing of pressurevessels to find the occurrence of any crack growth-related phenomenon. While carrying out AEmonitoring, it is often found that the background noise is very high. Along with the noise, thesignal includes various phenomena related to crack growth, rubbing of fasteners, leaks, etc. Dueto the presence of noise, it becomes difficult to identify signature of the original signals related to the above phenomenon. Through various filtering/ thresholding techniques, it was found that the original signals were getting filtered out along with noise. Wavelet transformation technique is found to be more appropriate to analyse the AE signals under such situations. Wavelet transformation technique is used to de-noise the AE data. The de-noised signal is classified to identify a signature based on the type of phenomena.Defence Science Journal, 2008, 58(4), pp.559-564, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.58.167

Layered double hydroxides as potential chromate scavengers

The LDH of Ni with Fe, having the formula Ni1-xFex(OH)2(An-)x/nṡyH2O (A = NO- 3, Cl-; x = 0.25, 0.33), scavenges CrO2- 4 ions from solution throughout the concentration range examined (0.00625-0.25 N). The CrO2- 4 uptake capacity is independent of the anion in the starting LDH but is higher when x = 0.25 (3.60 meq g-1) as compared to x = 0.33 (2.40 meq g-1). These values are higher than those observed for control compounds β-Ni(OH)2 (1.86 meq g-1) and FeO(OH) (1.26 meq g-1), which do not have any interlayer chemistry, showing that chromate uptake takes place by its incorporation in the interlayer region by a stoichiometric anion-exchange reaction, rather than by adsorption. Nevertheless, the interaction between the LDH and the chromate ions is weak. The weak interaction is due to the mismatch between the symmetry of the chromate ions and the symmetry of the interlayer site, which introduces turbostratic disorder in the chromate-intercalated LDHs. The chromate ions can be completely leached out by soaking the LDH in a sodium carbonate solution. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Studies on the storage characteristics of Silver pomfret (Pampus argentus) transported to Bombay

An investigation on the quality of pomfrets transported to Bombay from Gujarat coast and its subsequent changes during storage at room temperature and low temperature were carried out and the results reported. The pomfrets transported in boats having insulated holds were in better condition than those having non insulated holds. In general, the transported fish can be effectively stored in ice for 2 days, while the fish is in acceptable condition up to 4 days

Some aspects of curing of sharks and rays

A simple method for eliminating urea almost completely from elasmobranch muscle consists in desalting the initially salted muscle in 5% brine. The initial salting removes about 58% of the urea, which occurs to the extent of 5.8 to 7.5% D.W.B. in the fresh muscle, and the desalting further reduces the urea content to negligible quantities (0.2%)

Symbolic integration of polynomial functions over a linear polyhedron in euclidean three-dimensional space

The paper concerns analytical integration of polynomial functions over linear polyhedra in three-dimensional space. To the authors' knowledge this is a first presentation of the analytical integration of monomials over a tetrahedral solid in 3D space. A linear polyhedron can be obtained by decomposing it into a set of solid tetrahedrons, but the division of a linear polyhedral solid in 3D space into tetrahedra sometimes presents difficulties of visualization and could easily lead to errors in nodal numbering, etc We have taken this into account and also the linearity property of integration to derive a symbolic integration formula for linear hexahedra in 3D space. We have also used yet another fact that a hexahedron could be built up in two, and only two, distinct ways from five tetrahedral shaped elements These symbolic integration formulas are then followed by an illustrative numerical example for a rectangular prism element, which clearly verifies the formulas derived for the tetrahedron and hexahedron elements

A stability property for a mono-dimensional three velocities scheme with relative velocity

In this contribution, we study a stability notion for a fundamental linear one-dimensional lattice Boltzmann scheme, this notion being related to the maximum principle. We seek to characterize the parameters of the scheme that guarantee the preservation of the non-negativity of the particle distribution functions. In the context of the relative velocity schemes, we derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the non-negativity preserving property. These conditions are then expressed in a simple way when the relative velocity is reduced to zero. For the general case, we propose some simple necessary conditions on the relaxation parameters and we put in evidence numerically the non-negativity preserving regions. Numerical experiments show finally that no oscillations occur for the propagation of a non-smooth profile if the non-negativity preserving property is satisfied

Novel Approaches to Enhance Oral Bioavailability of Poorly Soluble Drugs

Oral administration is considered as major, convenient route among all other routes of delivery, owing to several benefits. But, the poor solubility or enzymatic/metabolic activity are the major concerns in developing a successful formulation. About 40% of approved drugs which are in the current market and 90% of new drug molecules in the developmental pipeline are hydrophobic in nature. The challenge to formulate insoluble drugs has met with various approaches to overcome the problems related to solubility, application of nanotechnology is one amongst them. The present review deals with various nanocarriers and technologies that are proven to be effective in enhancing the bioavilability of poorly soluble drugs

On fast planning of suboptimal paths amidst polygonal obstacles in plane

AbstractThe problem of planning a path for a point robot from a source point s to a destination point d so as to avoid a set of polygonal obstacles in plane is considered. Using well-known methods, a shortest path from s to d can be computed with a time complexity of O(n2) where n is the total number of obstacle vertices. The focus here is in 1.(a) planning paths faster at the expense of setting for suboptimal path lengths and2.(b) performance analysis of simple and/or well-known suboptimal methods. A method that enables a hierarchical implementation of any path planning algorithm with no increase in the worst-case time complexity, is presented; this implementation enables fast planning of simple paths. Then methods are presented based on the Voronoi diagrams, trapezoidal decomposition and triangulation, which compute (suboptimal) paths in O(n√log n) time with the preprocessing costs of O(n log n), O(n2) and O(n log n), respectively. Using existing navigational algorithms for unknown terrains, algorithms that run in O(n log n) time (after preprocessing) and yield suboptimal paths, are presented. For all these algorithms, upper bounds on the path lengths are estimated in terms of the shortest of the obstacles, etc