The dissociation constants of the carboxyl and hydroxyl groups in some insoluble and sol-forming polysaccharides

RESP-257

Efecto del injerto en las propiedades antioxidantes del tomate (Solanum lycopersicum L.)

The use of grafted plants in vegetable crop production is now being expanded greatly. However, few data are available on the nutritional composition of grafted vegetables with emphasis on antioxidant properties. Therefore, the major objective of this study was to evaluate antioxidant components of tomatoes influenced by grafting technique. The tomato plants were grown in a greenhouse located at Kriz˘evci, Croatia. The cultivars ‘Efialto’, ‘Heman’, and ‘Maxifort’ were used as rootstocks, while ‘Tamaris’ was used as scion. Grafting resulted in increase of number of marketable fruits per plant by 30%. Content of total vitamin C and total phenolics significantly decreased after grafting. The concentration of total extractable phenolics in tomatoes ranged from 287.1 to 977.4 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE) kg–1 fresh weight, whereas lycopene content ranged from 11.44 to 60.99 mg kg–1 fresh weight. Antioxidant activities determined by 1,1-diphenyl-2 picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method of grafts were significantly different compared to their respective rootstocks. The overall results showed that tomato grafting on suitable rootstocks has positive effects on the cultivation performance, but decreases nutritional quality of tomatoes. En la producción de cultivos hortícolas se está expandiendo actualmente de forma considerable el uso de plantas injertadas. Sin embargo, hay pocos datos disponibles sobre la composición nutricional de las hortícolas injertadas, especialmente sobre sus propiedades antioxidantes. El principal objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar los componentes antioxidantes de tomates influenciados por la técnica de injerto. Se cultivaron plantas de tomate en un invernadero de Kriz˘evcii, Croacia. Se utilizaron como portainjertos los cultivares ‘Efialto’, ‘Heman’, y ‘Maxifort’, mientras que ‘Tamaris’ fue utilizado como injerto. El resultado del injerto fue un aumento del 30% en el número de frutos comerciales por planta, mientras que el contenido de vitamina C y de fenoles totales disminuyó significativamente. La concentración del total de fenoles extraíbles en los tomates varió entre 287,1 y 977,4 mg de equivalentes de ácido gálico (GAE) por kilo sobre la base de peso fresco, mientras que el contenido de licopeno varió desde 11,44 hasta 60,99 mg kg–1 de peso fresco. Las actividades antioxidantes determinadas por el método DPPH (2,2-difenil-1-picrilhidrazilo) de los injertos fueron significativamente diferentes respecto de sus respectivos patrones. Los resultados globales muestran que el injerto de tomate sobre patrones adecuados tiene efectos positivos sobre el rendimiento de cultivo, pero la calidad nutricional de los frutos disminuye

The Effect of Acoustic Forcing on Instabilities and Breakdown in Swept-Wing Flow over a Backward-Facing Step

Instability interaction and breakdown were experimentally investigated in the flow over a swept backward-facing step. Acoustic forcing was used to excite the Tollmien-Schlichting (TS) instability and to acquire phase-locked results. The phase-averaged results illustrate the complex nature of the interaction between the TS and stationary cross flow instabilities. The weak stationary cross flow disturbance causes a distortion of the TS wavefront. The breakdown process is characterized by large positive and negative spikes in velocity. The positive spikes occur near the same time and location as the positive part of the TS wave. Higher-order spectral analysis was used to further investigate the nonlinear interactions between the TS instability and the traveling cross flow disturbances. The results reveal that a likely cause for the generation of the spikes corresponds to nonlinear interactions between the TS, traveling cross flow, and stationary cross flow disturbances. The spikes begin at low amplitudes of the unsteady and steady disturbances (2-4% U (sub e) (i.e. boundary layer edge velocity)) but can achieve very large amplitudes (20-30 percent U (sub e) (i.e. boundary layer edge velocity)) that initiate an early, though highly intermittent, breakdown to turbulence

Active flow control systems architectures for civil transport aircraft

Copyright @ 2010 American Institute of Aeronautics and AstronauticsThis paper considers the effect of choice of actuator technology and associated power systems architecture on the mass cost and power consumption of implementing active flow control systems on civil transport aircraft. The research method is based on the use of a mass model that includes a mass due to systems hardware and a mass due to the system energy usage. An Airbus A320 aircraft wing is used as a case-study application. The mass model parameters are based on first-principle physical analysis of electric and pneumatic power systems combined with empirical data on system hardware from existing equipment suppliers. Flow control methods include direct fluidic, electromechanical-fluidic, and electrofluidic actuator technologies. The mass cost of electrical power distribution is shown to be considerably less than that for pneumatic systems; however, this advantage is reduced by the requirement for relatively heavy electrical power management and conversion systems. A tradeoff exists between system power efficiency and the system hardware mass required to achieve this efficiency. For short-duration operation the flow control solution is driven toward lighter but less power-efficient systems, whereas for long-duration operation there is benefit in considering heavier but more efficient systems. It is estimated that a practical electromechanical-fluidic system for flow separation control may have a mass up to 40% of the slat mass for a leading-edge application and 5% of flap mass for a trailing-edge application.This work is funded by the Sixth European Union Framework Programme as part of the AVERT project (Contract No. AST5-CT-2006-030914

A complementary method for detecting qi vacuity

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Qi vacuity (QV) is defined by traditional Chinese medicine as a loss of energy in the human body. An objective method for detecting QV was not available until recently, however. The automatic reflective diagnosis system (ARDK) is a device that detects human bioenergy through measuring skin conductance at 24 special acupoints on the wrists and ankles.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This study used the ARDK to measure skin conductance on 193 patients with QV and 89 sex- and age-matched healthy controls to investigate whether the device is useful in detecting QV. Patients diagnosed with QV have three or more of five symptoms or signs; symptom severity is measured on 5 levels and scored from 0 to 4 points. We compared the difference in the mean ARDK values between patients with QV and healthy controls, and further used linear regression analysis to investigate the correlation between the mean ARDK values and QV scores in patients diagnosed with QV.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The mean ARDK values in patients with QV (30.2 ± 16.8 μA) are significantly lower than those of healthy controls (37.7 ± 10.8 μA; <it>P </it>< 0.001). A negative correlation was found between the mean ARDK values and QV scores (<it>r </it>coefficient = -0.61; <it>P </it>< 0.001). After adjusting for age, the decreased mean ARDK values in patients with QV showed a significant correlation with the QV scores.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results suggest that the mean ARDK values reflect the severity of QV in patients diagnosed with the disorder. They also suggest that the bioenergy level of the human body can be measured by skin conductance. ARDK is a safe and effective complementary method for detecting and diagnosing QV.</p

Automatic reconstruction of a bacterial regulatory network using Natural Language Processing

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Manual curation of biological databases, an expensive and labor-intensive process, is essential for high quality integrated data. In this paper we report the implementation of a state-of-the-art Natural Language Processing system that creates computer-readable networks of regulatory interactions directly from different collections of abstracts and full-text papers. Our major aim is to understand how automatic annotation using Text-Mining techniques can complement manual curation of biological databases. We implemented a rule-based system to generate networks from different sets of documents dealing with regulation in <it>Escherichia coli </it>K-12.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Performance evaluation is based on the most comprehensive transcriptional regulation database for any organism, the manually-curated RegulonDB, 45% of which we were able to recreate automatically. From our automated analysis we were also able to find some new interactions from papers not already curated, or that were missed in the manual filtering and review of the literature. We also put forward a novel Regulatory Interaction Markup Language better suited than SBML for simultaneously representing data of interest for biologists and text miners.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Manual curation of the output of automatic processing of text is a good way to complement a more detailed review of the literature, either for validating the results of what has been already annotated, or for discovering facts and information that might have been overlooked at the triage or curation stages.</p

Aerodynamics of the Large-Volume, Flow-Through Detector System. Final report

The Large-Volume Flow-Through Detector System (LVFTDS) was designed to monitor alpha radiation from Pu, U, and Am in mixed-waste incinerator offgases; however, it can be adapted to other important monitoring uses that span a number of potential markets, including site remediation, indoor air quality, radon testing, and mine shaft monitoring. Goal of this effort was to provide mechanical design information for installation of LVFTDS in an incinerator, with emphasis on ability to withstand the high temperatures and high flow rates expected. The work was successfully carried out in three stages: calculation of pressure drop through the system, materials testing to determine surrogate materials for wind-tunnel testing, and wind-tunnel testing of an actual configuration

Using Unsupervised Patterns to Extract Gene Regulation Relationships for Network Construction

BACKGROUND: The gene expression is usually described in the literature as a transcription factor X that regulates the target gene Y. Previously, some studies discovered gene regulations by using information from the biomedical literature and most of them require effort of human annotators to build the training dataset. Moreover, the large amount of textual knowledge recorded in the biomedical literature grows very rapidly, and the creation of manual patterns from literatures becomes more difficult. There is an increasing need to automate the process of establishing patterns. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In this article, we describe an unsupervised pattern generation method called AutoPat. It is a gene expression mining system that can generate unsupervised patterns automatically from a given set of seed patterns. The high scalability and low maintenance cost of the unsupervised patterns could help our system to extract gene expression from PubMed abstracts more precisely and effectively. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Experiments on several regulators show reasonable precision and recall rates which validate AutoPat's practical applicability. The conducted regulation networks could also be built precisely and effectively. The system in this study is available at http://ikmbio.csie.ncku.edu.tw/AutoPat/

Stress transfer and connectivity between the Bhutan Himalaya and the Shillong Plateau

International audienceWithin the northern Indian Plate, the Shillong Plateau is a peculiar geodynamic terrane, hosting significant seismic activity outboard the Himalayan belt. This activity is often used as an argument to explain apparent reduced seismicity in the Bhutan Himalayas. Although current geophysical and geodetic data indicate that the Bhutan Himalayas accommodate more deformation than the Shillong Plateau, we aim to quantify the extent to which the two geodynamic regimes are connected and potentially interact through stress transfers. We compiled a map of major faults and earthquakes in the two regions and computed co-seismic stress transfer amplitudes. Our results indicate that the Bhutan Himalayas and the Shillong Plateau are less connected than previously suggested. Major earthquakes in either of the two regions mainly affect transverse faults connecting them, causing up to ~40 bar Coulomb stress change; however, this effect is clearly less on thrust faults of the either region (up to 1 bar only). The MW 8.25 1897 Assam earthquake that affected the Shillong Plateau did not cause a stress shadow on the Main Himalayan Thrust in Bhutan as previously suggested. Similarly, the Mw 8 ± 0.5 1714 Bhutan earthquake had negligible impact on stress accumulation on thrust faults bounding the Shillong Plateau. Furthermore, the main process shaping the regional stress patterns continues to be interseismic loading with complex boundary conditions in a diffuse deformation field involving the Bengal Basin and Indo-Burman Ranges. While both the Bhutan Himalayas and the Shillong Plateau exhibit a compressional regime, their stress evolutions are more weakly connected than hypothesized. Although our modelling suggests lateral increase in stress interactions, from west (less) to east (more), in the Bhutan Himalayas, a clearer picture will only emerge with better constrained fault geometries, slip rates, crustal structure, and seismicity catalogues in the entire region of distributed deformation

The use of topical Nitrosomonas eutropha for cosmetic improvement of facial wrinkles

BackgroundBoth topical and oral probiotics are becoming widely used. There is increasing interest in the cosmetic potential in topical probiotics. Nitrosomonas eutropha is an ammoniaâ oxidizing bacteria.AimThe purpose of this study was to assess whether there is any improvement in facial wrinkles with the use of Nitrosomonas eutropha, a topical probiotic.MethodsIn this prospective study, highâ resolution photographs were obtained in twentyâ nine participants at baseline and after using topical Nitrosomonas eutropha for seven days.ResultsThere was a significant difference in wrinkle depth and severity in the high concentration probiotic group. There was also a statistically significant improvement in pigmentation of the forehead and glabella in the higher concentration group.ConclusionsNitrosomonas eutropha may have aesthetic benefits in terms of reducing the appearance of wrinkles. Larger studies with longer treatment and followâ up periods are required.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154401/1/jocd13060_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154401/2/jocd13060.pd