Bioavailability of Citrus Flavanones and Their Effect on Cardiovascular Health Biomarkers

Consumption of flavanones has been associated with a reduction in risk of developing CVD, however flavanone bioavailability varies greatly in the population. The thesis aim was to investigate variations in absorption, as assessed by urinary excretion and, for the first time, the effect of commercially-available citrus supplements on CVD risk biomarkers. In study 1, 15 participants consumed orange juice (OJ; 500 ml: 8 mg naringenin, 42 mg hesperidin/100 ml) and/or soya-nuts (25g): 30 mg daidzein, 57 mg genistein/100 g). Urine was collected at 0, 0-4, 4-8, 8-12, 12-24 and 24-36 hr on each of three separate occasions; saliva was collected hourly (0-8 and 24 hr) after co-ingestion of OJ and soya-nuts. Daidzein was excreted to a greater extent than genistein (27-28% of dose ingested compared to 16-19%), whilst naringenin was excreted to a greater extent than hesperetin (9% vs 2.5-3%). There was a strong positive correlation between excretion of daidzein and genistein (r=0.72, p<0.01), and for hesperetin and naringenin (r=0.72, p< 0.01). Moreover, the amount of naringenin, and daidzein or genistein were correlated when co-ingested (r=0.73, p<0.01; r=0.49, p=0.05). No flavonoid was detected in saliva at any time point. In study 2, 23 overweight participants ingested citrus supplements (114 mg hesperidin) or a placebo daily for 28 days in a randomised, cross-over intervention. Urinary excretion (24 hr) was analysed by LC-MS to determine flavanone metabolite concentration at day-1 or day-28. Hesperetin-3ʹ-O-glucuronide, hesperetin-3ʹ-O-sulfate and hesperetin-7-O-glucuronide were quantified. Supplement flavanones had similar bioavailability to OJ, and there was no cumulative increase in excretion over 28 days. There was a non-significant decrease in blood pressure and fasting blood glucose after supplementation compared to placebo, however pulse amplitude tonometry was not affected. Augmentation index was reduced after supplementation compared to baseline. Although results from this thesis showed no significant change in CVD risk biomarkers, more work should verify the protective mechanism of hesperetin metabolites at different doses on vascular health

Operational performance of a PV generator feeding DC shunt and induction motors with MPPT

This paper presented the transient and operational behavior of a parallel Combination of DC Shunt Motor and IM fed by a photovoltaic generator at different solar irradiance levels. The maximum power point of current/voltage (I/V) characteristic of the PV generator was achieved for different solar intensities, by utilizing an open circuit voltage method. The nonlinear operational behavior of (I/V) characteristics of the PV generator at various solar intensities and the magnetization curve of the ferromagnetic material of the DC shunt motor were both modeled by high order polynomial mathematical expressions. The study investigated the response of the system at different solar irradiance levels and changing the torque loads for both motors and then following step change in solar intensity levels with fixed loading torques for both motors. All numerical simulations were executed using MATLAB software

New derivatives of sulfonylhydrazone as potential antitumor agents: Design, synthesis and cheminformatics evaluation

Phosphoinositide 3-kinase α (PI3Kα) is a propitious target for designing anticancer drugs. A series of new N\u27-(diphenylmethylene)benzenesulfonohydrazide was synthesized and characterized using FT-IR, NMR (1H and 13C), HRMS, and elemental analysis. Target compounds exhibited an antiproliferative effect against the human colon carcinoma (HCT-116) cell line. Our cheminformatics analysis indicated that the para-tailored derivatives [p-NO2 (3) and p-CF3 (7)] have better ionization potentials based on calculated Moran autocorrelations and ionization potentials. Subsequent in vitro cell proliferation assays validated our cheminformatics results by providing experimental evidence that both derivatives 3 and 7 exhibited improved antiproliferative activities against HCT-116. Hence, our results emphasized the importance of electron-withdrawing groups and hydrogen bond-acceptors in the rational design of small-molecule chemical ligands targeting PI3Kα. These results agreed with the induced-fit docking against PI3Kα, highlighting the role of p-substituted aromatic rings in guiding the ligand-PI3Kα complex formation, by targeting a hydrophobic pocket in the ligand-binding site and forming π-stacking interactions with a nearby tryptophan residue

Hardware acceleration of DNA pattern matching using analog resistive CAMs

DNA pattern matching is essential for many widely used bioinformatics applications. Disease diagnosis is one of these applications since analyzing changes in DNA sequences can increase our understanding of possible genetic diseases. The remarkable growth in the size of DNA datasets has resulted in challenges in discovering DNA patterns efficiently in terms of run time and power consumption. In this paper, we propose an efficient pipelined hardware accelerator that determines the chance of the occurrence of repeat-expansion diseases using DNA pattern matching. The proposed design parallelizes the DNA pattern matching task using associative memory realized with analog content-addressable memory and implements an algorithm that returns the maximum number of consecutive occurrences of a specific pattern within a DNA sequence. We fully implement all the required hardware circuits with PTM 45-nm technology, and we evaluate the proposed architecture on a practical human DNA dataset. The results show that our design is energy-efficient and accelerates the DNA pattern matching task by more than 100× compared to the approaches described in the literature

Energy saving potential analysis applying factory scale energy audit – A case study of food production

An energy audit (EA) is a crucial step in boosting factory energy efficiency and obtaining certification for cleaner manufacturing. The results of a preliminary energy audit carried out at a sizable industrial facility in Jordan that creates some of the most well-known foods in the Middle East are presented in this study. The monthly demand of the factory for diesel ranged from 75,251.545 to 166,666.67 L. The factory energy model which is used to examine the impact of various energy-saving practices on the factory’s primary energy consumption, was developed with the help of the energy audit. It has been established that optimizing the factory’s energy use and the boiler systems' performance with regards to diesel consumption can withstand an expected monthly financial savings of 14205.85 Jordanian Dinar (JD). This has allowed a reduction in energy use of up to 18%. The CO2 harmful emissions were also decreased. Additionally, it is estimated that switching from the proposed motors to energy-efficient motors will cost less overall over time, saving around 3472.314 JD/month or 0.33576/year on average. Moreover, it was discovered that a total of 772.82021 Ton CO2/year emissions may be avoided each year.This work was supported by Qatar National Library

Corrigendum to “Energy saving potential analysis applying factory scale energy audit – A case study of food production” [Heliyon 9 (3), (March 2023) Article e14216]

In the original published version of this article, the authors have requested to change the institutional information. The institutional information of the authors have been updated. The correct version of the institutional information of the authors can be found below: Mohammed I. Abuashour institutional information has been changed from: Renewable Energy Centre, The Hashemite University, Zarqa, 13115, Jordan to: Renewable Energy Centre, Electrical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, The Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan. And. Haris M. Khalid L institutional information has been changed from: Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Higher Colleges of Technology, Sharjah 7947, United Arab Emirates To. College of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Dubai, Academic City 14143, Dubai, United Arab Emirates The authors/publisher apologize for the errors. Both the HTML and PDF versions of the article have been updated to correct the errors

Safety out of control: dopamine and defence

We enjoy a sophisticated understanding of how animals learn to predict appetitive outcomes and direct their behaviour accordingly. This encompasses well-defined learning algorithms and details of how these might be implemented in the brain. Dopamine has played an important part in this unfolding story, appearing to embody a learning signal for predicting rewards and stamping in useful actions, while also being a modulator of behavioural vigour. By contrast, although choosing correct actions and executing them vigorously in the face of adversity is at least as important, our understanding of learning and behaviour in aversive settings is less well developed. We examine aversive processing through the medium of the role of dopamine and targets such as D2 receptors in the striatum. We consider critical factors such as the degree of control that an animal believes it exerts over key aspects of its environment, the distinction between 'better' and 'good' actual or predicted future states, and the potential requirement for a particular form of opponent to dopamine to ensure proper calibration of state values