Total phenolic compounds, antioxidant activity and toxicity of selected medicinal and aromatic plants

The importance of dietary antioxidant components for the prevention of some diseases and health quality improvement has attracted much research attention through the last decade. Vegetables and herbal infusions have been recognized as important antioxidant sources. Food industry shows significant interest in application of plant bioactive compounds for flavoring but also for preservation purposes, but attention should be given in case of high doses . In the current study were investigated the total phenolic content, the antioxidant activity and the toxicity of selected medicinal aromatic plants that are being consumed as decoctions or used as food additives

Resource constrained routing and scheduling: Review and research prospects

In the service industry, it is crucial to efficiently allocate scarce resources to perform tasks and meet particular service requirements. What considerably complicates matters is when these resources, for example skilled technicians, nurses, and home carers have to visit different customer locations. This paper provides a comprehensive survey on resource constrained routing and scheduling that unveils the problem characteristics with respect to resource qualifications, service requirements and problem objectives. It also identifies the most effective exact and heuristic algorithms for this class of problems. The paper closes with several research prospects

Instrumental Analysis of bacterial cells growth under incubation with Crocus sativus L. extracts using FT-IR spectroscopy

Foodborne illness is a threat to public health and challenge for food industry. Very young children, pregnant women, people with compromised immune systems and the elderly are at the most risk. Foodborne illness also known as food poisoning usually arises from improper handling, preparation, or food storage and is associated with microbial pathogens. Bacteria are a common cause of foodborne illness and especially Salmonella and Escherichia coli. At present food industry uses chemical additives in several processes in order to prevent bacterial growth and extend the shelf life of foods. However, these substances have adverse effects. In the current study, Crocus sativus L. extracts were tested as potential natural antimicrobial agents. The antimicrobial activity of plants extracts was studied towards Gram-negative strains belonging to the above species. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) was applied in order to evaluate the changes in the cellular composition of target bacterial cells after their exposure to extracts

Production Scheduling with Complex Precedence Constraints in Parallel Machines

Heuristic search is a core area of artificial intelligence and the employment of an efficient search algorithm is critical to the performance of an intelligent system. This paper addresses a production scheduling problem with complex precedence constraints in an identical parallel machines environment. Although this particular problem can be found in several production and other scheduling applications; it is considered to be NP-hard due to its high computational complexity. The solution approach we adopt is based on a comparison among several dispatching rules combined with a diagram analysis methodology. Computational results on large instances provide relatively high quality practical solutions in very short computational times, indicating the applicability of the methodology in real life production scheduling applications

Comparative study of biological activities of Crocus sativus L. extracts and Lamiaceae plants’ extracts

In the current study, different extracts of Origanum dictamnus L. leaves (dittany), Melissa officinalis L. leaves (lemon balm) and Crocus sativus L. stigmas (saffron) were tested as potential natural antoxidant and antimicrobial agents

Antimicrobial activity of plant extracts against oral pathogens. Detection of cellular structural changes by FT-IR.

Periodontal diseases and dental caries are common oral disorders in human population with a multifactorial etiology closely related with the development of dental plaque. The latter is composed of native oral microbiota and it is accumulated on teeth surfaces. Several antiseptic agents are used widely to inhibit bacterial growth [1,2]. However, these substances have adverse effects. In the current study, six plants extracts namely, chamomile, dittany, lemon balm, rosemary, saffron and sage, were tested as potential natural antimicrobial agents. The antimicrobial activity of plants extracts was studied towards Gram-positive strains belonging to Streptococcus species related to the oral health. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) was applied in order to evaluate the changes in the cellular composition of target bacterial cells after their exposure to extracts of both plants

Antimicrobial activity of Melissa officinalis L. and Crocus sativus L. against oral pathogens: Detection of cellular structural changes by FT-IR.

Periodontal diseases and dental caries are common oral disorders in human population with a multifactorial etiology closely related with the development of dental plaque. The latter is composed of native oral microbiota and it is accumulated on teeth surfaces. Several antiseptic agents are used widely to inhibit bacterial growth [1,2]. However, these substances have adverse effects. In the current study, Melissa officinalis L. and Crocus sativus L. extracts were tested as potential natural antimicrobial agents. The antimicrobial activity of plants extracts was studied towards Gram-positive strains belonging to Streptococcus species related to the oral health. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) was applied in order to evaluate the changes in the cellular composition of target bacterial cells after their exposure to extracts of both plants

Flexible job shop scheduling problems with arbitrary precedence graphs

A common assumption in the shop scheduling literature is that the processing order of the operations of each job is sequential; however, in practice there can be multiple connections and finish-to-start dependencies among the operations of each job. This paper studies exible job shop scheduling problems with arbitrary precedence graphs. Rigorous mixed integer and constraint programming models are presented, as well as an evolutionary algorithm is proposed to solve large scale problems. The proposed heuristic solution framework is equipped with effcient evolution and local search mechanisms as well as new feasibility detection and makespan estimation methods. To that end, new theorems are derived that extend previous theoretical contributions of the literature. Computational experiments on existing benchmark data sets show that the proposed solution methods outperform the current state-of-the-art. Overall, 59 new best solutions and 61 new lower bounds are produced for a total of 228 benchmark problem instances of the literature. To explore the impact of the arbitrary precedence graphs, lower bounds and heuristic solutions are generated for new large-scale problems. These experiments illustrate that the machine assignment flexibility and density of the precedence graphs, affect not only the makespan, but also the difficulty of producing good upper bounds

Optimizing emergency preparedness and resource utilization in mass-casualty incidents

This paper presents a response model for the aftermath of a Mass-Casualty Incident (MCI) that can be used to provide operational guidance for regional emergency planning as well as to evaluate strategic preparedness plans. A mixed integer programming (MIP) formulation is proposed for the combined ambulance dispatching, patient-to-hospital assignment, and treatment ordering problem. T he goal is to allocate effectively the limited resources during the response so as to improve patient outcomes, while the objectives are to minimize the overall response time and the total flow time required to treat all patients, in a hierarchical fashion. The model is solved via exact and MIP-based heuristic solution methods. The applicability of the model and the performance of the new methods are challenged on realistic MCI scenarios. We consider the hypothetical case of a terror attack at the New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan with up to 150 trauma patients. We quantify the impact of capacity-based bottlenecks for both ambulances and available hospital beds. We also explore the trade-off between accessing remote hospitals for demand smoothing versus reduced ambulance transportation times