Development of bambangan (Mangifera pajang) carbonated drink

Mangifera pajang Kostermans or bambangan is a popular fruit among Sabahan due to its health and economic values. However, the fruit is not fully commercialized since it is usually been used as traditional cuisine by local people. Thus, development of bambangan fruit into carbonated drink was conducted to produce new product concept. The objectives of this study were to conceptualize, formulate, evaluate consumer acceptance, and determine physicochemical properties and nutritional composition of the accepted product. Method used in conceptualising the product was based on questionnaire. The consumer acceptance was evaluated based on descriptive and affective tests with four product formulations tested. The physicochemical properties on carbon dioxide volume, colour, pH, total acidity, total soluble solid (TSS) and viscosity were highlighted, meanwhile nutritional composition on fat, protein, carbohydrates and energy content were determined. About 77% respondents gave positive feedback, and 69% respondents decided this product is within their budget. The formulation of 5% bambangan pulp, 70% water, 25% sugar and 0.2% citric acid was highly accepted in descriptive and affective tests with 4.4 and 6.39 mean scores, respectively. The physicochemical properties and nutritional composition of the acceptance product were in optimum value except for colour, total acidity and TSS. Overall, this study showed that the product has high potential to be commercialized as new product concept, and heritage of indigenous people can be preserved when this fruit is known regionally

Antiproliferative activity of five garcinia species collected in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo against estrogen receptor-human breast carcinoma (MCF-7) cell line

Garcinia species are well-known for their unique properties of having natural secondary metabolite compounds called xanthone as well as their ethnomedicinal values such as antioxidant, anticancer, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. The study was conducted to investigate the antiproliferative activity of peel, flesh and seed extracts of G. dulcis, G. parvifolia, G. nitida, G. mangostana var. mangosta and G. cambogia collected from Malaysian Borneo (Sabah) against estrogen receptor-positive human breast carcinoma (MCF-7) cells. The antiproliferative activity was assessed using 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5- diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. The results showed that G. dulcis seed induced strongest antiproliferative activity against MCF-7 cancer cell line with the IC50 value of 2.5±0.0 μg/ml, followed by G. dulcis flesh, G. mangostana var. mangostana peel and G. dulcis peel with IC50 values of 9.33 ± 3.21, 11.17 ± 1.04 and 17.67 ± 2.08 μg/ml, respectively. Meanwhile, the IC50 value for G. cambogia peel was 56.67 ± 10.5 μg/ml. No IC50 value was detected in all parts of G. parvifolia and G. nitida at concentration tested (<100 μg/ml). Overall, this study clearly showed that the whole fruit of G. dulcis displayed potent cytotoxic effect by inducing antiproliferative activity at low concentration. Further studies are needed in the future to develop this fruit as pharmaceutical and nutraceutical product for the treatment and prevention against cancer

The opportunity of magnetic induction tomography modality in breast cancer detection

The needs for non-invasive technique in breast cancer detection could enhance and preserve the future of medical field in Malaysia as well as countries around the world. Breast cancer has become the main concern nowadays not only for women but for man as well. In overall, the risk of women getting breast cancer is higher than man due to the denser tissue of breast in women compare to man. Beside the unawareness for the disease, the reason which contributes to this increasing number of breast cancer reported is also due to the limitations arising from modalities such as MRI, Mammography, ultrasound and other modalities. An alternative to current technologies should be improved for early detection and treatment which causes no physical harm to patients if possible. Thus, non-invasive and better technology in detecting breast cancer is very much needed in the current market. This paper will be discussing the insights of Magnetic Induction Tomography techniques in breast cancer detection

Bright ligand-activatable fluorescent protein for high-quality multicolor live-cell super-resolution microscopy

We introduce UnaG as a green-to-dark photoswitching fluorescent protein capable of high-quality super-resolution imaging with photon numbers equivalent to the brightest photoswitchable red protein. UnaG only fluoresces upon binding of a fluorogenic metabolite, bilirubin, enabling UV-free reversible photoswitching with easily controllable kinetics and low background under Epi illumination. The on- and off-switching rates are controlled by the concentration of the ligand and the excitation light intensity, respectively, where the dissolved oxygen also promotes the off-switching. The photo-oxidation reaction mechanism of bilirubin in UnaG suggests that the lack of ligand-protein covalent bond allows the oxidized ligand to detach from the protein, emptying the binding cavity for rebinding to a fresh ligand molecule. We demonstrate super-resolution single-molecule localization imaging of various subcellular structures genetically encoded with UnaG, which enables facile labeling and simultaneous multicolor imaging of live cells. UnaG has the promise of becoming a default protein for high-performance super-resolution imaging. Photoconvertible proteins occupy two color channels thereby limiting multicolour localisation microscopy applications. Here the authors present UnaG, a new green-to-dark photoswitching fluorescent protein for super-resolution imaging, whose activation is based on a noncovalent binding with bilirubin

Beaconing Approaches in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks: A Survey

A Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET) is a type of wireless ad hoc network that facilitates ubiquitous connectivity between vehicles in the absence of fixed infrastructure. Beaconing approaches is an important research challenge in high mobility vehicular networks with enabling safety applications. In this article, we perform a survey and a comparative study of state-of-the-art adaptive beaconing approaches in VANET, that explores the main advantages and drawbacks behind their design. The survey part of the paper presents a review of existing adaptive beaconing approaches such as adaptive beacon transmission power, beacon rate adaptation, contention window size adjustment and Hybrid adaptation beaconing techniques. The comparative study of the paper compares the representatives of adaptive beaconing approaches in terms of their objective of study, summary of their study, the utilized simulator and the type of vehicular scenario. 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Identification and quantification of phenolic compounds in bambangan (Mangifera pajang Kort.) peels and their free radical scavenging activity.

Phenolic compounds and antioxidant capacity of acidified methanolic extract prepared from fully ripe bambangan (Mangifera pajang K.) peel cultivated in Sarawak, Malaysia, were analyzed. The total phenolic content (98.3 mg GAE/g) of bambangan peel powder (BPP) was determined by the Folin-Ciocalteu method. BPP showed a strong potency of antioxidant activity and was consistent with that of BHT and vitamin C as confirmed by the DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) radical scavenging activity and FRAP (ferric-reducing antioxidant power) assays. Gallic acid, p-coumaric acid, ellagic acid, protocatechuic acid, and mangiferin were the major compounds among the 16 phenolics that have been identified and quantified in M. pajang peels with 20.9, 12.7, 7.3, 5.4, and 4.8 mg/g BPP, respectively. Peak identities were confirmed by comparing their retention times, UV-vis absorption spectra, and mass spectra with authentic standards. The 16 phenolic compounds identified in M. pajang K. using HPLC-DAD and TSQ-ESI-MS are reported here for the first time

Cold-adapted RTX lipase from antarctic Pseudomonas sp. strain AMS8: isolation, molecular modeling and heterologous expression

A new strain of psychrophilic bacteria (designated strain AMS8) from Antarctic soil was screened for extracellular lipolytic activity and further analyzed using molecular approach. Analysis of 16S rDNA showed that strain AMS8 was similar to Pseudomonas sp. A lipase gene named lipAMS8 was successfully isolated from strain AMS8, cloned, sequenced and overexpressed in Escherichia coli. Sequence analysis revealed that lipAMS8 consist of 1,431 bp nucleotides that encoded a polypeptide consisting of 476 amino acids. It lacked an N-terminal signal peptide and contained a glycine- and aspartate-rich nonapeptide sequence at the C-terminus, which are known to be the characteristics of repeats-in-toxin bacterial lipases. Furthermore, the substrate binding site of lipAMS8 was identified as S207, D 255 and H313, based on homology modeling and multiple sequence alignment. Crude lipase exhibited maximum activity at 20 C and retained almost 50 % of its activity at 10 C. The molecular weight of lipAMS8 was estimated to be 50 kDa via sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). The optimal expression level was attained using the recombinant plasmid pET32b/BL21(DE3) expressed at 15 C for 8 h, induced by 0.1 mM isopropyl β-D thiogalactoside (IPTG) at E. coli growth optimal density of 0.5

Corporate boards and performance pricing in private debt contracts

This paper investigates the effects of corporate governance on the use of performance pricing in debt contracts on a sample of newly syndicated loans in the U.S. private debt market. While cross-sectional results provide no evidence for the predicted relation between corporate governance quality and the likelihood of using performance pricing in debt contracts, there is evidence for the predicted positive relation between corporate governance quality and the use of interest-increasing performance pricing provisions. Evidence also provides support for the predicted negative relation between corporate governance quality and the use of financial ratio as the measure of performance underlying the provisions. Overall, empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that debt-holders perceive aspects of corporate governance to be beneficial and factor them in their contracting decisions

Evaluation of a novel magneto-optical method for the detection of malaria parasites

Improving the efficiency of malaria diagnosis is one of the main goals of current malaria research. We have recently developed a magneto-optical (MO) method which allows high-sensitivity detection of malaria pigment (hemozoin crystals) in blood via the magnetically induced rotational motion of the hemozoin crystals. Here, we evaluate this MO technique for the detection of Plasmodium falciparum in infected erythrocytes using in-vitro parasite cultures covering the entire intraerythrocytic life cycle. Our novel method detected parasite densities as low as approximately 40 parasites per microliter of blood (0.0008% parasitemia) at the ring stage and less than 10 parasites/microL (0.0002% parasitemia) in the case of the later stages. These limits of detection, corresponding to approximately 20 pg/microL of hemozoin produced by the parasites, exceed that of rapid diagnostic tests and compete with the threshold achievable by light microscopic observation of blood smears. The MO diagnosis requires no special training of the operator or specific reagents for parasite detection, except for an inexpensive lysis solution to release intracellular hemozoin. The devices can be designed to a portable format for clinical and in-field tests. Besides testing its diagnostic performance, we also applied the MO technique to investigate the change in hemozoin concentration during parasite maturation. Our preliminary data indicate that this method may offer an efficient tool to determine the amount of hemozoin produced by the different parasite stages in synchronized cultures. Hence, it could eventually be used for testing the susceptibility of parasites to antimalarial drugs