Foeniculum vulgare Essential Oils: Chemical Composition, Antioxidant and Antimicrobial Activities

The essential oils from Foeniculum vulgare commercial aerial parts and fruits were isolated by hydrodistillation, with different distillation times (30 min, I h, 2 h and 3 h), and analyzed by GC and GC-MS. The antioxidant ability was estimated using four distinct methods. Antibacterial activity was determined by the agar diffusion method. Remarkable differences, and worrying from the quality and safety point of view, were detected in the essential oils. trans-Anethole (31-36%), alpha-pinene (14-20%) and limonene (11-13%) were the main components of the essentials oil isolated from F. vulgare dried aerial parts, whereas methyl chavicol (= estragole) (79-88%) was dominant in the fruit oils. With the DPPH method the plant oils showed better antioxidant activity than the fruits oils. With the TBARS method and at higher concentrations, fennel essential oils showed a pro-oxidant activity. None of the oils showed a hydroxyl radical scavenging capacity >50%, but they showed an ability to inhibit 5-lipoxygenase. The essential oils showed a very low antimicrobial activity. In general, the essential oils isolated during 2 h were as effective, from the biological activity point of view, as those isolated during 3 h.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Static quantities of a neutral bilepton in the 331 model with right-handed neutrinos

A neutral vector boson can possess static electromagnetic properties provided that the associated field is no self-conjugate. This possibility is explored in the $SU_C(3) X SU_L(3) X U_N(1)$ model with right-handed neutrinos, which predicts a complex neutral gauge boson $Y^0$ in a nontrivial representation of the electroweak group. In this model the only nonvanishing form factors are the CP-even ones, which arise from both the quark and gauge sectors, and contribute to the magnetic dipole and the electric quadrupole moments of this neutral particle.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Electroweak Corrections to the Top Quark Decay

We have calculated the one-loop electroweak corrections to the decay t-> bW+, including the counterterm for the CKM matrix elements V(tb). Previous calculations used an incorrect delta V(tb) that led to a gauge dependent amplitude. However, since the contribution stemming from delta V(tb) is small, those calculations only underestimate the width by roughly one part in 10^5.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Development of an electrochemical biosensor for Machado-Joseph disease biomarker detection

[Excerpt] Machado-Joseph disease (MJD) or spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) is a neurodegenerative disease with an autosomal dominant inheritance pattern. Nowadays, it is the most common form of spinocerebellar ataxia and an incurable disorder, which leads to death1. MJD is caused by the expansion of CAG trinucleotide repeat in the coding region of the gene ATXN3 and the aggregation of the resulting product. This polyQ expansion is thought to be the key of the disease, in which the length of this polyQ extension is linked to earlier and more severe symptons2. This mutant protein disturbs the normal neuronal function and leads to its degeneration, with subsequent formation of neuronal intranuclear inclusions. Although there is no treatment available, a more accurate diagnosis of MJD may lead to relieved symptoms2. Research activities targeting such possibility include the identification of biomarkers in several biological fluids that may turn out an important means to early diagnosis or even potential therapy biomarkers within future3,4. [...]Funding of project IBEROS, Instituto de Bioingeniería en Red para el Envejecimiento Saludable, POCTEP/0245-BEROS-1-E, PROGRAMA INTERREG 2014-2020, to FEDER within the cooperation region of Galiza/Spain and North of Portugalinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

One-part geopolymers versus Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) mortars : durability assessment

Investigations on the field of geopolymeric binders, state that this new material is likely to have high potential to become an alternative to Ordinary Portland cement (OPC). Recent results on the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of geopolymers they have a lower impact on global warming than OPC but on the other side they have a higher environmental impact regarding other impact categories. Lower CO2 emissions geopolymers are therefore needed. Classical two part geopolymers could be made more eco-efficient with a lower carbon dioxide footprint if the use of sodium silicate is avoided. Besides current geopolymeric mixes can suffer from efflorescence originated by the fact that alkaline and/or soluble silicates that are added during processing cannot be totally consumed during geopolymerisation. Therefore new and improved geopolymer mixes are needed. One-part geopolymers (sodium silicate free) were described by the first time in 2008 still a lot of issues remain unexplained about them. This paper compares the durability performance of one-part geopolymers with OPC mortars. The obtained results revealed that replacing 70% Portland cement by 58.3% Fly ash, 4% calcined stuff and 7.7% calcium hydroxide results in satisfactory and promising results in durability tests

Higgs-photon associated production at eeˉe\bar{e} colliders

We present complete analytical expressions for the amplitudes of the process $e\bar{e}\rightarrow H\gamma$. The calculation is performed using nonlinear gauges, which significantly simplifies both the actual analytical calculation and the check of its gauge invariance. After comparing our results with a previous numerical calculation, we extend the range of Higgs masses and center of mass energies to those appropriate to LEP 200 and a future linear collider.Comment: To appear in PRD. 18 pages latex, uses REVTEX; 5 postscript figure

Towards a new classification of early-type galaxies: an integral-field view

In this proceeding we make use of the two-dimensional stellar kinematics of a representative sample of E and S0 galaxies obtained with the SAURON integral-field spectrograph to reveal that early-type galaxies appear in two broad flavours, depending on whether they exhibit clear large-scale rotation or not. We measure the level of rotation via a new parameter LambdaR and use it as a basis for a new kinematic classification that separates early-type galaxies into slow and fast rotators. With the aid of broad-band imaging we will reinforce this finding by comparing our kinematic results to the photometric properties of these two classes.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in "Pathways Through an Eclectic Universe", J. H. Knappen, T. J. Mahoney, and A. Vazedekis (Eds.), ASP Conf. Ser., 200