Identification of “Kratom” (Mitragyna speciosa) Alkaloids in Commercially Available Products

“Kratom” is the common name for the botanical mitragyna speciosa. It is a tree native to Southeast Asia in which leaves contain the psychoactive alkaloids mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine. Kratom is often ingested as teas, chewed, or smoked. It acts as a stimulant in small doses and as an opioid in large doses. Overdoses can result in vomiting, seizures, and death. Recently the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) placed Kratom on Schedule 1, but, due to public outcry, it was almost immediately removed. Eleven kratom based products were obtained from various tobacco shops, “headshops” and via the internet including: Choice brand capsule and powder, Krave brand capsule, Lucky brand powder, King Kratom and Purple Haze e-liquids with 0 mg nicotine and 12 mg nicotine, Mojo brand capsule, O.P.M.S Liquid Kratom concentrate, and a K. Kratom chocolate bar. These products and methanol extracted samples were analyzed for psychoactive alkaloids and other components using an AccuTOF Direct Analysis in Real Time Mass Spectrometry (DART-MS) and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). The psychoactive alkaloids mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine along with four other alkaloids, corynantheidine, corynoxine, paynantheine, and speciofoline, were identified in all 11 products. Unregulated commercial products made from kratom contain psychoactive alkaloids such as mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine. They are readily available in a variety of forms and may be prone to abuse.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1246/thumbnail.jp

The Forensic Characterization of Bacterial and Fungal Organisms in Traditional Chinese Medicine

There has been an increase in use of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in the United States because they are less expensive and believed to be more effective with less adverse effects in comparison to traditional pharmaceutics. Therefore, sales have increased in the US, despite articles and case studies demonstrating the dangers, such as injury and death, related to TCM, stemming from improper labelling, toxic contaminants, and, in some cases, the presence of pathogenic bacteria. The aim of this study was to perform a survival experiment to demonstrate the importance of proper herbal brewing technique and to conduct a molecular and biochemical survey of microorganisms present on eleven Chinese herbal samples. The survival study compared Chinese brewing preparation and American brewing preparation by fortifying the herbal mixture with known bacteria and assessing its survival after brewing. The American brewed herbal tea was calculated to contain upwards of 3000 CFU (colony forming units)/mL, where the Chinese brewed herbal tea contained roughly 50 CFU/mL. FAME (Fatty Acid Methyl Ester) analysis was performed on the herbs to characterize any microorganisms present on the plant material already, following purchase. Strains within the Bacillus genus were identified in nearly all eleven of the herbal samples. These included B. subtilis and B. megaterium. Organisms belonging to the Bacillus ACT group (anthracis, cereus, thuringiensis) were identified in five out of eleven herb cultures as evidenced by the large ratio of 15:0 iso to 15:0 anteiso fatty acid biomarkers. Nine out of eleven herbal specimens also exhibited fungal biomarkers such as polyunsaturated 20:4 ω6,9,12,15c, and 18:3 ω6c (6,9,12).https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1291/thumbnail.jp

Normal table of Xenopus development: a new graphical resource

© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Zahn, N., James-Zorn, C., Ponferrada, V. G., Adams, D. S., Grzymkowski, J., Buchholz, D. R., Nascone-Yoder, N. M., Horb, M., Moody, S. A., Vize, P. D., & Zorn, A. M. Normal table of Xenopus development: a new graphical resource. Development, 149(14), (2022): dev200356, https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.200356.Normal tables of development are essential for studies of embryogenesis, serving as an important resource for model organisms, including the frog Xenopus laevis. Xenopus has long been used to study developmental and cell biology, and is an increasingly important model for human birth defects and disease, genomics, proteomics and toxicology. Scientists utilize Nieuwkoop and Faber's classic ‘Normal Table of Xenopus laevis (Daudin)’ and accompanying illustrations to enable experimental reproducibility and reuse the illustrations in new publications and teaching. However, it is no longer possible to obtain permission for these copyrighted illustrations. We present 133 new, high-quality illustrations of X. laevis development from fertilization to metamorphosis, with additional views that were not available in the original collection. All the images are available on Xenbase, the Xenopus knowledgebase (http://www.xenbase.org/entry/zahn.do), for download and reuse under an attributable, non-commercial creative commons license. Additionally, we have compiled a ‘Landmarks Table’ of key morphological features and marker gene expression that can be used to distinguish stages quickly and reliably (https://www.xenbase.org/entry/landmarks-table.do). This new open-access resource will facilitate Xenopus research and teaching in the decades to come.This work was supported by grants from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [P41 HD064556 to A.M.Z. and P.D.V. (Xenbase)] and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [P40-OD010997 and R24-OD030008 to M.H. (National Xenopus Resource)]. Open Access funding provided by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Deposited in PMC for immediate release

THE CC1 PROJECT – SYSTEM FOR PRIVATE CLOUD COMPUTING

The main features of the Cloud Computing system developed at IFJ PAN are described. The project is financed from the structural resources provided by the European Commission and the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Innovative Economy, National Cohesion Strategy). The system delivers a solution for carrying out computer calculations on a Private Cloud computing infrastructure. It consists of an intuitive Web based user interface, a module for the users and resources administration and the standard EC2 interface implementation. Thanks to the distributed character of the system it allows for the integration of a geographically distant federation of computer clusters within a uniform user environment

Belle II Technical Design Report

The Belle detector at the KEKB electron-positron collider has collected almost 1 billion Y(4S) events in its decade of operation. Super-KEKB, an upgrade of KEKB is under construction, to increase the luminosity by two orders of magnitude during a three-year shutdown, with an ultimate goal of 8E35 /cm^2 /s luminosity. To exploit the increased luminosity, an upgrade of the Belle detector has been proposed. A new international collaboration Belle-II, is being formed. The Technical Design Report presents physics motivation, basic methods of the accelerator upgrade, as well as key improvements of the detector.Comment: Edited by: Z. Dole\v{z}al and S. Un

Problem of the moving boundary in continuous casting solved by the analytic-numerical method

Mathematical modeling of thermal processes combined with the reversible phase transitions of type: solid phase – liquid phase leads to formulation of the parabolic or elliptic moving boundary problem. Solution of such defined problem requires, most often, to use some sophisticated numerical techniques and far advanced mathematical tools. The paper presents an analytic-numerical method, especially attractive from the engineer’s point of view, applied for finding the approximate solutions of the selected class of problems which can be reduced to the one-phase solidification problem of a plate with the unknown a priori, varying in time boundary of the region in which the solution is sought. Proposed method is based on the known formalism of initial expansion of a sought function, describing the field of temperature, into the power series, some coefficients of which are determined with the aid of boundary conditions, and on the approximation of a function defining the freezing front location with the broken line, parameters of which are determined numerically. The method represents a combination of the analytical and numerical techniques and seems to be an effective and relatively easy in using tool for solving problems of considered kind

Application of the Adomian decomposition method for solving the heat equation in the cast-mould heterogeneous domain

Abstract The paper is focused on a method for solving the heat equation in a cast-mould heterogeneous domain. The discussed method makes use of the Adomian decomposition method. The derived calculations prove the effectiveness of the method for solving such types of problems

Analytic-numerical method of determining the freezing front location

Mathematical modeling of thermal processes combined with the reversible phase transitions of type: solid phase – liquid phase leads to formulation of the parabolic boundary problems with the moving boundary. Solution of such defined problem requires, most often, to use sophisticated numerical techniques and far advanced mathematical tools. Excellent illustration of the complexity of considered problems, as well as of the variety of approaches used for finding their solutions, gives the papers [1-4]. In the current paper, the authors present the, especially attractive from the engineer point of view, analytic-numerical method for finding the approximate solution of selected class of problems which can be reduced to the one-phase solidification problem of a plate with the unknown a priori, varying in time boundary of the region in which the solution is sought. Proposed method is based on the known formalism of initial expansion of the sought function describing the temperature field into the power series, some coefficients of which are determined with the aid of boundary conditions, and on the approximation of the function defining the location of freezing front with the broken line, parameters of which are numerically determined