Production of virgin coconut oil by induced fermentation with Lactobacillus plantarum NDRI strain 184.

Present study was designed to produce the Virgin Coconut Oil in induced fermentation by Lactobacillus sp. Virgin Coconut Oil is a Value Added Product of coconut which have different applications. Natural fermentation is one of the commercial methods to produce Virgin Coconut Oil, where the natural microorganisms are playing a major role. In such process, contamination is one of the main problems; to overcome this, induced fermentation was performed in the controlled conditions by using probiotic microorganisms like Lactobacillus plantarum. Studies were conducted to determine the effect of major parameters, to produce higher yields of Virgin Coconut Oil in induced fermentation. It was conformed that the pH 5.0±0.1, temperature 45±1°C, inoculum concentration 2%, incubation time of 48 hrs and anaerobic conditions were the optimum conditions for the efficient production of Virgin Coconut Oil by induced fermentation with L. plantarum

Production of virgin coconut oil by induced fermentation with Lactobacillus plantarum NDRI strain 184.

Present study was designed to produce the Virgin Coconut Oil in induced fermentation by Lactobacillus sp. Virgin Coconut Oil is a Value Added Product of coconut which have different applications. Natural fermentation is one of the commercial methods to produce Virgin Coconut Oil, where the natural microorganisms are playing a major role. In such process, contamination is one of the main problems; to overcome this, induced fermentation was performed in the controlled conditions by using probiotic microorganisms like Lactobacillus plantarum. Studies were conducted to determine the effect of major parameters, to produce higher yields of Virgin Coconut Oil in induced fermentation. It was conformed that the pH 5.0±0.1, temperature 45±1°C, inoculum concentration 2%, incubation time of 48 hrs and anaerobic conditions were the optimum conditions for the efficient production of Virgin Coconut Oil by induced fermentation with L. plantarum

A mixed finite element method using a biorthogonal system for optimal control problems governed by a biharmonic equation

In this article, we consider an optimal control problem governed by a biharmonic equation with clamped boundary conditions. We use the Ciarlet--Raviart formulation combined with a biorthogonal system to obtain an efficient numerical scheme. We discuss the a priori error analysis and present results of the numerical experiments that validate the theoretical estimates. References L. Boudjaj, A. Naji, and F. Ghafrani. Solving biharmonic equation as an optimal control problem using localized radial basis functions collocation method. Eng. Anal. Bound. Elements 107 (2019), pp. 208–217. doi: 10.1016/j.enganabound.2019.07.007 W. Cao and D. Yang. Ciarlet–Raviart mixed finite element approximation for an optimal control problem governed by the first biharmonic equation. J. Comput. App. Math. 233.2 (2009), pp. 372–388. doi: 10.1016/j.cam.2009.07.039 P. G. Ciarlet. The finite element method for elliptic problems. Vol. 40. Classics in Applied Mathematics. Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Philadelphia, PA, 2002. doi: 10.1137/1.9780898719208. V. Girault and P.-A. Raviart. Finite element methods for Navier–Stokes equations. Vol. 5. Springer Series in Computational Mathematics. Springer-Verlag, 1986. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-61623-5 T. Gudi, N. Nataraj, and K. Porwal. An interior penalty method for distributed optimal control problems governed by the biharmonic operator. Comput. Math. App. 68.12 (2014), pp. 2205–2221. doi: 10.1016/j.camwa.2014.08.012 B. P. Lamichhane. A mixed finite element method for the biharmonic problem using biorthogonal or quasi-biorthogonal systems. J. Sci. Comput. 46.3 (2011), pp. 379–396. doi: 10.1007/s10915-010-9409-7. B. P. Lamichhane and E. Stephan. A symmetric mixed finite element method for nearly incompressible elasticity based on biorthogonal systems. Numer. Meth. Part. Diff. Eq. 28 (2012), pp. 1336–1353. doi: 10.1002/num.20683 J. L. Lions. Optimal control of systems governed by partial differential equations. Vol. 170. Die Grundlehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften. Springer-Verlag, New York-Berlin, 1971. url: https://link.springer.com/book/9783642650260 F. Tröltzsch. Optimal control of partial differential equations: Theory, methods and applications. Vol. 112. Graduate Studies in Mathematics. American Mathematical Society, 2010. doi: 10.1090/gsm/112. G. N. Wells, E. Kuhl, and K. Garikipati. A discontinuous Galerkin method for the Cahn–Hilliard equation. J. Comput. Phys. 218 (2006), pp. 860 –877. doi: 10.1016/j.jcp.2006.03.01

Pulse cyclophospamide in severe lupus nephritis: Southern Indian experience

To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the monthly pulse IV cyclophosphamide (IVC) therapy in patients with severe lupus nephritis, we studied 39 patients of lupus nephritis on IVC therapy between 1998 to 2002. Single monthly cyclophosphamide (0.75-1 g/m²) was infused intravenously with oral prednisolone (0.5 mg/kg per day) and appropriate hydration. Of the 39 pa-tients 25 (86.2%) patients were females and 4 (13.8%) were males. Six (2%) cases had irregular follow-up and 3 patients had expired during the initial cycles and were excluded from the study. The mean age was 25.6 + 6.72 years (range 10-40 years). The mean duration of the disease from the onset to renal biopsy was 24.2 + 18.5 months. The clinical presentations included nephrotic syndrome (34.5%), acute glomerulonephritis (31.0%), Pyrexia of unknown origin (PUO) (10.3%), and rapidly progressive renal failure (6.7%). Renal insufficiency was present in 47.2% cases. Twenty-two (75.9%) patients had diffuse proliferative glomerulonephritis (class IV), 6 (20.7%) focal proliferative glomerulonephritis (class III), and one (3.4%) class Vd. After a mean follow-up of 15.8 months, out of 29 patients, 13 (44.8%) had achieved complete remission, 7 (24.1%) partial remission and 9 (31.0%) cases did not respond to the therapy. Side effects of the therapy included vomiting and nausea (100%) and hair loss during the first few doses of IVC. In addition, one case had dysfunctional uterine bleeding and two patients had avascular necrosis of femoral head. We conclude that our data indicate that IVC in severe lupus nephritis is effective in Indian patients though longer follow-up is required

Oxidative stress in hemodialysis patients receiving intravenous iron therapy and the role of N-acetylcysteine in preventing oxidative stress

To determine the contribution of injectable iron administered to hemodialysis (HD) patients in causing oxidative stress and the beneficial effect of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) in re-ducing it, we studied in a prospective, double blinded, randomized controlled, cross over trial 14 adult HD patients who were randomized into two groups; one group received NAC in a dose of 600 mgs twice daily for 10 days prior to intravenous iron therapy and the other group received placebo. Both the groups were subjected to intravenous iron therapy, 100 mg of iron sucrose in 100 mL of normal saline given over a period of one hour. Blood samples for the markers of oxidative stress were taken before and after iron therapy. After the allowance of a week of wash out period for the effect of N-acetylcysteine we crossed over the patients to the opposite regimen. We measured the lipid peroxidation marker, malondiaaldehyde (MDA), to evaluate the oxidative stress and total anti-oxidant capacity (TAC) for the antioxidant level in addition to the highly sensitive C-reactive protein (HsCRP). Non-invasive assessment of endothelial dysfunction was measured by digital plethysmography before and after intravenous iron therapy. There was an increase of MDA (21.97 + 3.65% vs 7.06 + 3.65%) and highly sensitive C-reactive protein (HsCRP) (11.19 + 24.63% vs 13.19 + 7.7%) after iron administration both in the placebo and the NAC groups. NAC reduced the baseline acute systemic generation of oxidative stress when com-pared to placebo, which was statistically significant with MDA (12.76 + 4.4% vs 9.37 + 4.40%: P = 0.032) but not with HsCRP though there was a declining trend (2.85 + 22.75 % vs 8.93 + 5.19%: P = 0.112). Pre-treatment with NAC reduced the endothelial dysfunction when compared to placebo, but it was not statistically significant, except for reflection index (RI). We conclude that in our HD patients NAC reduced the oxidative stress before and after the administration of intravenous iron therapy in addition to the endothelial dysfunction induced by this treatment