Effect of a Synthetized Herbal Remineralizing Paste on Enamel Microhardness

Objectives This study aimed to synthesize an herbal remineralizing paste containing the extracts of Miswak, licorice, aloe vera, propolis, and honey and compare its effect with 5% sodium fluoride (NaF) and 1.23% acidulated phosphate fluoride (APF) on demineralized enamel microhardness. Methods This experimental study was conducted on 72 extracted sound premolars. After obtaining the extracts and synthesis of the herbal paste, the baseline microhardness was measured, and the samples underwent a 14-day pH cycling. Next, the teeth were randomly assigned to six groups (N=12) for application of (I) 5% NaF for one minute, (II) 1.23% APF for one minute, (III) herbal paste for one minute, (IV) herbal paste for five minutes, (V) herbal paste for 15 minutes, and (VI) herbal paste for six hours. The microhardness was measured again. Data were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) (alpha=0.05). Results The mean final microhardness was significantly higher than the primary microhardness in all groups (P<0.05). The highest microhardness was noted in group IV, followed by II, VI, I, V and III. One-way ANOVA revealed no significant difference between the final microhardness of study groups (P=0.97). Conclusion The effect of synthesized herbal paste on demineralized enamel microhardness was comparable to that of 5% NaF and 1.23% APF. Due to the lack of a significant difference in duration of application, this paste may be applied for one minute to benefit from its remineralizing effects

Metal Concentrations in Soil Paste Extracts as Affected by Extraction Ratio

Saturated paste extracts are sometimes used to estimate metal levels in the soil solution. To assess the significance of heavy-metal concentrations measured in saturation extracts, soil paste extracts were prepared with distilled water in amounts ranging from 60–200% of the moisture content at saturation. Trace metals behaved as if a small pool consistently was dissolved independent of the extraction ratio applied. Metal concentrations in the solution hence were not buffered by the solid phase, but the observed behaviour would allow the estimation of metal concentrations in the soil solution as a function of moisture content. The behaviour of iron and manganese suggested that some microbial reduction occurred. The intensity increased with increasing extraction ratio but not to the extent of affecting dissolution of trace elements

Calcium carbonate-calcium phosphate mixed cement compositions for bone reconstruction

The feasibility of making calcium carbonate-calcium phosphate (CaCO3-CaP) mixed cements, comprising at least 40 % (w/w) CaCO3 in the dry powder ingredients, has been demonstrated. Several original cement compositions were obtained by mixing metastable crystalline calcium carbonate phases with metastable amorphous or crystalline calcium phosphate powders in aqueous medium. The cements set within at most 1 hour at 37°C in atmosphere saturated with water. The hardened cement is microporous and exhibits weak compressive strength. The setting reaction appeared to be essentially related to the formation of a highly carbonated nanocrystalline apatite phase by reaction of the mestastable CaP phase with part or almost all of the metastable CaCO3 phase. The recrystallization of metastable CaP varieties led to a final cement consisting of a highly carbonated poorly crystalline apatite (PCA) analogous to bone mineral associated with various amounts of vaterite and/or aragonite. The presence of controlled amounts of CaCO3 with a higher solubility than the apatite formed in the well-developed calcium phosphate cements might be of interest to increase resorption rates in biomedical cement and favor its replacement by bone tissue. Cytotoxicity testing revealed excellent cytocompatibility of CaCO3-CaP mixed cement compositions

Induction of Word and Phrase Alignments for Automatic Document Summarization

Current research in automatic single document summarization is dominated by two effective, yet naive approaches: summarization by sentence extraction, and headline generation via bag-of-words models. While successful in some tasks, neither of these models is able to adequately capture the large set of linguistic devices utilized by humans when they produce summaries. One possible explanation for the widespread use of these models is that good techniques have been developed to extract appropriate training data for them from existing document/abstract and document/headline corpora. We believe that future progress in automatic summarization will be driven both by the development of more sophisticated, linguistically informed models, as well as a more effective leveraging of document/abstract corpora. In order to open the doors to simultaneously achieving both of these goals, we have developed techniques for automatically producing word-to-word and phrase-to-phrase alignments between documents and their human-written abstracts. These alignments make explicit the correspondences that exist in such document/abstract pairs, and create a potentially rich data source from which complex summarization algorithms may learn. This paper describes experiments we have carried out to analyze the ability of humans to perform such alignments, and based on these analyses, we describe experiments for creating them automatically. Our model for the alignment task is based on an extension of the standard hidden Markov model, and learns to create alignments in a completely unsupervised fashion. We describe our model in detail and present experimental results that show that our model is able to learn to reliably identify word- and phrase-level alignments in a corpus of pairs

Preparation, physical-chemical characterisation and cytocompatibility of calcium carbonate cements

The feasibility of calcium carbonate cements involving the recrystallisation of metastable calcium carbonate varieties has been demonstrated. Calcium carbonate cement compositions presented in this paper can be prepared straightforwardly by simply mixing water (liquid phase) with two calcium carbonate phases (solid phase) which can be easily obtained by precipitation. An original cement composition was obtained by mixing amorphous calcium carbonate and vaterite with an aqueous medium. The cement set and hardened within 2 hours at 37°C in an atmosphere saturated with water and the final composition of the cement consisted mostly of aragonite. The hardened cement was microporous and showed poor mechanical properties. Cytotoxicity tests revealed excellent cytocompatibility of calcium carbonate cement compositions. Calcium carbonates with a higher solubility than the marketed calcium phosphate cements might be of interest to increase biomedical cement resorption rates and to favour its replacement by bone tissue

Detection of flour or farina from Triticum aestivum in macaroni by starch-gel electrophoresis of water-soluble proteins

A water-soluble protein component, A, has been found which appears without exception at a higher concentration in Triticum aestivum than in T. durum. Quantitation of A is achieved by referring the height of densitogram peak A to the height of peak B, which corresponds to a second component that is present in all varieties studied from both species. Extreme valúes of peak height ratio (PHR) in both species are tentatively established. On the basis of these valúes, the máximum and minimum possible contents of T. aestivum in a mixture are expressed as a function of PHR. All the varieties of T. aestivum studied are detected when they contribute more than 60% to the mixture. In over 90% of all possible binary combinations between varieties of T. aestivum and T. durum, the máximum proportion of undetected T. aestivum has been 30%

Main Variables Affecting a Chemical-Enzymatic Method to Obtain Protein and Amino Acids from Resistant Microalgae

he development of microalgae uses requires further investigation in cell disruption alternatives to reduce the costs associated to this processing stage. This study aimed to evaluate the main variables affecting an extraction method to obtain protein and amino acids from microalgae. The method was based on a sequential alkaline-enzymatic process, with separate extractions and noncontrolled pH, and was applied to fresh biomass of a resistant species. The processed microalgae were composed of a consortium with Nannochloropsis sp. as predominant species. After the optimization of the pH of the alkaline reaction, the effect of the time of the alkaline reaction (30-120min), the time (30-120min) and temperature (40-60 degrees C) of the enzymatic reaction, and the biomass concentration (50-150mgml(-1)), on the extraction yields of protein and free amino nitrogen (FAN) and on the final concentration of protein in the extract, was studied using a response surface methodology. Even though all the variables and some interactions among them had a significant effect, the biomass concentration was the most important factor affecting the overall process. The results showed relevant information about the different options in order to maximize not only the response variables individually but also different combinations of them. Assays with optimized values reached maximum yields of 80.3% and 1.07% of protein (% of total protein) and FAN (% of total biomass), respectively, and a protein concentration in the extract of 15.2mgml(-1). The study provided the essential information of an alternative approach to obtain protein and amino acids from fresh biomass of resistant microalgae with a high yield, also opening perspectives for further research in particular aspects

Synthesis of 2,4,8,10-tetroxaspiro5,5undecane

Pentaerythritol is converted to its diformal, 2,4,8,10-tetroxaspirol5.5undecane, by heating it to a temperature within the range of about 110 to 150 C, for a period of up to 10 minutes, in the presence of a slight excess of paraformaldehyde and of a catalytic quantity of an acid catalyst such as sulfuric acid. The reaction may be carried out in two steps, by forming first the monoformal, then the diformal. In any case, total reaction time is about 10 minutes, and yield of diformal are greater than 90%. Previous processes require hours or days, and often, tedious operating procedures