The eye is a major sensory organ that requires special care for a healthy and productive lifestyle. Numerous studies have identified lutein and zeaxanthin to be essential components for eye health. ...Lutein and zeaxanthin are carotenoid pigments that impart yellow or orange color to various common foods such as cantaloupe, pasta, corn, carrots, orange/yellow peppers, fish, salmon and eggs. Their role in human health, in particular the health of the eye, is well established from epidemiological, clinical and interventional studies. They constitute the main pigments found in the yellow spot of the human retina which protect the macula from damage by blue light, improve visual acuity and scavenge harmful reactive oxygen species. They have also been linked with reduced risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and cataracts. Research over the past decade has focused on the development of carotenoid-rich foods to boost their intake especially in the elderly population. The aim of this article is to review recent scientific evidences supporting the benefits of lutein and zexanthin in preventing the onset of two major age-related eye diseases with diets rich in these carotenoids. The review also lists major dietary sources of lutein and zeaxanthin and refers to newly developed foods, daily intake, bioavailability and physiological effects in relation to eye health. Examples of the newly developed high-lutein functional foods are also underlined.
Pulses are highly nutritious seeds of pod-bearing leguminous plants, specifically dry peas, lentils, and chickpeas. US farmers harvest about 2.6 million pounds of pulses every year but 75% of this is ...being exported internationally because of its increased consumption in the developing countries. In the current scenario, increasing costs of production, bad economy, and fluctuating food commodity prices have made a strong case for US producers to seek opportunities to increase domestic consumption of pulses through value-added products. Pulses are the richest sources of plant proteins and provide approximately 10% of the total dietary requirements of the proteins world over. Pulses are also high in dietary fibers and complex carbohydrates leading to low GI (glycemic index) foods. Pulses help to lower cholesterol and triglycerides as leguminous fibers are hypoglycosuria because of consisting more amylose than amylopectin. Pulses provide tremendous opportunities to be utilized in the processed foods such as bakery products, bread, pasta, snack foods, soups, cereal bar filing, tortillas, meat, etc. These show excellent opportunities in frozen dough foods either as added flour or as fillings. Pulses in view of their nutrient profile, seem to be ideal for inclusion in designing snack foods, baby, and sports foods.
The use of machine learning for seismic interpretation is a growing area of interest for researchers. Manual interpretation demands time and specialized effort. The use of machine learning model will ...expedite the process. The Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are a class of deep learning algorithms used for images. In this paper, seismic facies segmentation using encoder-decoder architecture of CNNs is proposed. The proposed method filled the gap using a multimodel approach for seismic interpretation. The novelty of the model is that it is not limited to the current dataset and semantic segmentation models. The encoder-decoder architecture input and output size is the same, and it allows the labelling of each pixel of the image. Four models are trained on the open-sourced F3 block Netherlands dataset. Images of 128×128 were extracted from the data. Data augmentation is used in two of the models to increase the data size for better model learning. Results of individual models and their ensemble are compared. Ensemble is performed by taking the average of the probabilities of the classes obtained from the trained models. Ensemble gave the superior results. Seven classes are segmented with a global pixel accuracy (GPA) of 98.52%, mean class accuracy (MCA) of 96.88%, and mean intersection over union (MIoU) of 93.92%.
Recent research literature shows promising results by convolutional neural network- (CNN-) based approaches for estimation of traffic matrix of cloud networks using different architectures. Although ...conventionally, convolutional neural network-based approaches yield superior estimation; however, these rely on assumptions of availability of a large training dataset which is completely accurate and nonsparse. In real world, both these assumptions are problematic as training data size may be limited, and it is also prone to missing (or incomplete) measurements as well as may have measurement errors. Similarly, the 2-D training datasets derived from network topology based may be sparse. We investigate these challenges and develop a novel architecture which can cater for these challenges and deliver superior performance. Our approach shows promising results for traffic matrix estimation using convolutional neural network-based techniques in the presence of limited training data and outlier measurements.
Objectives: To understand the relationship between the indices of platelet with preeclampsia and to determine if these parameters may be used for early diagnosis. Methods: A prospective case-control ...study was done on 50 women and they were divided into two groups - the non-severe preeclampsia group (n=36) and the severe preeclampsia group (n=14). Platelet indices - platelet count, mean platelet volume, platelet distribution width, platelet crit and platelet large cell ratio were analyzed and correlated with the observed clinical severity status, organ system affected and feto-maternal outcomes. Results: Findings showed that there was a statistically significant decrease in platelet count (p<0.001) and an increase in mean platelet volume (p<0.001) and platelet distribution width (p<0.05) in mothers of severe preeclampsia group as compared to non-severe preeclampsia group. In the severe preeclampsia group, two out of 14 mothers had abnormal maternal outcomes and all 14 babies were abnormal. Furthermore, platelet count was significantly decreased and plateletcrit was non-significantly decreased in the abnormal maternal prognosis group of mothers. Also, mean platelet volume and platelet distribution width were significantly (p<0.001) increased in the abnormal maternal prognosis group of mothers. Conclusion: As pregnancy advances, the platelet counts decrease while mean platelet volume and platelet distribution width increase, and these kinds of changes are more evident in severe preeclampsia mothers than in non-severe preeclamptic mothers. Thus, platelet indices could be used as biomarkers for early diagnosis of the severity of preeclampsia.
The gluten-free products available on the markets are deficient in bioactive compounds and high in cost. The present study is designed to develop gluten-free biscuits with enhanced nutritional ...properties. The gluten-free biscuits are formulated with rice flour (RF) incorporated with Assyrian plum fruit flour (APF) and bio-waste date-pit flour (DPF) according to the following ratios; RF:DPF:APF (100:0:0)/T0, (90:5:5)/T1, (80:10:10)/T2, and (70:15:15)/T3. The results demonstrate that flour blends with different concentrations of APF and DPF incorporated in RF have high contents of protein, damaged starch, crude fiber, ash, phytochemicals, and antioxidants in contrast to 100% RF, which shows the lowest values for all these parameters. The pasting properties of the flour blends reveals that the values of peak, final, breakdown, and setback viscosities reduce from T1 to T3. Similarly, a differential scanning calorimeter reveals that the phase transition temperature of the flour blends decreases with the increasing amylose content. Moreover, the scanning electron microscopy of the biscuit samples shows a positive contribution of APF and DPF for the development of the desired compactness of the structure due to the leaching of amylose content from the starch. The total phenol content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC) increase from 38.43 to 132.20 mg GAE/100 g DW and 18.67 to 87.27 mg CE/100 g DW, respectively. Similarly, the antioxidant activities of biscuits improved. The protein and fiber contents of the biscuits increased from 10.20 to 14.73% and 0.69 to 12.25%, respectively. The biscuits prepared from T3 resulted in a firmer texture with a reduced spread ratio. However, the formulation of T1 and T2 biscuit samples contributed to desirable physical and sensory properties. Therefore, the addition of DPF and APF to RF is a sustainable way to make gluten-free biscuits as they provide adequate amylose, damaged starch, and fiber content to overcome the essential role of gluten in the baked product with nutraceutical properties.
Scant data from India are available on the gender differences in presenting features of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) in India. This study aims to compare male and female patients with OSA for ...general characteristics and presenting symptoms.
Retrospective study was done in OSA patients diagnosed in our sleep lab. History, biochemical reports, and polysomnography variables were retrieved from the sleep registry and were compared between males and females.
Out of 514 patients of OSA (367 males; 147 females). Females were older (55.97 ± 9.73 v/s 50.2 + 12.70 years, P<0.001) and more obese (BMI 35.26 ± 7.17 v/s 29.58 ± 5.49 Kg/m2; P<0.001). Waist and hip circumference were significantly higher in the female patients (P = 0.009 and <0.001 respectively). Morning headache, nocturia, fatigability (P < 0.001), and depression (P = 0.005) was more common in females (P = 0.036). Hypersomnia was more commonly seen in males (P < 0.001). Mean diastolic blood pressure was significantly higher in males, although no difference was seen in Systolic BP. Females had higher mean Fasting Blood glucose (FBS) (P = 0.02). Apnea hypopnea index was significantly higher in females {P = 0.01}.
Women with OSA are more obese, elderly, and with higher fasting blood glucose than males at the time of diagnosis. Females have a higher prevalence of symptoms like fatigability, depression, nocturia and early morning headache and had more severe AHI than males.
Colored wheats such as black, blue, or purple wheat are receiving a great interest as healthy food ingredients due to their potential health-enhancing attributes. Purple wheat is an ...anthocyanin-pigmented grain that holds huge potential in food applications since wheat is the preferred source of energy and protein in human diet. Purple wheat is currently processed into a variety of foods with potent antioxidant properties, which have been demonstrated by in vitro studies. However, the health impacts of purple wheat foods in humans still require further investigations. Meanwhile, anthocyanins are vulnerable molecules that require special stabilization treatments during food preparation and processing. A number of stabilization methods such as co-pigmentation, self-association, encapsulation, metal binding, and adjusting processing conditions have been suggested as a means to diminish the loss of anthocyanins in processed foods and dietary supplements. The present review was intended to provide insights about purple wheat food product development and its roles in human health. In addition, methods for stabilizing anthocyanins during processing were briefly discussed.
In the present study, an effort was made to incorporate lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) as a fat mimetic for the development of functional biscuits. Functional properties, dough rheology, pasting profile, ...the microstructure of dough, antioxidant activities, physical, nutritional and sensorial properties of the samples were investigated. The addition of lotus root flour (LRF) resulted in a significant increase (P ≤ 0.05) in water absorption (57.51-72.40%) and dough stability time (7.38-13.10 min), while breakdown (802-554cP) and, setback viscosities (1154-900cP) decreased. Gluten content also decreased with the increased concentration of LRF, hence suggested weaker gluten network, which was further confirmed by scanning electron microscopic images (SEMIs) of biscuits dough. The total phenolic content (17.73-131.37 mg/mL and 14.43-94.67 mg/mL), DPPH radical scavenging activity-IC
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(477.10 − 153.32 mg/mL and 500.41-94.32 mg/mL), and ferric reducing antioxidant power-IC
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(348.21-53.62 mg/mL and 350.31-36.32 mg/mL) increased upon increasing the content of LRF in wheat flour and biscuits samples. Nutritional data revealed that protein (11.20-13.40%), ash (0.53-2.86%), and the crude fiber content (0.21-15.60%) of biscuits increased, and calories reduced (497-375kcal/100 gm). Therefore, this study explores the potential of using LRF as a fat mimetic in biscuits with the application on a commercial scale to enhance antioxidant, physical, nutritional, and sensory attributes.
To assess the level of anxiety among doctors during COVID-19 pandemic and the associated risk factors.
This cross-sectional study was conducted from 30th April to 16th May, 2020 in Karachi, Pakistan. ...The data was collected via an online web-based questionnaire. Questionnaire was used to assess anxiety level using GAD-7 scale among health-care professionals and the risk factors playing role in it.
One hundred and fifty-one doctors participated in our study. Out of these 151 participants, 69 (45.7%) had mild, 22 (14.6%) had moderate, and 5 (3.3%) had severe symptoms of anxiety, whereas the remaining 55 (36.4%) had no anxiety according to GAD-7 scale. The median interquartile range (IQR) GAD-7 scale scores are 6.0 3.00-9.00. Females showed more severe degrees of measurement of anxiety symptoms than males. Doctors dealing with COVID-19 patients showed higher level of anxiety as compared to the doctors who were not dealing with COVID-19 patients, having a significant difference (U = 9.697, p = 0.008). One hundred and forty-one (93.4%) participants were concerned about being exposed to COVID-19 at work and 112 (74.2 %) thought they have inadequate protective equipment for safety.
During COVID-19 pandemic, doctors exhibited different grades of anxiety. In order for healthcare workers to perform to the best of their capability, certain guidelines and interventions are needed.
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