Vanillin, vanillic acid, acetovanillone, syringaldehyde, syringic acid, and acetosyringone are products obtained from lignin oxidation in an alkaline medium. The evaluation of their individual ...degradation under oxidation conditions mimicking lignin oxidation is an important tool to better understand this reaction and maximize the yield of target value-added products. In this context, the main objective of the present work was to study the kinetics of degradation of the selected lignin-based phenolic compounds. The effect of temperature, initial concentration, and oxygen partial pressure was evaluated, and a simple mathematical model was developed to describe the data from the degradation of the phenolics during oxidation reactions. The results indicate that, for all the evaluated compounds, the reaction order is first order with respect to both the initial phenolic compound concentration and oxygen concentration. A high degradation rate was found for the reactions performed at 413 K, and an activation energy in the range of 53–86 kJ/mol was found for all the studied phenolic compounds. Moreover, syringic acid is the phenolic compound more prone to degradation, while vanillin is the less one.
Four Portuguese monovarietal olive oils (cvs. Cobrançosa, Madural, Santulhana and Verdeal Transmontana) were evaluated, totalizing 24 independent samples. Olive cultivar significantly influenced (
P
...values < 0.05, one-way ANOVA) the oils’ physicochemical and sensory attributes, fulfilling all oils the legal thresholds for extra-virgin classification. Oils from cv. Verdeal Transmontana had the highest oxidative stability (16.9 ± 1.0 h), whereas cvs. Cobrançosa and Santulhana oils have the highest total phenols content (204 ± 30 and 177 ± 33 mg GAE/kg, respectively). Concerning the sensory attributes, only cv. Santulhana oils fitted fruity greenly oils type, presenting, in general, significantly higher olfactory and gustatory intensities (
P
values < 0.05, one-way ANOVA), with a higher number of perceived sensory attributes (e.g., herbaceous sensations), compared to the other monovarietal oils. Free acidity, peroxide value, extinction coefficients, total phenols and oxidative stability allowed the unsupervised differentiation (principal component analysis, PCA) of the four monovarietal oils, and in a less extent, the sensory data. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy-chemometric procedure was developed based on raw or transformed forms of the recorded spectra. Raw, 1st and 2nd derivative spectra allowed the unsupervised (PCA) and supervised (linear discriminant analysis, LDA) identification of the olive cultivar of the studied oils. In fact, FTIR-LDA models, based on the raw transmittance or on their 1st or 2nd derivatives, recorded at 5, 4 or 3 selected wavenumbers, respectively, allowed to correctly classify all oils (sensitivities greater than 99 ± 7% for the repeated K-fold-CV internal validation). Therefore, FTIR spectroscopy could be used as a fast, reliable, environmentally friendly and non-destructive olive cultivar-classification tool for monovarietal oils.
Summary
Objectives Type 2 familial partial lipodystrophy (FPLD2) is a rare adipose tissue (AT) disease caused by mutations in LMNA, in which lipomas appear occasionally. In this study, we aimed to ...histologically characterize FPLD2‐associated lipomatosis and study the expression of genes and proteins involved in cell cycle control, mitochondrial function, inflammation and adipogenesis.
Design and patients One lipoma and perilipoma fat from each of four subjects with FPLD2 and 10 control subjects were analysed by optical microscopy. The presence of inflammatory cells was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. Real‐time RT‐PCR and Western blot were used to evaluate gene and protein levels.
Results Adipocytes from lipodystrophic patients were significantly larger than those of controls, in both the lipomas and perilipoma fat. Lipodystrophic AT exhibited CD68+ macrophages and CD3+ lymphocytes infiltration. TP53 expression was reduced in all types of lipomas. At protein level, C/EBPβ, p53 and pRb were severely disturbed in both lipodystrophic lipomas and perilipoma fat coming from lipoatrophic areas, whereas the expression of CEBPα was normal. Mitochondrial function genes were less expressed in lipoatrophic fat. In both lipomas and perilipoma fat from lipoatrophic areas, the expression of adipogenes was lower than controls.
Conclusions Even in lipomas, the adipogenic machinery is impaired in lipodystrophic fat coming from lipoatrophic regions in FPLD2, although the histological phenotype is near‐normal, exhibiting low‐grade inflammatory features. Our results suggest that the p53 pathway and some adipogenic proteins, such as CEBPα, could contribute to the maintenance of this near normal phenotype in the remnant AT present in these patients.
The objective of this experiment was to test the effects of the addition of chlorine to broiler drinking water during a 12-h preslaughter feed withdrawal period on reduction of the quantities of ...microorganisms, such as Escherichia coli and enterococci, in broiler crops and ceca. Reduction of these microorganisms would likely also reduce contamination of broiler meat by pathogenic bacteria during processing. It was also investigated if the chlorine caused some intestinal damage that could disseminate the microorganisms to the carcass. A total of 40 Cobb male broilers were used. Samples of crop and cecal content were collected for microbiological analysis, and duodenum and jejunum were used for morphological analysis from 10 birds in each treatment. The most probable number (MPN) of E. coli and enterococci in the collected samples of crop and ceca and the measure of the free residual chlorine in water were determined. The scanning electron microscopy from duodenum and jejunum was used to illustrate the mucosa integrity. The chlorine added to water was efficient in reducing the quantities of microorganisms in broiler crops and improved the integrity of the mucosa. Therefore, preslaughter feed withdrawal should be coupled with crop disinfection, because preslaughter feed withdrawal increases the MPN of enterococci and E. coli in broiler crops. So, it presents a higher risk for carcass contamination during slaughterhouse processing and, consequently, a higher risk for public health.
ABSTRACT
The aim of this research was to determine the nutritional requirements of sodium for Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix Japonica) during the periods of 1 to 21 d and 22 to 40 d of age, as ...well as to evaluate the residual effect on egg production and densitometry bone traits from 41 to 63 d. Two experiments were developed. Experiment 1: 360 Japanese quail were used, from 1 to 21 d of age. Treatments consisted of 5 sodium levels (0.06, 0.12, 0.18, 0.24, and 0.30%). Experiment 2: 240 Japanese quail were used, from 22 to 40 d. Treatments consisted of 5 sodium levels (0.04, 0.12, 0.20, 0.28, and 0.36%). In both experiments, weight gain, final weight, and feed conversion presented a quadratic trend, whereas water intake presented a linear trend. Treatments did not affect the densitometry of bone traits, although they presented a quadratic influence on tibia ash, calcium, and calcium:phosphorus ratio. Therefore, the nutritional requirement of sodium for Japanese quail from 1 to 21 d and from 22 to 40 d is 0.222% and 0.253%, respectively.
During the first two years of data taking, the CMS experiment has collected over 20 PetaBytes of data and processed and analyzed it on the distributed, multi-tiered computing infrastructure on the ...WorldWide LHC Computing Grid. Given the increasing data volume that has to be stored and efficiently analyzed, it is a challenge for several LHC experiments to optimize and automate the data placement strategies in order to fully profit of the available network and storage resources and to facilitate daily computing operations. Building on previous experience acquired by ATLAS, we have developed the CMS Popularity Service that tracks file accesses and user activity on the grid and will serve as the foundation for the evolution of their data placement. A fully automated, popularity-based site-cleaning agent has been deployed in order to scan Tier-2 sites that are reaching their space quota and suggest obsolete, unused data that can be safely deleted without disrupting analysis activity. Future work will be to demonstrate dynamic data placement functionality based on this popularity service and integrate it in the data and workload management systems: as a consequence the pre-placement of data will be minimized and additional replication of hot datasets will be requested automatically. This paper will give an insight into the development, validation and production process and will analyze how the framework has influenced resource optimization and daily operations in CMS.
ATLAS user jobs are executed on Worker Nodes (WNs) by pilots sent to sites by pilot factories. This paradigm serves to allow a high job reliability and although it has clear advantages, such as ...making the working environment homogeneous, the approach presents security and traceability challenges. To address these challenges, gLExec can be used to let the payloads for each user be executed under a different UNIX user id that uniquely identifies the ATLAS user. This paper describes the recent improvements and evolution of the security model within the ATLAS PanDA system, including improvements in the PanDA pilot, in the PanDA server and their integration with MyProxy, a credential caching system that entitles a person or a service to act in the name of the issuer of the credential. Finally, it presents results from ATLAS user jobs running with gLExec and describes the deployment campaign within ATLAS.
•Mushroom based cosmeceutical formulations displayed bioactive properties.•Bioactive compounds were found to be stable in prepared formulation along time.•Sodium alginate microparticles loaded with ...mushroom extracts were successfully prepared.•All formulations showed a stable profile in terms of pH and colour.•Real time in vitro release was achieved.
Mushrooms can be used as a source of cosmeceutical ingredients. Agaricus bisporus and Pleurotus ostreatus ethanolic extracts present important bioactive properties, but with some compounds showing easy oxidation and degradation. In the present work, microencapsulation by atomization/coagulation technique was used to protect the extracts. The obtained microspheres were characterised in terms of morphology, particle size distribution and encapsulation efficiency. Microencapsulated extracts were incorporated into a semi-solid base cream and their performance compared with the use of the free forms in terms of bioactivity, and in vitro release using the cosmetic matrix and real time conditions (up to 6 months). The physico-chemical properties (colour and pH) of the developed formulations were also monitored over the same time period. The cosmeceutical formulations containing free extracts displayed bioactivity. For the formulations prepared with the encapsulated forms, the release of the extracts was achieved and anti-tyrosinase and antimicrobial activities were observed, while for the antioxidant activity, the extract release over the time was not sufficient to exert an effect. Overall, the use of mushroom extracts in free or encapsulated forms can be an option in cosmeceutical formulations, and the encapsulated forms can allow a controlled release leading to bioactivity control.
Physical agents such as non-ionizing continuous-wave 2.45 GHz radiation may cause damage that alters cellular homeostasis and may trigger activation of the genes that encode heat shock proteins ...(HSP). We used Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay (ELI-SA) and immunohistochemistry to analyze the changes in levels of HSP-90 and its distribution in the brain of Sprague-Dawley rats, ninety minutes and twenty-four hours after acute (30 min) continuous exposure to 2.45 GHz radiation in a the Gigahertz Transverse Electromagnetic (GTEM cell). In addition, we studied further indicators of neuronal insult: dark neurons, chromatin condensation and nucleus fragmentation, which were observed under optical conventional or fluorescence microscopy after DAPI staining. The cellular distribution of protein HSP-90 in the brain increased with each corresponding (0.034 ± 3.10-3, 0.069 ± 5.10-3, 0.27 ± 21.10-3 W/kg), in hypothalamic nuclei, limbic cortex and somatosensorial cortex after exposure to the radiation. At twenty-four hours post-irradiation, levels of HSP-90 protein remained high in all hypothalamic nuclei for all SARs, and in the parietal cortex, except the limbic system, HSP-90 levels were lower than in non-irradiated rats, almost half the levels in rats exposed to the highest power radiation. Non-apoptotic cellular nuclei and a some dark neurons were found ninety minutes and twenty-four hours after maximal SAR exposure. The results suggest that acute exposure to electromagnetic fields triggered an imbalance in anatomical HSP-90 levels but the anti-apoptotic mechanism is probably sufficient to compensate the non-ionizing stimulus. Further studies are required to determine the regional effects of chronic electromagnetic pollution on heat shock proteins and their involvement in neurological processes and neuronal damage.
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