Tannins are a group of polyphenols found in fruits, leaves, trees, etc., well known in the leather industry and in apples, persimmons and grapes, because of their capacity to interact with other ...polyphenols or other components either from the food product or from saliva. Prior to being able to interact with other compounds, tannins have to be extracted from the food matrix, which depends on their chemistry, as well as the chemical structure of other components, such as cell wall material and proteins.
grapes are commonly grown around the world and are used in winemaking, providing good quality wines with different levels of tannins responsible for the final wine's astringency. Many studies have focused on tannins extractability and retention with cell wall material, and the reactivity of tannins with proteins in
grapes and wine, but there are very few reports for other Vitis species. However, depending on the environmental characteristics of certain regions, Vitis hybrid grapes are grown and used to produce wines more and more. This review focuses on the comparison of the chemistry of tannins, and their reactivity with other macromolecules in Vitis species.
•Agricultural practices are driven by the ‘intensification’ and not the ‘sustainable’ agenda.•Clear evidence for the ecological underpinning of agriculture is essential.•Alternative systems which use ...this evidence must be put forward.•Innovation needs to take account of the social context of agriculture.
Sustainable intensification is touted as the future for agricultural land management in a world demanding greater food production. Agricultural practices remain primarily driven by the ‘intensification’ and not the ‘sustainable’ agenda. To turn this around requires clear evidence from ecologists about the nature of farming systems, the fundamental underpinning role of natural resources and ecological processes within them and the provision of feasible alternatives. Alternative ecologically based farming systems must reflect current wider food systems and the actors engaged in them with ecologists playing a key role in advocating change; from international global agreements which force political change, through changes in focus for agri-businesses, to decision-making by individual land owners.
Field effect transistor (FET) based sensors have attractive features such as small size, ease of mass production, high versatility and comparably low costs. Over the last decade, many FET type ...biosensors based on various nanomaterials (e.g. silicon nanowires, graphene, and transition metal dichalcogenides) have been developed to detect various classes of biomolecular targets due to their integration into portable and rapid test systems, both for use in the clinical lab and in point-of-care testing. This review (with 197 refs.) starts with an introduction into the specific features of FET biosensor technology. This is followed by a description of the essentials of methods for immobilization of recognition elements. The next section discusses the progress that has been made in FET based biosensors using semiconducting nanostructures composed of silicon, graphene, metal oxides, and transition metal dichalcogenides. A further section is devoted to microfluidic systems combined with FET biosensors. We then emphasize the biosensing applications of these diagnostic devices for analysis of clinically relevant biomarkers, specifically to sensing of neurotransmitters, metabolites, nucleic acids, proteins, cancer and cardiac biomarkers. Two tables are presented which summarize advances in applications of 1D and 2D nanomaterial-based FETs for biomarker sensing. A concluding section summarizes the current status, addresses current challenges, and gives perspective trends for the field.
Graphical abstract
Field effect transistor devices based on the use of 1D and 2D semiconductor nanostructures (so called nano-FETs) are making use of materials including silicon nanowires, graphene, zinc oxide, indium oxide, titanium oxide, and molybdenum disulfide that are further modified with recognition elements for biosensing application.
Climate change is likely to change the relationships between commonly used climate indices and underlying patterns of climate variability, but this complexity is rarely considered in studies using ...climate indices. Here, we show that the physical and ecological conditions mapping onto the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) index and North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO) index have changed over multidecadal timescales. These changes apparently began around a 1988/1989 North Pacific climate shift that was marked by abrupt northeast Pacific warming, declining temporal variance in the Aleutian Low (a leading atmospheric driver of the PDO), and increasing correlation between the PDO and NPGO patterns. Sea level pressure and surface temperature patterns associated with each climate index changed after 1988/1989, indicating that identical index values reflect different states of basinscale climate over time. The PDO and NPGO also show timedependent skill as indices of regional northeast Pacific ecosystem variability. Since the late 1980s, both indices have become less relevant to physical–ecological variability in regional ecosystems from the Bering Sea to the southern California Current. Users of these climate indices should be aware of nonstationary relationships with underlying climate variability within the historical record, and the potential for further nonstationarity with ongoing climate change.
The study objective was to evaluate the perioperative and long-term outcomes of aortic root repair and aortic root replacement and provide evidence for root management in acute type A aortic ...dissection.
From 1996 to 2017, 491 patients underwent aortic root repair (n = 307) or aortic root replacement (n = 184) (62% bioprosthesis) for acute type A aortic dissection. Indications for aortic root replacement were intimal tear at the aortic root, root measuring 4.5 cm or more, connective tissue disease, or unrepairable aortic valvulopathy. Primary outcomes were in-hospital mortality, long-term survival, and reoperation rate for root pathology.
Patients' median age was 61 years and 56 years in the aortic root repair group and aortic root replacement group, respectively. The aortic root replacement group had more renal failure requiring dialysis, previous cardiac intervention or surgery, heart failure, coronary malperfusion syndrome, acute myocardial infarction, and severe aortic insufficiency, as well as concomitant coronary artery bypass grafting, tricuspid valve repair, and longer cardiopulmonary bypass and aortic crossclamp times but similar arch procedures. Perioperative outcomes were similar in the aortic root repair and aortic root replacement groups, including in-hospital mortality (8.5% and 8.2%), new-onset renal failure requiring permanent dialysis, stroke, myocardial infarction, and sepsis. Kaplan–Meier 10-year survival was 62% and 65%, and the 15-year cumulative incidence of reoperation was 11% and 7% in the aortic root repair and aortic root replacement groups, respectively. The primary indication for root reoperation was aortic root aneurysm in the aortic root repair group and bioprosthetic valve deterioration in the aortic root replacement group.
Aortic root repair and aortic root replacement are appropriate surgical options for acute type A aortic dissection repair with favorable short- and long-term outcomes. Aortic root replacement should be performed for patients with acute type A aortic dissection presenting with an intimal tear at the aortic root, root aneurysm 4.5 cm or greater, connective tissue disease, or unrepairable aortic valvulopathy.
It is not clear whether the global increase in weight problems in children is the result of excessive energy intake or decreasing energy expenditure. Methodological limitations have made it difficult ...to analyse. There is evidence that at least part of the problem may lie with increasing energy consumption, but it is important to examine the other side of the energy equation also. However, it is not possible to conclusively describe physical activity trends because of the absence of suitable baseline data. One solution is to summate all available evidence in as many areas of daily activities as possible and then draw tentative conclusions. This review summarises available trend data on direct representations of physical activity in a range of contexts, together with indirect measures such as sedentariness, fitness, and attitudes. The conclusions drawn are: physical activity in clearly defined contexts such as active transport, school physical education, and organised sports is declining in many countries; young people would like to be active but are often constrained by external factors such as school policy or curricula, parental rules in relation to safety and convenience, and physical environmental factors.
Sorghum bicolor
(L.) Moench is a multipurpose food crop which is ranked among the top five cereal crops in the world, and is used as a source of food, fodder, feed, and fuel. The genus
Sorghum
...consists of 24 diverse species. Cultivated sorghum was derived from the wild progenitor
S. bicolor
subsp.
verticilliflorum
, which is commonly distributed in Africa. Archeological evidence has identified regions in Sudan, Ethiopia, and West Africa as centers of origin of sorghum, with evidence for more than one domestication event. The taxonomy of the genus is not fully resolved, with alternative classifications that should be resolved by further molecular analysis. Sorghum can withstand severe droughts which makes it suitable to grow in regions where other major crops cannot be grown. Wild relatives of many crops have played significant roles as genetic resources for crop improvement. Although there have been many studies of domesticated sorghum, few studies have reported on its wild relatives. In
Sorghum
, some species are widely distributed while others are very restricted. Of the 17 native sorghum species found in Australia, none have been cultivated. Isolation of these wild species from domesticated crops makes them a highly valuable system for studying the evolution of adaptive traits such as biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. The diversity of the genus
Sorghum
has probably arisen as a result of the extensive variability of the habitats over which they are distributed. The wild gene pool of sorghum may, therefore, harbor many useful genes for abiotic and biotic stress tolerance. While there are many examples of successful examples of introgression of novel alleles from the wild relatives of other species from Poaceae, such as rice, wheat, maize, and sugarcane, studies of introgression from wild sorghum are limited. An improved understanding of wild sorghums will better allow us to exploit this previously underutilized gene pool for the production of more resilient crops.
DNA methylation, a stable and heritable covalent modification which mostly occurs in the context of a CpG dinucleotide, has great potential as a biomarker to detect disease, provide prognoses and ...predict therapeutic responses. It can be detected in a quantitative manner by many different approaches both genome-wide and at specific gene loci, in various biological fluids such as urine, plasma, and serum, which can be obtained without invasive procedures. The current, classical methods are effective in studying DNA methylation patterns, however, for the most part; they have major drawbacks such as expensive instruments, complicated and time consuming protocols as well as relatively low sensitivity, and high false positive rates. To overcome these obstacles, great efforts have been made toward the development of reliable sensor devices to solve these limitations, providing sensitive, fast and cost-effective measurements. The use of biosensors for DNA methylation biomarkers has increased in recent years, because they are portable, simple, rapid, and inexpensive which offers a straightforward way to detect methylated biomarkers. In this review, we give an overview of the conventional techniques for the detection of DNA methylation and then will focus on recent advances in biosensor based methylation detection that eliminate bisulfite conversion and PCR amplification.
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