This investigation was taken up to evaluate the feasibility of using green tea (GT) to extend the shelf life of fresh mutton, at ambient storage conditions (25
±
2
°C and 85
±
5% RH). The ethanolic ...extract of GT (GTE) was found to significantly inhibit (
P
<
0.01) spoilage microflora, including certain pathogens of acidulant treated mutton (pH 3.8) for up to 4
days. Application of GTE did not cause any deleterious change in sensorial and physical quality and the mutton was acceptable for up to 4
days. While the control samples showed initial signs of spoilage between 20 and 24
h and registered an increase in free fatty acids (FFA) from 1.24
g to 4.1
g/100
g lipid and biogenic amine index (BAI) from 0.27
mg to 4.63
mg/100
g mutton, at the end of two days of storage, the GTE treated sample showed FFA levels of 1.5
g/100
g lipid and BAI of 0.25
mg/100
g mutton at the end of the 4
days. GTE treatment could be effectively used to extend the shelf life of fresh mutton for up to 4
days in Indian climatic conditions, since it significantly (
P
<
0.01) inhibits the formation of these lipolytic and proteolytic degradation products, which are responsible for sensorial spoilage.
ABSTRACT
The antioxidant and antibacterial potentials of essential oils and acetone extracts of black pepper, cumin, black cumin and mace were carried out by different techniques. The antioxidative ...capacity of the essential oils and acetone extracts were evaluated against mustard oil by measuring peroxide and thibarbituric acid values at fixed intervals. In addition, their antioxidant potential was evaluated by 2, 2′‐diphenyl‐1‐picrylhydracyl radical and conjugated diene assays. Their reducing power was determined with standards, which proved the strong antioxidant capacity of essential oils and extracts. The antioxidant activity of essential oils and extracts exerted by all the antioxidant assays can be compared with synthetic antioxidants such as butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated hydroxytoluene. The antibacterial activity was studied by disk diffusion and poison food methods. Black cumin essential oil showed complete zone of inhibition (P < 0.05) against tested bacterial strains of Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus and Bacillus subtilis at 2 and 6 µL level by disk diffusion method. Black cumin and black pepper extracts showed complete reduction of colonies against tested bacterial strains of S. aureus, B. cereus and B. subtilisat 5 and 10 µL level by poison food method. Poison food method exhibited good results for the tested essential oils and extracts. Essential oils of black pepper, cumin, black cumin and mace may be used to stabilize mustard oil after screening.
The prevalence of knee osteoarthritis is increasing in the aging U.S.
The efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the use of hyaluronic acid (HA) injections for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis are ...debated. In this study, we assessed the utilization and costs of HA injections in the 12 months preceding total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and evaluated the usage of HA injections in end-stage knee osteoarthritis management in relation to other treatments.
MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters and Medicare Supplemental and Coordination of Benefits databases (Truven Health Analytics) were reviewed to identify patients who underwent TKA from 2005 to 2012. The utilization of patient-specific osteoarthritis-related health care (including medications, corticosteroid injections, HA injections, imaging, and office visits) and payment information were analyzed for the 12 months preceding TKA.
A total of 244,059 patients met the inclusion criteria. Of those, 35,935 (14.7%) had ≥1 HA injection in the 12 months preceding TKA. HA injections were responsible for 16.4% of all knee osteoarthritis-related payments, trailing only imaging studies (18.2%), and HA injections accounted for 25.2% of treatment-specific payments, a rate that was higher than that of any other treatment. Patients receiving HA injections were significantly more likely to receive additional knee osteoarthritis-related treatments compared with patients who did not receive HA injections.
Despite numerous studies questioning the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of HA injections for osteoarthritis of the knee, HA injections are still utilized for a substantial percentage of patients. Given the paucity of data supporting the effectiveness of HA injections and the current cost-conscious health-care climate, decreasing their use among patients with end-stage knee osteoarthritis may represent a substantial cost reduction that likely does not adversely impact the quality of care.
Staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB), toxic shock syndrome, the superantigens are responsible for diseases such as staphylococcal food poisoning and toxic shock syndrome. An easy and quick system is ...desirable to detect toxin-producing strains. In this report, we described standardization of a novel multiplex-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay for simultaneous detection of four important genes associated with the Staphylococcus aureus viz., SEB, Tsst, genus-specific nuclease (nuc) and Fem genes along with an internal amplification control (IAC), which has now become mandatory in diagnostic PCRs, particularly when tested on environmental or food samples. This mPCR method is sensitive enough to detect cells as low as 103 cfu/mL or /g of the food samples. When evaluated on 136 food and environmental samples, the system detected 4 SEB-positive S. aureus strains. The S. aureus strains that have been identified to contain the SEB gene in the mPCR were unequivocally detected for the toxin expression by the TECRA kit. mPCR produced a 100% correlation with conventional identification method. As SEB and Tsst are qualified as biowarfare molecules, this system is of immense help in detecting them during emergencies of biological war and suspected outbreaks of S. aureus food poisoning directly from the food and environmental samples. The virulence-associated genes targeted in this study are super antigenic in nature and are responsible for diseases such as staphylococcal food poisoning and toxic shock syndrome, and these molecules are also qualified as biowarfare agents. The high throughput and cost-effective multiplex PCR method reported here could identify all these genes successfully from both artificially spiked and natural food samples and may also find its application in detection of these toxin-producing Staphylococcus aureus from clinical and environmental samples.
We present the results and prospects for searches beyond the Standard Model (SM) at the LHC by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations. The minimal supersymmetric extension of the SM has been investigated ...in various configurations at 8TeV center of mass energy at LHC and lower limits are set on the s-particle masses. The searches for other scenarios of physics beyond the SM are also presented. The data are found to be consistent with the Standard Model. The non-observation of a signal is converted to limits at the 95% confidence level(C.L) on the production cross section times branching ratio and on the masses of the hypothesized new particles for appropriate benchmark models (new heavy gauge bosons, extra-dimensions, compositeness or dark matter).
Flowering patterns are defined by the timing, duration, and frequency of flowering. Plants, particularly in the tropics, vary enormously with respect to these main variables of flowering. We used ...data from 302 tree species in a wet tropical forest to test a series of predictions regarding timing, duration, and frequency of flowering and examined the effect of each variable on the other two. Because timing, duration, and frequency of flowering can be constrained by phylogeny, we analyzed the data before and after considering phylogenetic effects at the level of family. Flowering activity peaked in the first wet season from May to July, refuting our prediction of peak flowering during the dry season. Our prediction that most species should flower several times a year was supported when species flowering more or less continually throughout the year were included in this category. Our prediction that supra-annually flowering species should be the least frequent was also supported with some qualifications. As we predicted, species flowering several times a year bloomed relatively briefly per flowering episode. Our prediction of shorter flowering duration for species flowering in the dry season and for those with a temporal separation between flowering and vegetative growth was also supported. Furthermore, supra-annually flowering species flowered for a shorter duration than annually flowering species and had a higher probability of flowering in the dry season compared to episodically or annually flowering species. Phylogeny significantly constrained variation in flowering frequency, but not in flowering time or duration, among confamilial species.
Classical pathogenic strains of
Yersinia enterocolitica
produce a 17 kDa outer membrane protein, Ail (attachment-invasion locus), which mediates bacterial attachment to some cultures epithelial cell ...lines and invasion of others. In the present study, hybridomas were developed for the production of monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) against Ail protein of
Y. enterocolitica
. A set of five stabilized hybridoma cell lines were generated, of which, two MAbs, YEA 302 and YEA 303, exhibited specific reaction to the native Ail protein (17 kDa) present in whole cell lysate of
Y. enterocolitica
strains beside having reaction with rAil. The other three MAbs, YEA 5, 17 and 32, had some cross reactions with proteins other than Ail. Two out of five MAbs were IgG1, two were IgG2b and one in IgM in nature. MAbs (YEA 302 and YEA 303) did not show any cross-reaction with whole cell lysate of
Brucella abortus, Vibrio cholerae, Salmonella typhimurium
and
Escherichia coli
and other species of
Enterobacteriaceae
including
Y. pestis
in ELISA and Western blot analysis. The presence of Ail protein among the strains recovered from pork and milk samples was evaluated by these sets of MAbs and the results were compared with the duplex PCR. Collectively, the data suggest that these MAbs may have the potential for their use in the detection of pathogenic
Y. enterocolitica
reliably, rapidly and at a relatively low cost.
ABSTRACT
Pasteurization of pineapple juices at 80C for 5 min in the presence of added acids (citric, malic and fumaric) and cane sugar was found to increase its reducing sugar content from 3.5 to ...6.5%, which in turn decreased the glass transition temperature (Tg) and increased the hygroscopicity of the juice powder. Inversion of sucrose could be avoided by adding sugar and acid to a pasteurized cooled juice. Among the acids, citric acid caused 30% more hygroscopicity than malic and fumaric. Incorporation of additives into the juice prior to freeze‐drying helped in reducing the hygroscopic tendency of the juice powder. Among the additives tried, trehalose, beta‐cyclodextrin and sorbitol were found to be beneficial as they increase the Tg and reduce the hygroscopic tendency of the juice powder.
The phytochemical and antimicrobial activity of the petroleum ether and crude methanol extracts, chloroform and ethyl acetate fractions of the leaves of Lannea kerstingii were investigated. ...Phytochemical screening revealed the presence of steroids and triterpenes in the petroleum ether extract, steroid, triterpene, flavonoids and tannins in both crude methanol extract and chloroform fraction while the ethyl acetate fraction contained only flavonoids and tannins. The extracts exhibited antimicrobial activities with zones of inhibition ranging from 17.00 to 21.03, 20.10 to 25.24, 25.32 to 34.02 and 22.28 to 27.20 mm for petroleum ether extract, methanol extract, chloroform and ethyl acetate fractions respectively. The minimum inhibitory concentration was between 5 and 10mg/ml, 5mg/ml for the petroleum ether and methanol extract respectively, and between 2.5 and 5 mg/ml, 5mg/ml for the acetate fractions. The minimum bactericidal concentration for all the extracts was 40mg/ml respectively except for chloroform fraction which ranged from 20 to 40mg/ml. The minimum fungicidal concentration for all the extracts was found to be 40mg/ml respectively. This result indicates the broad spectrum antimicrobial potential of L. Kerstingii and justifies the use of this plant in traditional medicine.
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