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•Honey adulteration with corn syrup, agave syrup, and sugarcane molasses under study.•Sample preparation involves dilution in water alone.•Spectral fingerprint obtained by UV–Vis ...spectroscopy used as analytical information.•OC-PLS and DD-SIMCA with different pre-processing techniques were evaluated.•DD-SIMCA prediction for offset correction had a 100% of sensitivity and specificity.
This work proposes the use of UV–Vis spectroscopy and one-class classifiers to authenticate honey in terms of their individual and simultaneous adulterations with corn syrup, agave syrup, and sugarcane molasses. Then, spectra of aqueous authentic (n = 73) and adulterated (n = 162) honey samples were recorded. Before the construction of OC-PLS and DD-SIMCA models, different pre-processing techniques were used to removed baseline shifts. The best result obtained by DD-SIMCA using offset correction, correctly classifying all the samples in the test set. Therefore, the proposed methodology can be used as a promising tool to authenticate honey and prevent fraudulent labeling, affording security to consumers and providing an alternative to regulatory agencies. Moreover, it avoids laborious sample preparation and additional operational costs, since the analytical information is acquired using a routine instrumental technique, without the need for any sample preparation step, other than dilution of the samples in water alone.
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•A chemometrics-assisted color histogram-based system used for tea quality analysis;•Fingerprint signatures from digital images used as analytical information;•Multivariate ...chemometric approaches used for qualitative and quantitative analysis;•Sri Lankan black and Argentinean black and green teas were authenticated;•Good results for the determination of moisture, total polyphenols, and caffeine.
Tea (Camellia sinensis) fraud has been frequently identified and involves tampering with the labelling of inferior products or without geographical origin certification and even mixing them with superior quality teas to mask an adulteration. Consequently, economic losses and health damage to consumers are observed. Thus, a Chemometrics-assisted Color Histogram-based Analytical System (CACHAS) was employed a simple, cost-effective, reliable, and green analytical tool to screen the quality of teas. Data-Driven Soft Independent Modeling of Class Analogy was used to authenticate their geographical origin and category simultaneously, recognizing correctly all Argentinean and Sri Lankan black teas and Argentinean green teas. For the determination of moisture, total polyphenols, and caffeine, Partial Least Squares obtained satisfactory predictive abilities, with values of root mean squared error of prediction (RMSEP) of 0.50, 0.788, and 0.25 mg kg−1, rpred of 0.81, 0.902, and 0.81, and relative error of prediction (REP) of 6.38, 9.031, and 14.58%., respectively. CACHAS proved to be a good alternative tool for environmentally-friendly non-destructive chemical analysis.
•Instrumental analysis of food generates of a large volume of information per sample.•Discarding non-informative and/or redundant signals through variable selection.•A new categorization of the ...different variable selection strategies is presented.•Details about variable selection with applications in food analysis are shown.•Variable selection-based models have similar or better figures of merit.
Food analysis covers aspects of quality and detection of possible frauds to ensure the integrity of the food. The arsenal of analytical instruments available for food analysis is broad and allows the generation of a large volume of information per sample. But this instrumental information may not yet give the desired answer; it must be processed to provide a final answer for decision making. The possibility of discarding non-informative and/or redundant signals can lead to models of better accuracy, robustness, and chemical interpretability, in line with the principle of parsimony. Thus, in this tutorial review, we cover aspects of variable selection in food analysis, including definitions, theoretical aspects of variable selection, and case studies showing the advantages of variable selection-based models concerning the use of a wide range of non-informative and redundant instrumental information in the analysis of food matrices.
This work employed NIR spectroscopy and PLS algorithms for the identification and quantification of goat milk adulteration by adding cow milk, besides the determination of their fat and protein ...contents. Since cow milk can represent a health risk to allergic consumers regardless its amount, PLS-DA was able to identify cow milk additions in goat milk as low as 1.0154 g/100g, likewise the non-adulterated goat and cow milk samples, achieving a 100% of correct classification. For quantification purposes, the Successive Projections Algorithm for interval selection in PLS (iSPA-PLS) provided the best results for the determination of both adulteration and fat contents, while PLS gave better results for the protein quantification. Despite the great similarity of both natural dairy matrices and their intrinsic variability, the prediction results provided suitable values with high correlation coefficients and low RMSEP and REP values, with RPD values higher than 3. Therefore, the proposed methodology proved to be a useful, fast and non-destructive tool for screening the quality of goat milk in terms of its adulteration with cow milk, in addition to the quantification of its fat and protein contents.
•Identification and quantification of goat milk adulteration by adding cow milk.•Fat and protein content quantifications in goat and cow milk and their mixtures.•NIR spectroscopy coupled with different preprocessing techniques and PLS algorithms.•PLS-DA classified correctly non-adulterated goat and cow milk, and their mixtures.•Good quantifications for adulteration and fat by iSPA-PLS and for protein by PLS.
BFS-MK-based alkali-activated materials are well established as an alternative for sustainable and green construction. This work aims to collaborate and encourage the use of biomass ashes, such as ...sugarcane bagasse ash (SCBA), as a precursor in alkali-activated materials (AAM). This ash is a rich source of aluminosilicate, which is a primary requirement for this application. In addition, this waste is still an environmental liability, especially in developing countries, and with a large volume of annual production. Thus, in this research, alkali-activated pastes (AA) were produced using sugarcane bagasse ash (SCBA), granulated blast furnace slag (BFS) and metakaolin (MK) as precursors. In addition, environmental gains were encouraged with energy savings, with no extra reburn or calcination steps in the SCBA. Thus, the precursors were characterized by laser granulometry, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The pastes were produced by mixing the precursors with the activator, composed of a mixture of sodium hydroxide 8 mol/L and sodium silicate. Aiming to study the incorporation of SCBA, all samples have a precursor/activator ratio and a BFS/(BFS + MK) ratio constant of 0.6. The compressive strength analysis, FTIR, XRD, TGA, SEM and isothermal calorimetry analyses pointed out the occurrence of alkaline activation in all proposed samples for curing times of 7, 28 and 91 days. The sample GM0.6-BA0 (15% SCBA) achieved the highest compressive strength among the samples proposed (117.7 MPa, at 91 days), along with a good development of strength throughout the curing days. Thus, this work presents the properties of alkaline-activated pastes using SCBA as a sustainable and alternative precursor, seeking to encourage the use of raw materials and alternative waste in civil construction.
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•Brazilian Gourmet, Superior, and Traditional ground roasted coffees under study.•Gourmet coffee authentication via NIR spectroscopy and color histograms from CACHAS.•OC-PLS and ...dd-SIMCA evaluated as one-class classification methods.•dd-SIMCA using offset correction for NIR had a 100% of sensitivity and specificity.•dd-SIMCA using RGB histogram for CACHAS had a 100% of sensitivity and specificity.
The growing demand for excellent-quality coffees allied with their symbolic aestheticization that add value to the products favor the adulteration practices and consequently economic losses. So, this work proposes the suitability of NIR spectroscopy and Digital Images (from CACHAS) coupled with one-class classification methods for the non-destructive authentication of Gourmet ground roasted coffees. For this, Gourmet coffees (n = 44) were discriminated from Traditional (n = 36) and Superior (n = 10) by directly analyzing their powder without any sample preparation. Then, OC-PLS and dd-SIMCA were used to construct the models. dd-SIMCA using offset correction for NIR and RGB histogram for CACHAS achieved the best results, correctly recognizing all the 90 samples in both the training and test sets. Therefore, the proposed methodologies can be useful for both the consumers and regulatory agencies because it confirms the elevated standards of excellence of Brazilian specialty coffees, preventing fraudulent labeling, besides following the Principles of Green Analytical Chemistry.
•Adulteration in ketchup by adding illegal Sudan I dye.•An eco-friendly methodology based on colour histograms is proposed.•Multivariate analysis to identify and quantify Sudan I ...adulteration.•SPA-LDA classified correctly all the samples in both training and test sets.•iSPA-PLS achieved good performance to quantify Sudan I adulteration.
Sudan I is a synthetic-azo dye commonly used to adulterate foods to increase sensory appearance. However, it is banned due to its carcinogenic, mutagenic and genotoxic properties, which represent a serious risk to human health. Thus, this paper proposes a feasibility study to identify and quantify Sudan I dye in ketchup samples using colour histograms (obtained from digital images) and multivariate analysis. The successive projections algorithm coupled with linear discriminant analysis (SPA-LDA) classified correctly all samples, while the partial least squares coupled with SPA for interval selection (iSPA-PLS) quantified adequately the adulterant, attaining values of RMSEP of 11.64 mg kg−1, R2 of 0.96, RPD of 5.28, REP of 13.63% and LOD of 39.45 mg kg−1. Therefore, the proposed methodology provides a simple, fast, inexpensive, promising analytical tool for the screening of both the quality and safety of ketchup samples. As a consequence, it can help to protect the consumer's health.
Abstract
Vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC) is a fungal infection caused mainly by Candida albicans. The treatment of VVC with azoles has been impaired due to the increased cases of resistance presented ...by this pathogen. The aim of the present study was to investigate the antifungal activity of mucoadhesive chitosan nanoparticles encapsulating both green propolis and fluconazole for topical use in the treatment of VVC. The nanoparticles were prepared by the ionic gelation method, resulting in a size of 316.5 nm containing 22 mg/kg of green propolis and 2.4 mg/kg of fluconazole. The nanoparticles were non-toxic in vitro using red blood cells or in vivo in a Galleria mellonella toxicity model. The treatment of female BALB/c mice infected by C. albicans ATCC 10231 with topical nanoparticles co-encapsulating fluconazole and green propolis was effective even using a fluconazole amount 20 times lower than the amount of miconazole nitrate 2% cream. Considering that the mucoadhesive property of chitosan, which is known to allow a prolonged retention time of the compounds at the mucous epithelia, the antifungal potential of the phenols and flavonoids present in green propolis may have favored the effectiveness of this treatment. These results indicate that this formulation of topical use for fluconazole associated with green propolis can be used as a promising approach to therapy for the treatment of VVC, thus contributing to reducing the development of resistance to azoles.
Lay Summary
Vulvovaginal candidiasis is a fungal infection for which we search for alternatives for its treatment. Thus, a nanoparticle formulation based on fluconazole and green propolis was developed. These nanoparticles were tested, and we obtained adequate results in laboratory tests.
One of the strategies to promote patient safety in care transitions is medication reconciliation (MR), which is conducted by the pharmacist at the patient's discharge from hospital. However, there ...are divergences about this process and about the pharmacist's role in conducting such intervention.
To systematically review the literature that reports the MR process led by pharmacists at patient discharge and map the different methods, strategies and tools used in the process.
Relevant studies were searched in the following databases: EMBASE, MEDLINE (PubMed), The Cochrane Library, and LILACS. No language restriction or publication date was applied. The studies considered eligible were those involving and describing pharmacist-led MR processes at acute patient discharge from hospital, with an experimental, quasi-experimental, or observational design. The characteristics of the studies and the MR processes were identified and then a qualitative synthesis was performed.
Fifty studies were included. The majority of them were observational ones (82%), and the main outcome was medication discrepancies (42%). The studies were mostly conducted in university hospitals (70%) and in internal medicine wards (54%). Pharmacists were responsible mainly for gathering medication histories (72%), and identifying (96%) and solving (98%) pharmacotherapeutic problems. The main sources of information on pre-admission medications were patient/caregiver interviews (66%) and records from other care providers (40%). Only 30% of the studies described a patient discharge plan, and 14% shared information of the patient's pharmacotherapy with community pharmacists.
The concept of MR and the pharmacist-led activities in the process varied in the literature, as well as the pharmacotherapy assessment focus and the communication strategies towards patients and other care providers, showing that standardization of the process and concepts is necessary.
To evaluate the efficacy of fluoride-containing toothpastes with different technologies to remineralize artificial caries lesions in enamel.
Bovine enamel blocks were divided into three thirds: ...intact (untreated), demineralized (artificial caries lesion), and treated (caries lesion, pH cycling with dentifrices). Enamel blocks were randomly distributed into five groups (n = 12): Fluoride-free toothpaste, Colgate Oral Care (NC); Arginine-containing toothpaste, Colgate Total Daily Repair (PC); Silicate-based fluoride toothpaste: REFIX technology, regenerador + sensitive (RDC), NR-5 technology, Regenerate Enamel Science (RES), and NOVAMIN technology, Sensodyne Repair and Protect (SRP). The specimens were submitted to a pH cycling model for 6 days. The efficacy of the toothpastes was estimated by calculating the surface microhardness recovery (%SMH
) and the fluorescence recovery (ΔF
) with quantitative light-induced fluorescence. The cross-sectional micromorphology of the enamel surface was also assessed using scanning electron microscopy. Elemental analyses (weight%) were determined with an energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS). The results were compared to that of the control (NC). Data were statistically analyzed (5%).
%SMH
could be ranked as follows: RDC = PC = RES = SRP > NC. Significantly higher %SMH
and ΔF
means were observed after enamel treatment with RDC (22.7 and 46.9, respectively). PC (%SMH
= 18.8) was as efficacious as RDC to recover the surface microhardness with a significantly lower mean of ΔF
(19.5). Only RDC was able to promote the formation of a mineralized layer on the surface of enamel enriched with silicon on the surface.
The silicate-based fluoride toothpaste containing REFIX technology demonstrated greater efficacy in the remineralizing artificial caries than the other products.
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