Study of the Combretum micranthum G Don Sector (Kinkeliba) in Senegal

Combretum micranthum (kinkeliba) is one of the most used medicinal plants in Senegal. However, its commercialization is poorly studied. The objective of this study is to analyze the commercialization of Combretum micranthum in Senegal. The study was carried out in two main regions of kinkeliba marketing in Senegal: Dakar, where kinkeliba is marketed; and Thies, where kinkeliba is produced and marketed. Structured and unstructured surveys were administered to different categories of stakeholders: herbalists / traditional practitioners, collectors/ suppliers, retailers and consumers. Production sites that supply Dakar include the following: Diass, Sindia, Kiniabour, Pout, Thies Lalane. The main sales points in Dakar are the Thiaroye and Grand Yoff markets. The kinkeliba marketing chain has short channels and women are the main stakeholders. Procurement is done by harvesting in the natural environment and by purchase for herbalists / traditional practitioners. The benefits and added value derived from the marketing of kinkeliba are positive and are increasingly evolving from producers to retailers. The kinkeliba chain, with its constraints and especially its strengths, requires better structuring and to be better known. Keywords: Combretum micranthum, kinkeliba, commercialization, value chain, Senegal.

Comparing fNIRS signal qualities between approaches with and without short channels

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a non-invasive technique used to measure changes in oxygenated (HbO) and deoxygenated (HbR) hemoglobin, related to neuronal activity. fNIRS signals are contaminated by the systemic responses in the extracerebral tissue (superficial layer) of the head, as fNIRS uses a back-reflection measurement. Using shorter channels that are only sensitive to responses in the extracerebral tissue but not in the deeper layers where target neuronal activity occurs has been a ‘gold standard’ to reduce the systemic responses in the fNIRS data from adults. When shorter channels are not available or feasible for implementation, an alternative, i.e., anti-correlation (Anti-Corr) method has been adopted. To date, there has not been a study that directly assesses the outcomes from the two approaches. In this study, we compared the Anti-Corr method with the ‘gold standard’ in reducing systemic responses to improve fNIRS neural signal qualities. We used eight short channels (8-mm) in a group of adults, and conducted a principal component analysis (PCA) to extract two components that contributed the most to responses in the 8 short channels, which were assumed to contain the global components in the extracerebral tissue. We then used a general linear model (GLM), with and without including event-related regressors, to regress out the 2 principal components from regular fNIRS channels (30 mm), i.e., two GLM-PCA methods. Our results found that, the two GLM-PCA methods showed similar performance, both GLM-PCA methods and the Anti-Corr method improved fNIRS signal qualities, and the two GLM-PCA methods had better performance than the Anti-Corr method.

Controlling Particle Morphology and Pore Size in the Synthesis of Ordered Mesoporous Materials

Ordered mesoporous materials have attracted considerable attention due to their potential applications in catalysis, adsorption, and separation technologies, as well as biomedical applications. In the present manuscript, we aim at a rational design to obtain the desired surface functionality (Ti and/or hydrophobic groups) while obtaining short channels (short diffusion paths) and large pore size (>10 nm). Santa Barbara Amorphous material SBA-15 and periodic mesoporous organosilica PMO materials are synthesized using Pluronic PE 10400 (P104) surfactant under mild acidic conditions to obtain hexagonal platelet-like particles with very short mesochannels (300–450 nm). The use of expanders, such as 1, 3, 5-trimethylbenzene (TMB) and 1, 3, 5-triisopropylbenzene (TIPB) were tested in order to increase the pore size. TMB yielded in the formation of vesicles in all the syntheses attempted, whereas P104 combined with TIPB resulted both in expanded (E) E-SBA-15 and E-PMO with 12.3 nm pore size short channel particles in both cases. Furthermore, the synthesis method was expanded to the incorporation of small amount of Ti via co-condensation method using titanocene as titanium source. As a result, Ti-E-SBA-15 was obtained with 15.5 nm pore size and isolated Ti-sites maintaining platelet hexagonal morphology. Ti-PMO was obtained with 7.8 nm and short channels, although the pore size under the tried synthesis conditions could not be expanded further without losing the structural ordering.