Development, Characterization, and Clinical Investigation of a New Topical Emulsion System Containing a Castanea sativa Spiny Burs Active Extract

The study focused on the development and characterization of an O/W emulsion for skincare containing Castanea sativa spiny burs extract (CSE) as functional agent. The emulsion was stable and had suitable physicochemical and technological properties for dermal application and CSE showed no cytotoxicity in spontaneously immortalized keratinocytes (HaCaT) at active concentrations. A single-blind, placebo-controlled, monocentric study was designed to evaluate the skin tolerability and the skin performance of the CSE-loaded emulsion on healthy human volunteers. An improvement was observed in skin biomechanical properties such as hydration, skin elasticity and a reduction in the periorbital wrinkles in 30 days without altering the skin barrier function, sebum, pH, and erythema values. A significant skin moisturizing effect was detected while the skin barrier function was preserved. The selected natural ingredient combined with the designed formulation and the optimized preparation method has led to a final product that satisfies the physico-chemical and technological requirements underlying the safety of use and the formulative stability over time. With no negative skin reactions and highly significant effects on skin elasticity, wrinkles, and moisturization, the CSE-based emulsion achieved very satisfying outcomes representing a promising functional formulation for skin care.

On the numerical solution of a free end-time homicidal chauffeur game

A functional formulation of the classical homicidal chauffeur Nash game is presented and a numerical framework for its solution is discussed. This methodology combines a Hamiltonian based scheme with proximal penalty to determine the time horizon where the game takes place with a Lagrangian optimal control approach and relaxation to solve the Nash game at a fixed end-time.

Optimum Additive Composition to Minimize Fat in Functional Goat Meat Nuggets: A Healthy Red Meat Functional Food

Optimally designed functional foods are considered the most important part of a balanced and healthy diet. Goat meat nuggets, an otherwise healthy option, are packed with undesirable saturated and unsaturated fats. The present work suggests an optimal functional formulation to reduce the surplus fat content of goat meat nuggets by adding two optimally calculated functional ingredients, namely, fenugreek leaves (FL) and psyllium husk (PH). Response surface optimization was performed to determine the optimal content of the functional ingredients (FL and PH), resulting in minimum fat content without affecting the overall acceptability (OA) and other properties representing the taste and texture (e.g., ash content, pH, crude fiber content, and moisture content) of the nuggets. Functional additives at optimum levels successfully reduced the fat content of the weight-conserved nuggets by almost 39% compared with the control nuggets. Minimal and acceptable effects were observed regarding OA and other properties representative of the taste and texture of the nuggets. An optimally designed, fat-attenuated goat meat nugget formulation is therefore prescribed, which complies with the nutritional standards of a balanced diet.

Reciprocal Polarizable Embedding with a Transferable H2O Potential Function I: Formulation & Tests on Dimer

This work describes a general energy functional formulation of a polarizable embedding QM/MM scheme, as well as an implementation where a real-space Grid-based Projector Augmented Wave (GPAW) DFT method is coupled with a potential function for H₂O based on a Single Center Multipole Expansion (SCME) of the electrostatics, including anisotropic dipole and quadrupole polarizability.

Reciprocal Polarizable Embedding with a Transferable H2O Potential Function I: Formulation & Tests on Dimer

This work describes a general energy functional formulation of a polarizable embedding QM/MM scheme, as well as an implementation where a real-space Grid-based Projector Augmented Wave (GPAW) DFT method is coupled with a potential function for H₂O based on a Single Center Multipole Expansion (SCME) of the electrostatics, including anisotropic dipole and quadrupole polarizability.

Reciprocal Polarizable Embedding with a Transferable H2O Potential Function I: Formulation & Tests on Dimer

This work describes a general energy functional formulation of a polarizable embedding QM/MM scheme, as well as an implementation where a real-space Grid-based Projector Augmented Wave (GPAW) DFT method is coupled with a potential function for H₂O based on a Single Center Multipole Expansion (SCME) of the electrostatics, including anisotropic dipole and quadrupole polarizability.