An Optimization Procedure for Preparing Aqueous CAR/HP-CD Aggregate Dispersions

β-Carotene is a very important molecule for human health. It finds a large application in the food industry, especially for the development of functional foods and dietary supplements. However, β-carotene is an unstable compound and is sensitive to light, temperature, and oxygen. To overcome those limitations, various delivery systems were developed. The inclusion of β-carotene by cyclodextrin aggregates is attractive due to non-toxicity, low hygroscopicity, stability, and the inexpensiveness of cyclodextrins. In this study, β-carotene/2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin aggregates were prepared based on the procedure of the addition of β-carotene in an organic solvent to the hot water dispersion of 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin and the following instant evaporation of the organic solvent. The best conditions for the aggregate preparation were found to be as follows: 25% concentration of 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin in water, 65 °C temperature, and acetone for β-carotene dissolution. The efficiency of entrapping was equal to 88%. The procedure is attractive due to the short time of the aggregate preparation.

Pulsed Laser Deposition and Laser-Induced Backward Transfer to Modify Polydimethylsiloxane

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is a silicone-elastomer that owes its large application in the field of stretchable electronics to its chemical and thermal stability, transparency, flexibility, non-toxicity, compatibility, and low cost. PDMS is a versatile material because it can be used both as an elastic substrate and, after functionalization, as an active material for the design of stretchable electronics. One possible route for the functionalization of PDMS, thus becoming an active material together with numerous metals and semiconductors, is the embedding of conductive nanomaterials. Presently, pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and laser-induced backward transfer (LIBT) are used to deposit carbon- based material on polydimethylsiloxane. In this study, we explore and compare the surface treatments, advantages, and disadvantages of both different employed techniques in different environments. The modification of the wettability, elasticity, morphology, composition, and optical characteristics of polydimethylsiloxane will be evaluated by surface techniques such as scanning electron microscopy, Rutherford backscattering spectrometry, and the sessile drop method.

Ethanol Dehydrogenation to Acetaldehyde over Co@N-Doped Carbon

Cobalt and nitrogen co-doped carbon materials (Co@CN) have recently attracted significant attention as highly efficient noble-metal-free catalysts exhibiting a large application range. In a similar research interest, and taking into account the ever-increasing importance of bioethanol as a renewable raw material, here, we report the results on ethanol dehydrogenation to acetaldehyde over Co@NC catalysts. The catalyst samples were synthesized by a variety of affordable techniques, ensuring generation of various types of Co species incorporated in carbon, such as subnanosized cobalt sites and nano-sized particles of metallic cobalt and cobalt oxides. The catalytic activity was tested under both oxidative and non-oxidative gas-phase conditions at 200–450 °C using a fixed-bed flow reactor. The non-oxidative conditions proved to be much more preferable for the target reaction, competing, however, with ethanol dehydration to ethylene. Under specified reaction conditions, ethanol conversion achieved a level of 66% with 84% selectivity to acetaldehyde at 400 °C. The presence of molecular oxygen in the feed led mainly to deep oxidation of ethanol to COx, giving acetaldehyde in a comparatively low yield. The potential contribution of carbon itself and supported cobalt forms to the observed reaction pathways is discussed.

Preparation and Characterization of Semi-IPN Cryogels Based on Polyacrylamide and Poly(N,N-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate); Functionalization of Carrier with Monochlorotriazinyl-β-cyclodextrin and Release Kinetics of Curcumin

Curcumin (CCM) is a natural hydrophobic polyphenol known for its numerous applications in the food industry as a colorant or jelly stabilizer, and in the pharmaceutical industry due to its anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antioxidant, anti-cancer, and anti-Alzheimer properties. However, the large application of CCM is limited by its poor solubility in water and low stability. To enhance the bioavailability of CCM, and to protect it against the external degradation agents, a novel strategy, which consists in the preparation of semi-interpenetrating polymer networks, (s-IPNs) based on poly(N,N-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate) entrapped in poly(acrylamide) networks, by a cryogelation technique, was developed in this work. All s-IPN cryogels were characterized by SEM, EDX, FTIR, and swelling at equilibrium as a function of pH. Functionalization of semi-IPN cryogel with monochlorotriazinyl-β-cyclodextrin (MCT-β-CD) led to IPN cryogel. The release profile of CCM from the composite cryogels was investigated at 37 °C, in pH 3. It was found that the cumulative release increased with the increase of the carrier hydrophobicity, as a result of increasing the cross-linking degree, the content and the molar mass of PDMAEMA. Fitting Higuchi, Korsmeyer–Peppas, and first order kinetic models on the CCM release profiles indicated the diffusion as the main driving force of drug release from the composite cryogels.

Classification of digital stitch lines in machine embroidery

Despite the large application of the machine embroidery in textile and apparel design and high-tech clothing items, there is а lack of systematic arrangement of the digital stitch lines, used by embroidery machines and embroidery designers. Since 2010 information on embroidery stitch lines could be mostly found in the web sites of the embroidery machine manufacturers and software product manuals. However, in the instruction manuals the instruments for creating various embroidery objects are simply described without providing systematic information on the types of the stitch lines. Even more, different names of the stitch lines and different ways to achieve the same design are observed. Single authors offer their own classifications based entirely and logically on the stitches of the hand embroidery. Another group of authors relied on already developed techniques and strategies for digitizing stitches in various software products or took into account the final appearance of the stitch lines or their application. Our study aimed to develop a detailed and systematic classification of the digital stitch lines in the machine embroidery, which has not been presented in the literature.

Investigating deep feedforward neural networks for classification of transposon-derived piRNAs

PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAS) form an important class of non-coding RNAs that play a key role in gene expression regulation and genome integrity by silencing transposable elements. However, despite the importance of piRNAs and the large application of deep learning in computational biology, there are few studies of deep learning for piRNAs prediction. Still, current methods focus on using advanced architectures like CNN and variations. This paper presents an investigation on deep feedforward network models for classification of human transposon-derived piRNAs. We developed a lightweight predictor (when compared to other deep learning methods) and we show by practical evidence that simple neural networks can perform as well as better than complex neural networks when using the appropriate hyperparameters. For that, we train, analyze and compare the results of a multilayer perceptron with different hyperparameter choices, such as numbers of hidden layers, activation functions and optimizers, clarifying the advantages and disadvantages of each choice. Our proposed predictor reached a F-score of 0.872, outperforming other state-of-the-art methods for human transposon-derived piRNAs classification. In addition, to better access the generalization of our proposal, we also showed it achieved competitive results when classifying piRNAs of other species.

An Optimized Nature-Inspired Metaheuristic Algorithm for Application Mapping in 2D-NoC

Mapping application task graphs on intellectual property (IP) cores into network-on-chip (NoC) is a non-deterministic polynomial-time hard problem. The evolution of network performance mainly depends on an effective and efficient mapping technique and the optimization of performance and cost metrics. These metrics mainly include power, reliability, area, thermal distribution and delay. A state-of-the-art mapping technique for NoC is introduced with the name of sailfish optimization algorithm (SFOA). The proposed algorithm minimizes the power dissipation of NoC via an empirical base applying a shared k-nearest neighbor clustering approach, and it gives quicker mapping over six considered standard benchmarks. The experimental results indicate that the proposed techniques outperform other existing nature-inspired metaheuristic approaches, especially in large application task graphs.

POTENTIAL AND THERAPEUTIC BENEFITS OF TINOSPORA CORDIFOLIA

Essential crude products with potential benefits are steadily achieving significance in clinical studies and research because of their quality of minimal adverse effects as associated with allopathic medications. Tinospora cordifolia usually recognized as Guduchi is known for its large application in the therapy and cure of various diseases in conventional ayurvedic treatment. Recently the classification of active constituents of Guduchi and their inherent function in disease limitation has led us to an active activity in the plant around the globe. This review comprises the genetic variety of the parts of Tinospora cordifolia and active ingredients isolated from Tinospora cordifolia and helps in treating diseases due to their potential benefits such as Anti-oxidant activity, Anti-diabetic activity, Immunomodulatory activity, Anti-cancer activity, Anti-toxic effect, Anti-hyperlipidemic Property, Analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antipyretic activity, and many others. This review aims to utilize the biochemical and significant routes induced by the aggregates separated from Tinospora cordifolia to allow different and efficient therapeutic formulations in disease elimination.

Hybrid Mean Fuzzy Approach for Attention Detection

Statistics around the world showed that attention deficit significantly leads to road accidents. Hence, the growth of studies on attention deficit detection becoming more important. The studies obtained the waveform from electroencephalography (EEG) to identify the characteristic of attention. However, each individual has own unique characteristics to significantly shown the attention deficit. Thus, this research aim is to use the fuzzy approach to minimize the variability gap of the EEG signal between each individual. The research conducted the prior experiment to develop control parameter for training set of fuzzy by using two distinct stimulations to create two groups of attention sample i.e., attentive and inattentive. An approach of novel Hybrid Mean Fuzzy (HMF) was proposed in this research to detect attention deficit in EEG signal. It is the combination of simple averaging (Mean) and Fuzzy approaches for EEG analysis and classification. The results of using this method shows a significantly change in EEG signal which correlates to the attention detection. An Attention Degradation Scale (ADS) is successfully developed as the threshold value of EEG for attention detection. Therefore, the findings in this research can be a promising foundation on attention deficit detection in large application not only for reducing the road accidents.

Synthesis and photoelectric properties of SnSe films through selenization of evaporated Sn-metal films

Sn precursor layer was evaporated on a glass substrate by an electron-beam evaporation method and followed by selenization using Se powder. SnSe film was successfully prepared by adjusting the selenization temperature and selenization time. The phase, microstructure and optical properties of the SnSe films were studied by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy, and UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometer. The results demonstrated that the pure phase polycrystalline SnSe films with a band gap of 0.93 eV could be prepared by selenizing at 450[Formula: see text]C for 60 min. Under the irradiation of a 980 nm laser with a power of 2 mW/cm2, photoelectric response characteristics of the SnSe films were tested, and the response time and recovery time of the prepared film were 62 ms and 80 ms, respectively, indicating that the SnSe film had a large application prospect in near-infrared light detection.