Evaluation of toxicological metal profiling in different varieties of candies from the local market of Lucknow City, India

Virtually almost everyone enjoys chocolates and candies every now and then. Usually, chocolate and candies are the most craved food among children and pregnant women. This craving kicks high during the phase of stress, anxiousness, hormonal changes or mood swings. As children and pregnant women are the most sensitive groups of human population, the presence of any kind of toxicants in their food products can raise serious health concerns. In view of this, an approach has been made to estimate the quantity of nine metals in three different variety of commonly available candies (67 samples) i.e., cocoa-chocolate based, milk based, and fruit flavored candies. Few metals were found at relatively high level in cocoa-chocolate based candies followed by milk based and fruit flavored candies. The findings of this study enlightens the international food safety and public health protection authorities to implement strict permissible limits for the presence of metals in candies. The statistical approach of m­­­ultiple discriminant analysis was also performed in this study to reverse identify the candy groups based on their inter-comparative profiling of multi-elemental contamination among similar type of candy samples which points towards stipulating stringent quality policies and establishing strict standards for manufacturing, processing, storage and transportation of candies and their raw materials.

Optimizing operation of electrical fuse circuit with controllable overload current

The article discusses the application of a rapid action electrical fuse with controllable overload current in the schemes of industrial and household electrical equipment. There has been found a deficiency in the basic version of the scheme. A variant of the circuit was proposed, which helps to get rid of the drawback in the basic version: if a condenser with relatively large capacity (C ≥ 100 μF) is present in the protected circuit (in the load circuit), the circuit may not reach the operating mode, because, when the condenser is on, its large charging current triggers the electronic fuse and the load remains unconnected. This situation can be avoided only if the charging current of the condenser is greatly reduced, for which a current source on a field-effect transistor VT3 and a timing circuit R10R11C1 were introduced into the circuit. As C1 is being charged, through the current source VT3 there is a smooth increase in the bias voltage at the emitter junctions of the composite transistor switch VT1VT2 with a gradual increase in its conductivity. As a result, the starting current through the capacitive load at the first moment of time turns out to be much less, and the electronic fuse enters the operating mode. The optimal relationships were found between individual elements of the circuit, their values and modes of operation, depending on the size and nature of the load, while, thanks to the use of the domestic element base, the cost of the device turned out to be minimal compared to other circuits of a similar type. The research data can be used for operation of the devices of a similar type in the household and for industrial applications.

The Microsite

This paper deals with the analysis of microsites as a low-cost marketing communication tool used to effectively address prospective applicants for admissions to higher education institutions. The paper contains the analysis of the microsite www.ustav44.cz, which has been created to promote the Department of Marketing Communications at Tomas Bata University in Zlín. Specifically, it has been created to promote the degree course in Marketing Communications. The authors of the paper describe the individual stages of the microsite design as well as its implementation and launch, including a subsequent analysis of its functionality and overall effectiveness within a selected target group. Based on the survey results, a proposal outlining how to improve particular user elements of this microsite and how to improve the microsite as a whole has been developed. The final part of this paper contains general instructions and basic tips that may help readers create a microsite of a similar type.

Abnormal Respiratory Sounds Classification Using Deep CNN Through Artificial Noise Addition

Respiratory sound (RS) attributes and their analyses structure a fundamental piece of pneumonic pathology, and it gives symptomatic data regarding a patient's lung. A couple of decades back, doctors depended on their hearing to distinguish symptomatic signs in lung audios by utilizing the typical stethoscope, which is usually considered a cheap and secure method for examining the patients. Lung disease is the third most ordinary cause of death worldwide, so; it is essential to classify the RS abnormality accurately to overcome the death rate. In this research, we have applied Fourier analysis for the visual inspection of abnormal respiratory sounds. Spectrum analysis was done through Artificial Noise Addition (ANA) in conjunction with different deep convolutional neural networks (CNN) to classify the seven abnormal respiratory sounds—both continuous (CAS) and discontinuous (DAS). The proposed framework contains an adaptive mechanism of adding a similar type of noise to unhealthy respiratory sounds. ANA makes sound features enough reach to be identified more accurately than the respiratory sounds without ANA. The obtained results using the proposed framework are superior to previous techniques since we simultaneously considered the seven different abnormal respiratory sound classes.

Development of technological solutions for canning small-fruited tomatoes

Small-fruited varieties of tomatoes have high taste and are significantly superior to large-fruited ones. The variety for the production of canned whole-fruit tomatoes primarily influences the shape and size of the fruit, shape index, ratio of the fruit parts, peel, pulp and seeds, peel condition, as well as the content of solids, carotenoids and their composition, which significantly affects the quality and color of the finished product. In this regard, the consumer and technological properties of 7 varieties of small-fruited tomatoes were studied. Based on the results obtained, a well-grounded conclusion was made that new varieties of small-fruited tomatoes are not inferior in terms of the studied indicators to large-fruited ones and can be recommended for expanding the range of a similar type of domestic canned production.

Self-Acting Formation of an ANFO Similar Type of Explosive under Fire Conditions: A Case Study

On 2 October 2003 in Saint-Romain-en-Jarez (France) a fire in a farm building triggered an explosion in which 26 people were injured. Police investigation, based solely on an analysis of the effects and on general engineering knowledge, showed that the explosion was caused by an uncontrollably generated mixture of ammonium nitrate (AN) and molten plastic crates which formed an explosive mixture similar to ammonium nitrate fuel oil (ANFO). This is the only commonly known example of an ammonium nitrate blast taking place at its end user destination. Is such an explanation of the incident plausible and could a similar blast possibly happen anywhere else? The experimental results support this thesis of French investigators but raise further doubts. Laboratory reconstruction of the self-acting process of generating the explosive material confirmed the investigators’ report. However, other materials at the incident site could have influenced the final outcome too. The lab-recreated explosion of a mixture of AN and molten plastic partially confirmed the report’s thesis.

OsB9−: An Aromatic Osmium-Centered Monocyclic Boron Ring

Transition-metal-centered monocyclic boron wheels are important candidates in the family of planar hypercoordinate species that show intriguing structure, stability and bonding situation. Through the detailed potential energy surface explorations of MB9− (M = Fe, Ru, Os) clusters, we introduce herein OsB9− to be a new member in the transition-metal-centered borometallic molecular wheel gallery. Previously, FeB9− and RuB9− clusters were detected by photoelectron spectroscopy and the structures were reported to have singlet D9h symmetry. Our present results show that the global minimum for FeB9− has a molecular wheel-like structure in triplet spin state with Cs symmetry, whereas its heavier homologues are singlet molecular wheels with D9h symmetry. Chemical bonding analyses show that RuB9− and OsB9− display a similar type of electronic structure, where the dual σ + π aromaticity, originated from three delocalized σ bonds and three delocalized π bonds, accounts for highly stable borometallic molecular wheels.

Food Self-Provisioning in the Czech Republic – A Comparison of Suburban and Peripheral Regions of Rural South Moravia

The Czech Republic ranks among the countries with a strong tradition of home food self-provisioning. In this article, we focused our attention specifically to the traditional and frequently neglected phenomenon of rural self-provisioning while newly introducing a data-based analysis of the phenomenon in two areas, i.e., suburbs and peripheries of the South Moravian region. Unlike the research carried out in the CR or EU to date, our survey aims exclusively at the analysis of households with access to land, which allow a more detailed scrutiny of growing a wide range of commodities, the attitudes to it and its perspectives. The results of the field study carried out in 178 rural households in two types of South Moravian regions (suburban and peripheral) from 2017 show the regional differences in food self-provisioning. They also contribute to a better understanding of a phenomenon whose variability within a rural territory is quite known a little. Even though the suburban and peripheral regions have very comparable natural conditions and opportunities of growing crops (a similar type of estate, nearly the same size of the gardens surveyed), we can observe rather remarkable differences, especially in the extent of the areas being farmed and in the scale of breeding domesticated animals (work demanding activities). Compared to that, only negligible differences were found in growing commodities demanding less work (fruit and tomato growing). The identified differences in attitudes to self-provisioning in the observed regions (depending on the varied types of population in the regions) allow for analysing the perspectives of particular self-provisioning activities both in South Moravia and the CR on the whole.

Biochemical Evaluation of Some Liverworts Pigments and Phenolics

Three genera viz. Riccia, Plagiochasma and Targionia were studied biochemically. It was found that amount of total chlorophylls and polyphenol content is more in Targionia as compared to Riccia and Plagiochasma Flavonoids are also studied adopting chromatography technique and when the spots viewed under UV were found to be of similar type in Riccia, and Plagiochasma, whereas Targionia showed the present of only one spot ,identical to the second spot isolated in Riccia, and Plagiochasma Keywords: Biochemical, Riccia, Plagiochasma, Targionia, pigments, phenolics.

Traditional Belarusian wooden calendar from Sluck County

Carved wooden calendars were known to many peoples from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century. For example, the Scandinavian ones are well enough studied, but about the existence of such calendars among Belarusians wasn’t known for a long time. The Russian Museum of Ethnography has a carved calendar from the Sluck County. Today it is the only such Belarusian artifact. The article presents a description of a carved wooden calendar from the Čudzin Village, Sluck County. A brief overview of other calendars of a similar type is shown. The prerequisites for the formation and distribution of such artifacts on the territory of Belarus were studied. The article discusses the sign system used to designate holidays and working periods, which correlate with the calendar tradition of the region. Based on the data obtained, the authors draw conclusion about the local origin of the calendar.