Plant Therapeutic Proteases: Chemical Aspects, Applications and Pharmaceutical Formulations

Background: Plants are important sources of therapeutic proteases with expressive activity, stability, specificity, and efficiency. These proteases are employed at low concentrations and produce lesser side effects. They have complex tridimensional structures whose maintenance is a challenge, requiring specific conditions to guarantee the biological and pharmacological activities of these compounds. Aims: To conduct a literature review about plant therapeutic proteases, their principal biochemical aspects, potentials and clinical applications, and main pharmaceutical formulations. Materials and Methods: The present study consisted of a bibliographic survey of the major plant therapeutic proteases. An investigation was performed in the PUBMED, SciELO, ScienceDirect and Academic Google databases using the keywords plant enzymes, therapeutic protease, immobilization, formulation. Results: Some plant therapeutic proteases, such as papain and bromelain, are employed to treat many diseases and conditions, but the complexity of their structures is an important limitation of their uses. Thus, the structure and activities of their formulations need to be stabilized and protected against degradation, with improved pharmacokinetics, a prolonged time of action, reduced toxic effects, and proper direction towards their therapeutic target. Nanotechnology has made it possible to manufacture drug carriers such as polymeric nano- and microparticles, hydrogels, dendrimers and liposomes which are able to increase their efficacy and clinical applicability, as well as patient compliance. Sustainability initiatives that use Green Chemistry together with nanobiotechnology have managed to reduce the risks of toxicity to organisms and the environment. Green synthesis uses lower concentrations of metal ions, water-soluble, biocompatible and non-toxic compounds, as well as seeking energy efficiency and using renewable sources of raw materials. Conclusions: Investigations about new formulations of plant therapeutic proteases using biodegradable and biocompatible polymers is of great biomedical interest because they generate less toxic new biopharmaceuticals, in addition to protecting and stabilizing the enzymatic structure.

Applying Elastic-net Regression to Identify the Best Models Predicting Changes in Civic Purpose during the Emerging Adulthood

Introduction: Changes in civic purpose during the emerging adulthood has been a significant research topic since it is closely associated with active civic engagement later in human lives. While standard regression methods have been used in previous studies to predict civic purpose development, they have limitations that may not always lead to best prediction models. We aimed to address these limitations by utilizing elastic-net multinomial logistic regression, which favors models with the least number of necessary predictors, in exploration of predictors for civic purpose development in a data-driven manner. Methods: We analyzed data from the longitudinal Civic Purpose Project while focusing on the model that best predicted civic purpose from Wave 1 (before high school graduation) to Wave 2 (two years after Wave 1). The reanalyzed data included responses from 480 participants recruited Californian high schools. The elastic-net regression was performed 5,000 times for predicting three dependent variables, Wave 2 political purpose, community service purpose, and expressive activity purpose, with Wave 1 predictors. We identified which predictors were selected as the constituents of the best regression models during the elastic-net regression process.Results: Results showed that civic purpose, moral and political identity, and external supports (e.g., parental and peer involvement, school civic opportunities, etc.) in Wave 1 significantly predicted civic purpose in Wave 2. Several predictors were excluded from the regression models during the elastic-net regression process.Conclusion: We found that the elastic-net regression was able to present the more regularized model for prediction. Implications for promoting civic purpose are discussed as well as utilizing the elastic-net regression method.

Healing for the Soul

Between the first and last words of a Black gospel song, musical sound acquires spiritual power. During this unfolding, a variety of techniques facilitate musical and physical transformation. The most important of these is a repetitive musical cycle known by names including the run, the drive, the special, and the vamp. Through its combination of reiteration and intensification, the vamp turns song lyrics into something more potent. While many musical traditions use vamps to fill space, or occupy time in preparation for another, more important event, in gospel, vamps are the main event. Why is the vamp so central to the Black gospel tradition? What work—musical, cultural, and spiritual—does the gospel vamp do? And what does the vamp reveal about the transformative power of Black gospel more broadly? This book explores the vamp’s essential place in Black gospel song, arguing that these climactic musical cycles turn worship services into transcendent events. In the following pages, the words and music of Richard Smallwood, a paradigmatic contemporary gospel composer, anchor the book’s investigation of the convergence of sound and belief in the Gospel Imagination. Smallwood’s expansive oeuvre is especially illustrative of the eclecticism and homiletic intention that characterize gospel music. Along the way, this study brings Smallwood’s songs and the ideas that frame them into conversation with many of the tradition’s exemplars: Edwin and Walter Hawkins, Twinkie Clark, Kurt Carr, Margaret Douroux, V. Michael McKay, and Judith McAllister, among others. Focusing on choral forms of gospel song, this book shows how the gospel vamp organizes expressive activity around a moment of transcendence, an instant when the song shifts to a heightened space of musical activity. This sonic escalation fuels traffic between the seen world and another, bringing believers into contact with a host of scenes from scripture, and with the divine, too.

Music in migrant camps as a medium creating non-narrative human relationships

A migrant camp is a ‘non-place’ where personal identity is put at risk. Music is a means of personal adaptation in camps, even if it means allowing little place for the real reasons for displacement of the very people shaping these new hybridizations of music. The present power of music in such a place is to create strong relationships, ‘shortcutting’ both narration and the longer time needed in order to create relationships. The kind of personal advantage it is for someone to be a musician is a topic surprisingly forgotten, obscured by theoretical habits of seeing music essentially as an expressive activity directed to an audience, or as being a communicative activity. Music has a performative power different from language, as a non-verbal art having a strong and direct relationship to the body. Musical interactions on the field give migrants the ability to balance their problematic situation of refugees, shaping a real present.

ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ БИОЦИДНОЙ ОБРАБОТКИ КОЖИ СРЕДНЕВЕКОВЫХ КНИЖНЫХ ПЕРЕПЛЕТОВ МЕТОДОМ ДОДУБЛИВАНИЯ АЛЮМИНИЕВЫМ КОМПЛЕКСОМ, СТАБИЛИЗИРОВАННЫМ ТРИМЕТИЛОЛМЕЛЕМОМ

It was shown in the past that different re-tanning agents were used as a repellent to enhance the antifungal properties of the hydrothermal stability of the skins of ancient book covers, including the aluminum sulphate-stabilized complex aluminum salt (Al-ЭDA). Although the skin treatment with this re-tanning agent improves the properties of the skin, the collagen structure cannot be considered very safe, i.e., it was relatively low. An additional biocidal substance, catamine AB, was used to ensure the antifungal properties of the treated leather. That is why, a new aluminum complex material has been synthesized for the skin re-tanning of the covers. As a stabilizer of aluminum sulphate, trimethylmeleme was used, for the production of which the meleme material was taken and reacted with formaldehyde. The resulting trimethylolmeleme, having three methylol groups, can form a complex salt when it interacts with aluminum sulphate. The mentioned complex material was filtered and the water part was removed from the crystals formed from the purified liquid by evaporation. The resulting complex salt is soluble, and the crystals left on the filter are insoluble. Both were tested as re-tanning agent samples on the cover leather samples. Treatment with crystals separated from the filtered liquid completely increases the welding point of the skin treated with the tannin extract of ancient leather up to 1000C and more, and up to 75-770C during re-tanning with the complex salt removed from the filter. The research of antifungal properties of the complexes has identified an expressive activity of the difficulty of dissolving complex II in comparison to the compound used earlier. High hydrothermal stability gives strength, less elasticity and other high-performance properties to the leather

Engaging in hate speech as grounds for enhancement of criminal punishment — Wisconsin v. Mitchell

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which prohibits any abridgement of freedom of speech, must be regarded as a cornerstone of the American social and political order. The number of expressive categories placed beyond the First Amendmentʼs pro-tective mantle is very small. In particular, there is no hate speech exception to the free speech Constitutional clause. The article analyzes the decision of the United States’ Supreme Court in the case of Wisconsin v. Mitchell. The issue at hand concerned the question of whether it is constitu-tionally permissible to enhance criminal punishment for bias-motivated crimes in comparison with crimes motivated by other factors. In those types of cases, the factual basis for meting out a more severe punishment is usually and necessarily provided by a criminal’s expression that reveals the aforementioned bias. By considering such regulations to be constitutional, the Supreme Court cre-ated an exception regarding the First Amendment protections granted to hate speech by permitting the courts — albeit in a very narrow and specific set of circumstances — to attach negative con-sequences to someoneʼs engagement in constitutionally protected expressive activity. The article critically describes the doctrinal justifications given for this conclusion by the Supreme Court, con-sidering them to be cursory and doctrinaire. The author contends that the Mitchell decision is an example of results-oriented jurisprudence, issued with the political aim of combatting hate crimes in mind. While this objective remains a worthy one, it does not — in the author’s opinion — provide a sufficient justification for reducing the scope of the First Amendment’s protection of (admittedly outrageous, immoral, and shocking) expression a majority may find distasteful. While the legisla-tive branch ought to be permitted to consider specific motives as aggravating factors in a crime (at least from the First Amendment standpoint), a penalty-enhancement should not be contingent on the question whether the accused engaged in protected expressive activity, distinguishing “silent” and “vocal” criminals. The paper utilizes descriptive and analytical methods.

CONSUMER PREFERENCES FOR INDONESIAN CULINARY

Introductions: Indonesia has many traditional types of food which makes it a preferred culinary tourism destination. The role of food in Indonesian culture is an expressive activity that reaffirms people’s social relations with life, and with trust, the economy, technology, and its various differences. Background Problems: Identify consumer’s preferences on Indonesian culinary, estimate the market share of Indonesian culinary, determine the most preferred culinary, and determine market segmentation of Indonesian culinary. Research Method: The conjoint analysis was used to evaluate and measure customers’ preferences for culinary design attributes included food origin, taste, freshness, price, and serving. Findings: The findings of this study were Indonesian food which most be preferred was in the combination of “salty & crispy, fresh, expensive, serving with waitress”, which most be preferred by consumer in the age between 25 years old and 40 years old, woman, originally from Europe, in the medium income level. Conclusion: Most consumers prefer “fresh food” more than “not fresh food”. With respect to the “price,” consumers prefer the cheapest culinary. The market share of Indonesian food viewed consumers who placed it as their most preferred was 28.85%, occupied at the second rank subsequently to western food.