Articles Related to ions

Packaging material should meet many requirements for safe preservation of food and extend shelf life. Utilization of nanoparticles to prepare active packaging films has been widely investigated. This review deals with food packaging films modified with nano titania to enhance mechanical, barrier and antibacterial properties of the packages.

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Correlation formulas are developed to estimate the dietary and total greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs) from Group of Twenty (G20) and the world in 2014 and 2017 using personal meat consumption as the required input. Among the 43 states involved in G20, the 28 states of the European Union (EU28) are considered as a whole.

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MicroRNAs (miRNA) are potent regulators, controlling multiple biological processes, including cell growth, differentiation, cell death, development and immune responses. With emerging data supporting that miRNAs play a central role in gene dysregulation in human malignancies, unraveling the miRNA genetic variations in cancer is essential and critical if we want to develop better diagnostic and prognostic system for our patients.

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Joint endoprosthesis are standard treatment in orthopedic surgery, but the risk of infection represents a major drawback for elderly patients with comorbidities. Therefore, we investigated joint endoprosthesis infections in Germany (2005-2012) focusing on elderly patients. We extrapolated infection related costs to estimate the burden for the health care system.

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The problem of infertility could arise from the woman, the man or both of them and sometimes it could stem from without a reason. The reasons of male infertility could be varicocele, idiopathic infertility, obstruction, undescended testis, immunological mechanisms, ejaculation disorder, testicular insufficiency, medicine-radiation effect, endocrine disorders such as diabetes, excessive consumption of alcohol, smoking and environmental toxins such as pesticides and lead.

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Globally 42 million adults and children are estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS of which 22 million of these cases are in Sub Sahara Africa. In Zimbabwe 1.6 million adults aged 15 years and above are living with HIV/ AIDS and in Masvingo Province HIV/AIDS is ranked 2nd on the top ten causes of OPD attendance.

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The removal of pesticides in the environment mainly depends on natural degradation, especially on microbial degradation. Biodegradation has many advantages, such as complete degradation, no secondary pollution, quick effect and wide spectrum. Based on the single-factor experiments and Box-Benhnken design, the effect of four factors on the degradation of chlorpyrifos by P. stutzeri ZH-1 was investigated.

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Along with the rapid development of genetic engineering technology and antibody engineering technology, the humanized monoclonal antibody has been rapidly developed and gradually replaces the rat sourced monoclonal antibody. In this paper, we establish two new logarithmically completely monotonic functions involving the real-valued special functions according to two preferred interaction geometries, necessary and sufficient conditions are presented for one of them to be logarithmically completely monotonic. As a consequence, a sharp inequality involving the real-valued special functions is deduced to solve the problems of genetically engineered antibody.

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Hospitalized patients are at an increased risk for acquiring Clostridium Difficile Infection (CDI). Increased virulence of C. difficile strains and increased use of antimicrobials have led to an increase of CDI cases that are more difficult to treat (CDC, 2013). Proper hand hygiene techniques, room cleaning, and equipment cleaning are not consistently being followed by healthcare workers, leading an increased spread of CDI between hospitalized patients. The purpose of this integrative review was to determine the best evidencebased methods to reduce hospital-acquired CDI rates. The evidence reviewed supports the implementation of a multifaceted approach including: (a) proper hand hygiene practices, (b) adequate and appropriate surface cleaning practices, (c) compliance to contact isolation procedures, and (d) strengthening of an existing antimicrobial stewardship committee to reduce hospital-acquired CDI rates.

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I present some key considerations of the biofilm disease as part of two complex pathologies such as bone and joint infections and prosthetic joint infections, taking into account the bacterial pathogenic factors to understand the particular nature of these infections, and to achieve an accurate diagnosis and management beyond the antimicrobial therapy. I mention some personal experience of many years in the medical microbiology laboratory and next to the patient’s bed.

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This work is a pilot study that introduces an improved method for estimation of a chronological age of a human being using the incremental lines in a dental cementum. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images of longitudinal sections of the tooth roots were subject to SEM analysis. The protocol allows accurate age estimation even if the SEM images reveal a limited number of distinct incremental lines. Micrographs were analyzed with a calibrated thickness measuring tool, such as ImageJ. The study was based on fifteen freshly extracted teeth from adult males and females of a known age. An average cementum thickness (C) and average incremental line thickness (IL) was calculated for each chosen perpendicular level of the tooth root from the SEM image.

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This work is a pilot study that introduces an improved method for estimation of a chronological age of a human being using the incremental lines in a dental cementum. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images of longitudinal sections of the tooth roots were subject to SEM analysis. The protocol allows accurate age estimation even if the SEM images reveal a limited number of distinct incremental lines. Micrographs were analyzed with a calibrated thickness measuring tool, such as ImageJ. The study was based on fifteen freshly extracted teeth from adult males and females of a known age. An average cementum thickness (C) and average incremental line thickness (IL) was calculated for each chosen perpendicular level of the tooth root from the SEM image.

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Intrinsic noise embedded in stochastic gene regulation due to low copy number of species has been studied using the approach of theoretical modeling and computational simulation, including the standard methods of stochastic simulation algorithm (SSA) and linear noise approximation (LNA). At average cell level, Hill functions are widely used as a compact format to represent gene regulation involving multi-transcription-factor binding and cooperativity. Heuristic SSA and LNA methods (hSSA and hLNA) have been applied to study stochastic models employing Hill functions. It is however unclear which modeling and simulation method is suitable to characterize intrinsic noise of Hill-type gene regulation with sufficient accuracy and computational efficiency. In this work, we perform noise analysis of two gene regulatory models represented by second-order activating and inhibitory Hill functions, seeking to evaluate the performance of five existing noise modeling methods.

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Based on theoretical considerations which hypothesize a significant influence of emotions on eating behavior a laboratory experiment was conducted. 127 subjects of both sexes were investigated after the induction of joy or sadness with subsequent presentation of chocolate. Neither gender nor the quality of the emotion had a significant effect on the consumed amount of chocolate, but habitual dietary restraint of the subjects lead to lower intake of the sweet food. The results are discussed with respect to the usefulness of a cognitive control of eating behavior in successful treatment programs for obesity

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The application of electronic-nose (E-nose) technologies in forensic science is a recent new development following a long history of progress in the development of diverse applications in the related biomedical and pharmaceutical fields. Data from forensic analyses must satisfy the needs and requirements of both the scientific and legal communities. The type of data collected from electronic-nose devices provides a means of identifying specific types of information about the chemical nature of evidentiary objects and samples under investigation using aroma signature profiles of complex gaseous mixtures containing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from manufactured products and parts of the human body. E-nose analyses also provide useful qualitative information about the physicochemical characteristics and metabolic conditions of human subjects without the need for time-consuming analyses to identify all chemical components in human-derived volatile mixtures.

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Carbon nanotube (NT) based electronic vapor sensors were tested against synthetic sweat solutions, consisting of 13 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in saline, in order to probe the device ability to analyze and differentiate vapors derived from complex biological samples.

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The collection of human odor volatiles is of interest to forensic applications as a path to investigate canine scent discriminations in legal investigations. A study using a selected array of previously identified human odor compounds has been conducted to determine the retention and release capabilities of five (5) natural and synthetic fabric types, cotton (mercerized fabric and gauze matrix), polyester, rayon and wool.

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Anodic aluminum oxide doped with vanadyl citrate chelate complex anions was formed by a two-step self-organized anodization in 2 wt. % sulfuric acid containing 0.04 M V2O5 and 0.08 M citric acid at voltage range 13-23 V, and at 0 and 15 oC. The combination of two temperatures and at least four voltages (depending on the applied temperature) was applied as the operating conditions of anodization.

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