Amazonian Vegetable Oils and Fats: Fast Typification and Quality Control via Triacylglycerol (TAG) Profiles from Dry Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight (MALDI-TOF) Mass Spectrometry Fingerprinting

Amazonian oils and fats display unique triacylglycerol (TAG) profiles and, because of their economic importance as renewable raw materials and use by the cosmetic and food industries, are often subject to adulteration and forgery. Representative samples of these oils (andiroba, Brazil nut, buriti, and passion fruit) and fats (cupuacu, murumuru, and ucuba) were characterized without pre-separation or derivatization via dry (solvent-free) matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). Characteristic profiles of TAG were obtained for each oil and tat. Dry MALDI-TOF MS provides typification and direct and detailed information, via TAG profiles, of their variable combinations of fatty acids. A database from spectra could be developed and may be used for their fast and reliable typification, application screening, and quality control.

UNIVERSAL COVERING OF DRIFTLESS CONTROL SYSTEMS

Let M be a finite-dimensional manifold and Sigma be a driftless control system on M of full rank. We prove that for a given initial state x epsilon M, the covering space Gamma(Sigma, x) for a monotonic homotopy of trajectories of Sigma which is recently constructed in [1] coincides with the simply connected universal covering manifold of M and that the terminal projection epsilon(x) : Gamma(Sigma, x) -> M given by epsilon(x) ([alpha]) = alpha(1) is a covering mapping.