Monitoring the total phenolic/antioxidant levels in wine using flow injection anaylsis with acidic potassium permanganate chemiluminescence detection

Flow injection methodology is described for the estimation of the total phenolic content of wine using acidic potassium permanganate chemiluminescence detection. Selected simple phenolic compounds including quercetin, rutin, catechin, epicatechin, ferulic acid, caffeic acid, gallic acid, 4-hydroxycinnamic acid and vanillin elicited analytically useful chemiluminescence with detection limits ranging between 4×10⁻¹⁰ and 7×10⁻⁷ M. A comparison between the chemiluminescence methodology and other total phenol/antioxidant assays, used by the food and beverage industry, resulted in a good correlation. The chemiluminescence detection was found to be selective with minimal interferences being observed from the non-phenolic components in wine. Analysis of 12 different wines showed that the chemiluminescence method was a rapid way to estimate their antioxidant or total phenolic content.

Ensuring quality during monitoring of the learning environment of government primary schools achieved through EUI-PDP for teachers and head teachers

A positive change in the learning environment in schools is visible through ongoing professional development of teachers and administrators. Monitoring the professional development program and providing support to teachers and administrators to transfer their learnings into the school environment ensures some measures of quality. Quality issues led to the launching of the Professional Development Program (PDP) for Primary School Teachers (PSTs) of Sindh by the United Educational Initiative (UEI), a consortium of five Governmental and Non-Governmental Organizations, working under the supervision of Education Sector Reform Assistance (ESRA). Implementation of the UEI-PDP in four districts of Sindh, is ensured by a team of professionals in each district. Recognising that capacity building of district education employees would improve the educational system in the country, 130 Master Trainers were selected, on merit, from the District Education Office for the training of 17,000 teachers and 3000 Head teachers/administrators over a period of two years. This paper developed the design of a Monitoring Process for a Professional Development Program for Primary School Teachers and Administrators. Data was collected through Pre/Post observations, Interviews, Questionnaires and Reports. Such tools make it possible for the monitoring teams to observe, to inquire further, and, along with the Managers, Master Trainers and School Support Team, seek to explain the progress of the program and take corrective action where indicated. Both formative evaluations as well as summative  evaluation techniques are utilized for evaluating the program. The monitoring process that assisted in formative evaluations is described. In order to assist in summative evaluation, data collected through the monitoring process was further developed to categorize the schools where teachers and head teachers are trained. It is hoped that the categorization of the schools may lead to further improvements in those schools which fall in the group for need improvement. It may also initiate further research as to reasons behind why some schools are in the good category and why others fall in the average category.

Modifying the bitterness of selected oral pharmaceuticals with cation and anion series of salts

Purpose. NaCl has proven to be an effective bitterness inhibitor, but the reason remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of a variety of cations and anions on the bitterness of selected oral pharmaceuticals and bitter taste stimuli: pseudoephedrine, ranitidine, acetaminophen, quinine, and urea.
Method. Human psychophysical taste evaluation using a whole mouth exposure procedure was used.
Results. The cations (all associated with the acetate anion) inhibited bitterness when mixed with pharmaceutical solutions to varying degrees. The sodium cation significantly (P < 0.003) inhibited bitterness of the pharmaceuticals more than the other cations. The anions (all associated with the sodium cation) also inhibited bitterness to varying degrees. With the exception of salicylate, the glutamate and adenosine monophosphate anions significantly (P < 0.001) inhibited bitterness of the pharmaceuticals more than the other anions. Also, there were several specific inhibitory interactions between ammonium, sodium and salicylate and certain pharmaceuticals.
Conclusions. We conclude that sodium was the most successful cation and glutamate and AMP were the most successful anions at inhibiting bitterness. Structure forming and breaking properties of ions, as predicted by the Hofmeister series, and other physical-chemical ion properties failed to significantly predict bitterness inhibition.

Monitoring of immune responses to a herbal immuno-modulator in patients with advanced colorectal cancer.

Many herbal medicines are widely used as immuno-modulators in Asian countries. Ganoderma lucidum (Lingzhi) is one of the most commonly used herbs in Asia and preclinical studies have established that the polysaccharide fractions of G. lucidum have potent immuno-modulating effects. However, clinical evidence for this is scanty. The present open-labeled study aimed to evaluate the effects of G. lucidum polysaccharides on selected immune functions in patients with advanced colorectal cancer. Forty-seven patients were enrolled and treated with oral G. lucidum at 5.4 g/day for 12 weeks. Selected immune parameters were monitored using various immunological methods throughout the study. In 41 assessable cancer patients, treatment with G. lucidum tended to increase mitogenic reactivity to phytohemagglutinin, counts of CD3, CD4, CD8 and CD56 lymphocytes, plasma concentrations of interleukin (IL)-2, IL-6 and interferon (IFN)-γ, and NK activity, whereas plasma concentrations of IL-1 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α were decreased. For all of these parameters, no statistical significance was observed when a comparison was conducted between baseline and those values after a 12-week treatment with G. lucidum. The changes of IL-1 were correlated with those for IL-6, IFN-γ, CD3, CD4, CD8 and NK activity (p < 0.05) and IL-2 changes were correlated with those for IL-6, CD8 and NK activity. The results indicate that G. lucidum may have potential immuno-modulating effect in patients with advanced colorectal cancer. Further studies are needed to explore the benefits and safety of G. lucidum in cancer patients.

Applications and fundamental understanding of selected analytically important chemiluminescence reactions

This thesis encompasses a series of investigations into the fundamental chemistry and spectroscopy of chemiluminescence (chemical reactions that produce light). This new knowledge enabled the development of innovative analytical methodologies for rapid chemical measurements in forensic science, industrial process monitoring and clinical diagnostics.

Some osmoregulatory parameters in selected fishes of the Australasian region

Fish must maintain their internal ionic concentration. This occurs through co-ordination of cellular ion channels and transporters, and hormones acting on and within the cells of the gill, kidney, intestine, and, in some species, unique organs. This study measured some of these transporters and hormones in unusual species of the Australasian region.

An investigation into the ion-exchange properties of chemically modified wool for use in water treatment and chromatography

This study was undertaken to investigate the suitability of natural and chemically treated wool fibres for use in water treatment and in the separation of constituents for monitoring contaminants in water.

Experimental work was carried out to determine the ability of natural and treated wool fibres to remove these constituents from water,

This study provided information on the characteristics of the wool fibre as a medium in water treatment.

Electrochemical metal ion sensors. Exploiting amino acids and peptides as recognition elements

Amino acids and peptides are known to bind metal ions, in some cases very strongly. There are only a few examples of exploiting this binding in sensors. The review covers the current literature on the interaction of peptides and metals and the electrochemistry of bound metal ions. Peptides may be covalently attached to surfaces. Of particular interest is the attachment to gold via sulfur linkages. Sulfur-containing peptides (eg cysteine) may be adsorbed directly, while any amino group can be covalently attached to a carboxylic acid-terminated thiol. Once at a surface, the possibility for using the attached peptide as a sensor for metal ions becomes realised. Results from the authors’ laboratory and elsewhere have shown the potential for selective monitoring of metal ions at ppt levels. Examples of the use of poly-aspartic acid and the copper binding peptide Gly-Gly-His for detecting copper ions are given.

Anaesthesia monitoring using fuzzy logic

Objective. Humans have a limited ability to accurately and continuously analyse large amount of data. In recent times, there has been a rapid growth in patient monitoring and medical data analysis using smart monitoring systems. Fuzzy logic-based expert systems, which can mimic human thought processes in complex circumstances, have indicated potential to improve clinicians' performance and accurately execute repetitive tasks to which humans are ill-suited. The main goal of this study is to develop a clinically useful diagnostic alarm system based on fuzzy logic for detecting critical events during anaesthesia administration. Method. The proposed diagnostic alarm system called fuzzy logic monitoring system (FLMS) is presented. New diagnostic rules and membership functions (MFs) are developed. In addition, fuzzy inference system (FIS), adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), and clustering techniques are explored for developing the FLMS' diagnostic modules. The performance of FLMS which is based on fuzzy logic expert diagnostic systems is validated through a series of offline tests. The training and testing data set are selected randomly from 30 sets of patients' data. Results. The accuracy of diagnoses generated by the FLMS was validated by comparing the diagnostic information with the one provided by an anaesthetist for each patient. Kappa-analysis was used for measuring the level of agreement between the anaesthetist's and FLMS's diagnoses. When detecting hypovolaemia, a substantial level of agreement was observed between FLMS and the human expert (the anaesthetist) during surgical procedures. Conclusion. The diagnostic alarm system FLMS demonstrated that evidence-based expert diagnostic systems can diagnose hypovolaemia, with a substantial degree of accuracy, in anaesthetized patients and could be useful in delivering decision support to anaesthetists.

An auto-switch for multisampling of a wire beam electrode corrosion monitoring system

An auto-switch device has been designed, constructed, and tested for multisensor corrosion measurements. The auto-switch is able to connect/disconnect the selected wire beam electrode and/or electrode pairs under computer control. A computer controlled analog switch-array consisting of 100 inputs has been used as an essential part of the switch bank. The switch-bank is an essential component of a corrosion-monitoring instrument that is expected to find wide application in industry. The performance of the switch-bank is discussed and its effect on the signals is illustrated.

Condition monitoring of induction motors : A review and an application of an ensemble of hybrid intelligent models

In this paper, a review on condition monitoring of induction motors is first presented. Then, an ensemble of hybrid intelligent models that is useful for condition monitoring of induction motors is proposed. The review covers two parts, i.e.; (i) a total of nine commonly used condition monitoring methods of induction motors; and (ii) intelligent learning models for condition monitoring of induction motors subject to single and multiple input signals. Based on the review findings, the Motor Current Signature Analysis (MCSA) method is selected for this study owing to its online, non-invasive properties and its requirement of only single input source; therefore leading to a cost-effective condition monitoring method. A hybrid intelligent model that consists of the Fuzzy Min-Max (FMM) neural network and the Random Forest (RF) model comprising an ensemble of Classification and Regression Trees is developed. The majority voting scheme is used to combine the predictions produced by the resulting FMM-RF ensemble (or FMM-RFE) members. A benchmark problem is first deployed to evaluate the usefulness of the FMM-RFE model. Then, the model is applied to condition monitoring of induction motors using a set of real data samples. Specifically, the stator current signals of induction motors are obtained using the MCSA method. The signals are processed to produce a set of harmonic-based features for classification using the FMM-RFE model. The experimental results show good performances in both noise-free and noisy environments. More importantly, a set of explanatory rules in the form of a decision tree can be extracted from the FMM-RFE model to justify its predictions. The outcomes ascertain the effectiveness of the proposed FMM-RFE model in undertaking condition monitoring tasks, especially for induction motors, under different environments. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Pb2+-ion electrochemical biosensor based on single-stranded DNAzyme catalytic beacon

A novel strategy for selective and sensitive electrochemical lead ion (Pb²⁺) biosensor was developed based on the single-stranded DNAzyme catalytic beacon. A DNAzyme that requires Pb²⁺ for activation was selected and labeled with redox-active ferrocene (Fc) for signal transducer. The Fc-labeled single-stranded DNAzyme (Fc-ssDNAzyme) was self-assembled through SAu bonding on a gold electrode surface. In the presence of Pb²⁺, the ssDNAzyme was activated and catalyzed the hydrolytic cleavage of the substrate strand, resulting in the removal of the substrate strand along with the Fc from the Au electrode surface. The dissociation of Fc caused a decrease of electrochemical signal ("signal-off"). Under the optimal conditions, the electrochemical signal of Fc decreased directly with the increasing Pb²⁺ concentration, exhibiting a linear response in the range of 0.5nM to 5μM with a detection limit of 0.25nM. This strategy is simple, sensitive and selective with the minimal reagents and working steps, thereby holds great potential for Pb²⁺ detection in real environmental sample analysis.

Communication - an approach to measuring local electrochemical impedance for monitoring cathodic disbondment of coatings

An electrochemically integrated multi-electrode array has been used for monitoring and visualizing the cathodic disbondment of
defective coatings by measuring local electrochemical impedance. Compared with the conventional electrochemical impedance and
local current measurement approaches, this new approach significantly enhances the sensitivity of detecting the propagation of
coating disbondment by eliminating the effects of the dominating low impedance regions, such as those that arise at coating defects,
and thus increases the visibility of higher impedance regions deep in the disbonded coating. Furthermore, it facilitates the probing
of electrode processes and mechanisms in selected local electrode regions.

One-step preparation of graphene nanosheets via ball milling of graphite and the application in lithium-ion batteries

An improved method for mass production of good-quality graphene nanosheets (GNs) via ball milling pristine graphite with dry ice is presented. We also report the enhanced performance of these GNs as working electrode in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). In this improved method, the decrease of necessary ball milling time from 48 to 24 h and the increase of Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area from 389.4 to 490 m2/g might be resulted from the proper mixing of stainless steel balls with different diameters and the optimization of agitation speed. The as-prepared GNs are investigated in detail using a number of techniques, such as scanning electron microscope, atomic force microscope, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, selected area electron diffraction, X-ray diffractometer, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic. To demonstrate the potential applications of these GNs, the performances of the LIBs with pure Fe3O4 electrode and Fe3O4/graphene (Fe3O4/G) composite electrode were carefully evaluated. Compared to Fe3O4-LIBs, Fe3O4/G-LIBs exhibited prominently enhanced performance and a reversible specific capacity of 900 mAh g−1 after 5 cycles at 100 and 490 mAh g−1 after 5 cycles at 800 mA g−1. The improved cyclic stability and enhanced rate capability were also obtained.