N-epsilon-(carboxymethyl)lysine content of foods commonly consumed in a Western style diet

The potential adverse effects on health of diet-derived advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) is of current interest, due to their proposed involvement in the disease progression of diabetic and uraemic conditions. However, accurate information about levels of AGEs in foods is lacking. The objective of this investigation was to determine the level of one particular AGE, N-epsilon-(carboxymethyl)lysine (CML), a marker of AGE formation, in a wide range of foods commonly consumed in a Western style diet. Individual foods (n = 257) were mixed, lyophilised, ground, reduced, fat-extracted, hydrolysed, and underwent solid-phase extraction. Extracts were analysed by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). Cereal (2.6 mg/100 g food) and fruit and vegetable (0.13 mg/100 g food) categories had the highest and lowest mean level of CML, respectively, when expressed in mg/100 g food. These data can be used for estimating potential consumer intakes, and provide information that can be used to educated consumers on how to reduce their CML intake. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Assessment of sample quality in soft clay using shear wave velocity and suction measurements

The characterisation of soils for civil engineering purposes depends on removing sufficiently high-quality samples from the ground. Accurate evaluation of sample quality is therefore important if reliable design parameters are to be determined. This paper describes the use of unconfined shear wave velocity (V _{style="line-height: 0; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">s}) and suction (u _{style="line-height: 0; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">r}) measurements to assess sample quality rapidly in soft clay. Samples of varying quality from three well-characterised soft clay sites are initially assessed using conventional techniques, and their results compared with V _{style="line-height: 0; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">s} and u _{style="line-height: 0; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">r} measurements performed on the same samples. It is observed that the quality of samples indicated by these measurements is very similar to those inferred from traditional disturbance measures, with V _{style="line-height: 0; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">s} being the more reliable indicator. A tentative empirically derived criterion, based on samples tested in this project, is proposed to quantify sample disturbance combining both V _{style="line-height: 0; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">s} and u _{style="line-height: 0; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">r} measurements. Further work using this criterion on different materials is important so as to test its usefulness.

The Disrupted Space: Safety and Security in traditional contexts

One of the core elements of successful planning is the individuals’ experience of their shared open spaces. This paper attributes to the relationship between safety and urban design by means of natural surveillance and security in the city’s shared spaces. It examines how political claims over space reassembled alternative definitions of security in one of Cairo’s oldest quarters, and how ambitious planning schemes were mostly driven by problems of insecurity, chaos and disorder. The main crux to this account is based on original documents, interviews and maps which reveals considerable insights and accounts of how this vision affected the quarter’s spatial quality and the user’s reactions to his new spatial formula. It also reveals conflicting conceptions of safety and security between the planning ambitions and the users experiences, which not only lacked reliable visions for securing the quarter, but also resulted further disruption to their everyday living spaces.