Beyond antioxidants: the cellular and molecular interactions of flavonoids and how these underpin their actions on the brain

The consumption of flavonoid-rich foods and beverages has been suggested to limit the neurodegeneration associated with a variety of neurological disorders and to prevent or reverse normal or abnormal deteriorations in cognitive performance. Flavonoids mediate these effects via a number of routes, including a potential to protect neurons against injury induced by neurotoxins, an ability to suppress neuroinflammation and a potential to promote memory, learning and cognitive function. Originally, it was thought that such actions were mediated by the antioxidant capacity of flavonoids. However, their limited absorption and their low bioavailability in the brain suggest that this explanation is unlikely. Instead, this multiplicity of effects appears to be underpinned by three separate processes: first, through their interactions with important neuronal and glial signalling cascades in the brain, most notably the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/Akt and mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways that regulate pro-survival transcription factors and gene expression; second, through an ability to improve peripheral and cerebral blood flow and to trigger angiogenesis and neurogenesis in the hippocampus; third, by their capacity to directly react with and scavenge neurotoxic species and pro-inflammatory agents produced in the brain as a result of both normal and abnormal brain ageing. The present review explores the potential inhibitory or stimulatory actions of flavonoids within these three systems and describes how such interactions are likely to underlie neurological effects.

An industry viewpoint on the role of farm assurance in delivering food safety to the consumer: the case of the dairy sector in England and Wales

Food safety, alongside food quality, remains a primary concern of both consumers and those along the whole food supply chain, leading to regulation by government alongside private third party certification. Much has been written about the value of these systems primarily from the perception of the consumer. This paper reports on a study that examined industry perceptions on the regulatory and assurance systems within the dairy sector of England and Wales. It found that the primary producer found value in both systems, although from a food hygiene focus regulation was seen to be more rigorous. Other stakeholders along the dairy food supply chain saw the assurance scheme as more rigorous. All stakeholders recognised the need to reduce duplication in delivering food safety through combining key elements of both systems with the added potential for better communication of both food safety and quality to the final consumer.

Temperature impact on the tunnel fet off-state current components

In this work, the temperature impact on the off-state current components is analyzed through numerical simulation and experimentally. First of all, the band-to-band tunneling is studied by varying the underlap in the channel/drain junction, leading to an analysis of the different off-state current components. For pTFET devices, the best behavior for off-state current was obtained for higher values of underlap (reduced BTBT) and at low temperatures (reduced SRH and TAT). At high temperature, an unexpected off-state current occurred due to the thermal leakage current through the drain/channel junction. Besides, these devices presented a good performance when considering the drain current as a function of the drain voltage, making them suitable for analog applications. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Lions-type compactness and Rubik actions on the Heisenberg group

In this paper we prove a Lions-type compactness embedding result for symmetric unbounded domains of the Heisenberg group. The natural group action on the Heisenberg group TeX is provided by the unitary group U(n) × {1} and its appropriate subgroups, which will be used to construct subspaces with specific symmetry and compactness properties in the Folland-Stein’s horizontal Sobolev space TeX. As an application, we study the multiplicity of solutions for a singular subelliptic problem by exploiting a technique of solving the Rubik-cube applied to subgroups of U(n) × {1}. In our approach we employ concentration compactness, group-theoretical arguments, and variational methods.

The testimony of Seth Parsons, 1703

Title from verso.

The testimony of Samuel Parsons., 1703

Title from verso.