A single step extraction-cleanup procedure using porous membrane-protected micro-solid phase extraction (μ-SPE) in conjunction with liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry for the extraction and determination of aflatoxins (AFs) B1, B2, G1 and G2 from food was successfully developed. After the extraction, AFs were desorbed from the μ-SPE device by ultrasonication using acetonitrile. The optimum extraction conditions were: sorbent material, C8; sorbent mass, 20 mg; extraction time, 90 min; stirring speed, 1000 rpm; sample volume, 10 mL; desorption solvent, acetonitrile; solvent volume, 350 μL and ultrasonication period, 25 min without salt addition. Under the optimum conditions, enrichment factor of 11, 9, 9 and 10 for AFG2, AFG1

Background: Most prevalent chronic liver disease in developed and developing nations is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. From fatty liver, which often has benign, non-progressive clinical history, to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, a more serious variant of fatty liver that can lead to cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease encompasses broad spectrum of diseases. The gold standard for determining extent of hepatic fibrosis is still liver biopsy; however, number of noninvasive tests have been established to make diagnosis and assess effectiveness of treatment.

Objective: Aim of study was to assess effectiveness of the combination of fibroscan and

Hydrate dissociation equilibrium conditions for carbon dioxide + methane with water, nitrogen + methane with water and carbon dioxide + nitrogen with water were measured using cryogenic sapphire cell. Measurements were performed in the temperature range of 275.75 K–293.95 K and for pressures ranging from 5 MPa to 25 MPa. The resulting data indicate that as the carbon dioxide concentration is increased in the gas mixture, the gas hydrate equilibrium temperature increases. In contrast, by increasing the nitrogen concentration in the gas mixtures containing methane or carbon dioxide decreased the gas hydrate equilibrium temperatures. Furthermore, the cage occupancies for the carbon dioxide + methane system were evaluated using the Van der Wa

mixtures of cyclohexane + n-decane and cyclohexane + 1-pentanol have been measured at 298.15, 308.15, 318.15, and 328.15 K over the whole mole fraction range. From these results, excess molar volumes, VE , have been calculated and fitted to the Flory equations. The VE values are negative and positive over the whole mole fraction range and at all temperatures. The excess refractive indices nE and excess viscosities ?E have been calculated from experimental refractive indices and viscosity measurements at different temperature and fitted to the mixing rules equations and Heric – Coursey equation respectively to predict theoretical refractive indices, we found good agreement between them for binary mixtures in this study. The variation of th

An experimental investigation of natural convection heat transfer from an isothermal horizontal,vertical and inclined heated square flat plates with and without circular hole, were carried out in two cases, perforated plates without an impermeable adiabatic hole "open core" and perforated plates with an impermeable adiabatic hole "closed core" by adiabatic plug. The experiments covered the laminar region with a range of Rayleih number of (1.11x106 ≤RaLo≤4.39x106 ), at Prandtle number (Pr=0.7). Practical experiments have been done with variable inclination angles from horizon (Ф=0o ,45o,90o,135oand 180o),facing upward (0o≤Ф<90o), and downward (90o
≤Ф<180o). The results showed that the temperature gradient increases whi

This study investigates the potential of biogas recovery from used engine oil (UEO) by co-digestion with animals’ manure, including cow dung (CD), poultry manure (PM), and cattle manure (CM). The experimental work was carried out in anaerobic biodigesters at mesophilic conditions (37°C). Two groups of biodigesters were prepared. Each group consisted of 4 digesters. UEO was the main component in the first group of biodigesters with and without inoculum, whereby a mix of UEO and petroleum refinery oily sludge (ROS) was the component in the second group of biodigesters. The results revealed that for UEO-based biodigesters, maximum biogas production was 0.98, 1.23, 1.93, and 0 ml/g VS from UEO±CD, UEO±CM, UEO±PM, and U

In a connected graph , the distance function between each pair of two vertices from a set vertex  is the shortest distance between them and the vertex degree  denoted by  is the number of edges which are incident to the vertex  The Schultz and modified Schultz polynomials of  are have defined as:

 respectively, where the summations are taken over all unordered pairs of distinct vertices in  and  is the distance between  and  in  The general forms of Schultz and modified Schultz polynomials shall be found and indices of the edge – identification chain and ring – square graphs in the present work.

We propose a novel strategy to optimize the test suite required for testing both hardware and software in a production line. Here, the strategy is based on two processes: Quality Signing Process and Quality Verification Process, respectively. Unlike earlier work, the proposed strategy is based on integration of black box and white box techniques in order to derive an optimum test suite during the Quality Signing Process. In this case, the generated optimal test suite significantly improves the Quality Verification Process. Considering both processes, the novelty of the proposed strategy is the fact that the optimization and reduction of test suite is performed by selecting only mutant killing test cases from cumulating t-way test ca

Levofloxacin belongs to the fluoroquinolone family; it is a potent broad-spectrum bactericidal agent. The pharmacophore required for significant antibacterial activity is the C-3 carboxylic acid group and the 4-pyridine ring with the C-4 carbonyl group, into which binding to the DNA bases occur. In this work, we tried to show that by masking the carboxyl group through amide formation using certain amines to form levofloxacin carboxamides, an interesting activity is kept. Levofloxacin carboxamides on the C-3 group were prepared, followed by the formation of their copper complexes. The target compounds were characterized by FT-IR, elemental analysis. The antimicrobial activity of the target compounds was evaluated and showed satisfactory resu