Dermal exposure to chemicals released from daily consumer products is a rising concern, particularly for children who are susceptible to unintentional hand-to-mouth transfer and related chemical exposure risk. However, chemical transfer induced by tiny particles of intact products has yet to be adequately addressed. The objective of the present study was to determine the potentiality of particles release from intact erasers and pen grips upon dermal contact by measuring the migration rates of the embedded plasticizers (phthalates and its alternatives). The results showed that billions of particles were released from erasers (0.6-1.2 × 109) and pen grips (0.2-1.6 × 108) upon dermal contact at ambient temperature, with sizes mainly smaller than 1 μm. The composition of eraser leachates was identical to that of the corresponding bulk eraser, as confirmed by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and pyrolysis. Migrated hydrophobic plasticizers may be used as indicators of particle release from erasers and pen grips. The potentiality of particle release was negatively correlated with the total plasticizer contents (r = -0.51; p < 0.05) for both erasers and pen grips. These findings indicated that particles directly released from school supplies and accessories could be a non-negligible source of human exposure to plasticizers.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the most common opportunistic pathogens causing severe nosocomial infections for its patterns of multidrug resistance, particularly for carbapenems. Timely epidemiological surveillance could greatly facilitate infection control of P. aeruginosa and many deadly pathogens alike. IR Biotyper (IRBT), is a novel real-time typing tool, based on a Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy system. It is critical to comprehensively establish and evaluate the feasibility of IRBT in P. aeruginosa strain typing. In the current study, we first established standards and schemes for its routine laboratory application, and we found that Mueller-Hinton agar plates give better discriminatory power than blood agar plates. Data showed that the cut-off value of 0.15 with an additional 0.025 range was optimal. Secondly, 27 clinically isolated carbapenem-resistant P. aeruginosa (CRPA) strains collected from October 2010 to September 2011 were evaluated for typing effectiveness by comparing IRBT to the other commonly used typing methods, such as multi-locus sequence typing (MLST), pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and whole-genome sequencing (WGS)-based typing. When using WGS-based typing as the reference method, the typing method of FTIR spectroscopy (AR = 0.757, SID = 0.749) could better cluster P. aeruginosa strains than MLST and in silico serotyping (AR = 0.544, SID = 0.470). Though PFGE showed the highest discriminatory power, low concordance was observed between PFGE and the other methods. Above all, this study demonstrates the utility of the IRBT as a quick, low-cost, real-time typing tool for the detection of CRPA strains.

Barley is a diagnostic plant that often used in the research of soil pollution by heavy metals, our research explored the detoxification and tolerance mechanism of cadmium(Cd) in barley through pot experiment. We investigated subcellular distribution, chemical forms and oxidative damage of Cd in barley leaves, combing with the transmission electron microscopy and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy(FT-IR) to further understand the translocation, transformation characteristics and toxic effect of Cd in cells. The results showed that, the bioaccumulation factors in roots and shoots of barley were ranged of 4.03-7.48 and 0.51-1.30, respectively. Barley reduces the toxic effects by storing Cd in the roots and reducing its transport to the shoots. Compared to the control treatment (0 mg/kg), the percentage of Cd in the cell wall fractions of leaves in 300 mg/kg Cd treatment increased from 34.74 % to 38.41 %; the percentage of the organelle fractions increased from 24.47 % to 56.02 %; and the percentage of soluble fraction decreased from 40.80 % to 5.57 %. We found that 69.13 % of the highly toxic inorganic Cd and water-soluble Cd were converted to less toxic pectates and protein-integrated Cd (50.20 %) and undissolved Cd phosphates (18.93 %). This conversion of Cd was mainly due to its combination with -OH, -NH, -CN, -C-O-C, and -C-O-P groups. Excessive Cd induced a significant (P < 0.05) increase in the levels of peroxidase, malondialdehyde, and cell membrane permeability, which damaged the cell membrane and allowed Cd to enter the organelles. The chloroplasts and mitochondria were destroyed, and eventually the metabolism of intracellular substances was affected, resulting in symptoms of toxicity. Our research provides cellular-scale insight into the mechanisms of Cd tolerance in barley.

In order to evaluate the freeze-thaw stability of mung bean protein isolate (MPI)-stabilized emulsions and its relationship with protein structure, proteins of eight mung bean varieties were compared. The results revealed that MPIs prepared from all eight varieties were mainly composed of five subunit bands, with albumin and globulin content ranges of 188.4-310.3 and 301.1-492.7 mg/g total protein, respectively. Protein structural analysis revealed that random coil structure (32.34-33.51%) accounted for greater than 30% of MPI secondary structure. Meanwhile, analysis of protein properties revealed emulsifying activity index (EAI), emulsifying stability index (ESI) and flexibility value ranges of 6.735-8.598 m2/g, 20.13-34.25% and 0.125-0.182, respectively. Measurements of freeze-thaw stability of MPI emulsions demonstrated that exposures of emulsions to multiple freeze-thaw cycles resulted in significantly different emulsion creaming index, oiling-off, particle size and zeta potential values for the various emulsions. Moreover, the stabilities of all eight protein emulsions decreased with each freeze-thaw cycle, as demonstrated using optical micrographs. The correlation analysis method was used to study the correlation between the original structures, emulsifying properties of proteins and the freeze-thaw stability of MPI emulsions. Correlation analysis results revealed significant relationships between albumin content, subunit bands with a molecular weight of 26.9 kDa and emulsifying properties were significantly related to the freeze-thaw stability of MPI emulsion. Thus, by determining these indicator values, we can predict the freeze-thaw stability of MPI-stabilized emulsions.

Cervical cancer is the most common gynecological malignancy.. Early and accurate identification of the stage of cervical cancer patients can greatly improve the cure rate. In this study, serum sample data were collected from patients with cervical cancer, CIN (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia) I, CIN II, CIN III and hysteromyoma using FT-IR (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy) technology. PSO-CNN model for early screening of cervical cancer was designed using a particle swarm algorithm to automatically build a CNN structure with variable number of layers and variable layer class parameters. The experimental results showed that PSO-CNN was the best compared with the classical Lenet, AlexNet, VGG16 and GoogLeNet deep learning models, and the accuracy of PSO-CNN in discriminating five types of samples can reach 87.2%. This study showed that FT-IR technology combined with PSO-CNN model had great potential for non-invasive, rapid and accurate identification of patients with cervical cancer, and can provide a reference for intelligent diagnosis of other diseases.

BACKGROUND: Okra pods contain heat-sensitive substances, such as phenolic compounds and other phytochemicals that can be degraded when okra pods are subjected to heat treatment. The understanding of the impact of high humidity hot air impingement blanching (HHAIB) on the changes in physicochemical properties of polysaccharides and phytochemicals of okra pods is of great importance because over-blanching may result in cell membrane disruption and changes in biologically active compounds under prolonged exposure to the thermal treatment. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the effect of HHAIB on the changes in physicochemical properties of pectins and phytochemicals extracted from okra pods.
RESULTS: Both the HHAIB time and method of extraction influenced their physicochemical characteristics and biological activity. Pectin fractions subjected to HHAIB were composed of polygalacturonic acid, rhamnogalacturonan, glucomannan, galactan, mannose, arabinose, rhamnose, calcium pectate and arabinogalactan. The contents of total phenolics, total flavonoids and antioxidant activity of extracts mostly increased during HHAIB (i.e. up to 19.0%, 13.2% and 35.3%, respectively). However, HHAIB reduced the chlorophyll-a (up to 55.7%) and lycopene (up to 52.6%) contents of okra pods.
CONCLUSIONS: The acquired knowledge may be useful for better understanding and optimization of technologies based on HHAIB treatment. The HHAIB treated okra can be a promising natural alternative in different applications, including its use as a replacement of some ingredients in food or non-food systems as a result of richness in polysaccharides and polyphenols, as well as high antioxidant properties. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.

Composting is an environmentally friendly and effective way to dispose of green waste (GW), but traditional composting of GW is slow and results in the loss of many nutrients and a poor-quality compost product. In this study, mature compost (MC), which may function as an inexpensive and readily available microbial inoculant, was added to GW at 15, 20, 25, and 30% (w/w, dry weight basis) (treatments T2-T5, respectively); GW with 0.5% (v/w, dry weight basis) commercial microbial inoculum served as T1, and GW without any microbial inoculant served as the control. The treatment that produced the highest quality compost was determined based on the following compost properties: temperature, bulk density, porosity, pH, electric conductivity, contents of organic matter and nutrients, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy data, and phytotoxicity. The results showed that addition of 25% MC resulted in the best quality product in only 40 days.

Tea cream, produced by interactions among tea ingredients, is undesirable in tea beverage industry. The interaction between bovine serum albumin (BSA) and theaflavin-3,3\'-digallate (TFDG, an important component in tea cream and functional substance of black tea) was investigated by fluorescence spectroscopy, ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) absorption spectroscopy, synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy, fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, and molecular docking technique. Multi-spectroscopic experiments demonstrated that TFDG interacted with BSA via static quenching, and the microenvironment around BSA became more hydrophobicity. FT-IR showed that the α-helix of BSA was increased when binding with TFDG. Thermodynamic parameters and molecular docking demonstrated that hydrophobic interactions and hydrogen bonds dominated the interaction between TFDG and BSA. The mechanism proposed in this research could further develop some nanoparticles to excellent biochemical properties while reducing the formation of tea cream, and explore the potential of BSA as transport carrier for TFDG.

A dataset in this report is regarding an article, \"A detailed ellipsometric porosimetry and positron annihilation spectroscopy study of porous organosilicate glass films with various ratios of methyl terminal and ethylene bridging groups\" [1]. The data of porous organosilicate glass (OSG) low-k films was obtained by Fourier-Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Ellipsometric Porosimetry (EP), Photoluminescence (PL) Spectroscopy. The data shows that the mechanical properties of OSG low-k films are principally controlled by introducing both terminal methyl and bridging organic groups, and porosity with proper pore size. The dataset presented here gives additional details regarding properties of carbon bridged OSGs presented in the paper [1]. Also, the data may give the impact of both terminal methyl and bridging ethylene groups on as deposited and thermally cured OSG films. Particularly, we added some details about FTIR, EP (especially related to calculation of the internal surface area) and UV induced luminescence. The data allow to test experimental and theoretical investigations of OSG low-k materials that might use in microelectronic fabrication industry and also might be used to extend beyond the analysis reported in the accompanying manuscript, and may aid for other applications of OSG materials.

The thermal decomposition process of 2,6-diamino-3,5-dinitropyrazine-1-oxide(LLM-105)under several constant temperatures (100 °C, 115 °C, 130 °C, and 145 °C) have been studied by a multi-channel in-situ reaction system. Almost 1000 spectra were obtained within 24 days by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The thermal decomposition activation energies (Eα) of C-NH2 and C-NO2 in LLM-105 were calculated by the Arrhenius equation to be 89.65 and 145.09 kJ mol-1, respectively. The thermal decomposition process of LLM-105 under long-term constant temperature is divided into two paths: intramolecular H-transfer and C-NO2 partition. It is feasible to study the aging process of materials using a combination of a multi-channel in-situ reaction system and FT-IR, which can effectively monitor the evolution of structure.