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Effect of Storage Time on the Structure and Mechanical Properties of Starch/Bentonite Nanocomposites

László Lendvai István Sajó József Karger-Kocsis

Publication Name: Starch Staerke

Publication Date: 2019-01-01

Volume: 71

Issue: 1-2

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

Thermoplastic starch (TPS), plasticized with glycerol and water, and its nanocomposites containing up to 7.5 parts per hundred resin (phr) pristine bentonite (BT) are prepared by melt compounding. Effects of the BT reinforcement and storage time on the morphology, water content, and mechanical properties of the related TPS nanocomposites are investigated on compression molded specimens. Morphology change is followed by wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) measurements. The presence of BT increases the rate of transformation from A- to V-type crystalline form. It is also found that BT particles hinders the recrystallization (retrogradation) of TPS. BT becomes intercalated in TPS, which is supported by the water used as additional plasticizer for the compounding of maize starch. According to gravimetric measurements, TPS samples lose part of their water content during retrogradation/aging. Both the incorporation of BT and the time of aging result in increased strength and stiffness, however at the cost of elongation at break. This is associated with enhanced strength and stiffness, which is ascribed to a change (from more to less hydrated) in the interphase. According to scanning electron and atomic force microscopy analysis, the reinforcing BT particles are homogenously dispersed on nano and micron scale within the TPS matrix.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1002/star.201800123

First report of the genus Bostocktrachys Hirschmann, 1979 from India (Acari, Mesostigmata, Uropodina, Trachyuropodidae) with the description of a new species and with note to the ontogeny of the genus

Sergey G. Ermilov Jenő Kontschán

Publication Name: Ecologica Montenegrina

Publication Date: 2024-01-01

Volume: 78

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: 235-242

Description:

The first representatives of the genus Bostocktrachys Hirschmann, 1979 have been discovered in India and are described here as Bostocktrachys wisniewskii sp. nov. based on females, males and nymphs. The new species differs from its congeners on the basis of the shape of grooves on the dorsal shields, dorsal and ventral setae and dorsal and ventral culptural pattern. The second deutonymph and the first protonymph of this genus are presented and discussed.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.37828/em.2024.78.22

Relationship between total cell counts and exopolysaccharide production of Streptococcus thermophilus T9 in reconstituted skim milk

E. Korcz Z. Kerényi László Varga

Publication Name: Lwt

Publication Date: 2021-08-01

Volume: 148

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

The main objective of this study was to establish a correlation between total bacterial count (TBC) and exopolysaccharide (EPS) production in a specific Streptococcus thermophilus strain. TBC was determined based on real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) standard curves of S. thermophilus T9 cultured in reconstituted skim milk. EPS yields were measured following isolation and purification steps using a dextran standard curve. The relationship between TBC of and EPS production by S. thermophilus T9 was analyzed alongside these standard curves. The results showed that EPS yield reached 36.6 ± 0.8 mg L−1 following 6 h of incubation. Over the same period, the streptococcal counts measured by qPCR increased from 4.71 ± 0.15 to 7.52 ± 0.09 log10 TBC mL−1. Overall, EPS biosynthesis has been shown to be a growth-related trait in S. thermophilus T9 (R2 = 0.991). In conclusion, the monitoring of TBC may provide an insight into the mechanism of EPS production and, therefore, its use can be recommended for this purpose and for EPS quantification. To our knowledge, this is the first research that has associated qPCR-based TBC with EPS yield in S. thermophilus.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1016/j.lwt.2021.111775

Rail Defect Classification with Deep Learning Method

Guoqing Jing Weile Qiang Majid Movahedi Rad Jingru Wang Shiyao Lu

Publication Name: Acta Polytechnica Hungarica

Publication Date: 2022-01-01

Volume: 19

Issue: 6

Page Range: 225-241

Description:

The good condition of railway rails is crucial to ensuring the safe operation of the railway network. At present, the rail flaw detectors are widely used in rail flaw detection, they are typically based on the principle of ultrasonic detection. However, the rail detection results analysis process involves huge manual work and the associated labor costs, with low levels of efficiency. In order to improve the efficiency, accuracy of results analysis and also reduce the labor costs, it is necessary to employ classification of ultrasonic flaw detection B-scan image, based on an artificial intelligence algorithm. Inspired by transformer models, with excellent performance in the field of natural language processing (NLP), some deep learning models differ from traditional convolutional neural networks (CNN), gradually emerge in the field of computer image processing. In order to explore the practicality of this model in the field of computer image processing (vision), in the paper, the Vision Transformer (ViT) is employed to train with rail defect B-scan images data and produce a rail defect classification. The model accuracy is more than 90% with the highest accuracy reaching 98.92%.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: DOI not available

Application of structural entropy and spatial filling factor in colonoscopy image classification

Brigita Sziova Zoltán Fazekas Szilvia Nagy

Publication Name: Entropy

Publication Date: 2021-08-01

Volume: 23

Issue: 8

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

For finding colorectal polyps the standard method relies on the techniques and devices of colonoscopy and the medical expertise of the gastroenterologist. In case of images acquired through colonoscopes the automatic segmentation of the polyps from their environment (i.e., from the bowel wall) is an essential task within computer aided diagnosis system development. As the number of the publicly available polyp images in various databases is still rather limited, it is important to develop metaheuristic methods, such as fuzzy inference methods, along with the deep learning algorithms to improve and validate detection and classification techniques. In the present manuscript firstly a fuzzy rule set is generated and validated. The former process is based on a statistical approach and makes use of histograms of the antecedents. Secondly, a method for selecting relevant antecedent variables is presented. The selection is based on the comparision of the histograms computed from the measured values for the training set. Then the inclusion of the Rényi-entropy-based structural entropy and the spatial filling factor into the set of input variables is proposed and assessed. The beneficial effect of including the mentioned structural entropy of the entropies from the hue and saturation (H and S) colour channels resulted in 65% true positive and 60% true negative rate of the classification for an advantageously selected set of antecedents when working with HSV images.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/e23080936

Analysis of Digital Tourist's Purchasing Decision Process Based on Feedback and Opinions

Ferenc Bakó Marcell Kupi

Publication Name: Decision Making Applications in Management and Engineering

Publication Date: 2024-04-01

Volume: 7

Issue: 1

Page Range: 270-289

Description:

Today, tourism and digitalisation are very much intertwined. The phenomenon of tourism in the digital space - digital tourism - emerged with the birth of the internet and has grown in intensity over the years. The evolution of digitalisation has brought about a paradigm shift that has not only led consumers to adopt information and communication technologies, but has also greatly transformed consumer behaviour, preferences and motivations. Indeed, the development of technology has disrupted the traditional booking trends of tourists, their attitudes towards tourism and the social groups of tourists by providing dynamic online communication channels. Digital tourism users - digital tourists - are increasingly aware of the information and communication technologies, services and tools available to them, and are able to shape the market offer tailored to their needs through their actions and the data they provide. One of the most effective means of doing this is to share feedback and opinions online. In our research, I provide secondary information to support the importance of feedback and opinions, clarify its role in digital tourism, and then investigate the phenomenon of electronic-world-of-mouth through a questionnaire survey and decision tree analysis, and highlight the insights and implications of eWOM for digital tourists' behaviour in the online space based on opinions.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.31181/dmame712024951

Effect of ethanol solvents on total phenolic content and antioxidant properties of seed extracts of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum l.) varieties and determination of phenolic composition by hplc-esi-ms

Hanna Lohvina Makai Sándor Michael Wink

Publication Name: Diversity

Publication Date: 2022-01-01

Volume: 14

Issue: 1

Page Range: Unknown

Description:

Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) is one of the oldest cultivated plants grown for its leaves and seeds that are used for both culinary and medicinal purpose. This study aims to evaluate the effect of ethanol concentration (30, 50, 70 and 96% (v/v) of ethanol in water) as a solvent for the extraction of total phenolic content (TPC) and antioxidant properties (antiradical activity (ARA), transition metal reducing power (TMRP), iron chelating ability (ICA)) of seed extracts of spring variety Ovari 4 (FSV) and winter variety PSZ.G.SZ (FWV) fenugreek, and separate and identify the major phenolics of the extracts by HPLC-ESI-MS. The results indicated that 70% ethanol solution resulted in the maximum amount of TPC for both FSV and FWV seeds. The TPC decreased in the treatments in the following order: 70% ethanol > 96% ethanol > 50% ethanol > 30% ethanol, whereas extraction yield changed in a different manner: 30% ethanol > 50% ethanol > 70% ethanol > 96% ethanol. The extracts from seeds of both fenugreek varieties obtained with 70% and 96% ethanol showed equal high RSA while superior TMRP and ICA were observed in 70% ethanol extracts. The TMRP and ICA were strongly correlated with TPC for both varieties. The correlation between RSA and TPC was high, but not significant. Thus, the obtained data indicate the 70% ethanol solvent suitability for efficient extraction of phenolic compounds from seeds of the FWV and FSV. According to an HPLC-ESI-MS analysis, the polyphenolic profiles of fenugreek are presumably formed by flavone C-glycosides with apigenin or luteolin as aglycone linked with different glycones. High antioxidant activity of FWV seeds can be an adaptation to cold stress of the winter variety aimed at strengthening the antioxidant defense of the germinating seeds.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.3390/d14010007

Increasing relevance of non-human genetics in Hungarian forensic practice

Petra Zenke Gabor Kovacs Zsolt Pádár Balázs Egyed

Publication Name: Forensic Science International Genetics Supplement Series

Publication Date: 2015-12-01

Volume: 5

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: e250-e252

Description:

In step with the evolution of molecular genetics, the application of non-human biological traces is an intensively researched field in forensic sciences [1]. Recently it has been widely acknowledged that this extended possibility – with associated abilities and pitfalls – for forensic DNA examination can provide innovative results in criminal and civil casework as well as in connection with associative evidence. Depending on the specific species or types of traces, the final results can have very different criminalistics value (e.g., plants, dogs or microbiome of soil traces), but it is unquestionable that non-human DNA has an increasing role in forensic biological evidence [2–4]. However, in contrast to the investigation of human DNA-traces, there currently exist no restrictions concerning DNA loci and privacy of genetic information, and a wide spectrum of genetic information and technologies may be applied. The field is developing with animal rights, international (e.g. CITES) conventions, national regulations and professional recommendations [5–7]. The Hungarian forensic practice on animal DNA examination has been developing since 2000 [8]. The range of cases is sufficiently broad, and includes fatal accidents and animal attacks (case #1) as well as illegal trade cases (case #2). In case of degraded animal hair samples we used two sets of Canine STR markers with shortened amplicons, and species specific primers (Ursus sp.) for mitochondrial DNA analysis of mixed samples (case #2), respectively. The results supported the evaluation of individualization (case #1), confirming the species identification (case #2).

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1016/j.fsigss.2015.09.100

Plant biostimulating effects of the cyanobacterium Nostoc piscinale on maize (Zea mays L.) in field experiments

B. Tóth A. Széles J. Nagy C. Bojtor P. Pőthe G. Takács Vince Ördög Wendy A. Stirk None Illés Johannes van Staden

Publication Name: South African Journal of Botany

Publication Date: 2021-08-01

Volume: 140

Issue: Unknown

Page Range: 153-160

Description:

Biostimulants, when applied to plants in small amounts, increase crop yield and plant tolerance to abiotic and biotic stress. They play an important role in the development of new environmentally sustainable technologies. The aim of the current experiment was to investigate the potential of a cyanobacterium strain (Nostoc piscinale) to improve the growth, grain yield and stress tolerance of maize (Zea mays SY Zephir hybrid). Field trials were established at two sites. Freeze-dried biomass of N. piscinale resuspended in tap water (1g/L DW) was applied as a single foliar treatment (400 L/ha) at the V6-V7 phenological stage. Number of leaves, chlorophyll content, relative water content (RWC%) and free proline content were measured weekly. Grain yield, yield components and grain protein content were measured at harvest. N. piscinale treated maize had significantly earlier development in the vegetative growth stages with a higher number of leaves. Chlorophyll content (SPAD value) was significantly higher in the treated plants during the reproductive stages. There was little difference in the RWC and proline content compared to control plants. Faster vegetative growth and higher chlorophyll content in the cyanobacterium treated plants meant great photosynthetic light absorption over a longer period of time, resulting in significantly higher grain yield (6.5% and 11.5% at the two production sites) and increased grain protein content. Grain yield was significantly influenced by cob length and thousand grain weight. In conclusion, it was proved in field trials conducted in two different regions in Hungary that a single foliar application of a cyanobacterium-based biostimulant can contribute to crop production in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner.

Open Access: Yes

DOI: 10.1016/j.sajb.2021.03.026