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In recent times, the application of protein-based bio-composite edible films in postharvest preservation of food and agricultural products is attracting increased attention due to their biodegradability, eco-friendliness and sustainability. In this study, an avocado pear peel polyphenolic extract enriched keratin-starch composite film was fabricated, characterized and evaluated for antimicrobial activity against fungal infected tomato fruits after 6 days of storage at room (25 ± 2 °C) temperature. The SEM/EDX and FTIR results revealed the successful film formation with high degree of compatibility and homogeneity. Following a 6-day post-coating loss in weight of the coated tomato fruits decreased significantly ( p  < 0.05) with increasing extract concentration while titratable acidity showed a significant ( p  < 0.05) increase with increasing extract load. Ascorbic acid and lycopene contents were significantly ( p  < 0.05) higher in the avocado pear peel polyphenolic extract-loaded films. No significant effect was observed in catechol oxidase activity of the tomato extract across the different treatment groups. In addition, fungal growth inhibition showed a dose dependent increase consistent with avocado pear peel polyphenolic load in coated tomato fruits compared to control. Results obtained in this study showed that polyphenolic activated keratin-starch coating was able to reduce spoilage-induce weight loss as well as conserve the overall quality (including titratable acid levels, lycopene and ascorbic acid contents) of fungal-infected tomato fruit and reduce microbial growth. Therefore polyphenolic activated keratin-starch coating could serve as a sustainable and ecofriendly postharvest preservation method to prolong the shelf life of tomato fruits.

Exposure to rotenone, an environmental neurotoxin, is linked to neurodegenerative conditions through mechanisms involving oxidative stress and inflammation. This study investigated the neuroprotective effects of Proanthocyanidin from grape seed extract in Drosophila melanogaster subjected to rotenone toxicity. A focused assessment of the effects of a 1 mg/g PGS diet on D. melanogaster intoxicated with 500 μM rotenone over seven days was done. A combination of behavioral and biochemical assays was employed to evaluate antioxidant activities in vivo. Additionally, molecular docking of PGS against acetylcholinesterase a key enzyme in nervous system was investigated. The results indicated that the 1 mg/g of PGS diet significantly enhanced the lifespan of D. melanogaster. Furthermore, this concentration effectively mitigated oxidative stress, as evidenced by improvements in catalase, superoxide dismutase, glutathione S-transferase, and acetylcholinesterase activities, and restored nitric oxide levels, reinforcing its role in neuroprotective pathways. PSG bound to the same binding domain in acetylcholinesterase as rotenone but with higher proximity to HIS-362. However, PGS exhibited limited efficacy in reversing lipid peroxidation and showed minimal improvement in glutathione levels. Behavioral assessments revealed that the decline in locomotor activity due to rotenone exposure was significantly alleviated by the 1 mg/g Proanthocyanidin from grape seed extract diet. In conclusion, Proanthocyanidin from grape seed demonstrates significant neuroprotective potential against rotenone-induced toxicity in D. melanogaster through its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory actions, suggesting mitigating neurodegenerative effects.

The wide-field spectrographs 4MOST and MOONS are expected to enter operations in late 2024 at the ESO Paranal Observatory. These upcoming survey facilities will play an important role in various fields over the next decade. In particular, both will host surveys aimed at observing Local Group (LG) galaxies. We describe how their scientific performances complement Gaia and other spectroscopic surveys in the field of nearby galaxy kinematics, and provide an overview of the planned surveys that focus on LG galaxy kinematics. We outline the policies for community access to data and observing time, which is different for the two instruments. The contribution concludes with a summary of the main scientific goals of MOONS and 4MOST survey science regarding the LG galaxy masses and dynamics.

An approach to calculate the flux of cosmicgenic muons detected by Muon Monitor experiment in lab LAB2400 of the Underground Laboratory in Canfranc (LSC) is described. The measuring apparatus consists of three layers of SC16 scintillation matrix detectors. The hardware function of the detector assembly was determined using computer simulation. Obtained value of the total muon ux turned out to be equal to (4.35 ± 0.2) × 10−3 m−2s−1.

La Serena School for Data Science is a multidisciplinary program with six editions so far and a constant format: during 10-14 days, a group of ∼30 students (15 from the US, 15 from Chile and 1-3 from Caribbean countries) and ∼9 faculty gather in La Serena (Chile) to complete an intensive program in Data Science with emphasis in applications to astronomy and bio-sciences. The students attend theoretical and hands-on sessions, and, since early on, they work in multidisciplinary groups with their “mentors” (from the faculty) on real data science problems. The SOC and LOC of the school have developed student selection guidelines to maximize diversity. The program is very successful as proven by the high over-subscription rate (factor 5-8) and the plethora of positive testimony, not only from alumni, but also from current and former faculty that keep in contact with them.

A bstract If neutrinoless double beta decay is discovered, the next natural step would be understanding the lepton number violating physics responsible for it. Several alternatives exist beyond the exchange of light neutrinos. Some of these mechanisms can be distinguished by measuring phase-space observables, namely the opening angle cos θ among the two decay electrons, and the electron energy spectra, T 1 and T 2 . In this work, we study the statistical accuracy and precision in measuring these kinematic observables in a future xenon gas detector with the added capability to precisely locate the decay vertex. For realistic detector conditions (a gas pressure of 10 bar and spatial resolution of 4 mm), we find that the average cos θ ¯ and T 1 ¯ values can be reconstructed with a precision of 0.19 and 110 keV, respectively, assuming that only 10 neutrinoless double beta decay events are detected.

The imaging of individual Ba 2+ ions in high pressure xenon gas is one possible way to attain background-free sensitivity to neutrinoless double beta decay and hence establish the Majorana nature of the neutrino. In this paper we demonstrate selective single Ba 2+ ion imaging inside a high-pressure xenon gas environment. Ba 2+ ions chelated with molecular chemosensors are resolved at the gas-solid interface using a diffraction-limited imaging system with scan area of 1 × 1 cm 2 located inside 10 bar of xenon gas. This form of microscopy represents key ingredient in the development of barium tagging for neutrinoless double beta decay searches in 136 Xe. This also provides a new tool for studying the photophysics of fluorescent molecules and chemosensors at the solid-gas interface to enable bottom-up design of catalysts and sensors. Barium tagging is a key ingredient for future detectors of neutrinoless double beta decay in low-background environments. Here, the authors demonstrate fluorescence imaging of single Ba2+ ions in high pressure Xenon gas, by comparing activity between Ba2+ chelated and unchelated samples of crown-ether chemosensors.

A bstract The NEXT-White detector, a high-pressure gaseous xenon time projection chamber, demonstrated the excellence of this technology for future neutrinoless double beta decay searches using photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) to measure energy and silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) to extract topology information. This analysis uses 83 m Kr data from the NEXT-White detector to measure and understand the energy resolution that can be obtained with the SiPMs, rather than with PMTs. The energy resolution obtained of (10.9 ± 0.6)%, full-width half-maximum, is slightly larger than predicted based on the photon statistics resulting from very low light detection coverage of the SiPM plane in the NEXT-White detector. The difference in the predicted and measured resolution is attributed to poor corrections, which are expected to be improved with larger statistics. Furthermore, the noise of the SiPMs is shown to not be a dominant factor in the energy resolution and may be negligible when noise subtraction is applied appropriately, for high-energy events or larger SiPM coverage detectors. These results, which are extrapolated to estimate the response of large coverage SiPM planes, are promising for the development of future, SiPM-only, readout planes that can offer imaging and achieve similar energy resolution to that previously demonstrated with PMTs.

If neutrinoless double beta decay is discovered, the next natural step would be understanding the lepton number violating physics responsible for it. Several alternatives exist beyond the exchange of light neutrinos. Some of these mechanisms can be distinguished by measuring phase-space observables, namely the opening angle cos θ among the two decay electrons, and the electron energy spectra, T1 and T2. In this work, we study the statistical accuracy and precision in measuring these kinematic observables in a future xenon gas detector with the added capability to precisely locate the decay vertex. For realistic detector conditions (a gas pressure of 10 bar and spatial resolution of 4 mm), we find that the average c̅o̅s̅ ̅θ̅ and T̅₁̅ values can be reconstructed with a precision of 0.19 and 110 keV, respectively, assuming that only 10 neutrinoless double beta decay events are detected.

We investigate the performance of Opticks, a NVIDIA OptiX API 7.5 GPU-accelerated photon propagation tool compared with a single-threaded Geant4 simulation. We compare the simulations using an improved model of the NEXT-CRAB-0 gaseous time projection chamber. Performance results suggest that Opticks improves simulation speeds by between 58.47 ± 0.02 and 181.39 ± 0.28 times relative to a CPU-only Geant4 simulation and these results vary between different types of GPU and CPU. A detailed comparison shows that the number of detected photons, along with their times and wavelengths, are in good agreement between Opticks and Geant4.