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We report the spectrophotometric determination of total polyphenols, flavonoids, glucosinolates and antioxidant activity in seeds, seedlings and leaves of Tuscan black kale. The highest content of phytochemicals was observed in 10 days sprouts and antioxidant activity was maximum in 2, 4 days seedlings. Identification and characterisation of phytochemicals were performed by mass spectrometry (MS), high resolution and tandem MS with electrospray ionisation mode. Low-molecular-weight metabolites were evidenced in seeds while metabolites at high m/z range were detected in cotyledons and leaves. MS spectra evidenced different phenolic compounds (flavonoid caffeoyl glucose, hydroxycinnamic acid sinapine) and glucosinolates (glucoerucin, glucobrassicin and glucoraphanin) in function of developmental stage; galactolipids ω3 and ω6 were observed in leaves. Identification of stages with the highest phytochemicals content encourages the consumption of black kale sprouts and young leaves. Our research can support food and pharmaceutical industries for production of health promoting products from black kale.

A 16-year-old-boy was evaluated for a two-year history of nocturnal cough and wheezing. He had not responsed to treatment with inhaled corticosteroids and long-acting beta2-agonists, a proton pump inhibitor and several courses of azithromycin. His medical history revealed no seasonal or food allergies, recurrent infections, sinusitis or diarrhea. Allergy skin testing was negative. Additional history received with the referral noted the boy experienced difficulty swallowing saliva and weight loss of several kilograms during the year before the underlying diagnosis was eventually established. On physical examination, his heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation and chest auscultation findings were normal. Lung spirometry showed a mild obstructive pattern with flattening of the expiratory flow-volume loops (Figure 1), which remained unchanged after administering salbutamol. Because of his persistent symptoms, flexible bronchoscopy was performed, which identified a marked flattening of the lumen along the full length of the trachea. The cell count in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid contained 20% neutrophils and 4% eosinophils, and staining with Oil red O was positive, indicating the presence of fat droplets. Subsequent bronchoalveolar lavage culture was negative. Further testing confirmed the diagnosis. Figure 1) Spirometry before and after surgery

In this paper we describe the design of the re-configurable front-end boards (BORA boards) for the 82944 channel RICH-1 (Ring Imaging CHerenkov) of the Compass Collaboration (NA58). The front-end electronics controls the sample-and-hold operation after the arrival of an event trigger, acquires the analog voltages from the pre-amp VLSI and converts them into 10 bits at a rate of 20 Ms/s per analog channel. The digitized analogue values are then written into FIFOs. A subsequent operation compares the readings of each and every channel with corresponding programmable thresholds, and transmits those values larger than the threshold, together with the channel number, through an optical fiber to subsequent processing stages of the acquisition system. The overall operation of the board is controlled and supervised by a fast DSP. The availability of local intelligence allows the board to present innovative features such as: to be part of a computer network that connects several similar boards of the detector with a PC. The presence of the DSP allows testing the operability and linearity of the analog channels; and creating engineering frames containing local temperatures and voltages and transmitting the results through the network. The operator can reconfigure the hardware and software of the board by downloading programs from the PC. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.