The food industry progressively requires innovative and environmentally safe packaging materials with increased physical, mechanical, and barrier properties. Due to its unique properties, cellulose has several potential applications in the food industry as a packaging material, stabilizing agent, and functional food ingredient. A coffee pod is a filter of cellulosic, non-rigid, ready-made material containing ground portions and pressed coffee prepared in dedicated machines. In our study, we obtained, with homogenization and sonication, cellulose micro/nanoparticles from three different coffee pods. It is known that nanoparticulate systems can enter live cells and, if ingested, could exert alterations in gastrointestinal tract cells. Our work aims to investigate the response of HT-29 cells to cellulose nanoparticles from coffee pods. In particular, the subcellular effects between coffee-embedded nanocellulose (CENC) and cellulose nanoparticles (NC) were compared. Finally, we analysed the pathologic condition (Cytolethal Distending Toxin (CDT) from Campylobacter jejuni) on the same cells conditioned by NC and CENC. We evidenced that, for the cellular functional features analysed, NC and CENC pre-treatments do not worsen cell response to the C. jejuni CDT, also pointing out an improvement of the autophagic flux, particularly for CENC preconditioning.

Hospital waste containing antibiotics is toxic to the ecosystem. Ciprofloxacin is one of the essential, widely used antibiotics and is often detected in water bodies and soil. It is vital to treat these medical wastes, which urge new research towards waste management practices in hospital environments themselves. Ultimately minimizes its impact in the ecosystem and prevents the spread of antibiotic resistance. The present study highlights the decomposition of ciprofloxacin using nano-catalytic ZnO materials by reactive oxygen species (ROS) process. The most effective process to treat the residual antibiotics by the photocatalytic degradation mechanism is explored in this paper. The traditional co-precipitation method was used to prepare zinc oxide nanomaterials. The characterization methods, X-Ray diffraction analysis (XRD), Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Ulraviolet-Visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), Scanning Electron microscopy (SEM) and X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) have done to improve the photocatalytic activity of ZnO materials. The mitigation of ciprofloxacin catalyzed by ZnO nano-photocatalyst was described by pseudo-first-order kinetics and chemical oxygen demand (COD) analysis. In addition, ZnO materials help to prevent bacterial species, S. aureus and E. coli, growth in the environment. This work provides some new insights towards ciprofloxacin degradation in efficient ways.

One functional class is described in terms of one-sided modulus of continuity and the modulus of positive (negative) variation on which there
is a uniform convergence of the truncated cardinal Whittaker functions.

The relationship between aid and corruption remains ambiguous. On the one hand, aid may benefit a country if the aid management system runs efficiently and transparently. On the other hand, aid tends to create new problems, namely corruption, especially in developing countries. This research examines the aid-corruption paradox in Indonesian provinces from a spatial perspective. The data was obtained from the Indonesian Ministry of Finance, the National Development Planning Agency of Indonesia, the Corruption Eradication Commission of Indonesia, and the Electronic Procurement Service, referring to 34 Indonesian provinces between 2011 and 2019. The research applies the spatial panel method and uses Haversine distance to construct the weighted matrix. The spatial error model (SEM) is the best for Model 1 (Grants) and Model 2 (Loans) and the best corruption model in Model 3 (Gratification). The spatial autoregressive model (SAR) is the best approach for Model 4 (Public Complaints) and Model 5 (Corruption). The findings show that there is no spatial dependence between provinces in Indonesia in terms of grants or loans. However, corruption in Indonesia is widespread.

ZrO₂ thin film samples were produced by the sol-gel dip coating method. Four different absorbed dose levels (such as ~ 0.4, 0.7, 1.2 and 2.7 Gray-Gy) were applied to ZrO₂ thin films. Hence, the absorbed dose of ZrO₂ thin film was examined as physical dose quantity representing the mean energy imparted to the thin film per unit mass by gamma radiation. Modification of the grain size was performed sensitively by the application of the absorbed dose to the ZrO₂ thin film. Therefore the grain size reached from ~50 nm to 87 nm at the irradiated ZrO₂ thin film. The relationship of the grain size, the contact angle, and the refractive index of the irradiated ZrO₂ thin film was investigated as being an important technical concern. The irradiation process was performed in a hot cell by using a certified solid gamma ray source with 0.018021 Ci as an alternative technique to minimize the utilization of extra toxicological chemical solution. Antireflection and hydrophilic properties of the irradiated ZrO₂ thin film were slightly improved by the modification of the grain size. The details on the optical and structural properties of the ZrO₂ thin film were examined to obtain the optimum high refractive index, self-cleaning and anti-reflective properties.

Cucumber Variety ‘Drite L108’ (Cucumis sativus L. Cv. Derit L108) was selected as the test material. In the solar greenhouse, different days (1, 3, 5, 7, 9 d) of light (PAR < 200 µmol·m^-2·s^-1) and normal light conditions were designed with shading nets to observe the growth indexes of cucumber plants and the changes of antioxidant enzyme activities in leaves. The results showed that: (1) continuous low light increased the SPAD (relative chlorophyll) value of cucumber leaves and decreased the net photosynthetic rate. The longer the continuous low light days are, the smaller the net photosynthetic rate of cucumber leaves and the worse the photosynthetic recovery ability would be. (2) The plant height, stem diameter and leaf area per plant were lower than CK, and the above indexes could not return to the normal level after 9 days of normal light recovery; the yield and marketability of cucumber fruit decreased under continuous low illumination. (3) The activities of SOD (superoxide dismutase) and POD (peroxidase) in cucumber leaves increased, the activities of CAT (catalase) first increased and then decreased, and the content of MDA (malondialdehyde) continued to increase. The longer the days of continuous light keep, the more seriously the cucumber leaves were damaged by membrane lipid peroxidation. After continuous light for more than 7 days, the metabolic function of cucumber leaves was difficult to recover to the normal level.