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The ladybird beetle, Hippodamia variegata (Goeze) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) is one of the most important natural enemies of the common pistachio psylla, Agonoscena pistaciae Burckhardt and Lauterer (Hemiptera: Psyllidae). The effects of hexaflumuron and spirodiclofen were investigated on development and carbohydrates and total lipid contents of 4^th instar larvae of H. variegata. The insecticides had significant effects on the mortality of eggs, but no significant effects on mortality of larvae or pupae. Hexaflumuron significantly increased the length of development of eggs (2.89 days) and first instar larvae (3.28 days), but had no significant effects on other instars or pupae. Spirodiclofen had no significant effects on developmental stages of H. variegata. Glycogen content was significantly reduced by spirodiclofen (17.42 mg/g fresh body weight) and hexaflumuron (16.07 mg/g fresh body weight). Trehalose content in hexaflumuron (1.89 mg/g fresh body weight) and spirodiclofen-treated larvae (2.02 mg/g fresh body weight) was significantly lower than control (8.01 mg/g fresh body weight). Glucose content in spirodiclofen-treated larvae (0.96 mg/g fresh body weight) was significantly higher than in hexaflumuron-treated larvae (0.24 mg/g fresh body weight) and control (0.15 mg/g fresh body weight). Significant reduction in the amount of lipid was observed in spirodiclofen-treated larvae (5.29 mg/g fresh body weight), but not in hexaflumuron-treated larvae (7.11 mg/g fresh body weight). These results suggest that substantial physiological events in the life of larvae are affected in response to the action of the tested insecticides.  

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The effect of two insecticides, imidacloprid and pyriproxyfen, were investigated on some biological parameters of ladybird beetle Menochilus sexmaculatus (F.) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) under laboratory condition. Theladybird beetle were exposed to insecticides by ingestion of the common pistachio psylla, Agonoscena pistaciae Burckhardt and Lauterer (Hemiptera: Psyllidae) (prey). For imidacloprid, maximum field recommended concentration (MFRC) (1/1 MFRC = 140 ppm), 1/2 and 1/4 MFRC were tested. For pyriproxyfen dilutions of 1/1 MFRC (50 ppm), 2/1 and 1/2 MFRC were used after 24 h. The 100% mortality was observed with imidacloprid in all tested concentrations, whereas no mortality was observed by pyriproxyfen even at the highest concentration (2/1 MFRC). Because of the high mortality observed with imidacloprid, lower concentrations of 1/10, 1/20 and 1/40 MFRC were tested and all predators were killed 3, 7 and 10 days after treatment, respectively. At 1/100 MFRC, no eggs were laid but prey consumption was continued for two weeks. At 1/1 and 2/1 MFRC of pyriproxyfen, ingestion of prey was reduced by 18% and 23%, respectively. At 1/1 and 1/2 MFRC of pyriproxyfen, fecundity and fertility of the coccinellid predator was decreased to 43% and 24.5%, respectively. Imidacloprid at 1/100 MFRC caused significant reduction on fecundity but had no detrimental effect on fertility of the produced eggs. Therefore, unlike the pyriproxyfen that had not acute toxicity, the imidacloprid was extremely toxic to coccinellid at MFRC. However, pyriproxyfen was able to affect on feeding ratio and reproduction of M. sexmaculatus.

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Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate chemical composition, antioxidant potential, and antimicrobial activity of cardamom essential oil against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae species.
Materials & Methods: The chemical compositions of cardamom essential oil were identified by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) device. Cardamom essential oil antioxidant activity was measured by 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay, and its total phenolic compounds (TPC) were measured by Folin–Ciocalteu reagent. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of cardamom essential oil were determined using the serial-dilution method.
Findings: According to the GC-MS analysis results, 17 compounds were totally identified in cardamom essential oil, among which the most important compounds were 1, 8-cineole (36.74%) and α-terpinyl acetate (33.07%). MICs obtained for S. aureus, E. coli, and S. cerevisiae were 12.50, 25.00, and 1.56 mg/mL, respectively. Also, MBC obtained for both S. aureus and E. coli was 25 mg/mL, while MBC for S. cerevisiae was 3.36 mg/mL. Antioxidant activity measurement results showed that increasing the amount of cardamom essential oil reduced the amount of color and absorbance of DPPH solution to 517 nm. The results also showed that the amount of TPC in cardamom essential oil was 214.35 mg gallic acid per 100 g of dry material.
Conclusion: Cardamom essential oil used in this study showed antibacterial and anti-yeast activities against S. aureus, E. coli, and S. cerevisiae species. Antimicrobial effects of cardamom essential oil were predictable due to the presence of antimicrobial components in this oil.

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In this research, the modeling with Artificial neural network and Multilayer – Perceptron were used in order to evaluate the zeolite and citric acid's usage in reducing of Aflatoxin's production in stale dry breads across the Mashhad. Since, the stale breads are the main sources of the livestocks's feeding, and because of the availability of proper environmental conditions for growing molds, these breads are severely contaminated by mycotoxin and especially Aflatoxin, and this make some anxieties about the human being and animal's life. So, the foodstuff's contamination by mycotoxin, should be controlled accurately through the food chain. The results have shown that modelling with ANN is a suitable method especially in food industries, and also the addition of zeolite as compared with Citric Acid, cause the َAflatoxin to reduce more. In this manner, the interaction of zeolite and citric acid caused the Aflatoxin to decrease more, than when zeolite or citric acid are being used alone. Based on these results, Artificial neural network model for zeolite with one hidden layer, hyperbolic tangent function as the transfer function, Levenberg-Marquardt method as the learning rule, 3 hidden neurons, %60 for training subset and %20 for each of validation and test subsets with the correlation coefficient 0/973 had the best overfiting. The modeling results indicate that there is an excellent compatibility between the experimental and predicted values of Aflatoxins.  

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The aim of this study was to investigat the effect of modifierd starch and maltodextrin as a wall material on the microencapsulation of ginger oil in green tea extract by spray drying method. Ginger oil was encapsulated with modiferd starch, maltodextrin, and mixture of these by ratio(2:1، 1:1، 1:2) .The mean droplet size  of emulsion and Encapsulation efficiency, oil surface, particle size and moisture of microcapsul was evaluated. The results showed that by reducing the Gum Arabic content and increasing Maltodextrin content, the emulsion  particle  size became larger. Encapsulation efficiency  increased and oil surface decreased by the decreas in particle  size  of emulsion  and powder. And the results indicated the lack of effect of rim material on the amount of moisture. A 2:1 and 1:1 blend of Gum Arabic:Maltodextrin offered a protection, better than gum Arabic and maltodextrin .

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The ultrafiltration process as one of the membrane processes based on pressure can replace with the conventional method of liming-carbonation as a new method in sugar industry. In this research, reduction of hardness, increasing the non-sugar rejection components and improving the purity of permeate flow were modeled during the treatment of raw beet syrup with ultrafiltration by artificial neural network. The ultrafiltration process was carried out at three temperatures of 30, 40 and 50 ° C, three pressures in the membrane 1, 2 and 3 times in eight intervals of equal time of 1 to 60 minutes. The best model for reduction of hardness was obtained with a hidden layer, the number of 13 neurons, the tangent transfer function, the momentum learning law, and the percentage of data 40, 35, and 25 for training, evaluation, and test, respectively. The variation of non-sugar rejection compounds with a hidden layer, 15 neurons, tangent transfer function, Levenberg learning law, and assigning 50, 5 and 45 percent of the data to training, evaluating and testing with the least error and the highest correlation coefficient during modeling. Improvement of the purity of permeate flow during ultrafiltration with a hidden layer, 18 neurons, sigmoid transfer function, Levenberg learning law and data percentages 60, 15 and 25 for training, evaluation, and testing created the best network. Also, the highest correlation coefficient between laboratory data and predicted values with the model was obtained for hardness variation, non-sugar rejection compounds and purity, 0.892, 0.985 and 0.985 respectively.

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In this study, the antioxidant activity and protective effects of Purslane Seed Water-Methanolic Extract (PSWME) in stabilizing SoyBean Oil (SBO) were tested. DPPH radical scavenging activity of PSWME at different concentrations varied significantly (P< 0.05), ranging from 15.41% to 79.06%. Total phenolic content in PSWME was 121.09 mg Gallic Acid Equivalent (GAE) kg^-1 dw. The protective effects of PSWME at the level of 100 mg L^-1 in stabilizing SBO were tested and compared to BHT in a concentration of 100 mg L^-1 by measuring Peroxide Value (PV) and ThioBarbituric Acid (TBA) during accelerated storage (at 60°C). The results showed that PSWME, similar to BHT, reduced the formation of primary and secondary oxidation products in SBO. Therefore, the use of this extract as a natural antioxidant is recommended to prevent the oxidation of vegetable oils.

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Edible films, which in addition to creating beneficial effects by carrying antimicrobial compounds, antioxidants, etc., have biodegradable properties, have attracted the attention of many researchers. In this study, the gum obtained from the inner pod of bean with two concentrations of glycerol (40 and 60%) and three concentration of oregano essential (1, 2 and 3%) oil was used to produce biofilms. After studying the physicochemical and mechanical properties of the resulting films, the best treatment was combined with titanium oxide nanoparticles in two concentrations of 1 and 2% and its antimicrobial properties were also investigated. The results showed that increasing the essential oil raised the film thickness, while high concentrations of essential oil decreased the moisture content of the films. Although the addition of essential oil reduced the solubility of films compared with control sample, but in the treatments with essential oil, increasing the essential oil reduced the solubility of the film. Increasing the concentration of essential oil also increased turbidity and free radical DPPH activity. High concentrations of essential oil decreased the lightness of the films but increased the yellowing and redness compared to the control sample. Due to the interaction of the oil in the essential oil with the gum, the cohesion of the polymer network decreased and consequently, the tensile strength and the elongation factor at the break point decreased. Antimicrobial effect of films with 3% essential oil and 2% titanium oxide had the highest inhibitory area in the disk diffusion test with other samples on Staphylococcus Aureus, Escherichia coli, Salmonella Typhoid, Bacillus Cereus and pseudomonas Aeruginosa significantly (p<0.05)

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The demand of low-fat and reduced-fat product has greatly increased due to consumer’s awareness of the relationship between diet and health. This has led the dairy food industry to continuously work on formulating and developing “functional dairy foods” with good textural qualities. In this research, the influence of different levels of Alyssum homolocarpum seed gum (AHSG) (0-1%) and Flaxseed gum (FG) (0-1%) on the physicochemical, sensory and microbial properties of low-fat synbiotic cream cheese during 45 days of storage were evaluated. The results showed that AHSG and FG increase caused significant increment in moisture content, hardness, springiness, adhesiveness and spreadability of samples. Evaluation of the organoleptic properties showed that addition of AHSG and FG caused a double impact on the sensory properties, and sensory parameters improved up to medium concentrations of AHSG and FG. Results showed that during the storage, acidity increased while pH, hardness, springiness, adhesiveness and spreadability were decreased. Based on the probiotic count test, only optimized sample had the amount of probiotic bacteria in the standard range at the end of storage time. The findings of this study showed that incorporation of AHSG and FG into the formulation of low-fat synbiotic cream cheese could be an effective strategy to overcome the problems associated with fat reduction.

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Many studies have been performed on the effect of viscosity on the qualitative characteristics of hot crystallization in the cooking stage of beet factories. In this study, we tried to investigate the effect of newer viscosity reducing agents based on sucrose esters on the quality of cold crystallization in these units. For this purpose, a substance called cisterna which is a sucrose ester as a viscosity reducing agent in four levels  0 , 33, 66 and 100 ppm were used in weak effluent from centrifuge cooking of a beet factory at 55 ° C and its effect on viscosity, crystallization efficiency, color of extracted sugar solution and purity percentage of effluent from centrifuge sample was investigated. The results showed that the addition of this substance reduced the viscosity. Crystallization efficiency increased to 66 ppm and then decreased at higher concentrations. The color of the extracted sugar solution and the purity percentage of the effluent produced by centrifugation and separation of the solid phase from the liquid decreased to this concentration of surfactant and at higher concentrations these parameters increased. In general, the use of these materials in cold crystallization of sugar factories can increase the efficiency and reduce the waste of beet factories