Alchemy (Canada)

Can emotions make your drink taste sweeter, bitterer, or more sour? Previous laboratory studies show that incidental emotions – emotions that are unrelated to the situation at hand – can influence taste perception. For example, people who recall a happy memory before tasting food may find it sweeter than after recalling a sad memory. However, outside of the confines of the laboratory, little research has examined how integral emotions – emotions that are directly tied to the situation at hand – can be used to shape consumers’ experiences. We recruited 231 participants for a drink-tasting session at Copenhagen’s Alchemist restaurant, where dining is accompanied by a 360-degree immersive visual experience projected into a dome ceiling. Unbeknownst to the participants, there were only two different drinks (one kombucha and one water kefir) that participants tasted each twice, while immersive scenes designed to elicit positive or negative feelings were projected. Results showed that the same beverage tasted less sweet and more bitter and sour when accompanied by an unpleasant emotional scene. These findings demonstrate that emotions, when elicited as part of a real-world multisensory gastronomic experience, can shape our taste perceptions.

The process of detection and separation of yeast cells based on their morphological characteristics is critical to the understanding of cell division cycles, which is of vital importance to the understanding of some diseases such as cancer. The traditional process of manual detection is usually tedious and inconsistent. This paper presents a microfluidic device integrated with microvalves for fluid control for the sorting of yeast cells using image processing algorithms and confirmation based on their fluorescent tag. The proposed device is completely automated, low cost and easy to implement in an academic research setting. Design details of the integrated microfluidic system are highlighted in this paper, along with experimental validation. Real time cell sorting was demonstrated with a cell detection rate of 12 cells per minute.

Modern dönem öncesinde Osmanlı İmparatorluğu, İslamın yanı sıra Ortodoks Hıristiyanlığı ve Yahudiliği de korunup kollanması gereken resmi dinler olarak kabul etmiştir. Bu çerçevede de bu dinlerin ibadethanelerinin yaşamlarını devam ettirebilmeleri için gerekli düzenlemeleri yapmıştır. Bu düzenlemelerin birisi de vakıflardır. Ne var ki Müslüman vakıflarındaki her türlü detayın kurgulandığı şekillenmeye karşın Ortodoks vakıfları böylesine detaylı örgülerle hayat bulmamıştır. Manastır emlakının hukuksal temelleri oldukça karışıktır. Manastırlara ait mülkiyetin kabul edilir pratik bir gerçek olmasına karşın vakıflarının mevcudiyeti ve yönetim şeması net olmayan bir yapıdadır. Balkanlarda olduğu gibi, Resmo'da da manastır vakıflarını kuruluş olarak ikiye ayırmak mümkündür. Birincisi; Venedik döneminde de manastırlara hapsedilmiş mülklerden oluşan, haleften intikal eden eski vakıflardır. İkincisi; Ortodoks reayanın, mallarını manastırlara vakfedip bu işlemi kadı mahkemesince onaylattıkları, İslam hukukuna göre kurulan yeni vakıflardı. Manastır vakıf topraklarının bir kısmı rahipler tarafından işletilmekte, bir kısmı başka kişi ortaklığı şeklinde işletilmekte bir kısmı ise özgür köylüye kiraya verilerek işletilmekte idi.

AimsThe ACE inhibitor captopril is frequently used for children suffering from hypertension and other conditions such as heart failure. In the EU, however, captopril is available only as a solid dosage form and a proportion of the tablet is required for a therapeutic effect in children. To avoid inaccurate dosing, captopril is formulated as extemporaneous aqueous preparations which suffer from short shelf lives because captopril undergoes oxidative dimerisation to the major degradation product captopril disulphide in aqueous solutions.1 Further, it may also be difficult for the child to swallow a whole solid dosage form.2 For these reasons captopril is usually dispensed as an extemporaneous (unlicensed) oral aqueous formulation made by pharmacies and Specials manufacturers.Given the fragmented and uncertain stability data, this abstract reports a factorial-designed experiment to investigate the effects and interactions of a number of potential variables (pH, captopril concentration and oxygen content) to predict and define precise conditions to achieve a stable product.MethodsParameters investigated included pH (citrate buffer at 3.5 and 5.5), drug concentration (0.75 mg/ml and 3.0 mg/ml), addition/absence of chelating agent (EDTA) and addition/absence of nitrogen purge (N2 Purge), yielding a total of 16 runs (24 design); the apparent first order rate constant (k1) was used as the response factor. Samples were stored under accelerated conditions (50°C) over 14 days and analysed using reversed phase High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC).ResultsStatistical analysis indicated that the main factors of pH, captopril concentration, chelating agent and N2 Purge all significantly influenced the oxidative degradation of captopril to some extent. The two –way interactions, pH×EDTA, pH×captopril concentration, EDTA×captopril concentration and N2 Purge×captopril were found to be significant. The only 3-way interaction found to be significant was pH×EDTA×captopril concentration. Surprisingly, the presence of EDTA was found to degrade captopril at both low and high pH. It is postulated that the addition of EDTA may sequester metal ions which otherwise could have a stabilising effect via a citrate-captopril-metal ion complex.3 The optimised formulation, with lowest degradation, was one which required a low pH (3.5), no EDTA, no N2 Purge and a high concentration of captopril (3.0 mg/ml), and yielded 95% accelerated stability at 50°C for 14 days.ConclusionsWhen developing paediatric formulations one of the many important considerations is to minimise the use of excipients. The fact that EDTA may not be required is an important finding since EDTA is potentially nephrotoxic in chronic conditions.4 Only by using factorial design can such latent complex interactions be identified.

The large scale synthesis of three orthogonally protected monosaccharide scaffolds suitable for use in the solid phase preparation of large diversity libraries is presented. Scaffolds based on 2-amino-2-deoxy-d-glucopyranose, 2-amino-2-deoxy-d-allopyranose, and 2,4-diamino-2,4-dideoxy-d-galactopyranose were prepared in good yield and with minimal chromatographic purification from commercially available methyl 2-azido-2-deoxy-1-thio-β-d-glucopyranose and methyl 2-amino-2-deoxy-1-thio-β-d-glucopyranose.

This paper introduces Online Alchemy’s Otello technology as a way to enable reputational capabilities beyond any found in games or other online social contexts today. This technology allows participants to quickly and easily assess another’s reputation in ways meaningful to them, and enables individuals -- both players and non-player characters (NPCs) -- to contribute to an individual’s reputation in unique and novel ways. Otello also enables new forms of 'relational gameplay' that feature social management, effectively an extension of resource management into the social realm. The player’s actions and opinions affect others, including how they see the player, and how ideas and opinions propagate through a population.