Yerba Mate, derived from the leaves of the tree, Ilex paraguariensis, is widely-used as a tea or as an ingredient in formulated foods. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of Yerba Mate extract on weight loss, obesity-related biochemical parameters, and diabetes in high-fat diet-fed mice.To this end, by using in vivo animal models of dietary-induced obesity, we have made the interesting observations that Yerba Mate has the ability to decrease the differentiation of pre-adipocytes and to reduce the accumulation of lipids in adipocytes, both of which contribute to a lower growth rate of adipose tissue, lower body weight gain, and obesity. Our data from in vivo studies revealed that Yerba Mate treatment affects food intake, resulting in higher energy expenditure, likely as a result of higher basal metabolism in Yerba Mate-treated mice. Furthermore, in vivo effects of Yerba Mate on lipid metabolism included reductions in serum cholesterol, serum triglycerides, and glucose concentrations in mice that were fed a high fat diet. In conclusion, Yerba Mate can potentially be used to treat obesity and diabetes.

We synthesized molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) which can selectively separate carbamazepine (CMZ) as a pharmaceutically active compound by using supercritical fluid technology in supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO 2 ), and also evaluated the adsorption properties of the prepared CMZ imprinted polymers (CMZ-IPs). CMZIPs is prepared with methacrylic acid (MAA) as a functional monomer, CMZ as a template, and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as a crosslinking agent. The binding characteristics of CMZ-IPs are evaluated using equilibrium binding experiments. The adsorption ability in aqueous solution of CMZ-IPs was investigated by HPLC analysis, measuring the adsorbed amounts for the template and its structural analogue, the selectivity factor (α), and the imprintinginduced promotion of binding (IPB). The adsorption properties with the change of pH and temperature of aqueous solution were also examined. The results of the evaluation analysis indicate that the prepared CMZ-IPs have high selectivity (102, 94, 75 and 44 µmol/g) and separation abilities.

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For the interoperability of heterogeneous information management systems, schema mapping approaches have been used to build a unified view. The schema mapping approach offers full transparencies and is very powerful from the user's point of view. However, the traditional mapping approach needs to be strengthened for information management systems that have non-traditional data types, no schema, or incompatible schemas. We have incorporated numerous concepts and constructs associated with the knowledge and object-oriented paradigm such as abstract views with a set of procedures, encapsulation, inheritance and class composition hierarchies to resolve the above problem. This extension also accommodates the ability to determine and explicitly represent the semantics in the schema. Additionally, we have outlined a query processing method using the unified view. We are currently developing a prototype to support seamless access to structured data and unstructured data managed by different information management systems.