The present study was undertaken to develop biscuits from the composite flours. Composite flours were prepared by blending wheat flour with rice flour, green gram flour and potato flour in ratios of 100:0:0:0 (W 100 ), 85:5:5:5 (W 85 ), 70:10:10:10 (W 70 ) and 55:15:15:15 (W 55 ), respectively. The functional properties of composite flours such as swelling capacity, water absorption capacity, oil absorption capacity, emulsion activity, emulsion stability, foam capacity, foam stability, gelatinization temperature, least gelation concentration and bulk density were increased with increase in the incorporation of other flours with wheat flour. Overall acceptability for composite flour biscuits was awarded highest score for W 55 followed by W 70 and W 85 as compared to control biscuits. All biscuits coincided in the range of 'like moderately' to 'like very much' for composite flours biscuits while 'like slightly' to like moderately' for control biscuits.

This study elucidated the role of boeravinone B, a NorA multidrug efflux pump inhibitor, in biofilm inhibition. The effects of boeravinone B plus ciprofloxacin, a NorA substrate, were evaluated in NorA-overexpressing, wild-type, and knocked-out Staphylococcus aureus (SA-1199B, SA-1199, and SA-K1758, respectively). The mechanism of action was confirmed using the ethidium bromide accumulation and efflux assay. The role of boeravinone B as a human P-glycoprotein (P-gp) inhibitor was examined in the LS-180 (colon cancer) cell line. Moreover, its role in the inhibition of biofilm formation and intracellular invasion of S. aureus in macrophages was studied. Boeravinone B reduced the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of ciprofloxacin against S. aureus and its methicillin-resistant strains; the effect was stronger in SA-1199B. Furthermore, time–kill kinetics revealed that boeravinone B plus ciprofloxacin, at subinhibitory concentration (0.25 × MIC), is as equipotent as that at the MIC level. This combination also had a reduced mutation prevention concentration. Boeravinone B reduced the efflux of ethidium bromide and increased the accumulation, thus strengthening the role as a NorA inhibitor. Biofilm formation was reduced by four–eightfold of the minimal biofilm inhibitory concentration of ciprofloxacin, effectively preventing bacterial entry into macrophages. Boeravinone B effectively inhibited P-gp with half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of 64.85 μM. The study concluded that boeravinone B not only inhibits the NorA-mediated efflux of fluoroquinolones but also considerably inhibits the biofilm formation of S. aureus. Its P-gp inhibition activity demonstrates its potential as a bioavailability and bioefficacy enhancer.

Ordinary differential equations (ODEs) with fractional order derivatives are infinite dimensional systems and nonlocal in time: the history of the state variable is needed to calculate the instantaneous rate of change. This nonlocal nature leads to expensive long-time computations (O(t 2 ) computations for solution up to time t). A finite dimensional approximation of the fractional order derivative can alleviate this problem. We present one such approximation using a Galerkin projection. The original infinite dimensional system is replaced with an equivalent infinite dimensional system involving a partial differential equation (PDE). The Galerkin projection reduces the PDE to a finite system of ODEs. These ODEs can be solved cheaply (O(t) computations). The shape functions used for the Galerkin projection are important, and given attention. The approximation obtained is specific to the fractional order of the derivative; but can be used in any system with a derivative of that order. Calculations with both global shape functions as well as finite elements are presented. The discretization strategy is improved in a few steps until, finally, very good performance is obtained over a user-specifiable frequency range (not including zero). In particular, numerical examples are presented showing good performance for frequencies varying over more than 7 orders of magnitude. For any discretization held fixed, however, errors will be significant at sufficiently low or high frequencies. We discuss why such asymptotics may not significantly impact the engineering utility of the method.

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