AIMS To determine the possibility of using guar gum, a colloidal polysaccharide, as a cheap alternative to agar for gelling microbial culture media. METHODS AND RESULTS As illustrative examples, 12 fungi and 11 bacteria were cultured on media solidified with either guar gum or agar. All fungi and bacteria exhibited normal growth and differentiation on the media gelled with guar gum. Microscop...

The aim of this clinical study was to investigate the acid resistance of enamel lesions remineralized in situ by a sugar-free chewing gum containing casein phosphopeptide-amorphous calcium phosphate nanocomplexes (CPP-ACP: Recaldent). The study utilized a double-blind, randomized, crossover design with two treatments: (i) sugar-free gum containing 18.8 mg of CPP-ACP, and (ii) sugar-free gum not...

A strategy for the unambiguous identification and selective quantification of xanthan gum and locust bean gum (LBG) in gelled food concentrates is presented. DNA detection by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) showed to be a fast, sensitive, and selective method that can be used as a first screening tool in intact gelled food concentrates. An efficient isolation procedure is described removing com...

This research work is aimed at decolourizing gum Arabic using activated charcoal so as to improve the quality of gum Arabic before the use of additives on the gum Arabic. The experiment was conducted on laboratory scale, the filter fixed bed method was used and the adsorbent (activated charcoal) is a granular of 500μm mesh size. The pH, viscosity and transmittance of each solution were measured...

Infectious haematopoietic necrosis virus (IHNV) is one of the most important viral pathogens of salmonids. In rainbow trout, IHNV isolates in the M genogroup are highly pathogenic, while U genogroup isolates are significantly less pathogenic. We show here that, at a multiplicity of infection (MOI) of 1, a representative U type strain yielded 42-fold less infectious virus than an M type strain i...

Based on these approaches, several types of medications, such as taste adulterants, stimulants, and tranquilizers have been tested as aids to smoking cessation (Kozlowski, in press; Raw 1978; Grabowski and Hall, this volume). Most of these medications have not been efficacious. Nicotine chewing gum is the exception (Hughes and Miller 1984). The major hypotheses to explain the efficacy of nicoti...

Our understanding of the composition of multi-clonal malarial infections and the epidemiological factors which shape their diversity remain poorly understood. Traditionally within-host diversity has been defined in terms of the multiplicity of infection (MOI) derived by PCR-based genotyping. Massively parallel, single molecule sequencing technologies now enable individual read counts to be deri...

Gum arabic is used throughout the world for various purposes including food additive and pharmaceutical excipient. The present study was undertaken to determine the effect of gum arabic on gastric ulcers in rats. The influence of gum arabic on the antiulcer activity of ranitidine, a known antiulcer drug was also evaluated. The antiulcer study was carried out in acetic acid induced chronic gastr...

Two experiments independently investigated the basis of the chewing gum induced context-dependent memory effect. At learning and/or recall, participants either chewed flavourless gum (Experiment 1) or received mint-flavoured strips (Experiment 2). No context-dependent memory effect was found with either flavourless gum or mint-flavoured strips, indicating that independently the contexts were in...

Any views expressed in this publication are those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of CIFOR, the authors' institutions or the financial sponsors of this publication. Contents Abbreviations vi Acknowledgements vii Foreword viii 1 Challenges and forest-based opportunities in the drylands of Ethiopia 1 1.1 Drylands of Ethiopia 1 1.2 Challenges facing the drylands of Ethi...