Phytic acid, a naturally occurring compound predominantly found in cereals and legumes, is the focus of this review. This review investigates its distribution across various food sources, elucidating its dual roles in foods. It also provides new insights into the change in phytic acid level during food storage and the evolving trends in phytic acid management. Although phytic acid can function as a potent color stabilizer, flavor enhancer, and preservative, its antinutritional effects in foods restrict its applications. In terms of management strategies, numerous treatments for degrading phytic acid have been reported, each with varying degradation efficacies and distinct mechanisms of action. These treatments encompass traditional methods, biological approaches, and emerging technologies. Traditional processing techniques such as soaking, milling, dehulling, heating, and germination appear to effectively reduce phytic acid levels in processed foods. Additionally, fermentation and phytase hydrolysis demonstrated significant potential for managing phytic acid in food processing. In the future, genetic modification, due to its high efficiency and minimal environmental impact, should be prioritized to downregulate the biosynthesis of phytic acid. The review also delves into the biosynthesis and metabolism of phytic acid and elaborates on the mitigation mechanism of phytic acid using biotechnology. The challenges in the application of phytic acid in the food industry were also discussed. This study contributes to a better understanding of the roles phytic acid plays in food and the sustainability and safety of the food industry.

The aim of this study was to formulate and optimize by statistical means mucoadhesive and biodegradable sponge-like inserts loaded with voriconazole (VCZ) which increases the contact time of the drug with the eye and sustain its release from the formula in a controlled manner. This avoids the pulsed effect reported for the drug suspension and results in reducing the number of drug instillations in the eye with the result of enhancing the patient compliance. Also, the sponge like nature of the insert reduces the foreign body sensation caused by other ocular solid dosage forms. They were prepared using casting/freeze-drying technique using five polymers namely high molecular weight chitosan (CH), sodium alginate (AL), sodium carboxy methyl cellulose (CMC), gellan gum (GG) and xanthan gum (XG). The prepared inserts were subjected to evaluations of their visual appearance, weight variation, drug content, surface pH, in-vitro release (percent drug released after 1h (Q1 (%)), mean dissolution time (MDT) and dissolution efficiency (DE)) in addition to kinetic analysis of the release data, water uptake, mucoadhesion and rheology of the forming plain polymer solution at the maximum rate of shear. The independent variables of the D-optimal factorial design were the polymer type and concentration while Q1 (%), MDT, DE, % water uptake after 15 minutes and rheology at the maximum rate of shear were chosen as dependant variables. The performed optimization process using design expert software showed an optimum formula consisting of 2 % GG. It showed slow release behavior compared to the drug suspension. FTIR and DSC studies showed that there is no interaction between VCZ and GG. The optimum formula has good in-vitro mucoadhesive properties and pH in the safe ocular range. Moreover, it showed promising in-vivo results of rapid hydration and gelling in addition to good mucoadhesive behavior when instilled in the eye, high ocular safety and biocompatibility, sustained antifungal activity in comparison to the drug suspension and finally biodegradation. So, it may be taken into consideration as an outstanding carrier for the ocular delivery of VCZ. © 2023

With the rapid advancement of wind power technology, the importance of lower operating costs and improved real-time control capabilities for offshore wind turbines (OWT) has increased. Nonlinear Economic Model Predictive Control (NEMPC) has gained attention due to its effective balancing of economic objectives. However, implementing real-time control for OWTs faces challenges due to their strong nonlinearity. This study proposes a convex NEMPC (CNEMPC) by incorporating variable transformation to account for the instantaneous energy stored in OWTs. The CNEMPC includes a set of convex constraints and aims to maximize power generation while minimizing fatigue loads on system components like the tower and gearbox. A newly designed moving horizon estimator provides an initial state estimation for the CNEMPC. Real-time iteration of the CNEMPC is achieved by leveraging the similarity of nonlinear programs between adjacent sampling moments. The effectiveness of the proposed control strategy is verified using a 5 MW OWT as the simulation target.

Three-dimensional point-cloud data has been enormously abundant with the emergence of 3D data acquisition, processing, and visualization technologies. Encryption algorithms have been recently introduced to ensure secure storage and communication for this type of data. Maintaining algorithmic correctness and the geometric stability are still key challenges towards the construction of reliable, trustful, and practical ciphers of 3D point clouds. To address these challenges, Jolfaei et al. (2015) proposed a 3D object encryption algorithm along with geometric notions of dimensional and spatial stability. However, these notions are not consistent, and the geometric stability and correctness of that algorithm are not guaranteed as we show through counterexamples. In this paper, we introduce two enhanced ciphers with correctness, reversibility, and geometric stability guarantees. These ciphers employ chaotic permutations with hyperchaotic maps of highly complex behavior for enhanced security. The permutation scheme ensures the creation of consistent solvable equations for the decryption stage. Also, an enhanced 3D point rotation scheme is proposed to ensure geometric stability. The soundness and significance of the proposed ciphers are demonstrated by rigorous mathematical proofs. As well, extensive experimentation and comparisons against state-of-the-art methods are demonstrated through similarity analysis based on the Hausdorff and Euclidean distances, analysis of the sensitivity to plaintext and key perturbations, and analysis of the robustness to statistical attacks.

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