Optimisation and Validation of a Nutritional Intervention to Enhance Sleep Quality and Quantity.

BACKGROUND: Disturbed sleep may negatively influence physical health, cognitive performance, metabolism, and general wellbeing. Nutritional interventions represent a potential non-pharmacological means to increase sleep quality and quantity. OBJECTIVE: (1) Identify an optimal suite of nutritional ingredients and (2) validate the effects of this suite utilising polysomnography, and cognitive and balance tests. METHODS: The optimal and least optimal combinations of six ingredients were identified utilising 55 male participants and a Box-Behnken predictive model. To validate the model, 18 healthy, male, normal sleepers underwent three trials in a randomised, counterbalanced design: (1) optimal drink, (2) least optimal drink, or (3) placebo were provided before bed in a double-blinded manner. Polysomnography was utilised to measure sleep architecture. Cognitive performance, postural sway, and subjective sleep quality, were assessed 30 min after waking. RESULTS: The optimal drink resulted in a significantly shorter sleep onset latency (9.9 ± 12.3 min) when compared to both the least optimal drink (26.1 ± 37.4 min) and the placebo drink (19.6 ± 32.0 min). No other measures of sleep, cognitive performance, postural sway, and subjective sleep quality were different between trials. CONCLUSION: A combination of ingredients, optimised to enhance sleep, significantly reduced sleep onset latency. No detrimental effects on sleep architecture, subjective sleep quality or next day performance were observed.

Synthesis of quenchable amorphous diamond.

Diamond owes its unique mechanical, thermal, optical, electrical, chemical, and biocompatible materials properties to its complete sp 3-carbon network bonding. Crystallinity is another major controlling factor for materials properties. Although other Group-14 elements silicon and germanium have complementary crystalline and amorphous forms consisting of purely sp 3 bonds, purely sp 3-bonded tetrahedral amorphous carbon has not yet been obtained. In this letter, we combine high pressure and in situ laser heating techniques to convert glassy carbon into "quenchable amorphous diamond", and recover it to ambient conditions. Our X-ray diffraction, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and electron energy-loss spectroscopy experiments on the recovered sample and computer simulations confirm its tetrahedral amorphous structure and complete sp 3 bonding. This transparent quenchable amorphous diamond has, to our knowledge, the highest density among amorphous carbon materials, and shows incompressibility comparable to crystalline diamond.Diamond's properties are dictated by its crystalline, fully tetrahedrally bonded structure. Here authors synthesize a bulk sp 3-bonded amorphous form of carbon under high pressure and temperature, show that it has bulk modulus comparable to crystalline diamond and that it can be recovered under ambient conditions.

Interactions of titania based nanoparticles with silica and green-tea: Photo-degradation and -luminescence.

An effective way to modify the photocatalytic activity of both anatase and rutile TiO2 nanoparticles by coating the surface with either an inorganic (SiO2/silica) or organic (green-tea) layer using a chemical approach is demonstrated. Tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) was used to cover the surface of TiO2 with silica which facilitates the inhibition of photocatalytic activity, ensuring its application in sunscreens by blocking the reactive oxygen species (ROS). Green-tea extract, rich in epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), was used to coat/stabilize nano-sized TiO2. The morphology of these coatings was revealed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and by energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) mapping. These studies showed good coverage for both types of coating, but with somewhat better uniformity of the coating layer on rutile TiO2 compared to anatase due to its more uniform particle geometry. The effectiveness of each coating was evaluated by photodegradation of an organic dye (methyl orange). These studies showed rutile_polyphenol exhibits the highest photocatalytic activity among rutile forms which validates its feasibility to be used in photodegradation.