Dracocephalum moldavica L. has been used as both treatment of coronary heart disorders and food supplements. In the present study, determination of total phenolic and flavonoid content in methanol, ethanol and methanol/ethanol extracts of leaf was studied in Iranian Moldavian balm for the first time. Antioxidant activity of the studied plant was also measured. The methanol extract had the highest phenolic and flavonoid content, anthocyanin, DPPH and H2O2 radical scavenging activity. The ethanol extract showed the least amount of all. The methanol/ethanol extract showed the highest amount in two oxides including nitric and superoxide radical scavenging activities; it also showed the highest Ferric Reducing Ability Power. The obtained chromatograms of the plant using High Performance Liquid Chromatography showed that the highest and the lowest found phenolic compounds were caffeic acid and vanilic acid, respectively. The results show that this plant is a suitable natural antioxidant to reduce the oxidative stress in human being.

High vacuum steam distillation, simultaneous distillation extraction, steam distillation, purge and trap methods are used for sample preparation in volatile component analysis. Since these methods are difficult and costly to implement, these methods have left their place to the solid phase microextraction technique. Extraction conditions such as extraction temperature, extraction time, sample volume and fiber type should be optimized in order to increase the efficiency of extraction in volatile component analysis with solid phase microextraction in foods. In the optimization of extraction conditions in volatile component analysis of foods, studies have been carried out to utilize the response surface method, which reduces the number of experiments and also examines the interaction effect of the independent variables. In this review, it is aimed to give information about current studies using response surface methodology in optimization of volatile compound analysis of foods using solid phase microextraction technique.

This study was conducted to determine the effects of Bayvarol®, Fumidil-B®, Neo-Terramycin® on adult honeybee lifespan. Total twenty honeybee colonies were used and randomly divided into four groups (each group consisted of five colonies). Experimental groups: Bayvarol ®, Fumidil-B® and Neo-Terramycin® were treated to first, second and third groups, respectively. No treatment was done to forth group taken as control group. A hundred one day old worker bees were taken from each group and marked with different colors and numbered on the thorax. After the marked, all worker bees were given into the observation hive. Marked worker bees were controlled and counted daily. Statistical analysis of data was done by variance analysis method and between groups comparisons were done with Duncan's multiple range tests. Average lifespans of the first, second, third and control groups were 44.97±4.90, 46.86±6.56, 45.38±6.12 and 47.72±6.06 days, respectively. There were found statistically significant differences among average lifespan of first, second, third and control groups. This study showed that some drugs used to treat diseases and pests reasoned a negative effect on the lifespan of honeybees.

In this paper, we investigate the causal relationship in terms of labor productivity among GDP and its constituent three main sectors, e.g. agricultural, industrial and services sectors, in Turkey for the period of 1988-2015. In the study we employed Granger causality/block exogeneity Wald test, Impulse Response and Variance Decomposition analysis. The results showed that both agriculture and industry have positive effects on the labor productivity in services sector, and industry has a positive effect on the labor productivity in agriculture sector, while industrial labor productivity is not affected by the others. The main aim of the paper is examine the question of whether agriculture could serve as an engine of growth. Accordingly, the results indicated that labor productivity in agriculture sector increased during the course of study, and contributed to the labor productivity in services sector, as well. To our knowledge, although this method has been applied in various areas, sectoral causality has not been studied for Turkey before.

The aim of this work was to evaluate the phenolic profiles and anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and gastro-protective activities of Cnicus benedictus L., a type of milk thistle cultivated in Turkey. The total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging activity was measured to determine antioxidant capacity. The anti-urease and anti-xanthine oxidase activities were used to determine the gastro-protective and anti-inflammatory potential of the plant extracts, respectively. The TPC was 337.40 and 635.10 mg of gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/100 g and TFC was 41.05 -119.12 mg of quercetin equivalents (QE)/100 g in the root and leaf extracts, respectively. The root and leaf extracts of Cnicus benedictus L., were exhibited different inhibition values against both of the enzymes. The inhibition effect of the both enzymes were calculated as IC50 (mg/mL) in terms of 50% inhibition of the enzymes. The xanthine oxidase activity of the leaf and root was 18.53 and 19.75 mg/mL and the urease activity were 2.29 mg/mL and 11.53 mg/mL, respectively. Fifteen phenolic compounds were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC-UV). Vanillic, silibinin B, ferulic acid and rutin were found major amount of the plant. In conclusion, the plant have high potential beneficial nutraceuticals and consumption of the together with its roots and leafs will be beneficial in terms of nutrition.

Chloropropanols are known as undesired food contaminants liberated during the processing of various food products. When the adverse effects of chloropropanols, especially 3-monochloropropane-1,2-diol (3-MCPD), 2-monochloropropane-1,3-diol (2-MCPD) and glycidols along with their esters were first understood, the studies about the detection and mitigation of these compounds were accelerated. 3-MCPD, which was detected in food products in higher amounts when compared to other chloropropanols, usually occurs during refining process of vegetable oils, especially in deodorisation step. The novel methods in terms of the analysis of 3-MCPD and other chloropropanols are continuously updated. However, there are two basic methods today namely direct and indirect methods. Direct methods enable to detect all of the esters individually, yet, due to the necessity of a huge number of reference standards, indirect methods are currently more preferred. The first essential step of reducing chloropropanols in food products is to determine the proper analysis method. In this review, general information, new developments in analysis methods, mitigation studies and the toxigolocial data about various chloropropanols were summarized.

The study was conducted on farmers' field in sofi district of Harari Regional State during 2013/2014 main cropping season, eastern Ethiopia, to investigate the impact of brewery sludge on sorghum production and soil fertility. The treatments comprised seven levels of brewery sludges (0, 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, 10.0, 12.5 and 15.0 t ha-1) and NP inorganic fertilizer at recommended rate, arranged in randomized complete block design with four replications. Application of brewery sludge at 15 t ha-1 significantly increased the yield and biomass yield of sorghum by 79 and 85% over control and by 57 and 67% over NP application, respectively. There was no effect of brewery sludge application on heavy metals concentrations in soil after crop harvest, compared to international standard tolerable level. Co and Se levels were high in the control as well as in the soils treated with brewery sludge indicating the already high concentration of these heavy metals in the soils of the area. Plots, which received higher brewery sludge application, resulted in decreased or less percentage of grain nitrogen content showing the independence of grain protein content on lower brewery sludge level. The nitrogen uptake by sorghum grain, straw and the total was maximum (52.68, 44.25 and 79.03 kg ha-1, respectively) with the application of brewery waste sludge at 10 and 15 t ha-1 which were significantly higher than the other brewery sludge and NP mineral fertilizer applications.

Bu çalışmada, Sivas kent merkezinde tavukçuluk ürünleri tüketim değerlerini ve bunun üzerine etki eden faktörleri belirlemek amacıyla 461 aile ile yüz yüze anket uygulaması yapılmıştır. Katılımcıların %85,5’i aktif yaş grubu olarak kabul edilen 18-54 yaş aralığında yer almaktadır. Lise ve Yüksekokul mezunlarının toplamı %68,7 olarak bulunmuştur. Aylık gıda gideri bakımından gelir grupları arasında gözlenen farklılık önemli, ortalama aylık gıda gideri 595,44 TL olarak hesaplanmıştır. Aylık gıda giderleri içerisinde tavukçuluk ürünlerin oranı bakımından da gelir grupları arasında önemli farklılıklar belirlenmiş olup, katılımcıların ortalaması %10,49 olarak belirlenmiştir. Aylık hane halkı yumurta tüketim değerleri bakımından gelir gruplarında gözlenen farklılık önemli, hane halkı aylık ortalama yumurta tüketimi 34,47 Adet/Ay, kişi başına yıllık yumurta tüketimi 123,40 Adet/Yıl olarak hesaplanmıştır. Aylık hane halkı tavuk eti tüketim değerleri bakımından gelir grupları arasında gözlenen farklılık önemli bulunmuş, aylık hane halkı tavuk eti tüketimi ortalama 4,13 Kg/Ay olmasına karşılık, kişi başı yıllık tavuk eti tüketim değeri ortalama olarak 14,89 Kg/Yıl olarak belirlenmiştir. Tavuk eti tüketimi üzerine Aile gelir seviyesi, Aile birey sayısı ve meslek grupları etkili olurken, yumurta tüketimi üzerine bu faktörler ile birlikte eğitim düzeyleri de etkili olmuştur.

Edible mushrooms are one of the important food source because of their tastes, and having high concentration of fatty acids and the other nutrients. In this study, fatty acid composition and antioxidant properties of Tricholoma imbricatum and T. focale were determined. The fatty acids were analysed by GC, and GC-MS while the antioxidant activity was tested using five complimentary methods; namely, β-carotene-linoleic acid, DPPH scavenging, ABTS scavenging, CUPRAC and metal chelating assays. Eight fatty acids were determined in hexane extract, and oleic acid was the major fatty acid with 46.4% and 35.0%, respectively. Palmitic acid (12.8%, and 5.12%) and lineloic acid (28.2% and 31.0%) were also detected in high amounts. In DPPH.scavenging and ABTS·+ scavenging assays, the methanol extract of T. imbricatum (IC50: 0.12±0.01 mg/mL for both assay) showed better antioxidant activity than those of T. focale (IC50>0.8±0.01, and IC50: 0.21±0.01 mg/mL). All extracts of T. focale exhibited good activity in β-carotene-linoleic acid assay while only the hexane extract of T. imbricatum showed activity. Both mushroom indicated moderate in cupric reducing power. Since the mushrooms are nontoxic and edible, both can be used in food industry as preservatives.

Ethiopian agriculture is a vulnerable sector from effects of climate variability. This study identified how strong is the effect of climate variability on smallholders’ crop income in Central highlands and Arssi grain plough farming systems of the country. The unbalanced panel data (1994-2014) of the study collected for eight rounds analysed through fixed effect regression. The model result shows that successive increment of crop season rainfall keeping the temperature constant has negative and significant effect on households’ crop income in the study area. The crop income responds similarly for temperature increment if the rainfall remains constant. Given this, simultaneous increment of the two climate related inputs has positive and significant effect on crop income. Other variables like flood, frost, storm, and rainfall inconsistency in the onset and cessation time affected households’ crop income negatively and significantly. Similarly, draught power and human labour, which are critical inputs in the crop production of Ethiopian smallholders, have positive and significant effect on crop income as to the model result. Thus, this study recommended that there should be supplementing the rainfall through irrigation, check dam and other activities to have consistent water supply for the crop production that enable smallholders to collect better income. Additionally, negative effect of temperature increment should be curved through adopting long lasting strategies like afforestation.