Search

Previous research has suggested that athletes at risk of low energy availability can present with symptoms other than those traditionally expected and highlight the complexity of identifying individuals at risk. It is very important to recognize as early as possible the risk of low energy availability by evaluating the presence of symptoms which include menstrual and gastrointestinal dysfunction, injury history, as well as oral contraceptive use. This is especially so in aesthetic sports which require high levels of strength, power, and endurance as well as artistic skills to perform in different environments. This study aimed to verify possible links between low energy availability, eating disorders risks, and body dissatisfaction in aesthetic sports' adolescent athletes. Seventy-one female athletes (mean ± SD, age: 17.55±3.15 years; height: 169.70 ± 6.27 cm; weight: 58.75 ± 6.42 kg; training 13.79±6.71 hours/week) completed questionnaires: Low Energy Availability Questionnaire (LEAF-Q), Eating Attitudes Test (EAT), and Body Dissatisfaction Scale (BSQ). Results suggested that most of the examined female athletes fall into the normal range of BMI scores with regard to body mass and eating patterns, but there are athletes with very high scores on the questionnaires among them. No significant correlations were reported between low energy availability and other study variables, but EAT-26 and BSQ scores correlated significantly (r=.694, p

Alternaria mycotoxins are the secondary metabolites for which the regulations, as well as the standardization, are yet going to be established by the European Commission and the European Committee for Standardization. This paper describes the possibility to apply a "dilute-and-shoot" method for the determination of tentoxin, alternariol and alternariol monomethyl ether in wheat. The used chromatographic method was liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The strategy involves extraction the samples with the acetonitrile and water mixture (84/16, v/v), followed by the vortexing, centrifugation and filtration before the injection into the LC-MS/MS system. The recovery was assessed by analysis of spiked samples with a mixture of standard solutions of all three mycotoxins at two spiking levels (0.02 and 0.1 mg kg-1) in six replicates. The obtained average recoveries and precisions (expressed as the RSDr, %) for "dilute-and-shoot" method were 76.3% (RSDr of 6.47%) for alternariol, 105.2% (RSDr of 2.16%) for tentoxin, and 86.0% (RSDr of 3.91%) for alternariol monomethyl ether. All the obtained validation data were in accordance with the Commission Decision 2002/657/EC and Commission Regulation (EC) No 401/2006. The main advantages of the present method are the simple and easy sample preparation, along with the high-sensitivity detection.

The protection of onions from the weeds and their negative impact in the field production is one of the most important measures. The onion is exceptionally succeptible to the weeds, especially in the first phases of the growth, considering the weak initial growth of the crop in comparison with the weeds. The seasonal dynamics of the onion weeds is not so noticeable like with the other crops, while the weeds that appear most frequently are: Amaranthus blitoides, Ambrosia artemisiifolia, Chenopodium album, Cirsium arvense, Convolvulus arvensis, Cynodon dactylon, Datura stramonium, Portulaca oleracea, Setaria glauca and Stellaria media. The chemical control measures mean the herbicide use before or after the emergence of the crop and the weeds. Before the emergence the herbicides based on aclonifen and pendimethaline can be used, while after the emergence herbicides based on fluroxypir, clopyralid, fluazifop-P-butyl, clethodim, quizalofop-P-ethyl, quizalofop-P-tefuryl and propaquizafop are used.

This paper evaluates the occurrence of the TAs in 71 food products samples. The analysis comprised the following samples: 18 corn puffs, 12 popcorn, 16 corn and 25 corn grits samples, obtained from the shops in Belgrade and Novi Sad during 2019. and 2020. The overall number of the samples with the atropine and scopolamine detections below the LOQ was 61,97%. The percentage of the detection of the tropane alkaloids above the limit of quantification, which may have a negative effect on the health of humans and animals, was 29,57%. The atropine and scopolamine detections are equal in the number of corn puffs, popcorn and corn samples, while 7 samples of corn grits contained the atropine, and 6 of them contained the scopolamine. The highest mean concentrations of the atropine and scopolamine were detected in corn grits, followed by popcorn, then in the corn, while the lowest were in the corn puffs.

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the hydrolates obtained as the by-products of the

The interest in tropane alkaloids as food contaminants has been increasing. The tropane alkaloids are plant toxins that mainly occur in Atropa, Datura and Hyoscyamus sp belonging to the Solanaceae family. A sensitive and selective LC-MS/MS method was applied for the analysis of atropine and scopolamine in the mint tea samples from the Serbian market. Tea, which has beneficial properties thanks to the phenolic compounds, can be accidentally contaminated by many weed seeds which contain the tropane alkaloids during the harvest. Only the tropane alkaloids present in the tea bags before the tea making were analysed. Atropine and scopolamine were detected in 30% of the analysed samples in the concentration above the limit of quantification.

The limited number of permitted herbicides for the application in the crops of carrots, red beet, celery and parsnip, as well as the diversity of weeds occurring in these crops, make the successful weed control difficult, due to which the appli-cation of preventive measures is necessary to reduce the number of weeds in the fields during the vegetation as much as possible. The preventive measures include the use of mulch, as well as the application of the crop rotation. Currently, for the application in carrots several herbicides based on active substances pendimethalin, clethodim and propaquizafop have been registered:, for the application in red beets one herbicide based on metamitrone has been registered, while in case of parsnip and celery there are no registered herbicides in our country. Considering the grow-ing problem of the weed resistance to the herbicide, it is significant to recognize the necessity for the application of antiresistance strategy which encompasses: the rotation of herbicides with different modes of action, the minimum herbicides application, as well as the crop rotation.

The Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/840 established the watch list of substances for Union-wide monitoring in the field of water policy pursuant to Directive 2008/105/EC and Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2015/495. This Decision establishes additional substances and their maximum acceptable method detection limits including neonicotinoids (9-500 ng/L). During the pesticides extraction from water, the solid-phase extraction (SPE) column was used. Bakerbond spe™ SDB-1 SPE and Bond Elut Plexa were evaluated for the SPE of neonicotinoids (imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, acetamiprid, thiacloprid and clothianidin) from water. The comparation of the results of these two types of columns, was performed by spiking water samples at two levels (0.05 and 0.1 μg/L) in three replicates. The Bakerbond™ column quantitatively adsorbed these pesticides, with the obtained recoveries: 36.9 % for imidacloprid, 43.2 % for thiacloprid, 119.3 % for clothianidin, 64.6 % for acetamiprid and 53.6 % for thiamethoxam. Using Bond Elut Plexa the obtained recoveries were 66.9 % for imidacloprid, 72.9% for thiacloprid, 103.4 % for clothianidin, 67.4 % for acetamiprid and 45.2% for thiamethoxam. Both colums have low recovery values for thiametoxam, while the highest values were obtained by Bond Elut Plexa for thiacloprid, imidacloprid and acetamiprid. Great recoveries were achieved for clothianidin using both SPE columns.

Tropane alkaloids are considered to be serious health hazard for humans and that their maximum residue levels in food and feed are still not established. In this paper five samples of maize collected from the local producer in 2020 have been investigated by the liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) for the atropine and scopolamine determination. The detected concentrations of atropine and scopolamine were extremely high (17.7-67.0 μg/kg for atropine and 2.3-10.4 μg/kg for scopolamine). The obtained results show the seriousness of the tropane alkaloids problem in maize as well as the need for monitoring and further research.

Since the main components of essential oils are considered responsible for their biological activity, the chromatographic analysis of star anise essential oil was done. The identification of the essential oil compounds was carried out by matching their linear retention indices and MS spectra with those of authentic standards from MS library data bases. The main constituent was trans-anethole with 84.79% while 24 other constituents in total made less than 15.00% of the studied essential oil.

In this study, two series of hydrogels were synthesised with different molar ratio of glucose units of starch and citric acid. The advantage of using natural raw materials (starch and citric acid) for the synthesis of hydrogels lies in the fact that these raw materials are synthesised in nature, beneficial to human beings, easily degradable after use and harmless. The generated hydrogels and starting reactants were structurally characterised by applying the method of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). FTIR analysis shows that the synthesis reaction of hydrogels based on starch and citric acid rests upon the esterification reaction of carboxyl groups in citric acid with hydroxyl groups in starch. The residual amount of citric acid in synthesised hydrogels was determined under high pressure with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The values of unreacted citric acid range between 9.85 and 16.08%.The scanning electron microscopy was applied in the analysis of hydrogel morphology. The swelling of hydrogel was monitored at 25 °C in the solutions of pH values of 5, 7 and 9. The highest swelling degree (a=8.55) was achieved in water at pH 7 for the hydrogel synthesised with the smallest amount of citric acid as the cross-linker at the ratio of glucose units of starch and citric acid being 72. Hydrogels synthesised from such monomers are environmentally friendly and fully biodegradable.

The organic food is progressively enticing purchasers&rsquo, attention, as it is recognized to be better than the food produced by the conventional agriculture and more sustainable for the natural environment. Pesticides and their metabolites can enter the human body via food and water. In the food production, over 60 thousand chemical agents are applied, while 90% of the harmful substances are consumed. The organic production is based on the qualitative and healthy food using the natural resources in an ecologically sustainable way. The European Regulations set the maximum pesticide levels (MRLs) in the organic products, which are also regulated by The United States Department of Agriculture in their National program supported by The United States Environmental Protection Agency. It is imperative to bear in mind that in the products from the organic production, the multiple detections cannot be tolerated, i.e., that one product cannot contain more than two detected pesticide residues. In this paper, a multi-residue pesticide method has been developed to determine the pesticides in the agricultural products from the organic and conventional production. In this work, 60 pesticides were analyzed using a simple QuEChERS sample preparation procedure, followed by LC-MS/MS. The tomato, potato, apple, and carrot samples from the organic and conventional products were collected from the market and the pesticide residues assessment comparing the organic to the conventional was done.

The purpose of this experimental study was to determine the effects of a skill-based exercise program on the body composition of adolescents. The study was conducted on 90 participants, (age, 13±6 years), divided by gender then randomly assigned into two sub-samples: the experimental [SS1, N=39 (EG1, 19 girls and EG2, 20 boys)] and the control group [SS2, N=51 (CG1, 24 girls and CG2, 27 boys)]. Body composition parameters were assessed by a caliper (skinfold thickness) and bioelectrical impedance analyzer Omron BF511 (percentage of body fat tissue and muscle tissue). After conducting the 16-week program of skill-based exercises and small-sided games (SSG) related to volleyball, certain body composition parameters statistically significantly increased in the experimental groups (except body fat percent in girls, and body fat mass in both genders). In the experimental period, the SS2 increased in body fat tissue (both genders) and in muscle tissue (girls), while a decrease in muscle tissue was recorded among the boys. The results of this study showed no significant differences in the effects of the two programs on body composition at the multivariate level for both genders. Furthermore, at the univariate level it was noted that the students following the experimental program (SS1) had better results compared to the SS2 of students in terms of the decrease of body fat tissue, as well as the increase of muscle tissue for both genders. The obtained results indicate that the program of skill-based exercises and SSG related to volleyball is suitable for adequate intensification of PE classes and improvement of body composition parameters of elementary school students.

Summary The undemanding LC-MS/MS method was developed for the synchronized analysis of atropine and scopolamine in maize crop. The dSPE was carried out with 1% acetic acid in acetonitrile/water and a mixture of magnesium sulphate, sodium chloride and sodium citrate. The analytes were separated on a Zorbax XDB C18 column using methanol/water as the mobile phase in gradient mode. The detection was done using a tandem masss spectrometry (MS/MS) in the positive ESI. The tropane alkaloids exhibited excellent linearity in the range of 2-20 µg/kg with the LOQ of 5 µg/kg for maize. The extraction recoveries of atropine and scopolamine were 65.7 and 85.5% with the intraday RSDr 10.25 and 4.29%, respectively. The validated method was appled to real maze samples. One sample contained 18.8 µg/kg of atropine and 6.3 µg/kg of scopolamine.