Petit vert (scientific name: Brassica oleracea var. gemmifera DC. × Brassica oleracea var. acephala DC.) is a new variety of vegetable created by crossbreeding kale and brussels sprouts (Brassica oleracea species). The present study aimed to identify biologically active compounds in extracts of the outer leaves of Petit vert by purification and to examine their biological activities. Dried and powdered outer leaves of Petit vert were extracted, fractionated, and purified to isolate active compounds. Nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometries were performed to elucidate the structures of five compounds (1‒5). The compounds isolated from Petit vert leaves were glycosides that contained kaempferol, quercetin (flavonol), or sinapinic acid (phenylpropanoid).　Glucose uptake in cultured C2C12 murine myoblasts in the absence of insulin was significantly increased by these compounds, kaempferol, sinapic acid, and ferulic acid, while that in the presence of insulin was also significantly increased by compounds 3 and 4, kaempferol, and sinapic acid. The present study reports for the first time the isolation of five compounds containing sinapic acid from the outer leaves of Petit vert and their stimulation of glucose uptake in cultured C2C12 murine myoblasts. The results obtained herein suggest the potential of these compounds to effectively attenuate hyperglycemia and maintain muscle strength by promoting glucose metabolism in muscle cells.

The historical idea of entropy as a property of a body has been reviewed and shown to arise from Clausius’s view of heat as motion. This view of heat, being intermediate between the now defunct idea of heat as substance and the modern view that heat represents an exchange of energy, implied that a body contains a definite quantity of heat. Heat, and therefore entropy, was thus considered a property of a body. These ideas led Clausius to develop his famous inequality and the idea that entropy always increases in irreversible, non-cyclic processes. In this paper, the notion of the entropy as a property of a body is examined in detail. A physical meaning is attached to the thermodynamic entropy by showing that a change in the function Q/T can be understood as representing a change in the number of ways that energy can be distributed among the degrees of freedom active in the system at any given temperature. The idea is illustrated with reference to solids and simple liquids. It is shown that the total thermodynamic entropy is, in general, less than the Boltzmann entropy, except for the case of a monatomic classical ideal gas in which the number of degrees of freedom is independent of temperature. Finally, entropy as a state function is discussed. It is argued that this is entirely mathematical in nature and that the entropy of a state represented in p-V space is not equivalent to a physical property of a physical system in the same thermodynamic state.

New data obtained from core samples of two boreholes in Alba Guyot in the Magellan Seamount Trail (MST), Western Pacific, including 40Ar/39Ar age of basanite, mineralogy of basanite, tuff, tuffite, mantle-derived inclusions in basanite and tuff (lherzolite xenolith and Ol, Cpx, Opx xenocrysts), and calcareous nannofossils biostratigraphy, have implications for the guyot history. Volcanics in the upper part of the Alba Guyot main edifice and its Oma Vlinder satellite, at sea depths between 3600 and 2200 m, were deposited during the Cretaceous 112 to 86 Ma interval. In the following ~60 myr, the Alba Guyot became partly submerged, and denuded with the formation of a flat summit platform while the respective fragment of the Pacific Plate was moving to the Northern Hemisphere. Volcanic activity in the northeastern part of the guyot summit platform rejuvenated in the Miocene (24–15 Ma) and produced onshore basanitic volcanoes and layers of tuff in subaerial and tuffite in shallow-water near-shore conditions. In Middle-Late Miocene (10–6 Мa), after the guyot had submerged, carbonates containing calcareous nannofossils were deposited on the porous surfaces of tuff and tuffite. Precipitation of the Fe-Mn crust (Unit III) recommenced during the Pliocene-Pleistocene (< 1.8 Mа) when the guyot summit reached favorable sea depths. The location of the MST guyots in the northwestern segment of the Pacific Plate near the Mariana Trench, along with the Miocene age and alkali-basaltic signatures of basanite, provide evidence for petit-spot volcanism on the Alba Guyot. This inference agrees with the geochemistry of Cenozoic petit-spot basaltic rocks from the Pacific and Miocene basanite on the Alba Guyot. The numerous volcanic cones reaching up to 750 m high and 5.1 km in base diameter, which were discovered on the Alba summit platform, provide the first evidence of voluminous Miocene petit-spot basanitic volcanism upon the Cretaceous guyots and seamounts of the Pacific.