Cereal Chem. 94(1):11-31The United Nations has declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. Pulses are narrowly defined as leguminous crops that are harvested as dry seeds. Although some pulse crops are harvested green (e.g., green peas), these are classified as vegetables because the pods are often consumed along with the mature and sometimes immature seeds.Other dried legumes such as soybean and peanut meet the definition of being a leguminous crop that is harvested as dry seeds; however, these crops are grown primarily for oil content and, thus, are not categorized as pulses. There are hundreds of pulse varieties grown worldwide; these include, for example, dry edible beans, chickpeas, cowpeas, and lentils. This review will cover the proximate (e.g., protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals), and phytonutrient (e.g., polyphenolics and carotenoid) composition of dry edible beans, peas, lentils, and chickpeas. Soybean and peanuts will not be covered in this review. The effects of processing on composition will also be covered. The health benefits related to folates, fiber, and polyphenolics will be highlighted. The health benefits discussed will include cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and weight control. The current review will not cover antinutrient compounds; this topic will be covered in a separate review article published in the same issue. † Corresponding

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Controlling the size of silica nanoparticles (NPs) on a continuously variable scale was achieved by systematically varying the organic solvent(s) used in water-in-oil microemulsion synthesis. A number of individual as well as binary solvent mixtures were investigated for tuning silica NP size. The results demonstrated that the size of a silica NP was continuously tunable over as range of 20-100 nm by varying the alkane chain length of the organic solvent(s) being used. A simple physical model was proposed to describe the size effect and identify the principle factors needed for precisely controlling the size of a silica NP. In the model, the alkane chain length(s) of the organic solvent(s) primarily determined the average size of a silica NP when other synthetic conditions were fixed, whereas variance in size was affected by water droplet percolation with the precursor microemulsion. The significance and utility of these tunable silica NPs was evaluated for bioimaging applications. Specifically, dye-doped silica NPs of variable but precise size were used for in vitro contrast imaging of cells. The results demonstrated that precise control of silica NPs size can be used to reduce cytotoxicity, optimize luminescence signal intensity, and selectively discriminate between structures both inside and outside of cellular membranes.