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Purple sweet potato (PSP) is widely grown in Asia and considered as a healthy vegetable. The objective of the current study was to determine the anti-obesity effect of the PSP on high fat diet induced obese C57BL/6J mice. The mice were administrated with high fat diet supplemented with the sweet potato (SP) or PSP at the concentration of 15% and 30% for 12 wk, respectively. The results showed that the supplementation of SP or PSP at 30% significantly ameliorated high fat diet induced obesity and its associated risk factors, including reduction of body weight and fat accumulation, improvement of lipid profile and modulation of energy expenditure. Moreover, PSP also posed beneficial effect on the liver and kidney functions. These results indicate that PSP and SP have anti-obesity effect and are effective to reduce the metabolic risk.

The extraction condition of curcumin from Curcuma longa L was optimized through four factors and three levels orthogonal experiment based on the results of single factor tests. Under the optimal conditions: the concentration of ethanol 80%, extraction temperature 70 • C, the ratio of liquid to material 20, and extraction time 3 h, a crude extract with the yield of curcumin 56.8 mg/g could be obtained. The isolation and purification of curcuminoids from the crude extract was performed on high performance counter current chromatography employing an optimized solvent system nhexane/ethyl acetate/methanol/water (2/3/3/1, v/v/v/v). From 97 mg crude sample (in which the purity of curmumin was 68.56%), 67 mg curmumin, 18 mg demethoxycurcumin, and 9.7 mg bisdemethoxycurcumin with a high-performance liquid chromatography purity of 98.26, 97.39, and 98.67%, respectively, were obtained within 70 min. The antioxidant activities and cytotoxicity of purified curcumin was comparable to that of the commercial product, indicating that the biological activity of curcumin could be maintained by this method.

DSC and TG/DTG were performed to investigate the thermal kinetic performance and thermal safety of 3,3'bis-oxadiazole-5,5'-bis-methylene dinitrate (BODN) under a non-isothermal condition. The results reveal that the thermal behavior of BODN can be divided into three stages including a melting endothermic process and two decomposition exothermic processes. The apparent activation energy (E) and pre-exponent parameters (A) of the first exothermic decomposition reaction are 147.45 kJ mol À 1 and 10 13.77 s À 1 , and its kinetic equation was obtained from the DSC curves. The self-accelerating decomposition temperatures (T SADT), thermal ignition temperatures (T TIT), and critical temperatures of the thermal explosion (T b) to evaluate its thermal stability and safety are 166.41°C, 178.09°C, and 204.47°C, respectively. The positive values of free energy of activation (ΔG ¼ 6 = 135.49 kJ mol À 1) indicate that the decomposition process of BODN must proceed under the heating condition.

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