Influence of granulation process parameters on food tablet properties formulated using natural powders (Opuntia ficus and Chlorella spp.)

In this research two natural health supplements, cactus flour (Opuntia ficus) and microalgae biomass (Chlorella spp.) have been examined as novel ingredients to formulate health supplement tablets. The physical and mechanical properties of the pure powders were quantified, and their ability to be tableted directly without additional processing was investigated. High-shear wet granulation (HSWG) was explored to improve the flowability and compression characteristics of the powders. Using an L9 Taguchi experimental design, the effect of critical process parameters of HSWG was examined on quality attributes of tablets. Tablets were successfully formulated without the addition of excipients following wet granulation. Consistent and acceptable quality tablets were produced based on the optimal processing conditions determined by L9 Taguchi design. The tablet tensile strength achieved was 0.91 ± 0.05 MPa with a disintegration time < 30 min and a friability value of 0.05 ± 0.02%. The tablets obtained in the present study are comparable with commercial available natural supplement tablets in terms of disintegration time, friability and tensile strength. The research provided a basis for the potential use of Cactus (Opuntia spp.) and microalgae (Chlorella sp.) powders as novel ingredients for the development of dietary supplements tablets, and to be used as excipients for the production of pharmaceutical tablets

Talaromyces atroroseus, a new species efficiently producing industrially relevant red pigments

Some species of Talaromyces secrete large amounts of red pigments. Literature has linked this character to species such as Talaromyces purpurogenus, T. albobiverticillius, T. marneffei, and T. minioluteus often under earlier Penicillium names. Isolates identified as T. purpurogenus have been reported to be interesting industrially and they can produce extracellular enzymes and red pigments, but they can also produce mycotoxins such as rubratoxin A and B and luteoskyrin. Production of mycotoxins limits the use of isolates of a particular species in biotechnology. Talaromyces atroroseus sp. nov., described in this study, produces the azaphilone biosynthetic families mitorubrins and Monascus pigments without any production of mycotoxins. Within the red pigment producing clade, T. atroroseus resolved in a distinct clade separate from all the other species in multigene phylogenies (ITS, β-tubulin and RPB1), which confirm its unique nature. Talaromyces atroroseus resembles T. purpurogenus and T. albobiverticillius in producing red diffusible pigments, but differs from the latter two species by the production of glauconic acid, purpuride and ZG-1494α and by the dull to dark green, thick walled ellipsoidal conidia produced. The type strain of Talaromyces atroroseus is CBS 133442

Volviéndonos mejores: necesidad de acción inmediata ante el reto de la obesidad. Una postura de profesionales de la salud.

La creciente epidemia de obesidad ha sido uno de los retos más importantes de salud pública en México durante los últimos años. Con apoyo de la Federación Mundial de Obesidad, en 2021 formamos un grupo de profesionales para identificar y resumir las acciones prioritarias en las que puede enfocarse nuestro país para hacer frente a esta epidemia. Al proceso de desarrollo y discusión de este grupo se sumaron más de 1 000 profesionales de la salud para retomar recomendaciones de documentos y guías de alto nivel previamente publicados. En conmemoración del Día Mundial de la Obesidad, en este 2022 se presenta esta postura como insumo para el desarrollo de acciones en el ámbito profesional y de los diferentes sectores, en la que se incluyen 10 recomendaciones de acción, desde la perspectiva poblacional hasta la atención individualizada, y se enfatiza en la importancia de la participación social, de las intervenciones integrales con visión centrada en la persona y de la sostenibilidad planetaria, además de mejorar la educación y las campañas de difusión, propiciar un ambiente promotor de entornos activos y blindar de conflictos de interés los esfuerzos de prevención y control. La postura hace un llamado para abordar la obesidad de manera seria, con base en la evidencia científica, oportuna e integral, con enfoque de curso de vida, de forma ética y sensible, y sin perpetuar las barreras del estigma de peso en la sociedad

Resilience to drought in a dry forest: insights from demographic rates

Concern is rising on whether forest function and structure will recover from drought-related impacts, which are expected to increase under global warming. Understanding demographic mechanisms underlying resilience (i.e. capacity of a system or individual to restore its structure and function prior to a disturbance) is critical for properly assessing forest vulnerability to drought. The simultaneous estimation of resilience of the main demographic rates governing tree population dynamics (growth, recruitment and survival) allows for a comprehensive assessment of forest response capacity. We evaluate the resilience of a large Pinus pinaster forest (approx. 7500 ha) in Southern Europe to one of the driest decades of the last 70 years (i.e. 1942–52). As forest structure and management influence demographic rates, their effects were removed prior to calculating resilience values for growth, recruitment and survival. The extremely dry conditions negatively impacted tree growth and recruitment during drought and slightly decreased survival in the decade after drought. Resilience values were mostly high, despite some low val- ues for recruitment or survival in some forest sections, which indicate a general recovery of growth and recruitment and an absence of widespread reductions in survival after drought. A joint analysis of the Demographic Resilience Index (calculated by combining growth, recruitment and survival resilience; DRI) and resilience values of each rate allows to detect demographic compensation effects. High DRI values, even in sections where resilience in recruitment or survival was low, indicate that low resilience values in a given rate were compensated by high resilience in the remaining rates. Recorded resilience could allow the long-term persistence of the studied forest, although increased frequency and intensity of droughts might exceed the critical threshold of system’s resilience. Our approach provides a step toward an exhaustive resilience assessment; however, further research should consider potential resilience thresholds arising from more complex non-linear dynamics.This study was supported by VULPINECLIM (MINECO: CGL2013- 44553-R to M.A.Z), by the Basque Country Government post- doctoral grant (POS-2014-1-88) to A.H, and by Plant Fellows (Grant Agreement No. PCOFUND-GA-2010-267243) and Juan de la Cierva (FJCI-2014-19921) to P.R.B

Recinto fiscalizado estratégico América Alimentos

Proyecto de Aplicación Profesional en el que se trabajó en determinar la viabilidad de desarrollo de un recinto fiscalizado estratégico impulsado por la empresa América Alimentos. El objetivo del proyecto fue lograr identificar sectores industriales como clientes potenciales. A través de un análisis mercadológico, financiero y operativo, se observó el flujo de importaciones y exportaciones en la zona occidente del país y se estudió la diversidad de mercancía que ingresa al país por Colima. De acuerdo al análisis de datos y a la información obtenida del Sistema Estatal de Información de Jalisco, se identificaron las fracciones arancelarias que tienen mayor peso para el proyecto. Las principales secciones arancelarias encontradas a lo largo de la investigación fueron la electrónica, metalúrgica, mecánica-eléctrica y la mobiliaria. Posteriormente, se seleccionó el mercado meta y se determinó, mediante análisis financieros, la rentabilidad del mismo y los requerimientos básicos para el funcionamiento y operatividad del recinto

Development of an acousto-optic system for hyperspectral image segmentation

Image segmentation is a typical operation in many image analysis and computer vision applications. However, hyperspectral image segmentation is a field which have not been fully investigated. In this study an analogue-digital image segmentation technique is presented. The system uses an acousto-optic tuneable filter, and a CCD camera to capture hyperspectral images that are stored in a digital grey scale format. The dataset was built considering several objects with remarkable differences in the reflectance and brightness components. In addition, the work presents a semi-supervised segmentation technique to deal with the complex problem of hyperspectral image segmentation, with its corresponding quantitative and qualitative evaluation. Particularly, the developed acousto-optic system is capable to acquire 120 frames through the whole visible light spectrum. Moreover, the analysis of the spectral images of a given object enables its segmentation using a simple subtraction operation. Experimental results showed that it is possible to segment any region of interest with a good performance rate by using the proposed analogue-digital segmentation technique