Use of essential oils in food preservation

New alternatives for food conservation and preservation are now emerging, as many studies have shown that the use of synthetic preservatives and chemical additives is leading to intoxication, cancer and other degenerative diseases. This has led to a growing consumer concern and the desire to consume healthier products containing natural preservatives and additives instead of synthetic ones. This generates the need to look for conservation alternatives that cover the same antimicrobial properties and compatibility with food. In this search, new antimicrobial agents of natural origin, as is the case of essential oils (EOs) obtained from aromatic and medicinal plants, have been found. EOs have antimicrobial activity against a wide range of microorganisms and antioxidant activity, this is generally attributed to phenolic compounds owned by EOs. Many studies in vitro have defined EOs as effective antimicrobial and antioxidant compounds, but they are not much used in industry. Mediterranean dietary food products (meat and meat products, cheeses and fruits) are highly appreciated by consumers; their preservation with EOs would represent an added value. The present study reviews the existing research work on the use of EOs as food preservatives as an alternative to synthetic preservatives and chemical additives in Mediterranean food products

Architecture Analysis

This chapter also explains what the added value of enterprise architecture analysis techniques is in addition to existing, more detailed, and domain-specific ones for business processes or software, for example. Analogous to the idea of using the ArchiMate enterprise modelling language to integrate detailed design models, the chapter demonstrates that analysis, when considered at a global architectural level, can play a role in the integration of existing detailed techniques or of their results

A comparative study on the felting propensity of animal fibers

The felting propensity of different animal fibers, particularly alpaca and wool, has been examined. The Aachen felting test method was employed. 1 g of each type of fiber was soaked in 50 ml of wetting solution and agitated in a dyeing machine to make felt balls. The diameter of each ball was measured in nine directions and the ball density was calculated in g/cm3; the higher the density value of the ball, the higher the feltability of the fibers. The effects of fiber diameter and fiber length on the felting propensity of these fibers were investigated. The results show that the alpaca fibers felt to a higher degree than wool fibers, and short and fine cashmere fibers have lower felting propensity than wool fibers at a similar diameter range. There is a higher tendency of felting for bleached and dyed alpaca fibers than for untreated fibers. Fiber length has a remarkable influence on the propensity of fiber felting. Cotton and nylon fibers were also tested for felting propensity to verify the mechanism responsible for the different fiber felting behavior. <br /

Oral Melanoacanthoma And Oral Melanotic Macule: A Report Of 8 Cases, Review Of The Literature, And Immunohistochemical Analysis

Oral melanoacanthoma (MA) is a rare, benign pigmented lesion, similar to cutaneous MA, characterized by hyperplasia of spinous keratinocytes and dendritic melanocytes. The pathogenesis of oral MA remains uncertain, although its clinical behavior is suggestive of a reactive origin. The most common intraoral sites are the buccal mucosa, lip, palate and gingiva. The average age of presentation is 28 years, mainly in blacks, with a strong female predilection. The oral melanotic macule (MM) is a small, well-circumscribed brown-to-black macule that occurs on the lips and mucous membranes. The etiology is not clear and it may represent a physiologic or reactive process. The average age of presentation is 43 years, with a female predilection. A biopsy is recommended to distinguish these lesions from each other and from other oral melanocytic lesions. We depict four cases each of oral MA and MM, affecting Caucasian and Latin American mestizo patients. The clinicopathological features of these cases reflect its ample spectrum, and to the best of our knowledge, it is the first example of oral MA affecting a Caucasian boy reported in the English literature. Therefore oral MA and MM should be considered in the differential diagnosis of pigmented lesions in the oral mucosa in these populations. © Medicina Oral.125E374E379Mishima, Y., Pinkus, H., Benign mixed tumor of melanocytes and malpighian cells. Melanoacanthoma: Its relationship to Bloch's benign non-nevoid melanoepithelioma (1960) Arch Dermatol, 81, pp. 539-550Buchner, A., Merrell, P.W., Carpenter, W.M., Relative frequency of solitary melanocytic lesions of the oral mucosa (2004) J Oral Pathol Med, 33, pp. 550-557Wright, J.M., Binnie, W.H., Byrd, D.L., Dunsworth, A.R., Intraoral melanoacanthomas (1983) J Periodontol, 54, pp. 107-111Buchner, A., Merrell, P., Hanson, L., Leider, A., Melanocytic hyperplasia of the oral mucosa (1991) Oral Surg, Oral Med Oral Pathol, 71, pp. 58-62Wright, J.M., Intraoral melanoacanthoma: A reactive melanocytic hyperplasia. Case report (1988) J Periodontol, 59, pp. 53-55Tomich, C., Zunt, S.L., Melanoacanthosis (melanoacanthoma) of the oral mucosa (1990) J Dermatol Surg Oncol, 16, pp. 231-236Contreras, E., Carlos, R., Oral melanoacanthosis (melanoachantoma): Report of a case and review of the literature (2005) Med Oral Patol Oral Cir Bucal, 10 (1), pp. 11-12,9-11Fornatora, M.L., Reich, R.F., Haber, S., Solomon, F., Freedman, P.D., Oral melanoacanthomas: A report of 10 cases, review of the literature, and immunohistochemical analysis for HMB-45 reactivity (2003) Am J Dermatopathol, 25, pp. 12-15Matsuoka, L.Y., Glasser, S., Barsky, S., Melanoacanthoma of the lip (1979) Arch Dermatol, 115, pp. 1116-1117Goode, R.K., Crawford, B.E., Callihan, M.D., Neville, B.W., Oral melanoacanthoma. Review of the literature and report of ten cases (1983) Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol, 56, pp. 622-628Scheneider, L.C., Mesa, M.L., Haber, S.M., Melanoacanthoma of the oral mucosa (1981) Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol, 52, pp. 284-287Fatahzadeh, M., Sirois, D.A., Multiple intraoral melanoacanthomas: A case report with unusual findings (2002) Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol Endod, 94, pp. 54-56Ho, K.K., Dervan, P., O'Loughlin, S., Powell, F.C., Labial melanotic macule: A clinical, histopathologic, and ultrastructural study (1993) J Am Acad of Dermatol, 28, pp. 33-39Sexton, F.M., Maize, J.C., Melanotic macules and melanoacanthomas of the lip. A comparative study with census of the basal melanocyte population (1987) Am J Dermatopathol, 9, pp. 438-444Horlick, H.P., Walther, R.R., Zegarelli, D.J., Silvers, D.N., Eliezri, Y.D., Mucosal melanotic macule, reactive type: A simulation of melanoma (1988) J Am Acad Dermatol, 19, pp. 786-791Buchner, A., Hansen, L.S., Pigmented nevi of the oral mucosa: A clinicopathologic study of 32 new cases and review of 75 cases from the literature: Part I. A clinicopathologic study of 32 new cases (1979) Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol, 48, pp. 131-142Barker, B.F., Carpenter, W.M., Daniels, T.E., Kahn, M.A., Leider, A.S., Lozada-Nur, F., (1997) Oral mucosal melanomas: The WESTOP Banff workshop proceedings, 83, pp. 672-679. , Western Society of Teachers of Oral Pathology. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Pathol Oral Radiol EndodBarrett, A.W., Raja, A.M., The immunohistochemical identification of human oral mucosal melanocytes (1997) Arch Oral Biol, 42, pp. 77-8

Affective Man-Machine Interface: Unveiling human emotions through biosignals

As is known for centuries, humans exhibit an electrical profile. This profile is altered through various psychological and physiological processes, which can be measured through biosignals; e.g., electromyography (EMG) and electrodermal activity (EDA). These biosignals can reveal our emotions and, as such, can serve as an advanced man-machine interface (MMI) for empathic consumer products. However, such a MMI requires the correct classification of biosignals to emotion classes. This chapter starts with an introduction on biosignals for emotion detection. Next, a state-of-the-art review is presented on automatic emotion classification. Moreover, guidelines are presented for affective MMI. Subsequently, a research is presented that explores the use of EDA and three facial EMG signals to determine neutral, positive, negative, and mixed emotions, using recordings of 21 people. A range of techniques is tested, which resulted in a generic framework for automated emotion classification with up to 61.31% correct classification of the four emotion classes, without the need of personal profiles. Among various other directives for future research, the results emphasize the need for parallel processing of multiple biosignals

Predictive powers of chiral perturbation theory in Compton scattering off protons

We study low-energy nucleon Compton scattering in the framework of baryon chiral perturbation theory (B$\chi$PT) with pion, nucleon, and $\Delta$(1232) degrees of freedom, up to and including the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO). We include the effects of order $p^2$, $p^3$ and $p^4/\varDelta$, with $\varDelta\approx 300$ MeV the $\Delta$-resonance excitation energy. These are all "predictive" powers in the sense that no unknown low-energy constants enter until at least one order higher (i.e, $p^4$). Estimating the theoretical uncertainty on the basis of natural size for $p^4$ effects, we find that uncertainty of such a NNLO result is comparable to the uncertainty of the present experimental data for low-energy Compton scattering. We find an excellent agreement with the experimental cross section data up to at least the pion-production threshold. Nevertheless, for the proton's magnetic polarizability we obtain a value of $(4.0\pm 0.7)\times 10^{-4}$ fm$^3$, in significant disagreement with the current PDG value. Unlike the previous $\chi$PT studies of Compton scattering, we perform the calculations in a manifestly Lorentz-covariant fashion, refraining from the heavy-baryon (HB) expansion. The difference between the lowest order HB$\chi$PT and B$\chi$PT results for polarizabilities is found to be appreciable. We discuss the chiral behavior of proton polarizabilities in both HB$\chi$PT and B$\chi$PT with the hope to confront it with lattice QCD calculations in a near future. In studying some of the polarized observables, we identify the regime where their naive low-energy expansion begins to break down, thus addressing the forthcoming precision measurements at the HIGS facility.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures, RevTeX4, revised version published in EPJ

Production and Clinical Evaluation of Norwalk GI.1 Virus Lot 001-09NV in Norovirus Vaccine Development

Background: Human noroviruses (HuNoV) are the leading cause of gastroenteritis. No vaccine is currently available to prevent norovirus illness or infection. Safe, infectious challenge strains are needed to assess vaccine efficacy in the controlled human infection model (CHIM). Methods: A stock of HuNoV strain Norwalk virus ([NV] GI.1) was prepared. Healthy, genetically susceptible adults were inoculated with NV Lot 001-09NV and monitored for infection, gastroenteritis symptoms, and immune responses. Results: Lot 001-09NV induced gastroenteritis in 9 (56%) and infection in 11 (69%) of 16 genetically susceptible subjects. All infected subjects developed strong immune responses to GI.1 with a 30-fold (geometric mean titer) increase in blocking titers (BT50) and a 161-fold increase in GI.1-specific immunoglobulin (Ig)G titers when compared with baseline. GI.1-specific cellular responses in peripheral blood were observed 9 days postchallenge with an average of 3253 IgA and 1227 IgG antibody-secreting cells per million peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Conclusions: GI.1 Lot 001-09NV appears to be similar in virulence to previous passages of NV strain 8fIIa. The safety profile, attack rate, and duration of illness make GI.1 Lot 001-09NV a useful challenge strain for future vaccine studies aimed at establishing immune correlates

An overview of the MHONGOOSE survey: Observing nearby galaxies with MeerKAT

MHONGOOSE is a deep survey of the neutral hydrogen distribution in a representative sample of 30 nearby disk and dwarf galaxies with HI masses from 10^6 to ~10^{11} M_sun, and luminosities from M_R ~ -12 to M_R ~ -22. The sample is selected to uniformly cover the available range in log(M_HI). Our extremely deep observations, down to HI column density limits of well below 10^{18} cm^{-2} - or a few hundred times fainter than the typical HI disks in galaxies - will directly detect the effects of cold accretion from the intergalactic medium and the links with the cosmic web. These observations will be the first ever to probe the very low-column density neutral gas in galaxies at these high resolutions. Combination with data at other wavelengths, most of it already available, will enable accurate modelling of the properties and evolution of the mass components in these galaxies and link these with the effects of environment, dark matter distribution, and other fundamental properties such as halo mass and angular momentum. MHONGOOSE can already start addressing some of the SKA-1 science goals and will provide a comprehensive inventory of the processes driving the transformation and evolution of galaxies in the nearby universe at high resolution and over 5 orders of magnitude in column density. It will be a Nearby Galaxies Legacy Survey that will be unsurpassed until the advent of the SKA, and can serve as a highly visible, lasting statement of MeerKAT's capabilities