Fresh-Cut Fruit and Vegetables: Emerging Eco-friendly Techniques for Sanitation and Preserving Safety

The current high demand of minimally processed or fresh-cut fruit and vegetables results from the consumer’s desire for healthy, convenient, fresh, and ready-to-eat plant food-derived commodities. Fresh-cut fruits and vegetables are usually packaged under active- or passive-modified atmosphere packaging, while its shelf life must be under refrigerated conditions. The most important goal to preserve quality and safety focuses on releasing the microbial spoilage flora, since every unit operation involved will influence the final load. Sanitation in the washing step is the only unit operation able to reduce microbial load throughout the production chain. Chlorine is widely used as an efficient sanitation agent, but some disadvantages force to find eco-friendly emerging alternatives. It is necessary to deal with aspects related to sustainability because it could positively contribute to the net carbon balance besides reducing its use. Several innovative techniques seem to reach that target. However, industrial changes for replacing conventional techniques request a fine knowledge of the benefits and restrictions as well as a practical outlook. This chapter reviews the principles of emerging eco-friendly techniques for preserving quality and safety of fresh-cut products in order to meet the expected market’s demand

Escalas de respuesta tipo Likert. ¿Es relevante la alternativa 'indiferente'?

En tests de actitudes y de personalidad es frecuente utilizar escalas de respuesta tipo Likert. En este tipo de escalas es frecuente también que se presente una catego-ría intermedia. Esta categoría representa una posición intermedia a lo largo del continuo y entre las categorías adyacentes. El presente estudio evalúa si las categorías de las escalas de respuesta de una serie de cuestionarios frecuentemente utilizados en la evaluación organizacional se presentan realmente ordenadas, tal y como asume el sistema de puntuación empleado. Asimismo, se evalúa si la categoría intermedia ("indiferente") es relevante en términos de probabilidad de respuesta. Los cuestionarios analizados presentan una escala de respuesta tipo Likert de cinco puntos. Para lograr los objetivos propuestos, se ha aj ustado el modelo nominal de Bock (1972). Los resultados obtenidos indican que si bien las categorías de respuesta aparecen ordenadas, la categoría intermedia"indiferente" no es relevante, es decir, en ningún intervalo de valores del rasgo latente aparece como la alternativa que presenta una mayor probabilidad de respuesta. Estos resultados sugieren eliminar la citada categoría de respuesta de las escalas de respuesta empleadas

Carbon nanotube film electrodes with acrylic additives: Blocking electrochemical charge transfer reactions

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) processed into conductive films by liquid phase deposition technologies reveal increasing interest as electrode components in electrochemical device platforms for sensing and energy storage applications. In this work we show that the addition of acrylic latex to water-based CNT inks not only favors the fabrication of stable and robust flexible electrodes on plastic substrates but, moreover, sensitively enables the control of their electrical and electrochemical transport properties. Importantly, within a given concentration range, the acrylic additive in the films, being used as working electrodes, effectively blocks undesired faradaic transfer reactions across the electrode–electrolyte interface while maintaining their capacitance response as probed in a three-electrode electrochemical device configuration. Our results suggest a valuable strategy to enhance the chemical stability of CNT film electrodes and to suppress non-specific parasitic electrochemical reactions of relevance to electroanalytical and energy storage applications

TET2 overexpression in chronic lymphocytic leukemia is unrelated to the presence of TET2 variations

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.TET2 is involved in a variety of hematopoietic malignancies, mainly in myeloid malignancies. Most mutations of TET2 have been identified in myeloid disorders, but some have also recently been described in mature lymphoid neoplasms. In contrast to the large amount of data about mutations of TET2, some data are available for gene expression. Moreover, the role of TET2 in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is unknown. This study analyzes both TET2 expression and mutations in 48 CLL patients. TET2 expression was analyzed by exon arrays and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology was applied to investigate the presence of TET2 variations. Overexpression of TET2 was observed in B-cell lymphocytes from CLL patients compared with healthy donors (P = 0.004). In addition, in CLL patients, an overexpression of TET2 was also observed in the clonal B cells compared with the nontumoral cells (P = 0.002). However, no novel mutations were observed. Therefore, overexpression of TET2 in CLL seems to be unrelated to the presence of genomic TET2 variations.This work was partially supported by Grants from the Spanish Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias FIS 09/01543, PI12/00281, Proyectos de Investigacion del SACYL 355/A/09, COST Action “EuGESMA” (BM0801), Fundación “Manuel Solorzano,” Obra Social Banca Cívica (Caja Burgos), Fundacion Española de Hematología y Hemoterapia (FEHH), and by a Grant (RD12/0036/0069) from Red Temática de Investigación Cooperativa en Cáncer (RTICC), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) “Una manera de hacer Europa”, and NGS-PTL no. 306242. Maríıa Hernandez-Sánchez is fully suported by an “Ayuda predoctoral de la Junta de Castilla y Leon” by the “Fondo Social Europeo.”Peer Reviewe

Photoactivity improvement of TiO2 electrodes by thin hole transport layers of reduced graphene oxide

Nanostructured TiO2 and graphene-based materials constitute components of actual interest in devices related to solar energy conversion and storage. In this work, we show that a thin layer of electrochemically reduced graphene oxide (ECrGO), covering nanostructured TiO2 photoelectrodes, can significantly improve the photoactivity. In order to understand the working principle, ECrGO/TiO2 photoelectrodes with different ECrGO thicknesses were prepared and studied by a set of photoelectrochemical measurements. Methanol in alkaline conditions was employed as effective hole acceptor probe to elucidate the electronic phenomena in the electrode layers and interfaces. These studies underline the hole accepting properties of ECrGO and reveal the formation of a p-n junction at the interface between ECrGO and TiO2. It is shown for the first time that the resulting space charge region of about 10 nm defines the operational functionality of the ECrGO layer. Films thinner than the space charge region act as hole transport layer (HTL), which efficiently transfers holes to the liquid interface thus leading to enhanced photoactivity. Thicker films however act as hole blocking layer (HBL), resulting in a systematic decrease of the photoactivity. The finding of a thickness dependent threshold value for the operation of ECrGO as HTL and HBL is of general interest for the fabrication of optoelectronic devices with improved performance