Effects of different ageing methods on colour, yield, oxidation and sensory qualities of Australian beef loins consumed in Australia and Japan

This study investigated the effect of three ageing methods (dry, wet and stepwise wet-then-dry) and ageing time on pH, colour, yield, lipid and protein oxidation and eating quality of beef loins using Meat Standards Australia (MSA) sensory protocol with 900 and 540 consumers in Australia and Japan, respectively. Australian beef loins (Longissimus thoracis et lumborum) at four days post mortem were subjected to wet ageing (boneless; for 7, 21, 35 or 56 days), dry ageing (bone-in; for 35 or 56 days) or a wet-then-dry ageing method (bone-in; 21 days wet ageing followed by 35 days dry ageing). The pH was higher in dry aged than wet aged beef loins (P < .001). Instrumental measurement of surface colour of trimmed dry and wet aged steaks showed significant differences in a*, b* and hue angle. Weight loss was higher in dry aged primals (P < .001), however, total water content was similar among the two ageing methods (P = .934). Retail yield did not differ between 35 and 56 days dry aged primals. Lipid (TBARS) and protein (total carbonyl content) oxidation between the dry and wet aged samples differed depending on the ageing time. When comparing the wet-then-dry and 56 days dry aged samples, only pH and retail yield differed. Australian and Japanese consumers rated dry aged steaks significantly higher (P < .001) than the wet aged counterparts for tenderness, juiciness, flavour, overall liking and weighted palatability scores. The wet-then-dry steaks were also rated higher than the 56 days wet aged steaks for flavour, overall liking and palatability within the Japanese sensory panels. The Japanese consumers also consistently rated all MSA sensory attributes lower (P < .001) than the Australian consumers. The results from this study show dry ageing provides a value adding opportunity for the meat industry in both domestic and export markets

Designing citizen science tools for learning: lessons learnt from the iterative development of nQuire

This paper reports on a 4-year research and development case study about the design of citizen science tools for inquiry learning. It details the process of iterative pedagogy-led design and evaluation of the nQuire toolkit, a set of web-based and mobile tools scaffolding the creation of online citizen science investigations. The design involved an expert review of inquiry learning and citizen science, combined with user experience studies involving more than 200 users. These have informed a concept that we have termed ‘citizen inquiry’, which engages members of the public alongside scientists in setting up, running, managing or contributing to citizen science projects with a main aim of learning about the scientific method through doing science by interaction with others. A design-based research (DBR) methodology was adopted for the iterative design and evaluation of citizen science tools. DBR was focused on the refinement of a central concept, ‘citizen inquiry’, by exploring how it can be instantiated in educational technologies and interventions. The empirical evaluation and iteration of technologies involved three design experiments with end users, user interviews, and insights from pedagogy and user experience experts. Evidence from the iterative development of nQuire led to the production of a set of interaction design principles that aim to guide the development of online, learning-centred, citizen science projects. Eight design guidelines are proposed: users as producers of knowledge, topics before tools, mobile affordances, scaffolds to the process of scientific inquiry, learning by doing as key message, being part of a community as key message, every visit brings a reward, and value users and their time

A mouse chromosome 4 balancer ENU-mutagenesis screen isolates eleven lethal lines.

BACKGROUND: ENU-mutagenesis is a powerful technique to identify genes regulating mammalian development. To functionally annotate the distal region of mouse chromosome 4, we performed an ENU-mutagenesis screen using a balancer chromosome targeted to this region of the genome. RESULTS: We isolated 11 lethal lines that map to the region of chromosome 4 between D4Mit117 and D4Mit281. These lines form 10 complementation groups. The majority of lines die during embryonic development between E5.5 and E12.5 and display defects in gastrulation, cardiac development, and craniofacial development. One line displayed postnatal lethality and neurological defects, including ataxia and seizures. CONCLUSION: These eleven mutants allow us to query gene function within the distal region of mouse chromosome 4 and demonstrate that new mouse models of mammalian developmental defects can easily and quickly be generated and mapped with the use of ENU-mutagenesis in combination with balancer chromosomes. The low number of mutations isolated in this screen compared with other balancer chromosome screens indicates that the functions of genes in different regions of the genome vary widely

The development of a business intelligence web application to support the decision-making process regarding absenteeism in the workplace

Nowadays, one of the biggest concerns of industries all over the world is situations regarding absenteeism, since it has a great impact on the productivity and economy of companies, as well as on the health of their employees. The major causes of absenteeism appear to be work accidents and sickness leaves, which lead to the attempt by companies of understanding how the workload is related to the health of their collaborators and, consequently, to absenteeism. Thus, this paper proposes the design and development of a Web Application based on Business Intelligence indicators in order to help the health and human resources professionals of a Portuguese company analyse the relation between absenteeism and the health and lifestyle of employees, with the intention of concluding whether the work executed on the company is harming workers’ health. Furthermore, it is intended to discover the principal motives for the numerous and more frequent absences in this company, so that it is possible to decrease the absenteeism rate and, hence, improve the decision-making process. This platform will also provide higher quality healthcare and the possibility to find patterns in the absence of collaborators, as well as reduce time-waste and errors.This work has been supported by FCT –Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/201

Political Regimes and Sovereign Credit Risk in Europe, 1750-1913

This article uses a new panel data set to perform a statistical analysis of political regimes and sovereign credit risk in Europe from 1750 to 1913. Old Regime polities typically suffered from fiscal fragmentation and absolutist rule. By the start of World War I, however, many such countries had centralized institutions and limited government. Panel regressions indicate that centralized and?or limited regimes were associated with significant improvements in credit risk relative to fragmented and absolutist ones. Structural break tests also reveal close relationships between major turning points in yield series and political transformations

Core pinning by intragranular nanoprecipitates in polycrystalline MgCNi_3

The nanostructure and magnetic properties of polycrystalline MgCNi_3 were studied by x-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometry. While the bulk flux-pinning force curve F_p(H) indicates the expected grain-boundary pinning mechanism just below T_c = 7.2 K, a systematic change to pinning by a nanometer-scale distribution of core pinning sites is indicated by a shift of F_p(H) with decreasing temperature. The lack of scaling of F_p(H) suggests the presence of 10 to 20% of nonsuperconducting regions inside the grains, which are smaller than the diameter of fluxon cores 2xi at high temperature and become effective with decreasing temperature when xi(T) approaches the nanostructural scale. Transmission electron microscopy revealed cubic and graphite nanoprecipitates with 2 to 5 nm size, consistent with the above hypothesis since xi(0) = 6 nm. High critical current densities, more than 10^6 A/cm^2 at 1 T and 4.2 K, were obtained for grain colonies separated by carbon. Dirty-limit behavior seen in previous studies may be tied to electron scattering by the precipitates, indicating the possibility that strong core pinning might be combined with a technologically useful upper critical field if versions of MgCNi_3 with higher T_c can be found.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PR

Innovation in citizen science – perspectives on science-policy advances

Citizen science is growing as a field of research with contributions from diverse disciplines, promoting innovation in science, society, and policy. Inter- and transdisciplinary discussions and critical analyses are needed to use the current momentum to evaluate, demonstrate, and build on the advances that have been made in the past few years. This paper synthesizes results of discussions at the first international citizen science conference of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) in 2016 in Berlin, Germany, and distills major points of the discourse into key recommendations. To enhance innovation in science, citizen science needs to clearly demonstrate its scientific benefit, branch out across disciplines, and foster active networking and new formats of collaboration, including true co-design with participants. For fostering policy advances, it is important to embrace opportunities for policy-relevant monitoring and policy development and to work with science funders to find adequate avenues and evaluation tools to support citizen science. From a society angle it is crucial to engage with societal actors in various formats that suit participants and to evaluate two-way learning outcomes as well as to develop the transformative role of science communication. We hope that these key perspectives will promote citizen science progress at the science-society-policy interface

Different paths to the modern state in Europe: the interaction between domestic political economy and interstate competition

Theoretical work on state formation and capacity has focused mostly on early modern Europe and on the experience of western European states during this period. While a number of European states monopolized domestic tax collection and achieved gains in state capacity during the early modern era, for others revenues stagnated or even declined, and these variations motivated alternative hypotheses for determinants of fiscal and state capacity. In this study we test the basic hypotheses in the existing literature making use of the large date set we have compiled for all of the leading states across the continent. We find strong empirical support for two prevailing threads in the literature, arguing respectively that interstate wars and changes in economic structure towards an urbanized economy had positive fiscal impact. Regarding the main point of contention in the theoretical literature, whether it was representative or authoritarian political regimes that facilitated the gains in fiscal capacity, we do not find conclusive evidence that one performed better than the other. Instead, the empirical evidence we have gathered lends supports to the hypothesis that when under pressure of war, the fiscal performance of representative regimes was better in the more urbanized-commercial economies and the fiscal performance of authoritarian regimes was better in rural-agrarian economie

Mapping the hinterland: Data issues in open science

© The Author(s) 2014. Open science is a practice in which the scientific process is shared completely and in real time. It offers the potential to support information flow, collaboration and dialogue among professional and non-professional participants. Using semi-structured interviews and case studies, this research investigated the relationship between open science and public engagement. This article concentrates on three particular areas of concern that emerged: first, how to effectively contextualise and narrate information to render it accessible, as opposed to simply available; second, concerns about data quantity and quality; and third, concerns about the skills required for effective contextualisation, mapping and interpretation of information