Additive Manufacturing applications within food industry: An actual overview and future opportunities

The food sector is one of the major economic sectors in Europe and beyond and produces nutrition for the world population. Food industry has a unique role in all countries economy as it is essential to people lives. In Europe it is the largest manufacturing sector in terms of value added, turnover and employment. On the other hand, several worldwide economic-social-technological trends are pushing organizations to embrace innovation as an integrated part of their corporate strategy, and to offer customized products tailored to market targets need. Embracing innovation became strategic in order to create a sustainable competitive advantage and to stay ahead of the competition in every industry, even in food one. Today, among all the most cutting-edge technologies, Additive Manufacturing (AM) has the potential to develop business paradigms to face an ever changing demand. AM comprises a group of technologies whose initial inception occurred over thirty years, characterized by a layer upon layer production directly from Computer-Aided Design (CAD) data. Over the past few years AM development has increased exponentially and has expanded to include new areas of research. Within all the innovative applications, one of the most promising under respect of social impacts and progress, has proved to be the technological application in the food industry. This scientific work aims at finding out potential touching points between additive manufacturing technologies and food market, either consumer and industrial, focusing on the actual and future applications

Synthesis and antimicrobial activity of δ-viniferin analogues and isosteres

The natural stilbenoid dehydro-δ-viniferin, containing a benzofuran core, has been recently identified as a promising antimicrobial agent. To define the structural elements relevant to its activity, we modified the styryl moiety, appended at C5 of the benzofuran ring. In this paper, we report the construction of stilbenoid-derived 2,3-diaryl-5-substituted benzofurans, which allowed us to prepare a focused collection of dehydro-δ-viniferin analogues. The antimicrobial activity of the synthesized compounds was evaluated against S. aureus ATCC29213. The simplified analogue 5,5′-(2-(4-hydroxyphenyl)benzofuran-3,5-diyl)bis(benzene-1,3-diol), obtained in three steps from 4-bromo-2-iodophenol (63% overall yield), emerged as a promising candidate for further investigation (MIC = 4 µg/mL)

X=Y–ZH compounds as potential 1,3-dipoles. Part 64: Synthesis of highly substituted conformationally restricted and spiro nitropyrrolidines via Ag(I) catalysed azomethine ylide cycloadditions

1,3-Dipolar reactions of imines of both acyclic and cyclic α-amino esters with a range of nitroolefins using a combination of AgOAc or Ag2O with NEt3 are described. In most cases the reactions were highly regio- and stereospecific and endo-cycloadducts were obtained in good yield. However, in a few cases the initially formed cycloadducts underwent base catalysed epimerisation. The stereochemistry of the cycloadducts was assigned from NOE data and established unequivocally in several cases by X-ray crystallography

Baseline genetic distinctiveness supports structured populations of thornback ray in the Mediterranean Sea

The thornback ray (Raja clavata) is the most important chondrichthyan in terms of landings in the Mediterranean Sea. Intense harvesting may induce negative genetic effects reducing the resilience of overfished species. For this reason, genetic diversity information should be considered in fisheries management and conservation policies. Microsatellite markers were used to unravel the genetic features (variability, connectivity, sex-biased dispersal) of R. clavata populations, both at the small (around the coast of Sardinia, western Mediterranean Sea) and larger spatial scales (at the pan-Mediterranean level, and between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea). Individual clustering, multivariate and variance analyses rejected the hypothesis of genetic homogeneity, with significant genetic differences between Mediterranean and Atlantic rays, as well as within the Mediterranean Sea between its western and eastern basins. The data indicated that both the Strait of Gibraltar and the Sicilian Channel seem to be effective in limiting the dispersal of thornback ray individuals, but a further structuring was identified, with the significant genetic differentiation of the populations located in the Algero-Provençal and Tyrrhenian basins. Such a fine-scale arrangement suggests the occurrence of additional barriers to species dispersal. A lack of significant genetic differentiation, stable over the years, was measured at a local scale among R. clavata Sardinian samples. Several possible mechanisms, both biological and abiotic (e.g. migratory behaviour, waterfronts and oceanographic discontinuities), are discussed. Overall, the genetic data presented, both at the local and regional level, could represent the baseline information for the temporal monitoring of populations and assessing the effects of present or future fisheries-related management actions. The data obtained are information of paramount importance for minimizing the gaps in our current knowledge of the genetic diversity of thornback rays and maximizing the information needed for the correct protection of R. clavata populations

Insight in cognitive impairment assessed with the Cognitive Assessment Interview in a large sample of patients with schizophrenia

The Cognitive Assessment Interview (CAI) is an interview-based scale measuring cognitive impairment and its impact on functioning in subjects with schizophrenia (SCZ). The present study aimed at assessing, in a large sample of SCZ (n = 601), the agreement between patients and their informants on CAI ratings, to explore patients' insight in their cognitive deficits and its relationships with clinical and functional indices. Agreement between patient- and informant-based ratings was assessed by the Gwet's agreement coefficient. Predictors of insight in cognitive deficits were explored by stepwise multiple regression analyses. Patients reported lower severity of cognitive impairment vs. informants. A substantial to almost perfect agreement was observed between patients' and informants' ratings. Lower insight in cognitive deficits was associated to greater severity of neurocognitive impairment and positive symptoms, lower severity of depressive symptoms, and older age. Worse real-life functioning was associated to lower insight in cognitive deficit, worse neurocognitive performance, and worse functional capacity. Our findings indicate that the CAI is a valid co-primary measure with the interview to patients providing a reliable assessment of their cognitive deficits. In the absence of informants with good knowledge of the subject, the interview to the patient may represent a valid alternative

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Impacts of the Tropical Pacific/Indian Oceans on the Seasonal Cycle of the West African Monsoon

The current consensus is that drought has developed in the Sahel during the second half of the twentieth century as a result of remote effects of oceanic anomalies amplified by local land–atmosphere interactions. This paper focuses on the impacts of oceanic anomalies upon West African climate and specifically aims to identify those from SST anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Oceans during spring and summer seasons, when they were significant. Idealized sensitivity experiments are performed with four atmospheric general circulation models (AGCMs). The prescribed SST patterns used in the AGCMs are based on the leading mode of covariability between SST anomalies over the Pacific/Indian Oceans and summer rainfall over West Africa. The results show that such oceanic anomalies in the Pacific/Indian Ocean lead to a northward shift of an anomalous dry belt from the Gulf of Guinea to the Sahel as the season advances. In the Sahel, the magnitude of rainfall anomalies is comparable to that obtained by other authors using SST anomalies confined to the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean. The mechanism connecting the Pacific/Indian SST anomalies with West African rainfall has a strong seasonal cycle. In spring (May and June), anomalous subsidence develops over both the Maritime Continent and the equatorial Atlantic in response to the enhanced equatorial heating. Precipitation increases over continental West Africa in association with stronger zonal convergence of moisture. In addition, precipitation decreases over the Gulf of Guinea. During the monsoon peak (July and August), the SST anomalies move westward over the equatorial Pacific and the two regions where subsidence occurred earlier in the seasons merge over West Africa. The monsoon weakens and rainfall decreases over the Sahel, especially in August.Peer reviewe

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Measurement of t(t)over-bar normalised multi-differential cross sections in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV, and simultaneous determination of the strong coupling strength, top quark pole mass, and parton distribution functions

Peer reviewe