COOKING TIME AND SENSORY ANALYSIS OF A DRY BEAN DIVERSITY PANEL

INTRODUCTION - Cooking time and sensory quality are two important traits when selecting dry beans for consumption, but have largely been overlooked by breeders in favor of yield and other traits. Dry beans are an affordable, nutrient-rich food, but often require long cooking times, particularly without prior soaking. They also display a range of sensory characteristics, with consumers preferring cooked beans that are sweet and soft1. Increased interest in dry beans to make new products necessitates studies assessing the diversity of sensory traits in beans, which would allow beans to be selected for specific products. In this study, the Andean Diversity Panel2 (ADP) was assessed for cooking time and sensory characteristics in order to identify diversity for these traits. MATERIALS AND METHODS - Cooking Time Evaluation: 398 genotypes of the ADP were harvested in Hawassa, Ethiopia in 2015, six months prior to evaluation. Prior to cooking, each sample was soaked for 12 hours in 250 ml distilled water after ensuring moisture content was between 10-14%. Two replicates per genotype of 25 seeds each were cooked in random order in boiling distilled water using the Mattson cooker method for determining cooking time3. The Mattson cooker uses twenty-five 85g stainless steel rods with 2mm diameter pins that pierce beans loaded in wells when sufficiently cooked. For this study, the 50% and 80% cooking times were recorded, and the 80% cook time is regarded as the time required to cook each genotype to completion. The cooking time data was analyzed using the MIXED procedure in SAS with genotype as a fixed effect and rep as a random effect

Independent spatiotemporal effects of spatial attention and background clutter on human object location representations

Spatial attention helps us to efficiently localize objects in cluttered environments. However, the processing stage at which spatial attention modulates object location representations remains unclear. Here we investigated this question identifying processing stages in time and space in an EEG and fMRI experiment respectively. As both object location representations and attentional effects have been shown to depend on the background on which objects appear, we included object background as an experimental factor. During the experiments, human participants viewed images of objects appearing in different locations on blank or cluttered backgrounds while either performing a task on fixation or on the periphery to direct their covert spatial attention away or towards the objects. We used multivariate classification to assess object location information. Consistent across the EEG and fMRI experiment, we show that spatial attention modulated location representations during late processing stages (>150 ms, in middle and high ventral visual stream areas) independent of background condition. Our results clarify the processing stage at which attention modulates object location representations in the ventral visual stream and show that attentional modulation is a cognitive process separate from recurrent processes related to the processing of objects on cluttered backgrounds

Think Like An Owner: Identifying the Characteristics that Are Important for Ownership-like Thought in the Hospitality Industry

Companies want recruits who “think like an owner”; that is, managers who demonstrate entrepreneurial aptitude and skills, think on their feet, and possess good problem-solving abilities. This exploratory study sought to identify the characteristics important for ownership-like thought in the hospitality industry. A questionnaire based on a review of entrepreneurship literature drew responses from 182 hotel and restaurant industry operators, executives, and owners. Results suggested six factors or characteristics that lead to ownership-like thought or behavior

Rooperol tetraacetate decreases cytokine mRNA levels and binding capacity of transcription factors in U937 cells.

We have previously described inhibition of the synthesis of three acute-phase inflammatory cytokines in human and rat macrophages by acetate esters of rooperol, a dicatechol of plant origin. Analysing the mechanism of anticytokine activity of rooperol, we compared levels of TNFalpha, IL-1beta and IL-6 mRNAs in the human promonocytic U937 cell line pretreated with phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) and incubated with rooperol tetraacetate (RTA) alone or in combination with LPS (500 ng/ml). It was found that 10 microM RTA decreased the levels of cytokine mRNAs both in the presence and absence of LPS, suggesting pretranslational inhibition of cytokine synthesis. Electrophoretic mobility shift analysis (EMSA) showed that RTA may influence cytokine mRNA expression by decreasing the binding activity of transcription factors NF-kappaB and AP-1

The representational dynamics of task and object processing in humans

Despite the importance of an observer’s goals in determining how a visual object is categorized, surprisingly little is known about how humans process the task context in which objects occur and how it may interact with the processing of objects. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and multivariate techniques, we studied the spatial and temporal dynamics of task and object processing. Our results reveal a sequence of separate but overlapping task-related processes spread across frontoparietal and occipitotemporal cortex. Task exhibited late effects on object processing by selectively enhancing task-relevant object features, with limited impact on the overall pattern of object representations. Combining MEG and fMRI data, we reveal a parallel rise in task-related signals throughout the cerebral cortex, with an increasing dominance of task over object representations from early to higher visual areas. Collectively, our results reveal the complex dynamics underlying task and object representations throughout human cortex

Agronomic performance and cooking quality characteristics for slow-darkening pinto beans

Slow-darkening (SD) pinto beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) possess a desirable new trait, conditioned by the recessive sd gene, that slows seed coat darkening under delayed harvest and under storage. The effect sd may have on performance needs investigation. We examined agronomic performance and cooking quality of SD pinto beans. There were 30 (15 SD and 15 regular darkening [RD]) recombinant inbred lines (RILs) from each of two biparental inbred populations. The 60 RILs were tested across three locations in North Dakota andWashington. In addition, advanced SD and RD pinto breeding lines were tested in trials from 2010 to 2012 and in 2018. Across 2010–2012 trials, the “early generation bred” SD pintos, as a group, had significantly lower emergence, increased lodging, less seed yield, and smaller seed size than the RD group. Conversely, in the 2018 trial, “recently bred” SD pinto breeding lines had competitive agronomic performance to RD lines for seed yield, reduced lodging, and increased emergence. Further research on cooking time is warranted given that SD RILs cooked 20% faster than the RD RILs in one population. Overall, SD pintos exhibited slightly better canning quality than RD pintos. Whether raw or cooked, SD pintos were much lighter in color than RD pintos, emphasizing the need to keep them separated as distinct market classes. Breeders should continue to focus on improving agronomic performance for emergence, lodging, seed yield, seed size, and canning quality of SD pinto beans

Non-perturbative Test of the Witten-Veneziano Formula from Lattice QCD

We compute both sides of the Witten-Veneziano formula using lattice techniques. For the one side we perform dedicated quenched simulations and use the spectral projector method to determine the topological susceptibility in the pure Yang-Mills theory. The other side we determine in lattice QCD with $N_f=2+1+1$ dynamical Wilson twisted mass fermions including for the first time also the flavour singlet decay constant. The Witten-Veneziano formula represents a leading order expression in the framework of chiral perturbation theory and we also employ leading order chiral perturbation theory to relate the flavor singlet decay constant to the relevant decay constant parameters in the quark flavor basis and flavor non-singlet decay constants. After taking the continuum and the SU$(2)$ chiral limits we compare both sides and find good agreement within uncertainties.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figures, version accepted for publicatio

THE MANTECA YELLOW BEAN: A GENETIC RESOURCE OF FAST COOKING AND HIGH IRON BIOAVAILABILITY PHENOTYPES FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF DRY BEANS (\u3ci\u3ePhaseolus vulgaris\u3c/i\u3e L.)

Dry beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) are a nutrient dense food produced globally as a major pulse crop for direct human consumption. Despite being rich in protein and micronutrients, long cooking times limit the use of dry beans worldwide, especially in regions relying on wood and charcoal as the primary sources of fuel for cooking, such as Sub-Sahara Africa and the Caribbean. Coincidently, these same regions also have high densities of women and children at risk for micronutrient deficiencies [1]. There is need for a fast cooking bean, which can positively impact consumers by reducing fuel cost and preparation time, while simultaneously complementing the nutritional quality of house-hold based meals [2]. To help accelerate a reliable increase in dry bean production for Sub-Saharan Africa, the Andean Bean Diversity Panel (ADP; http://arsftfbean.uprm.edu/bean/) was assembled as a genetic resource in the development of fast cooking, nutritional improved, biotic/abiotic resistant varieties. A germplasm screening for atmospheric cooking time (100oC) of over 200 bean accessions from the ADP identified only five fast cooking entries [3]. Two entries were white beans from Burundi (Blanco Fanesquero) and Ecuador (PI527521). Native to Chile, two of the six fast cooking entries were collected from Angola, and had a pale lemon ‘Manteca’ yellow seed color (Cebo, Mantega Blanca). Traditional knowledge from Chile suggests Manteca yellow beans are low flatulence and easy to digest [4]. Yellow beans of various shades are important in Eastern and Southern Africa. Their popularity has increased in recent years and they often fetch the highest prices at the marketplace. There is evidence to suggest that Manteca yellow beans have a unique nutritional profile when compared to other yellow seed types; with more soluble dietary fiber, less indigestible protein and starch, and are also free of condensed tannins. The hypothesis was tested that this unique composition would also have a positive influence on the bioavailability of iron in an in vitro digestion/Caco-2 cell culture bioassay