QUALIDADE DE CAFÉ, EM DIFERENTES ESTÁDIOS DE MATURAÇÃO, EM FUNÇÃO DA APLICAÇÃO DE Cladosporium cladosporioides

The objective was to evaluate the chemical and sensorial quality of coffee by varying the coffee maturation stage for application of the fungus Cladosporium cladosporioides. The work was carried out between may and august 2019. The experimental design was in randomized blocks, consisting of five treatments, determined according to the stage of maturation for application of Cladosporium: (control (without application with 12% green fruits)), 70 %, 50% and 30% of green fruits and application of cladosporium in the drying yard with 12% green fruits) and five replications. Harvesting and drying of all coffee plots followed the same protocol. The following variables were evaluated: sensory analysis, occurrence of microorganisms and physical-chemical analyses. Data were submitted to analysis of variance and correlation network. There were no significant differences for the attributes evaluated due to the soil and climate conditions of the crop, which were not favorable for the occurrence of fungi deleterious to coffee quality. Therefore, the use of the fungus Cladosporium cladosporioides for bioprotection of coffee quality is not justified in crops where conditions are not favorable for the occurrence of fungi deleterious to coffee quality, such as low humidity and mild temperature.O objetivo foi avaliar a qualidade química e sensorial do café variando-se o estádio de maturação do café para aplicação do fungo Cladosporium cladosporioides. O trabalho foi desenvolvido entre maio e agosto de 2019. O delineamento experimental foi em blocos casualizados, composto por cinco tratamentos, determinados em função do estádio de maturação para aplicação do Cladosporium: (testemunha (sem aplicação com 12% frutos verdes)), 70%, 50% e 30% de frutos verdes e aplicação do Cladosporium no pátio de secagem com 12% frutos verdes) e cinco repetições. A colheita e secagem de todas as parcelas de cafés seguiram o mesmo protocolo. Foram avaliadas as seguintes variáveis: análise sensorial, ocorrência de microrganismos e análises físicos químicas. Os dados foram submetidos à análise de variância e rede de correlações. Não houve diferenças significativas para os atributos avaliados devido às condições edafoclimáticas da lavoura que não foram favoráveis a ocorrência dos fungos deletérios a qualidade do café. Portanto, o uso do fungo Cladosporium cladosporioides para bioproteção da qualidade do café não se justifica em lavouras onde as condições não são favoráveis à ocorrência de fungos deletérios à qualidade do café, como baixa umidade e temperatura amena. Palavras-chave: Controle biológico; Coffea arábica L.; bioproteção; cafés especiais.   Coffee quality at different maturation stages, due to the application of Cladosporium cladosporioides   ABSTRACT: The objective was to evaluate the chemical and sensorial quality of coffee by varying the coffee maturation stage for application of the fungus Cladosporium cladosporioides. The work was carried out between may and august 2019. The experimental design was in randomized blocks, consisting of five treatments, determined according to the stage of maturation for application of Cladosporium: (control (without application with 12% green fruits)), 70 %, 50% and 30% of green fruits and application of Cladosporium in the drying yard with 12% green fruits) and five replications. Harvesting and drying of all coffee plots followed the same protocol. The following variables were evaluated: sensory analysis, occurrence of microorganisms and physical-chemical analyses. Data were submitted to analysis of variance and correlation network. There were no significant differences for the attributes evaluated due to the soil and climate conditions of the crop, which were not favorable for the occurrence of fungi deleterious to coffee quality. Therefore, the use of the fungus Cladosporium cladosporioides for bioprotection of coffee quality is not justified in crops where conditions are not favorable for the occurrence of fungi deleterious to coffee quality, such as low humidity and mild temperature. Keywords: Biological control; Coffea arabica L.; bioprotection; specialty coffees

Italian Guidelines in diagnosis and treatment of alopecia areata

Alopecia areata (AA) is an organ-specific autoimmune disorder that targets anagen phase hair follicles. The course is unpredictable and current available treatments have variable efficacy. Nowadays, there is relatively little evidence on treatment of AA from well-designed clinical trials. Moreover, none of the treatments or devices commonly used to treat AA are specifically approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The Italian Study Group for Cutaneous Annexial Disease of the Italian Society of dermatology proposes these Italian guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of Alopecia Areata deeming useful for the daily management of the disease. This article summarizes evidence-based treatment associated with expert-based recommendations

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Developments in Bioelectricity and Perspectives in Italy: An Analysis of Regional Production Patterns

Bioenergy is being increasingly used worldwide to generate energy from biogas, biomethane, and other biofuels, bringing significant environmental and economic benefits. In Italy, biogas can significantly contribute to the achievement of the renewable energy targets set at the national and European levels. The exploitation of this energy source in a particular area is determined by its environmental and anthropic properties, as well as by the incentive system and the political will of decision makers. This paper analyzes the socioeconomic drivers and natural conditions triggering bioelectricity production in Italian regions. The analysis proposed here was performed in two steps—first, by identifying groups of similar regions for some natural, social, and economic variables, and then by modeling the historical trajectory of bioelectricity production for each identified group with innovation diffusion models. As a general finding, regions pertaining to the same group in terms of natural and socioeconomic conditions revealed a similar production pattern for bioelectricity, as confirmed by the results of diffusion modeling. On the basis of the diffusion modeling procedure, some scenario simulations were performed, which suggested the set-up of suitable policy actions for each group of regions

Ripe and Raw Pu-Erh Tea: LC-MS Profiling, Antioxidant Capacity and Enzyme Inhibition Activities of Aqueous and Hydro-Alcoholic Extracts

Herein, we reported a detailed profiling of soluble components of two fermented varieties of Chinese green tea, namely raw and ripe pu-erh. The identification and quantification of the main components was carried out by means of mass spectrometry and UV spectroscopy, after chromatographic separation. The antioxidant capacity towards different radical species, the anti-microbial and the enzyme inhibition activities of the extracts were then correlated to their main constituents. Despite a superimposable qualitative composition, a similar caffeine content, and similar enzyme inhibition and antimicrobial activities, raw pu-erh tea extract had a better antioxidant capacity owing to its higher polyphenol content. However, the activity of raw pu-erh tea seems not to justify its higher production costs and ripe variety appears to be a valid and low-cost alternative for the preparation of products with antioxidant or antimicrobial properties