An Intelligent Decision Support System for the Detection of Meat Spoilage using Multispectral Images

In food industry, quality and safety are considered important issues worldwide that are directly related to health and social progress. The use of vision technology for quality testing of food production has the obvious advantage of being able to continuously monitor a production using non-destructive methods, thus increasing the quality and minimizing cost. The performance of an intelligent decision support system has been evaluated in monitoring the spoilage of minced beef stored either aerobically or under modified atmosphere packaging, at different storage temperatures (0, 5, 10, and 15 °C) utilising multispectral imaging information. This paper utilises a neuro-fuzzy model which incorporates a clustering pre-processing stage for the definition of fuzzy rules, while its final fuzzy rule base is determined by competitive learning. Initially, meat samples are classified according to their storage conditions, while identification models are then utilised for the prediction of the Total Viable Counts of bacteria. The innovation of the proposed approach is further extended to the identification of the temperature used for storage, utilizing only imaging spectral information. Results indicated that spectral information in combination with the proposed modelling scheme could be considered as an alternative methodology for the accurate evaluation of meat spoilage

Cisplatin neurotoxicity in the treatment of metastatic germ cell tumour: time course and prognosis

In order to ascertain the incidence and prognosis of cisplatin-induced neurotoxicity in testis cancer patients undergoing combination chemotherapy, 29 patients with metastatic disease were studied prospectively. Assessments included enquiry into neurological symptoms, measurement of sural nerve sensory action potential and conduction velocity, and vibration threshold in the left big toe. At the end of chemotherapy (3 to 4 cycles) only 3 out of 26 (11%) patients had paraesthesiae, but 3 months later the proportion rose to 65%. Resolution occurred in the majority over the ensuing 12 months so that only 17% had persistent symptoms. None of the 11 patients treated with 3 cycles of chemotherapy had persisting symptoms. Vibration thresholds showed a significant deterioration during chemotherapy (P = 0.032), further deterioration in the 3 months following chemotherapy (P = 0.009) and significant improvement between 3 and 12 months after chemotherapy (P = 0.038). Sural nerve sensory action potentials and conduction velocities were unhelpful.© 2001 Cancer Research Campaignhttp://www.bjcancer.co

EMG-Normalised Kinase Activation during Exercise Is Higher in Human Gastrocnemius Compared to Soleus Muscle

In mice, certain proteins show a highly confined expression in specific muscle groups. Also, resting and exercise/contraction-induced phosphorylation responses are higher in rat skeletal muscle with low mitochondrial content compared to muscles with high mitochondrial content, possibly related to differential reactive oxygen species (ROS)-scavenging ability or resting glycogen content. To evaluate these parameters in humans, biopsies from soleus, gastrocnemius and vastus lateralis muscles were taken before and after a 45 min inclined (15%) walking exercise bout at 69% VO2max aimed at simultaneously activating soleus and gastrocnemius in a comparable dynamic work-pattern. Hexokinase II and GLUT4 were 46–59% and 26–38% higher (p<0.05) in soleus compared to the two other muscles. The type I muscle fiber percentage was highest in soleus and lowest in vastus lateralis. No differences were found in protein expression of signalling proteins (AMPK subunits, eEF2, ERK1/2, TBC1D1 and 4), mitochondrial markers (F1 ATPase and COX1) or ROS-handling enzymes (SOD2 and catalase). Gastrocnemius was less active than soleus measured as EMG signal and glycogen use yet gastrocnemius displayed larger increases than soleus in phosphorylation of AMPK Thr172, eEF2 Thr56 and ERK 1/2 Thr202/Tyr204 when normalised to the mean relative EMG-signal. In conclusion, proteins with muscle-group restricted expression in mice do not show this pattern in human lower extremity muscle groups. Nonetheless the phosphorylation-response is greater for a number of kinase signalling pathways in human gastrocnemius than soleus at a given activation-intensity. This may be due to the combined subtle effects of a higher type I muscle fiber content and higher training status in soleus compared to gastrocnemius muscle

Lysosomal membrane permeabilization in cell death

18 páginas, 3 figuras, 2 tablas -- PAGS nros. 6434-6451Mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization (MOMP) constitutes one of the major checkpoint(s) of apoptotic and necrotic cell death. Recently, the permeabilization of yet another organelle, the lysosome, has been shown to initiate a cell death pathway, in specific circumstances. Lysosomal membrane permeabilization (LMP) causes the release of cathepsins and other hydrolases from the lysosomal lumen to the cytosol. LMP is induced by a plethora of distinct stimuli including reactive oxygen species, lysosomotropic compounds with detergent activity, as well as some endogenous cell death effectors such as Bax. LMP is a potentially lethal event because the ectopic presence of lysosomal proteases in the cytosol causes digestion of vital proteins and the activation of additional hydrolases including caspases. This latter process is usually mediated indirectly, through a cascade in which LMP causes the proteolytic activation of Bid (which is cleaved by the two lysosomal cathepsins B and D), which then induces MOMP, resulting in cytochrome c release and apoptosome-dependent caspase activation. However, massive LMP often results in cell death without caspase activation; this cell death may adopt a subapoptotic or necrotic appearance. The regulation of LMP is perturbed in cancer cells, suggesting that specific strategies for LMP induction might lead to novel therapeutic avenuesResearch in our labs is supported by grants from Ministry of Science (BFU-2006-00508) and from Fundación La Caixa (BM06-125-1) to PB and Ligue Nationale contre le Cancer (Equipe labellisée), European Commission (Active p53, Apo-Sys, RIGHT, TransDeath, ChemoRes, DeathTrain), Agence Nationale pour la Recherche, Institut National contre le Cancer, Cancéropôle Ile-de-France and Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale to GKPeer reviewe