Time Perspective and Employment Status: NEET Categories as Negative Predictor of Future

Time perspective is crucial for young adults in relation to decision making regarding present and future. Literature links PT to age, to well-being and many other psychological issues, and recent study also to socioeconomic status. In this paper, we have studied the relationship between PT and employment status. Specifically, taking into account the complex employment dynamics of the Italian context and the ever-increasing number of NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training), this research has studied the preferential temporal orientation of young NEET, comparing with students and workers of the same age and in the same socio-economic context. A questionnaire Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory in Short Form validated in Italian (S-TPI) was administrated to 144 young adults aged 20- 34. Multiple Linear Regression Model, stepwise method, shows that status NEET (negative predictor), age and level of education are predictors of future dimension; instead, maintenance income and family cultural capital are predictors of present dimensions

“I Don’t Feel like an Adult”—Self-Perception of Delayed Transition to Adulthood in NEET Sample

Nowadays, there has been a debate about factors still crucial for the actual definition of adulthood and the role played by uncertainty in employment, the economic crisis, changing cultural contexts, and globalization in the adulthood transition. This study aimed to provide a deeper understanding of the self-perception of the transition to adulthood among the Italian NEET (young people not engaged in education, employment, or training). A group of 53 NEETs were asked to assess their transition from adolescence to adulthood by rating themselves on a scale from 1 (=adolescence) to 7 (=adulthood). They were also asked to reflect on the reasons why they felt like adults or not. The qualitative data were coded using the criteria of adulthood attainment proposed by Arnett’s markers of adulthood scale. Analysis showed that the category with the highest frequency was role transition, and almost all the NEETs in this category felt “in-between”. The excerpts portrayed the centrality of work as a crucial factor in self-perception as an adult. The research emphasizes the importance of mixed-methods research to understand where and how people feel about the transition to adulthood, aspects that are difficult to grasp using only quantitative data

Innovative alternative technologies to extract carotenoids from microalgae and seaweeds

Marine microalgae and seaweeds (microalgae) represent a sustainable source of various bioactive natural carotenoids, including β-carotene, lutein, astaxanthin, zeaxanthin, violaxanthin and fucoxanthin. Recently, the large-scale production of carotenoids from algal sources has gained significant interest with respect to commercial and industrial applications for health, nutrition, and cosmetic applications. Although conventional processing technologies, based on solvent extraction, offer a simple approach to isolating carotenoids, they suffer several, inherent limitations, including low efficiency (extraction yield), selectivity (purity), high solvent consumption, and long treatment times, which have led to advancements in the search for innovative extraction technologies. This comprehensive review summarizes the recent trends in the extraction of carotenoids from microalgae and seaweeds through the assistance of different innovative techniques, such as pulsed electric fields, liquid pressurization, supercritical fluids, subcritical fluids, microwaves, ultrasounds, and high-pressure homogenization. In particular, the review critically analyzes technologies, characteristics, advantages, and shortcomings of the different innovative processes, highlighting the differences in terms of yield, selectivity, and economic and environmental sustainability

Impact of Novel Nonthermal Processing on Food Quality: Sustainability, Modelling, and Negative Aspects

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High-pressure homogenization treatment to recover bioactive compounds from tomato peels

By-products of tomato processing are rich in bioactive compounds and their recovery might bring significant economic and environmental benefits. High-pressure homogenization (HPH) (1–10 passes at 100 MPa) was used as a disruption method to recover valuable compounds from tomato peels, using solely water as process medium. Micronization of tomato peels suspensions by HPH reduced their size distribution below the visual detection limit, because of the complete disruption of individual plant cells. With respect to high-shear mixing (5 min at 20000 rpm), HPH processing (10 passes) caused an increased release of intracellular compounds, such as proteins (+70.5%), and polyphenols (+32.2%) with a corresponding increase in antioxidant activity (+23.3%) and reduction in oil-water interfacial tension (−15.0%). Remarkably, also the release of water-insoluble lycopene in the aqueous supernatant increased, enabling the recovery of up to 56.1% of the initial peel content, well above what reported in the literature when using organic solvents or supercritical CO2

The Effect of Vibrations on Fluidized Cohesive Powders

The fluidization of a cohesive silica powder has been tested with the help of mechanical vibration. The experiments showed how the effectiveness of vibrations changed with the vibrational acceleration and frequency. The aggregative behavior of powders has been highlighted and a model procedure is proposed to predict the aggregate size starting from the measurement of powder flow properties with conventional shear testers

Structuring Vegetable Oils Through the Formation of Capillary Suspensions: Comparison of Wheat Middlings and Pure Cellulose Processed by High-pressure Homogenization

Reducing the intake of harmful trans-fats and saturated fats in the diet, by replacing detrimental fats with healthier oils, without affecting the organoleptic properties of the food product, represent a formidable challenge for the scientific community. In this scenario, this work explores a possible strategy for structuring sunflower oil by investigating the formation of capillary suspensions using wheat middlings (WM) and pure cellulose (CL) as a structuring solid fraction. High-pressure homogenization (HPH), a purely mechanical cell disruption technology, was directly applied to oil suspensions of WM or CL. Subsequently, the addition under high-shear mixing (HSM) of different amounts of an immiscible secondary fluid, water, to the oil suspensions, led to WM and CL particles bridging and network formation, through the development of attractive capillary forces among the particles. The effect of water and particles characteristics on the rheological behavior of the oil suspensions was investigated. The presence of water caused initially an increase in viscosity and then a decrease, as water concentration exceeded a critical value, with an inversion from a continuous oil phase to a continuous aqueous phase. Moreover, the oxidative stability of the capillary suspensions was evaluated, during accelerated aging. The proposed approach not only does not suffer the presence of water, but significantly improves the oxidation stability with respect to the pu

A layer-by-layer approach for curcumin encapsulation for food applications

Driven by the consumers’ needs for new, healthier and safer food products, the food industry is seeking for edible systems able to encapsulate, protect and release lipophilic functional compounds. Nanoemulsion-based technology offers the methodologies for encapsulate, protect and control release, while improving the solubility and bioavailability of these compounds. The present work aimed at preparing stable curcumin nanoemulsions and multilayer nanoemulsions as potential bioactive compounds for food formulations. Curcumin nanoemulsions and multilayer nanoemulsions were prepared using high-pressure homogenization and the electrostatic layer-by-layer deposition techniques, respectively. Chitosan was used to build the first and third layers, being the second layer formed by alginate. The size stability and zeta potential studies showed that both systems were stable in time, during storage (60 days), obtaining hydrodynamic diameters of 80, 110 and 140 nm for the nanoemulsion, second and third layer, respectively. Size stability against different pH’s was also evaluated, being both nanosystems stable between the pH ranges of 2 to 12, where the pKa values of chitosan and alginate can influence the swelling and release of the multilayer nanoemulsions. Curcumin release studies showed that only curcumin nanoemulsions allowed release of this compound; results clearly showed that the addition of biopolymers layers (multilayer nanoemulsions) reinforced the stability of these structures, avoiding curcumin release. This work shows that it is possible to prepare multi-layer oil-in-water nanoemulsions through LbL technique using edible biopolymers and that this technology offers the potential to significantly improve solubility and bioavailability of bioactive compounds with different release kinetics profiles

Bergamot essential oil nanoemulsions: antimicrobial and cytotoxic activity.

Abstract Bergamot essential oil (BEO) is well-known for its food preservation activity, as well as anticancer efficacy. However, the poor BEO water solubility and deriving low bioaccessibility have limited its wider applications. The incorporation in nanoemulsions of BEO and its refined fractions was investigated to enhance its dispersibility in water to promote its antimicrobial activity, tested against Escherichia coli, Lactobacillus delbrueckii, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and its cytotoxicity already at low concentrations. Different nanoemulsion formulations were tested based on food-grade ingredients, which were characterized in terms of hydrodynamic diameter and polydispersity index, and physical stability. The antimicrobial activity against all the tested micro-organisms was observed to be higher for BEO in its initial composition, than the light fraction, richer in d-limonene, ß-pinene, and γ-terpinene, or the heavy fraction, richer in linalyl acetate and linalool. Remarkably, the use of BEO nanoemulsions notably enhanced the antimicrobial activity for all the tested oils. BEO exhibited also a measurable cytotoxic activity against Caco-2 cells, which was also enhanced by the use of the different nanoemulsions tested, in comparison with free oil, which discourages the direct use of BEO nanoemulsions as a food preservative. Conversely, BEO nanoemulsions might find use in therapeutic applications as anticarcinogenic agents

Improved extractability of carotenoids from tomato peels as side benefits of PEF treatment of tomato fruit for more energy-efficient steam-assisted peeling

Abstract The combination of steam blanching (SB) with Pulsed Electric Fields (PEF) treatments of whole tomatoes, in addition to reducing the energy required for tomato peeling, can significantly contribute to the recovery of carotenoids from the peels. In this work, PEF (0.25-0-75 kV/cm, 1 kJ/kg) and SB (1 min at 50–70 °C), as pre-treatment prior to hand peeling, were investigated to assess their ability, separately and in combination, to induce the cell permeabilization of tomato peels, and hence to improve the carotenoids extraction in acetone (4 h at 25 °C). PEF and SB, by inducing significant damages at the cuticular level, caused the increase of the yield in total carotenoids (up to 188% for PEF and 189% for SB) and antioxidant power (up to 372% for PEF and 305% for SB) with respect to the peels from untreated tomatoes. The application of a combined treatment (PEF + SB) significantly increased the carotenoid content and the antioxidant power of the extracts, with a synergistic effect observed already at 60 °C (37.9 mg/100 g fresh weight tomato peels). HPLC analyses revealed that lycopene was the main carotenoid extracted and that neither PEF nor SB caused any selective release or degradation of lycopene. Results obtained from this study demonstrate that the integration of PEF in the processing line of tomato fruits prior to SB contributes to the valorization of tomato processing by-products