1,756 research outputs found

    Wooden Musical Instruments - Different Forms of Knowledge: Book of End of WoodMusICK COST Action FP1302

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    International audienceMusical instrument are fundamental tools of human expression that reveal and reflect historical, technological, social and cultural aspects of times and people. These three-dimensional, polyma-teric objects-at times considered artworks, other times technical objects-are the most powerful way to communicate emotions and to connect people and communities with the surrounding world. The participants in WoodMusICK (WOODen MUSical Instrument Conservation and Knowledge) COST Action FP1302 have aimed to combine forces and to foster research on wooden musical instruments in order to preserve, develop and disseminate knowledge on musical instruments in Europe through inter-and transdisciplinary research. This four-year program, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), has involved a multidisciplinary and multinational research group composed of curators, conservators/restorers, wood, material and mechanical scientists, chemists, acousticians, organologists and instrument makers. The goal of the COST Action was to improve the knowledge and preservation of wooden musical instruments heritage by increasing the interaction and synergy between different disciplines

    Effect of Different Egg Products on Lipid Oxidation of Biscuits

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    Egg products are one of the main ingredients used in bakery industries, and they contain cholesterol. Cholesterol su ers several chemical changes during the food processes, allowing some potentially toxic compounds called cholesterol oxidized products (COPs). Thus, the aim of this work was to study the evolution of lipid oxidation from eggs to egg products, and to evaluate the influence of egg products on COPs formation in biscuits formulated with them. The results confirmed that spray-drying technology improves the cholesterol oxidation 2.6 times compared to pasteurized eggs. Biscuit samples showed a COPs content that is strictly related to the egg products used. Samples formulated with spray-dried eggs noticed lower amounts of COPs compared to those formulated with pasteurized eggs. It is important to stress that COPs composition was di erent between the two samples, underlining that the kinetic of COPs formation is dependent on the type of egg products.Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) RYC-2015-1879

    Distribution of Free and Bound Phenolic Compounds in Buckwheat Milling Fractions

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    Buckwheat is a rich source of phenolic compounds that have shown to possess beneficial effect to reduce some diseases due to their antioxidant power. Phenolic compounds are present in the free and in the bound form to the cell wall that are concentrated mainly in the outer layer (hull and bran). Hull is removed before the milling of buckwheat to obtain flours. In order to evaluate the phenolic composition in dehulled buckwheat milling fractions, it was carried out a determination of free and bound phenolic compounds in dehulled whole buckwheat flour, light flour, bran flour, and middling flour by high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC–MS). The most abundant free phenolic compounds were rutin and epiafzelchin–epicatechin-O-dimethylgallate, whereas the most abundant bound phenolic compounds were catechin and epicatechin in all buckwheat flours. Besides, the highest content of free phenolic compounds was obtained in bran flour (1249.49 mg/kg d.w.), whereas the greatest bound phenolic content was in middling (704.47 mg/kg d.w.) and bran flours (689.81 mg/kg d.w.). Thus, middling and bran flours are naturally enriched flours in phenolic compounds that could be used to develop functional foods

    Use of Sieving as a Valuable Technology to Produce Enriched Buckwheat Flours: A Preliminary Study

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    Fractionation processes based on physical separation are a good strategy to produce enriched cereal flours. Therefore, the aim of this work is to evaluate the suitability of sieving of buckwheat flours to produce protein and phenolic (especially rutin) enriched fractions. Because of that, dehulled whole buckwheat flour (GSTQ) was sieved obtaining fractions with a particle size of 215 um, 160 um, 85 um, and 45 um (GS215, GS160, GS85, and GS45). For that purpose, the determination of protein, ash, and total starch content and free and bound phenolic compounds was carried out. The highest content of total phenolic compounds was obtained in GS215 (3118.84 mg kg-1 d.w.), followed by GS160 (2499.11 mg kg-1 d.w.), GS85 (989.46 mg kg-1 d.w.), GSTQ (983.15 mg kg-1 d.w.), and GS45 (481.31 mg kg-1 d.w.). Therefore, the phenolic content decreased with the particle size decrease from 215 um to 45 um. Besides, there were no significant differences between the total phenolic content in GS85 and GSTQ. The fraction with 215 um reported the highest protein and mineral salt content and presented rutin amounts four times higher than GSTQ

    Peripheral Biomarkers in Manifest and Premanifest Huntington’s Disease

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    Huntington's disease (HD) is characterized by clinical motor impairment (e.g., involuntary movements, poor coordination, parkinsonism), cognitive deficits, and psychiatric symptoms. An inhered expansion of the CAG triplet in the huntingtin gene causing a pathogenic gain-of-function of the mutant huntingtin (mHTT) protein has been identified. In this review, we focus on known biomarkers (e.g., mHTT, neurofilament light chains) and on new biofluid biomarkers that can be quantified in plasma or peripheral blood mononuclear cells from mHTT carriers. Circulating biomarkers may fill current unmet needs in HD management: better stratification of patients amenable to etiologic treatment; the initiation of preventive treatment in premanifest HD; and the identification of peripheral pathogenic central nervous system cascades

    E-ELT HIRES the high resolution spectrograph for the E-ELT: integrated data flow system

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    The current E-ELT instrumentation plan foresees a High Resolution Spectrograph conventionally indicated as HIRES whose Phase A study has started in 2016. An international consortium (stemmed from the existing "HIRES initiative") is conducting a preliminary study of a modular E-ELT instrument able to provide highresolution spectroscopy (R 100; 000) in a wide wavelength range (0.37-2.5 μm). For the aims of data treatment (which encompasses both the reduction and the analysis procedures) an end-to-end approach has been adopted, to directly extract scientific information from the observations with a coherent set of interactive, properly validated software modules. This approach is favoured by the specific science objectives of the instrument, which pose unprecedented requirements in terms of measurement precision and accuracy. In this paper we present the architecture envisioned for the HIRES science software, building on the lessons learned in the development of the data analysis software for the ESPRESSO ultra-stable spectrograph for the VLT

    Inulin-enriched pasta improves intestinal permeability and modifies the circulating levels of zonulin and glucagon-like peptide 2 in healthy young volunteers

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    Apart from the intestinal environment, inulin induces physiological effects, which includes a reduction in glucose and lipid concentrations and modulation of gastrointestinal motility through the release of different peptides. We hypothesized that inulin-enriched pasta may also improve small intestine permeability in relation to zonulin and glucagon-like peptide 2 (GLP-2) levels in healthy young subjects. Twenty healthy, young male volunteers completed a randomized, double-blind crossover study consisting of a 2-week run-in period and two 5-week study periods (11% inulin-enriched or control pasta), with an 8-week washout period in between. The intestinal barrier function was assessed by lactulose-mannitol excretion in urine. Zonulin values and GLP-2 release were evaluated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. In the inulin group, the urinary lactulose recovery was significantly lower than the other 2 groups. There were no significant differences in urinary mannitol levels between groups. Accordingly, the lactulose-mannitol excretion ratio was significantly decreased in the inulin-enriched pasta group compared with the other 2 groups. The inulin-enriched pasta group had significantly lower zonulin serum values and significantly higher GLP-2 basal values when compared with the baseline and control pasta groups. The dietary use of inulin-enriched pasta preserves intestinal mucosal barrier functioning and modulates circulating levels of zonulin and GLP-2, suggesting that prebiotics could be used in the prevention of gastrointestinal diseases and metabolic disorders

    The most luminous blue quasars at 3.0<z<3.3. II. CIV/X-ray emission and accretion disc physics

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    We analyse the properties of the CIV broad emission line in connection with the X-ray emission of 30 bright SDSS quasars at z~3.0-3.3 with pointed XMM-Newton observations, which were selected to test the suitability of AGN as cosmological tools. In our previous work, we found that a large fraction (~25%) of the quasars in this sample are X-ray underluminous by factors of >3-10. As absorbing columns of >1023^{23} cm−2^{-2} can be safely ruled out, their weakness is most likely intrinsic. Here we explore possible correlations between the UV and X-ray features of these sources to investigate the origin of X-ray weakness. We fit their UV SDSS spectra and analyse their CIV properties (e.g., equivalent width, EW; line peak velocity, υpeak\upsilon_{\rm peak}) as a function of the X-ray photon index and 2-10 keV flux. We confirm the trends of CIV υpeak\upsilon_{\rm peak} and EW with UV luminosity at 2500 angstrom for both X-ray weak and X-ray normal quasars, as well as the correlation between X-ray weakness and CIV EW. In contrast to some recent work, we do not observe any clear relation between the 2-10 keV luminosity and υpeak\upsilon_{\rm peak}. We find a correlation between the hard X-ray flux and the integrated CIV flux for X-ray normal quasars, whilst X-ray weak quasars deviate from the main trend by more than 0.5 dex. We argue that X-ray weakness might be interpreted in a starved X-ray corona picture associated with an ongoing disc-wind phase. If the wind is ejected in the vicinity of the black hole, the extreme-UV radiation that reaches the corona will be depleted, depriving the corona of seeds photons and generating an X-ray weak quasar. Yet, at the largest UV luminosities (>1047^{47} erg s−1^{-1}), there will still be an ample reservoir of ionising photons that can explain the excess CIV emission observed in the X-ray weak quasars with respect to normal sources of similar X-ray luminosities.Comment: 22 pages, 15 figures (with 3 more figures in the Appendix), abstract abridged. Accepted for publication in A&
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