Effect of ultrasonication on microbial quality, colour and ascorbic acid of passion-fruit juice during storage

Passion fruit juice (PFJ) has a delicate flavour very susceptible to thermal degradation. This study pursued to test the effect of sonication as non-thermal preservation method on some quality parameters of PFJ. The effect of ultrasound (20 kHz, 263 W, 89.25 µm) on the indigenous microflora, colour and ascorbic acid content of PFJ was studied. Firstly, the kinetic of microbial inactivation was determined for aerobic mesophilic counts and yeasts counts. Data was fitted to Weibull model, and a treatment time of 8 min was selected for stability studies. To this, untreated and sonicated juice was stored at 4 and 10 ºC up to 10 days and microbial quality, instrumental colour, pH and ascorbic acid content were evaluated. In general, ultrasound kept juice microbiologically stable for up to 10 days at 4 ºC without markedly affecting other parameters evaluated. Ultrasound seems suitable to stabilize microbiologically PFJ.Ciencias de la Alimentació

Energy consumption, income and CO2 emissions in Latin America

I describe and compare the environment policies of European Union and of 12 Latin Americans economies. For this, I use common statistical methods, such as non-parametric tests, convergence analysis (Beta and Sigma) and panel data, in order to verify the hypothesis that emissions and energy use in Latin America has been increasing since the mid-20th century. The statistical tests used confirm the proposed hypothesis. I also rely upon the Environmental Kuznets Curve- whereby economies that are at the growth stage are more focused on achieving the latter than they are on environmental concerns and those which have already achieved growth focus more on environmental concerns-to take an alternative approach by introducing the role of economic growth in the evolution of energy consumption and emissions. This chapter reaches the conclusion that energy consumption and pollutant emissions in LA, in per capita terms, are converging. This suggests that the initial levels of the variables help to explain why some countries have increased emissions (in this case, energy consumption) to a greater extent than other economies in the region. Evidence of convergence is also found, as well as a monotonic relationship between the level of pollution and the level of development (consistent with the Environmental Kuznets Curve).Energy Consumption, emissions, Latin America, Convergence

Transcription-mediated replication hindrance: a major driver of genome instability

Genome replication involves dealing with obstacles that can result from DNA damage but also from chromatin alterations, topological stress, tightly bound proteins or non-B DNA structures such as R loops. Experimental evidence reveals that an engaged transcription machinery at the DNA can either enhance such obstacles or be an obstacle itself. Thus, transcription can become a potentially hazardous process promoting localized replication fork hindrance and stress, which would ultimately cause genome instability, a hallmark of cancer cells. Understanding the causes behind transcription–replication conflicts as well as how the cell resolves them to sustain genome integrity is the aim of this review

Semblanzas Ictiológicas: Matías Pandolfi

través de esta serie intentaremos conocer diferentes facetas personales de los integrantes de nuestra “comunidad”. El cuestionario, además de su principal objetivo, con sus respuestas quizás nos ayude a encontrar entre nosotros puntos en común que vayan más allá de nuestros temas de trabajo y sea un aporte a futuros estudios históricos. Esperamos que esta iniciativa pueda ser otro nexo entre los ictiólogos de la región,ya que consideramos que el resultado general trascendería nuestras fronteras

Socio-economic inequalities in health in Catalonia

In this paper we measure the degree of income related inequality in mental health as measured by the GHQ instrument and general health as measured by the EQOL-5D instrument for the Catalan population. We find that income is the main contributor to inequality, although the share of inequality in mental health that can be explained by income is much greater than the corresponding share of inequality in general health. We also find that the variation in demographic structure reduces income related inequality in mental health but increases income related inequality in general health. The regional variations in both instruments for health are striking, with the Barcelona districts faring relatively bad with respect to the rest of geographical areas and Lleida being the health region where, all else held equal, the population reports the greatest level of health. A big share of inequality in the two health measures, but specially mental health, is due to the favourable position in both health and income of those who enjoy an indefinite contract with respect to the rest of individuals. We also find that risky working conditions affect both health measures and are able to explain an important share of socio-economic inequality.Health inequalities, decomposition analysis, Spain

Regional differences in socio-economic health inequalities in Spain

This paper reports an analysis of income related health inequalities at the Autonomous Community level in Spain using the self assessed health measure in the 2001 edition of the Encuesta Nacional de Salud. We use recently developed methods in order to cardinalise and model self assessed health within a regression framework, decompose the sources of inequality and explain the observed differences across regions. We find that the regions with the highest levels of mean health tend to enjoy the lowest degrees of income related health inequality and vice-versa. The main feature characterizing regions where income related health inequality is low is the absence of a positive gradient between income and health. In turn, the regions where income related health inequality is greater are characterized by a strong and significant positive gradient between health and income. These results suggest that policies aimed at eliminating the gradient between health and income can potentially lead to greate r reductions in socio-economic health inequalities than policies aimed at redistributing income.Health inequalities, decomnposition analysis, Spain

The evolution of inequity in the access to health care in Spain: 1987-2001

This paper reports an analysis of the evolution of equity in access to health care in Spain over the period 1987-2001, a time span covering the development of the modern Spanish National Health System. Our measures of access are the probabilities of visiting a doctor, using emergency services and being hospitalised. For these three measures we obtain indices of horizontal inequity from microeconometric models of utilization that exploit the individual information in the Spanish National Health Surveys of 1987 and 2001. We find that by 2001 the system has improved in the sense that differences in income no longer lead to different access given the same level of need. However, the tenure of private health insurance leads to differences in access given the same level of need, and its contribution to inequity has increased over time, both because insurance is more concentrated among the rich and because the elasticity of utilization for the three services has increased too.Health care utilization; health insurance; equity; Spain

The accounting dimension in financial integration: International pricing under different accounting standards

We suggest that accounting homogeneity is a necessary step in the process of financial market integration. Specifically, we analyze the effect of integration in the “accounting sense” in the correct analysis of international investments and fund allocation by estimating several pricing and valuation models in a cross-country context. We design our analysis in such a way that we can control for differences in accounting standards of the firms contained in the sample. Our results show that the accounting dimension is relevant for cross-country pricing and valuation: the use of homogeneous accounting leads to higher goodness-of-fit of international versions of the models, at levels similar to those of domestic versions and superior to those of non-homogeneous versions. Our results imply that accounting integration is an additional, and important, dimension of financial integration and that progress towards further accounting homogeneity would lead to more accurate pricing of international assets and to an improvement of the efficiency of international fund allocation.