The effect of different packaging materials on proteolysis, sensory scores and gross composition of tulum cheese

In this study, tulum cheese was manufactured using raw ewe’s milk and was ripened in goat’s skin and plastic bags. The effect of ripening materials (skin bag or plastic) on proteolysis was investigated during 120 days of ripening. In addition, sensory scores of the cheeses were assessed at the 90th and 120th days. The gross composition was also determined at the initial stage of ripening. The results showed that, some significant differences were noted between cheeses ripened in goat’s skin and plastic bags in terms of gross composition due to the porous structure of skin bag, which causes moisture loses during ripening. Significant differences were observed in proteolysis indices including water, 12% tricholoroacetic acid and 5% phosphotungstic acid-soluble nitrogen fractions among the cheese samples during ripening. Proteolysis levels were higher in tulum cheeses ripened in goat’s skin.Key words: Tulum cheese, packaging material, sensory analysis, ripening, proteolysis

A Battery Energy Management Strategy for UK Enhanced Frequency Response

Balancing the grid at 50 Hz requires managing many distributed generation sources against a varying load, which is becoming an increasingly challenging task due to the increased penetration of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar and loss of traditional generation which provide inertia to the system. In the UK, various frequency support services are available, which are developed to provide a real-time response to changes in the grid frequency. The National Grid (NG) – the main distribution network operator in the UK – have introduced a new and fast service called the Enhanced Frequency Response (EFR), which requires a response time of under one second. A battery energy storage system (BESS) is a suitable candidate for delivering such service. Therefore, in this paper a control algorithm is developed to provide a charge/discharge power output with respect to deviations in the grid frequency and the ramp-rate limits imposed by the NG, whilst managing the state-of-charge (SOC) of the BESS for an optimised utilisation of the available stored energy. Simulation results on a 2 MW/1 MWh lithiumtitanate BESS are provided to verify the proposed algorithm based on the control of an experimentally validated battery model

Evaluating adult cor triatriatum with total anomalous pulmonary venous connections by multidetector computed tomography angiography

A 19-year-old female patient was admitted to our hospital with dyspnea, chest pain, and shortness of breath. A chest radiograph showed mild cardiomegaly. Echocardiography revealed an extra chamber in the heart. To evaluate this abnormality, ECG-gated 16-detector-row computed tomography angiography was performed. Multidetector computed tomography (MDCT), showing cor triatriatum with total anomalous pulmonary venous connections (TAPVC), clearly revealed cardiac and vascular anatomy. ECG-gated cardiac MDCT is a useful tool for detection and characterisation of cor triatriatum and related anomalies. (Folia Morphol 2011; 70, 4: 312–314

Appendectomy in the surgical treatment of benign ovarian mucinous cystadenomas — is it necessary?

Objectives: To determine if appendectomy as an adjunctive procedure is necessary in the surgical treatment of benign ovarian mucinous cystadenomas. Material and methods: Retrospective analysis of clinical data: in a research hospital, obstetrics and gynecology depart­ment setting, 63 cases of benign ovarian mucinous cystadenomas confirmed in the pathological evaluation were revised. 59 had the complete clinical, final pathological and follow-up data available and were included. Results: 20.6% (13/59) went through an appendectomy. Basic characteristics of patients with different appendiceal pathologies did not show any significant differences. In the study group the mean age, parity, adnexial mass size were (40.1 ± 12.4); (1.3 ± 1.1) and (9.1 ± 5.3 cm), respectively. Patients were either operated laparoscopically (20), laparotomically (39) to perform a unilateral salpingoopherectomy/cystectomy. In 7 patients, oopherectomy was an additional procedure with: 2 abdominal hysterectomies, 4 cesarean sections and 1 total laparoscopic hysterectomy. 2 synchronous appendiceal pathologies (mucinous cystadenomas of the appendix) were defined in appendectomies performed. In these cases, the ovarian tumour sizes were: 7 cm and 4 cm. Conclusions: In the presence of a benign or borderline unilateral ovarian mucinous tumour as defined during the operation and especially if it is larger than 10–12 cm and with normal peritoneal and appendiceal gross morphology, appendectomy is not a necessary adjunctive procedure

Comparison of Infrared and Visible Imagery for Object Tracking: Toward Trackers with Superior IR Performance

The subject of this paper is the visual object tracking in infrared (IR) videos. Our contribution is twofold. First, the performance behaviour of the state-of-the-art trackers is investigated via a comparative study using IR-visible band video conjugates, i.e., video pairs captured observing the same scene simultaneously, to identify the IR specific challenges. Second, we propose a novel ensemble based tracking method that is tuned to IR data. The proposed algorithm sequentially constructs and maintains a dynamical ensemble of simple correlators and produces tracking decisions by switching among the ensemble correlators depending on the target appearance in a computationally highly efficient manner We empirically show that our algorithm significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art trackers in our extensive set of experiments with IR imagery

Ge nanocrystals embedded in ultrathin Si3N4 multilayers with SiO2 barriers

Multilayers of germanium nanocrystals (NCs) embedded in thin films of silicon nitride matrix separated with SiO2 barriers have been fabricated using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). SiGeN/SiO2 alternating bilayers have been grown on quartz and Si substrates followed by post annealing in Ar ambient from 600 to 900 °C. High resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) as well as Raman spectroscopy show good crystallinity of Ge confined to SiGeN layers in samples annealed at 900 °C. Strong compressive stress for SiGeN/SiO2 structures were observed through Raman spectroscopy. Size, as well as NC-NC distance were controlled along the growth direction for multilayer samples by varying the thickness of bilayers. Visible photoluminescence (PL) at 2.3 and 3.1 eV with NC size dependent intensity is observed and possible origin of PL is discussed. © 2017 Elsevier Lt

Self-supervised multicontrast super-resolution for diffusion-weighted prostate MRI

Purpose: This study addresses the challenge of low resolution and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in diffusion-weighted images (DWI), which are pivotal for cancer detection. Traditional methods increase SNR at high b-values through multiple acquisitions, but this results in diminished image resolution due to motion-induced variations. Our research aims to enhance spatial resolution by exploiting the global structure within multicontrast DWI scans and millimetric motion between acquisitions. Methods: We introduce a novel approach employing a "Perturbation Network" to learn subvoxel-size motions between scans, trained jointly with an implicit neural representation (INR) network. INR encodes the DWI as a continuous volumetric function, treating voxel intensities of low-resolution acquisitions as discrete samples. By evaluating this function with a finer grid, our model predicts higher-resolution signal intensities for intermediate voxel locations. The Perturbation Network's motion-correction efficacy was validated through experiments on biological phantoms and in vivo prostate scans. Results: Quantitative analyses revealed significantly higher structural similarity measures of super-resolution images to ground truth high-resolution images compared to high-order interpolation (p Conclusion: High-resolution details in DWI can be obtained without the need for high-resolution training data. One notable advantage of the proposed method is that it does not require a super-resolution training set. This is important in clinical practice because the proposed method can easily be adapted to images with different scanner settings or body parts, whereas the supervised methods do not offer such an option.</p

Laser induced sponge-like Si in Si-rich oxides for photovoltaics

We show that a sponge-like structure of interconnected Si nanowires embedded in a dielectric matrix can be obtained by laser annealing of silicon rich oxides (SRO). Due to quantum confinement, the large bandgap displayed by these percolated nanostructures can be utilized as a tandem stage in 3rd generation thin-film solar cells. Well passivated by the SiO2 dielectric matrix, they are expected to overcome the difficulty of carrier separation encountered in the case of isolated crystalline quantum dots. In this study PECVD grown SRO were irradiated by a cw Ar+ laser. Raman spectroscopy has been used to assess the crystallinity of the Si nanostructures and thus to optimize the annealing conditions as dwell times and power densities. In addition, Si plasmon imaging in the transmission electron microscope was applied to identify the sponge-like structure of phase-separated silicon. © 2013 Optical Society of America