Effects of red grape, wild grape and black raspberry wines on ground pork during refrigerated storage

The effects of red grape, wild grape and black raspberry wines on the quality of ground pork during a 15 days refrigerated storage period were investigated. The levels of phenolic compounds were the highest in black raspberry wine (P0.05). The addition of 5% and 10% wine influenced the quality of ground pork by decreasing pH, inhibiting the progression of lipid oxidation and the formation of total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N), and stabilizing the red colour of the ground pork compared to control samples to which no wine was added. In ground pork, addition of red grape wine led to lower concentrations of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS, 0.19–0.39 mg kg−1) and TVB-N values (69.1–119.9 mg kg−1) than wild grape (0.16–0.43 mg kg−1 and 72.0–194.1 mg kg−1, respectively) or black raspberry wine (0.33–0.58 mg kg−1 and 81.7–225.4 mg kg−1, respectively) up to 10 days of storage. Results from the present study suggested that the quality of ground pork was affected by wine type and storage period. These effects could be due to phenolic compounds as well as other chemical components of the wines

Antioxidant properties of differently processed spinach products

The effect of variously processed spinach products (whole-leaf, minced and enzymatically liquefied spinach) on lipid oxidation was determined. In an autoxidative methyl linoleate (MeLo) system the inhibition of hydroperoxide formation, measured by HPLC after three days of oxidation, was in descending order: whole-leaf > liquefied > minced spinach. The inhibition of formation of thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) and hexanal by spinach was determined in cooked meatballs with added spinach after two days of storage at 4°C. The formation of TBARS was inhibited by liquefied spinach at 200 g/kg meat; all other spinach products tested at 100 and 200 g/kg were pro-oxidative. The formation of hexanal was inhibited by both minced and liquefied spinach at 100 and 200 g/kg meat. The variously processed spinach products behaved differently when tested for their antioxidant activity (MeLo) or oxidative stability (meatballs). We conclude that the effect of spinach products on lipid oxidation is affected by processin

Multifunctionality of agricultural activities, changin rural identies and new institutional arrangements

This paper builds on the outcomes of a state-of-the-art review of research for the European research project MULTAGRI, with a particular focus on the conceptualisation of Multifunctional Agriculture (MFA) from a 'supply side' perspective. It argues that a consistent and satisfactory conceptual framework for studying the supply of MFA at farm and territorial level is still largely lacking and that, when consistently applied, the recognition of the multifunctionality of agriculture fundamentally challenges the ways in which agricultural activities are observed, analysed and their effects assessed. This is elaborated by discussing five 'critical questions' for studying the supply of MFA: (1) what are relevant functions of agriculture? (2) how to define agricultural activities? (3) how to identify relevant farm/firm categories? (4) how to study the role of changing rural identities? and (5) what is the role of new territorial and institutional arrangements

Formulated products containing a new phytase from Schyzophyllum sp. phytase for application in feed and food processing

A new formulated product containing high yield of phytase from Schizophyllum sp., an important mushroom used for medicinal studies, was developed for application in feed industries and for future use in food processing. The enzyme presented a high activity yield 55.5 U/mL and 6240 U/gds in liquid and solid formulated product, respectively. It showed a good shelf-life in concentrated product, retaining 67.8% of its activity after 60 days of storage at room temperature and 90% of the activity was maintained in the liquid formulation after the same period. Powder bioformulated product maintained 77% of its activity after two months of storage, without the addition of chemical additives, which was named as a new bioformulated product containing high quantities of phytase. After separation and concentration steps, enzyme stability was monitored in two forms: liquid and solid. The liquid product was stable with the presence of manitol and polyethylene glycol at 1% (w/v), while solid product was the most stable product without the presence of chemical additives

Suboptimal Solutions to Dynamic Optimization Problems via Approximations of the Policy Functions

The approximation of the optimal policy functions is investigated for dynamic optimization problems with an objective that is additive over a finite number of stages. The distance between optimal and suboptimal values of the objective functional is estimated, in terms of the errors in approximating the optimal policy functions at the various stages. Smoothness properties are derived for such functions and exploited to choose the approximating families. The approximation error is measured in the supremum norm, in such a way to control the error propagation from stage to stage. Nonlinear approximators corresponding to Gaussian radial-basis-function networks with adjustable centers and widths are considered. Conditions are defined, guaranteeing that the number of Gaussians (hence, the number of parameters to be adjusted) does not grow “too fast” with the dimension of the state vector. The results help to mitigate the curse of dimensionality in dynamic optimization. An example of application is given and the use of the estimates is illustrated via a numerical simulation