Dietary fibre and cell-wall polysaccharides in chaenomeles fruits

In this paper, research on dietary fibre and cell-wall polysaccharides in chaenomeles fruits is reported and summarised. The dietary fibre in fruits of 12 genotypes of Japanese quince (Chaenomeles japonica) and 1 genotype of flowering quince (C. speciosa) was prepared using two different methods: the Alcohol Insoluble Solid (AIS) method; and the AOAC method for total as well as for soluble and insoluble fibre. The two methods resulted in significantly different estimates, however, no interaction was found between the methods and the genotypes studied. For content of total dietary fibre, three main groups were distinguished, one containing a low amount of fibre (3 genotypes, 28–30 g/100 g dry matter); one containing a moderate amount of fibre (9 genotypes, 30–36 g/100 g dry matter) and an isolated genotype (C. speciosa) that contained a high amount of fibre (38 g/100 g dry matter). The amount and the nature of monomeric sugars in the constituent polysaccharides of the fibre were determined after total hydrolysis of the AIS and the TDF (Total Dietary Fibre). The fibre contained mostly pectic and cellulosic polysaccharides. A sequential extraction scheme allowed the separation of the cell-wall material into its major components (cellulose, pectins and hemicelluloses). The AIS was composed of 30 g pectins, 8 g hemicelluloses and 60 g cellulosic residue/100 g AIS. In 100 g entire dry fruit (800 g entire fresh fruit) there were 11 g pectins, 3 g hemicelluloses and 18 g cellulosic residue. Pectins were mostly located in the flesh of the fruit. Pectins were more efficiently extracted with hot dilute acid than with other extraction media. Pectins had a high degree of methylation (DM) and a low degree of acetylation (DAc). No difference was found in the quantity of polysaccharides extracted from two Japanese quince genotypes, or in the composition of these constituent polysaccharides. The physico-chemical properties of pectins extracted from two genotypes of Japanese quince were studied. On average, the fruits contained 11 g pectins/100 g dry fruit corresponding to 1.4 g pectins/100 g fresh fruit. Pectins were sequentially extracted, and the cells from the flesh of the fruits were observed with a confocal laser scan microscope. Although the dilute acid conditions were the most efficient for extraction of pectins, pectins extracted by water or potassium oxalate had higher (> 600 ml/g) intrinsic viscosities than pectins extracted by dilute acid (< 400 ml/g). Anionic exchange chromatography was performed on the acid-extracted pectins. The pectins were composed of four populations, the first being mainly composed of arabinans, the second of homogalacturonans and the third of rhamnogalacturonans. The composition of the fourth population differed depending on the genotype studied

Welsh language adaptation of the short-form Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised (JEPQR-S)

A sample of 780 pupils attending year four, five, and six classes in Welsh medium primary schools completed a Welsh translation of the short-form Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised. The findings support the satisfactory nature of the psychometric properties of the three ten-item scales designed to measure extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism, together with the ten-item lie scale

Social Security Reform: Legal Analysis of Social Security Benefit Entitlement Issues

[Excerpt] Calculations indicating that the current Social Security program will not be financially sustainable in the long run under the present statutory scheme have fueled the current debate regarding Social Security reform. This report addresses selected legal issues that may be raised regarding entitlement to Social Security benefits as Congress considers possible changes to the Social Security program in view of projected long-range shortfalls in the Social Security Trust Funds. Social Security benefits are administered pursuant to Title II of the Social Security Act, known as the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program. Title II is part of a larger social insurance program in which Congress uses its power to tax and spend for the general welfare to promote the social goals of aiding the aged, survivors of workers, disabled persons, and persons of limited means. Beneficiaries under Title II have a legal entitlement to receive Social Security benefits as set forth by the Social Security Act and as administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA), an independent agency in the executive branch. An individual’s right to Social Security benefits is in a sense “earned,” since there is a general relationship between OASDI benefits and wages earned and the tax paid thereon. However, benefits are not directly measured by the amount of payments made through the years into the system. Thus, the fact that Social Security benefits are financed by taxes on an employee’s wages does not provide a limit on Congress’s power to fix the levels of benefits under the Social Security Act, or the conditions upon which they may be paid

On the nature of pressure‐induced coordination changes in silicate melts and glasses

Progressive decreases in the Si‐O‐Si angles between corner‐shared silicate tetrahedra in glasses and melts with increasing pressure can lead to arrangements of oxygen atoms that can be described in terms of edge‐ or face‐shared octahedra. This mechanism of compression can account for the gradual, continuous increases in melt and glass densities from values at low pressure that indicate dominantly tetrahedral coordination of Si to values at several tens of GPa that suggest higher coordination. It also can explain the unquenchable nature of octahedrally coordinated Si in glasses, the absence of spectroscopically detectable octahedrally coordinated Si in glasses until they are highly compressed, the gradual and reversible transformation from tetrahedral to octahedral coordination in glasses once the transformation is detectable spectroscopically, and the fact that this transformation takes place in glass at room temperature. It may also have relevance to pressure‐induced transformations from crystalline to glassy phases, the difficulty in retrieving some metastable high pressure crystalline phases at low pressure, and the observed differences between the pressures required for phase transformations in shock wave experiments on glasses and crystals