E¡ect of lupin £our incorporation on the physical characteristics of dough and biscuits

Abstract Introduction: The incorporation of protein and dietary fibre rich lupin flour to biscuits has the potential to improve the nutritional value however it may adversely affect the physical and sensory properties. Objectives: To study the effect of lupin flour incorporation on the physical characteristics and sensory properties of biscuits to provide information to the potential manufacturers. Methods: Biscuit samples were prepared by substituting wheat flour with lupin flour at 0-50% levels. The samples were analysed for changes in dimensions, colour, texture and sensory properties. Results: Incorporation up to 40% level had no significant effect on biscuit diameter but thickness increased at Z 20%. No change in the L à values of dough and biscuits at 20% substitution. The a à values of dough decreased with increase in lupin flour concentration but in biscuit no significant change was observed up to 20% substitution. The b à values demonstrated a significant increase at 20% substitution. Biscuit hardness and fracturability demonstrated an increase with the increase in lupin flour concentration at Z 20%. Sensory evaluation revealed an improvement in colour with lupin flour substitution with no significant changes in taste, flavour, texture and overall acceptability up to 20% substitution. Conclusion: Lupin flour can be successfully incorporated into biscuits by replacing up to 20% of wheat flour to increase protein and dietary fibre contents

A comprehensive investigation into the production of gamma-aminobutyric acid by Limosilactobacillus fermentum NG16, a tuna gut isolate

Abstract Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a four-carbon non-protein amino acid, is widely known to have multiple physiological functions. The present study aimed to investigate the cultivation parameters for GABA production by a lactic acid bacteria (LAB) strain isolated from a tuna gut sample. Among 60 tuna gut LAB, only 7 Limosilactobacillus fermentum isolates, i.e. NG01, NG12, NG13, NG14, NG16, NG23, and NG27, were capable of GABA fermentation, with NG16 being the most potent GABA producer. The GABA production by isolate NG16 was therefore thoroughly characterised. The optimal batch culture conditions for GABA production were an initial cell density of 5×106 CFU mL−1, a monosodium glutamate concentration of 2, an initial pH of 7, a fermentation temperature of 35 °C, and an incubation time of 96 h. Under this cultivation conditions, NG16 produced a maximum GABA yield of 25.52 ± 0.41 mM

Exploiting Inter- and Intra-Memory Asymmetries for Data Mapping in Hybrid Tiered-Memories

Modern computing systems are embracing hybrid memory comprising of DRAM and non-volatile memory (NVM) to combine the best properties of both memory technologies, achieving low latency, high reliability, and high density. A prominent characteristic of DRAM-NVM hybrid memory is that it has NVM access latency much higher than DRAM access latency. We call this inter-memory asymmetry. We observe that parasitic components on a long bitline are a major source of high latency in both DRAM and NVM, and a significant factor contributing to high-voltage operations in NVM, which impact their reliability. We propose an architectural change, where each long bitline in DRAM and NVM is split into two segments by an isolation transistor. One segment can be accessed with lower latency and operating voltage than the other. By introducing tiers, we enable non-uniform accesses within each memory type (which we call intra-memory asymmetry), leading to performance and reliability trade-offs in DRAM-NVM hybrid memory. We extend existing NVM-DRAM OS in three ways. First, we exploit both inter- and intra-memory asymmetries to allocate and migrate memory pages between the tiers in DRAM and NVM. Second, we improve the OS's page allocation decisions by predicting the access intensity of a newly-referenced memory page in a program and placing it to a matching tier during its initial allocation. This minimizes page migrations during program execution, lowering the performance overhead. Third, we propose a solution to migrate pages between the tiers of the same memory without transferring data over the memory channel, minimizing channel occupancy and improving performance. Our overall approach, which we call MNEME, to enable and exploit asymmetries in DRAM-NVM hybrid tiered memory improves both performance and reliability for both single-core and multi-programmed workloads.Comment: 15 pages, 29 figures, accepted at ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on Memory Managemen

Nutritional, Health, and Technological Functionality of Lupin Flour Addition to Bread and Other Baked Products: Benefits and Challenges

Lupin is an undervalued legume despite its high protein and dietary fiber content and potential health benefits. This review focuses on the nutritional value, health benefits, and technological effects of incorporating lupin flour into wheat-based bread. Results of clinical studies suggest that consuming lupin compared to wheat bread and other baked products reduce chronic disease risk markers; possibly due to increased protein and dietary fiber and bioactive compounds. However, lupin protein allergy has also been recorded. Bread quality has been improved when 10% lupin flour is substituted for refined wheat flour; possibly due to lupin-wheat protein cross-linking assisting bread volume and the high water-binding capacity (WBC) of lupin fiber delaying staling. Above 10% substitution appears to reduce bread quality due to lupin proteins low elasticity and the high WBC of its dietary fiber interrupting gluten network development. Gaps in understanding of the role of lupin flour in bread quality include the optimal formulation and processing conditions to maximize lupin incorporation, role of protein cross-linking, antistaling functionality, and bioactivity of its γ-conglutin protein

Pituitary insufficiency after operation of supratentorial intra- and extraaxial tumors outside of the sellar–parasellar region?

Recent studies investigating pituitary function after non-sellar brain tumor surgery showed that up to 38.2% of patients have pituitary insufficiency (PI). It has been assumed that the operation causes the PI, but preoperative hormone testing, which would have been necessary to prove this assumption, was not performed. The objective of this study is to answer the question if indeed microsurgery is the culprit of PI in patients with operatively treated non-sellar brain tumors. In this prospective trial, 54 patients with supratentorial non-sellar tumors were included. The basal levels of cortisol, prolactin, testosterone, estrogen, IGF-1, fT3, fT4, STH, TSH, ACTH, FSH, and LH were recorded preoperatively on days 1 and 7 after surgery. If basal hormone screening revealed an abnormality, a releasing hormone assay was performed. Before surgery, 24 of the 54 patients (44.4%) already had PI. Additional 25 patients showed either hypocortisolism or hypothyreoidism. As those patients had been pre-treated with dexamethasone and l-thyroxine, these findings were considered not to represent PI but drug effects. Hormone testing on days 1 and 7 after surgery revealed no changes. With 44.4% PI is a frequent finding in brain tumor patients already before surgery. The factors causing preoperative PI remain yet to be identified. The endocrine results after surgery are unchanged which rules out that surgery is the cause of PI

Aptamer-based radiopharmaceuticals for diagnostic imaging and targeted radiotherapy of epithelial tumors

In the continuous search for earlier diagnosis and improved therapeutic modalities against cancer, based on our constantly increasing knowledge of cancer biology, aptamers hold the promise to expand on current antibody success, but overcoming some of the problems faced with antibodies as therapeutic or delivery agents in cancer. However, as the first aptamer reached the market as an inhibitor against angiogenesis for the treatment of macular degeneration, aptamers have found only limited applications or interest in oncology, and even less as radiopharmaceuticals for diagnostic imaging and targeted radiotherapy of tumours. Yet, the chemistry for the labelling of aptamers and the options to alter their pharmacokinetic properties, to make them suitable for use as radiopharmaceuticals is now available and recent advances in their development can demonstrate that these molecules would make them ideal delivery vehicles for the development of targeted radiopharmaceuticals that could deliver their radiation load with accuracy to the tumour site, offering improved therapeutic properties and reduced side effects

Crop Updates 2005 - Katanning

This session covers twenty five papers from different authors KEYNOTE How Farmers Can Work Together for a More Sustainable and Profitable Business, Brian McAlpine Farmer, Nuffield Scholar GENERAL 2005 Seasonal Outlook, David Stephens and Nicola Telcik, Department of Agriculture Essentials for cereal leaf disease management, K. Jayasena, R. Loughman, G. Thomas, C. Beard, and B. Paynter, Department of Agriculture Benefits to the grower of grain licensing, Colin Mann, Grain Licensing Authority SOIL & NUTRIENTS The effect of higher nitrogen fertiliser prices on rotation and fertiliser strategies in cropping systems, Ross Kingwell, Department of Agriculture Effect of stubble burning and seasonality on microbial processes and nutrient cycling, Francis Hoyle, University of Western Australia Soil Biology and Crop Production in Western Australian Farming Systems, D.V. Murphy, N. Milton, M. Osman, F.C. Hoyle, L.K Abbott, W.R. Cookson and S. Darmawanto, University of Western Australia Nutrient Management to get optimal production, Bill Bowden, Department of Agriculture OTHER CROPS Which malting barley variety and why? Blakely Paynter, Department of Agriculture KASPA AND OTHER NEW PULSE VARIETIES, 1. New Pulse varieties and where they fit in, K. Regan, P. White, Department of Agriculture & CLIMA, K. Siddique, CLIMA, K. Adhikari, Department of Agriculture & CLIMA, M. Harries, CLIMA Kaspa in the WA Grain Belt 2003-2004, Ian Pritchard, Department of Agriculture New annual pastures for Mediterranean farming systems, Angelo Loi, Phil Nichols, Clinton Revell & David Ferris, Department of Agriculture Challenging herbicide resistant ryegrass, Bill Roy, Agricultural Consulting & Research Services Pty.Ltd WEED MANAGEMENT Ingest, incinerate or invert? The pro’s and con’s of 3 weed seed removal tactics, Sally Peltzer1, Dave Minkey1 and Michael Walsh2 Department of Agriculture 1 and Western Australian Herbicide Resistance lnitiative2 A good use guide for pre-emergent herbicides, Alexandra Douglas, Department of Agriculture OTHER USEFUL INFORMATION 17.Growing season outlook, Meredith Fairbanks, Ian Foster, Geraldine Pasqual, David Stephens, Nicola Telcik, David Tennant, Department of Agriculture 18. Status Of Department Of Agriculture Western Australia Crop Varieties 19. Seed Licensee Details 20. Gene technology for growers. What is it? How does it Work? Belinda Barr, Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics, Dr Heather Bray, Molecular Plant Breeding Cooperative Research Centre. 21. Agronomic package for EGA Eagle Rock, Steve Penny, Department of Agriculture 22. Nutrient timing and requirements for increased crop yields in the high rainfall cropping zone, Narelle Hill, Ron McTaggart, Dr. Wal Anderson and Ray Tugwell Department of Agriculture 23. Insect contamination of cereal grain at harvest, Svetlana Micic and Phil Michael, Department of Agriculture 24. Crop leftovers: what’s in stubble for sheep? Roy Butler and Keith Croker, Department of Agriculture 25. Mandelup – Narrow-leafed lupi

Investigating the Antiproliferative Activity of High Affinity DNA Aptamer on Cancer Cells

10.1371/journal.pone.0050964PLoS ONE81

Homopolymer tract length dependent enrichments in functional regions of 27 eukaryotes and their novel dependence on the organism DNA (G+C)% composition

BACKGROUND: DNA homopolymer tracts, poly(dA).poly(dT) and poly(dG).poly(dC), are the simplest of simple sequence repeats. Homopolymer tracts have been systematically examined in the coding, intron and flanking regions of a limited number of eukaryotes. As the number of DNA sequences publicly available increases, the representation (over and under) of homopolymer tracts of different lengths in these regions of different genomes can be compared. RESULTS: We carried out a survey of the extent of homopolymer tract over-representation (enrichment) and over-proportional length distribution (above expected length) primarily in the single gene documents, but including some whole chromosomes of 27 eukaryotics across the (G+C)% composition range from 20 – 60%. A total of 5.2 × 10(7 )bases from 15,560 cleaned (redundancy removed) sequence documents were analyzed. Calculated frequencies of non-overlapping long homopolymer tracts were found over-represented in non-coding sequences of eukaryotes. Long poly(dA).poly(dT) tracts demonstrated an exponential increase with tract length compared to predicted frequencies. A novel negative slope was observed for all eukaryotes between their (G+C)% composition and the threshold length N where poly(dA).poly(dT) tracts exhibited over-representation and a corresponding positive slope was observed for poly(dG).poly(dC) tracts. Tract size thresholds where over-representation of tracts in different eukaryotes began to occur was between 4 – 11 bp depending upon the organism (G+C)% composition. The higher the GC%, the lower the threshold N value was for poly(dA).poly(dT) tracts, meaning that the over-representation happens at relatively lower tract length in more GC-rich surrounding sequence. We also observed a novel relationship between the highest over-representations, as well as lengths of homopolymer tracts in excess of their random occurrence expected maximum lengths. CONCLUSIONS: We discuss how our novel tract over-representation observations can be accounted for by a few models. A likely model for poly(dA).poly(dT) tract over-representation involves the known insertion into genomes of DNA synthesized from retroviral mRNAs containing 3' polyA tails. A proposed model that can account for a number of our observed results, concerns the origin of the isochore nature of eukaryotic genomes via a non-equilibrium GC% dependent mutation rate mechanism. Our data also suggest that tract lengthening via slip strand replication is not governed by a simple thermodynamic loop energy model