Ultrasonically assisted low-temperature drying of desalted codfish

[EN] Low-temperature drying (LTD) constitutes an interesting means of dehydrating foodstuffs, thus preserving the quality of the product. Power ultrasound (US) generates several mechanical effects that could help to shorten the long drying times associated with LTD. In this work, the feasibility of using US in LTD of desalted cod was assessed. For this purpose, desalted cod slices (50 30 5 mm) were dried (2 m/s) at different temperatures (10, 0 and 10 C) without (AIR) and with (AIR þ US, 20.5 kW/m3) US application. Afterwards, the dried samples were rehydrated in distilled water (25 C). A diffusion model was used to describe both drying and rehydration kinetics. The color and hardness of both dried and rehydrated cod samples were also measured. The application of US increased the drying rate at every temperature tested, shortening the drying time by 16% at 0 C and up to 60% at 10 C. The ultrasonically assisted dried samples presented a rehydration rate which was slightly lower than that of those that had been conventionally dried, but they were harder and whiter, which is more suited to consumer preferences. Therefore, power ultrasound could be considered an affordable technology with which to accelerate LTD of desalted cod, providing high quality dried products.The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO) - European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) from the project DPI2012-37466-CO3-03 and the FPI fellowship (BES-2010-033460) granted to J.V. Santacatalina. They also wish to acknowledge Carmen Cambra S.L. for their technical support with the selection of the raw material.Santacatalina Bonet, JV.; Guerrero, M.; García Pérez, JV.; Mulet Pons, A.; Cárcel Carrión, JA. (2016). Ultrasonically assisted low-temperature drying of desalted codfish. Food Science and Technology Research. 65:444-450. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lwt.2015.08.023S4444506

Análisis de variables relacionadas con el acceso y desempeño de las funciones directiva y docente en las nuevas universidades populares españolas. Un estudio a nivel nacional

Cada vez y con más frecuencia las instituciones de educación no formal están cobrando una mayor importancia en la formación continua de nuestros ciudadanos. El presente trabajo recoge una investigación realizada a nivel nacional sobre una de estas instituciones que en la actualidad cuenta con más de dos millones de alumnos. Estamos hablando de las Universidades Populares españolas que en la actualidad se encuentran expandidas por veintidós provincias de once comunidades autónomas: Andalucía, Aragón, Castilla La Mancha, Castilla León, Extremadura, Galicia, La Rioja, Madrid, Murcia y Valencia. En esta investigación se utilizaron tres tipos de cuestionarios dirigidos a cada uno de los estamentos ligados a este proyecto: los directivos, los monitores y los alumnos. A su vez, se realizó un estudio de caso en la Universidad Popular de Loja (Granada), con el objetivo de dotar de significado a los datos estadísticos obtenidos del estudio a nivel nacional. De esta forma se han caracterizado y descrito las principales tareas de las Universidades Populares españolas y la visión que de ellas tienen los tres grupos implicados en su vida diari

Study of meat and carcass quality-related traits in Turkey populations through discriminant canonical analysis

The present research aimed to determine the main differences in meat and carcass quality traits among turkey genotypes worldwide and describe the clustering patterns through the use of a discriminant canonical analysis (DCA). To achieve this goal, a comprehensive meta-analysis of 75 documents discussing carcass and meat characteristics in the turkey species was performed. Meat and carcass attributes of nine different turkey populations were collected and grouped in terms of the following clusters: carcass dressing traits, muscle fiber properties, pH, color-related traits, water-retaining characteristics, texture-related traits, and meat chemical composition. The Bayesian ANOVA analysis reported that the majority of variables statistically differed (p < 0.05), and the multicollinearity analysis revealed the absence of redundancy problems among variables (VIF < 5). The DCA reported that cold carcass weight, slaughter weight, sex-male, carcass/piece weight, and the protein and fat composition of meat were the traits explaining variability among different turkey genotypes (Wilks’ lambda: 0.488, 0.590, 0.905, 0.906, 0.937, and 0.944, respectively). The combination of traits in the first three dimensions explained 94.93% variability among groups. Mahalanobis distances cladogram-grouped populations following a cluster pattern and suggest its applicability as indicative of a turkey genotype’s traceability

Developing Home Care Intelligent Environments: From Theory to Practice

One of the main aims of the pervasive systems is to be able to adapt themselves in execution time to the changes in the number of resources available, the mobility of the users, variability in the needs of the users and failures of the system. This work presents HoCa, a multi-agent based architecture designed to facilitate the development of pervasive systems. HoCa presents a new model where multi-agent systems and service oriented architectures are integrated to facilitate compatible services. HoCa has been applied to case study in a real scenario, aimed to provide automatic assistance to dependent people at their home, and the results obtained are presented in this paper

Black Hole Astrophysics in AdS Braneworlds

We consider astrophysics of large black holes localized on the brane in the infinite Randall-Sundrum model. Using their description in terms of a conformal field theory (CFT) coupled to gravity, deduced in Ref. [1], we show that they undergo a period of rapid decay via Hawking radiation of CFT modes. For example, a black hole of mass ${\rm few} \times M_\odot$ would shed most of its mass in $\sim 10^4 - 10^5$ years if the AdS radius is $L \sim 10^{-1}$ mm, currently the upper bound from table-top experiments. Since this is within the mass range of X-ray binary systems containing a black hole, the evaporation enhanced by the hidden sector CFT modes could cause the disappearance of X-ray sources on the sky. This would be a striking signature of RS2 with a large AdS radius. Alternatively, for shorter AdS radii, the evaporation would be slower. In such cases, the persistence of X-ray binaries with black holes already implies an upper bound on the AdS radius of L \la 10^{-2} mm, an order of magnitude better than the bounds from table-top experiments. The observation of primordial black holes with a mass in the MACHO range $M \sim 0.1 - 0.5 M_\odot$ and an age comparable to the age of the universe would further strengthen the bound on the AdS radius to L \la {\rm few} \times 10^{-6} mm.Comment: 14 pages, latex, no figures v2: added reference

D-Fagomine lowers postprandial blood glucose and modulates bacterial adhesion

d-Fagomine is an iminosugar originally isolated from seeds of buckwheat (Fagopyrum sculentum Moench), present in the human diet and now available as a pure crystalline product. We tested d-fagomine for activities connected to a reduction in the risk of developing insulin resistance, becoming overweight and suffering from an excess of potentially pathogenic bacteria. The activities were: intestinal sucrase inhibition in vitro (rat mucosa and everted intestine sleeves), modulation of postprandial blood glucose in rats, bacterial agglutination and bacterial adhesion to pig intestinal mucosa. When ingested together with sucrose or starch, d-fagomine lowered blood glucose in a dose-dependent manner without stimulating insulin secretion. d-Fagomine reduced the area under the curve (0-120 min) by 20 % (P < 0•01) and shifted the time to maximum blood glucose concentration (T max) by 15 min at doses of 1-2 mg/kg body weight when administered together with 1 g sucrose/kg body weight. Moreover, d-fagomine (0•14 mm) agglutinated 60 % of Enterobacteriaceae (Escherichia coli, Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium) populations (P < 0•01), while it did not show this effect on Bifidobacterium spp. or Lactobacillus spp. At the same concentration, d-fagomine significantly (P < 0•001) inhibited the adhesion of Enterobacteriaceae (95-99 % cells in the supernatant) and promoted the adhesion of Lactobacillus acidophilus (56 % cells in the supernatant) to intestinal mucosa. d-Fagomine did not show any effect on bacterial cell viability. Based on all this evidence, d-fagomine may be used as a dietary ingredient or functional food component to reduce the health risks associated with an excessive intake of fast-digestible carbohydrates, or an excess of potentially pathogenic bacteria. © 2011 The Authors

Validación comparativa de un método para la corrección de distorsión en secuencias de video endoscópicas

El análisis de las secuencias de video del endoscopio cobra gran interés para el desarrollo de aplicaciones de formación y navegación quirúrgica en Cirugía de Mínima Invasión (CMI) Requiere una corrección previa de las distorsiones que introduce la cámara, en especial de la distorsión radial. El objetivo de este trabajo es validar un método de corrección de distorsión en video laparoscópico de forma comparativa con el método de Bouguet, uno de los métodos más valorados y usados por la comunidad científica. Los resultados muestran que el método propuesto es comparable al método de referencia empleado, y que la corrección realizada cubre las necesidades del procesado de vídeo endoscópic

Distinctive phehotypes of Bradyrhizobium diazoefficiens transcriptional regulator (phaR) mutants grown on different carbon sources.

Resumen del poster presentado en: XVII Congreso Argentino de Microbiología General (SAMIGE). Córdoba, Argentina, 25-28 octubre 2022

Expansion of different subpopulations of CD26 −/low T cells in allergic and non-allergic asthmatics

CD26 displays variable levels between effector (TH ≫ TH > TH > Treg) and naïve/memory (memory > naïve) CD4 T lymphocytes. Besides, IL-6/IL 6R is associated with TH -differentiation and asthma severity. Allergic/atopic asthma (AA) is dominated by TH responses, while TH immunity might either modulate the TH -dependent inflammation in AA or be an important mechanism boosting non-allergic asthma (NAA). Therefore, in this work we have compared the expression of CD26 and CD126 (IL-6Rα) in lymphocytes from different groups of donors: allergic (AA) and non-allergic (NAA) asthma, rhinitis, and healthy subjects. For this purpose, flow cytometry, haematological/biochemical, and in vitro proliferation assays were performed. Our results show a strong CD26-CD126 correlation and an over-representation of CD26 subsets with a highly-differentiated effector phenotype in AA (CD4 CD26 T cells) and NAA (CD4 CD26 γδ-T cells). In addition, we found that circulating levels of CD26 (sCD26) were reduced in both AA and NAA, while loss of CD126 expression on different leukocytes correlated with higher disease severity. Finally, selective inhibition of CD26-mRNA translation led to enhanced T cell proliferation in vitro. These findings support that CD26 down-modulation could play a role in facilitating the expansion of highly-differentiated effector T cell subsets in asthma