Quality and safety driven optimal operation of deep-fat frying of potato chips

10 páginas, 10 figuras, 1 tablaIncreasing oil temperature and heating duration in deep-fat frying of potato chips can improve textural quality but worsen the chemical safety of acrylamide formation. Optimal design of this complex process is formulated as a non-linear constrained optimization problem where the objective is to compute the oil temperature profile that guarantees the desired final moisture content while minimizing final acrylamide content subject to operating constraints and the process dynamics. The process dynamics uses a multicomponent and multiphase transport model in the potato as a porous medium taken from literature. Results show that five different heating zones offer a good compromise between process duration (shorter the better) and safety in terms of lower acrylamide formation. A short, high temperature zone at the beginning with a progressive decrease in zone temperatures was found to be the optimal design. The multi-zone optimal operating conditions show significant advantages over nominal constant temperature processes, opening new avenues for optimization.The authors acknowledge financial support from EU [CAFE FP7-KBBE-2007-1(212754)], Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [SMART-QC AGL2008-05267-C03-01], Xunta de Galicia [IDECOP 08DPI007402PR] and CSIC [PIE201270E075]. A. Arias-Méndez acknowledges financial support from the JAE-CSIC program.Peer reviewe

Differential expression of collectins in human placenta and role in inflammation during spontaneous Labor.

© 2014 Yadav et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Collectins, collagen-containing Ca2+ dependent C-type lectins and a class of secretory proteins including SP-A, SP-D and MBL, are integral to immunomodulation and innate immune defense. In the present study, we aimed to investigate their placental transcript synthesis, labor associated differential expression and localization at feto-maternal interface, and their functional implication in spontaneous labor. The study involved using feto-maternal interface (placental/decidual tissues) from two groups of healthy pregnant women at term (≥37 weeks of gestation), undergoing either elective C-section with no labor ('NLc' group, n = 5), or normal vaginal delivery with spontaneous labor ('SLv' group, n = 5). The immune function of SP-D, on term placental explants, was analyzed for cytokine profile using multiplexed cytokine array. SP-A, SP-D and MBL transcripts were observed in the term placenta. The 'SLv' group showed significant up-regulation of SP-D (p = 0.001), and down-regulation of SP-A (p = 0.005), transcripts and protein compared to the 'NLc' group. Significant increase in 43 kDa and 50 kDa SP-D forms in placental and decidual tissues was associated with the spontaneous labor (p<0.05). In addition, the MMP-9-cleaved form of SP-D (25 kDa) was significantly higher in the placentae of 'SLv' group compared to the 'NLc' group (p = 0.002). Labor associated cytokines IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, TNF-α and MCP-1 showed significant increase (p<0.05) in a dose dependent manner in the placental explants treated with nSP-D and rhSP-D. In conclusion, the study emphasizes that SP-A and SP-D proteins associate with the spontaneous labor and SP-D plausibly contributes to the pro-inflammatory immune milieu of feto-maternal tissues.Funding provided by BT/PR15227/BRB/10/906/2011) Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India http://dbtindia.nic.in/index.asp (TM) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Junior Research Fellowship (JRF)/Senior Research Fellowship (SRF), Government of India, www.icmr.nic.in (AKY)

Precision, time, and cost: a comparison of three sampling designs in an emergency setting

The conventional method to collect data on the health, nutrition, and food security status of a population affected by an emergency is a 30 × 30 cluster survey. This sampling method can be time and resource intensive and, accordingly, may not be the most appropriate one when data are needed rapidly for decision making. In this study, we compare the precision, time and cost of the 30 × 30 cluster survey with two alternative sampling designs: a 33 × 6 cluster design (33 clusters, 6 observations per cluster) and a 67 × 3 cluster design (67 clusters, 3 observations per cluster). Data for each sampling design were collected concurrently in West Darfur, Sudan in September-October 2005 in an emergency setting. Results of the study show the 30 × 30 design to provide more precise results (i.e. narrower 95% confidence intervals) than the 33 × 6 and 67 × 3 design for most child-level indicators. Exceptions are indicators of immunization and vitamin A capsule supplementation coverage which show a high intra-cluster correlation. Although the 33 × 6 and 67 × 3 designs provide wider confidence intervals than the 30 × 30 design for child anthropometric indicators, the 33 × 6 and 67 × 3 designs provide the opportunity to conduct a LQAS hypothesis test to detect whether or not a critical threshold of global acute malnutrition prevalence has been exceeded, whereas the 30 × 30 design does not. For the household-level indicators tested in this study, the 67 × 3 design provides the most precise results. However, our results show that neither the 33 × 6 nor the 67 × 3 design are appropriate for assessing indicators of mortality. In this field application, data collection for the 33 × 6 and 67 × 3 designs required substantially less time and cost than that required for the 30 × 30 design. The findings of this study suggest the 33 × 6 and 67 × 3 designs can provide useful time- and resource-saving alternatives to the 30 × 30 method of data collection in emergency settings

Efficiency of European public higher education institutions: a two-stage multicountry approach

The purpose of this study is to examine efficiency and its determinants in a set of higher education institutions (HEIs) from several European countries by means of non-parametric frontier techniques. Our analysis is based on a sample of 259 public HEIs from 7 European countries across the time period of 2001–2005. We conduct a two-stage DEA analysis (Simar and Wilson in J Economet 136:31–64, 2007), first evaluating DEA scores and then regressing them on potential covariates with the use of a bootstrapped truncated regression. Results indicate a considerable variability of efficiency scores within and between countries. Unit size (economies of scale), number and composition of faculties, sources of funding and gender staff composition are found to be among the crucial determinants of these units’ performance. Specifically, we found evidence that a higher share of funds from external sources and a higher number of women among academic staff improve the efficiency of the institution

Approaching effects of the economic crisis on university efficiency: a comparative study of Germany and Italy

In this paper, we compare the efficiency of the Italian and German universities in the process of transforming public funding into the multiple outputs of a university, i.e. graduating students, publishing research, and patenting activity. We do this with a particular focus on the policies implemented following the financial crisis in 2008. Using a sample of 133 public universities, of which 73 public universities in Germany and 60 public universities in Italy observed over the period 2006–2011 we find that Italian universities perform significantly better in terms of output maximization than German universities. The crisis does not show a general impact, while the treatment effect indicates that Italian universities coped better during the crisis than their German counterparts at a highly significant level

Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) Conference and Expo

Meeting Abstracts: Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) Conference and Expo Clearwater Beach, FL, USA. 9-11 June 201