Chicken egg white — characteristics of its properties and the prospects for functional foods development

The overview presents the literature data and the results of our own research on prospects of using the chicken eggs as the basis of functional foods. The composition of chicken eggs and their components, characteristics of egg white proteins properties are presented thereto. The biologically active compounds included into egg composition are analyzed. The data on the biological value of egg white are given. The characteristic of egg white foaming ability is presented. It has been shown that the ability of proteins to form stable intermolecular structures, especially with partially denaturated proteins, allows them forming viscoelastic superficial films that ensure foam stability. The high foaming ability of chicken egg protein macromolecules is directly related to their interphase properties, i. e. the ability to form interphase layers at the “liquid —  gas” interface. The foaming properties of the various egg proteins are not equal, and therefore they contribute to foaming properties at various extents. The model of egg white proteins gelation is considered and the factors influencing the gelation process are described. It has been shown that very important changes in proteins properties are caused by denaturation. The proteins lose their ability to hydrate; the protective aqueous shell around the globules disappears, the proteins stick together, grow larger and lose solubility. This process is called coagulation. The influence of denaturation and aggregation on variations of protein properties is described below. Data on protein fortification with functional ingredients (calcium, iodine, plant polyphenols) and creation of functional egg and meat foods are presented here

Cliques and duplication-divergence network growth

A population of complete subgraphs or cliques in a network evolving via duplication-divergence is considered. We find that a number of cliques of each size scales linearly with the size of the network. We also derive a clique population distribution that is in perfect agreement with both the simulation results and the clique statistic of the protein-protein binding network of the fruit fly. In addition, we show that such features as fat-tail degree distribution, various rates of average degree growth and non-averaging, revealed recently for only the particular case of a completely asymmetric divergence, are present in a general case of arbitrary divergence.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Equilibrium properties of a Josephson junction ladder with screening effects

In this paper we calculate the ground state phase diagram of a Josephson Junction ladder when screening field effects are taken into account. We study the ground state configuration as a function of the external field, the penetration depth and the anisotropy of the ladder, using different approximations to the calculation of the induced fields. A series of tongues, characterized by the vortex density $\omega$, is obtained. The vortex density of the ground state, as a function of the external field, is a Devil's staircase, with a plateau for every rational value of $\omega$. The width of each of these steps depends strongly on the approximation made when calculating the inductance effect: if the self-inductance matrix is considered, the $\omega=0$ phase tends to occupy all the diagram as the penetration depth decreases. If, instead, the whole inductance matrix is considered, the width of any step tends to a non-zero value in the limit of very low penetration depth. We have also analyzed the stability of some simple metastable phases: screening fields are shown to enlarge their stability range.Comment: 16 pp, RevTex. Figures available upon request at [email protected] To be published in Physical Review B (01-Dec-96

Discrete breathers in nonlinear lattices: Experimental detection in a Josephson array

We present an experimental study of discrete breathers in an underdamped Josephson-junction array. Breathers exist under a range of dc current biases and temperatures, and are detected by measuring dc voltages. We find the maximum allowable bias current for the breather is proportional to the array depinning current while the minimum current seems to be related to a junction retrapping mechanism. We have observed that this latter instability leads to the formation of multi-site breather states in the array. We have also studied the domain of existence of the breather at different values of the array parameters by varying the temperature.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Physical Revie

Coherent-incoherent transition in the sub-Ohmic spin-boson model

We study the spin-boson model with a sub-Ohmic bath using a variational method. The transition from coherent dynamics to incoherent tunneling is found to be abrupt as a function of the coupling strength $\alpha$ and to exist for any power $0 < s< 1$, where the bath coupling is described by $J(\omega) \sim \alpha \omega^{s}$. We find non-monotonic temperature dependence of the two-level gap $\tilde{K}$ and a re-entrance regime close to the transition due to non-adiabatic low-frequency bath modes. Differences between thermodynamic and dynamic conditions for the transition as well as the limitations of the simplified bath description are discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

A quasi-linear algorithm to compute the tree of shapes of n-D images

International audienceTo compute the morphological self-dual representation of images, namely the tree of shapes, the state-of-the-art algorithms do not have a satisfactory time complexity. Furthermore the proposed algorithms are only effective for 2D images and they are far from being simple to implement. That is really penalizing since a self-dual representation of images is a structure that gives rise to many powerful operators and applications, and that could be very useful for 3D images. In this paper we propose a simple-to-write algorithm to compute the tree of shapes; it works for \nD images and has a quasi-linear complexity when data quantization is low, typically 12~bits or less. To get that result, this paper introduces a novel representation of images that has some amazing properties of continuity, while remaining discrete