Quantitative proteomics reveals new insights into calcium-mediated resistance mechanisms in Aspergillus flavus against the antifungal protein PgAFP in cheese

The ability of Aspergillus flavus to produce aflatoxins in dairy products presents a potential hazard. The antifungal protein PgAFP from Penicillium chrysogenum inhibits various foodborne toxigenic fungi, including Aspergillus flavus. However, PgAFP did not inhibit A. flavus growth in cheese, which was related to the associated cation content. CaCl2 increased A. flavus permeability and prevented PgAFP-mediated inhibition in potato dextrose broth (PDB). PgAFP did not elicit any additional increase in permeability of CaCl2-incubated A. flavus. Furthermore, PgAFP did not alter metabolic capability, chitin deposition, or hyphal viability of A. flavus grown with CaCl2. Comparative proteomic analysis after PgAFP treatment of A. flavus in calcium-enriched PDB revealed increased abundance of 125 proteins, including oxidative stress-related proteins, as determined by label-free mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics. Seventy proteins were found at lower abundance, with most involved in metabolic pathways and biosynthesis of secondary metabolites. These changes do not support the blockage of potential PgAFP receptors in A. flavus by calcium as the main cause of the protective role. A. flavus resistance appears to be mediated by calcineurin, G-protein, and γ-glutamyltranspeptidase that combat oxidative stress and impede apoptosis. These findings could serve to design strategies to improve PgAFP activity against aflatoxigenic moulds in dairy products

Towards a Programming Language in Cellular Computing

AbstractSeveral solutions to hard numerical problems using P systems have been presented recently, and strong similarities in their designs have been noticed. In this paper we present a new solution, to the Partition problem, via a family of deterministic P systems with active membranes using 2-division. Then, we intend to show that the idea of a cellular programming language is possible (at least for some relevant family of NP-complete problems), indicating some “subroutines” that can be used in a variety of situations and therefore could be useful for designing solutions for new problems in the future

Generalized harmonic spatial coordinates and hyperbolic shift conditions

We propose a generalization of the condition for harmonic spatial coordinates analogous to the generalization of the harmonic time slices introduced by Bona et al., and closely related to dynamic shift conditions recently proposed by Lindblom and Scheel, and Bona and Palenzuela. These generalized harmonic spatial coordinates imply a condition for the shift vector that has the form of an evolution equation for the shift components. We find that in order to decouple the slicing condition from the evolution equation for the shift it is necessary to use a rescaled shift vector. The initial form of the generalized harmonic shift condition is not spatially covariant, but we propose a simple way to make it fully covariant so that it can be used in coordinate systems other than Cartesian. We also analyze the effect of the shift condition proposed here on the hyperbolicity of the evolution equations of general relativity in 1+1 dimensions and 3+1 spherical symmetry, and study the possible development of blow-ups. Finally, we perform a series of numerical experiments to illustrate the behavior of this shift condition.Comment: 18 pages and 12 figures, extensively revised version explaining in the new Section IV how the shift condition can be made 3-covarian

Implicaciones industriales del endurecimiento por explosivos de piezas de acero Hadfield

El desgaste prematuro que sufren las piezas fabricadas de acero Hadfield en los equipos de laboreo minero de la industria cubana del níquel, limita la capacidad de trabajo de estos equipos. El trabajo expone los resultados alcanzados en el desarrollo y aplicación de un procedimiento tecnológico de endurecimiento, empleando las cargas de impacto generadas por la energía de detonación de una sustancia explosiva. Este procedimiento ha sido empleado en los dientes de la pala excavadora ESH-5/45 M utilizados en la extracción del mineral laterítico de la mina de la Empresa Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara en Moa, provincia Holguín, y en los martillos de las trituradoras de sínter M - 8 - 6B de la Planta de Calcinación y Sínter de la propia empresa. La utilización de tal procedimiento reportó un alargamiento equivalente a 1,5 y 2 veces de la vida útil de las piezas con su correspondiente efecto económico, social y ambiental

Organizaciones de la Sociedad Civil de Asistencia Social que atienden a niños, adolescentes y jóvenes en situación de calle en la ciudad de Hermosillo, Sonora, México

El trabajo aporta información sobre los antecedentes, la regulación social y la problemática de las Organizaciones de la Sociedad Civil (OSC) que atienden a "niños(as), adolescentes y jóvenes en situación de calle"1 en Hermosillo, Sonora, México (OSCASH)2, así como el papel que desempeñan en la sociedad. Con ese fin, se aplicó una encuesta a 30 usuarios y 15 empleados que laboran en estas organizaciones en el estado de Sonora, México. Parte de los resultados señalan que, aunque existe un marco legal que protege a los niños(as), adolescentes y jóvenes en situación de calle, y que hay una serie de organizaciones con amplia experiencia en su cuidado, la mayoría de los niños, adolescentes y jóvenes no están integrados a una institución. Nuestra conclusión es que el Estado no ha resuelto el problema y las instituciones y organizaciones que los atienden no responden a los objetivos para los que fueron creadas, limitando así las posibilidades de integración del grupo social al que pretenden atender

A P-Lingua based simulator for tissue P systems

AbstractInvestigations within the field of tissue-like P systems are being conducted, on one hand studying their computational efficiency, and on the other hand exploring the possibilities to use them as a computational modelling framework to biological phenomena.In both cases it is necessary to develop software that provides simulation tools (simulators) for the existing variety of tissue P systems. Such simulators allow us to carry on computations of solutions to computationally hard problems on certain (small) instances. Moreover, they also provide a way to verify tissue-like models for real biological processes, by means of experimental data.The paper presents an extension of P-Lingua (a specification language intended to become a standard for software devoted to P systems), in order to cover the class of tissue-like P systems, that were not considered in the previous release. This extension involves on one hand defining the syntax to be used, and on the other hand introducing a new built-in simulation algorithm that has been added to the core library of P-Lingua

Compensation of inorganic acid interferences in ICP-OES and ICP-MS using a Flow Blurring® multinebulizer

A new and easy method has been proposed for compensation of inorganic acid matrix effects in ICP-OES and ICP-MS. The method consists on an on-line standard addition calibration using a Flow Blurring® multinebulizer (FBMN-based system). Experimental conditions of the FBMN-based system are optimized for both ICP-OES and ICP-MS. Under optimized conditions recovery values obtained in the analysis of synthetic acid samples were close to 100% for HNO3 and HCl (with acid concentrations of up to 15% (w w-1)) and H2SO4 (up to 10% (w w-1)) for both plasma-based spectrochemical techniques. The applicability of the proposed method has been evaluated analyzing two whole milk powders, certified reference material and a commercial product, showing excellent recovery values. Compared with other calibration strategies and experimental setups used, the on-line standard addition calibration using the FBMN-based system is faster, easier to handle and significantly reduces reagents and sample consumption.The authors express their gratitude to the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (projects n. CTQ2008 06730-C02-01 and PHB-2010-0018-PC), to the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior in Brazil (Grant CAPES-DGU 243/11), and the Regional Government of Valencia (Spain) (projects n. ACOMP/2009/144 and ACOMP/2010/047) for financial support. The authors gratefully acknowledge OneNeb® (Division of Ingeniatrics Tecnologías S.L.) for the FBMN prototype provided. M.A.A. thanks the University of Alicante for his PhD fellowship. This work is part of the Ph.D. degree of M.A.A

High temperature internal friction in a Ti–46Al–1Mo–0.2Si intermetallic, comparison with creep behaviour

Advanced gamma-TiAl based intermetallics Mo-bearing have been developed to obtain the fine-grained microstructure required for superplastic deformation to be used during further processing. In the present work we have studied an alloy of Ti-46.8Al-1Mo-0.2Si (at%) with two different microstructures, ascast material with a coarse grain size above 300 mu m, and the hot extruded material exhibiting a grain size smaller than 20 mu m. We have used a mechanical spectrometer especially developed for high temperature internal friction measurements to study the defect mobility processes taking place at high temperature. The internal friction spectra at different frequencies has been studied and analyzed up to 1360 K in order to characterize the relaxation processes appearing in this temperature range. A relaxation peak, with a maximum in between 900 K and 1080 K, depending on the oscillating frequency, has been attributed to Ti-atoms diffusion by the stress-induced reorientation of Al-V-Ti-Al elastic dipoles. The high temperature background in both microstructural states, as-cast and extruded, has been analyzed, measuring the apparent activation parameters, in particular the apparent energies of E-cast(IF) = 4.4 +/- 0.05 eV and E-ext(IF) = 4.75 +/- 0.05 eV respectively. These results have been compared to those obtained on the same materials by creep deformation. We may conclude that the activation parameters obtained by internal friction analysis, are consistent with the ones measured by creep. Furthermore, the analysis of the high temperature background allows establish the difference on creep resistance for both microstructural states. (c) 2015 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd.This work was supported by the Spanish MICINN project CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 CSD2009-00013, as well as by the Consolidated Research Group IT-10-310 from the Education Department and the project ETORTEK ACTIMAT from the Industry Department of the Basque Governmen

Essential oils and their application on active packaging systems: a review

The food industry is continuously evolving through the application of innovative tools and ingredients towards more effective, safe, natural and ecofriendly solutions to satisfy the demands of the costumers. In this context, natural sources (i.e., leaves, seeds, peels or unused pulp) can entail a valuable source of compounds, such as essential oils (EOs), with recognized antioxidant and antimicrobial properties that can be used as natural additives in packaging applications. The current trend is the incorporation of EOs into diverse kinds of biodegradable materials, such as edible films, thus developing active packaging systems with improved preservation properties that can offer benefits to both the food and packaging industry by reducing food waste and improving the management of packaging waste. EOs may be added into the packaging material as free or encapsulated molecules, where, especially this last option, has been revealed as very promising. The addition of these lipophilic compounds provides to the end-product various bioactivities of interest, which can eventually extend the shelf-life of the product by preventing food spoilage. Pairing biodegradable packaging with EOs extracted from natural agro-industrial by-products can lead to a more sustainable food industry. Recent knowledge and advances on this issue will be reviewed in the present work.MICINN supporting the Ramón and Cajal grant for M.A. Prieto (RYC-2017- 22891); to EcoChestnut Project for supporting the grant of M. Carpena; to Xunta de Galicia and University of Vigo for supporting the pre-doctoral grant of P. García-Oliveira (ED481A-2019/295). The project SYSTEMIC “an integrated approach to the challenge of sustainable food systems: adaptive and mitigatory strategies to address climate change and malnutrition”, Knowledge hub on Nutrition and Food Security has received funding from national research funding parties in Belgium (FWO), France (INRA), Germany (BLE), Italy (MIPAAF), Latvia (IZM), Norway (RCN), Portugal (FCT), and Spain (AEI) in a joint action of JPI HDHL, JPI-OCEANS and FACCE-JPI launched in 2019 under the ERA-NET ERA-HDHL (nº 696295).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Aerosol generation of As and Se hydrides using a new Flow Blurring® multiple nebulizer for sample introduction in inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry

A new Flow Blurring® multiple nebulizer (FBMN) has been used for the efficient generation of As and Se hydrides directly into the aerosol formed inside the spray chamber before detection by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP OES). The FBMN allowed the hydride generation directly into the spray chamber without using any additional device either for solution and gas control or for gas phase separation. Synthetic solutions containing As and Se plus Ca, Mg and K were used for evaluating matrix effects and Ge was suggested as internal standard. Limits of detection of 2.7 and 5.8 μg L− 1 were obtained for As and Se, respectively, when keeping the nebulization gas flow rate at 0.60 L min− 1 and the liquid flow rate at 0.67 mL min− 1. The developed procedure was applied for spiked digests of food samples and quantitative recoveries were attained. The combination of FBMN, internal standard and hydride generation is a robust and simple approach for generating As and Se hydrides directly into the aerosol.The authors express their gratitude to the Spanish Government (Grant CTQ2008-06730-C02-01, CTQ2011-23968 and PHB-2010-0018-PC) and to the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior in Brazil (Grant CAPES-DGU 243/11) for financial support