Airflow design in refrigerated retail display cabinets and its impact on food quality

© 2019 International Institute of Refrigeration. All rights reserved. This paper investigates how refrigerated display cabinet airflow design can enhance temperature distribution and potentially reduce food waste. Conventional refrigerated retail cabinets have a single column of cold air from the top to the bottom of the merchandising envelope. By contrast separating the retail space into individual cells, each with its own shorter air-curtain reduces infiltration and improves temperature control. The quality and safety of bagged salad over an extended display period was evaluated in a conventional and multiple short air-curtain cabinet. At the end of the test period there was a visible difference in cabinet temperature and relative humidity, which had a direct impact on the salad organoleptic quality and microbiological safety. The temperature band was 11.2ºC and 5.4ºC in the conventional and multiple air curtain cabinets respectively, resulting in a higher degree of salad wilting and shrivelling and an increase on total yeast counts on the conventional cabinet

Natural Reward Experience Alters AMPA and NMDA Receptor Distribution and Function in the Nucleus Accumbens

Natural reward and drugs of abuse converge upon the mesolimbic system which mediates motivation and reward behaviors. Drugs induce neural adaptations in this system, including transcriptional, morphological, and synaptic changes, which contribute to the development and expression of drug-related memories and addiction. Previously, it has been reported that sexual experience in male rats, a natural reward behavior, induces similar neuroplasticity in the mesolimbic system and affects natural reward and drug-related behavior. The current study determined whether sexual experience causes long-lasting changes in mating, or ionotropic glutamate receptor trafficking or function in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), following 3 different reward abstinence periods: 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month after final mating session. Male Sprague Dawley rats mated during 5 consecutive days (sexual experience) or remained sexually naïve to serve as controls. Sexually experienced males displayed facilitation of initiation and performance of mating at each time point. Next, intracellular and membrane surface expression of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA: NR1 subunit) and α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4-propionate (AMPA: GluA1, GluA2 subunits) receptors in the NAc was determined using a bis(sulfosuccinimidyl)suberate (BS3) protein cross-linking assay followed by Western Blot analysis. NR1 expression was increased at 1 day abstinence both at surface and intracellular, but decreased at surface at 1 week of abstinence. GluA2 was increased intracellularly at 1 week and increased at the surface after 1 month of abstinence. Finally, whole-cell patch clamp electrophysiological recordings determined reduced AMPA/NMDA ratio of synaptic currents in NAc shell neurons following stimulation of cortical afferents in sexually experienced males after all reward abstinence periods. Together, these data show that sexual experience causes long-term alterations in glutamate receptor expression and function in the NAc. Although not identical, this sex experience-induced neuroplasticity has similarities to that caused by psychostimulants, suggesting common mechanisms for reinforcement of natural and drug reward

Do diagnostic delays in cancer matter?

background: The United Kingdom has poorer cancer outcomes than many other countries due partly to delays in diagnosing symptomatic cancer, leading to more advanced stage at diagnosis. Delays can occur at the level of patients, primary care, systems and secondary care. There is considerable potential for interventions to minimise delays and lead to earlier-stage diagnosis. methods: Scoping review of the published studies, with a focus on methodological issues. results: Trial data in this area are lacking and observational studies often show no association or negative ones. This review offers methodological explanations for these counter-intuitive findings. conclusion: While diagnostic delays do matter, their importance is uncertain and must be determined through more sophisticated methods

Is increased time to diagnosis and treatment in symptomatic cancer associated with poorer outcomes?:Systematic review

background: It is unclear whether more timely cancer diagnosis brings favourable outcomes, with much of the previous evidence, in some cancers, being equivocal. We set out to determine whether there is an association between time to diagnosis, treatment and clinical outcomes, across all cancers for symptomatic presentations. methods: Systematic review of the literature and narrative synthesis. results: We included 177 articles reporting 209 studies. These studies varied in study design, the time intervals assessed and the outcomes reported. Study quality was variable, with a small number of higher-quality studies. Heterogeneity precluded definitive findings. The cancers with more reports of an association between shorter times to diagnosis and more favourable outcomes were breast, colorectal, head and neck, testicular and melanoma. conclusions: This is the first review encompassing many cancer types, and we have demonstrated those cancers in which more evidence of an association between shorter times to diagnosis and more favourable outcomes exists, and where it is lacking. We believe that it is reasonable to assume that efforts to expedite the diagnosis of symptomatic cancer are likely to have benefits for patients in terms of improved survival, earlier-stage diagnosis and improved quality of life, although these benefits vary between cancers

The physical demands of mixed martial arts: A narrative review using the ARMSS model to provide a hierarchy of evidence.

The physical demands of mixed martial arts (MMA) training and competition is not yet well quantified. The Applied Research Model for the Sport Sciences (ARMSS) provides a framework through which to conduct sport science, determining pertinent questions to test research findings in real-world settings. The aim of this review was to evaluate MMA research within the context of ARMSS to critically analyse our understanding of the physical requirements of MMA training and competition. Research databases were searched, with 70 peer-reviewed articles being discussed in relation to the specific stage of the ARMSS in which their results best fit. MMA research was found to be mostly foundational and descriptive in nature and has generally not developed along systematic lines. The internal and external loads and responses to training and competition have not been adequately identified. Therefore, it is not currently possible to state which variables are key predictors of success, or how coaches can optimally manipulate these variables. We propose that MMA research be refocused to be conducted within ARMSS. Specifically, stage 2 studies describing the physical, physiological and technical demands of MMA training and competition, and stage 3 studies determining the physiological predictors of performance should be initially prioritised

Designing a sustainable orchard – plant diversity as a key and ways to implement it

International audienceConventional fruit-tree farming systems are highly productive and strongly dependent on external inputs, including pesticides, fertilisers, and water. To reduce this dependence, various initiatives have been developed in past decades, such as Integrated Fruit Production, Organic Farming, and more recently, Agroecology which is strongly inspired by research in ecology. These initiatives include plant diversity as the main driver to improve the sustainability of the orchard. Plant diversity can either be planned (choice of productive and not productive species) or associated (unintentional) and at different scales (within the cultivated plot and/or the surrounding landscape). To increase plant biodiversity, companion, i.e., mostly non-productive, plants can be either herbaceous, bushes, or trees. The interest of plant diversity to improve the sustainability of agrosystems is documented from three points of view: composition, structure, and function. First, companion plants have to fulfil precise functions within the system, such as sustaining nitrogen provisioning (e.g., herbaceous legumes between fruit-tree rows), hosting natural enemies of main pests, or attracting herbivore insects outside the orchard. Recent works on agroecology analyze fruit-tree based agrosystems documenting fruit production and the various “services” (e.g., mitigation of CO2 emission, soil nitrogen availability) companion plants can provide. Second, to optimise plant functioning, it is necessary to define rules of plant assemblage at spatial (e.g., distance between plants) and temporal (e.g., plantation at the same time period or not) levels. Based on a literature survey and current experiments, we will show that agrosystems that combine trees grown for fruit and possibly for timber or firewood and agricultural crops, i.e., fruit-tree based agroforestry systems (FT-AFS), provide promising results in the temperate climate context, including the Mediterranean zones. Further, the introduction of plants providing pest regulation services opens to challenging perspectives toward friendly fruit-tree-based agrosystems

Performance comparison between shorter and conventional air curtains in retail display refrigerators

© 2018 International Institute of Refrigeration. All rights reserved. Refrigerated Display Cabinets constitute a large portion of the energy consumption of retail stores. They have been thoroughly investigated over recent years, in an attempt to reduce their energy consumption and improve temperature performance. Despite these investigations, open cabinets still exhibit poor performance and consume more energy than door cabinets. However, retailers are reluctant to use doors as they dramatically reduce sales. This paper investigates the use of AirCell, an airflow technology that divides the retail space into individually refrigerated cells. Each cell uses its own short air-curtain and eliminates the need for pack panel flow - enhancing temperature and energy performance. An AirCell cabinet has been compared to two conventional cabinets by testing the cabinets to the ECA ISO 23953: 2015 standard. The findings reveal that the AirCell technology is able to reduce the product temperature band by 4.8°C and the energy consumption by 24.5%

Apple farming systems - current initiatives and some prospective views on how to improve sustainability

Apple cultivation has evolved tremendously in past decades. Both apple productivity and aesthetic quality of the fruit have been strongly improved resulting from genetic improvement, optimization of tree training and pruning, and orchard design and management. However, these improvements were also done at the expense of an increasing dependence on external inputs such as water, fertilizers and synthetic pesticides. This dependence is now questioned because of the generated environmental pollutions and health issues. In the last decades, an increasing amount of initiatives have been developed that open the way towards more sustainable apple production systems. Concepts as well as on-station and on-farm works are developed in various contexts such as 'integrated fruit production', 'organic farming' and 'agroecology' with the objectives to increase biological regulations of pests and diseases and/or to improve soil fertility. All together results point out the importance of diversifying resources and habitats for beneficial arthropods in the orchard and its vicinity to foster ecosystem services related to pest suppression and to adopt cultural practices enhancing soil fertility. They also indicate some practical guidelines consisting in a better management of grass alleys and lining hedgerows within and around the orchard, respectively. From a more prospective view and taking inspiration from tropical fruit-tree based agroforestry, these works suggest that combining apple trees with other herbaceous and woody plants with various uses (soft fruit, aromatic plants, etc.) opens to more resilient agroecosystems, possibly mitigating climate change. These works also enlarge our vision of the current apple orchard towards a multiproduction system including apple among other productions. From the 'plant science' point of view the idea to grow apple in agroecosystems challenges current knowledge of the plasticity of the apple tree physiology and architecture, and agronomic performance, in response to interactions with neighbouring plants. It also stimulates necessary collaborations with other research fields such as socio-economics, for example on how the grower may handle those complex agroecosystems, optimize labour and valorize production

Endogenous Opioid-Induced Neuroplasticity of Dopaminergic Neurons in the Ventral Tegmental Area Influences Natural and Opiate Reward

Natural reward and drugs of abuse converge on the mesolimbic pathway and activate common mechanism of neural plasticity in the nucleus accumbens. Chronic exposure to opiates induces plasticity in dopaminergic neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA), which regulates morphine reward tolerance. Here, we test the hypotheses that mating-induced release of endogenous opioids in the VTA causes morphological changes of VTA dopamine cells in male rats, which in-turn regulate the long-term expression of experience-induced reinforcement of sexual behavior. First, sexual experience decreased VTA dopamine soma size 1 and 7 days, but not 30 days after the last mating session. This effect was blocked with naloxone before each mating session; thus, VTA dopamine cell plasticity was dependent on action of endogenous opioids. In turn, VTA plasticity was associated with altered opiate reward, as sexually experienced males did not form conditioned place preference for 0.5 mg/kg morphine. Next, it was determined whether endogenous opioid action mediates sexual reward and memory in male rats treated with naloxone during mating experience, either systemically or intra-VTA. Naloxone did not prevent the initial experience-induced facilitation of sexual behavior over repeated mating sessions, or conditioned place preference for mating. However, naloxone treatment attenuated the longer-term expression of experience-induced facilitation of sexual behavior and neural activation in mesolimbic areas induced by mating-associated conditioned cues. Together, these data demonstrate that endogenous opioids during mating induce neural plasticity in VTA dopamine neurons that appear critical for morphine reward and long-term memory for natural reward behavior