Assessment of the efficiency of ozonated water as bacterial contamination reduction tool in a pork cutting plant

The food industry is constantly searching for new tools to reduce bacterial contamination in the plants. In this study we assessed the efficiency of ozonated water as a tool to improve reduction of residual bacterial contamination in a pork cutting plant as a complement of sanitation procedures. First, the effectiveness of the ozonated water was tested on conveyors to reduce residual Salmonella, coliforms and aerobic flora load

Evaluation of ozonated water as a microbiological risk mitigation option in pork production

Ozone is an oxidative moleculewith a bactericidal effect. This molecule can be solubilized in water and was proposed as an alternative disinfecting solution to be used in food production plants. Ozone molecule possesses many industrially relevant characteristics, such as the absence of residues following its application, usability at meat industries’ room temperature, and applicability during production activities. The objective of this study was to evaluate the benefits of an ozonated water rinse on the wrapping of meat logs at the entrance of a slicing plant

Data on distribution and characterization of Listeria monocytogenes strains in a pork slaughter and cutting plant in Quebec support an earlier surveillance in the meat production chain

Listeria monocytogenes is a major public health concern. It has been associated with highly mediatised outbreaks. It was the case in 2008, when an important episode (23 deaths) in Canada showed the need to reinforce the policies to better control Listeria in ready-to-eat products. Improved surveillance in the production plants environment increased the detection levels and represents a challenge for both industries and control agencies

The type III neurofilament peripherin is expressed in the tuberomammillary neurons of the mouse

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Peripherin, a type III neuronal intermediate filament, is widely expressed in neurons of the peripheral nervous system and in selected central nervous system hindbrain areas with projections towards peripheral structures, such as cranial nerves and spinal cord neurons. Peripherin appears to play a role in neurite elongation during development and axonal regeneration, but its exact function is not known. We noticed high peripherin expression in the posterior hypothalamus of mice, and decided to investigate further the exact location of expression and function of peripherin in the mouse posterior hypothalamus.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>In situ </it>hybridization indicated expression of peripherin in neurons with a distribution reminiscent of the histaminergic neurons, with little signal in any other part of the forebrain. Immunocytochemical staining for histidine decarboxylase and peripherin revealed extensive colocalization, showing that peripherin is produced by histaminergic neurons in all parts of the tuberomammillary nucleus. We next used histamine immunostaining in peripherin knockout, overexpressing and wild type mice to study if altered peripherin expression affects these neurons, but could not detect any visible difference in the appearance of these neurons or their axons.</p> <p>Peripherin knockout mice and heterozygotic littermates were used for measurement of locomotor activity, feeding, drinking, and energy expenditure. Both genotypes displayed diurnal rhythms with all the parameters higher during the dark period. The respiratory quotient, an indicator of the type of substrate being utilized, also exhibited a significant diurnal rhythm in both genotypes. The diurnal patterns and the average values of all the recorded parameters for 24 h, daytime and night time were not significantly different between the genotypes, however.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In conclusion, we have shown that peripherin is expressed in the tuberomammillary neurons of the mouse hypothalamus. Monitoring of locomotor activity, feeding, drinking, and energy expenditure in mice either lacking or overexpressing peripherin did not reveal any difference, so the significance of peripherin in these neurons remains to be determined. The complete overlap between histidine decarboxylase and peripherin, both the protein and its mRNA, renders peripherin a useful new marker for histaminergic neurons in the hypothalamus.</p

Hierarchical clustering as a tool to develop a classification scheme for rabbit meat quality

[EN] This study aimed to characterise the quality of meat from commercially-raised rabbits. Animals came from five different producers and were  laughtered in three different plants under provincial or federal inspection jurisdiction. Animal behaviour evaluated by scan sampling prior to feed withdrawal (FW) and transport, as well as blood lactate concentration at exsanguination, did not raise concerns with respect to stress. Stomach pH was higher (P=0.047) when the FW time was short (≤13.5 h), at a mean value of 2.23. All pH values measured 1 h post-mortem from the Biceps femoris (BF) and almost all (97.6%) from the Longissimus lumborum (LL) were higher than 6. Values for ultimate pH measured 24 h postmortem(pHu) ranged from 5.80 to 6.83 and from 5.70 to 6.70 for BF and LL muscles, respectively. The maximum meat drip loss recorded was 2.6%, while cooking loss reached 30%. Meat lightness (L*) and colour intensity (C*) for the long FW times (≥23 h) were no different from those with short and intermediate (15.5 to 17.3 h) FW times. However, these colour parameters were higher for the short FW time class compared to the intermediate FW time class (P&lt;0.02). A hierarchical cluster analysis based on pHu, cooking loss and lightness (L*) from 200 rabbit loins was performed. Of the four clusters created, clusters 1 and 2 had the best and second-best meat quality, respectively. Clusters 3 and 4 had the lowest meat quality and presented DFD-like (dark, firm and dry) characteristics. Meat did not exhibit PSE-like (pale, soft, exudative) characteristics, even for the slaughter lot with the minimum mean pHu. Of the eight slaughter lots evaluated, more than 50% of the meat from three of them fell into clusters 3 and 4; all three were in the intermediate FW time class. Overall, the quality of rabbit meat analysed was acceptable for commercial use, but rather variable. This suggests that there are factors within the value chain that are not yet fully controlled and require further investigation.This research was carried out with the financial support of the Programme de soutien à l’innovation en agroalimentaire, a programme derived from the Growing Forward agreement between the Ministère de l’agriculture des pêcheries et de l’alimentation du Québec (MAPAQ) and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. The Syndicat des producteurs de lapins du Quebec was also a partner in this project. The authors thank the Centre de développement du porc du Québec for their technical assistance.Larivière-Lajoie, A-.; Cinq-Mars, D.; Guay, F.; Binggeli, S.; Dalmau, A.; Saucier, L. (2021). Hierarchical clustering as a tool to develop a classification scheme for rabbit meat quality. World Rabbit Science. 29(3):129-149. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/173795OJS12914929

BrainStat: A toolbox for brain-wide statistics and multimodal feature associations

Analysis and interpretation of neuroimaging datasets has become a multidisciplinary endeavor, relying not only on statistical methods, but increasingly on associations with respect to other brain-derived features such as gene expression, histological data, and functional as well as cognitive architectures. Here, we introduce BrainStat - a toolbox for (i) univariate and multivariate linear models in volumetric and surface-based brain imaging datasets, and (ii) multidomain feature association of results with respect to spatial maps of post-mortem gene expression and histology, task-based fMRI meta-analysis, as well as resting-state fMRI motifs across several common surface templates. The combination of statistics and feature associations into a turnkey toolbox streamlines analytical processes and accelerates cross-modal research. The toolbox is implemented in both Python and MATLAB, two widely used programming languages in the neuroimaging and neuroinformatics communities. BrainStat is openly available and complemented by an expandable documentation

Ensembles of probability estimation trees for customer churn prediction

Customer churn prediction is one of the most, important elements tents of a company's Customer Relationship Management, (CRM) strategy In tins study, two strategies are investigated to increase the lift. performance of ensemble classification models, i.e (1) using probability estimation trees (PETs) instead of standard decision trees as base classifiers; and (n) implementing alternative fusion rules based on lift weights lot the combination of ensemble member's outputs Experiments ale conducted lot font popular ensemble strategics on five real-life chin n data sets In general, the results demonstrate how lift performance can be substantially improved by using alternative base classifiers and fusion tides However: the effect vanes lot the (Idol cut ensemble strategies lit particular, the results indicate an increase of lift performance of (1) Bagging by implementing C4 4 base classifiets. (n) the Random Subspace Method (RSM) by using lift-weighted fusion rules, and (in) AdaBoost, by implementing both

Convergence of cortical types and functional motifs in the human mesiotemporal lobe

The mesiotemporal lobe (MTL) is implicated in many cognitive processes, is compromised in numerous brain disorders, and exhibits a gradual cytoarchitectural transition from six-layered parahippocampal isocortex to three-layered hippocampal allocortex. Leveraging an ultra-high-resolution histological reconstruction of a human brain, our study showed that the dominant axis of MTL cytoarchitectural differentiation follows the iso-to-allocortical transition and depth-specific variations in neuronal density. Projecting the histology-derived MTL model to in-vivo functional MRI, we furthermore determined how its cytoarchitecture underpins its intrinsic effective connectivity and association to large-scale networks. Here, the cytoarchitectural gradient was found to underpin intrinsic effective connectivity of the MTL, but patterns differed along the anterior-posterior axis. Moreover, while the iso-to-allocortical gradient parametrically represented the multiple-demand relative to task-negative networks, anterior-posterior gradients represented transmodal versus unimodal networks. Our findings establish that the combination of micro- and macrostructural features allow the MTL to represent dominant motifs of whole-brain functional organisation