Food Processing: Comparison of Different Food Classification Systems

The substitution of minimally processed food and culinary home preparations for ready-to-eat products is increasing worldwide, which is overlooked as a cause of concern. The technological developments and the rise in highly processed food availability have introduced the concept of ultra-processed food (UPF). Food classification systems based on processing are now a new basis for epidemiological research. Different results from these classifications might influence conclusions on the populations consumption of UPF or its association with health outcomes. The aim of this study was to compare classification systems and to find out if their results are comparable when evaluating the extent of high/UPF on the overall diet. Portuguese data from the year 2000 was extracted from the DAFNE-AnemosSoft, and 556 food/beverages items were classified according to five systems. The contribution of UPF was calculated as a percentage of total available amount and discrepancy ranges used for comparisons. Results of UPF availability contributions were: NOVA 10.2%; UNC 15.2%; IFPRI 16.7%; IFIC 17.7%; IARC 47.4%. The highest discrepancy ranges were from alcoholic beverages (97.4%), milk/milk products (94.2%), sugar/sugar products (90.1%), added lipids (74.9%), and cereals/cereal products (71.3%). Inconsistencies among classifications were huge and the contribution from highly/UPF presented high discrepancies. Caution must be taken when comparing and interpreting such data

Effects of soil management and deficit irrigation strategies on physiological and agronomical responses of Aragonez field-grown grapevines

The use of irrigation in Mediterranean viticulture is now a common practice in intensive grapevine production to improve quality of production. The negative effects of water deficits on grape berry development are well known but the underlying mechanisms remain not fully understood. To avoid the unfavourable impacts of mechanization on the soil structure and biology some farmers are using cover crops on their vineyards. Within this frame we have compared the traditional soil tillage with a high level of mechanization with other system where we maintained a permanent soil cover between the rows. In both soil systems we tested three different irrigation treatments, deficit irrigation (DI - 40% of evapotranspiration (ETc)); regulated deficit irrigation (RDI); partial root drying (PRD) while in the soil cover treatment we also studied the full irrigation (FI) and the non irrigation (NI) treatments. Compared to soil tillage the resident vegetation reduced soil water content during late Spring, before irrigation started, inducing a significant reduction on vine vegetative growth berry weight and yield. Among irrigation strategies only RDI treatment showed a significant reduction in the lateral leaf area development, berry weight and yield when compared to PRD and DI treatments which presented similar values. No significant differences were observed in berry composition either for the two floor management practices or for the three irrigation strategiesinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Neutron stars in generalized f(R) gravity

Quartic gravity theory is considered with the Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangean $R+aR^{2}+bR_{\mu \nu}R^{\mu \nu},$ $R_{\mu \nu}$ being Ricci\'s tensor and R the curvature scalar. The parameters $a$ and $b$ are taken of order 1 km$^{2}.$ Arguments are given which suggest that the effective theory so obtained may be a plausible approximation of a viable theory. A numerical integration is performed of the field equations for a free neutron gas. As in the standard Oppenheimer-Volkoff calculation the star mass increases with increasing central density until about 1 solar mass and then decreases. However a dramatic difference exists in the behaviour of the baryon number, which increases monotonically. The calculation suggests that the theory allows stars in equilibrium with arbitrary baryon number, no matter how large.Comment: Keywords: stars, neutron stars; gravity; modified gravity Accepted in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

Cambridge Colour Test: reproducibility in normal trichromats

This study evaluated reproducibility of the Trivector subtest of the Cambridge Colour Test. Data for normal trichromats were obtained in Brazil (N=111) at T0, six (T1), and 12 months later (T2), and in the United Kingdom (N=79), with test directly followed by a retest. Coefficients of repeatability – Bland-Altman indices – for Protan, Deutan, and Tritan vectors were similar for both datasets. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) – measures of reliability – were low or moderate for these relatively homogeneous datasets; for a heterogeneous dataset, comprising color-normal and abnormal observers, ICCs were 0.80–0.98, indicating high discriminative accuracy of the Trivector subtest

Dark energy as a curvature of space-time induced by quantum vacuum fluctuations

It is shown that quantum vacuum fluctuations give rise to a curvature of space-time of the order appropriate to explain the observed accelerated expansion of the universe. The fact that the fluctuations produce curvature, even if the expectation of the vacuum energy vanishes, is a consequence of the non-linear character of the Einstein equation. A calculation is made, involving plausible hypotheses within quantized gravity, which establishes a relation between the two-point correlation of the vacuum fluctuations and the space-time curvature.Comment: Accepted in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

Deficit irrigation in Mediterranean vineyards - a tool to increase water use efficiency and to control grapevine and berry growth

IHC - IS Viti&Climate: Effect of Climate Change on Production and Quality of Grapevines and their Products, 28 th, 2012Water is increasingly scarce in Mediterranean Europe and irrigated agriculture is one of the largest and most inefficient users of this natural resource. Ecological topics such as the “water foot print” have become more relevant for the academy, consumers, governments and food industry. The wine sector needs solutions to improve its economical and environmental sustainability. Agronomical solutions, such as deficit irrigation (water supply below full crop evapotranspiration) have emerged as a tool for more efficient water use in irrigated viticulture and with likely positive effects on berry quality. Improving our understanding on the physiological and molecular basis of grapevine responses to water stress is an important task for research on irrigated viticulture. Better knowledge of the different genotypic responses (e.g., leaf gas exchange) to water stress can help to optimize crop/soil management and improve yield as well as berry quality traits under unfavourable climate conditions. Mild water deficits have direct and/or indirect (via the light environment in the cluster zone) effects on berry growth and composition. Another important challenge is to determine how soil water deficit regulate genes and proteins of the various metabolic pathways influencing berry composition and consequently wine quality

Scaling property of the critical hopping parameters for the Bose-Hubbard model

Recently precise results for the boundary between the Mott insulator phase and the superfluid phase of the homogeneous Bose-Hubbard model have become available for arbitrary integer filling factor g and any lattice dimension d > 1. We use these data for demonstrating that the critical hopping parameters obey a scaling relationship which allows one to map results for different g onto each other. Unexpectedly, the mean-field result captures the dependence of the exact critical parameters on the filling factor almost fully. We also present an approximation formula which describes the critical parameters for d > 1 and any g with high accuracy.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures. to appear in EPJ

Measurement Of Sucrose And Ethanol Concentrations In Process Streams And Effluents Of Sugarcane Bioethanol Industry By Optical Fiber Sensor

The measurement of process streams and effluents from sugar-ethanol industry by using optical fiber sensor based on Fresnel reflection principle is reported. Firstly, binary sucrose-water and ethanol-water solutions were measured in order to determine the calibration curves. Secondly, the co-products from various processing stages were analyzed in order to identify the sucrose or ethanol concentration. The absolute error was calculated by comparison between the nominal concentration values obtained by plant laboratory analysis and the sensor response, yielding errors ≤ 5 wt% and ≤ 5 vol% for sucrose and ethanol content, respectively. The fiber sensor provided reliable results even for samples with more complex compositions than pure sucrose or ethanol solutions, with perspectives of application on the several stages of the plant facility. © 2011 Copyright Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).7753Oz Optics,Simbol Test Systems, Inc.,FISO Technologies, Inc.,CMC Microsystems Corporation,Innovative Economy: National Strategic Reference FrameworkCortez, L.A.B., Lora, E.E.S., Gómez, E.O., (2008) Biomass for Energy (Biomassa para Energia), pp. 435-472. , Editora da Unicamp, CampinasPaiva, R.P.O., Morabito, R., Na optimization model for the aggregate production planning of a Brazilian sugar and ethanol milling company (2009) Ann. Oper. Res., 169 (1), pp. 117-130Fujiwara, E., Takeishi, R.T., Hase, A., Ono, E., Santos, J.S., Suzuki, C.K., Real-time optical fibre sensor for hydro-alcoholic solutions (2010) Meas. Sci. Technol., 21 (9), pp. 094035+1-5Kim, C.-B., Su, C.B., Measurement of the refractive index of liquids at 1.3 and 1.5 micron using a fibre optic Fresnel ratio meter (2004) Meas. Sci. Tecnol., 15 (9), pp. 1683-1686Su, H., Huang, X.G., Fresnel-reflection-based fiber sensor for on-line measurement of solute concentration in solutions (2007) Sensor. Actuat. B-Chem., 126 (2), pp. 579-582Zhao, J.R., Huang, X.G., Chen, J.H., A Fresnel-reflection-based fiber sensor for simultaneous measurement of liquid concentration and temperature (2009) J. Appl. Phys., 106 (8), pp. 1-5Longtin, J.P., Fan, C.-H., Precision laser-based concentration and refractive index measurement of liquids (1998) Nanosc. Microsc. Thermophys. Eng., 2 (4), pp. 261-272Herráez, J.V., Belda, R., Refractive indices, densities and excess molar volumes of monoalcohols+water (2006) J. Solut. Chem., 35 (9), pp. 1315-1328Chen, J.C.P., Chou, C.C., (1993) Cane Sugar Handbook: A Manual for Cane Sugar Manufactures and Their Chemists, pp. 779-970. , John Willey & Sons, New Yor

Energy Conditions in f(G)f(G) Modified Gravity with Non-minimal Coupling to Matter

In this paper we study a model of modified gravity with non-minimal coupling between a general function of the Gauss-Bonnet invariant, $f(G)$, and matter Lagrangian from the point of view of the energy conditions. Such model has been introduced in Ref. [21] for description of early inflation and late-time cosmic acceleration. We present the suitable energy conditions for the above mentioned model and then, we use the estimated values of the Hubble, deceleration and jerk parameters to apply the obtained energy conditions to the specific class of modified Gauss-Bonnet models.Comment: 12 pages, no figur, Accepted for publication in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

Avaliação da depleção linfóide folicular da Bursa de Fabricius: uma metodologia alternativa utilizando análise digital de imagem e redes neurais artificiais

Fifty Bursa of Fabricius (BF) were examined by conventional optical microscopy and digital images were acquired and processed using Matlab® 6.5 software. The Artificial Neuronal Network (ANN) was generated using Neuroshell® Classifier software and the optical and digital data were compared. The ANN was able to make a comparable classification of digital and optical scores. The use of ANN was able to classify correctly the majority of the follicles, reaching sensibility and specificity of 89% and 96%, respectively. When the follicles were scored and grouped in a binary fashion the sensibility increased to 90% and obtained the maximum value for the specificity of 92%. These results demonstrate that the use of digital image analysis and ANN is a useful tool for the pathological classification of the BF lymphoid depletion. In addition it provides objective results that allow measuring the dimension of the error in the diagnosis and classification therefore making comparison between databases feasible.Cinquenta Bursa de Fabrícius (BF) foram examinadas através de microscopia óptica convencional e imagens digitais foram obtidas e processadas através do software Matlab® 6.5. Redes Neurais Artificiais (ANN) foram geradas com a utilização do software Neuroshell® Classifier, e os dados das análises óptica e digital foram comparados. A ANN classificou corretamente a maioria dos folículos, atingindo sensibilidade e especificidade de 89% e 96%, respectivamente. Quando os folículos foram agrupados de forma binária houve um aumento da sensibilidade para 90% e obteve-se um valor máximo para a especificidade de 92%. Estes resultados demonstram que o uso da análise digital de imagem associada à ANNé uma ferramenta bastante útil para a classificação patológica da depleção linfóide da BF. Além disso, fornece resultados objetivos que permitem medir a dimensão do erro classificatório, tornando possível a comparação entre distintos bancos de dados