Microwave-Assisted Extraction of Brewers' Spent Grain Arabinoxylans

Brewers´ spent grain (BSG) is a by-product from beer industry that can be exploited as a source of arabinoxylo-oligosaccharides (AXOS) with prebiotic activity. In this study, microwave-assisted extractions were performed during 2 min at 140-210°Cin order to evaluate the feasibility of this extraction technology for quantitative extraction of the arabinoxylans (AX) or AXOS from BSG. The AX yield increasedwith the increase of the temperature in the range used. The best condition of extraction of the AXwas 210 ºC during 2 min, allowing the extraction of 43% of total AX. These AX showed structural variability which allow to define specific types of compounds for different applications and uses depending on the extraction conditions used

Theory of one and two donors in Silicon

We provide here a roadmap for modeling silicon nano-devices with one or two group V donors (D). We discuss systems containing one or two electrons, that is, D^0, D^-, D_2^+ and D_2^0 centers. The impact of different levels of approximation is discussed. The most accurate instances -- for which we provide quantitative results -- are within multivalley effective mass including the central cell correction and a configuration interaction account of the electron-electron correlations. We also derive insightful, yet less accurate, analytical approximations and discuss their validity and limitations -- in particular, for a donor pair, we discuss the single orbital LCAO method, the Huckel approximation and the Hubbard model. Finally we discuss the connection between these results and recent experiments on few dopant devices.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Integration of statistics and food process engineering: Assessing the uncertainty of thermal processing and shelf-life estimations

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Impact of the valley degree of freedom on the control of donor electrons near a Si/SiO_2 interface

We analyze the valley composition of one electron bound to a shallow donor close to a Si/barrier interface as a function of an applied electric field. A full six-valley effective mass model Hamiltonian is adopted. For low fields, the electron ground state is essentially confined at the donor. At high fields the ground state is such that the electron is drawn to the interface, leaving the donor practically ionized. Valley splitting at the interface occurs due to the valley-orbit coupling, V_vo^I = |V_vo^I| e^{i theta}. At intermediate electric fields, close to a characteristic shuttling field, the electron states may constitute hybridized states with valley compositions different from the donor and the interface ground states. The full spectrum of energy levels shows crossings and anti-crossings as the field varies. The degree of level repulsion, thus the width of the anti-crossing gap, depends on the relative valley compositions, which vary with |V_vo^I|, theta and the interface-donor distance. We focus on the valley configurations of the states involved in the donor-interface tunneling process, given by the anti-crossing of the three lowest eigenstates. A sequence of two anti-crossings takes place and the complex phase theta affects the symmetries of the eigenstates and level anti-crossing gaps. We discuss the implications of our results on the practical manipulation of donor electrons in Si nanostructures.Comment: 8 pages, including 5 figures. v2: Minor clarifying changes in the text and figures. Change of title. As published in PR

Effect of Water Content on the Thermal Inactivation Kinetics of Horseradish Peroxidase Freeze-Dried from Alkaline pH

The thermal inactivation of horseradish peroxidase freeze-dried from solutions of different pH (8, 10 and 11.5, measured at 25 C) and equilibrated to different water contents was studied in the temperature range from 110 to 150 C. The water contents studied (0.0, 1.4, 16.2 and 25.6 g water per 100 g of dry enzyme) corresponded to water activities of 0.0, 0.11, 0.76 and 0.88 at 4 C. The kinetics were well described by a double exponential model. The enzyme was generally more stable the lower the pH of the original solution, and for all pH values, the maximum stability was obtained at 1.4 g water/100 g dry enzyme. Values of z were generally independent of water content and of the pH of the original solution, and in the range of 15–25 °C, usually found in neutral conditions, with the exception of the enzyme freeze dried from pH 11.5 and equilibrated with phosphorus pentoxide, where a z-value of the stable fraction close to 10 C was found

Quasi-one-dimensional system as a high-temperature superconductor

It is well-known that quasi-one-dimensional superconductors suffer from the pairing fluctuations that significantly reduce the superconducting temperature or even completely suppress any coherent behavior. Here we demonstrate that a coupling to a robust pair condensate changes the situation dramatically. In this case the quasi-one-dimensional system can be a high temperature superconductor governed by the proximity to the Lifshitz transition at which the Fermi level approaches the lower edge of the single-particle spectrum.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Thermal inactivation of Byssochlamys nivea in pineapple nectar combined with preliminary high pressure treatments

Byssochlamys nivea is a thermal resistant filamentous fungi and potential micotoxin producer. Recent studies have verified the presence of ascospores of such microorganism in samples of pineapple nectars. Although the majority of filamentous fungi have limited heat resistance and are easily destroyed by heat, Byssochlamys nivea ascospores have shown high thermal resistance. The aim of this work was to evaluate the application of linear and Weibull models on thermal inactivation (70, 80 and 90ºC) of Byssochlamys nivea ascospores in pineapple nectar after pretreatment with high pressure (550MPa or 650MPa during 15min). Following the treatments, survival curves were built up for each processing temperature and adjusted for both models. It was observed that survival curves at 90°C after high pressure pretreatment at 550 MPa/15 min did not fit well to linear and Weibull models. For all the other treatments, the Weibull model presented a better fit. At 90ºC without pressure treatment, the Weibull model also showed a better adjustment, having a larger R2 and a smaller RMSE. Regarding the process effectiveness, a 5-log reduction (t5), as recommended for pasteurization, was only achieved for Byssochlamys nivea ascospores presented in pineapple nectar at 90ºC/10.7 min with previous high pressure treatment of 650 MPa for 15 min. Considering the high intensity and energy demanding process with possibly product damage, other preventive and alternative treatments are being investigated

Discontinuity characterization and instability situations of an ornamental limestone quarry in Valinho de Fátima

Poster apresentado ao VIII Congresso Nacional de Geologia, em Braga (9-16 de Julho 2010)Apresenta-se o estudo das descontinuidades e das potenciais situações de instabilidade de uma pedreira de calcário ornamental que se localiza nas imediações de Valinho de Fátima (freguesia de Fátima). Definiram-se três famílias principais de descontinuidades, bem como as suas principais características: orientação, espaçamento, persistência, abertura, material de preenchimento, rugosidade, presença da água, índice de diaclasamento volumétrico e ângulo de atrito. Através da análise cinemática, em que utilizou o método de Markland, identificaram-se situações de instabilidade de rotura em cunha.This article presents the study of discontinuities and potential slope instability of an ornamental limestone quarry located in Valinho de Fátima. Three joints sets were defined, as well as its characteristics such as: orientation, spacing, persistence, aperture, filling, roughness, percolation, volumetric joint count and friction angle. A kinematic analysis, based on Markland’s method was carried out, which allowed the identification of wedge failures occurrences