Obtaining a Restructured Seafood Product from Non-Functional Fish Muscle by Glucomannan Addition: First Steps

A procedure for fish minced muscle gelation has been created in order to restructure mince muscle that lacks functionality due to processing. This consists of adding glucomannan, dispersed in water in concentrations of 3¿6%, to the mince. Then, 0.6 N KOH is added to bring the pH up to 11.8¿12, and the sample is kept at 30°C for 1 h and then at 5°C for 4 h, so that the glucomannan gels with the mince incorporated as a ¿filler.¿ This gel is subsequently neutralized by placing it in a buffer. The result is a thermostable gel with the same aspects of raw fish muscle and oral sensory properties similar to those of muscle when both are cooked. Therefore, this gel could be used to mimic muscle fibers or myotomes.Peer reviewe

Lightly N\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3eO nitrided dielectrics grown in a conventional furnace for E\u3csup\u3e2\u3c/sup\u3ePROM and 0.25 μm CMOS

\u3cp\u3eFor deep-submicron CMOS transistors and FLOTOX E\u3csup\u3e2\u3c/sup\u3ePROM devices a considerable improvement in reliability and performance can be achieved when nitrided dielectrics are used. We developed an N\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3eO nitridation technology for a conventional furnace. Oxidation and nitridation are done in one run with a two-step and low-thermal budget processing to grow a dielectric layer with a thickness of 6-10 nm.\u3c/p\u3

Developmental Dynamic Dysphasia : Are Bilateral Brain Abnormalities a Signature of Inefficient Neural Plasticity?

The acquisition and evolution of speech production, discourse and communication can be negatively impacted by brain malformations. We describe, for the first time, a case of developmental dynamic dysphasia (DDD) in a right-handed adolescent boy (subject D) with cortical malformations involving language-eloquent regions (inferior frontal gyrus) in both the left and the right hemispheres. Language evaluation revealed a markedly reduced verbal output affecting phonemic and semantic fluency, phrase and sentence generation and verbal communication in everyday life. Auditory comprehension, repetition, naming, reading and spelling were relatively preserved, but executive function was impaired. Multimodal neuroimaging showed a malformed cerebral cortex with atypical configuration and placement of white matter tracts bilaterally and abnormal callosal fibers. Dichotic listening showed right hemisphere dominance for language, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) additionally revealed dissociated hemispheric language representation with right frontal activation for phonology and bilateral dominance for semantic processing. Moreover, subject D also had congenital mirror movements (CMM), defined as involuntary movements of one side of the body that mirror intentional movements of the other side. Transcranial magnetic stimulation and fMRI during voluntary unimanual (left and right) hand movements showed bilateral motor cortex recruitment and tractography revealed a lack of decussation of bilateral corticospinal tracts. Genetic testing aimed to detect mutations that disrupt the development of commissural tracts correlating with CMM (e.g., Germline DCC mutations) was negative. Overall, our findings suggest that DDD in subject D resulted from the underdevelopment of the left inferior frontal gyrus with limited capacity for plastic reorganization by its homologous counterpart in the right hemisphere. Corpus callosum anomalies probably contributed to hinder interhemispheric connectivity necessary to compensate language and communication deficits after left frontal involvement