Wine Fining with Plant Proteins

: Fining treatments involve the addition of a substance or a mixture to wine, and are generally carried out in order to clarify, stabilize or modify the wine\u2019s organoleptic characteristics. Usually these fining agents will bind the target compound(s) to form insoluble aggregates that are subsequently removed from the wine. The main reasons to perform wine fining treatments are to carry out wine clarification, stabilization and to remove phenolic compounds imparting unwanted sensory characteristics on the wine, which is an operation that often relies on the use of animal proteins, such as casein, gelatin, egg and fish proteins. However, due to the allergenic potential of these animal proteins, there is an increasing interest in developing alternative solutions including the use of fining proteins extracted from plants (e.g., proteins from cereals, grape seeds, potatoes, legumes, etc.), and non-proteinaceous plant-based substances (e.g., cell wall polysaccharides and pomace materials). In this article, the state of the art alternative fining agents of plant origins are reviewed for the first time, including considerations of their organoleptic and technological effects on wine, and of the allergenic risks that they can pose for consumer

Extinction risk and eco-evolutionary dynamics in a variable environment with increasing frequency of extreme events

One of the most dramatic consequences of climate change will be the intensification and increased frequency of extreme events. I used numerical simulations to understand and predict the consequences of directional trend (i.e. mean state) and increased variability of a climate variable (e.g. temperature), increased probability of occurrence of point extreme events (e.g. floods), selection pressure and effect size of mutations on a quantitative trait determining individual fitness, as well as the their effects on the population and genetic dynamics of a population of moderate size. The interaction among climate trend, variability and probability of point extremes had a minor effect on risk of extinction, time to extinction and distribution of the trait after accounting for their independent effects. The survival chances of a population strongly and linearly decreased with increasing strength of selection, as well as with increasing climate trend and variability. Mutation amplitude had no effects on extinction risk, time to extinction or genetic adaptation to the new climate. Climate trend and strength of selection largely determined the shift of the mean phenotype in the population. The extinction or persistence of the populations in an 'extinction window' of 10 years was well predicted by a simple model including mean population size and mean genetic variance over a 10-year time frame preceding the 'extinction window', although genetic variance had a smaller role than population size in predicting contemporary risk of extinction. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society

Efficiency of attack strategies on complex model and real-world networks

We investigated the efficiency of attack strategies to network nodes when targeting several complex model and real-world networks. We tested 5 attack strategies, 3 of which were introduced in this work for the first time, to attack 3 model (Erdos and Renyi, Barabasi and Albert preferential attachment network, and scale-free network configuration models) and 3 real networks (Gnutella peer-to-peer network, email network of the University of Rovira i Virgili, and immunoglobulin interaction network). Nodes were removed sequentially according to the importance criterion defined by the attack strategy. We used the size of the largest connected component (LCC) as a measure of network damage. We found that the efficiency of attack strategies (fraction of nodes to be deleted for a given reduction of LCC size) depends on the topology of the network, although attacks based on the number of connections of a node and betweenness centrality were often the most efficient strategies. Sequential deletion of nodes in decreasing order of betweenness centrality was the most efficient attack strategy when targeting real-world networks. In particular for networks with power-law degree distribution, we observed that most efficient strategy change during the sequential removal of nodes.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure

A Novel Method for the Quantification of White Wine Mannoproteins by a Competitive Indirect Enzyme-Linked Lectin Sorbent Assay (CI-ELLSA)

Mannoproteins (MPs) are cell wall proteoglycans released in wine by yeast during fermentation and ageing on lees, a procedure used for the production of several wines to enrich them in these components with consequences from both a technological and sensory point of view. Given the significance that wine MPs have for wine quality, winemakers would welcome a simple and accurate method for their quantification, as this would allow them to have a better control of this aspect at different winemaking stages. This study develops and validates a novel, simple and accurate method for MPs quantification in white wines based on a competitive indirect enzyme-linked lectin sorbent assay (CI-ELLSA), using the highly mannosylated yeast invertase as the standard. The method utilizes the lectin concanavalin A (ConA) as the immobilized ligand for MPs, and peroxidase, an enzyme rich in mannose, as the competitor for ConA. After addition of the peroxidase substrate, the intensity of the signal produced by the activity of this enzyme (absorbance at 450 nm) is inversely proportional to the amount of mannosylated proteins in the sample. Results have been validated on several wine styles including still, sparkling and sweet wines

Protein evolution in white wine during winemaking

Background and Aims: Grape proteins are responsible for the appearance of haziness in white wines during storage after bottling. However, only a few studies have approached the analysis of the fate of must proteins throughout the alcoholic fermentation. This study aimed to systematically investigate the daily variations in protein type and content during the fermentation in order to understand its influence on hazing potential and to attain some basic information to improve the practical management of grape proteins involved in the hazing of white wines. Methods and Results: The evolution of total soluble protein and individual protein fractions was studied in samples taken before, during and after alcoholic fermentation of a white grape must. The results were then related to variations in protein instability as measured by the heat test. Both the quantity of soluble protein and the protein instability increased during fermentation and then decreased after 1-month storage of the wine. Protein composition did not vary during fermentation as assessed by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and anion exchange chromatography (AEC). However, variations in the relative proportions of the six protein fractions obtainable by AEC were noted in the different samples. The contribution of each AEC protein fraction to wine instability was determined by considering both the intrinsic instability and the relative quantity of each of the individual protein fractions in the wine. It was demonstrated that the grape thaumatin-like protein VVTL1, as identified by mass spectrometry, showed the largest increase during fermentation and accounted for almost 40% of the heat-induced haze of the final wine. Moreover, the decreased protein instability noted after one month storage of the wine could be attributed to the stabilizing effect of polysaccharides released by the yeast cells. Conclusions: The quantity and relative proportion of soluble proteins vary during and after the alcoholic fermentation, as does their heat instability in wine. Grape VVTL1, constituting a large proportion of the total proteins in wine, seems to play a major role in protein haze formation. The release of yeast polysaccharides is related to an increased heat stability of total wine protein, despite the increase in the relative proportion of their most unstable component VVTL1. Therefore, the hazing potential of a white wine seems to be affected by variations in the relative proportions of its macromolecular components occurring in the early stages of winemaking. Significance of the Study: This study addressed for the first time the issue of the protein changing during the fermentation of white wine. The results obtained here offer useful information to aid understanding of the contribution of individual proteins to white wine instability, which can be applied for the improvement of the winemaking process. Abbreviations AEC anion-exchange chromatography; KDS potassium dodecyl sulfate; MS mass spectrometry; MW molecular weight, PAS periodic acid-Schiff stain, PR-proteins pathogenesis-related proteins, RT retention time, SDS-PAGE sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, TL thaumatin-like, VVTL1 Vitis vinifera thaumatin-like protei

Generalising via Meta-Examples for Continual Learning in the Wild

Learning quickly and continually is still an ambitious task for neural networks. Indeed, many real-world applications do not reflect the learning setting where neural networks shine, as data are usually few, mostly unlabelled and come as a stream. To narrow this gap, we introduce FUSION - Few-shot UnSupervIsed cONtinual learning - a novel strategy which aims to deal with neural networks that "learn in the wild", simulating a real distribution and flow of unbalanced tasks. We equip FUSION with MEML - Meta-Example Meta-Learning - a new module that simultaneously alleviates catastrophic forgetting and favours the generalisation and future learning of new tasks. To encourage features reuse during the meta-optimisation, our model exploits a single inner loop per task, taking advantage of an aggregated representation achieved through the use of a self-attention mechanism. To further enhance the generalisation capability of MEML, we extend it by adopting a technique that creates various augmented tasks and optimises over the hardest. Experimental results on few-shot learning benchmarks show that our model exceeds the other baselines in both FUSION and fully supervised case. We also explore how it behaves in standard continual learning consistently outperforming state-of-the-art approaches.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, 13 tables. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2009.0810

Carry-over effects of food supplementation on recruitment and breeding performance of long-lived seabirds

Supplementation of food to wild animals is extensively applied as a conservation tool to increase local production of young. However, in long-lived migratory animals, the carry-over effects of food supplementation early in life on the subsequent recruitment of individuals into natal populations and their lifetime reproductive success are largely unknown. We examine how experimental food supplementation early in life affects: (i) recruitment as breeders of kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla born in a colony on Middleton Island (Alaska) between 1996 and 2006 (n = 1629) that bred in the same colony through 2013 (n = 235); and (ii) breeding success of individuals that have completed their life cycle at the colony (n = 56). Birds were raised in nests that were either supplemented with food (Fed) or unsupplemented (Unfed). Fledging success was higher in Fed compared with Unfed nests. After accounting for hatching rank, growth and oceanic conditions at fledging, Fed fledglings had a lower probability of recruiting as breeders in the Middleton colony than Unfed birds. The per-nest contribution of breeders was still significantly higher for Fed nests because of their higher productivity. Lifetime reproductive success of a subset of kittiwakes that thus far had completed their life cycle was not affected by the food supplementation during development. Our results cast light on the carry-over effects of early food conditions on the vital rates of long-lived animals and support food supplementation as an effective conservation strategy for long-lived seabirds

Antioxidant extraction and bioactivity preservation from winery by-products by Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents (NaDES)

In recent times, the feasibility of sourcing the bioactivity and health-promoting activity of anthocyanins, flavanols, stilbenes and phenolic acids from viticulture and winery by-products was explored. In particular, pomace, wine lees, and pruning stalks attracted a great deal of interest among scientists, technologists, and businesses. Traditional solid-liquid extraction methods employ hazardous solvents, such as hydrocarbons, alcohols and chloro-alkanes. As an attempt to convey compliance to the pillars of Green Chemistry, the possibility to choose innovative eco-friendly solvents was evaluated. Furthermore, this approach could preserve the activity of the bioactive compounds for possible applications in food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and phytosanitary domains. In this work, natural deep eutectic solvents (NaDES) were used to investigate Solid-Liquid Extraction of phenolic species from Merlot marc. Two different operating temperatures were tested and the influence of biomass grinding was investigated. Experimental results show that both kinetic and final anthocyanins extraction efficiency are positively affected by biomass grinding and by temperature increase

Direct and indirect effects of environmental factors on dietary niches in size-structured populations of a wild salmonid

Dietary plasticity of populations can be associated to ontogenetic diet preferences and depends on the size-structure of populations. Dietary niche characterizes the functional role of organisms in a food web, as it reflects both resources' diversity used by a consumer and trophic interactions in the system. Dietary niches are controlled both by biotic and abiotic factors, but their interactions in natural systems remain poorly studied. Here, we investigated the variability of dietary niche in salmonid wild populations focusing both on inter-population and intra-population (through time) trophic changes, using marble trout (Salmo marmoratus) living in Slovenian headwater streams as a model system. Stable isotope analysis showed high variability of dietary niche and trophic diversity among six of the seven remnant marble trout populations. We observed substantial differences in dietary niche width among populations and within populations through time. Results of partial least square path modelling highlighted opposite effects of immature and mature trout on trophic niche structure. Direct effects of temperature and slope (stream and watershed) were opposite; temperature narrowed dietary niches while slope increased them. Environmental factors (e.g., temperature, stream and watershed slope) had indirect effects on trophic niches after accounting for fish density. Our results showed that size-distribution and sexual maturity are key determinants of the dietary niche width in a population. Increasing density of immature trout tended to widen the dietary niche while increasing density of mature trout tended to narrow it. Environmental factors had direct effects both on resources and consumers densities and indirect effects. Direct and indirect effects were often antagonistic