Assessment of oxygen levels in convenience‐style muscle‐based sous vide products through optical means and impact on shelf‐life stability

An optical oxygen analyser was used in two small‐scale industrial trials to non‐destructively assess the quality of packaged convenience foods and packaging process. Beef lasagne packed under 70% vacuum and cooked under standard sous vide conditions was monitored for residual oxygen, using disposable sensors incorporated in each pack and a benchtop optical oxygen analyser. High levels of residual oxygen close to ambient were determined in the majority of packs after packaging, as opposed to anticipated levels of 4–5%. Residual oxygen was monitored over product shelf‐life (4 weeks at +4–10°C) along with measurement of microbial growth and lipid oxidation in food by conventional destructive methods. Oxygen levels in packs went down to almost zero between weeks 2 and 3 indicating deterioration of packaged product. Correlation between oxygen profiles and the rate of microbial growth and lipid oxidation was established. The optical oxygen sensor system was shown to provide valuable information about performance of the packaging process, product storage conditions and food quality in a convenient and cost‐efficient fashion and non‐destructively. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

SIMILARITY‐BASED RETRIEVAL WITH STRUCTURE‐SENSITIVE SPARSE BINARY DISTRIBUTED REPRESENTATIONS

We present an approach to similarity‐based retrieval from knowledge bases that takes into account both the structure and semantics of knowledge base fragments. Those fragments, or analogues, are represented as sparse binary vectors that allow a computationally efficient estimation of structural and semantic similarity by the vector dot product. We present the representation scheme and experimental results for the knowledge base that was previously used for testing of leading analogical retrieval models MAC/FAC and ARCS. The experiments show that the proposed single‐stage approach provides results compatible with or better than the results of two‐stage models MAC/FAC and ARCS in terms of recall and precision. We argue that the proposed representation scheme is useful for large‐scale knowledge bases and free‐structured database applications.     

Structural Data on the Periplasmic Aldehyde Oxidoreductase PaoABC from Escherichia coli: SAXS and Preliminary X-ray Crystallography Analysis

The periplasmic aldehyde oxidoreductase PaoABC from Escherichia coli is a molybdenum enzyme involved in detoxification of aldehydes in the cell. It is an example of an αβγ heterotrimeric enzyme of the xanthine oxidase family of enzymes which does not dimerize via its molybdenum cofactor binding domain. In order to structurally characterize PaoABC, X-ray crystallography and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) have been carried out. The protein crystallizes in the presence of 20% (w/v) polyethylene glycol 3350 using the hanging-drop vapour diffusion method. Although crystals were initially twinned, several experiments were done to overcome twinning and lowering the crystallization temperature (293 K to 277 K) was the solution to the problem. The non-twinned crystals used to solve the structure diffract X-rays to beyond 1.80 Å and belong to the C2 space group, with cell parameters a = 109.42 Å, b = 78.08 Å, c = 151.77 Å, β = 99.77°, and one molecule in the asymmetric unit. A molecular replacement solution was found for each subunit separately, using several proteins as search models. SAXS data of PaoABC were also collected showing that, in solution, the protein is also an αβγ heterotrimer.     

An updated version of BoltzWann: A code for the evaluation of thermoelectric and electronic transport properties with a maximally-localized Wannier functions basis

BoltzWann is a code to evaluate thermoelectric and electronic transport properties of extended systems with a maximally-localized Wannier function basis set. The semiclassical Boltzmann transport equations for the homogeneous infinite system are solved in the constant relaxation-time approximation and band energies and band derivatives are obtained via Wannier interpolations. Thanks to the exponential localization of the Wannier functions obtained, very high accuracy in the Brillouin zone integrals can be achieved with very moderate computational costs. Moreover, the analytical expression for the band derivatives in the Wannier basis resolves any issues that may occur when evaluating derivatives near band crossings. We present here an updated version of the BoltzWann code, which is now fully integrated within Wannier90 version 2.0, with minor bug fixes and the possibility to study also two-dimensional systems.     

Superparamagnetic Ag@Co‐Nanocomposites on Granulated Cation Exchange Polymeric Matrices with Enhanced Antibacterial Activity for the Environmentally Safe Purification of Water

Cation exchange polymeric matrices are widely used in water treatment protocols to reduce the mineral content of hard waters, even for human consumption. However, they are not antibacterial and flowing bacteria can be trapped in their structures and proliferate, thus acting as microbial contamination sources. Here, Ag@Co‐nanoparticles (Ag@Co‐NPs) with a low‐cost superparamagnetic Co⁰‐core and an antibacterial Ag‐shell are synthesized on granulated cation exchange polymeric matrices under soft reaction conditions. The presence of these NPs provides the final nanocomposite (NC) with additional functionalities (superparamagnetism and antibacterial activity) making it ideal for water purification applications. Ag@Co‐NPs are synthesized in situ on four cation exchange polymeric matrices containing either strong (sulfonic) or weak (carboxylic) acid functional groups homogeneously distributed (C‐type) or concentrated on an external shell (SST‐type) by the intermatrix synthesis (IMS) method. The NCs are characterized (metal content, NP size and distribution, metal oxidative state, and metal release) and evaluated for water purification applications.     

Synthesis and characterization of new vinyl acetate grafting onto epoxidized linseed oil in aqueous media

Modified poly (vinyl acetate) copolymers with epoxidized linseed oil (ELO) as co‐monomer have been prepared. The polymerization was performed in aqueous medium without any additional protective colloid in the presence of sodium persulfate as catalyst. The effect of vinyl acetate (VAc)/ELO feed ratio, reaction temperature, reaction time, and catalyst amount has been studied. FTIR spectroscopy showed that the reaction between ELO and VAc resulted in slight decrease and shift in ELO characteristic bands of oxirane groups; and new bands were detected in the copolymer spectra attributed to PVAc and ELO functional groups. Moreover, new signals attributable to the copolymer were observed in the ¹H NMR spectra (δ 4.07 and 1.62 ppm) and in the ¹³C NMR spectra (δ 15.29 and 31.0 ppm). Analysis by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) showed a single T_g for the copolymerization product of VAc and ELO and two T_g for the PVAc/ELO blend, indicating the chemical reaction between VAc and ELO. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42089.