Incorporating the Water Footprint and Virtual Water into Policy: Reflections from the Mancha Occidental Region, Spain

Water resource management is often a controversial issue in semiarid regions. Most water resources experts admit that water conflicts are not caused by the physical water scarcity but they are mainly due to inadequate water management. The virtual water concept (the volume of water used in the production of a commodity, good or service) together with the water footprint (indicator of water consumption that looks at both direct and indirect water use of a consumer or producer), links a large range of sectors and issues, thus providing a potentially appropriate framework to support more optimal water management practices by informing production and trade decisions. This paper provides an analysis of these two concepts within the context of the Mancha Occidental region, Spain, exploring the hydrological and economic aspects of agricultural production. In doing so, this work not only distinguishes between green and blue water but also between surface and groundwater. We conclude by discussing the practical implications of the results, as well as their potential limitations from the policy standpoint.     

A bibliometric study of psychological research on tourism

The psychology of tourism is a new, multidisciplinary research field. However, no systematic analyses of the scientific production in this field have been carried out to date. This study presents a bibliometric analysis of the area of psychology of tourism between 1990 and 2005. The evolution of scientific production during this period, Price’s, Lotka’s and Bradford’s laws and citation patterns were studied. The results show a significant growth in the literature on the subject, as well as an increase in coauthorship and institutional collaboration. Bibliometric laws and empiric regularities observed in other disciplines are also present in this new research field.     

Effects of heat treatment and high pressure on the subsequent lactosylation of β-lactoglobulin

The effects of a previous heat treatment (60 and 80 °C, 30 min) and high-pressure (400 MPa, 25 and 60 °C, 1 h) on the subsequent lactosylation of β-lactoglobulin (50 °C, 44% RH, 120 h) were investigated. A control of native β-lactoglobulin was also stored under the afore-mentioned conditions. The structural changes caused during these treatments were studied by the loss of amino groups, SE-HPLC and native-PAGE and the degree of lactosylation was evaluated by means of furosine determination. After thermal and high-pressure treatments, the greatest structural changes were observed in the case of samples of β-lactoglobulin treated at 80 °C, 30 min and 400 MPa, 60 °C, 1 h. During storage, the highest lactosylation degree was found in native β-lactoglobulin. In heat-treated samples, the increase of lactosylated lysines was lower than the decrease of free amino groups, probably due to the cross-linking reactions. A similar decrease of free amino groups of β-lactoglobulin was observed immediately after 400 MPa, 60 °C, 1 h and 80 °C, 30 min; however, the level of lactosylation during the storage period was lower in the former, indicating different types of conformational changes in the two treatments. These differences lead to a higher effectiveness of heat-treatment than high-pressure in denaturating β-lactoglobulin for subsequent lactosylation under the tested conditions (of temperature, time, high-pressure and storage).     

Hazelnut milk fermentation using probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG and inulin

Following the consumer demand of healthy vegetable products due to their interesting nutritional profiles and potential functionalities, the fermentation process of hazelnut milk with Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG and S. thermophilus was studied. The effect of different factors (glucose, inulin and inoculum contents) was analysed to ensure sufficient probiotic survivals in a minimum time. The shelf life of the optimised product was characterised in terms of its main physicochemical and quality parameters (probiotic survivals and sensory analysis). Results showed that the defined formulation allowed high probiotic survivals (≈10⁸ cfu mL^?1) throughout cold storage and >60% survived to the in vitro digestion process (≈10⁵ cfu mL^?1). Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG was no able to degrade inulin, which remained to exert health benefits in the host. The product was highly appreciated by the sensory panel during its shelf life despite the formation of a weak gel, which presented syneresis at the last storage time.     

Modeling Task-Oriented Dialogue

A common tool for improving theperformance quality of natural languageprocessing systems is the use of contextualinformation for disambiguation. Here I describethe use of a finite state machine (FSM) todisambiguate speech acts in a machinetranslation system. The FSM has two layers thatmodel, respectively, the global and localstructures found in naturally-occurringconversations. The FSM has been modeled on acorpus of task-oriented dialogues in a travelplanning situation. In the dialogues, one ofthe interactants is a travel agent or hotelclerk, and the other a client requestinginformation or services. A discourse processorbased on the FSM was implemented in order toprocess contextual information in a machinetranslation system. Evaluation results showthat the discourse processor is able todisambiguate and improve the quality of thedialogue translation. Other applicationsinclude human-computer interaction andcomputer-assisted language learning.     

Recycling poly-(methyl methacrylate) by pyrolysis in a conical spouted bed reactor

The pyrolysis of poly-(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) has been studied in a pyrolysis plant provided with a conical spouted bed reactor. This reactor is an interesting technology for the pyrolysis of waste plastics due to its excellent hydrodynamic behaviour and its high heat transfer and versatility. A previous kinetic study was carried out in thermobalance, in which the degradation of this polymer was observed to begin at low temperatures, 553 K. Consequently, the activation energy is low compared to other plastics. The influence of temperature on pyrolysis product distribution in the conical spouted bed reactor has been studied in the 673–823 K range. The products obtained at low temperatures are mainly the monomers of the polymer used for the study methyl methacrylate (MMA) and ethyl acrylate (EA). When the pyrolysis temperature is increased, the yield of monomers is lower due to the higher severity of secondary reactions, and there is a significant increase in the yield of gases. The maximum monomer recovery has been obtained at 673 K, with the yields of MMA and EA being 86.5% and 6.2%, respectively.     

Microscopy of biological sample through advanced diffractive optics from visible to X-ray wavelength regime

The aim of this report is to demonstrate a unified version of microscopy through the use of advanced diffractive optics. The unified scheme derives from the technical possibility of realizing front wave engineering in a wide range of electromagnetic spectrum. The unified treatment is realized through the design and nanofabrication of phase diffractive elements (PDE) through which wave front beam shaping is obtained. In particular, we will show applications, by using biological samples, ranging from micromanipulation using optical tweezers to X-ray differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy combined with X-ray fluorescence. We report some details on the design and physical implementation of diffractive elements that besides focusing also perform other optical functions: beam splitting, beam intensity, and phase redistribution or mode conversion. Laser beam splitting is used for multiple trapping and independent manipulation of micro-beads surrounding a cell as an array of tweezers and for arraying and sorting microscopic size biological samples. Another application is the Gauss to Laguerre-Gauss mode conversion, which allows for trapping and transfering orbital angular momentum of light to micro-particles immersed in a fluid. These experiments are performed in an inverted optical microscope coupled with an infrared laser beam and a spatial light modulator for diffractive optics implementation. High-resolution optics, fabricated by means of e-beam lithography, are demonstrated to control the intensity and the phase of the sheared beams in x-ray DIC microscopy. DIC experiments with phase objects reveal a dramatic increase in image contrast compared to bright-field x-ray microscopy. Besides the topographic information, fluorescence allows detection of certain chemical elements (Cl, P, Sc, K) in the same setup, by changing the photon energy of the x-ray beam.     

Quality of goat′s milk cheese as affected by coating with edible chitosan‐essential oil films

The effectiveness of applying chitosan coatings containing rosemary and oregano essential oils to cheeses was analysed. Cheeses were coated by immersing the samples two or three times successively in the different formulations. The ripening indexes, water loss, fungal growth and sensory properties of the coated and noncoated cheeses throughout ripening were evaluated. The coatings both prevented weight loss and improved the microbial safety. The lipolytic and proteolytic activities were reduced in coated cheese, which is in line with the antimicrobial effect of active coatings. Sensory evaluation revealed that the cheeses double‐coated with chitosan–oregano oil were the best evaluated in terms of aroma and flavour.