Changes in chemical constituents during the maturation and ripening of two commercially important pomegranate accessions

Pomegranate juice is well known for its health beneficial compounds. This study was undertaken to investigate changes in the major chemical composition in arils and peels during fruit maturation in two Israeli commercial accessions, ‘Wonderful’ and ‘Rosh-Hapered.’ In both accessions, the levels of total phenolic, antioxidant activity and hydrolysable tannins were reduced in the peels during maturation, while the anthocyanin level increased. The results show that the sugar content in the aril juice increased in both accessions while the levels of acidity and of citric acid decreased. However, these two accessions differed in other parameters in the aril juice, i.e., while the antioxidant and total phenolic contents significantly decreased in ‘Rosh-Hapered’, these changes were not observed in ‘Wonderful’. The anthocyanin level, however, increased in ‘Wonderful’ but did not change in ‘Rosh-Hapered.’ This knowledge could help establish the optimum harvest date ensuring the maximum nutritional properties of pomegranates.     

Technological and flavour potential of cultures isolated from traditional Greek cheeses – A pool of novel species and starters

This study explored the microbiota of Formaella, Kopanisti, Feta and Mana cheeses. A total of 133 wild lactic acid bacteria were isolated and classified phenotypically. Mesophilic lactobacilli were the most abundant group. Thermophilic lactobacilli and thermophilic cocci were the best milk acidifiers, whereas thermophilic lactobacilli were the most proteolytic isolates. Higher peptidolytic and esterolytic activities were obtained with thermophilic cocci. Only five isolates were lipolytic, whereas none was able to catabolize citrate. Fast gas chromatography−mass spectrometry analysis of the metabolites produced and subsequent principal components analysis revealed segregated groups of isolates in accordance with the phenotypic ones. Electronic nose analysis revealed similar results. Lactobacillus rennini and Lactobacillus acidipiscis were found to be the sole microbial species in Kopanisti cheese and Mana. These isolates produced alcohols and aldehydes as major volatile compounds, as a result of secondary amino acid catabolism.     

The accuracy of reference lists in five experimental psychology journals.

Reference lists appended to published journals are of critical importance to readers of academic literature. They allow readers to retrieve cited sources, either to increase their own knowledge or to substantiate the authors' claims, and in so doing help to establish the judgment and credibility of the authors (M. F. McLellan et al, 1992). However, erroneous references detract from the intended function of reference lists by impeding retrieval searches and by providing misleading bibliographic information (G. de Lacey et al, 1985; McLellan et al, 1992). The present study aims to assess the accuracy of reference lists in five experimental psychology journals published by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1999 (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, and Journal of Experimental Psychology: General). Perhaps the most disturbing result from this study is the finding that authors were incorrectly cited in 12% of reference list citations, with errors in the initials of the authors being the most common. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Base Resistance of Jacked Pipe Piles in Sand

The paper presents the results from an experimental program carried out at Trinity College Dublin, in which instrumented model piles were jacked into loose dry sand in a large testing chamber. A number of pile installations were carried out to study the effects of in situ stress, diameter, and wall thickness on the behavior of open-ended piles in sand. These indicated that plug stiffness and capacity may be expressed as simple functions of the cone penetration test end resistance and the incremental filling ratio prior to loading. The magnitude and distribution of shear stresses measured on the inner wall are shown to be compatible with existing experimental data and can be related directly to the stress level, interface friction angle, and dilation of the sand at the pile wall. The data are shown to facilitate a better understanding of the factors controlling plug resistance.     

Longitudinal trends in river functioning: Patterns of nutrient and carbon processing in three Australian rivers

Understanding longitudinal trends in the processing of carbon in rivers represents a much conceptualised, but infrequently tested, issue in aquatic ecology. In this study, we conducted concurrent longitudinal examinations of three very different rivers in eastern Australia to determine whether general principles in river functioning exist across broad geographic and hydrologic scales. Specifically, we examined trends in ambient basic water chemistry, nutrient concentrations, dissolved organic carbon (DOC), extracellular enzymes and food web structure and functioning and conducted bioassays to examine the degree to which DOC and nutrients limit heterotrophic bacterial respiration. These parameters revealed striking similarities across all sites. For metazoan communities, stable isotope analysis showed that algal carbon was the dominant basal resource utilised by consumers in all three rivers, suggesting that in‐stream primary producers strongly underpin trophic pathways regardless of the position within a catchment or catchment condition. Analyses of extracellular enzymes revealed that microbial communities are actively utilising DOC at all sites. In fact, heterotrophic microbial respiration was strongly limited by DOC at all sites, with nutrient additions resulting in only relatively minor increases in respiration. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that DOC and algal carbon are critically important drivers of ecosystem processes in Australian riverine ecosystems. Furthermore, across all of our sites and rivers, ambient nutrient concentrations did not influence carbon processing. The consistent longitudinal trends in river function identified in this study provide useful insights for catchment managers and modellers with respect to identifiying key principles that underpin ecosystem functioning in Australian rivers. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time of Sampling Strategies for Asphalt Pavement Quality Assurance

The cost of quality assurance programs in asphalt road construction is high in part because of the need for daily testing. This paper demonstrates the methodology used to investigate the timing of sampling and its effect on the quality assurance program. Fourteen lots over two highway paving projects were tested twice: during construction on a daily basis, and after construction was complete. Three quality measures were compared, namely asphalt content, degree of compaction, and aggregate gradation. The test data during construction were obtained from two sources: the consultant’s quality assurance, and the contractor’s quality control. One-way ANOVA tests and T-tests were used to compare the means. In addition, the arithmetic difference between the means was reviewed to understand how the time of sampling might affect contractor payment adjustments.     

Similarity solutions for slender dry patches with thermocapillarity

The lubrication approximation is used to investigate slender dry patches in an infinitely wide film of viscous fluid flowing steadily on an inclined plane that is either heated or cooled relative to the surrounding atmosphere. Four non-isothermal situations in which thermocapillary effects play a significant role are considered.Similarity solutions describing a thermocapillary-driven flow with a dry patch that is widening or narrowing due to either gravitational or surface-tension effects on a non-uniformly heated or cooled substrate are obtained, and examples of these solutions, when the substrate temperature gradient depends on the longitudinal coordinate according to a general power law, are presented. When gravitational effects are strong, the solution contains a free parameter, and for each value of this parameter there is a unique solution representing both a narrowing pendent dry patch and a widening sessile dry patch, whose transverse profile has a monotonically increasing shape. When surface-tension effects are strong, the solution also contains a free parameter, and for each value of this parameter there is both a unique solution representing a narrowing dry patch, whose transverse profile has a monotonically increasing shape, and a one-parameter family of solutions representing a widening dry patch, whose transverse profile has a capillary ridge near the contact line and decays in an oscillatory manner far from it.Similarity solutions are also obtained for both a gravity-driven and a constant-surface-shear-stress-driven flow with a dry patch that is widening or narrowing due to thermocapillarity on a uniformly heated or cooled substrate. The solutions in both cases contain a free parameter, and for each value of this parameter there is a unique solution representing both a narrowing dry patch on a heated substrate and a widening dry patch on a cooled substrate, whose transverse profile has a monotonically increasing shape.