Hot water and organic acid interventions to control microbiological contamination on hog carcasses during processing

Pork skin and muscle tissue were washed with water at temperatures from 25 to 80 degrees C. Water temperatures of 65 and 80 degrees C resulted in greater population reductions of Enterobacteriaceae on pork muscle tissue than lower water temperatures. There was no observable effect of water temperature on population reductions of Enterobacteriaceae on pork skin. Water temperatures of 55, 65, and 80 degrees C reduced the populations of Enterobacteriaceae on inoculated scalded carcasses processed in a university abattoir by 1 to 1.5 log/cm2. Following the water wash with an organic acid rinse resulted in further numerical reductions in populations, although these were not statistically different from the water wash alone. The jowls of both scalded and skinned carcasses processed in a commercial establishment were directly inoculated with a fecal material slurry and then processed with organic acid rinsing only, hot water washing only, or a combination of hot water washing followed by organic acid rinsing. The hot water and acid treatment reduced the populations of mesophilic aerobic bacteria and Escherichia coli by approximately 2 log cycles on both scalded and skinned hog carcasses. The combined treatment resulted in 60% of the scalded carcasses and 40% of the skinned carcasses with undetectable levels of E. coli after direct fecal inoculation of the carcasses. Hot water washing followed by organic acid rinsing can significantly improve the microbiological quality of pork carcasses.     

Creative Photography for Textile Designers

Photographic processes have exerted a revolutionary impact upon textile-printing technology, and the influence of photography itself upon hand-drawn imagery has been profound. Yet the direct use of photographic images in textile design is limited.

This may be due to a number of reasons: lack of adequate coverage of the subject within textile-design education; lack of facilities available to freelance and in-house designers; conservatism of manufacturers; and consumer attitudes to design.

Perhaps an awareness of what may be achieved by photographic techniques may stimulate interest in this topic. These techniques may be divided into three categories:

1. images available from the initial exposure:

   1. lenses, including macrophotography

   2. photomicrography

   3. filters

   4. exposure controls

   5. films

• effects obtained from darkroom processes:

  1. false colour records

  2. uneven development

  3. photograms

  4. posterization

  5. bas-relief

  6. tone–line

  7. solarization

• effects achieved by photomechanical means:

  1. vignetting/combination printing

  2. sandwich printing

  3. texture screens

  4. half-tone screens

     

Fatigue crack initiation and propagation in polyamide-6 and in polyamide-6 nanocomposites

Recent developments in polymer nanocomposites have led to improvements in conventional short-term, but the long-term mechanical properties have received little attention. The objective of the present study was to characterize the effect of nanoparticles on the fatigue crack initiation and propagation mechanisms and on the fatigue properties of polyamide-6 (PA6) nanocomposite (PA6NC) prepared by in situ polymerization with montmorillonite clay. Two approaches were employed: fatigue life measurements and crack growth monitoring. Compared with non-filled PA6 at the same stress amplitude, the number of cycles to fracture was higher for the nanocomposite, which suggests an increase in the intrinsic resistance of the material to crack initiation. However, the crack growth rate results indicated that nanoparticles decreased the resistance to crack propagation. Post-fatigue fractographic observations indicated a change in the fatigue crack propagation mechanism resulting from the addition of nanoparticles, primarily attributed to the increase in yield stress, which favors the development of a fibrillated deformation zone. The fibrillation process in the relatively high crack propagation rate regime appeared to be preceded by plastic deformation at approximately constant volume. Most of the effect of nanoparticles on the fatigue behavior and properties results probably from the mechanical reinforcement on the microstructure and its effect on the yield stress and Young's modulus rather than from the effect of the inorganic filler to act as a stress concentrator. Polym. Compos. 25:433–441, 2004. © 2004 Society of Plastics Engineers.     

Effective and efficient crowd-assisted similarity retrieval of medical images in resource-constraint Mobile telemedicine systems

This paper presents an effective and efficient framework for Crowd-assisted Mobile Similarity Retrieval of the large-scale medical images in the resource-constraint mobile telemedicine systems (MTS), called the CMSR. The CMSR processing works as follows: when a user submits a retrieval medical image I_R, a buffer checking processing is first invoked to check if the full (or partial) retrieval results have been cached in the buffer previously. After that, a parallel image data filtering and refinement processing is conducted at a master node level. Finally, the candidate images are concurrently validated by a mCrowd system to derive an answer set that is transmitted to the retrieval node. To better facilitate the effective and efficient CMSR processing, three enabling techniques, i.e., category-based image data interleaving placement scheme, hindex-support image filtering algorithm and a kNN-based buffering scheme are developed. To improve the retrieval throughput, finally, we propose an extension of the CMSR method called mCMSR to optimize the multiple CMSRs. The experimental results show that the performances of the CMSR and the mCMSR methods are: 1) effective in improving the retrieval accuracy; 2) efficient in minimizing the response time by decreasing the network transmission cost while increasing the parallelism of I/O and CPU.

     

Impacts of chronic and increasing lipopolysaccharide exposure on production and reproductive parameters in lactating Holstein dairy cows

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) administration causes immunoactivation, which negatively affects production and fertility, but experimental exposure via an acute bolus is unlikely to resemble natural infections. Thus, the objectives were to characterize effects of chronic endotoxemia on production parameters and follicular development in estrous-synchronized lactating cows. Eleven Holstein cows (169 ± 20 d in milk; 681 ± 16 kg of body weight) were acclimated to their environmental surroundings for 3 d and then enrolled in 2 experimental periods (P). During P1 (3 d) cows consumed feed ad libitum and baseline samples were obtained. During P2 (7 d), cows were assigned to continuous infusion of either (1) saline-infused and pair-fed (CON-PF; 40 mL/h of saline i.v.; n = 5) or (2) LPS infused and ad libitum fed (LPS-AL; Escherichia coli O55:B5; 0.017, 0.020, 0.026, 0.036, 0.055, 0.088, and 0.148 μg/kg of body weight/h i.v. on d 1 to 7, respectively; n = 6). Controls were pair-fed to the LPS-AL group to eliminate confounding effects of dissimilar nutrient intake. Infusing LPS temporally caused mild hyperthermia on d 1 to 3 (+0.49°C) relative to baseline. Dry matter intake of LPS-AL cows decreased (28%) on d 1 of P2, then progressively returned to baseline. Relative to baseline, milk yield from LPS-AL cows was decreased on d 1 of P2 (12%). No treatment differences were observed in milk yield during P2. Follicular growth, dominant follicle size, serum progesterone (P4), and follicular P4 and 17β-estradiol concentrations were similar between treatments. Serum 17β-estradiol tended to increase (115%) and serum amyloid A and LPS-binding protein were increased (118 and 40%, respectively) in LPS-AL relative to CON-PF cows. Compared with CON-PF, neutrophils in LPS-AL cows were initially increased (45%), then gradually decreased. In contrast, monocytes were initially decreased (40%) and progressively increased with time in the LPS-AL cows. Hepatic mRNA abundance of cytochrome P450 family 2 subfamily C (CYP2C) or CYP3A was not affected by LPS, nor was there a treatment effect on toll-like receptor 4 or LBP; however, acyloxyacyl hydrolase and RELA subunit of nuclear factor kappa B tended to be increased in LPS-AL cows. These data suggest lactating dairy cows become tolerant to chronic and exponentially increasing LPS infusion in terms of production and reproductive parameters.     

Myelin and Lipid Composition of the Corpus Callosum in Mucopolysaccharidosis Type I Mice

Mucopolysaccharidosis type I (MPS I) is a lysosomal disease with progressive central nervous system involvement. This study examined the lipid, cholesterol, and myelin basic protein composition of white matter in the corpus callosum of MPS I mice. We studied 50 week-old, male MPS I mice and littermate, heterozygote controls (n = 12 per group). Male MPS I mice showed lower phosphatidylcholine and ether-linked phosphatidylcholine quantities than controls (p < 0.05). Twenty-two phospholipid or ceramide species showed significant differences in percent of total. Regarding specific lipid species, MPS I mice exhibited lower quantities of sphingomyelin 18:1, phosphatidylserine 38:3, and hexosylceramide d18:1(22:1) mH₂O than controls. Principal components analyses of polar, ceramide, and hexosylceramide lipids, respectively, showed some separation of MPS I and control mice. We found no significant differences in myelin gene expression, myelin basic protein, or total cholesterol in the MPS I mice versus heterozygous controls. There was a trend toward lower proteolipid protein-1 levels in MPS I mice (p = 0.06). MPS I mice show subtle changes in white matter composition, with an unknown impact on pathogenesis in this model.     

Cost-effectiveness of ultrasound-guided liver biopsy

The risk of a major complication from "blind" percutaneous liver biopsy is reported to be in the range of 0.24% to 3.8%. In a recent randomized trial, patients whose liver biopsies were performed with ultrasonography had a significant reduction in complications requiring hospitalization compared with patients without ultrasound-guided biopsies (0.5% vs. 2.2%, P < .05). Despite this, routine use of ultrasonography for liver biopsies has not been implemented because of controversies with respect to cost-effectiveness. The aim of our study was to analyze the relative cost-effectiveness of performing ultrasound-guided liver biopsies using decision analysis. A decision tree was constructed to compare a strategy of liver biopsy using ultrasonography with a strategy without ultrasonography. The major outcomes included were minor complications such as pain requiring analgesics and major complications, which require hospitalization. Costs included were direct medical costs from the payer's perspective. In our baseline model, the cost from complications per patient with and without ultrasonography was $62 and $129, respectively. The marginal effectiveness expressed as the number of major complications avoided was 1.2/100 liver biopsies. The incremental cost to avoid one major complication was $2,731. The model was most sensitive to the frequency of major complications and the additional cost of ultrasonography. Our decision analysis model suggests that ultrasound-guided liver biopsy is cost-effective. Future studies assessing the efficacy of image-guided liver biopsies should be conducted.     

ZK60镁合金热变形过程中的动态再结晶动力学

采用Gleeble-1500热模拟机对ZK60镁合金在温度为200～400℃、应变速率为0.001～10s-1、最大变形量为60%的条件下进行恒应变速率高温压缩实验,研究高温变形过程中合金的动态再结晶行为;采用EM模型描述合金的动态回复曲线,以此为基础,得出ZK60合金热压缩过程中的动态再结晶动力学Avrami方程.利用有限元模拟合金热压缩过程中的动态再结晶.结果表明ZK60合金热压缩过程中由于存在动态再结晶的软化作用,流变应力达到峰值后逐渐减小,并最终达到稳态;随着变形量的增加和变形温度的升高,动态再结晶体积分数增加,合金变形更加均匀;随着应变速率的增加,动态再结晶分数有所减小,且.变形也更不均匀.     

Hybrid FIB milling strategy for the fabrication of plasmonic nanostructures on semiconductor substrates

The optical properties of plasmonic semiconductor devices fabricated by focused ion beam (FIB) milling deteriorate because of the amorphisation of the semiconductor substrate. This study explores the effects of combining traditional 30 kV FIB milling with 5 kV FIB patterning to minimise the semiconductor damage and at the same time maintain high spatial resolution. The use of reduced acceleration voltages is shown to reduce the damage from higher energy ions on the example of fabrication of plasmonic crystals on semiconductor substrates leading to 7-fold increase in transmission. This effect is important for focused-ion beam fabrication of plasmonic structures integrated with photodetectors, light-emitting diodes and semiconductor lasers.