Detection probability of Campylobacter

A rapid presence/absence test for Campylobacter in chicken faeces is being evaluated to support the scheduling of highly contaminated broiler flocks as a measure to reduce public health risks [Nauta, M. J., & Havelaar, A. H. (2008). Risk-based standards for Campylobacter in the broiler meat chain. Food Control, 19, 372–381]. Although the presence/absence test is still under development, an example data set of test results is analysed to illustrate the benefit of the detection probability concept. The detection probability of Campylobacter increases with the logarithm of the Campylobacter concentration in faeces according to an S-shaped curve which stretches about 2–3 log units. The detection probability is 50% at a Campylobacter concentration of 7.4 × 10⁶ cfu/g. The uncertainty in the detection probability is 32% at the most for a 90% confidence interval. This type of information allows for realistic calculations on the Campylobacter status of different food processing paths after splitting. Usable quantitative estimates on detection probability await a data set of test results from a test that is ready for use or has similar properties.     

Production of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids by Mortierella alpina Using Submerse and Solid State Fermentation

A new isolate of Mortierella alpina, > 98 % identical with M. alpina ATCC 16266, was cultivated in a defined glucose‐based medium with three organic nitrogen sources (glycine, urea and Na‐L‐glutamate) at three different concentrations in shaking flasks at 20 °C. The results were compared to the cultivation in complex medium with yeast extract as nitrogen source. In the defined media, high yields of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) and arachidonic acid (ARA), respectively, were obtained with Na‐L‐glutamate. However, the absolute highest yields of PUFA and ARA were measured with the yeast extract medium. An optimized yeast extract complex medium was used for a submerse bioreactor cultivation in a 45‐L scale. Furthermore, M. alpina was cultivated in a solid state fermenter, using an oat bran water mixture as substrate.     

Letter

¹⁵N variable contact time (VCT) cross polarization magic angle spinning (CPMAS) NMR experiments were employed to investigate the reaction products formed in wood composites bonded with ¹⁵N-enriched polymeric diphenylmethane diisocyanate (PMDI)-based adhesives. Two wood species were studied. Aspen (Populus tremuloides) and Southern Pine (Pinus sylvestris). The influence of temperature and wood moisture content on the distribution of PMDI-derived species are presented and discussed.     

Effect of Interphase Structure on the Debonding of Polycarbonate from S-2 Glass Fibers

The effect of interphase structure on the debonding of polycarbonate from S-2 glass fibers has been studied. The shear strength, fracture toughness and hydrolyic stability of the interphases were measured in a single fiber composite of a continuous S-2 glass fiber embedded in a polycarbonate matrix. Polycarbonate oligomers were chemically grafted onto the glass fiber surfaces through use of a silicon tetrachloride intermediary and the properties of the resulting interphases were compared with those of two commercial sizings and ozone-cleaned surfaces. Evaluation was accomplished by measuring the stress transmission across the interphase, τ, by carrying the embedded single fiber fragmentation test to saturation and by using computer simulations and a finite element analysis to calculate the strain energy release rate, G, of the observed fiber-matrix debonding accompanying the first fiber fracture. The oligomer-grafted interphase exhibited improved stress transmissibility and toughness, after 24 hours in boiling water. The tenacity of the tightly bound oligomers was confirmed via DRIFT, TGA and GC/MS experiments on Soxhlet-extracted fibers.

The grafting reaction was modeled on a high surface area silica and studied using solid state NMR to determine reasons for the greater stability of the oligomer-treated surfaces. Measurements of chemical shifts and spin-lattice relaxation times indicate that the oligomers are chemically attached to the surfaces, providing for a well bonded, water resistant interphase. Parallel experiments on a monomeric Bisphenol A-primed silica surface provided evidence that chemical bonding was primarily responsible for the greater hydrolytic stability.     

Transient Thermal Characteristics of the Convecting Solar Pond with the Semi-Transparent Multilayer Surface Insulating System

A concept of the convecting solar pond with the multilayer surface insulating system which is transparent to solar radiation but opaque to infrared radiation is proposed, and its transient thermal characteristics are discussed by solving time-dependent energy equations using meteorological data from several locations in Japan. It is shown that the convecting solar pond reaches a quasi-steady periodic state after three or four years of operation and that its thermal performance is comparable with that of the salt-gradient solar pond.     

Adaptive fuzzy output feedback backstepping control of pure‐feedback nonlinear systems via dynamic surface control technique

In this paper, an adaptive fuzzy backstepping dynamic surface control approach is considered for a class of uncertain pure‐feedback nonlinear systems with immeasurable states. Fuzzy logic systems are first employed to approximate the unknown nonlinear functions, and then an adaptive fuzzy state observer is designed to estimate the immeasurable states. By the combination of the adaptive backstepping design with a dynamic surface control technique, an adaptive fuzzy output feedback backstepping control approach is developed. It is proven that all the signals of the resulting closed‐loop system are semi‐globally uniformly ultimately bounded, and the observer and tracking errors converge to a small neighborhood of the origin by choosing the design parameters appropriately. Simulation examples are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Viscous behavior of PS,PP, and ABS in terms of temperature and pressure‐dependent hole fraction

We have developed a zero‐shear viscous model in terms of temperature‐ and pressure‐dependent hole fraction computed from Simha‐Somcynsky Hole Theory. This model successfully interprets the viscosity data of PS, PP, and ABS as a function of hole fraction for a broad range of temperature and pressure. We have also introduced and discussed a new term: Viscoholibility; the derivative of logarithm of viscosity with respect to hole fraction. When the hole fraction takes highest available value, the viscoholibility approaches asymptotically to a constant value by which the viscosity changes linearly with the hole fraction. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010     

Growth and differentiation potentials in confluent state of culture of human skeletal muscle myoblasts

The transitional behaviors of myoblasts toward differentiation were investigated in the cultures at the low and high seeding densities (respectively, X₀ = 1.0 × 10³ and 2.0 × 10⁵ cells/cm²). In the culture at the low seeding density, an increase in confluence degree accompanied a decrease in growth potential (R_p), being R_p = 0.85 and 0.11 at t = 48 and 672 h, respectively. Myoblasts seeded at the high density resulted in the immediate cessation of growth with keeping the low range of R_p = 0.02–0.09 throughout the culture. The reduction of R_p led to the generation of three subpopulations of cells in proliferative, quiescent and differentiated states. Close cell contacts in the confluent state of high seeding culture induced cell quiescence to a higher extent with suppressing differentiation.     

Reduced-order filtering for networks with Markovian jumping parameters and missing measurements

The problem of reduced-order H _∞ filters design for Markovian jumping complex networks with polytopic time-varying transition probability matrices is first addressed in this paper, where the dynamic of each node is described by the sector-bounded nonlinearity. For the measurements, both quantisation and packet dropouts are considered, where each node has its own packet dropout rate. By using the mode- and transition probability-dependent Lyapunov function approach, two sufficient conditions are provided to ensure the stochastic stability and the disturbance attenuation performance of the resulting filtering error system. Then, the mode-independent reduced-order filters design method is proposed, and the filter parameters are given explicitly by linear matrix inequality method. Finally, the effectiveness of the theoretic results presented is illustrated via a numerical example which contains performance comparison of different mode-independent reduced-order filters.