Gelation Properties of Ovalbumin as Affected by Fatty Acid Salts

The physicochemical properties of heat-induced ovalbumin (OVA) gels containing fatty acid salts (FAS) were investigated. Water-holding ability and transparency markedly increased in the presence of sodium caprate or sodium laurate. At 9% of the protein concentration transparent and hard gels formed; at 7%, transparent and soft gels formed. Scanning electron microscopy showed that the transparent gels had a more homogeneous structure than turbid gels without FAS. Differential scanning calorimetry indicated that denaturation temperature of OVA was decreased and the peaks became broader after addition of FAS.     

A new theory of evidence for non-exclusive elementary propositions

Though probability theory has been used widely, it cannot treat quantities of ignorance well. To solve the problem, the Dempster-Shafer theory has been developed as a reasonable tool to represent situations in which various kinds of ignorance exist in our knowledge or information. However, the Dempster-Shafer theory assumes that elementary propositions are mutually exclusive. Therefore, we cannot treat non-exclusive elementary propositions in the Dempster-Shafer theory directly. In the paper a new theory is proposed to deal with non-exclusive elementary propositions, and is illustrated by a simple example.     

THE COMPOSITION AND VITAMIN A VALUE OF THE CAROTENOIDS OF PUMPKINS OF DIFFERENT COLORS

The carotenoid pigments of the yellow and orange flesh varieties of the pumpkins Cucurbita moschata and C.maxima were identified and quantified, α-Carotene, β-carotene, ζ-carotene, β-carotene 5,6-epoxide, β-cryptoxanthin, lutein, taraxanthin, zeaxanthin, luteoxanthin and auroxanthin were detected in the pumpkins. The difference was that the yellow variety of C. moschata had no zeaxanthin. The quantitative patterns of the two varieties were similar. Although some quantitative variation was observed, lutein, β-carotene and luteoxanthin predominated. The difference in the color between the two varieties resulted from these quantitative differences in carotenoid composition. The vitamin A activity of the C. moschata variety with yellow flesh was higher than that of the C. maxima, which had many oxygenated carotenoids.     

Production of Restructured Meat using Microbial Transglutaminase without Salt or Cooking

To produce restructured meat, microbial transglutaminase (MTGase) was evaluated for its ability to introduce covalent crosslinks between protein molecules. Pork muscle cubes were mixed with MTGase and held at 5°C for 2 hr for the enzyme reaction. Restructured products were analyzed for binding strength without cooking. MTGase treatment resulted in effective binding of meat pieces provided there was addition of salt (NaCl). To ensure proper binding without NaCl, some food proteins with MTGase were also investigated. Meat cubes in combination with MTGase and sodium caseinate showed acceptable bind, and sodium caseinate appeared to be a superior substrate for the crosslinking to meat proteins than soy protein, whey protein, or gelatin. These results suggest a useful method for producing restructured meat which can be distributed in the raw, chilled state.     

Gel Strength Enhancement by Addition of Microbial Transglutaminase during Onshore Surimi Manufacture

Surimi from Alaska pollock flesh was manufactured onshore with Microbial transglutaminase (MTGase). Effect of MTGase was investigated by evaluating breaking strength and deformation of gels from MTGase-treated surimi with and without setting at 30°C. Quantitative analysis of ε-(γ-glutamyl)lysine (GL) crosslink was also carried out to monitor the MTGase reaction. In set gels, breaking strength and GL crosslink increased, and myosin heavy chain decreased correspondingly with MTGase concentration. These changes were smaller in gels prepared without setting. Results suggest that surimi gel could be improved through the formation of GL crosslinks by added MTGase in surimi.     

Relaxation optimizing operations in extended probabilistic space

The classical probabilistic relaxation method has been widely used to solve optimization problems in various fields, including image processing and pattern recognition. The authors have also been developing handwritten character recognition system using the probabilistic relaxation method. However, we realize that there exist cases in which a probability theoretic model is inadequate, especially where there exists incompleteness in available information by noise such as patchy segments and ink spots. In that case, we must introduce ad hoc rules for one-to-two correspondence and no correspondence in the probabilistic algorithm. As the Dempster-Shafer (DS) theory is a kind of natural extension of the probabilistic theory by reducing additivity on probability measure and it can cope with incomplete data. This paper proposes a relaxation matching method based on the Dempster-Shafer theory. Then the update process in probabilistic relaxation method is derived as a special case of Dempster's combination rule in DS theory.