Use of ultrafiltration for preparing improved tomato pulp

The characteristics of high-quality tomato pulp (commercial def.: crushed or diced tomatoes with about 30% tomato juice as packing medium) canned with tomato juice pulp enriched by ultrafiltration as packing medium were compared with those covered with conventional vacuum-concentrated juice.
Both hot- and cold-break products were prepared and those containing 20% serum-reduced packing juice proved to be the best, showing no signs of syneresis on storage and with improvements in sensory properties, colour and non-enzymatic browning; some volatile components were reduced.     

Modeling and analysis of landing collision dynamics for a shipborne helicopter

A Lagrange dynamic model is established based on small-angle approximation to improve the simulation model for shipborne helicopter landing collision. To describe fuselage motion effectively, the proposed model considers ship motion, the interaction of the tires with the deck, and tire slippage. A mechanism of sliding motion is built, and a real-time reliability analysis of the algorithm is implemented to validate the proposed model. Numerical simulations are also conducted under different operation conditions. Results show that the proposed dynamic model can simulate the collision motion of helicopter landing in real time. Several suggestions for helicopter pilot landing are likewise provided.     

Lateral sensitivity in electron probe microanalysis studied by Monte Carlo simulations involving fluorescence enhancements

In electron probe microanalysis, secondary fluorescence can occur leading to an increase of the volume analysed, degrading the lateral resolution of this technique. An adequate knowledge of the interaction volumes from where the different signals of interest are detected is determinant to estimate the minimum size of the zone that can be characterized. In this work, the size of the signal source volume is surveyed for a wide set of samples at different beam energies. To this aim, the PENELOPE software package was chosen to run Monte Carlo simulations for several experimental situations in order to produce the various lateral radiation distributions of interest. A comparison between the interaction volumes of the different signals was performed by taking into account the different fluorescence enhancement possibilities. An unexpected behaviour was found in the particular cases of aluminium and alumina, where the secondary photons signal exhibits a decreasing trend up to certain beam energy (～17 keV); this implies that lower beam energies may degrade the lateral resolution of the technique in these materials.     

New parameterization of MIMO systems

The parameterization of MIMO systems in the open-loop balanced representation was introduced by Kabamba (1985) to show the advantages of using the balanced canonical form over other classical canonical forms as regards the guaranteed stability and minimality of the representation. The parameterization of MIMO systems in closed-loop balanced representation is introduced: the stability is guaranteed under particular conditions and the minimality is also assured. The importance that such a type of realization plays is fundamental in the synthesis of MIMO systems with assigned characteristic values; this allows us to investigate, for example, the stability of closed-loop systems with a low-order regulator. Indeed, for a defined class of MIMO systems, the introduced parameterization allows us to derive sufficient conditions for the closed-loop dissipativeness and for the stability of the reduced-order compensator, generalizing some results proved for S1SO systems.     

ANTENNAL AND BEHAVIORAL RESPONSES OF GRAPEVINE MOTH <Emphasis Type="Italic">Lobesia botrana</Emphasis> FEMALES TO VOLATILES FROM GRAPEVINE

Grapevine moth Lobesia botrana is the economically most important insect of grapevine Vitis vinifera in Europe. Flower buds, flowers, and green berries of Chardonnay grapevine are known to attract L. botrana for oviposition. The volatile compounds collected from these phenological stages were studied by gas chromatography—mass spectrometry, and the antennal response of L. botrana females to these headspace collections was recorded by gas chromatography—electroantennography. The compounds found in all phenological stages, which consistently elicited a strong antennal response, were pentadecane, nonanal, and -farnesene. In a wind tunnel, gravid L. botrana females flew upwind to green grapes, as well as to headspace collections from these berries released by a piezoelectric sprayer release device. However, no females landed at the source of headspace volatiles, possibly due to inappropriate concentrations or biased ratios of compounds in the headspace extracts.     

DIFFERENTIATION OF CURED COOKED HAMS BY PHYSICO-CHEMICAL PROPERTIES AND CHEMOMETRICS

Comparison of physico-chemical and compositional traits was carried out on cooked hams. Deboned fresh pig thighs of three different origins were divided into three batches: 200 pig thighs from the Italian market, H1; 200 from The Netherlands, H2; and 200 from Denmark, H3. Boneless pig thighs were processed under commercial guidelines for production of cooked hams, using brine at 25% level of injection. After processing, 12 cooked hams from each batch were sampled randomly and analyzed for proximate and fatty acid composition. Color measurement was performed on the muscles: biceps femoris, semimembranosus, and semitendinosus. H1 hams showed a higher weight loss and a lower technological yield compared to H2 and H3 hams. Analysis of variance on compositional data showed that H1 hams had a lower moisture/protein ratio, a higher fat content, a lower percentage of α -linolenic, eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acid, and a higher percentage of myristic and palmitic acids when compared to H2 and H3 hams ( P   <  0.05). Analysis of color of the three muscles demonstrated that hams from the H1 group had the highest a * values. The application of linear discriminant analysis demonstrated that the use of only four variables allowed to correctly discriminate among groups of cooked hams.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

The following are the practical applications of this research. The comparison of physico-chemical and compositional traits were carried out on cooked hams. Pig thighs of different origin were processed under commercial guidelines. The physicochemical parameters of cooked hams were defined and showed some differences characterizing the products.     

Patterns of Diffusion of New Technologies in Small Metal-Working Firms: The Case of an Italian Region

Programmable automation in the form of numerically controlledand computerized numerically controlled machine tools and flexiblemanufacturing systems has been commonly hailed as signallinga fundamental economic-technical paradigm shift similar to theshifts due to the introduction of the steam engine and the electricmotor. This paper discusses the patterns of diffusion of microelectronics-basedtechnical change in machine tools employed in metal-workingor ‘engineering’ firms in Italy. It is directedtoward the segment of the production process involving the employmentof metal-cutting milling machines. The paper builds a taxonomylinking innovative technological patterns to the competenciesand strategies of firms.     

Correlation between Rm and Standard Affinity of Some Anionic Azo Dyes on Cellulose

Results on affinity measurements and paper chromatography of some anionic azo dyes, obtained by diazotization of 4-aminobenzophenone, 2(4′-amino-benzoyl)thiophene, 4′-aminobenzanilide, 2-thiophene-carboxanilide-4′-amino, trans-4-aminostilbene and trans-2(4′-aminostyryl)thiophene and coupling with naphthionic acid, Nevile-Winther's acid, R acid, Hacid and chromotropic acid, have been reported. A linear relationship between the R_m value of the dyes and their standard affinity of dyeing has been observed for dyes with the same coupling component.