Free fatty acid profiles of Reggianito Argentino cheese produced with different starters

Reggianito Argentino cheeses were made at pilot plant scale using a natural whey starter (control) and different combinations of strains of selected Lactobacillus helveticus (experimental cheeses). Free fatty acids (FFAs) were extracted from cheese samples at different ripening times, and FFAs from C_6:0 to C_18:2 were analysed by gas chromatography. The characteristics of the chromatographic profiles were studied by principal components and linear discriminant analysis were performed. Levels of individual FFAs from caproic (C_6:0) to linoleic (C_18:2) acids increased significantly $(p<0.05)$ during ripening in control and experimental cheeses. Palmitic (C_16:0) and oleic (C_18:1) acids were the most abundant FFAs throughout ripening in all cheeses. No significant differences were found between FFA profiles of control and experimental cheeses. The possibility of using selected strains of Lactobacillus to replace traditional “natural whey starter” in the production of the cheese is discussed.     

Antioxidant and cell growth activities of beet root pomace extracts

Beetroot (Beta vulgaris) pomace, processing by-product from food industry, was investigated in this work as a starting raw material. The contents of phenolics (1.87–11.98 mg GAE/g of dry weight) and betalains (0.75–3.75 mg betalains/g of dry weight) in the extracts were determinated spectrophotometrically. Some individual phenolic compounds, including ferulic, vanillic, p-hydroxybenzoic, caffeic and protocatehuic acids, were identified and quantified by HPLC. The antioxidative activity of beetroot extracts was tested using DPPH, hydroxyl and superoxide anion radicals by ESR spectroscopy. ${\text{IC}}_{50}^{{}^{\text{<mglyph src="https://sdfestaticassets-us-east-1.sciencedirectassets.com/shared-assets/16/entities/rad"></mglyph>}}\text{OH}}$ (0.05–0.108 mg/ml), $\text{IC}{50}^{{\text{DPPH}}^{\text{<mglyph src="https://sdfestaticassets-us-east-1.sciencedirectassets.com/shared-assets/16/entities/rad"></mglyph>}}}$ (0.183–0.333 mg/ml), and ${\text{IC}}_{50}^{{\text{O}}_2^{\text{<mglyph src="https://sdfestaticassets-us-east-1.sciencedirectassets.com/shared-assets/16/entities/rad"></mglyph>}-}}$ (0.198–1.000 mg/ml) were calculated. The regression analysis produced moderate to high correlation coefficients between the scavenging activities and phenolics, and some individual phenolic compounds which indicated that beetroot pomace may be used as functional food ingredient. Cell growth effects were determined in MCF7 and MRC-5 cell lines, using SRB assay. IC₅₀ values were in the range of 362.478–503.525 and 383–587.880 μg/ml in MRC-5 and MCF7, respectively.     

Including Records of Daughters of Selected Bulls in Estimation of Sire Component of Variance

Methods to account for selection in estimation of variance components are computationally difficult and require inclusion of records on which selection was based. The last criterion often cannot be met. Within a time records of daughters in the small sample set for a bull should be relatively free of effects of selection. If only such records are used, many herd-year-season subclasses, however, contain only one record, so that those records are eliminated when herd-year-season effects are absorbed. Including records of daughters of few but heavily used and selected bulls would provide more comparisons within herd-year-seasons, but treating effects of such sires as random and unselected would bias estimates of variance components. Effects for proved sires can be treated as fixed and for sampling sires as random for estimation of sire and residual variances. For example. Method 3 estimates for an operational model including fixed herd-year-season effects (h), fixed effects of proved sires (s₁), and random effects of sampling sires (s₂) are:

${\stackrel{?}{\sigma }}_{\text{e}}^2=[\text{y}\prime \text{y}?\text{R}(\text{h},{\text{s}}_1,{\text{s}}_2)]/(\text{N}?\text{c})$

and

${\stackrel{?}{\sigma }}_{\text{s}}^2=[\text{R}({\text{s}}_2|\text{h},{\text{s}}_1)?(\text{r}?1){\stackrel{?}{\sigma }}_{\text{e}}^2]/\text{tr}(\text{Z}\prime \text{WZ})$

where y′y is total sum of squares, R( ) indicates a least squares reduction in sum of squares, N is number of records, c is rank of full coefficient matrix, r is rank, and tr(Z′WZ) is trace of coefficient matrix after absorption of effects of herd-year-seasons and proved sires.