Anthocyanin composition and extractability in berry skin and wine of Vitis vinifera L. cv. Aglianico

BACKGROUND: The present article reports the anthocyanin content in the berry skin and wine of the Italian red grape cultivar Aglianico (clone VCR11 grafted onto 1103 Paulsen), one of the most ancient vines and famous for its deep‐red colour. Anthocyanins were extracted from frozen berry skin in an acidified methanol solution. The extraction mixtures, monitored for 120 h, were analysed by high‐performance liquid chromatography. RESULTS: The extraction from berry skin of delphinidin, petunidin and malvidin appeared to be a time‐independent process, whereas the concentration of peonidin increased linearly with time. Peonidin‐O‐acetyl‐glucoside was transferred from skin more slowly than petunidin‐O‐acetyl‐glucoside and malvidin‐O‐acetyl‐glucoside. The anthocyanin composition of the resulting wine showed that the total anthocyanin content was about one‐tenth of the corresponding berry skin content. The ratio acetyl/coumaroyl anthocyanins in the wine was sharply higher than the value in berry skin (0.85 and 0.10, respectively), indicating an enrichment of acetyl derivatives in the wine. CONCLUSION: Levels of single anthocyanins in wine were not always correlated with those detected in grapes, as they were affected by winemaking. The high values of some anthocyanins in Aglianico wine could ameliorate its quality, increasing the chromatic properties, aging stability and product acceptance. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry     

Carbon footprint as an instrument for enhancing food quality: overview of the wine,olive oil and cereals sectors

The quantification of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions represents a critical issue for the future development of agro‐food produces. Consumers' behaviour could play an important role in requiring environmental performance as an essential element for food quality. Nowadays, the carbon footprint (CFP) is a tool used worldwide by agro‐food industries to communicate environmental information. This paper aims to investigate the role that CFP could have in consumers' choices in three significant agro‐food sectors in the Mediterranean area: wine, olive oil and cereals. A critical review about the use of CFP was carried out along the supply chain of these three sectors, in order to identify opportunities for enhancing food quality and environmental sustainability and highlighting how environmental information could influence consumers' preferences. The analysis of the state of the art shows a great variability of the results about GHG emissions referred to agricultural and industrial processes. In many cases, the main environmental criticisms are linked to the agricultural phase, but the other phases of the supply chain could also contribute to the increased CFP. However, despite the wide use of CFP by companies as a communication tool to help consumers' choices in agro‐food products, some improvements are needed in order to provide clearer and more understandable information. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry     

In vitro bioaccessibility,bioavailability and plasma protein interaction of polyphenols from Annurca apple (M. pumila Miller cv Annurca)

The in vitro bioaccessibility, bioavailability and plasma protein interaction of polyphenols from Annurca apple and other conventional cultivars were evaluated. Salivary digestion concentrated into the medium 27–35% of native apple polyphenols, suggesting the potential bioavailability through the oral mucosal epithelium of significant amounts of bioactive compounds that could be gastric sensitive and/or poorly absorbed in the intestine. Annurca flesh revealed the highest content and provided the best intestinal bioaccessibility and bioavailability of oligomeric procyanidins among all of the apple peel and flesh tested. Since 49.4% of native procyanidins were not absorbed, they are expected to accumulate in the intestinal lumen where a potential inhibition capacity of cellular cholesterol uptake could be assumed. The permeated procyanidins (6.7% of their native pattern, 12.0% of intestinal procyanidins) significantly bound (58.7%) to plasma HDLs, suggesting a major role in cholesterol metabolism. Our results would indicate Annurca apple and its potential nutraceuticals as effective in the regulation of plasma cholesterol levels.     

Shape and motion from image streams under orthography: a factorization method

Inferring scene geometry and camera motion from a stream of images is possible in principle, but is an ill-conditioned problem when the objects are distant with respect to their size. We have developed a factorization method that can overcome this difficulty by recovering shape and motion under orthography without computing depth as an intermediate step.An image stream can be represented by the 2F×P measurement matrix of the image coordinates of P points tracked through F frames. We show that under orthographic projection this matrix is of rank 3.Based on this observation, the factorization method uses the singular-value decomposition technique to factor the measurement matrix into two matrices which represent object shape and camera rotation respectively. Two of the three translation components are computed in a preprocessing stage. The method can also handle and obtain a full solution from a partially filled-in measurement matrix that may result from occlusions or tracking failures.The method gives accurate results, and does not introduce smoothing in either shape or motion. We demonstrate this with a series of experiments on laboratory and outdoor image streams, with and without occlusions.     

Quantum automata for some multiperiodic languages

We exhibit small size measure-once one-way quantum finite automata (mo-1qfa’s) inducing multiperiodic stochastic events. Moreover, for certain classes of multiperiodic languages, we exhibit: (i) isolated cut point mo-1qfa’s whose size logarithmically depends on the periods; (ii) Monte Carlo mo-1qfa’s whose size logarithmically depends on the periods and polynomially on the inverse of the error probability.     

Thermal Poling of Soda‐Lime Silica Glass with Nonblocking Electrodes—Part 1: Effects of Sodium Ion Migration and Water Ingress on Glass Surface Structure

It is generally well known that not only the sodium itself, but also the non‐bridging oxygen (NBO) sites associated with sodium ions are largely responsible for the surface reactivity of soda‐lime‐silica (SLS) glass. Thermal poling can modify the distribution of sodium in the subsurface region. In this work, a commercial SLS float glass was thermally poled using nonblocking electrodes in air. The Na⁺?depleted anode surface and the Na⁺?gradient cathode surface were characterized using a variety of methods to find the compositional, structural and morphological effects of thermal poling. Of particular significance is the use of nondestructive vibrational spectroscopy methods, which can lead to new and improved understanding of water interactions with sodium and its sites in the glass. It was found that during thermal poling, the Na⁺?depleted glass network on the anode side undergoes condensation reactions of NBO sites accompanied by the increase in concentrations of silanol (SiOH) groups and molecular water species. In contrast, silanol and water species do not increase and the silicate network change is negligible in the Na⁺?gradient cathode side. Vibrational sum frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy analysis revealed the difference in distributions of hydrous species in the Na⁺?depleted and Na⁺?gradient surfaces. The structural information of the thermally‐poled surfaces provides critical insights needed to understand the mechanical and mechanochemical properties of the Na⁺?concentration modified SLS glass surfaces reported in the Part 2 companion paper.     

Ionic Conductivity in Sodium–Alkaline Earth–Aluminosilicate Glasses

The effect of alkaline‐earth ions on Na transport in aluminosilicate glasses was studied by measuring ionic conductivity for a systematic compositional series of Na₂O–RO–Al₂O₃–SiO₂ glasses (R=Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba). The Na transport in aluminosilicate glass could be affected by compositional changes in aluminum coordination and nonbridging oxygen as well as physical properties such as dielectric constant, shear modulus, and ionic packing factor. Through careful experimental designs and measurements, the main determinants among these parameters were identified. ²⁷Al MAS‐NMR indicated that all aluminum species contained in these glasses are four‐coordinated. The activation energy for ion conductivity decreased with increasing aluminum content and decreasing ionic radii of the alkaline‐earth ion in the region where [Al] < [Na]. When the aluminum content exceeded the sodium content ([Al] > [Na]), the composition dependence of the activation energy depended on the specific alkaline earth. These results are explained based on variations in free volume and dielectric constant caused by structural changes around the AlO₄ charge compensation sites. These structure changes occur in response to the smaller size and higher field strength of the alkaline‐earth ions, and are most prevalent in the compositions which require bridging of two AlO₄ sites by the alkaline‐earth ion for charge compensation.     

Ficolin-2 Plasma Level Assesses Liver Fibrosis in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Fibrosis is the strongest predictor for disease-specific mortality in non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases (NAFLD), but the need for liver biopsy limits its diagnosis. We assessed the performance of plasma ficolin-2 (FCN-2) as a biomarker of fibrosis identified by an in silico discovery strategy. Two hundred and thirty-five morbidly obese (MO) subjects with biopsy-proven NAFLD stratified by fibrosis stage (F0, n = 44; F1, n = 134; F2, n = 46; F3/F4, n = 11) and 40 cirrhotic patients were enrolled. The cohort was subdivided into discovery (n = 76) and validation groups (n = 159). The plasma level of FCN-2 and other candidate markers was determined. FCN-2 was inversely correlated with the stage of liver fibrosis (ρ = −0.49, p < 0.001) independently of steatosis (p = 0.90), inflammation (p = 0.57), and ballooning (p = 0.59). In the global cohort, FCN-2 level decreased significantly in a stepwise fashion from F0/F1 (median 4753 ng/mL) to F2–F3–F4 (2760 ng/mL) and in cirrhotic subjects (1418 ng/mL). The diagnostic performance of FCN-2 in detecting F ≥ 2 was higher than other indexes (APRI, FIB-4) (AUROC 0.82, 0.68, and 0.6, respectively). The accuracy improved when combined with APRI score and HDL values (FCNscore, AUROC 0.85). Overall, the FCN-2 plasma level can accurately discriminate liver fibrosis status (minimal vs. moderate/advanced) significantly improving the fibrosis diagnostic algorithms.     

Lipidomic Approaches to Study HDL Metabolism in Patients with Central Obesity Diagnosed with Metabolic Syndrome

The metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a cluster of cardiovascular risk factors characterised by central obesity, atherogenic dyslipidaemia, and changes in the circulating lipidome; the underlying mechanisms that lead to this lipid remodelling have only been partially elucidated. This study used an integrated “omics” approach (untargeted whole serum lipidomics, targeted proteomics, and lipoprotein lipidomics) to study lipoprotein remodelling and HDL composition in subjects with central obesity diagnosed with MetS (vs. controls). Compared with healthy subjects, MetS patients showed higher free fatty acids, diglycerides, phosphatidylcholines, and triglycerides, particularly those enriched in products of de novo lipogenesis. On the other hand, the “lysophosphatidylcholines to phosphatidylcholines” and “cholesteryl ester to free cholesterol” ratios were reduced, pointing to a lower activity of lecithin cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) in MetS; LCAT activity (directly measured and predicted by lipidomic ratios) was positively correlated with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and negatively correlated with body mass index (BMI) and insulin resistance. Moreover, many phosphatidylcholines and sphingomyelins were significantly lower in the HDL of MetS patients and strongly correlated with BMI and clinical metabolic parameters. These results suggest that MetS is associated with an impairment of phospholipid metabolism in HDL, partially led by LCAT, and associated with obesity and underlying insulin resistance. This study proposes a candidate strategy to use integrated “omics” approaches to gain mechanistic insights into lipoprotein remodelling, thus deepening the knowledge regarding the molecular basis of the association between MetS and atherosclerosis.