Crystallization of hydrogenated sunflower-cottonseed oil

Crystal structures formed during solidification of hydrogenated cottonseed oil, sunflowerseed oil and their blends were analyzed by using an X-ray diffraction technique, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and polarized light microscopy. Temperatures and times of crystallization under conditions which tend to produce β′ type structures were determined in terms of refrigeration parameters. Microscopy with polarized light also helped clarify some aspects of the tridimensional network of crystals that contribute to the consistency of products made from hydrogenated oils.     

Effect of fibre size on the quality of fibre-enriched layer cakes

The effects of fibre type (wheat bran, oat bran, cellulose microcrystalline), size (50, 80, 250 μm) and percentage of substitution (0%, 12%, 24%, 36%) on batter and layer cake characteristics were determined. Batter density, and the rheological parameters (G′ and G″) increased with fibre size, but the flow index decreased. Especially with 20% wheat bran, large-sized fibre gave the most firm, chewy and yellow cakes, while providing the most significant sensory differences with the control. Cakes with microcrystalline cellulose were the most similar to the control. All cakes obtained high sensory scores, indicating that they were not disagreeable for consumers. It is possible to obtain high quality cakes when adding up to 20% of fibre, but selection of an adequate fibre is necessary.     

Nutraceutical properties and toxicity studies of fruits from four Cactaceae species grown in Argentine Northwestern

Fruits are known as good sources of phytochemicals, essential to prevent degenerative diseases like cancer and cardiovascular diseases. They contain a variety of antioxidants, which are useful to scavenge radical oxygen species (ROS). Considering the importance of natural products as a functional food, comparative studies between the antioxidant activity (AOA) and antimutagenic properties as well as phytochemical profile of Cactaceae fruits (Lepismium lorentzianum, Lepismium lumbricoides, Rhipsalis floccosa, and Pfeiffera ianthothele) from Argentinean Yungas, were performed. Different assays were applied: ABTS radical scavenging capacity, inhibition of lipid peroxidation using ??-carotene-linoleate model system and mutagenicity/antimutagenicity by Ames test. A pigment like betalain was detected in fruits of both Lepismium species; L. lorentzianum aqueous extracts showed a higher pigment content (60.6 mg BE/100 g FM) than L. lumbricoides (9.2 mg BE/100 g FM). Fruit preparations of L. lorentzianum (aqueous and ethanolic extractions) showed significantly higher total phenolic compound and pigments content than the other berries. In all preparations, high antioxidant activity was demonstrated. Lepismium species were more active than Rhipsalis and Pfeiffera (SC_50ABTS values between 1.3 and 4.5 ??g/ml and IC_{50 ??-carotene-linoleate} values between 9 and 45.8 ??g/ml). A significant correlation between pigment and phenolic compounds content and AOA was observed. The preparations showed no sign of mutagenicity at tested concentrations (until 50 ??g/plate). A significant antimutagenic effect was observed for L. lumbricoides, and a weak effect was shown for P. ianthothele and R. floccosa. Because of the diversity and abundance of bioactive phytochemicals found in these species, food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical applications could be proposed.     

Relationship between collagen characteristics,lipid content and raw and cooked texture of meat from young bulls of fifteen European breeds

Variations in texture were determined for 10 day aged raw and cooked Longissimus thoracis (LT) muscle from 436 bulls of 15 European cattle breeds slaughtered at an age of 13–16 months. Variations in texture were related to differences in pH 24 h post-mortem, sarcomere length, collagen characteristics and lipid content. The shear force of cooked meat samples varied from 43.8 to 67.4 N/cm². Simmental, Highland and Marchigiana cattle had the highest shear force values and Avileña-Negra Ibérica, Charolais, Casina and Pirenaica cattle had the lowest values. Cooked meat toughness showed a weak negative correlation to lipid content (P < 0.001) but no correlation to collagen characteristics. Raw meat texture measured by compression correlated positively (P < 0.001) with total and insoluble collagen. In conclusion, collagen characteristics showed correlation to raw meat texture but not to cooked meat toughness of LT muscle in European young bulls.     

FPGA solution for matrix converter double sided space vector modulation algorithm

Matrix Converters (MCs) present several advantages, but yet several barriers must be overcome, such as MC modulation and control technique complexity. This article proposes a multiplatform environment that allows the implementation of the Double Sided Space Vector Modulation (DS-SVM) algorithm in a last-generation Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device. The traditional digital control architecture, based on a SP and some additional devices, is improved by means of a last generation FPGA where the main processor (PowerPC), internal memory, communication interfaces, I/O capabilities and a hardware core that executes the DS-SVM have been connected using on-chip buses. The methodology begins by defining the DS-SVM in a Matlab-Simulink environment. The PowerPC delivers 680 MIPS, but it is not a good candidate to execute the DS-SVM algorithm because it is not possible to achieve the modulation frequency that is necessary for an MC. A new configurable hardware circuit that implements the whole DS-SVM algorithm is proposed. This solution achieves modulation frequencies over 100 kHz. This hardware core is connected to one of the PowerPC buses and the processor can configure it or get feedback information at any time. As the processor is liberated from the very time-consuming DS-SVM computation, it can execute many higher level tasks.     

Abnormalities in plasma and red blood cell fatty acid profiles of patients with colorectal cancer

Intravenous injection of stearoyl vanillylamide (C18-VA), a nonpungent capsaicin (CAP) analog, enhances adrenaline secretion significantly and as effectively as CAP in rats. Because swimming capacity was enhanced by CAP in mice due to CAP-induced adrenal catecholamine secretion, we investigated the effects of oral administration of C18-VA on swimming capacity using an adjustable-current water pool. Male Std ddY 6-wk-old mice were fed a commercial diet for this study and one group was orally administered C18-VA via a stomach tube. Treated mice were able to swim longer before exhaustion than the control mice (62.9 +/- 5.6 vs. 49.6 +/- 7. 0 min, P < 0.05). The swimming capacity of two groups administered C18-VA (0.02 and 0.033 mmol/kg) was significantly greater than that of those administered vehicle alone, (P < 0.05). Substance P concentration in cerebrospinal fluid, which is involved in pain transmission and is the first direct measure of pungency, was not affected by C18-VA administration. In an experiment examining the effects of C18-VA on serum adrenaline concentration, adrenaline was significantly greater in C18-VA treated mice than in controls at 2-h post-dose (C18-VA group, 26.09 +/- 2.82; control group 13.29 +/- 0. 96 microg/L, P < 0.01). In a separate study free fatty acids in serum were elevated in treated mice at 2-h post-dose (P < 0.01). While serum glucose concentration was not affected. These results suggest that C18-VA increased swimming capacity of mice via adrenaline release, independent of pungency. In addition, the present study suggests the usefulness of its application to humans.     

Biochemical and sensory changes in dry-cured ham salted with partial replacements of NaCl by other chloride salts

The reduction of the content of sodium chloride in dry-cured ham was studied in to prevent the problems related to high sodium intake (i.e. the hypertension). One of the possibilities to reduce the sodium content is the partial replacement of sodium chloride by mixtures of potassium, magnesium and calcium chloride salts. The effect of two salting formulations (formulation II: 50% NaCl-50% KCl and formulation III: 55% NaCl, 25% KCl, 15 CaCl₂ and 5 MgCl₂) on the protease activity through the dry-curing process and on the sensory characteristics of the final product was evaluated and compared to those of control hams (formulation I, 100% NaCl). Sensory attributes were all affected in the hams containing CaCl₂ and MgCl₂ while hams containing 50% KCl and NaCl (formulation II) were better valued, except for the attribute taste probably due to the potassium contribution to bitter taste.     

Selective dynamic serialization for reducing energy consumption in hardware transactional memory systems

In the search for new paradigms to simplify multithreaded programming, Transactional Memory (TM) is currently being advocated as a promising alternative to deadlock-prone lock-based synchronization. In this way, future many-core CMP architectures may need to provide hardware support for TM. On the other hand, power dissipation constitutes a first class consideration in multicore processor designs. In this work, we propose Selective Dynamic Serialization (SDS) as a new technique to improve energy consumption without degrading performance in applications with conflicting transactions by avoiding wasted work due to aborted transactions. Our proposal, which is implemented on top of a hardware transactional memory (HTM) system with an eager conflict management policy, detects and serializes conflicting transactions dynamically (at run-time). In its simplest form, in case of conflict, one transaction is allowed to continue whilst the rest are completely stalled. Once the executing transaction has finished, it wakes up several of the stalling transactions. More elaborated implementations of SDS try to delay this behavior until serialization of transactions is profitable, achieving the best trade-off between performance, energy savings and network traffic. SDS implementations differ from each other in the condition that triggers the serialization mode. We have evaluated several SDS schemes using GEMS, a full-system simulator implementing the LogTM-SE Eager–Eager HTM system, and several benchmarks from the STAMP suite. Results for a 16-core CMP show that SDS obtains reductions of 6 % on average in energy consumption (more than 20 % in high contention scenarios) in a wide range of benchmarks without affecting, on average, execution time. At the same time, network traffic level is also reduced by 22 %.     

String analysis by sliding positioning strategy

Discovering frequent factors from long strings is an important problem in many applications, such as biosequence mining. In classical approaches, the algorithms process a vast database of small strings. However, in this paper we analyze a small database of long strings. The main difference resides in the high number of patterns to analyze. To tackle the problem, we have developed a new algorithm for discovering frequent factors in long strings. We present an Apriori-like solution which exploits the fact that any super-pattern of a non-frequent pattern cannot be frequent. The SANSPOS algorithm does a multiple-pass, candidate generation and test approach. Multiple length patterns can be generated in a pass. This algorithm uses a new data structure to arrange nodes in a trie. A Positioning Matrix is defined as a new positioning strategy. By using Positioning Matrices, we can apply advanced prune heuristics in a trie with a minimal computational cost. The Positioning Matrices let us process strings including Short Tandem Repeats and calculate different interestingness measures efficiently. Furthermore, in our algorithm we apply parallelism to transverse different sections of the input strings concurrently, speeding up the resulting running time. The algorithm has been successfully used in natural language and biological sequence contexts.     

Compile and Run-Time Support for the Parallelization of Sparse Matrix Updating Algorithms

This work presents a survey of the capabilities that the sparse computation offers for improving performance when parallelized, either automatically or through a data-parallel compiler. The characterization of a sparse code gets more complicated as code length increases: Access patterns change from loop to loop, thus making necessary to redefine the parallelization strategy. While dense computation solely offers the possibility of redistributing data structures, several other factors influence the performance of a code excerpt in the sparse field, like source data representation on file, compressed data storage in memory, the creation of new nonzeroes at run-time (fill-in) or the number of processors available. We analize the alternatives that arise from each issue, providing a guideline for the underlying compilation work and illustrating our techniques with examples on the Cray T3E.