New Restaurant Concept Relies on Ozone,UV Radiation,Ultrasound and Modified Air Packaging

With the development of the new Swiss Ventafresh technology (Steffen, 2007 Steffen, H.P. April 2-4 2007. Presentation of the VENTAFRESH Disinfection and Packing Technology in Several Food Processing Applications, April 2-4, Fresno, CA: Proc. Intl. Water Technology Conference and OZONE V. Session D, paper 4 [Google Scholar]; Steffen et al., 2007a,b) that produces edible, packaged foods having much longer shelf-lives than are available by current technologies, new vistas in food service and restaurant service have become available. About 170 km outside of Madrid is a new food processing and packaging plant. Raw foodstuffs (spices, fruits, meats, vegetables, rice, potatoes, pasta, salads, etc.) are delivered to this plant where they are washed (in ozone-containing water), peeled, sliced, etc. Microwaveable packing trays are filled with ingredients of a complete meal and then sealed with a microwaveable plastic film (sometimes with modified atmospheres). Both the packing trays and the sealing film are disinfected using combinations of ozone and UV radiation. Individual meals are prepared and packaged, but are not precooked, then are delivered to five (currently) Crono Chef restaurants strategically located throughout Madrid (www.crono.tv). There are only waiters/waitresses. A customer entering a Crono Chef restaurant is seated, offered the usual libations, and given a menu of the meals stocked?–?in refrigerators, not frozen. The customer's selection is cooked fresh in one of many microwave ovens on the premises. Cheese and/or desserts follow, along with the usual after-dinner drinks, if desired. This new concept in food delivery can be extended to food service for large institutions, e.g., military installations, sporting events, hospitals, elder care facilities, schools, prisons, highway restaurants, and is available for franchising.     

CAMERA: an integrated strategy for compound spectra extraction and annotation of liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry data sets

Liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry is routinely used for metabolomics experiments. In contrast to the fairly routine and automated data acquisition steps, subsequent compound annotation and identification require extensive manual analysis and thus form a major bottleneck in data interpretation. Here we present CAMERA, a Bioconductor package integrating algorithms to extract compound spectra, annotate isotope and adduct peaks, and propose the accurate compound mass even in highly complex data. To evaluate the algorithms, we compared the annotation of CAMERA against a manually defined annotation for a mixture of known compounds spiked into a complex matrix at different concentrations. CAMERA successfully extracted accurate masses for 89.7% and 90.3% of the annotatable compounds in positive and negative ion modes, respectively. Furthermore, we present a novel annotation approach that combines spectral information of data acquired in opposite ion modes to further improve the annotation rate. We demonstrate the utility of CAMERA in two different, easily adoptable plant metabolomics experiments, where the application of CAMERA drastically reduced the amount of manual analysis.     

Modeling the characteristics of multi-technology platforms

Multi-technology platforms are an emerging and promising production technology. However, until now the conditions are unclear under which value creation with multi-technology platforms can be carried out more efficiently than with a system of stand-alone machines. This paper derives characteristic thresholds mathematically that describe points of equal advantageousness of both alternatives in terms of lot size and number of processes required to machine the workpiece. It is found that the progression of the characteristic thresholds is describable by three characteristic figures χ, ρ and ω. The findings emphasize the necessity of a significant reduction of processing times on multi-technology platforms.     

The quantum magnetism of individual manganese-12-acetate molecular magnets anchored at surfaces

The high intrinsic spin and long spin relaxation time of manganese-12-acetate (Mn(12)) makes it an archetypical single molecular magnet. While these characteristics have been measured on bulk samples, questions remain whether the magnetic properties replicate themselves in surface supported isolated molecules, a prerequisite for any application. Here we demonstrate that electrospray ion beam deposition facilitates grafting of intact Mn(12) molecules on metal as well as ultrathin insulating surfaces enabling submolecular resolution imaging by scanning tunneling microscopy. Using scanning tunneling spectroscopy we detect spin excitations from the magnetic ground state of the molecule at an ultrathin boron nitride decoupling layer. Our results are supported by density functional theory based calculations and establish that individual Mn(12) molecules retain their intrinsic spin on a well chosen solid support.     

Mechanical Behavior of Deformation‐Induced α′‐Martensite and Flow Curve Modeling of a Cast CrMnNi TRIP‐Steel

For the modeling of the mechanical behavior of a two phase alloy with the rule of mixture (RM), the flow stress of both phases is needed. In order to obtain these information for the α′‐martensite in high alloyed TRIP‐steels, compression tests at cryogenic temperatures were performed to create a fully deformation‐induced martensitic microstructure. This martensitic material condition was subsequently tested under compressive loading at ?60, 20, and 100°C and at strain rates of 10^?3, 10⁰, and 10³ s^?1 to determine the mechanical properties. The α′‐martensite possesses high strength and surprisingly good ductility up to 60% of compressive strain. Using the flow stress behavior of the α′‐martensite and that of the stable austenitic steel AISI 316L, the flow stress behavior of the high alloyed CrMnNi TRIP‐steel is modeled successfully using a special RM proposed by Narutani et al.     

Mindfulness is associated with fewer PTSD symptoms, depressive symptoms, physical symptoms, and alcohol problems in urban firefighters.

Objective: This study investigated the association between mindfulness, other resilience resources, and several measures of health in 124 urban firefighters. Method: Participants completed health measures of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, depressive symptoms, physical symptoms, and alcohol problems and measures of resilience resources including mindfulness, optimism, personal mastery, and social support. The Mindful Awareness and Attention Scale (MAAS; Brown & Ryan, 2003) was used to assess mindfulness. Participants also completed measures of firefighter stress, number of calls, and years as a firefighter as control variables. Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted with the health measures as the dependent variables with 3 levels of independent variables: (a) demographic characteristics, (b) firefighter variables, and (c) resilience resources. Results: The results showed that mindfulness was associated with fewer PTSD symptoms, depressive symptoms, physical symptoms, and alcohol problems when controlling for the other study variables. Personal mastery and social support were also related to fewer depressive symptoms, firefighter stress was related to more PTSD symptoms and alcohol problems, and years as a firefighter were related to fewer alcohol problems. Conclusions: Mindfulness may be important to consider and include in models of stress, coping, and resilience in firefighters. Future studies should examine the prospective relationship between mindfulness and health in firefighters and others in high-stress occupations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

纯克尔非线性动力学在光学神经元中的应用研究

采用尖峰神经元对神经形态计算进行并行处理,可以克服数字计算机的一些局限性,从而提高计算速度、计算性能和能量效率,实现更高效、更智能和更自适应的计算。超快克尔效应在光子神经形态计算中具有重要的意义和应用。利用改进的归一化耦合模理论（coupled mode theory, CMT）模型,对钙钛矿材料的光学微谐振腔中由超快克尔效应引起的非线性动力学特征进行了计算和分析,观察到自脉动行为;模拟并实现了光学神经元的兴奋性行为、泄露积分动力学和不应期现象。钙钛矿材料具有超快的克尔响应时间,可以将神经元的不应期控制在皮秒量级,为实现快速的脉冲神经网络提供了新思路。     

Maximizing the Performance of Similarity-Based Virtual Screening Methods by Generating Synergy from the Integration of 2D and 3D Approaches

Methods for the pairwise comparison of 2D and 3D molecular structures are established approaches in virtual screening. In this work, we explored three strategies for maximizing the virtual screening performance of these methods: (i) the merging of hit lists obtained from multi-compound screening using a single screening method, (ii) the merging of the hit lists obtained from 2D and 3D screening by parallel selection, and (iii) the combination of both of these strategies in an integrated approach. We found that any of these strategies led to a boost in virtual screening performance, with the clearest advantages observed for the integrated approach. On test sets for virtual screening, covering 50 pharmaceutically relevant proteins, the integrated approach, using sets of five query molecules, yielded, on average, an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.84, an early enrichment among the top 1% of ranked compounds (EF1%) of 53.82 and a scaffold recovery rate among the top 1% of ranked compounds (SRR1%) of 0.50. In comparison, the 2D and 3D methods on their own (when using a single query molecule) yielded AUC values of 0.68 and 0.54, EF1% values of 19.96 and 17.52, and SRR1% values of 0.20 and 0.17, respectively. In conclusion, based on these results, the integration of 2D and 3D methods, via a (balanced) parallel selection strategy, is recommended, and, in particular, when combined with multi-query screening.