Highly-Efficient Sulfonated UiO-66(Zr) Optical Fiber for Rapid Detection of Trace Levels of Pb2+

Lead detection for biological environments, aqueous resources, and medicinal compounds, rely mainly on either utilizing bulky lab equipment such as ICP-OES or ready-made sensors, which are based on colorimetry with some limitations including selectivity and low interference. Remote, rapid and efficient detection of heavy metals in aqueous solutions at ppm and sub-ppm levels have faced significant challenges that requires novel compounds with such ability. Here, a UiO-66(Zr) metal-organic framework (MOF) functionalized with SO3H group (SO3H-UiO-66(Zr)) is deposited on the end-face of an optical fiber to detect lead cations (Pb2+) in water at 25.2, 43.5 and 64.0 ppm levels. The SO3H-UiO-66(Zr) system provides a Fabry–Perot sensor by which the lead ions are detected rapidly (milliseconds) at 25.2 ppm aqueous solution reflecting in the wavelength shifts in interference spectrum. The proposed removal mechanism is based on the adsorption of [Pb(OH2)6]2+ in water on SO3H-UiO-66(Zr) due to a strong affinity between functionalized MOF and lead. This is the first work that advances a multi-purpose optical fiber-coated functional MOF as an on-site remote chemical sensor for rapid detection of lead cations at extremely low concentrations in an aqueous system.     

Wear Evolution in a Stranded Rope Subjected to Cyclic Bending

Wire ropes, due to their construction, combine two very interesting properties: high axial strength and flexibility in bending. However, the assemblage of wires to form flexible ropes results in the sliding of contacting wires and the creation of wear scars, which can act as stress risers and reduce the fatigue life of ropes. Therefore, in order to understand the fatigue behavior of wire ropes, the degradation that occurs between the wires and the strands has to be studied first. In this study, after identifying the main wear patterns for a polymer-covered stranded rope, the wear evolution along the number of cycles and the effect of the sheave diameter in the preferential wear sites were analyzed. The tests were carried out in a custom-made Bending over Sheave (BoS) fatigue test bench and short segments of the rope were analyzed by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and confocal imaging profilometry in order to characterize the wear scars. The worn volume and the wear scar depth were selected as the most suitable parameters to characterize the wear behavior of wires. In addition, the importance of the polymeric cover and sheave diameter was proved: a reduction of the sheave diameter results in a bigger wear rate (μm³/cycle).     

Volatile composition and sensory properties of industrially produced Idiazabal cheese

The volatile composition and sensory properties of industrially produced Idiazabal cheeses made from ewes’ raw milk (RM) or pasteurised milk (PM) and with addition of different starter cultures were compared. Cheeses were analysed at 90 and 180 d of ripening. Acids were the major volatile compounds in RM cheeses. Methyl ketones were the major volatile compounds in PM cheeses at 90 ripening days. However, the content of acids strongly increased with ripening whereas the content of ketones decreased in PM cheeses. The concentration of esters was higher in RM cheeses than in PM cheeses. No differences were found in the content of alcohols. Most aldehydes, hydrocarbons, terpenes and furans identified were minor volatile compounds in both RM and PM cheeses. In RM cheeses, characteristic sensory attributes for the aroma of Idiazabal cheese were present at 3 months, whereas in PM cheeses those desirable sensory attributes did not appear until 6 months of ripening.     

Sulfuryl fluoride fumigation effects on the safety,volatile composition,and sensory quality of dry cured ham

A randomized complete block design with three replications was utilized to evaluate the effects (P < 0.05) of various fumigation concentrations of sulfuryl fluoride (SF) (0, 12, 24, 36 and 72 mg/L) on the fluoride, sulfuryl fluoride, and volatile flavor compound concentrations in dry cured ham. Fluoride and SF concentrations increased (P < 0.05) in dry cured hams as SF fumigation concentration increased, but all samples contained fluoride and SF concentrations below the legal limits of 20 and 0.01 ppm, respectively. Minimal differences existed (P > 0.05) in the presence and concentration of aroma active compounds, but oxidation compounds were slightly more prevalent (P < 0.05) in the 72 mg/ml treatment when compared to the control. A triangle test (n = 54) indicated that consumers could not discern (P > 0.75) between hams that were fumigated with SF at 0 and 36 mg/ml. This study revealed that there were minimal aroma/flavor differences among the ham treatments between 0 and 36 mg/ml, and that dry cured ham that was fumigated with SF was safe and met legal requirements for consumption.     

Effects of Carbon Dioxide and Ozone Treatments on the Volatile Composition and Sensory Quality of Dry-Cured Ham

Abstract: Randomized complete block designs with 3 replications were utilized to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide (CO₂) (0% at 96 h, 60% at 48 h, and 60% at 96 h) and ozone (O₃) (0 and 175 ppm for 48 h) on the volatile flavor compound concentrations in dry-cured ham. Minimal differences existed in the presence and concentration of aroma active compounds in both CO₂ and O₃ fumigated hams but phenols were slightly more prevalent (P < 0.05) in the CO₂ treatments and oxidation compounds were slightly elevated (P < 0.05) in the ozone treated samples when compared to the control. Triangle tests (n = 54 and 56) indicated that consumers could not discern (P > 0.75) between the control hams and the hams that were fumigated with CO₂ and O₃, respectively. This study revealed that there were minimal aroma/flavor differences among the ham treatments between 0 and 60% CO₂ for 96 h; and also between 0 and 175 ppm O₃.     

Effects of Oregano Oil Brine Enhancement on Quality Attributes of Beef Longissimus dorsi and Semimembranosus Muscles from Various Age Animals

ABSTRACT: The study reports whether or not oregano oil can reduce lipid oxidation and evaluate palatability variations in beef longissimus dorsi and semimembranosus muscles from various age animals (approximately 18 mo; 18 M, 30 to 60 mo; 30 M, and >60 mo; 60 M). Six muscles of each age group were halved and enhanced with a control brine containing no antioxidants (CN) or a brine containing oregano oil (OR), cut into steaks, and stored in modified atmosphere packaging for 0, 4, 7, and 11 d. Each sampling day, surface color (Minolta L*, a*, b*), lipid oxidation (TBARS), cook yield, sensory analysis, and Warner–Bratzler shear force (WBSF) were measured. OR enhancement decreased TBARS values and slowed the rate of decline in a* values (P < 0.05), but had no effect on WBSF, or sensory tenderness and juiciness scores (P > 0.05) compared to CN steaks. OR steaks had less rancidity detection, more off-flavor, lower overall acceptability in sensory analysis (P < 0.05). This indicated oregano oil can effectively reduce lipid oxidation and extend shelf-life of meat products, but further investigation would be needed to avoid off-flavor and acceptability of product quality. Practical Application: Decreases in meat consumption have led the meat industry to become more innovative in product development. Reducing lipid oxidation is a viable method to reduce rancidity, and improving product acceptability. Our research indicated that although oregano oil did reduce lipid oxidation, the adverse effects of flavor were too great, and thus would not be tolerable in fresh meat products at this concentration. However, there is potential to use oregano oil at lower concentrations and in a variety of processed products which could be beneficial to further the use of natural antioxidants.     

Fine-grained checkpoint based on non-volatile memory

New non-volatile memory (e.g., phase-change memory) provides fast access, large capacity, byte-addressability, and non-volatility features. These features, fast-byte-persistency, will bring new opportunities to fault tolerance. We propose a fine-grained checkpoint based on non-volatile memory. We extend the current virtual memory manager to manage non-volatile memory, and design a persistent heap with support for fast allocation and checkpointing of persistent objects. To achieve a fine-grained checkpoint, we scatter objects across virtual pages and rely on hardware page-protection to monitor the modifications. In our system, two objects in different virtual pages may reside on the same physical page. Modifying one object would not interfere with the other object. This allows us to monitor and checkpoint objects smaller than 4096 bytes in a fine-grained way. Compared with previous page-grained based checkpoint mechanisms, our new checkpoint method can greatly reduce the data copied at checkpoint time and better leverage the limited bandwidth of non-volatile memory.     

Matxin, an open-source rule-based machine translation system for Basque

We present the first publicly available machine translation (MT) system for Basque. The fact that Basque is both a morphologically rich and less-resourced language makes the use of statistical approaches difficult, and raises the need to develop a rule-based architecture which can be combined in the future with statistical techniques. The MT architecture proposed reuses several open-source tools and is based on a unique XML format to facilitate the flow between the different modules, which eases the interaction among different developers of tools and resources. The result is the rule-based Matxin MT system, an open-source toolkit, whose first implementation translates from Spanish to Basque. We have performed innovative work on the following tasks: construction of a dependency analyser for Spanish, use of rich linguistic information to translate prepositions and syntactic functions (such as subject and object markers), construction of an efficient module for verbal chunk transfer, and design and implementation of modules for ordering words and phrases, independently of the source language.