Mycotoxins in spices and herbs–An update

Spices and herbs have been used since ancient times as flavor and aroma enhancers, colorants, preservatives, and traditional medicines. There are more than 30 spices and herbs of global economic and culinary importance. Among the spices, black pepper, capsicums, cumin, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, turmeric, saffron, coriander, cloves, dill, mint, thyme, sesame seed, mustard seed, and curry powder are the most popular spices worldwide. In addition to their culinary uses, a number of functional properties of aromatic herbs and spices are also well described in the scientific literature. However, spices and herbs cultivated mainly in tropic and subtropic areas can be exposed to contamination with toxigenic fungi and subsequently mycotoxins. This review provides an overview on the mycotoxin risk in widely consumed spices and aromatic herbs.     

A cumulative belief degree approach for group decision‐making problems with heterogeneous information

In some complex group decision‐making (GDM) problems, the information needing to be processed may be heterogeneous. This may involve consideration of objective and subjective criteria by experts who have their own particular set of criteria, their own preference format for assessing alternatives under these criteria, and who may themselves be assigned differing importance weights as experts. This paper presents a cumulative belief degree approach to cope with heterogeneous information in multiple attribute GDM problems. The proposed approach focuses to aggregate subjective expert assessments and objective criteria that are presented in various representation formats and scales. The methodology employs transformation formulae for several preference representation scales to belief structure, including 2‐tuple representation, classical fuzzy sets, hesitant fuzzy sets, and intuitionistic fuzzy sets. Aggregation formulae are proposed to combine expert criteria evaluations and find a collective preference. A consensus degree is calculated for measuring the agreement between the experts. An illustrative example is presented to clarify the steps of the methodology, and validity of the approach is assured through comparative analysis with the existing methods.     

Separation of catalase from Amsonia orientalis with single step by aqueous two-phase partitioning system (ATPS)

Catalase from Amsonia orientalis was purified by ATPS, and its efficiency was compared against hydrophobic interaction chromatography. Activity recovery and purification fold of purified catalase by ATPS were examined under varying experimental conditions. The effects of various factors such as type of phase-forming salts, (PEG) mass, with their different concentrations, pH and temperature effects on partitioning were investigated. The highest activity recovery (156%) and purification fold (8.67) of catalase were obtained in the ATPS system containing 10% (g/g) PEG4000, 15% (g/g) Na₂SO₄ at pH 6.0 and room temperature. In hydrophobic interaction chromatography, the enzyme has been purified 12.54-fold with 57.5% recovery. The molecular weight of catalase was determined as 75 kDa by SDS-PAGE.     

An OWA Operator‐Based Cumulative Belief Degrees Approach for Credit Rating

Credit lenders utilize credit rating approaches to provide a classification system for characterizing credit borrowers. In order to measure the borrowers’ credibility, that is, ability and willingness to repay the debt, there are many financial and non‐financial criteria that should be considered. The basic aim of this study is to propose a multiple‐criteria credit rating approach that integrates different kinds of information and represents the borrowers’ credibility as a distribution among all the credit ratings. The cumulative belief degree approach is proposed for this purpose. Since all the available information is used in the final representation, a distribution‐based credit rating approach is expected to strengthen the lender's inference competency. In order to eliminate subjectivity in the weighting of criteria, an ordered weighted averaging operator is used. Additionally, the credit rating distribution can be transformed into a single credit rating by considering a threshold value. This study proposes a goodness‐of‐fit test to handle the subjectivity and difficulty of setting the threshold value. The applicability of the proposed approach is demonstrated by analyzing the credibility of selected Turkish firms from the stock exchange market of Turkey.     

An introduction to the traditional fermented foods and beverages of Turkey

Fermented foods and beverages, whether of plant or animal origin, play an important role in the diet of people in many parts of the world. Fermented foods not only provide important sources of nutrients but have also great potential in maintaining health and preventing diseases. Lactic acid bacteria and yeasts are the major group of microorganisms associated with traditional fermented foods. Many different types of traditional fermented foods and beverages are produced at household level in Anatolia. These include fermented milks (yoghurt, torba yoghurt, kurut, ayran, kefir, koumiss), cereal-based fermented food (tarhana), and non-alcoholic beverage (boza), fermented fruits, and vegetables (tur?u, ?algam, hardaliye), and fermented meat (sucuk). However, there are some differences in the preparation of traditional foods and beverages from region to region. The focus of this article is to describe the traditional fermented foods and beverages of Turkey.     

An improved metric for measuring multi-item multi-level schedule instability under rolling schedules

Disruptions in material plans due to unrealistic schedules and frequent plan revisions are common symptoms of a phenomenon generally referred to as nervousness or schedule instability in literature. A number of instability measures had been proposed so far. However, none of them deals with instability measurement comprehensively. An appropriate measurement should be able to reflect the degree of changes under rolling schedules, as well as a tool for analyzing the performance of planning systems and nervousness dampening procedures.The intent of this paper is to present a new metric for measuring multi-item multi-level schedule instability under rolling schedules and to compare it with the previous measures in literature. The new metric composed of linear combination of four sub-instability measures separates quantity and timing changes for both scheduled receipts (SRs) and planned orders (PORs). The new metric is tested by a detailed numerical example taken from literature, and results of simulation studies under various experimental factors are presented at the end of the study.     

Process engineering for bioflavour production with metabolically active yeasts – a mini‐review

Flavours are biologically active molecules of large commercial interest in the food, cosmetics, detergent and pharmaceutical industries. The production of flavours can take place by either extraction from plant materials, chemical synthesis, biological conversion of precursor molecules or de novo biosynthesis. The latter alternatives are gaining importance through the rapidly growing fields of systems biology and metabolic engineering, giving efficient production hosts for the so‐called 'bioflavours', which are natural flavour and/or fragrance compounds obtained with cell factories or enzymatic systems. Yeasts are potential production hosts for bioflavours. In this mini‐review, we give an overview of bioflavour production in yeasts from the process‐engineering perspective. Two specific examples, production of 2‐phenylethanol and vanillin, are used to illustrate the process challenges and strategies used. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of carbon and nitrogen source on production of volatile fragrance and flavour metabolites by the yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus

The yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus produces a range of volatile molecules with applications as fragrances or flavours. The purpose of this study was to establish how nutritional conditions influence the production of these metabolites. Four strains were grown on synthetic media, using a variety of carbon and nitrogen sources and volatile metabolites analysed using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). The nitrogen source had pronounced effects on metabolite production: levels of the fusel alcohols 2‐phenylethanol and isoamyl alcohol were highest when yeast extract was the nitrogen source, and ammonium had a strong repressing effect on production of 2‐phenylethyl acetate. In contrast, the nitrogen source did not affect production of isoamyl acetate or ethyl acetate, indicating that more than one alcohol acetyl transferase activity is present in K. marxianus. Production of all acetate esters was low when cells were growing on lactose (as opposed to glucose or fructose), with a lower intracellular pool of acetyl CoA being one explanation for this observation. Bioinformatic and phylogenetic analysis of the known yeast alcohol acetyl transferases ATF1 and ATF2 suggests that the ancestral protein Atf2p may not be involved in synthesis of volatile acetate esters in K. marxianus, and raises interesting questions as to what other genes encode this activity in non‐Saccharomyces yeasts. Identification of all the genes involved in ester synthesis will be important for development of the K. marxianus platform for flavour and fragrance production. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.