Traditional Kerala style fish curry in indigenous retort pouch

Fish curry processed in metal cans is popular in the overseas markets. An important limitation with the use of metal cans is the undesirable taste imparted to the products on storage. Flexible pouches are an ideal alternative to metal cans. Extensive work carried out at Central Institute of Fisheries Technology has been able to identify indigenous pouches, which are as good as imported pouches. This has been done after collecting different types of indigenous and imported flexible pouches, analyzing their composition and conducting detailed studies on their physical and food contact application properties. Two indigenous pouches with composition 12 micron polyester/12 micron aluminium foil/87.5 micron cast polypropylene and 12 micron polyester/15 micron aluminium foil/70 micron cast polypropylene have been selected and got made by indigenous laminators and an imported one with configuration 12 micron polyester/15 micron aluminium foil/75 micron cast polypropylene were used for further experiment on processing fish curry. Traditional Kerala style mackerel fish curry was processed in the retort pouches of the above configurations. About 220 g fish curry was packed in each pouch (15.5 cm×7 cm). Process requirements were worked out by measuring heat penetration using thermocouples introduced into the pouches. Fish curry processed to a F₀ value of 8.43 gave an acceptable product with desired texture and sensory characteristics. The physical properties of the pouches studied showed that the indigenous pouches of the above configurations were good enough to give a shelf life of 1 year at room temperature. The curry remained sterile throughout the storage period at ambient temperature (25–30°C) and retained acceptable sensory characteristics.     

Anomalies in hepatobiliary excretion of technetium-99m-MAG3 preparations

Technetium-99m-MAG3 is accepted as a renal tubular function agent. However, sporadic liver and gall bladder visualisation during its clinical use is clearly a disadvantage. HPLC-purified 99mTc-MAG3 samples exhibited appreciable hepatobiliary uptake (7%), and an elevated level of such uptake was observed in unpurified kit preparations, which was stated to be associated with the excretory property of the radiolabeled kit impurities. To verify this we attempted to quantitate the hepatobiliary uptake of the kit preparations with that of its radiolabeled components. The contribution of each component toward hepatobiliary uptake of the sample was calculated from their abundance in the chelate mixture and the individual biodistribution of the isolated components. However, the anticipated hepatobiliary uptake of different preparations of 99mTc-MAG3 calculated in this way was always lower than that of the experimental value determined directly. Further work is needed to explain the anomaly.     

Induced crystallization of cellulose in never-dried cotton fibers

In the present investigation, we have made a systematic study of the induced crystallization in never-dried cotton fiber, by allowing it to desiccate under different conditions of humidity and temperature. The resulting structural changes have been followed using x-ray diffraction and infrared absorption techniques. A slow rate of drying coupled with a high temperature was more conducive for maximum crystallization. Analysis of the effect of temperature on the induced crystallization showed possible existence of a thermal transition in cellulose around 30°C. The induced crystallization brought about by slow drying as well as those produced using intercrystalline swelling agents, have been shown to be resulting from a proper channelization of the interfibrillar mobility existing in the never-dried fibers.     

A techno-economic evaluation of biomass briquetting in India

A financial analysis of biomass briquetting technology in India has been undertaken. Simple cost functions for briquetting machines have been developed. Unit cost of briquette production for various types of raw materials and different capacities of briquetting units have been calculated. Role of different factors affecting the cost of production of briquettes have also been analysed.     

Degradation Study of Organic Semiconductor Devices Under Electrical and Optical Stresses

Degradation due to electrical and optical stresses on organic semiconductor devices fabricated with imidazolin-5-one as an active layer is studied in this letter. It is found that while both electrical and optical stresses degrade device performance, the former leads to much faster degradation as compared with the latter. It is found that in electrical-stress degradation, the drop in current is a strong function of the charge flowing through the device during stress (charge fluence). For optical-stress degradation, it is strongly dependent on the duration of stress. It is also found that the input electrical and light energy during the stress may be annealing out some of the defects in the device and, hence, mitigating the degradation due to the applied stress.     

Predictability of process resource usage: a measurement-based studyon UNIX

A statistical approach is developed for predicting the CPU time, the file I/O, and the memory requirements of a program at the beginning of its life, given the identity of the program. Initially, statistical clustering is used to identify high-density regions of process resource usage. The identified regions form the states for building a state-transition model to characterize the resource usage of each program in its past executions. The prediction scheme uses the knowledge of the program's resource usage in its last execution together with its state-transition model to predict the resource usage in its next execution. The prediction scheme is shown to work using process resource-usage data collected from a VAX 11/780 running 4.3 BSD Unix. The results show that the predicted values correlate strongly with the actual; the coefficient of correlation between the predicted and actual values for CPU time is 0.84. The errors in prediction are mostly small and are heavily skewed toward small values     

A study of the ion implantation damage and annealing behavior in GaSb

The effects of damages produced by implantation of Te, Er, Hg, and Pb ions into undoped (100) GaSb single crystals and their recovery by Rutherford backscattering (RBS)/channeling were investigated. The implantations with dosages in the range of 10¹³ to 10¹⁵ ions/cm² were carried out at liquid nitrogen temperature, at energies corresponding to a projected range of 447Å in GaSb. Near surface damage equivalent to that of an amorphous layer was observed even at lower doses. The samples were annealed at 600°C for different durations, with the Te implanted sample of the lowest dosage exhibiting the best recovery (Χ_min = 11%) compared to others. This value of Χ^min nearly corresponds to that of the virgin crystal. Examination of the surface morphology as a function of mass, dosage, and annealing duration revealed that it was strongly influenced by the dosage of the implanted ions.     

Doppler-broadened positron annihilation studies in Y-Ba-Cu-O,Tl-Ca-Ba-Cu-O and Bi-Ca-Sr-Cu-O superconductors

Doppler-broadened annihilation radiation spectra have been measured as a function of temperature from 77 K to 300 K, for several high temperature oxide superconductors viz single-phase YBCO, single- and mixed-phase Tl-Ca-Ba-Cu-O and Bi-Ca-Sr-Cu-O compounds. The temperature-dependent parameters extracted respond to a change at the onset of superconducting transition. The observations point to involvement of oxygen valence electrons at the onset of superconducting transition. Also a possible structural change and/or increase in electron density at the oxygen vacancy/defect sites seem to accompany the transition. In addition, the parameters derived are seen to be sensitive to the presence of more than one superconducting phases in mixed phase samples.     

Effect of α-amylase addition on fermentation of idli—A popular south Indian cereal—Legume-based snack food

Idli is a fermented breakfast food widely consumed in Southern India. It is liked by people mainly due to its sensory attributes such as mouthfeel, appearance, taste and aroma. Fermentation time of the batter varies from 14 to 24 h with overnight fermentation being the most frequent time interval. Reduction in the fermentation time of the idli batter is of great commercial significance for large-scale idli production and this can be potentially achieved by addition of enzymes externally. The present study was undertaken to explore the possibility of expediting the idli batter fermentation process by adding an exogenous source of α-amylase enzyme. 5, 15 and 25 U per 100 g batter of amylase were added to the idli batter which was allowed to ferment. Different parameters were monitored and sensory attributes were also studied and compared with that of the control set. The fermentation time was reduced from a conventional 14 h to 8 h and the sensory attributes of the final product were also successfully maintained.