Wine produced by immobilized cells on dried raisin berries in sensory evaluation comparison with commercial products

Comparative sensory evaluation of wines produced by immobilized cells of Uvaferme 299 on dried raisin berries and free cells using the Saint Denis grape variety and of commercial Greek products (‘Biblia Chora’ rosé wine produced from the Syrah grape variety, ‘Palivos’ and ‘Strofilia’ rosé wines both produced from the Agiorgitiko grape variety) was carried out. Sensory evaluation was conducted twice by 11 tasters previously trained and a method for panel validation was proposed. Subsequently, the wines were evaluated for their aroma intension, aroma complexity, aroma elegance and overall quality. Duncan's multiple range test clearly showed that there were statistically significant differences between wines produced using different grape varieties and fermentation conditions. Linear regression analysis of the results was performed in order to investigate which sensory parameter had a significant effect on the overall quality and it revealed that only aroma elegance affected significantly the overall quality. Wine produced by immobilized cells scored a statistically higher value for its overall quality than the wine produced by free cells. Finally, discriminant sensory evaluation revealed a gooseberry, cherry, mint aroma for ‘Biblia Chora’ wine and a citrus, rose aroma for ‘Strofilia’ and ‘Palivos’ wines. Wines produced using immobilized and free cells were characterized by a fruity, banana‐like aroma, and a herbaceous note was predominant. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry     

A harmonised model for safety assessment and certification of safety-critical systems in the transportation industries

This paper describes a model for the assessment and certification of safety-critical programmable electronic systems in the transportation industries. The proposed model is founded on the significant commonalities between emerging international safety-related standards in the automotive, railway and aerospace industries. It contains a system development and a safety assessment process which rationalise and unify the common requirements among the standards in these areas. In addition, it defines an evolutionary process for the development of the system’s safety case. The safety case process shows how the evidence produced in the progression of safety assessment can be structured in order to form an overall argument about the safety of the system. We conclude that it is possible to use this model as the basis of a generic approach to the certification of systems across the transportation sector.     

IKAROS: An HTTP-Based Distributed File System, for Low Consumption & Low Specification Devices

We present the design of IKAROS: an HTTP-based distributed file system, which provides file access scalability and targets a large variety of operating systems and storage systems. IKAROS bypasses the server bottleneck enabling clients to access storage directly, while supporting the usage of multiple types of meta-data. It enables low-consumption, low-specification and low-cost devices to achieve a high throughput data transfer, responding to highly demanding applications. We present data transfer results comparing IKAROS, NFS, PVFS2 and HDFS on a Small Office/Home Office Network Attached Storage infrastructure. We show that IKAROS architecture satisfies and outperforms the data rate demands of high performance applications. We also present experimental results which compare IKAROS and GridFTP using the European Grid Infrastructure. IKAROS performs better in most cases while being competitive at the rest.     

Continuous baker's yeast production using orange peel as promoting support in the bioreactor

Improvements in maximum growth rate and productivity in biomass production using orange peel as promoter were observed in batch aerobic fermentation. Daily biomass productivity and biomass yield up to 14.9 g (dry weight) L^?1 and 0.22 g (dry weight) g^?1 utilized sugar respectively in batch aerobic fermentation by the presence of orange peel as promoter were reported. A novel bioreactor for continuous aerobic fermentation of molasses is described and its suitability for baker's yeast production using orange peel as promoter is investigated. The continuous bioreactor was operated for 12 days, stored for 20 days at 10 °C and operated again for another 13 days without any diminution of biomass productivity. Daily biomass productivity, yield and conversion up to 11.2 g (dry weight) L^?1, 0.16 g (dry weight) produced g^?1 utilized sugar and 90.4% respectively were recorded. The possibility of using such a system for industrial continuous baker's yeast production is discussed. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry     

Alkali Activation of AOD Stainless Steel Slag Under Steam Curing Conditions

Crystalline argon oxygen decarburization slag, in powdery form, was investigated for its hydration potential by alkali activation and curing at 80°C. Na‐silicate and K‐silicate of the same modulus were used as activators. Isothermal calorimetry at 80°C indicated exothermic reactions in the slag pastes. When the slag mortars were cured under steam at 80°C appreciable gain in compressive strength was measured. This was attributed to C–S–H which was detected in TG, FTIR, and ²⁹Si NMR analyses. Upon hydration at 90 d, the amount of crystalline phases decreased, whereas the XRD amorphous content in the slag increased. Electron microscopy showed the formation of different morphologies of reaction products depending on the alkaline activator employed. Presence of reaction rims around the crystalline phases with a major presence of Ca, Si, and O in the reacted matrix was observed in elemental maps.     

Factors influencing sensory quality in red wines of the variety Aghiorghitiko (Vitis vinifera L.) from Nemea

Sensory quality in wines from the indigenous Greek cultivar Aghiorghitiko of Nemea, in 2 years, was studied with multivariate modelling. The appearance, aroma and oral attributes were assessed separately using rank-rating in 13 red Nemea wines, dominated (10 of 13) by Aghiorghitiko, and headspace congeners (51) quantified by solid phase microextraction with gas chromatography. Partial least squares regression (PLS) and discriminant PLS studied relationships between sensory data and congeners, viticultural and oenological data, producers and influence of wood maturations, respectively. Principal component analysis (PCA) spaces for aroma (11 attributes; 64% variance, 3 PCs), congeners (51; 72%, 7 PCs) and oral characters (13 attributes; 77%, 3 PCs) showed similarities in product clustering. Modelling showed clear relationships between sensory character and plant density, wood maturation and producer, respectively. Sensory characters in Aghiorghitiko wines were primarily differentiated by oak maturation and producer influences. A part of the results of this work was presented at the Second International Symposium on the Evaluation and Exploitation of Grapes of Corresponding Terroir through Winemaking and Commercialisation of Wines, 1–3 June 2006, Santorini.     

Generalizable safety annotations for specification of failure patterns

Components in programmable systems often exhibit patterns of failure that are independent of function or system context. In this paper, we show that it is possible to capture, and reuse where appropriate, such patterns for the purposes of system safety analysis. We describe a language that enables abstract specification of failure behaviour and define the syntax and semantics of this language. The language extends concepts originally defined in HiP‐HOPS, a technique that enables a largely automated form of compositional system safety analysis. The paper describes how this language can be used to describe component failure patterns and demonstrates how it can be applied using a simple fuel system example. The approach is evaluated on a set of retrospective industrial case studies, where data‐mining and reverse engineering techniques are applied in order to identify hidden patterns in legacy safety analyses. Results show clear potential for practical use of patterns in HiP‐HOPS. We argue that careful specification and reuse of failure patterns in conjunction with a tool that automates Fault Tree and Failure Modes and Effects Analysis can help to simplify complex safety assessments. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparative study of batch and continuous multi-stage fixed-bed tower (MFBT) bioreactor during wine-making using freeze-dried immobilized cells

A freeze-dried immobilized biocatalyst produced by immobilization of Saccharomyces cerevisiae AXAZ-1 yeast cells on gluten pellets and subsequent freeze-drying was used in a multistage fixed-bed tower (MFBT) bioreactor for batch and continuous wine-making. The MFBT bioreactor resulted in higher alcohol productivity compared to fermentations carried out in a packed bed (PB) bioreactor and showed an important operational stability and no decrease in activity, even at low fermentation temperature (5 °C) and after storage for 6 months at 4 °C. The production of amyl alcohols proved to be temperature dependent and was significantly reduced at low temperatures. Re-activation of the freeze-dried immobilized cells after storage for 6 months resulted in further decreased content of amyl alcohols. The SPME GC/MS analysis of volatile compounds revealed no significant differences in the wines produced by MFBT and PB bioreactors, while the preliminary sensory evaluation ascertained the overall improved quality of the produced wines. Potential industrial application of MFBT bioreactor is also assessed and discussed.