Role of nitrite in flavour development in uncooked cured meat products: Sensory assessment

Fermented dry sausages were produced according to the current industrial practices with the only exception that sodium nitrite was not systematically included in the formulation. Finished products were evaluated by a trained taste panel. Flavour of the samples made from mixes with added nitrite was found significantly different from that of the nitrite-free samples. Basically, nitrosated samples were allotted a stronger and a more typical flavour.     

Synthesis of glycopeptides from type II collagen-incorporating galactosylated hydroxylysine mimetics and their use in studying the fine specificity of arthritogenic T cells

Five analogues of the bovine type II collagen (bCII) immunodominant glycopeptide [beta-D-Gal-(5R)-5-Hyl264]CII(256-270) (1) carrying diverse modifications at the critical hydroxylysine (Hyl) 264 side chain were designed and synthesised, to explore the fine specificity of bCII-reactive T cells involved in the initiation and/or regulation of collagen-induced arthritis (CIA), a mouse model for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Beta-D-galactosyl-(5R)-5-hydroxy-L-lysine (19) and corresponding mimetics (22-25), conveniently protected for solid-phase synthesis, were all obtained by a divergent route involving enantiopure 5-hydroxylated 6-oxo-1,2-piperidinedicarboxylates as the key intermediates. All three bCII-specific T hybridomas used, as well as a recurrent pathogenic CD4+ T-cell clone isolated from bCII-immunised DBA/1 mice, recognised the galactosylated form 1 of the immunodominant bCII (256-270) epitope. These cells were extremely sensitive to changes at the epsilon-amino group of Hyl264, but differed in their pattern of recognition of analogues with a Hyl264 side chain modified at C-5 (i.e. inversion of stereochemistry, methylation). These data further document the importance of collagen post-translational modifications in autoimmunity and in the CIA model in particular, and provide a new insight into the molecular interaction between glycopeptide 1 and the TCR of pathogenic T cells.     

Substrate specificity of the lipase fromCandida parapsilosis

Substrate specificity of the acyltransferase activity of the lipase (EC 3.1.1.3) fromCandida parapsilosis CBS 604 was studied in aqueous media. The specificity toward both acid and alcohol parts of a large number of acylglycerols and aliphatic esters was investigated. This lipase showed a high activity in the presence of esters with long-chain fatty acids and particularly unsaturated fatty acids with acis-Δ9 double bond. It was observed that the activity profile depended not only on the alcohol part of the acyl ester, but also on the temperature of the reactant medium. The best lipid substrates had their melting point between −40 to +20°C, 14 to 18 carbon atoms in the acyl group and 1 to 4 carbon atoms in the alkyl group. The enzyme, defined as an acyltransferase in a previous paper, showed a high affinity for primary and secondary alcohols with a short carbon chain (1 to 5 carbon atoms) as acyl acceptors. The influence of free alcohols in the reactant medium on the hydrolysis and alcoholysis activities of the enzyme is discussed. Two phenomena seem to be involved, depending on the alcohol: competition with water for the acyltransfer reaction and lipid substrate dilution when the alcohol places at the oil/water interface.     

A systematic review of transformation approaches between user requirements and analysis models

Model transformation is one of the basic principles of Model Driven Architecture. To build a software system, a sequence of transformations is performed, starting from requirements and ending with implementation. However, requirements are mostly in the form of text, but not a model that can be easily understood by computers; therefore, automated transformations from requirements to analysis models are not easy to achieve. The overall objective of this systematic review is to examine existing literature works that transform textual requirements into analysis models, highlight open issues, and provide suggestions on potential directions of future research. The systematic review led to the analysis of 20 primary studies (16 approaches) obtained after a carefully designed procedure for selecting papers published in journals and conferences from 1996 to 2008 and Software Engineering textbooks. A conceptual framework is designed to provide common concepts and terminology and to define a unified transformation process. This facilitates the comparison and evaluation of the reviewed papers.     

Reduced Kronecker Coefficients and Counter–Examples to Mulmuley’s Strong Saturation Conjecture SH

We provide counter–examples to Mulmuley’s strong saturation conjecture (strong SH) for the Kronecker coefficients. This conjecture was proposed in the setting of Geometric Complexity Theory to show that deciding whether or not a Kronecker coefficient is zero can be done in polynomial time. We also provide a short proof of the #P– hardness of computing the Kronecker coefficients. Both results rely on the connections between the Kronecker coefficients and another family of structural constants in the representation theory of the symmetric groups, Murnaghan’s reduced Kronecker coefficients. An appendix by Mulmuley introduces a relaxed form of the saturation hypothesis SH, still strong enough for the aims of Geometric Complexity Theory.     

Using simulation for assessing the real impact of test-coverage ondefect-coverage

The use of test-coverage measures (e.g., block-coverage) to control the software test process has become an increasingly common practice. This is justified by the assumption that higher test-coverage helps achieve higher defect-coverage and therefore improves software quality. In practice, data often show that defect-coverage and test-coverage grow over time, as additional testing is performed. However, it is unclear whether this phenomenon of concurrent growth can be attributed to a causal dependency, or if it is coincidental, simply due to the cumulative nature of both measures. Answering such a question is important as it determines whether a given test-coverage measure should be monitored for quality control and used to drive testing. Although it is no general answer to this problem, a procedure is proposed to investigate whether any test-coverage criterion has a genuine additional impact on defect-coverage when compared to the impact of just running additional test cases. This procedure applies in typical testing conditions where the software is tested once, according to a given strategy, coverage measures are collected as well as defect data. This procedure is tested on published data, and the results are compared with the original findings. The study outcomes do not support the assumption of a causal dependency between test-coverage and defect-coverage, a result for which several plausible explanations are provided