Current Scenario of Adsorbent Materials Used in Ethylene Scavenging Systems to Extend Fruit and Vegetable Postharvest Life

Fruit and vegetables are much appreciated by consumers due to their nutritional values and health-promoting compounds. However, different factors affect the postharvest life of such products, in where ethylene is a major one, even at low concentrations, besides temperature and relative humidity. Therefore, high attention has been focused on the development of effective tools to remove ethylene from the atmosphere surrounding these products during storage or in transit. Potassium permanganate scrubbers are one of the most used technologies to remove ethylene from horticultural products. To facilitate and improve the oxidation process, potassium permanganate has been supported onto inert solid materials of a small particle size. In this review, we aim to provide an outline of the most common materials used as potassium permanganate supports on postharvest treatment and their respective effects on quality aspects of various fresh produce during postharvest life. Vermiculite, activated alumina, zeolite, silica gel, activated carbon and clays are the most popular materials that have been used as a support of potassium permanganate-based ethylene scrubbers. The literature suggests that potassium permanganate supported onto silica gel or zeolite seems to be a promising tool to maintain fruit and vegetables quality attributes for long-term storage. Although vermiculite and activated alumina are the most commonly used materials to reach this goal, not promising results have been reported.     

Investigation of the primary plasticisers present in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) products currently authorised as food contact materials

PVC is a common food contact material that is usually plasticised to increase its flexibility. Phthalates are one class of chemical compounds that are often used as plasticisers in PVC in a wide range of industries. They may be used in packaging materials for foods and can also be found in components of certain food processing equipment such as conveyor belts and tubing. Transfer of plasticisers from packaging to foods can occur. In recent years, there has been increased interest in understanding the health effects of phthalates, as well as the possible human exposure levels. However, there is limited information available about the routes of exposure to phthalates. In July 2014, the Chronic Hazard Advisory Panel (CHAP) produced a report for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission detailing the potential health hazards of phthalates and phthalate alternatives. This report listed diet as one factor contributing greater than or equal to 10% of total phthalate exposure. As a result of this report, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is interested in determining the types of the primary plasticiser present in food packaging and processing materials as well as their concentrations. An investigation was conducted of 56 different samples of PVC food packaging and food processing materials available in the US market using a solvent extraction and GC-MS analysis. Nine different plasticisers including three phthalates, di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, diisononyl phthalate and diisodecyl phthalate, were identified in the products tested. The plasticiser concentrations ranged from 1 to 53% depending on the types of food contact materials and the type of plasticiser. Overall, it appears that manufacturers are switching away from phthalates as their primary plasticiser to alternate compounds such as ESBO, ATBC, DEHT, DINCH, DEHA and DINA.     

Integrating a Decision Tree Perspective at the Operational-Level of BPM+

Decision trees are among the best-known decision-making techniques and have been used extensively for both data analysis and predictive modeling. BPM+ is a novel process modeling approach that helps represent business process models in a consistent and structured way to meet different stakeholders’ process representation needs. This paper reports on the outcomes of an ontological analysis of the potential use of decision-tree representations as a new BPM+ perspective for the operational level of abstraction. This new perspective effectively demonstrates how a specialized/operational BPM stakeholder perspective can be used to improve the existing organizational business process model repository.     

Duplex SiCN/DLC coating as a solution to improve fretting—Corrosion resistance of steel

Fretting corrosion damages are commonly observed when two metallic bodies, which are in contact with each other, are subjected to oscillatory motions of low amplitude. Such kind of degradation mode is often responsible for limited durability of aeronautical joints. In the present paper, a multifunctional duplex coating based on Si–C–N and diamond-like carbon (DLC) materials, combining corrosion resistance and good tribological properties is described. Amorphous hydrogenated SiC, SiCN, SiC/DLC and SiCN/DLC were deposited on steel substrates by a plasma assisted chemical vapour deposition (PACVD) technique, using tetramethylsilane (TMS), ammonia (NH₃) or acetylene (C₂H₂) as gas precursors. Nitrogen incorporation has shown to improve the corrosion protection ability of SiC coatings. The corrosion behaviour and the tribological performance in aqueous media of SiCN/DLC coating have therefore been investigated. A test rig has been designed to validate the fretting resistance of this duplex coating for aeronautic applications. It was found that the combination of a SiCN-based PACVD sublayer with a DLC topcoat could provide an enhanced solution to withstand both fretting and corrosion.     

Enhancement of grape seed oil extraction using a cell wall degrading enzyme cocktail

The application of an enzymatic pre-treatment to increase the yield of grape seed oil extraction was studied. Experiments were carried out to measure the effects that reaction time, temperature, pH, particle size and enzyme concentration have upon the enzymatic activity.     

Supersudaca

The simultaneous move towards specialisation and generalisation has opened up the way for ‘new fields of action’ and ‘strategical approaches to design’. Portuguese architect and critic Carlos Sant'Ana describes how urban Latin American think tank Supersudaca epitomise what is best about this new ‘Pragmatopian’ thinking with their Al Caribe project. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High-throughput analysis of multispectral images of breast cancer tissue.

Statistical analysis of genetic changes within cell nuclei that are far from the primary tumor would help determine whether such changes have occurred prior to tumor invasion. To determine whether the gene amplification in cells is morphologically and/or genetically related to the primary tumor requires quantitative evaluation of a large number of cell nuclei from continuous meaningful structures such as milk-ducts, tumors, etc., located relatively far from the primary tumor. To address this issue, we have designed an integrated image analysis software system for high-throughput segmentation of nuclei. Filters such as Beltrami flow-based reaction-diffusion, directional diffusion, etc., were used to pre-process the images resulting in a better segmentation. The accurate shape of the segmented nucleus was recovered using an iterative "shrink-wrap" operation. The study of two cases of ductal carcinoma in situ in breast tissue supports the biological observation regarding the existence of a preferential intraductal invasion, and therefore a common origin, between the primary tumor and the gene amplification in the cell-nuclei lining the ductal structures in the breast.     

Bio-optical properties and ocean color algorithms for coastal waters influenced by the Mississippi River during a cold front

During the passage of a cold front in March 2002, bio-optical properties examined in coastal waters impacted by the Mississippi River indicated that westward advective flows and increasing river discharge containing high concentrations of nonalgal particles contributed significantly to surface optical variability. A comparison of seasonal data from three cruises indicated spectral models of absorption and scattering to be generally consistent with other coastal environments, while their parameterization in terms of chlorophyll (Chl) alpha concentration showed seasonal variability. The exponential slope of the colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) averaged 0.0161+/-0.00054 nm(-1) and nonalgal absorption averaged 0.011 nm(-1) with deviations from general trends observed due to anomalous water properties. Although the phytoplankton specific absorption coefficients varied over a wide range [0.02 to 0.1 m2 (mg Chl)(-1) at 443 nm] being higher in offshore surface waters, values of phytoplankton absorption spectra at the Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS) wave bands were highly correlated to modeled values. Particulate scattering characteristics were similar to observations for other coastal waters, while backscattering ratios were on average lower in phytoplankton-dominated surface waters (0.011+/-0.003) and higher in low Chl near-bottom waters (0.0191+/-0.0045). Average percent differences in remote sensing reflectance Rrs derived from modeled and in-water radiometric measurements were highest in the blue wave bands (52%) and at locations with more stratified water columns. SeaWiFS estimates of Chl and CDOM absorption derived using regional empirical algorithms were highly correlated to in situ data.     

Weaning from mechanical ventilation: a retrospective analysis leading to a multimodal perspective

Practitioners' decision for mechanical aid discontinuation is a challenging task that involves a complete knowledge of a great number of clinical parameters, as well as its evolution in time. Recently, an increasing interest on respiratory pattern variability as an extubation readiness indicator has appeared. Reliable assessment of this variability involves a set of signal processing and pattern recognition techniques. This paper presents a suitability analysis of different methods used for breathing pattern complexity assessment. The contribution of this analysis is threefold: 1) to serve as a review of the state of the art on the so-called weaning problem from a signal processing point of view; 2) to provide insight into the applied processing techniques and how they fit into the problem; 3) to propose additional methods and further processing in order to improve breathing pattern regularity assessment and weaning readiness decision. Results on experimental data show that sample entropy outperforms other complexity assessment methods and that multidimensional classification does improve weaning prediction. However, the obtained performance may be objectionable for real clinical practice, a fact that paves the way for a multimodal signal processing framework, including additional high-quality signals and more reliable statistical methods.