Development of gluten-free fresh egg pasta based on oat and teff flour

Due to increased awareness of consumers about the relationship between food and health as well as the requirements of people following a gluten-free diet, the production of cereal products from raw materials other than wheat is of interest. However, the elimination of the visco-elastic gluten protein represents a technological challenge. During this study, response surface methodology was applied to determine optimal formulations for the production of egg pasta from oat and teff flour. Wheat flour was used as a control. The resulting products were characterised regarding firmness and elasticity, stickiness and cooking loss. The results showed that the mechanical texture of oat and teff pasta was comparable to wheat pasta, however, elasticity was significantly reduced. Compositional analysis was carried out on flour raw materials as well as on the final pasta products, showing that regarding fibre and mineral content, oat and teff samples are nutritionally superior to wheat. In addition, the microstructure was investigated by means of scanning electron microscopy, allowing also the observation of structural changes occurring during cooking. Upon cooking, a distinct outer layer can be observed, resulting from protein denaturation and starch gelatinisation. This structural feature is clearly visible for cooked wheat pasta and but is less apparent for teff and oat pasta.     

Wet shells and dry tales: the evolutionary ‘Just-So’ stories behind the structure–function of biominerals

The ability of evolution to shape organic form involves the interactions of multiple systems of constraints, including fabrication, phylogeny and function. The tendency to place function above everything else has characterized some of the historical biological literature as a series of ‘Just-So’ stories that provided untested explanations for individual features of an organism. A similar tendency occurs in biomaterials research, where features for which a mechanical function can be postulated are treated as an adaptation. Moreover, functional adaptation of an entire structure is often discussed based on the local characterization of specimens kept in conditions that are far from those in which they evolved. In this work, environmental- and frequency-dependent mechanical characterization of the shells of two cephalopods, Nautilus pompilius and Argonauta argo, is used to demonstrate the importance of multi-scale environmentally controlled characterization of biogenic materials. We uncover two mechanistically independent strategies to achieve deformable, stiff, strong and tough highly mineralized structures. These results are then used to critique interpretations of adaptation in the literature. By integrating the hierarchical nature of biological structures and the environment in which they exist, biomaterials testing can be a powerful tool for generating functional hypotheses that should be informed by how these structures are fabricated and their evolutionary history.     

Fermentation of salmon fillets with a variety of lactic acid bacteria

The influence of five strains of lactic acid bacteria (four Lactobacillus and one Carnobacterium) on the quality of fermented salmon fillets was studied. Best starter growth (increase of more than 1 log in 3 days) and acidification of muscle (e.g. pH reduction of approximately 0.7 units in 5 days) were achieved with the two commercial strains L. sake LAD and L. alimentarius BJ33. pH reduction was consistently lower (e.g. reduction of 0.2 units in 5 days) with C. piscicola 85. Protein breakdown as observed on SDS-PAGE gels was similar for all strains. In contrast, the starter strain did influence texture and colour changes. Fast acidifying strains L. sake LAD and L. alimentarius BJ33 brought about a firmer overall texture and a lighter colour, while softening of flesh occurred in samples processed with C. piscicola 85. Sensory evaluations indicated that samples processed with fast acidifying strains were preferred. L. sake LAD and L. alimentarius BJ33 are regarded as suitable starters for fermentation of salmon fillets.     

Quantitative Bestimmung aromatischer Carbons?uren in Honig

Zusammenfassung Honige der Trachten Buchweizen, Löwenzahn, Raps, Heide, Wald und Konifere wurden auf freie und alkalisch hydrolysierbare gebundene aromatische Carbonsäuren, die im Phenylpropan-Metabolismus von höheren Pflanzen gebildet werden, untersucht. Letztere können weder über ihre qualitative noch über ihre quantitative Verteilung zu einer Trachtunterscheidung beitragen. Die freien Säuren lassen jedoch ein pflanzenabhängiges Verteilungsmuster in den Honigen erkennen. Rapshonige sind durch das Vorkommen von Phenylpropionsäure charakterisiert, Buchweizenhonige durch das Fehlen von Phenylessigsäure und die erhöhten Gehalte an 4-Hydroxybenzoesäure. Identitätsmerkmale für Heidehonige sind die hohen Gehalte an Benzoesäure, Phenylessigsäure, Mandelsäure und vor allem-Phenylmilchsäure Zwischen Wald- und Koniferenhonigen bestehen keine signifikanten Unterschiede, eine Abgrenzung der Honigtauhonige gegen die Blütenhonige 1äßt sich über die erhöhten Gehalte an Protocatechusäure treffen.

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Quantitative determination of aromatic carbonic acids in honey

Summary Floral sources of honeys, namely buck-wheat, dandelion, rape, heather, forest and conifer, were analysed for free and alkali hydroxylable bound aromatic carbonic acids, which arise from phenylpropanoid metabolism. Specific in a plant distribution is only recognizable with the free acids. Rape honeys are characterized by the occurrence of phenylpropanoic acid and buckwheat honeys have a higher content of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid and no phenylacetic acid. Heather honeys can be identified by the presence of a high concentration of benzoic acid, phenylacetic acid, mandelic acid and-phenylactic acid. Differentiation of honeydew honeys and flower honeys is possible because of the difference in the concentration of protocatechuic acid.

     

Composition and Correctness

This paper presents an approach to ensure correctness of composed systems. It takes into consideration that correctness can usually be achieved only to a certain degree (except for some small and very mission-critical applications) and complete specifications are usually not practicable. By modelling the parts, the composition activities and the requirements specification we automise the checking procedures using model checking. An important issue hereby is that our approach allows partial modelling and specification.     

The Planetary and Space Simulation Facilities at DLR Cologne

Astrobiology strives to increase our knowledge on the origin, evolution and distribution of life, on Earth and beyond. In the past centuries, life has been found on Earth in environments with extreme conditions that were expected to be uninhabitable. Scientific investigations of the underlying metabolic mechanisms and strategies that lead to the high adaptability of these extremophile organisms increase our understanding of evolution and distribution of life on Earth. Life as we know it depends on the availability of liquid water. Exposure of organisms to defined and complex extreme environmental conditions, in particular those that limit the water availability, allows the investigation of the survival mechanisms as well as an estimation of the possibility of the distribution to and survivability on other celestial bodies of selected organisms. Space missions in low Earth orbit (LEO) provide access for experiments to complex environmental conditions not available on Earth, but studies on the molecular and cellular mechanisms of adaption to these hostile conditions and on the limits of life cannot be performed exclusively in space experiments. Experimental space is limited and allows only the investigation of selected endpoints. An additional intensive ground based program is required, with easy to access facilities capable to simulate space and planetary environments, in particular with focus on temperature, pressure, atmospheric composition and short wavelength solar ultraviolet radiation (UV). DLR Cologne operates a number of Planetary and Space Simulation facilities (PSI) where microorganisms from extreme terrestrial environments or known for their high adaptability are exposed for mechanistic studies. Space or planetary parameters are simulated individually or in combination in temperature controlled vacuum facilities equipped with a variety of defined and calibrated irradiation sources. The PSI support basic research and were recurrently used for pre-flight test programs for several astrobiological space missions. Parallel experiments on ground provided essential complementary data supporting the scientific interpretation of the data received from the space missions.     

Factors affecting the perception of whole-body vibration of occupational drivers: an analysis of posture and manual materials handling and musculoskeletal disorders

Due to the high cost of conducting field measurements, questionnaires are usually preferred for the assessment of physical workloads and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). This study compares the physical workloads of whole-body vibration (WBV) and awkward postures by direct field measurements and self-reported data of 45 occupational drivers. Manual materials handling (MMH) and MSDs were also investigated to analyse their effect on drivers' perception. Although the measured values for WBV exposure were very similarly distributed among the drivers, the subjects' perception differed significantly. Concerning posture, subjects seemed to estimate much better when the difference in exposure was significantly large. The percentage of measured awkward trunk and head inclination were significantly higher for WBV-overestimating subjects than non-overestimators; 77 and 80% vs. 36 and 33%. Health complaints in terms of thoracic spine, cervical spine and shoulder–arm were also significantly more reported by WBV-overestimating subjects (42, 67, 50% vs. 0, 25, 13%, respectively). Although more MMH was reported by WBV-overestimating subjects, there was no statistical significance in this study.     

Supercritical fluid dyeing of cotton modified with 2,4,6-trichloro-1,3,5-triazine

Supercritical carbon dioxide dyeing of cotton modified with the fibre reactive group 2,4,6-trichloro-1,3,5-triazine has been examined and the results are discussed. The modification of cotton was carried out in acetone, as well as by a new method using water as the solvent. For level dyeing results a degree of fixation of the fibre reactive group on cotton of 3% owf was required without changing the hydrophilicity of the fibre. The results show that dyeing of modified cotton is possible with dyes containing hydroxy or amino groups which react via a substitution reaction with the chlorine atoms of 4,6-dichloro-1,3,5-triazine-2-yl on the fibre surface. The K/S values at 383 nm of modified cotton dyed with CI Disperse Yellow 23 were found to be between 1.44 and 4.79 depending on the dyeing conditions used. The washing, rubbing and light fastness data that were obtained were between 3 and 5.     

Effects of heteroatoms on electrochemical performance of electrode materials for lithium ion batteries

Recent studies of lithium ion batteries focus on improving electrochemical performance of electrode materials and/or lowering cost. Doping of active materials with heteroatoms is one promising method. This paper reviews the effects of heteroatoms on anode materials such as carbon- and tin-based materials, and cathode materials such as LiCoO₂, LiNiO₂, LiMn₂O₄ and V₂O₅. There are favorable and unfavorable effects, which depend on the species and physicochemical states of heteroatoms and the parent electrode materials. In the application of lithium ion batteries advantageous factors should be exploited, unwelcome side effects should be avoided as far as possible. Considerable gains towards improved electrochemical performance of the electrode materials have been achieved. Nevertheless, there are still problems needing further investigation including theoretical aspects, which will in the meanwhile stimulate the investigation for better electrode materials.     

SLAC: Statistical total lesion metabolic activity computation by fuzzy unsupervised learning of PET images

Accurate lesion metabolic response estimation is imperative for efficient tumor staging and follow-up studies. Positron emission tomography (PET) successfully images the lesion metabolic activity. Nonetheless, on course of accurate delineation, chances are high to end up with activity underestimation as, due to the limited resolution, the PET images suffer from partial volume effects. Recently, PET images were modeled as a fuzzy mixture to delineate lesions accurately. We extend this work by proposing a statistical lesion activity computation (SLAC) approach to robustly estimate the total lesion activity (TLA) directly from the modeled partial volume mixtures, without an explicit delineation. To evaluate the proposed method, PET scans of phantoms containing spherical and non-spherical lesions with increased activity uptake were simulated. The PET images were reconstructed with the standard clinically used maximum likelihood expectation maximization and an edge preserving maximum a posteriori (MAP) algorithm, both with resolution recovery. From these images, the TLA was estimated in each lesion using the proposed method and compared to the TLA estimation in the tumor delineations obtained with three state-of-the-art PET delineation schemes. SLAC outperformed TLA estimation via tumor delineation and showed robust against variation in reconstruction parameters. With reference to the ground truth knowledge, SLAC gives median $\delta $ TLA $~\approx $  5 % for spherical lesions. For more realistic non-spherical lesions, median $\delta $ TLA $~\approx $  15 %.