Heat-induced chemical,physical and functional changes during grape must cooking

Cooked must is a product that could be used in food formulations, directly or after fermentation, to obtain many traditional foods. Must cooking was conducted in boilers of different materials (copper and stainless steel) for different times in order to obtain differently concentrated products.     

Application of a radical scavenging activity test to measure the total antioxidant activity of poultry meat

The antioxidant activity of the hydrophilic and lipophilic fraction of poultry meat was determined in terms of ‘radical scavenging activity’ (RSA) using a modified ABTS radical cation decolorization method.The method uses the extraction of hydrophilic and lipophilic fractions in water and methanol–chloroform, respectively. The determination of the RSA of the lipophilic fraction was conducted using a chloroform extract and maintaining a constant chloroform:ethanol ratio in the solution of analysis. The method was tested on nine samples of poultry breasts and thigh meats and permitted to quantify the RSA in terms of μmol Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) with a mean relative standard deviation of less than 5%.The contribution of the hydrophilic fraction to the total RSA was much higher than that of the lipid soluble fraction. Breast showed a higher RSA than thigh meat due to its lower total lipids content. The total RSA value (TEAC = 2.4 μmol g⁻¹) suggests that poultry meat could significantly contribute to the antioxidant activity of the diet.     

Developing Ambient Intelligence Systems: A Solution based on Web Services

Enabling the ambient intelligence vision means that consumers will be provided with universal and immediate access to available content and services, together with ways of effectively exploiting them. Concentrating on the software system development aspect, this means that the actual implementation of any ambient intelligence application requested by a user can only be resolved at runtime according to the user's specific situation. This paper introduces a base declarative language and associated core middleware, which supports the abstract specification of Ambient Intelligence applications together with their dynamic composition according to the environment. The proposed solution builds on the Web services architecture, whose pervasiveness enables both services availability in most environments, and specification of applications supporting automated retrieval and composition. In addition, dynamic composition of applications is dealt in a way that enforces the quality of service of deployed applications in terms of security and performance.     

Space dependent electron transport by an integral approach

The aim of the present paper is to study the diffusion of a rarefied electron gas in a random distribution of field particles, and in presence of an impressed external electric field. Electrons are emitted by a plane source, and undergo scattering or ionization collisions against field particles. The analysis is carried out resorting to the linear Boltzmann transport equation for the electron distribution function, and following a recently developed integral formulation. Several results of physical interest are presented and briefly discussed.     

Addressing corner detection issues for machine vision based UAV aerial refueling

This paper describes the results of the analysis of specific ‘corner detection’ algorithms within a Machine Vision approach for the problem of aerial refueling for unmanned aerial vehicles. Specifically, the performances of the SUSAN and the Harris corner detection algorithms have been compared. A critical goal of this study was to evaluate the interface of these feature extraction schemes with the successive detection and labeling, and pose estimation schemes in the overall scheme. Closed-loop simulations were performed using a Simulink^®-based simulation environment to reproduce docking maneuvers using the US Air Force refueling boom.     

O‐(Triazolyl)methyl Carbamates as a Novel and Potent Class of Fatty Acid Amide Hydrolase (FAAH) Inhibitors

Inhibition of fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) activity is under investigation as a valuable strategy for the treatment of several disorders, including pain and drug addiction. A number of potent FAAH inhibitors belonging to different chemical classes have been disclosed to date; O‐aryl carbamates are one of the most representative families. In the search for novel FAAH inhibitors, a series of O‐(1,2,3‐triazol‐4‐yl)methyl carbamate derivatives were designed and synthesized exploiting a copper‐ catalyzed [3+2] cycloaddition reaction between azides and alkynes (click chemistry). Exploration of the structure–activity relationships within this new class of compounds identified potent inhibitors of both rat and human FAAH with IC₅₀ values in the single‐digit nanomolar range. In addition, these derivatives showed improved stability in rat plasma and kinetic solubility in buffer with respect to the lead compound. Based on the results of the study, the novel analogues identified can be considered to be promising starting point for the development of new FAAH inhibitors with improved drug‐like properties.     

Male Fertility under Environmental Stress: Do Polyamines Act as Pollen Tube Growth Protectants?

Although pollen structure and morphology evolved toward the optimization of stability and fertilization efficiency, its performance is affected by harsh environmental conditions, e.g., heat, cold, drought, pollutants, and other stressors. These phenomena are expected to increase in the coming years in relation to predicted environmental scenarios, contributing to a rapid increase in the interest of the scientific community in understanding the molecular and physiological responses implemented by male gametophyte to accomplish reproduction. Here, after a brief introduction summarizing the main events underlying pollen physiology with a focus on polyamine involvement in its development and germination, we review the main effects that environmental stresses can cause on pollen. We report the most relevant evidence in the literature underlying morphological, cytoskeletal, metabolic and signaling alterations involved in stress perception and response, focusing on the final stage of pollen life, i.e., from when it hydrates, to pollen tube growth and sperm cell transport, with these being the most sensitive to environmental changes. Finally, we hypothesize the molecular mechanisms through which polyamines, well-known molecules involved in plant development, stress response and adaptation, can exert a protective action against environmental stresses in pollen by decoding the essential steps and the intersection between polyamines and pollen tube growth mechanisms.     

红色物语——旧厂房成为新办公楼的改造方案

红色和黑色是具有历史意义的先锋颜色.在上个世纪它们代表着大胆不羁的意识形态以及由革新的方式表达的道德与文化信念所构成的艺术运动.这是那种能代表某种针对对象本质引发的潮流和张力的颜色,而白色代表用来罗列其意义和内涵的虚无空间.如同白纸一张,毫无墨迹可寻;一旦印上了文章,红色便是下划线.