Retention of folates in cooked,stored and reheated peas,broccoli and potatoes for use in modern large-scale service systems

This study aimed to evaluate retention of folate in vegetables caused by different processes used in modern large-scale service systems and the food industry. The concentration of folates present in raw samples of peas, broccoli and potatoes was measured during different cooking methods, warm and cold holding and reheating. The main folate forms in vegetables, tetrahydrofolates and 5-methyltetrahydrofolates, were analysed using a validated high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method.     

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) identification of Aspergillus niger and Aspergillus tubingensis based on the calmodulin gene.

Aspergillus niger and A. tubingensis, species belonging to section Nigri, are commonly found in plant products and processed food, such as grapes, cereals, coffee, and derived products. These two species are very difficult to differentiate by classical morphological criteria and some isolates are known to produce ochratoxin A. The exact identification of these two species is very important to avoid the overestimation of toxicological contamination and related risks. A polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based identification and detection assay was developed as a tool to identify A. niger and A. tubingensis, using molecular differences obtained by sequencing the calmodulin gene. Two pairs of species-specific primers were designed and empirically evaluated for PCR identification of A. niger and A. tubingensis. Species-specific PCR products generated by each primer set were 505 bp (A. tubingensis) and 245 bp (A. niger) in length, which could be potentially useful for a multiplex PCR assay. The sensitivity of this assay was about 10 pg DNA in a 25-microl PCR reaction volume, using pure total DNA of the two species. The method described in this study represents a rapid and reliable procedure to assess the presence in food products of two ochratoxigenic species of section Nigri.     

Detection of mutagenic potential of some glass–ionomer cements through Ames testing

The mutagenic potential of three commercially available glass–ionomer cements used in dentistry was examined. The cement components were mixed according to the manufacturers indications and set for two defined times: 1 h or, alternatively, 1 wk. Cements B and C set spontaneously; in the case of cement A, the manufacturer suggests the use of a lamp to trigger also a photopolymerization. Photopolymerization, however, was not used. Ames tests were performed on the dimethyl sulphoxide extracts of cements by using Salmonella typhimurium strains TA 98, TA 100, TA 1535, TA 1537, TA 1538 and TA 102. Cement A showed mutagenicity only against TA 1537 strain, either in the presence or absence of metabolic activation with microsomial fraction S9. The other two cements showed no mutagenic potential. We conclude that glass–ionomer cements are, on the whole, safe materials from the viewpoint of genotoxicity, and hypothesize that the mutagenicity observed in cement A could depend on its polymerization performed without light activation. © 1998 Chapman & Hall     

A comparison of hydroxyapatite-coated, titanium-coated, and uncoated tapered external-fixation pins. An in vivo study in sheep

OBJECTIVES: This study focuses on the relevance of size, eloquence, type of venous drainage, the Spetzler-Martin scale as a whole, and other factors, such as rupture of cerebral arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) for the prediction of neurological deficits in the context of microsurgical AVM removal. METHODS: One hundred and fifty patients with AVMs, whose data were retrieved from a prospectively employed computerised data bank were included. Seventeen patients (11.3%) underwent preoperative embolisation. According to the Spetzler-Martin scale they were graded as follows: 22.0% grade I, 32.0% grade II, 29.3% grade III, 14.0% grade IV, and 2.7% grade V. Intracerebral haemorrhage was present in 39.0%. The AVMs were <3 cm in 52.00/0, 3-6 cm in 43.3% and >6 cm in 4.7%; 59.3% of the AVMs were eloquently located and 29.3% had deep venous drainage (DVD). Follow up information was assessed 6 months after surgery in all but one patient, who died. The applied statistical test was chi2. RESULTS: Surgical morbidity was 15.3%. Early new deficits were noted in 39.3%, permanent new deficits in 10.6%, being significant (major) in 7.3%. The occurrence of permanent deficits correlated significantly with size, deep venous drainage, and the Spetzler-Martin scale. There was statistical evidence for a trend in risk of poor surgical outcome across the three categories non-eloquent, "less eloquent" (for example, visual cortex) and "highly eloquent" (brainstem, basal ganglia, or precentral cortex) with the last being associated with the highest risk for permanent neurological compromise. CONCLUSION: "Eloquence" of the Spetzler-Martin scale should be divided into "highly eloquent" and "less eloquent", which is important for risk analysis of the treatment of asymptomatic and deep seated AVMs and for future trials comparing various treatment modalities. In addition, resection of eloquent AVMs v non-eloquent ones is significantly associated with higher surgical morbidity.     

Duality in permutation state spaces and the dual search algorithm

Geometrical symmetries are commonly exploited to improve the efficiency of search algorithms. A new type of symmetry in permutation state spaces, duality, is introduced. Each state has a dual state. Both states share important attributes such as their distance to the goal. Given a state S, it is shown that an admissible heuristic of the dual state of S is an admissible heuristic for S. This provides opportunities for additional heuristic evaluations. An exact definition of the class of problems where duality exists is provided. A new search algorithm, dual search, is presented which switches between the original state and the dual state when it seems likely that the switch will improve the chance of reaching the goal faster. The decision of when to switch is very important and several policies for doing this are investigated. Experimental results show significant improvements for a number of applications, for using the dual state's heuristic evaluation and/or dual search.     

Microhardness evaluations of the bone growing into porous implants

Small cylinders of a new composite porous material consisting of a dense alumina core coated with two layers of beads of the same material, bonded to each other and to the underlying surface by a high-temperature melting glass have been implanted in the proximal femurs of rabbits. The explants were carried out 1, 4, 6, 8, and 18 weeks after surgery. The bone fragment containing the implant was embedded in methyl methacrylate without performing decalcification, and morphological observations were carried out. These showed that four weeks after surgery it is already possible to observe the development of bone spicules in the implant porosities. Along with these studies, microhardness measurements were carried out by using a microhardness tester connected to an image analyser. The mineralized tissue in close contact with the implant showed, one month after surgery, a compression strength similar to that of healthy bone.     

Decision feedback sequence estimation for continuous phasemodulation on a linear multipath channel

An approach to reduced-complexity detection of partial response continuous phase modulation (CPM) on a linear multipath channel is presented. The method, referred to as decision feedback sequence estimation (DFSE), is based on a conventional Viterbi algorithm (VA) using a reduced-state trellis combined with decision feedback (DF). By varying the number of states in the VA, the receiver structure can be changed gradually from a DF receiver to the optimal maximum-likelihood sequence estimator (MLSE). In this way different tradeoffs between performance and complexity can be obtained. Results on the receiver performance, based on minimum distance calculations and bit error rate simulations, are given for Gaussian minimum-shift keying modulation on typical mobile radio channels. It is shown that for channels with a long memory, a significant complexity reduction can be achieved at the cost of a moderate degradation in performance