Spray‐drying encapsulation of citral in sucrose or trehalose matrices: physicochemical and sensory characteristics

The potential of the disaccharide trehalose as carrier for producing spray‐dried citral was examined. Some physical and sensory characteristics of citral encapsulated in matrices containing either trehalose or sucrose and maltodextrin (MD) were analysed. They included water sorption, glass transition temperatures (T_g), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxation and citral retention during spray‐drying. The glassy state at room temperature (25 °C) was maintained as far as 33% relative humidities (RH) for the spray‐dried trehalose formulation and 43% RH for trehalose–MD; however, for sucrose–MD and for sucrose formulations, the glassy state was limited to RHs lower than 33% and 22%, respectively. Sensory evaluation and gas chromatographic analysis indicated that citral retention after spray‐drying was similar for matrices containing either trehalose or sucrose. However, trehalose formulations had improved physical stability as compared to sucrose.     

Bouldering: an alternative strategy to long-vertical climbing in root-climbing hortensias

In the Neotropics, the genus Hydrangea of the popular ornamental hortensia family is represented by climbing species that strongly cling to their support surface by means of adhesive roots closely positioned along specialized anchoring stems. These root-climbing hortensia species belong to the nearly exclusive American Hydrangea section Cornidia and generally are long lianescent climbers that mostly flower and fructify high in the host tree canopy. The Mexican species Hydrangea seemannii, however, encompasses not only long lianescent climbers of large vertical rock walls and coniferous trees, but also short ‘shrub-like’ climbers on small rounded boulders. To investigate growth form plasticity in root-climbing hortensia species, we tested the hypothesis that support variability (e.g. differences in size and shape) promotes plastic responses observable at the mechanical, structural and anatomical level. Stem bending properties, architectural axis categorization, tissue organization and wood density were compared between boulder and long-vertical tree-climbers of H. seemannii. For comparison, the mechanical patterns of a closely related, strictly long-vertical tree-climbing species were investigated. Hydrangea seemannii has fine-tuned morphological, mechanical and anatomical responses to support variability suggesting the presence of two alternative root-climbing strategies that are optimized for their particular environmental conditions. Our results suggest that variation of some stem anatomical traits provides a buffering effect that regulates the mechanical and hydraulic demands of two distinct plant architectures. The adaptive value of observed plastic responses and the importance of considering growth form plasticity in evolutionary and conservation studies are discussed.     

Interaction of colloidal nanoparticles with their local environment: the (ionic) nanoenvironment around nanoparticles is different from bulk and determines the physico-chemical properties of the nanoparticles

The physico-chemical properties of colloidal nanoparticles (NPs) are influenced by their local environment, as, in turn, the local environment influences the physico-chemical properties of the NPs. In other words, the local environment around NPs has a profound impact on the NPs, and it is different from bulk due to interaction with the NP surface. So far, this important effect has not been addressed in a comprehensive way in the literature. The vicinity of NPs can be sensitively influenced by local ions and ligands, with effects already occurring at extremely low concentrations. NPs in the Hückel regime are more sensitive to fluctuations in the ionic environment, because of a larger Debye length. The local ion concentration hereby affects the colloidal stability of the NPs, as it is different from bulk owing to Debye Hückel screening caused by the charge of the NPs. This can have subtle effects, now caused by the environment to the performance of the NP, such as for example a buffering effect caused by surface reaction on ultrapure ligand-free nanogold, a size quenching effect in the presence of specific ions and a significant impact on fluorophore-labelled NPs acting as ion sensors. Thus, the aim of this review is to clarify and give an unifying view of the complex interplay between the NP''s surface with their nanoenvironment.     

MS-based analytical methodologies to characterize genetically modified crops

The development of genetically modified crops has had a great impact on the agriculture and food industries. However, the development of any genetically modified organism (GMO) requires the application of analytical procedures to confirm the equivalence of the GMO compared to its isogenic non-transgenic counterpart. Moreover, the use of GMOs in foods and agriculture faces numerous criticisms from consumers and ecological organizations that have led some countries to regulate their production, growth, and commercialization. These regulations have brought about the need of new and more powerful analytical methods to face the complexity of this topic. In this regard, MS-based technologies are increasingly used for GMOs analysis to provide very useful information on GMO composition (e.g., metabolites, proteins). This review focuses on the MS-based analytical methodologies used to characterize genetically modified crops (also called transgenic crops). First, an overview on genetically modified crops development is provided, together with the main difficulties of their analysis. Next, the different MS-based analytical approaches applied to characterize GM crops are critically discussed, and include "-omics" approaches and target-based approaches. These methodologies allow the study of intended and unintended effects that result from the genetic transformation. This information is considered to be essential to corroborate (or not) the equivalence of the GM crop with its isogenic non-transgenic counterpart.     

Flagellar apparatus of south-seeking many-celled magnetotactic prokaryotes

Magnetotactic bacteria orient and migrate along geomagnetic field lines. Each cell contains membrane-enclosed, nano-scale, iron-mineral particles called magnetosomes that cause alignment of the cell in the geomagnetic field as the bacteria swim propelled by flagella. In this work we studied the ultrastructure of the flagellar apparatus in many-celled magnetotactic prokaryotes (MMP) that consist of several Gram-negative cells arranged radially around an acellular compartment. Flagella covered the organism surface, and were observed exclusively at the portion of each cell that faced the environment. The flagella were helical tubes never as long as a complete turn of the helix. Flagellar filaments varied in length from 0.9 to 3.8 micro m (average 2.4 +/- 0.5 micro m, n = 150) and in width from 12.0 to 19.5 nm (average 15.9 +/- 1.4 nm, n = 52), which is different from previous reports for similar microorganisms. At the base of the flagella, a curved hook structure slightly thicker than the flagellar filaments was observed. In freeze-fractured samples, macromolecular complexes about 50 nm in diameter, which possibly corresponded to part of the flagella basal body, were observed in both the P-face of the cytoplasmic membrane and the E-face of the outer membrane. Transmission electron microscopy showed that magnetosomes occurred in planar groups in the cytoplasm close and parallel to the organism surface. A striated structure, which could be involved in maintaining magnetosomes fixed in the cell, was usually observed running along magnetosome chains. The coordinated movement of the MMP depends on the interaction between the flagella of each cell with the flagella of adjacent cells of the microorganism.     

A Low-Complexity Scheduler to Improve the Number of Satisfied Video Streaming Users in LTE

Wireless Personal Communications - The ongoing development of mobile communication networks has led to an expressive growth in capacity demand, mainly due to video streaming services, which...     

Improved time and frequency synchronization for dual-polarization OFDM systems

This article presents techniques for improved estimation of symbol timing offset (STO) and carrier frequency offset (CFO) for dual-polarization (DP) orthogonal frequency division multiplex (DP-OFDM) systems. Recently, quaternion multiple-input multiple-output OFDM has been proposed for high spectral efficiency communication systems, which can flexibly explore different types of diversities such as space, time, frequency, and polarization. This article focuses on synchronization techniques for DP-OFDM systems using a cyclic prefix, where the application of quaternion algebra leads to new improved estimators. Simulations performed for DP system methods show faster reduction of STO estimator variance with a double-slope line in the log-variance line versus signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) plot compared with single-polarization (SP) counterparts, and simulations for CFO estimates show a 3-dB gain of DP over SP estimates for same SNR values defined, respectively, for quaternion-valued or complex-valued signals. Cramer–Rao bounds for STO and CFO are derived for the synchronization methods, correlating with the observed gains of DP over SP OFDM systems.