A controlled study of food behavior and emotional manifestation in a population of obese female adolescents

BACKGROUND: Obesity is a major Public Health problem in developed countries. It is frequently associated with psychological difficulties that may interfere with treatment. PATIENTS AND METHODS: 22 obese female adolescents, aged 13 to 19 years, and 24 age-matched female controls, were compared with regard to emotional pathology (anxiety, depression), eating behaviors, self-esteem, body image and parental history of depression. The evaluation was both categorical (DSM III-R criteria) and dimensional for depression and anxiety. It also included a self-esteem scale and questionnaires. RESULTS: The obese adolescents had more depressive symptoms, more prevalent anxiety disorders, more frequent histories of parental depression, eating behaviors characterized by over-eating and/or restricted intake, lower self-esteem and dissatisfaction with their body image, leading to avoidance behaviors in some of them. CONCLUSIONS: Psychological manifestations, although they are still insufficiently documented, especially in adolescents, may aggravate obesity and interfere with treatment.     

Percutaneous nephrostomy in utero for bilateral foetal hydronephrosis

Left percutaneous nephrostomy was performed in a 30-week foetus with bilateral hydronephrosis due to abnormal pyelo-ureteral junction. Puncture of the pelvis and insertion of a 5 cm long F8 Malecot catheter were carried out under ultrasonography. The end of the catheter was left free in the amniotic fluid. Drainage was perfect during 3 weeks, until the skin of the foetus grew over the end of the catheter. At 34 weeks, a much longer catheter was introduced, but it was dislodged from the kidney within 48 hours. Vaginal delivery was induced at 37 weeks, giving birth to a normal male child. On the 4th day after birth the catheter was removed and resection-anastomosis of the left pyelo-ureteral junction was performed.     

Influence of pre-cure freezing of Iberian ham on proteolytic changes throughout the ripening process

This work aimed to investigate the effect of pre-cure freezing Iberian hams on proteolysis phenomena throughout the ripening process. Non-protein nitrogen (NPN), peptide nitrogen (PN) and amino acid nitrogen (AN) as well as amino acid and dipeptide evolution followed the same trend in both refrigerated (R) and pre-cure frozen (F) Iberian hams during processing. At the different stages of ripening, there were no differences in the content of NPN and AN while F dry-cured hams had higher levels of PN than R hams at the final step. This seemed to be more related to the salt content (lower in F than in R hams) than to the pre-cure freezing treatment. Most amino acids and dipeptides detected showed higher concentrations in F than in R Iberian hams at the green stage, being rather similar at the intermediate phases. At the final stage, the effects of pre-cure freezing of Iberian hams were not well defined, higher levels of some amino acids and dipeptides were found in R than in F Iberian hams whereas other amino acids were lower in R than in F hams.     

Comparative post‐harvest behaviour of traditional and virus‐resistant Muchamiel tomatoes

BACKGROUND: Nowadays, organoleptic quality is the primary objective for almost all tomato breeding programmes. In this study, post‐harvest behaviour of a breeding line with genetic resistance to important viruses (tomato mosaic virus, tomato spotted wilt virus and tomato yellow leaf curl virus) has been compared with the original traditional landrace (Muchamiel). The breeding line has been obtained by backcrossing, introgressing three resistance genes but aiming to keep the quality characteristics of the traditional variety. Tomatoes were picked at random and stored at 10 °C for 13 days. Quality analyses were made in both tomato samples: weight loss, colour, respiration rate, ethylene production, maturity index, instrumental hardness and sensory evaluation with trained panel. RESULTS: Fruits of the breeding line were characterized by higher hardness even with a higher maturity index. Results of sensory tests were in agreement with instrumental measurements. Organoleptic quality of Muchamiel virus‐resistant tomatoes was at least as high as that of traditional tomatoes, reaching the best scores in odour and aroma at the 13th storage day. CONCLUSION: Although a long time has been required to develop the breeding line, results indicate that organoleptic fruit quality has been recovered through backcrossing, confirming the success of the breeding programme. Copyright © 2010 Society of Chemical Industry     

Event recognition using signal spectrograms in long pulse experiments

As discharge duration increases, real-time complex analysis of the signal becomes more important. In this context, data acquisition and processing systems must provide models for designing experiments which use event oriented plasma control. One example of advanced data analysis is signal classification. The off-line statistical analysis of a large number of discharges provides information to develop algorithms for the determination of the plasma parameters from measurements of magnetohydrodinamic waves, for example, to detect density fluctuations induced by the Alfve?n cascades using morphological patterns. The need to apply different algorithms to the signals and to address different processing algorithms using the previous results necessitates the use of an event-based experiment. The Intelligent Test and Measurement System platform is an example of architecture designed to implement distributed data acquisition and real-time processing systems. The processing algorithm sequence is modeled using an event-based paradigm. The adaptive capacity of this model is based on the logic defined by the use of state machines in SCXML. The Intelligent Test and Measurement System platform mixes a local multiprocessing model with a distributed deployment of services based on Jini.     

Locally Optimal Source Routing for energy-efficient geographic routing

We analyze the problem of finding an energy-efficient path from a source node to a destination using geographic routing. Existing schemes have neglected the fact that neighbors which are not closer to the destination than the current node can still reduce energy consumption by taking part in the selected path. Moreover, recent works have confirmed that the generally used Unit Disk Graph to model Wireless Sensor Networks does not represent accurately the behavior of real links. We propose a new scheme called Locally Optimal Source Routing (LOSR) that is able to use neighbors which do not provide advance toward the destination to reduce the overall energy consumption while still avoiding routing loops. Using an Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ) mechanism hop by hop we overcome the problems caused by errors in radio transmissions and we introduce a novel routing metric, which accounts for those errors in the energy consumption. Our simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms existing solutions over a variety of scenarios and network densities.

Microwave-drying of sliced mushroom. Analysis of temperature control and pressure

The drying of sliced mushroom by microwave energy is studied for different operational conditions related to temperature control position and pressure and their effects on drying kinetics and quality. Thinly sliced mushrooms were dried in a guide cavity by applying microwave energy at 2.45 GHz. The influence on the quality of the dehydrated mushrooms was studied by two different techniques: sorption isotherms (Halsey and B.E.T. equations) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Drying kinetics were also analyzed through the determination of diffusivity by applying a mathematical model that takes into account changes in moisture on the product surface during the process. Thus, the results of SEM observations and quality can be linked with diffusivity values in each experiment. As a rule, the operational conditions imposed result in contrary tendencies in quality and drying kinetics. High heat levels usually lead to unfavorable quality results in the dehydrated product if not corrected with a favorable inverse temperature gradient characteristic of microwave heating.Industrial relevanceThe combination of drying and enzyme inactivation of mushrooms browning confers microwave drying a great interest with regard to its industrial application. The results referenced in this paper, concerning the position effect of temperature control and pressure will contribute to the continued development of microwave technology applied to food dehydration.     

Optical performance analysis of V‐trough PV concentrators

This paper proposes a method for the analysis of the optical losses that take place inside PV concentrators, which is useful in the design of such systems. The study is focused in V‐trough concentrators with two‐axis tracking. Those are low concentration systems that use nearly conventional flat PV modules. Optical losses are shown to depend on the cavity angle, the mirrors spectral and angular reflectance and the surfaces dirtiness. Final effective concentration ratio and relative cost should consider all these analysed factors. This will help in the search of the most efficient solution in each case. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spectroelectrochemistry of Quantum Dots

Spectroelectrochemistry (SEC) is a set of techniques with many advantages in the study and characterization of materials. Although SEC has not yet been widely used to study quantum dots (QDs), the information extracted from SEC experiments about these nanostructures is very useful. Most of the works that use SEC to study QDs are high‐quality pieces of research. This review intends to show how to perform SEC in an easy way and what information can be obtained using these techniques. Most of the examples shown in this review are related to semiconductor and carbon QDs. After a brief introduction, some optoelectronic properties of QDs and the main SEC techniques are described. The capabilities of SEC for the study of QDs are illustrated with examples extracted from literature. Finally, the needs of SEC to become a user‐friendly technique and its evolution to become more powerful are commented in the last section of the review.