Effect of the Addition of a Cocoa Butter–Like Fat Enzymatically Produced from Olive Pomace Oil on the Oxidative Stability of Cocoa Butter

ABSTRACT:  A cocoa butter (CB)–like fat was produced in a packed bed enzyme reactor using sn -1,3 specific lipase, and its blends with CB were prepared at different ratios (CB: CB-like fat; 100: 0, 90: 10, 80: 20, 70: 30, 60: 40, 50: 50, 0: 100). The oxidation kinetics of CB: CB-like fat blends was studied by differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). Samples were heated in DSC at different temperatures (130, 140, 150, 160 °C) under 100 mL/min oxygen. From DSC exotherms, oxidation induction times (OIT) were determined and used for the assessment of the oxidative stabilities of the blends. Oxidation kinetics parameters (activation energy, E_a ; preexponential factor, Z ; and oxidation rate constant, k ) were calculated. In general, it has been observed that above 110 °C increasing the ratio of CB-like fat in the blend increased the k value with increasing temperature. It has been observed that for all blends the increase in k value with temperature was significant ( P < 0.05). Increasing CB-like fat ratio in the blend decreased the content of major TAGs (1,3-dipalmitoyl-2-oleoyl-glycerol [POP]; 1[3]-palmitoyl-3[1]stearoyl-2-oleoyl-glycerol [POS]; 1,3-distearoyl-2-oleoyl-glycerol [SOS]), and decreased the oxidative stability of the blends.     

Transient liquid phase (tlp) diffusion bonding of Ti45Ni49Cu6 P/M components using Cu interlayer

In this study, transient liquid phase diffusion bonding parameters of Ti₄₅Ni₄₉Cu₆ P/M components using copper interlayer were experimentally investigated in a protective (argon) atmosphere. Bonding processes of sintered Ti₄₅Ni₄₉Cu₆ P/M compacts were carried out at various temperatures and bonding periods while bonding pressure was kept unchanged. The process pressure, 20 MPa, was selected just below those which would cause macro deformations. Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive spectroscopy were employed for microstructure examinations. Shear strength and hardness (HB) of bonded specimens were measured at bond interface and parent materials for mechanical property evaluations. Along the bond interface, copper, titanium, and nickel atom mutual migration was observed. Structural tests, metallographic analysis have shown the integrity of the diffusion bonded hardware, bonded between 940 and 970°C process temperatures, for 40–60-min bonding periods.     

The effect of extrusion cooking using different water feed rates on the quality of ready-to-eat snacks made from food by-products

The effect of different levels of feed moisture (12–17%) during extrusion cooking, using a co-rotating twin-screw extruder on selected nutritional and physical properties of extruded products was investigated. Four different formulations were used based on wheat flour and corn starch with the addition of 10% brewer’s spent grain (BSG) and red cabbage (RC) trimming reducing the flour and starch. The samples were: wheat flour + BSG (WBSG), corn starch + BSG (CBSG), wheat flour + red cabbage (WRC) and corn starch + red cabbage (CRC). Process conditions utilised were: constant feed rate of 25 kg/h, screw speed 200 rpm and barrel temperature of 80 and 120 °C. The results indicated that increasing the water feed to 15% increased the level of total dietary fibre (TDF) in all the extrudates while extrusion processing increased the level of TDF in WBSG, CBSG and CRC but decreased in WRC products. Extrusion cooking increased the level of total antioxidant capacity (TAC) and total phenolic compounds (TPC) in WRC and CRC. In addition to water feed level affecting the TDF of the extrudates, also affected were the expansion ratio, bulk density, hardness, WSI, SME and colour. The protein level of the products and hardness of extrudates were related to the different formulations.     

低黏度效应聚合物降滤失剂的合成与性能评价

为降低降滤失剂对钻井液黏度的影响,采用丙烯酰胺、N-乙烯基吡咯烷酮、2-丙烯酰胺基-2-甲基丙磺酸、烯丙基聚乙二醇为主要单体,合成了聚合物降滤失剂GZ-1,用红外光谱对GZ-1 的结构进行了表征,研究了GZ-1 对钻井液流变性能和滤失性能的影响,通过环境扫描电镜分析了GZ-1 对钻井液滤饼微观形貌的影响。结果表明,合成的GZ-1 含有设计的官能团,黏均分子量适中（22.9 万）,1.6% GZ-1 水溶液的黏度仅为7 mPa·s;随着GZ-1 浓度增加,聚合物钻井液的滤失量逐渐降低,钻井液的表观黏度（AV）和塑性黏度（PV）小幅增加,基浆在加入1.6%GZ-1 后的AV 和PV 增幅分别为1.7 和1.5 倍,180℃老化16 h 后的增幅分别为1.1 和2.7 倍;加入重晶石提高聚合物钻井液密度时未出现黏度激增现象;GZ-1 可使钻井液滤饼更为致密,有效抑制黏土颗粒的聚结作用。GZ-1 可抗180℃高温,增黏作用小于常用降滤失剂JT888和SY-3,对钻井液黏度的影响较小。图6 表4 参14     

Strategies to prevent mycotoxin contamination of food and animal feed: a review

Mycotoxins are fungal secondary metabolites that have been associated with severe toxic effects to vertebrates produced by many important phytopathogenic and food spoilage fungi including Aspergillus, Penicillium, Fusarium, and Alternaria species. The contamination of foods and animal feeds with mycotoxins is a worldwide problem. We reviewed various control strategies to prevent the growth of mycotoxigenic fungi as well as to inhibit mycotoxin biosynthesis including pre-harvest (resistance varieties, field management and the use of biological and chemical agents), harvest management, and post-harvest (improving of drying and storage conditions, the use of natural and chemical agents, and irradiation) applications. While much work in this area has been performed on the most economically important mycotoxins, aflatoxin B(1) and ochratoxin A much less information is available on other mycotoxins such as trichothecenes, fumonisin B(1), zearalenone, citrinin, and patulin. In addition, physical, chemical, and biological detoxification methods used to prevent exposure to the toxic and carcinogenic effect of mycotoxins are discussed. Finally, dietary strategies, which are one of the most recent approaches to counteract the mycotoxin problem with special emphasis on in vivo and in vitro efficacy of several of binding agents (activated carbons, hydrated sodium calcium aluminosilicate, bentonite, zeolites, and lactic acid bacteria) have also been reviewed.     

Characterization of dynamics in renal autoregulation using volterra models

The dynamics of renal autoregulation are modeled using a modified Volterra representation called the fixed pole expansion technique (FPET). A data dependent procedure is proposed for selecting the pole locations in this expansion that enables a reduction in model complexity compared to standard Volterra models. Furthermore, a quantitative characterization of frequency dependent features of the renal autoregulatory response is enabled via the model's pole locations. The utility of this approach is demonstrated by applying the modeling technique to renal blood pressure and renal blood flow measurements in conscious rats. The model is used to characterize the myogenic autoregulatory response in control rats and rats whose renal autoregulation has been impaired by calcium channel blockers.     

Wavelet-based feature extraction and selection for classification of power system disturbances using support vector machines

This paper presents a new approach for the classification of the power system disturbances using support vector machines (SVMs). The proposed approach is carried out at three serial stages. Firstly, the features to be form the SVM classifier are obtained by using the wavelet transform and a few different feature extraction techniques. Secondly, the features exposing the best classification accuracy of these features are selected by a feature selection technique called as sequential forward selection. Thirdly, the best appropriate input vector for SVM classifier is rummaged. The input vector is started with the first best feature and incrementally added the chosen features. After the addition of each feature, the performance of the SVM is evaluated. The kernel and penalty parameters of the SVM are determined by cross-validation. The parameter set that gives the smallest misclassification error is retained. Finally, both the noisy and noiseless signals are applied to the classifier given above stages. Experimental results indicate that the proposed classifier is robust and has more high classification accuracy with regard to the other approaches in the literature for this problem.     

Interharmonics analysis of power signals with fundamental frequency deviation using Kalman filtering

In this paper a spectral decomposition-based method for interharmonic computation is proposed for power systems where the fundamental frequency fluctuates significantly. In the proposed method, the frequency domain components of the voltage waveform are obtained by Kalman filtering. Both the system fundamental frequency and the correct spectrum of the voltage waveform, and hence the exact interharmonics are obtained. The proposed method is tested with both simulated and field data obtained from different electric arc furnace (EAF) plants, where the system frequency deviates continuously due to the fluctuating load demands. Since the interharmonic frequencies are obtained by using Kalman filtering, no leakage effect of the DFT-based methods is involved in case of frequency deviations, which is an important advantage of the proposed method.     

Three-dimensional phase step profilometry with a multicore optical fiber

This paper demonstrates the feasibility of using phase stepping and a multicore optical fiber to calculate an object's depth profile. An interference pattern is projected by an optical fiber onto the object. The distorted interference pattern containing the object information is captured by a CCD camera and processed using a phase step interferometry method. The phase step method is less computationally intensive compared to two-dimensional Fourier transform profilometry and provides more accuracy when measuring objects of high frequency spatial variations.     

A genetic algorithm optimized ANN-based MPPT algorithm for a stand-alone PV system with induction motor drive

Artificial neural network (ANN) based maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm makes use of the advantages of ANNs such as noise rejection capability and not requiring any prior knowledge of the physical parameters relating to PV system. This paper proposes a genetic algorithm (GA) optimized ANN-based MPPT algorithm implemented in a stand-alone PV system with direct-coupled induction motor drive. The major objective of this design is to eliminate dc–dc converter and its accompanying losses. Implementing off-line ANN in DSP needs optimization of ANN structure to obtain an ideal size. GA optimization was used in this study to determine neuron numbers in multi-layer perceptron neural network. Another objective of this work is to prevent the necessity of the trade-off between the tracking speed and the oscillations around the maximum power point. Hence, varying step size is used in MPPT algorithm and PI-controller is adopted for simple implementation. Simulation and experimental results have been used to demonstrate effectiveness of the proposed method.