Strategies to promote farm animal welfare in Latin America and their effects on carcass and meat quality traits

Several initiatives, including research and development, increasing stakeholders' awareness and application of legislation and recommendation, have been carried out in Latin America to promote animal welfare and meat quality. Most activities focused on the impact of pre-slaughter conditions (facilities, equipment and handling procedures) on animal welfare and meat quality. The results are encouraging; data from Brazil, Chile and Uruguay showed that the application of the improved pre-slaughter handling practices reduced aggressive handling and the incidence of bruised carcasses at slaughter in cattle and pigs. These outcomes stimulated some to apply animal welfare concepts in livestock handling within the meat production chain as shown by the increasing demand for personnel training on the best. To attend this demand is important to expand local studies on farm animal welfare and to set up (or maintain) an efficient system for knowledge transfer to all stakeholders in the Latin America meat production chains. However, it is clear that to promote the long-term progress in this field is important to deliver practical solutions, assuring that they match the technical and financial conditions of those who are the target of training programs.     

Technical note: quantification of zeins from corn, high-moisture corn, and corn silage using a turbidimetric method: comparative efficiencies of isopropyl and tert-butyl alcohols

Zeins are corn endosperm storage proteins that encapsulate starch granules into a protein matrix, which can act as a barrier to starch accessibility and digestion. Laboratory methods to quantify zein are seldom used because they are considered arduous and time-consuming. A recently published rapid turbidimetric method (mTM) was reinvestigated by changing the solution originally used for the zein solubilization step. In particular, the aim was to explore whether, and to what extent, the use of tert-butyl alcohol (t-BuOH-mTM) in lieu of isopropyl alcohol (i-PrOH-mTM) was able to improve the quantification of zeins from dry corn, high-moisture corn, and corn silage samples. The nature of the alcohol influenced the zein extraction values, and t-BuOH-mTM gave higher zein values in corn (3.6 vs. 3.3 g/100 g of dry matter) and corn silage samples (1.2 vs. 0.9 g/100 g of dry matter) compared with i-PrOH-mTM. In contrast, similar zein extraction values were obtained for high-moisture corn (2.1 vs. 1.9 g/100 g of dry matter, respectively). Sodium dodecyl sulfate-PAGE analysis revealed no contamination by nonzein proteins with the use of tert-butyl alcohol. Overall, these findings indicated that tert-butyl alcohol has a greater ability to solubilize zein compared with isopropyl alcohol and thus the t-BuOH-mTM allowed greater extraction of zeins. Considering the growing interest of animal nutritionists in zein proteins, such results should provide useful information for routine laboratory analysis.     

On the performance of bandwidth and storage sharing in information-centric networks

Information Centric Network (ICN) proposals, have recently emerged to define new network architectures where content, and not its location, becomes the core of the communication model. Such new paradigms push data storage and delivery at network layer and are designed to cope with current Internet usage, mainly centered around content dissemination and retrieval.     

xOpat: eXplainable Open Pathology Analysis Tool

Histopathology research quickly evolves thanks to advances in whole slide imaging (WSI) and artificial intelligence (AI). However, existing WSI viewers are tailored either for clinical or research environments, but none suits both. This hinders the adoption of new methods and communication between the researchers and clinicians. The paper presents xOpat, an open-source, browser-based WSI viewer that addresses these problems. xOpat supports various data sources, such as tissue images, pathologists' annotations, or additional data produced by AI models. Furthermore, it provides efficient rendering of multiple data layers, their visual representations, and tools for annotating and presenting findings. Thanks to its modular, protocol-agnostic, and extensible architecture, xOpat can be easily integrated into different environments and thus helps to bridge the gap between research and clinical practice. To demonstrate the utility of xOpat, we present three case studies, one conducted with a developer of AI algorithms for image segmentation and two with a research pathologist.     

A cyclically pressurised soaking process for the hydration and aromatisation of cannellini beans

Hydrating beans before cooking reduces cooking time, increases their tenderness and weight and improves their appearance after cooking. In this paper, we describe a process of cyclically pressurised soaking for the rapid hydration of cannellini beans at room temperature. This hydration process is approximately ten-fold faster than the traditional soaking procedure, and the microbial load developed by the end of this process is much lower compared to that obtained using the traditional process. This bean hydration process was achieved with a new extraction technique using the Naviglio extractor, which subjected the water containing the beans to cycles of pressurisation in which the pressure values ranged between 0 (atmospheric pressure) and 10 bar. This innovative hydration process (I) reduced the time required for the complete hydration of the beans to approximately 60 min and produced a product saturated with the same final amount of moisture as the product obtained from the conventional soaking process (T) that lasts 12–20 h. The numerical simulation of the hydration process (I) has provided useful indications on how the diffusion of humidity inside the beans occurred during the pressurised soaking process. The treated beans were packaged, and organoleptic tests, including taster panel tests, were conducted. Finally, the aromatisation of the legumes was conducted in conjunction with the hydration process to introduce flavouring elements used in some famous traditional recipes for Italian cuisine.