Phenolic compounds in a Spanish red wine aged in barrels made of Spanish,French and American oak wood

A red Rioja wine was aged in barrels made of Spanish oak wood for 21 months. The evolutions of colour percentage intensity, families of phenolic compounds and low molecular weight phenolic compounds were studied in these wines and compared with those of the same wine aged in barrels made of French and American oak. The analysis of chromatic parameters and total anthocyanins indicates that the wines aged in Spanish and French oak wood barrels have similar chromatic characteristics, but are significantly different to those of wines aged in barrels made of American oak wood, indicating a different degree of modification of the colour. The ageing process also had an important influence on the low molecular weight polyphenols composition of wine. The evolution of these components allowed the production of wines with different characteristics, in relation to the type of wood used in barrel making process. On the other hand, Spanish oak wood can be considered suitable for barrel production for quality wines, since a wine aged in barrels made of Spanish oak wood showed similar and intermediate characteristics to those of the same wine aged in French and American oak woods.     

Detection of anisakids in fish and seafood products by real-time PCR

Anisakids are a group of widely distributed nematodes which have acquired high social relevance due to their involvement in foodborne infections caused by consumption of raw or undercooked seafood. A TaqMan^®-LNA probe real-time assay targeting the cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) was developed allowing the simultaneous detection of the most important anisakids species present in fish and seafood products.The determination of the detection limit in terms of ppm was 1 ppmFor the validation of method developed, twenty fish and cephalopod samples were experimentally contaminated with anisakid. It was checked that in cases in any anisakids species was present, it was detected because the Ct was always less than 35 and did not produce any case false negatives. The main novelty of this work lies in the fact that it can be applied to all kinds of processed products, including those undergoing intensive processes of transformation, as for instance canned foods. The proposed methodology is rapid, robust, highly sensitive and readily adaptable in routine molecular diagnostic laboratories, and can be employed as molecular screening method in order to assess the food security.     

Invertase activity in fresh and processed honeys

The enzymatic activities of 147 samples of commercially produced Spanish polyfloral and monofloral honeys are reported. Important variations in invertase activity and peroxide accumulation were determined to obtain objective information related to honey quality. Variations from 4.04 (Robinia pseudoacacia) to 25.61 g sucrose hydrolysed per 100 g h⁻¹ (SN) (Castanea sativa) and from 11.31 (Erica vagans) to 45.25 µg H₂O₂ g⁻¹ h⁻¹ (Hedysarum coronarium) were detected, with a range from 10.57 to 46.2 SN in polyfloral honeys. Honeys from Erica spp had different invertase activities—high for E cinerea (18.3 SN) and low for E vagans (8.36 SN). The different heating processes of honey have been evaluated to determine the best treatment for preserving invertase activity. The hydroxymethylfurfural content is not a sufficiently good indicator of the degree of deterioration of honey. Another objective was to assess the use of invertase activity in honey quality legislation. © 2000 Society of Chemical Industry     

Genetic algorithm to design logical topologies in reconfigurable WDM networks

A new method to design logical topologies based on genetic algorithms is presented. Not only does the algorithm determine which nodes should be connected by means of lightpaths with the aim of minimizing congestion, but it also solves the routing and wavelength assignment problem. In this way, the algorithm guarantees that the logical topology obtained can be embedded in the optical network subject to the available set of resources. The algorithm is effective in terms of both congestion and fairness. For instance, when compared with other work, the congestion is significantly reduced (from 20% to 75% depending on the matrix of traffic considered), and the fairness, when evaluated in terms of the Jain index, is generally higher than 0.94. Moreover, the algorithm brings advantages when employed in dynamic scenarios where the logical topology is frequently reconfigured, as it is fast and, in contrast to other algorithms previously proposed, the calculation process can be stopped at any time (if required) in order to give the best virtual topology found up to the moment.

Influence of geometry and solids concentration on the hydrodynamics and mass transfer of a rectangular airlift reactor for marine sediment and soil bioremediation

Hydrodynamics and mass transfer characteristics of a three-phase airlift reactor were studied in a rectangular split-vessel reactor and using an air-seawater-marine sediment system. Experiments were conducted over a range of downcomer to riser cross-sectional area ratios (A_D/A_R = 0.65 to 1.0) for two-phase systems and for five sediment concentrations (5 to 25% w/v) using marine sediments. The influence of higher sediment concentrations (30 to 50% w/v) was examined for A_D/A_R = 1. The presence of fine sediment particles in the system had little effect on hydrodynamic and mass transfer parameters compared to the two-phase systems up to 25% loading, decreasing at higher loadings. The airlift reactor was found to meet the dissolved oxygen demand needed for a contaminated sediment treatment process. Axial distribution of the particles was uniform along the riser and the downcomer. Correlations were developed that described the hydrodynamic and mass transfer behaviour for all experimental conditions examined.     

Proteomic Characterization of Virulence Factors and Related Proteins in Enterococcus Strains from Dairy and Fermented Food Products

Enterococcus species are Gram-positive bacteria that are normal gastrointestinal tract inhabitants that play a beneficial role in the dairy and meat industry. However, Enterococcus species are also the causative agents of health care-associated infections that can be found in dairy and fermented food products. Enterococcal infections are led by strains of Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium, which are often resistant to antibiotics and biofilm formation. Enterococci virulence factors attach to host cells and are also involved in immune evasion. LC-MS/MS-based methods offer several advantages compared with other approaches because one can directly identify microbial peptides without the necessity of inferring conclusions based on other approaches such as genomics tools. The present study describes the use of liquid chromatography–electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC–ESI–MS/MS) to perform a global shotgun proteomics characterization for opportunistic pathogenic Enterococcus from different dairy and fermented food products. This method allowed the identification of a total of 1403 nonredundant peptides, representing 1327 proteins. Furthermore, 310 of those peptides corresponded to proteins playing a direct role as virulence factors for Enterococcus pathogenicity. Virulence factors, antibiotic sensitivity, and proper identification of the enterococcal strain are required to propose an effective therapy. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD036435. Label-free quantification (LFQ) demonstrated that the majority of the high-abundance proteins corresponded to E. faecalis species. Therefore, the global proteomic repository obtained here can be the basis for further research into pathogenic Enterococcus species, thus facilitating the development of novel therapeutics.     

Ontology-based semantic similarity: A new feature-based approach

Estimation of the semantic likeness between words is of great importance in many applications dealing with textual data such as natural language processing, knowledge acquisition and information retrieval. Semantic similarity measures exploit knowledge sources as the base to perform the estimations. In recent years, ontologies have grown in interest thanks to global initiatives such as the Semantic Web, offering an structured knowledge representation. Thanks to the possibilities that ontologies enable regarding semantic interpretation of terms many ontology-based similarity measures have been developed. According to the principle in which those measures base the similarity assessment and the way in which ontologies are exploited or complemented with other sources several families of measures can be identified. In this paper, we survey and classify most of the ontology-based approaches developed in order to evaluate their advantages and limitations and compare their expected performance both from theoretical and practical points of view. We also present a new ontology-based measure relying on the exploitation of taxonomical features. The evaluation and comparison of our approach’s results against those reported by related works under a common framework suggest that our measure provides a high accuracy without some of the limitations observed in other works.     

A quantitative feedback solution to the multivariable tracking error problem

This paper introduces a novel solution for the multi‐input multi‐output (MIMO) quantitative feedback theory control design problem with tracking error specifications. Looking for a minimum controller overdesign, the technique finds new controller quantitative feedback theory bounds based on necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of suitable associated prefilter matrix elements. It improves previous approaches to the subject and includes (i) the possibility of a free selection of the nominal plant, (ii) a less conservative application of the Schwartz inequality to decisively reduce the potential controller overdesign, (iii) a methodology to design independently the elements of the prefilter matrix, and (iv) a scope of application to both sequential and nonsequential MIMO controller design methods. The benefits of the new control design technique are illustrated by means of two examples. The first one, a standard 2 × 2 MIMO problem, is provided for comparison purposes with previous approaches. The second example, included as a major control challenge, deals with a well‐known demanding distillation column benchmark problem. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analytical formulation to compute QFT bounds: The envelope method

This paper describes an analytical formulation to compute quantitative feedback theory (QFT) bounds in one‐degree‐of‐freedom feedback control problems. The new approach is based on envelope curves and shows that a QFT control specification can be expressed as a family of circumferences. Then, the controller bound is defined by the envelope curve of this family and can be obtained as an analytical function. This offers the possibility of studying the QFT bounds in an analytical way with several useful properties. Gridding methods are avoided, resulting in a lower computational effort procedure. The new formulation improves the accuracy of previous methods and allows the designer to calculate multivalued bounds. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimating maize ground cover using spectral data from Aqua-MODIS in Córdoba,Argentina

Ground cover by foliage is a biophysical property of vegetation linked both to the interception of photosynthetically active radiation and to the crop transpiration rate. The spectral information provided by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on board the Aqua (Aqua-MODIS) satellite, which has a spatial resolution of 250 m, is an observation and monitoring resource that may be appropriate for estimating the ground cover of maize when plots exceed 40 ha. In this research, 10 maize plots were monitored in the central region of the province of Córdoba, Argentina, during the 2005–2006 growing season, obtaining photographic records of ground cover and soil moisture data. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of the Aqua-MODIS images showed a significant linear relationship with maize ground cover which, when the complete cycle is taken into account, is sufficient to explain 87% of the variability of ground cover, with an RMSE of 9%, a level of accuracy that increases when the crop is in the vegetative stage and the moisture conditions of the soil are less limiting. Other vegetation indices and linear mixed models were assessed. In addition to using data from the red and near-infrared channels, they incorporate information about soil conditions, but they showed no predictive advantages compared to the NDVI, resulting in simple models that explained between 77% and 87% of the variability of ground cover, with RMSE values of between 9% and 14%.