Effects of Temperature During the Last Month of Ageing and of Salting Time on Dry-Cured Ham Aged for Six Months

In Spanish dry-cured ham the temperature is sometimes increased at a specific stage in order to accelerate the ageing process. In this study the effect of temperature during the final month of a 6-month process on certain physicochemical and sensorial characteristics of hams cured for different salting times was evaluated. Three salting times and three different temperatures (20, 25 and 30°C) during the last month of the process were used. Whole ham weight losses and the incidence of white film and tyrosine crystals on the cut surface were evaluated; and chemical and sensory analysis were carried out on Biceps femoris muscle. Despite reducing white film and tyrosine crystals, an increase of 2 days in salting time, had a slight effect on texture and produced an increase in the salty taste which could be regarded as excessive. Tyrosine concentration, the incidence of white film, brightness, pastiness and piquantness, all of which may negatively affect consumer acceptability, were greater in the hams with 30°C ageing temperature. © 1997 SCI.     

Adipokines as New Biomarkers of Immune Recovery: Apelin Receptor,RBP4 and ZAG Are Related to CD4+ T-Cell Reconstitution in PLHIV on Suppressive Antiretroviral Therapy

A significant proportion of people living with HIV (PLHIV) who successfully achieve virological suppression fail to recover CD4⁺ T-cell counts. Since adipose tissue has been discovered as a key immune organ, this study aimed to assess the role of adipokines in the HIV immunodiscordant response. This is a multicenter prospective study including 221 PLHIV starting the first antiretroviral therapy (ART) and classified according to baseline CD4⁺ T-cell counts/µL (controls > 200 cells/µL and cases ≤ 200 cells/µL). Immune failure recovery was considered when cases did not reach more than 250 CD4⁺ T cells/µL at 144 weeks (immunological nonresponders, INR). Circulating adipokine concentrations were longitudinally measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. At baseline, apelin receptor (APLNR) and zinc-alpha-2-glycoprotein (ZAG) concentrations were significantly lower in INRs than in immunological responders (p = 0.043 and p = 0.034), and they remained lower during all ART follow-up visits (p = 0.044 and p = 0.028 for APLNR, p = 0.038 and p = 0.010 for ZAG, at 48 and 144 weeks, respectively). ZAG levels positively correlated with retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4) levels (p < 0.01), and low circulating RBP4 concentrations were related to a low CD4⁺ T-cell gain (p = 0.018 and p = 0.039 at 48 and 144 weeks, respectively). Multiple regression adjusted for clinical variables and adipokine concentrations confirmed both low APLNR and RBP4 as independent predictors for CD4⁺ T cells at 144 weeks (p < 0.001). In conclusion, low APLNR and RBP4 concentrations were associated with poor immune recovery in treated PLHIV and could be considered predictive biomarkers of a discordant immunological response.     

Massive mesh hole repair minimizing user intervention

In constructing a model of a large twelfth century monument, we face the repair of a huge amount of small to medium-sized defects in the mesh. The total size of the mesh after registration was in the vicinity of 173M-triangles, and presented 14,622 holes of different sizes. Although other algorithms have been presented in the literature to fix these defects, in this case a fully automatic algorithm able to fix most of the defects is needed. In this paper we present the algorithms developed for this purpose, together with examples and results to measure the final surface quality. The algorithm is based on the iteration of smoothing and fitting steps on a uniform B-Spline defined on a 3D box domain bounding the hole. Tricubic and trilinear B-Splines are compared and the respective effectiveness is discussed.     

Observing the use of an input device for rehabilitation purposes

We designed and developed a vision-based computer interface which works with head movements. The system was implemented in a centre for users with cerebral palsy and they used it in contexts related with recreation or with education. During this process, it was observed that the continued use of the interface with a set of training tasks may act as a physical and cognitive rehabilitation tool and complement users’ rehabilitation therapy. We comment on five case studies of users who have worked with the interface for five months and whose qualitative outcomes, observed by the therapists who accompanied them, were positive; specifically there was improvement in work posture, head control, increased endurance, decreased involuntary movements and improved spatial orientation. The case studies also showed the need to supervise the users’ work in order to achieve these aims, along with the importance of motivation and active, voluntary participation of users in the rehabilitation process.     

A cross-layer SSO solution for federating access to kerberized services in the eduroam/DAMe network

Eduroam has become one of the main examples of network federations around the world, where hundred of institutions allow roaming end users to access the local network if they belong to any other eduroam member institution. In this context, this paper proposes how, once the end user is authenticated by the network, she can access additional federated application services (beyond the web) by means of Kerberos, without deploying additional cross-realm infrastructures. With the support of existing eduroam architecture, this proposal prevents the end user from being fully authenticated by her home institution again to access the application services, which do not need to be modified. Finally, optional advanced authorization can be used to provide added value services to end users.     

Film formation and surface properties of enzymatically crosslinked casein films

The use of renewable materials as barrier material is currently intensively investigated. Biopolymers such as polysaccharides, lipids, and proteins have been studied as barrier materials. Protein‐based films often possess good gas barrier properties, but because of their hydrophilic nature the gas barrier properties are sensitive to humidity. The improvement of the properties of sodium caseinate barrier films in potential packaging applications was studied by investigating the effects of enzymatic treatment and plasticizer on the film properties. Oxidoreductases Trametes hirsuta laccase (ThL) and Trichoderma reesei tyrosinase (TrTyr) were compared with transglutaminase for crosslinking of the sodium caseinate molecules in the films and coatings. All of the studied enzymes were able to crosslink sodium caseinate. Film solubility tests, protein electrophoresis, contact angle measurements, and atomic force microscopy studies showed that TrTyr treatment results in sodium caseinate films and coatings with better overall properties compared to treatment with ThL. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011     

Electrochemical stability of carbon nanofibers in proton exchange membrane fuel cells

This fundamental study deals with the electrochemical stability of several non-conventional carbon based catalyst supports, intended for low temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) cathodes. Electrochemical surface oxidation of raw and functionalized carbon nanofibers, and carbon black for comparison, was studied following a potential step treatment at 25.0 °C in acid electrolyte, which mimics the operating conditions of low temperature PEMFCs. Surface oxidation was characterized using cyclic voltammetry, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and contact angle measurements. Cyclic voltammograms clearly showed the presence of the hydroquinone/quinone couple. Furthermore, identification of carbonyl, ether, hydroxyl and carboxyl surface functional groups were made by deconvolution of the XPS spectra. The relative increase in surface oxides on carbon nanofibers during the electrochemical oxidation treatment is significantly smaller than that on carbon black. This suggests that carbon nanofibers are more resistant to the electrochemical corrosion than carbon black under the experimental conditions used in this work. This behaviour could be attributed to the differences found in the microstructure of both kinds of carbons. According to these results, carbon nanofibers possess a high potential as catalyst support to increase the durability of catalysts used in low temperature PEMFC applications.     

Green hams electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measures and pastiness prediction of dry cured hams

The objective of this study was to assess the value of electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) as a predictor of certain dry-cured ham sensory properties in green hams of different technological meat qualities and processed commercially. Measurements of technological meat quality (weight, ham conformation, subcutaneous fat thickness, pH(45) and pH(u)) and some sensory properties (adhesiveness, hardness, crumbliness, pastiness, fibrousness and saltiness) were carried out on the Biceps femoris (BF) and Semimembranosus (SM) muscles. The electrical parameters, R(o), R(inf), ratio (R(inf)/R(o)), F(c) and α, were obtained with EIS equipment applied to two different regions of the ham at 36 h post mortem (BF and SM). Principal component (PC) analysis was used to describe the relationship between sensory properties and electrical parameters. For BF muscle there were no clear relationships between the electrical parameters and the sensory properties. However, for SM muscle, pastiness was correlated positively with the ratio and F(c) obtained by EIS. None of the electrical parameters obtained by EIS were able to differentiate between groups of hams classified according to their level of pastiness in the BF muscle. However, in the SM muscle, the origin of the pastiness was related to the use of PSE meat and was predicted by the electrical impedance measurements. The EIS prototype correctly detected 69.2 and 56.0% (for SM and BF muscles, respectively) of the problem hams in terms of pastiness. These results could be of use in the selection of the raw material to reduce the incidence of dry-cured hams with defective texture.