The Effect of Lactates on the Quality of Microwave-Cooked Chicken Patties during Storage

ABSTRACT:  The aim of this study was to determine the effect of adding 3.3% sodium lactate (SL), 0.25% calcium lactate (CL), and 1.65% SL along with 0.125% CL (SL+CL) on the physicochemical properties, cooking characteristics, and microbiological quality of microwave-cooked chicken patties compared to control (no added lactates). The addition of lactates did not affect the proximate composition of cooked chicken patties. The pH of CL- or SL+CL-containing patties was significantly ( P < 0.05) reduced compared to control or SL patties. The SL-containing patties had lower ( P < 0.05) a _w values compared to control or CL patties. The CL- or SL+CL-containing patties had lower denatured myoglobin and higher ( P < 0.05) cooking yield, surface redness (CIE a *), and chroma values. However, addition of CL alone resulted in higher total expressible fluid, indicating lower water-holding capacity. The CL-containing patties exhibited lower Warner–Bratzler shear force values and higher ( P < 0.05) penetrometer reading compared to the SL-containing patties, indicating soft texture. Thiobarbituric acid (TBA) values were significantly ( P < 0.05) reduced in all lactate-containing patties compared to control up to the 7th day of refrigerated storage under aerobic conditions. No difference ( P > 0.05) was observed in aerobic plate counts between control and lactate-added patties during 28-d storage.     

Constrained unscented recursive estimator for nonlinear dynamic systems

Nonlinear constrained state estimation is an important task in performance monitoring, online optimization and control. There has been recent interest in developing estimators based on the idea of unscented transformation for constrained nonlinear systems. One of these approaches is the unscented recursive nonlinear dynamic data reconciliation (URNDDR) method. The URNDDR approach follows the traditional predictor-corrector framework. Constraints are handled in the prediction step through a projection algorithm and in the correction step through an optimization formulation. It has been shown that URNDDR produces very accurate estimates at the cost of computational expense. However, there are two issues that need to be addressed in the URNDDR framework: (i) URNDDR approach was primarily developed to handle bound constraints and needs to be enhanced to handle general nonlinear equality and inequality constraints, and (ii) computational concerns in the application of the URNDDR approach needs to be addressed. In this paper, a new estimation technique named constrained unscented recursive estimator (CURE) is proposed, which eliminates these disadvantages of URNDDR, while providing estimates with almost the same accuracy.     

Isolation,purification and characterisation of angiotensin I‐converting enzyme–inhibitory peptides derived from catfish (Clarias batrachus) muscle protein thermolysin hydrolysates

The angiotensin I‐converting enzyme (ACE)‐inhibitory activities of catfish (Clarias batrachus) muscle protein hydrolysates were investigated. Thermolytic digests of C. batrachus sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar proteins exhibited inhibitory activity towards ACE and were purified with the aim of ultrafiltration, gel filtration and reversed‐phase high‐performance liquid chromatography (RP‐HPLC). The amino acid sequences of hydrolysates with the highest ACE‐inhibitory activities were determined using electrospray quadrupole time‐of‐flight tandem mass spectrometry (ESI‐TOFQ MS/MS). The sequences of GPPP (IC₅₀ = 0.86 μm ) and IEKPP (IC₅₀ = 1.2 μm ) corresponding to the fragments 986–989 and 441–445 of myosin‐I heavy chain were identified for the sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar protein hydrolysates, respectively. Peptide GPPP exhibited a mixed‐type inhibition whereas peptide IEKPP could only bind to the active sites of ACE. The results demonstrate that hydrolysates of C. batrachus muscle proteins obtained by thermolysin may contain bioactive peptides.     

Perovskite-based electrocatalyst discovery and design using word embeddings from retrained SciBERT language model

With the ever-increasing volume of scientific literature, there is a strong need to develop methods that allow rigorous information identification. In this contribution, a state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) model was used to select perovskite materials for electrocatalytic applications from literature. This was accomplished by obtaining word embeddings for perovskite materials from the NLP model and subsequently designing downstream tasks to discover perovskite-based electrocatalyst materials. However, embeddings could be obtained only for materials available in the literature. Consequently, a novel methodology was devised to generate embeddings for newly designed materials. Results from the analysis showed that the computed embeddings could be used to rank materials for their suitability for electrocatalytic applications. Further, the word embeddings were also employed as features in predicting the electrocatalytic activity of perovskite-based electrocatalysts. The analysis demonstrated that the fidelity of regression models increased when the embeddings were used as features.     

Step response analysis of phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC) cathode through a transient model

Transient state response analysis of phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC) cathode is important to understand various competitive processes like diffusion, reaction and product back diffusion occurring at various layers of the composite cathode. A two-dimensional unsteady state model for simulating PAFC cathode is developed as an extension of the previously developed steady-state model [S. Roy Choudhury, M.B. Deshmukh, R. Rengaswamy, A two-dimensional steady-state model for phosphoric acid fuel cells (PAFC), J. Power sources 112 (2002) 137–152]. The transient model is solved to study the impact of various parameters such as Tafel slope, diffusivity etc on the step response of the fuel cell. The effect of partial pressure variation in bulk gas for large sized PAFC cathode is also analysed. Trend analysis based on the model output is also experimentally verified using a small unit cell setup. The effect of various parameters on the settling time of the cathode, as revealed in this study, suggests possible development of a diagnostic tool employing such transient model.     

Effects of salt and ammonium hydroxide on the quality of ground buffalo meat

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of ammonium hydroxide (AH) and sodium chloride on the quality of ground buffalo meat patties. Ground buffalo meat was treated with distilled water (control), 0.5% v/w AH, 1.0% v/w AH, 2.0% v/w AH and 1.0% w/w sodium chloride was added for all the samples. Treatment with AH increased (P<0.05) the pH and water holding capacity (WHC) of ground buffalo meat patties during storage relative to their controls. Hunterlab a* (redness) and chroma values increased (P<0.05) and hue decreased (P<0.05) in all AH treated samples in comparison to controls during storage. Ammonium hydroxide significantly (P<0.05) inhibited metmyoglobin formation compared to control after 3rd day of storage. There was a significant (P<0.05) reduction in thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) values in all AH treated samples compared to control throughout storage. These results indicate the potential antioxidant and myoglobin redox stabilizing effect of AH in ground buffalo meat patties.     

Effect of prior damage on the performance of cement based coatings on rebar: macrocell corrosion studies

The performance of any rebar coating system depends upon its resistance to corrosion in the presence of chloride contaminated concrete. It also mainly depends upon its tolerance towards damage that may occur during handling, transporting and concreting. The severe corrosion of epoxy coated reinforcing steel in long key bridge and other structures in Florida gave raise to the concern over the influence of damages in the coating system [R.J. Kessler, P.G. Powers, Interim report on corrosion evaluation of substructure in Long key bridge, Corrosion Report No. 87-9A, Florida Department of Transportation, Florida, 1987]. The performance of rebar coating such as galvanizing and epoxy based coating with prior surface damage has been evaluated and reported. [J. Hartley, Concrete Jan/Feb (1994) 12–15; A. Sagues, Performance of galvanized rebars in marine substructure service, Project ZE-418, Part I, October, 1994]. To date, the performance of cement based coatings with prior damages has not been widely studied and reported. In the present investigation the effect of prior damage produced during concrete pouring has been studied on inhibited cement slurry coating. To simulate the marine substructure environment, macrocell corrosion has been created via a chloride ion concentration gradient. Test conditions and method of macrocell current measurement as described in ASTM G 109-92 have been followed. The above investigation revealed that the cement based coating appears to have better tolerance towards defects in chloride contaminated concrete as compared to epoxy based coating system. The performance of the coating is independent of the height of concrete pouring.     

Representation of thermodynamic properties of quaternary systems using interaction parameters

Integral excess free energy of a quaternary system has been expressed in terms of the MacLaurin infinite series. The series is subjected to appropriate boundary conditions and each of the derivatives correlated to the corresponding interaction coefficients. The derivation of the partial functions involves extensive summation of various infinite series pertaining to the first order and quaternary parameters to remove any truncational error. The thermodynamic consistency of the derived partials has been established based on the Gibbs-Duhem relations. The equations are used to interpret the thermodynamic properties of the Fe-Cr-Ni-N system.