Physicochemical and Functional Characterization of Baby Lima Bean (Phaseolus lunatus) Starch

One potential source of starch is the tropical legume baby lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus) that contains around 56—60% of starch. The objectives of this work were to evaluate this starch's physicochemical and functional properties and compare it with the properties of other starches. The chemical composition of lima bean starch was: 10.16% moisture, 0.20% protein, 0.67% fiber, 0.14% ash, 0.54% fat, 98.43% starch and 0.013% phosphorus. The amylose content was higher (32.7%) than that of other cereal and tuber starches but similar to other legume starches. The average granule size (diameter 17.9 μm) was comparable to that of corn starch and of other legume starches. The granule was heterogeneous, presenting an oval shape. The gelatinization temperature was 80.16 °C (range 75—87 °CC), which is similar to other legume starches but higher than that of corn starch. The molecular size (alkali number 3.22), was smaller than that of potato starch but similar to that of corn starch. Compared to corn starch, the gels were firmer and presented a higher degree of retrogradation even at high concentrations. The water solubility was positively correlated with the temperature: i.e., 1.8, 3.4, 8.5 and 12.3% at 60, 70, 80 and 90 °C, respectively. The swelling power had the same behaviour: 2.6, 3.3,12.8 and 19.9 g of water/per gram of starch at 60, 70, 80 and 90 °C, respectively. The amylogram showed that the viscosity (680 Brabender units) and stability were higher than those of commercial corn starch (252 Brabender units). The use of this starch in the preparation of syrups with high glucose contents, as well as in baked and canned products that require heating, is suggested.     

Quality Changes of Highbush Blueberries Fruit Stored in CA with Different CO2 Levels

ABSTRACT:  Quality changes of blueberries ( Vacccinium corymbosum L. cv Brigitta) were evaluated during CA storage (0 °C) with different concentrations of CO₂ (5%, 10%, and 15%) combined with 5% O₂, respectively. Atmospheric air (20.9% O₂+ 0.03% CO₂) was used as control. From samples taken at 0, 24, and 48 d of storage, unmarketable fruits and weight loss were recorded as well as color ( h ), firmness ( g ), soluble solid content (%), titratable acidity (% citric acid), ratio, and the monomeric anthocyanin content (ppm). At each sampling time, additional units were kept for 3 d at 10 °C to simulate retail holding conditions. Irrespective of gas concentration, 0.9% of the initial fresh weight was lost after 48 d at 0 °C. CA fruit had better quality than control at the 24 d sampling but due to the high number of unmarketable fruits, this advantage was not observed at 48 d at 0 °C. After 24 d of storage, fruits for CA treatments were more firm and had better color, with higher anthocyanin and acidity levels. Soluble solid content showed no significant differences throughout the cold storage period. Residual effect of CA storage was observed at the retail holding condition yielding better firmness, acidity, and ratio. However, the CO₂ level tested increased the number of unmarketable fruit in long-term storage (48 d). Response of "Brigitta" blueberries to the different CO₂ levels studied was moderate and could be related to the high storage potential of this cultivar.     

Postharvest changes in water status and chlorophyll content of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) and their relationship with overall visual quality

ABSTRACT:  The purpose of this study was to evaluate water status, chlorophyll content (C), and overall visual quality (OVQ) of fresh butter lettuce ( Lactuca sativa var. Lores) as well as these indexes' evolution during storage and their relationships, if any. Whole lettuce plants were stored at optimal postharvest conditions (0 to 2 °C and 97% to 99% relative humidity). Measured parameters during each sampling day were relative water content (RWC), water content (WC), free water (FW), bound water (BW), free water to total water ratio (FW/TW), C, and OVQ. All parameters were evaluated in the external, middle, and internal zones of lettuce heads. The external zone had higher initial values of RWC, WC, and FW than the internal zone. The external zone yielded the highest FW/TW ratio (85%), indicating that external leaves had more water available to be used in degradation reactions and were more perishable, with the lowest shelf life if compared with the other lettuce zones. During storage, water status index evolution differed from zone to zone. An increase in BW and a decrease in FW were detected in all lettuce zones. RWC turned out to be a more sensitive measurement than WC. Yet RWC showed no significant correlation with any index. The OVQ parameter correlates with FW directly, or indirectly through FW/TW in all lettuce zones; therefore, FW is an objective and quantitative measurement, which impacts on the visual quality of butter lettuce. The decrease in chlorophyll content observed in the external leaves strongly correlated with the decrease in OVQ.     

Pathways of native and fertilizer phosphorus in Argentine soils

Management of soil phosphate fertility in sustainable agriculture depends on transformations of applied fertilizers as an input to correct soil defficiencies. This research investigated the changes of P pools of different extractability with fertilization in an incubation experiment. Sequential fractionation was used in 5 native argentine soils: Entisol, Andisol, Vertisol, Mollisol and Ultisol, with 0 and 45 kg P ha^-1 added as KH₂PO₄ and incubated for 90 days. In our experimental conditions, labile inorganic P (LIP) content of control soils increased for Entisol and Mollisol (75% and 35% respectively), while moderately resistant inorganic fractions (MRIP) were greater in Andisol (95%) and Ultisol (39%) following incubation. This increase was related to a decrease in labile organic fractions (LOP) in Andisol (-73%), Mollisol (-36%) and Ultisol (-36%). Moderately resistant organic forms (MROP) were significatively lower for all soils except Mollisol.As a consequence of P fertilization, LIP increased for Entisol (146%), Vertisol (23%) and Mollisol (39%), and MRIP showed the same tendence in Ultisol (57%) and Andisol (97%). LOP was signifcatively lower for all soils, except Andisol. MROP decreased in all soils except Mollisol, with the greatest variation in Andisol (-56%). In this experiment, labile P, the agronomically important pool, showed a similar pathway for native and fertilizer P for each taxonomic Order, with a significative increase in Mollisol and Entisol. P for each taxonomic Order, with a significative increase in Mollisol and Entisol.The main reservoir for fertilizer P was IP, mainly LIP in Mollisol and Entisol, and MRIP in Vertisol, Andisol and Ultisol.Organic P tended to decrease with incubation, and the highest values of organic fractions were found in younger soils (Entisol and Andisol), followed by Ultisol. Residual effect of fertilizer could be higher in Andisol and Ultisol due to transformation into non-labile forms.     

Factors influencing the erosion rate and the drug release kinetics from organogels designed as matrices for oral controlled release of a hydrophobic drug

Abstract

This article proposes solid-like systems from sunflower oil structured with a fibrillar network built by the assembly of 12-hydroxystearic acid (12-HSA), a gelator molecule for an oil phase. The resulting organogels were studied as oral controlled release formulations for a lipophilic drug, Efavirenz (EFV), dissolved in the oil. The effects of the gelator concentration on the thermal properties of the organogels were studied by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and showed that drug incorporation did not change the sol–gel–sol transitions. The erosion and drug release kinetics from organogels under conventional (filling gelatin capsules) or multiparticulate (beads obtained by prilling) dosage forms were measured in simulated gastric and intestinal fluids. EFV release profiles were analyzed using model-dependent (curve-fitting) and independent approaches (Dissolution Efficiency DE). Korsmeyer–Peppas was the best fitting release kinetic model based on the goodness of fit, revealing a release mechanism from organogels loaded with EFV different from the simple drug diffusion release mechanism obtained from oily formulations. From organogels, EFV probably diffuses through an outer gel layer that erodes releasing oil droplets containing dissolved EFV into the aqueous medium.     

Power series-based algorithm for dedicated protection in WDM optical networks

WDM optical networks allow the transmission of multiple services with high rates and low cost. Therefore, the occurrence of a failure in any network element can cause loss of several services. Some survival mechanisms may be used to try to overcome this type of failure event. We present in this paper a new dedicated protection algorithm for link-failure survivability in WDM optical networks, referred to as power series routing-based dedicated protection (PSR-DP) algorithm. PSR-DP is based on the evaluation of the network links’ costs by using a power series expansion. This power series expansion uses input variables based on some relevant information of the network such as link physical length and wavelength availability. Other contribution of this paper is to propose a new input variable based on the wavelength continuity constraint. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared to other well-known algorithms in the literature. We also propose a modification to Suurballe’s algorithm and compare it with our PSR-DP algorithm. Three different topologies are used in our simulations, and statistical analysis is performed on the results of the investigated algorithms. In all simulated cases, PSR-DP algorithm outperformed the other analyzed algorithms.     

A multi-relational and interactive model for supporting the design process in the conceptual phase

The article presents an interactive model that increases the possibilities of exploration during the design process, increasing the number of ways to guide and build the design alternatives. The model considers a knowledge representation, based on the function–behaviour–structure framework that increases the number of relations between the representation levels.With this model, the designer can explore and converge the design space by means of rules that connect the abstraction levels. The model begins the synthesis from any level of abstraction; it explores the knowledge by means of pop-up menus, which can be freely selected by the user and makes it possible to go back to higher levels of abstraction during the synthesis.The paper starts with a brief survey of some of the most significant functional synthesis models and the knowledge schemes used, and then it describes the proposed model and its application to a design case.     

Traffic classification at the radio spectrum level using deep learning models trained with synthetic data

Traffic recognition is commonly done using deep packet inspection or packet‐based approaches. However, these methods require the listening device to be part of the network and raise privacy concerns. Traffic recognition models that operate directly at the spectrum level could, for instance, be used for smart spectrum management. To this extent, we present such an approach using deep learning methods. In particular, we present a convolutional neural network architecture that forms the basis for prediction models to recognize different transport protocols, burst traffic with different duty cycles, and different transmission rates. These models are trained with pure synthetic data to lighten the burden of data collection. As such, we validate recent successes in the area of robotics in the context of wireless networks. We compare the performance of two different datasets that contain spectrum images in either time or time‐frequency domain. Our evaluation shows that using time domain data results in an accuracy of at least 96% across all models. Time‐frequency information improves this accuracy even further. Furthermore, a validation with real‐life data shows that it is still possible to discriminate between different transmission rates with an accuracy of around 87%, while the detection of duty cycles and transport protocols takes place with accuracies of, respectively, around 73% and 78%. Finally, we also present a small‐scale real‐life prototype.