Suitability,efficiency and microbiological safety of novel physical technologies for the processing of ready‐to‐eat meals,meats and pumpable products

Consumer studies and market reports show an increase in consumption of ready‐to‐eat (RTE) foods. Although conventional processing technologies can in most cases produce safe products, they can also lead to the degradation of nutritional compounds and negatively affect quality characteristics. Consumers strongly prefer food that is minimally processed with the maximum amount of health‐promoting substances. Novel processing technologies as pre‐ or post‐treatment decontamination methods or as substitutes of conventional technologies have the potential to produce foods that are safe, rich in nutrient content and with superior organoleptic properties. Combining novel with conventional processes can eliminate potential drawbacks of novel technologies. This review examines available scientific information and critically evaluates the suitability and efficiency of various novel thermal and nonthermal technologies in terms of microbial safety, quality as well as nutrient content on the production of RTE meals, meats and pumpable products.     

Computer methods for automating preoperative dental implant planning: implant positioning and size assignment

The paper presents computer-aided methods that allocate a dental implant and suggest its size, during the pre-operative planning stage, in conformance with introduced optimization criteria and established clinical requirements. Based on computed tomography data of the jaw and prosthesis anatomy, single tooth cases are planned for the best-suited implant insertion at a user-defined region. An optimum implantation axis line is produced and cylindrical implants of various candidate sizes are then automatically positioned, while their occlusal end is leveled to bone ridge, and evaluated. Radial safety margins are used for the assessment of the implant safety distance from neighboring anatomical structures and bone quantity and quality are estimated and taken into consideration. A case study demonstrates the concept and allows for its discussion.     

Antibacterial Activity of Copper Nanoparticles against Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria in Tomato Plants

Copper-based bactericides have appeared as a new tool in crop protection and offer an effective solution to combat bacterial resistance. In this work, two copper nanoparticle products that were previously synthesized and evaluated against major bacterial and fungal pathogens were tested on their ability to control the bacterial spot disease of tomato. Growth of Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria, the causal agent of the disease, was significantly suppressed by both nanoparticles, which had superior function compared to conventional commercial formulations of copper. X-ray fluorescence spectrometry measurements in tomato leaves revealed that bioavailability of copper is superior in the case of nanoparticles compared to conventional formulations and is dependent on synthesis rather than size. This is the first report correlating bioavailability of copper to nanoparticle efficacy.     

THE GAIA2JADE PROCESS FOR MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT

In this paper we present the Gaia2JADE process concerning how one can implement a multi-agent system with the JADE framework using the Gaia methodology for analysis and design purposes. This process is particularly dedicated to the conversion of Gaia models to JADE code. It is described using the Software Process Engineering Metamodel (SPEM) and extends the one proposed by FIPA for describing the Gaia modeling process. Thus, it proposes to potential MAS developers a process that covers the full software development lifecycle. This work is based on the experience we have acquired by applying this process for implementing a real-word multi-agent system conceived for providing e-services to mobile users. With this paper, we share this experience with future multi-agent systems (MAS) developers, who would like to follow this process, taking into account several technical issues that emerged during the implementation phase, helping them to easily model and implement their systems.     

Supporting exact indexing of arbitrarily rotated shapes and periodic time series under Euclidean and warping distance measures

Shape matching and indexing is important topic in its own right, and is a fundamental subroutine in most shape data mining algorithms. Given the ubiquity of shape, shape matching is an important problem with applications in domains as diverse as biometrics, industry, medicine, zoology and anthropology. The distance/similarity measure for used for shape matching must be invariant to many distortions, including scale, offset, noise, articulation, partial occlusion, etc. Most of these distortions are relatively easy to handle, either in the representation of the data or in the similarity measure used. However, rotation invariance is noted in the literature as being an especially difficult challenge. Current approaches typically try to achieve rotation invariance in the representation of the data, at the expense of discrimination ability, or in the distance measure, at the expense of efficiency. In this work, we show that we can take the slow but accurate approaches and dramatically speed them up. On real world problems our technique can take current approaches and make them four orders of magnitude faster without false dismissals. Moreover, our technique can be used with any of the dozens of existing shape representations and with all the most popular distance measures including Euclidean distance, dynamic time warping and Longest Common Subsequence. We further show that our indexing technique can be used to index star light curves, an important type of astronomical data, without modification. Reproducible Research Statement: All datasets and images used in this work are freely available at .     

Endogenous microflora in turbid virgin olive oils and the physicochemical characteristics of these oils

Cloudy olive oil, the fresh olive juice, is an intermediate form before full precipitation of freshly produced olive oil. Some consumers prefer it because they consider it as more natural and less processed. The cloudy form can persist for several months. The oil is a sort of dispersion/suspension system which can be also described as a micro‐emulsion/suspension. Water micro‐droplets were found to have a size ranging from 1 to 5 µm. Cloudiness is due to the low water content and the presence of natural emulsifiers in the oil. The suspension is formed by solid particles (5–60 µm) deriving from the olive fruit. They are present in small amounts (12–460 mg/kg oil). In the newly produced olive oil, containing 0.17–0.49% water, a number of microorganisms of different types (bacteria, yeasts, moulds) were found to survive, but at very low concentrations (<3 log cfu/mL oil). They originate from the exterior of the fruit (epiphytic microflora) and their presence is considered natural. Their enzyme activities do not seem to affect the quality of the final product.     

Effect of Lactobacillus cultures on microbiological,chemical and odour changes during storage of rainbow trout fillets

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of applying two Lactobacillus protective cultures on microbiological, chemical and odour changes during storage of refrigerated vacuum‐packed rainbow trout (Oncorrynchus mykiss) fillets. Lactobacillus sakei CECT 4808 and Lb. curvatus CECT 904^T were inoculated individually or in combination into rainbow trout fillets. The samples were vacuum‐packed and stored at 4 ± 0.5 °C and were assessed during a 20‐day storage period for microbiological (Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonas spp., lactic acid bacteria (LAB), H₂S‐producing bacteria, yeasts and moulds) and chemical (pH, total volatile basic nitrogen, lipid oxidation) parameters and off‐odour. Samples inoculated with Lb. sakei and with both strains had significantly (P≤0.05) lower counts of all microbiological spoilage indicator organisms (Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonas spp., H₂S‐producing bacteria, yeasts and moulds) than those inoculated with Lb. curvatus or the controls. All chemical parameters examined and off‐odour scores were also significantly (P≤0.05) improved in the samples inoculated with Lb. sakei or with both strains compared with those inoculated with Lb. curvatus or the controls. Lb. sakei generally showed a better preservative effect (P≤0.05) than the combination of strains. Inoculation with Lb. sakei CECT 4808 could provide an additional hurdle to improve shelf‐life of refrigerated vacuum‐packaged trout fillets, as inoculation with this strain resulted in extension of shelf‐life by 5 days. Furthermore, this strain showed some antioxidative ability, which could retard lipid oxidation in fish. Copyright © 2006 Society of Chemical Industry