Measurement of Taste Intensity and Degree of Liking of Beverages by Graphic Scales and Magnitude Estimation

Graphic scaling (GS) and magnitude estimation (ME) of hedonic and intensity responses to 4–30% sucrose in lemonade and 0–16% fat in milk gave similar conclusions about the beverages, but GS was simpler to perform and responses were influenced less by numerical and contextural effects. More restricted ranges were used for ME than for GS, and for hedonic than for intensity responses. Good reproducibility was obtained, except for GS of hedonic responses to lemonade, which were bimodally distributed. Use of a higher sucrose reference (R) in lemonade decreased ME values, and increased the intensity exponent from 0.651 when R was 4% sucrose to 0.973 when R was 10% sucrose. Individual intensity exponents varied from 0.068–0.372 for milk, and from 0.146–1.075 for lemonade when R was 4% sucrose, and from 0.373–2.635 when R was 10% sucrose.     

Exosomes: Key tools for cancer liquid biopsy

Precision medicine is based on the identification of biomarkers of tumor development and progression. Liquid biopsy is at the forefront of the ability to gather diagnostic and prognostic information on tumors, as it can be noninvasively performed prior or during treatment. Liquid biopsy mostly utilizes circulating tumor cells, or free DNA, but also exosomes. The latter are nanovesicles secreted by most cell types, found in any body fluid that deliver proteins, nucleic acids and lipids to nearby and distant cells with a unique homing ability. Exosomes function in signalling between the tumor microenvironment and the rest of the body, promoting metastasis, immune remodelling and drug resistance. Exosomes are emerging as a key tool in precision medicine for cancer liquid biopsy, as they efficiently preserve their biomarker cargo. Moreover, exosomes strongly resemble the parental cell, which can help in assessing the oxidative and metabolic state of the donor cell. In this respect, exosomes represent one of the most promising new tools to fight cancer. This review will discuss the clinical applications of profiling exosomal proteins and lipids by high-throughput proteomics and metabolomics, and nucleic acids by next generation sequencing, as well as how this may allow cancer diagnosis, therapy response monitoring and recurrence detection.     

Microbial diversity and dynamics of Pecorino di Filiano PDO,a traditional cheese of Basilicata region (Southern Italy)

The evolution of microbial populations of ‘Pecorino di Filiano’ (PF) cheese was investigated during ripening in natural cave and storeroom. 62.5% of isolates grow at 45 and 15 °C and 77.7% showed high salt concentrations tolerance. Brevibacterium linens was dominant in surface samples. Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Lactobacillus paracasei subsp. paracasei were more frequently isolated both surface and core samples, while Leuconostoc lactis and Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. mesenteroides prevailed among Leuconostoc isolates. Our results suggest the importance of the ripening environment of cheeses and how a biological ecosystem affects and produces the typical features of artisanal products.     

PRELIMINARY EVALUATION OF THE APPLICATION OF THE FTIR SPECTROSCOPY TO CONTROL THE GEOGRAPHIC ORIGIN AND QUALITY OF VIRGIN OLIVE OILS

ABSTRACT

A rapid Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) attenuated total reflectance spectroscopic method was applied to determine qualitative parameters such as free fatty acid (FFA) content and the peroxide value (POV) in virgin olive oils. Calibration models were constructed using partial least squares regression on a large number of virgin olive oil samples. The best results (R² = 0.955, root mean square error in cross validation [RMSECV] = 0.15) to evaluate FFA content expressed in oleic acid % (w/w) were obtained considering a calibration range from 0.2 to 9.2% of FFA relative to 190 samples. For POV determination, the result obtained, built on 80 olive oil samples with a calibration range from 11.1 to 49.7 meq O₂/kg of oil, was not satisfactory (R² = 0.855, RMSECV = 3.96). We also investigated the capability of FTIR spectroscopy, in combination with multivariate analysis, to distinguish virgin olive oils based on geographic origin. The spectra of 84 monovarietal virgin olive oil samples from eight Italian regions were collected and elaborated by principal component analysis (PCA), considering the fingerprint region. The results were satisfactory and could successfully discriminate the majority of samples coming from the Emilia Romagna, Sardinian and Sicilian regions. Moreover, the explained variance from this PCA was higher than 96%.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

The verification of the declared origin or the determination of the origin of an unidentified virgin olive oil is a challenging problem. In this work, we have studied the applicability of Fourier transform infrared coupled with multivariate statistical analysis to discriminate the geographic origin of virgin olive oil samples from different Italian regions.

     

Cholesterol Oxidation in Baked Foods Containing Fresh and Powdered Eggs

The degree of cholesterol oxidation in commercial sweet baked foods (biscuits and snacks) and in laboratory baked biscuits, all containing fresh or powdered eggs, was determined. 7-Ketocholesterol was used as index of cholesterol oxidation and detected by two analytical methods. The analysis of the biscuits showed higher levels of 7-ketocholesterol and a more marked oxidative instability of cholesterol when prepared with powdered eggs. The significant amounts of 7-ketocholesterol found in some samples of commercial biscuits were attributed to the use of powdered eggs. These data are of importance to industries using eggs in sweet baked products which are mainly consumed by children.     

Comparison between Measured and Model ( LBLand BRE) Predicted Infiltration Rates for a Passive Solar Test Cell

The pressurization technique is applied to the test cell at the JRC, Ispra, and important parameters for the LBL and BRE air infiltration models are calculated. The predictions of these models are compared with the tracer gas (SF₆) measurements. The differences between measured and predicted values of the air infiltration rates axe quite large. When the model parameters calculated from the tracer gas measurements are used, both models predict infiltration rates in good agreement with the field measurements. This means the physical models are acceptable but there is a need to refine the procedure for determination of model parameters.     

MULTI-AGENT INFRASTRUCTURES FOR OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE COORDINATION

Coordination in multi-agented systems (MAS) can be conceived as either an agent activity (the subjective viewpoint) or an activity over agents (the objective viewpoint). The two viewpoints have generated two diverging and often contrasting lines of research, as well as different and noncompatible technologies, however, their integration is mandatory for modeling and engineering complex MAS. In this paper, we explore the issue of integration at both the model and the technology levels.

First, by taking FIPA agents and coordination artifacts as reference notions for subjective and objective approaches, respectively, we sketch a framework where agent interactions with coordination artifacts are modeled as physical acts, deliberated and executed by agents analogously to communicative actions. Then, we show how the JADE infrastructure for FIPA-compliant agents, and the TuCSoN infrastructure providing agents with coordination artifacts can be integrated at the technology level, allowing JADE agents to access TuCSoN tuple centers through JADE services.     

Role of PTX3 and complement modulation in the tumor microenvironment

Pentraxin-3 (PTX3), the prototype of long pentraxins, seems to influence complement system (CS) modulation. PTX3 and CS sustain carcinogenesis, enriching tumor microenvironment (TME) with pro-inflammatory molecules promoting angiogenesis in prostate cancer (PC) and renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Furthermore, cancer cells overexpress complement regulatory proteins, such as CD46, CD55 and CD59, which negatively affect complement pathways for support cancer cells survival. This viewpoint aims to elucidate the ambivalent role of PTX3 and the CS in the context of tumor microenvironment (TME).     

Size and Strategy of Italian Industrial Enterprises (1907-1940): Empirical Evidence and Some Conjectures

Conventional wisdom concerning Italian industry does not fitwell into the general scheme of the Second Industrial Revolutionas constituted by the growth and diffusion of large-size enterprises.This wisdom held that Italian industry was dominated by a smallgroup of large enterprises as a direct consequence of the country'sbackwardness. These enterprises were weak giants, unable toattain the dynamic advantages usually reaped by such organizations.Such interpretations have been generally based on qualitativeevidence because the quantitative evidence is very scanty. Theolder studies suggest a very high concentration, while recentstudies stress the evidence of scale economies and market imperfections.Neither result is convincing for technical reasons. This papertherefore aims at a reassessment based on a newly constructeddatabase of Italian joint stock companies. This evidence doesnot support the traditional view. Rather, it indicated thatconcentration indices are fairly low and that they do not growover the period, the bulk of the firms being of medium sizeand the giant companies few. Although such a situation couldbe attributed to Italian backwardness, the paper concludes thatthis view is too simplistic. It concludes by showing how successfulItalian companies have been able to take advantage of theirsize by means of flexible strategies.