Improving water retention of chicken breast meats by CaCl2 combined with pulsed electric fields

Frozen poultry meat is the most widely consumed animal-based food. However, water loss often leads to quality loss of poultry meat. Therefore, the present study sought to investigate the combined effect of calcium chloride (CaCl₂) and pulsed electric fields (PEF) treatment on chicken breast meats and the mechanisms underlying protein degradation. The results showed that the synergistic effect was superior to the single treatment. Compared with the untreated group, the combination of CaCl₂ and PEF increased water holding capacity of chicken breast meats by 16.61% and decreased cooking loss by 28.93%. Low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) results indicated that the synergistic treatment promoted water molecules' binding capacity in myofibrils of poultry meat, which exhibited higher immobilised water. Additionally, the combination of CaCl₂ and PEF led to increased degradation of proteins of high-molecular weight and surface hydrophobicity of myofibrillar protein. Furthermore, the extension of the protein molecule and microenvironmental changes promoted interaction between protein and water. In conclusion, the synergistic treatment of CaCl₂ and PEF enhanced water retention and improved physicochemical properties of the myofibrillar protein in chicken breast meats.     

Electro-magneto temperature-dependent vibration analysis of functionally graded-carbon nanotube-reinforced piezoelectric Mindlin cylindrical shells resting on a temperature-dependent,orthotropic elastic medium

Vibration smart control analysis of a temperature-dependent functionally graded-carbon nanotube-reinforced piezoelectric cylindrical shell embedded in an orthotropic elastic medium is investigated. The mixture law is used for obtaining the material properties of the structure. The structure is subjected to a 2D magnetic field. Considering the first-order shear deformation theory, the motion equations are obtained. Based on an analytical method and differential quadrature method, the frequency is calculated. The effects of applied voltage, magnetic field, volume percent, and distribution type of carbon nanotubes, temperature, orthotropic elastic medium, and length to radius ratio of the shell are shown on system frequency.     

Efficient atom localization via probe absorption in an inverted-Y atomic system

The behaviour of atom localization in an inverted-Y atomic system is theoretically investigated. For the atoms interacting with a weak probe field and several orthogonal standing-wave fields, their position information can be obtained by measuring the probe absorption. Compared with the traditional scheme, we couple the probe field to the transition between the middle and top levels. It is found that the probe absorption sensitively depends on the detuning and strength of the relevant light fields. Remarkably, the atom can be localized at a particular position in the standing-wave fields by coupling a microwave field to the transition between the two ground levels.     

The effect of moderate pulsed electric fields on autolysis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and the amino acid content in autolysates

The effect of moderate pulsed electric fields (MPEF) strength on autolysis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae was evaluated in this study. After exposure to MPEF with intensity of 7 kV cm⁻¹ for 4 ms, the integrity of the cell wall was obviously destroyed and the inactivation of S. cerevisiae reached 99.43%. During the subsequent 42-h autolysis process, the release of free α-amino nitrogen of MPEF-treated cells, as well as extracellular protease activity, was significantly (P < 0.05) higher than that of untreated cells. Moreover, exposure to 7 kV cm⁻¹ led to an increase of the total amino acid of 149.36%. In particular, the content of aspartic acid and glutamic acid which are important umami flavour precursors increased by 232.55% and 209.40%, respectively. These results indicate that MPEF will be an effective method to accelerate autolysis of S. cerevisiae for obtaining high-quality yeast extract as flavour enhancers and nutrition supplements.     

Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Stimulation in Osteogenesis and Chondrogenesis: Signaling Pathways and Therapeutic Implications

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are the main cell players in tissue repair and thanks to their self-renewal and multi-lineage differentiation capabilities, they gained significant attention as cell source for tissue engineering (TE) approaches aimed at restoring bone and cartilage defects. Despite significant progress, their therapeutic application remains debated: the TE construct often fails to completely restore the biomechanical properties of the native tissue, leading to poor clinical outcomes in the long term. Pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMFs) are currently used as a safe and non-invasive treatment to enhance bone healing and to provide joint protection. PEMFs enhance both osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation of MSCs. Here, we provide extensive review of the signaling pathways modulated by PEMFs during MSCs osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation. Particular attention has been given to the PEMF-mediated activation of the adenosine signaling and their regulation of the inflammatory response as key player in TE approaches. Overall, the application of PEMFs in tissue repair is foreseen: (1) in vitro: to improve the functional and mechanical properties of the engineered construct; (2) in vivo: (i) to favor graft integration, (ii) to control the local inflammatory response, and (iii) to foster tissue repair from both implanted and resident MSCs cells.     

On auto- and cross-interdependence in interval field finite element analysis

This paper discusses the concepts of auto- and cross-interdependence in interval field finite element analysis. In classic interval analysis, independent intervals are used to construct hyper-rectangular input spaces that correspond to the bounded uncertainty that is present on some model parameters. This is a direct result from the inability of modeling interdependence. Such assumption of complete independence might prove in some cases to be highly over-conservative. A first example is the modeling of spatial uncertainty, where the interdependence is governed by allowable spatial gradients of field realizations. Secondly, interdependence can also occur in case uncertainty in several structural quantities has the same root cause (eg, the manufacturing process). Recent work by the authors introduced concepts for modeling dependence between intervals in a spatial and multivariate context. However, it is unclear how an analyst has to deal with multiple quantities that have a spatial uncertainty component and are furthermore interdependent. This paper presents an approach to link multiple interval fields using recently introduced convex hull pair constructions and inverse distance weighting interpolation. Two case studies to illustrate the new methodology are included, proving the flexibility of the methodology in the modeling of auto- and cross-interdependence between multiple interval scalars and/or interval fields.     

A novel flow field with controllable pressure gradient to enhance mass transport and water removal of PEM fuel cells

An easily machined novel flow field with controllable pressure gradient across adjacent channels was designed and a two dimensional, across-the-channel, two-phase model was developed to study the gas transport and water removal of the novel configuration. The effect of channel-rib width ratio, GDL thickness and pressure gradient on the profiles of oxygen concentration and water saturation within the GDL were investigated. Special attention was paid to the mechanisms of the promoted mass transport and water removal rates under a pressure gradient. The model was validated by experiments with various channel-rib ratios and GDL thicknesses at different operating pressure. The results revealed that, oxygen concentration was increased, and the water saturation was reduced under the rib with a pressure gradient generated across the adjacent channels. The optimal pressure gradient is between 0.1 to 0.2 atm for the studied channel geometry and configuration. The mechanisms of the improved cell performance were elucidated.     

Compressively sampled light field reconstruction using orthogonal frequency selection and refinement

This paper considers the compressive sensing framework as a way of overcoming the spatio-angular trade-off inherent to light field acquisition devices. We present a novel method to reconstruct a full 4D light field from a sparse set of data samples or measurements. The approach relies on the assumption that sparse models in the 4D Fourier domain can efficiently represent light fields. The proposed algorithm reconstructs light fields by selecting the frequencies of the Fourier basis functions that best approximate the available samples in 4D hyper-blocks. The performance of the reconstruction algorithm is further improved by enforcing orthogonality of the approximation residue at each iteration, i.e. for each selected basis function. Since sparsity is better preserved in the continuous Fourier domain, we propose to refine the selected frequencies by searching for neighboring non-integer frequency values. Experiments show that the proposed algorithm yields performance improvements of more than 1 dB compared to state-of-the-art compressive light field reconstruction methods. The frequency refinement step also significantly enhances the visual quality of reconstruction results of our method by a 1.8 dB average.     

Contamination assessment in metal foam flow field-based proton exchange membrane fuel cell

The relative slippage between the open-cell metal foam flow fields and other parts in a fuel cell due to vehicular and flow-induced vibrations causes fretting. The material degradation due to fretting in nickel struts contaminate the stack and is investigated using simulated experiments. The as-formed strut surfaces are rough and increases the material loss during fretting. The total wear volume associated with a single contact in 22,000 cycles is 4.66 E?04 mm³. The contamination in the stack is estimated assuming a dodecahedron unit cell geometry and neglecting the fretting corrosion. About 47 g of debris is expected to be generated when an 8 ppi nickel foam flow fields used in a 50-cell stack for 8700 hours of operation. In addition, the generated flake shaped debris (<10 μm) can obstruct the flow of gases by clogging the gas diffusion layer. The proposed contamination estimation methodology will aid in performance prediction during service.