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The aim of this study was to use unconventional malts in beer production and observe their effect on the wort viscosity. Six malts were analysed in this study-barley, black barley, oat, wheat, rye, and corn. Firstly, the parameters of cereals were measured after the malting process in an experimental malting house and wort production. Samples were analysed in each phase of the mashing process. Carbohydrate contents and viscosities were analytically determined from the samples. The resulting values of the dynamic viscosity were significantly higher than the values obtained by other authors, ranging from 3.4 up to 35.5 mPa·s -1 . This study also confirmed the hypothesis that states that the breakdown of carbohydrates leads to a decrease in viscosity. Values measured in the black barley malt sample were higher when compared with light barley malt. Unconventional malts had a higher viscosity and were thus more difficult to filter. If these types of malts are used it is recommended to add barley malts or malts with a higher enzyme activity to them.

The impact of storage temperature (6, 12, 20, 30℃) and period (2, 6, 10, 18, 26 weeks) on the texture, color, and sensory characteristics of dark and milk-filled chocolate bars was studied. Temperatures of 6 and 12℃ were the most suitable for bar storage; these samples were evaluated not to be significantly deteriorated by the storage period. The condition of samples stored at 20℃ started to deteriorate after 10 weeks in storage; the decline was observed mainly in meltdown rate and off-flavors, resulting in low overall acceptability. This effect was more evident in dark chocolate bars. Keeping the bars at 24℃ for 24h immediately after production (retemperation) improved the bar resistance to fat bloom, even if the decrease in the sensory quality was observed at the beginning of the storage period., Competing Interests: None., (© 2021 The Authors. Food Science & Nutrition published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Purpose: Quantitative description of hepatic microvascular bed could contribute to understanding perfusion CT imaging. Micro-CT is a useful method for the visualization and quantification of capillary-passable vascular corrosion casts. Our aim was to develop and validate open-source software for the statistical description of the vascular networks in micro-CT scans., Methods: Porcine hepatic microvessels were injected with Biodur E20 resin, and the resulting corrosion casts were scanned with 1.9-4.7 [Formula: see text] resolution. The microvascular network was quantified using newly developed QuantAn software both in randomly selected volume probes (n = 10) and in arbitrarily outlined hepatic lobules (n = 4). The volumes, surfaces, lengths, and numbers of microvessel segments were estimated and validated in the same data sets with manual stereological counting. Calculations of tortuosity, radius histograms, length histograms, exports of the skeletonized vascular network into open formats, and an assessment of the degree of their anisotropy were performed., Results: Within hepatic lobules, the microvessels had a volume fraction of 0.13 [Formula: see text] 0.05, surface density of 21.0 [Formula: see text] 2.0 [Formula: see text], length density of 169.0 [Formula: see text] 40.2 [Formula: see text], and numerical density of 588.5 [Formula: see text] 283.1 [Formula: see text]. Sensitivity analysis of the automatic analysis to binary opening, closing, threshold offset, and aggregation radius of branching nodes was performed., Conclusion: The software QuantAn and its source code are openly available to researchers working in the field of stochastic geometry of microvessels in micro-CT scans or other three-dimensional imaging methods. The implemented methods comply with reproducible stereological techniques, and they were highly consistent with manual counting. Preliminary morphometrics of the classical hepatic lobules in pig were provided.

Background: Calibration models for the Fourier transform-near infrared (FT-NIR) instrument were developed for quick and non-destructive determination of oil and fatty acids in whole achenes of milk thistle. Samples with a range of oil and fatty acid levels were collected and their transmittance spectra were obtained by the FT-NIR instrument. Based on these spectra and data gained by the means of the reference method - Soxhlet extraction and gas chromatography (GC) - calibration models were created by means of partial least square (PLS) regression analysis., Results: Precision and accuracy of the calibration models was verified via the cross-validation of validation samples whose spectra were not part of the calibration model and also according to the root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP), root mean square error of calibration (RMSEC), root mean square error of cross-validation (RMSECV) and the validation coefficient of determination (R(2) ). R(2) for whole seeds were 0.96, 0.96, 0.83 and 0.67 and the RMSEP values were 0.76, 1.68, 1.24, 0.54 for oil, linoleic (C18:2), oleic (C18:1) and palmitic (C16:0) acids, respectively., Conclusion: The calibration models are appropriate for the non-destructive determination of oil and fatty acids levels in whole seeds of milk thistle., (© 2014 Society of Chemical Industry.)

The positive effect of humic acids on the growth of plant roots is well known, however, the mechanisms and role of their physical structure in these processes have not been fully explained yet. In this work, South-Moravian lignite was oxidized by means of nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide to produce a set of regenerated humic acids. The elemental composition, solid state stability and solution characteristics were determined and correlated in vitro with their biological activity. A modified hydroponic method was applied to determine the effects of their potassium salts on Zea mays seedlings roots with respect to the plant weight, root length, root division, and starch and protein content. The relations between the determined parameters were evaluated through Principal Component Analysis and Pearson's correlation coefficients. The results indicated that the most important factor determining the biological activity of South-Moravian lignite potassium humates is related to the nature of self-assemblies, while the chemical composition had no direct connection with the root growth of Zea mays seedlings. It was demonstrated a controlled processing that provided humic substances with different chemical and physicochemical properties and variable biological activity.