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Rewinding machines are used in the paper converting industrial sector to unroll paper veils from large source reels and wind them around smaller rolls, for the production of paper logs to be used in household activities. Many different types of rewinding machine exist, and they are mostly based on stapling devices which automatically unroll a large coil of paper, roll it up around a new log, stop the veil allowing it to be torn off, unload the completed paper log, and reload a new paper core to be rolled up. Winding units generally include a primary and a secondary roller, supplying the desired rotational speed for winding, and a pressure unit consisting of a pressure roller in contact with the paper log being rolled up, which assures adequate containment and avoids the paper log to escape. All known systems have some mechanical limitations, mainly due to the contact of the pressure roller with the paper log, causing instabilities and vibrations, particularly when working with soft paper veils. This limits the maximum possible winding speed. The aim of this paper is it to present a detailed kinematic analysis of a novel pressure unit which overcomes the aforementioned limitation.

We present a metapopulation dynamic model for the diffusively-coupled rock-paper-scissors (RPS) game with mutation in scale-free hierarchical networks. We investigate how the RPS game changes by mutation in scale-free networks. Only the mutation from rock to scissors (R-to-S) occurs with rate μ. In the network, a node represents a patch where the RPS game is performed. RPS individuals migrate among nodes by diffusion. The dynamics are represented by the reaction-diffusion equations with the recursion formula. We study where and how species coexist or go extinct in the scale-free network. We numerically obtained the solutions for the metapopulation dynamics and derived the transition points. The results show that, with increasing mutation rate μ, the extinction of P species occurs and then the extinction of R species occurs, and finally only S species survives. Thus, the first and second dynamical phase transitions occur in the scale-free hierarchical network. We also show that the scaling law holds for the population dynamics which suggests that the transition points approach zero in the limit of infinite size.

Rice is one of the most abundant food crops in the world and its straw stands as an important source of fibres both from an economic and an environmental point of view. Pulp characterization is of special relevance in works involving alternative raw materials, since pulp properties are closely linked to the quality of the final product. One of the analytical techniques that can be used in pulp characterization is near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). The use of NIRS has economic and technical advantages over conventional techniques. This paper aims to discuss the convenience of using NIRS to predict Kappa number in rice straw pulps produced under different conditions. We found that the resulting Kappa number can be acceptably estimated by NIRS, as the errors obtained with that method are similar to those found for other techniques.

Great loss due to vegetable decay during transportation and preservation is a main problem all over the world. To solve this problem, a kind of easy-to-preserve and fast vegetable product, vegetable paper, was prepared in this research. The optimal technology for preparation of vegetable paper was as follows: The fresh vegetables were scalded in an aqueous solution containing 0.3% of sodium bicarbonate (%w/w) for 2 min at 85C and dehydrated by centrifugation and then homogenized along with some food hydrocolloids. The vegetable slurry was spread over a cloth with a thickness of 1–2 cm and dried by a microwave oven. Sensory evaluations among the university students and teachers showed that the most acceptable formula (%w/w) based on raw vegetable for producing vegetable paper was as follows: water, 10%; sodium carboxymethyl cellulose, 0.2%; sodium alginate, 0.15%; soy protein isolate, 0.125%; dextrin (cold-water-soluble starch), 0.375%. Preservation study using VCand chlorophylls as index indicated that package material and method as well as light contribute to quality of vegetable paper during storage. Moreover, using the vegetable juice to produce fermented product was also discussed. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS This research presents a technology to produce tasty vegetable paper using fresh vegetables as raw materials. The moisture content of this new kind of fast vegetable product was below 5%, while 90% or above of raw materials were maintained solids, which solved the problem for the transportation and preservation of fresh vegetables. The technology could be applied for all kind of fruits and vegetables, and the products are welcomed by all populations, especially by children who do not like eating fresh vegetables.

We give a counter example to the comparison principle for the multipoint BVPs (by Xuxin Yang, Zhimin He, and Jianhua Shen, in Mathematical Problems in Engineering, Volume 2009, Article ID 258090, doi:10.1155/2009/258090). Then we suggest and prove a corrected version of the comparison principle.

We show that the sufficient condition of the above mentioned paper is also necessary for the boundedness of Bergman type projections on a class of regulated domains.

We improve a result in Silverman's paper (1999) and answer a question he posed. We also consider a similar problem and obtain sufficient conditions for starlikeness.

A technique used by S. Haber to prove an elementary inequality is applied here to obtain a more general inequality for convex sequences.

In line with the growing environmental awareness developed along the last decades, modern societies are urged to evolve into sustainable economics where the reuse of organic wastes represents the key feedstock for a green transaction. The oil phase obtained from different biomasses has the potential to be a source of food supplements, medicines, cosmetics, or feedstock for biofuel production. In the present work, the composition of 104 different biomasses including seeds, peels, flowers, plants, and leaves has been reviewed for the lipid content. Based on the most frequent fatty acids screened, experimental data for normal boiling point temperature, normal melting point, critical properties, and acentric factor were collected and compared with the most common estimation methods, which are functions of the molecular structure and interaction between different functional groups. New predictive equations have been proposed to reduce the estimation deviation and to provide simple correlations to be used in simulation software when dealing with biomass processes. For all the properties, the estimations proposed have an absolute average deviation equal to or lower than 4.6%.

The basic recurrence equations given in our previous paper have to be modified when males and females are differentiated. The modifications we gave are incorrect because we ignored the deviations from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium when sampling and selection are applied separately to the two sexes. Appropriate corrections are presented in this paper.

The potential of predicting maturity using total soluble solids (TSS) and identifying organic from inorganic pineapple fruits based on near-infrared (NIR) spectra fingerprints would be beneficial to farmers and consumers alike. In this study, a portable NIR spectrometer and chemometric techniques were combined to simultaneously identify organically produced pineapple fruits from conventionally produced ones (thus organic and inorganic) and also predict total soluble solids. A total of 90 intact pineapple fruits were scanned with the NIR spectrometer while a digital refractometer was used to measure TSS from extracted pineapple juice. After attempting several preprocessing techniques, multivariate calibration models were built using principal component analysis (PCA), K-nearest neighbor (KNN), and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) to identify the classes (organic and conventional pineapple fruits) while partial least squares regression (PLSR) method was used to determine TSS of the fruits. Among the identification techniques, the MSC-PCA-LDA model accurately identified organic from conventionally produced fruits at 100% identification rate. For quantification of TSS, the MSC-PLSR model gave Rp = 0.851 and RMSEC = 0.950 °Brix, and Rc = 0.854 and RMSEP = 0.842 °Brix at 5 principal components in the calibration set and prediction set, respectively. The results generally indicated that portable NIR spectrometer coupled with the appropriate chemometric tools could be employed for rapid nondestructive examination of pineapple quality and also to detect pineapple fraud due to mislabeling of conventionally produced fruits as organic ones. This would be helpful to farmers, consumers, and quality control officers.

Departamento de Ingenieria en Alimentos, Universidad de La Serena: PR16331, PEQ16334. Compania Pisquera de Chile.

Although little attention is paid to corrosion study in food processing and production industry, it is highly important to take a critical look at what transpires at the production stages and how these can affect human health due to contamination of the final product. This research employs the design of experiment module of a Minitab software to analyze the corrosion effect of mild steel in fruit juice environment. Coupon method was adopted to calculate the rate of corrosion in orange, pineapple, and cashew fluid for a duration of 25 days with measurement taken at 5-day intervals. The highest corrosion rate of 0.71 mmpy was observed in cashew fluid followed by pineapple fluid, and the least rate of 0.08 mmpy was observed in orange fluid. The generalized model equation was obtained to predict corrosion rate of mild steel in a similar environment. In general, design of experiment offers a better way to analyze corrosion experiment result, and this innovative idea is shown in this work.

The quality of food can be adversely affected by physical, chemical, biochemical and microbiologic processes. Thus, hurdle technology was developed as a new concept that employs a combination of different preservation techniques to achieve multitarget, mild but reliable preservation effects. The aim of this work was to preserve mango pulp by hurdle technology as an alternative procedure to freezing process. The process of applying these hurdle parameters consisted of water activity depression stepped by the addition of 25% glucose syrup and sucrose with respect to pulp weight, adjustment of pH to pH 3 and incorporation of 0.1% potassium sorbate as a preservative. The physicochemical and microbiologic behaviors of the preserved product by hurdle technology were satisfactory compared with the control (frozen mango pulp), and the rheologic behaviors of the attained products were determined by the Herschel–Bulkley model for non-Newtonian fluids. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS This article describes mango pulp preserved by combined methods, as well as its physicochemical, microbiologic and rheologic characterization. In general, hurdle technology of several foods has been studied extensively; nevertheless, a limited number of published papers about mango pulp preserved by this method are found in the literature. Thus, the experimental data reported in this paper may be important for the scientific community of food science and technology.

The classic assay for a large population biomass is time-consuming, labor intensive, and chemically expensive. This paper would find out a rapid assay for predicting biomass digestibility from biomass structural features without hydrolysis. We examined the 62 representative corn stover accessions that displayed a diverse cell-wall composition and varied biomass digestibility. Correlation analysis was firstly to detect effects of cell-wall compositions and wall polymer features on corn stover digestibility. Based on the dependable relationship of structural features and digestibility, a neural networks model has been developed and successfully predicted the corn stover saccharification based on the features without enzymatic hydrolysis. The actual measured and net-simulated predicted corn stover saccharification had good results as mean square error of 1.80E-05, coefficient of determination of 0.942 and average relative deviation of 3.95. The trained networks satisfactorily predicted the saccharification results based on the features of corn stover. Predicting the corn stover saccharification without hydrolysis will reduce capital and operational costs for corn stover purchasing and storage.

The removal of the bulk liquor surrounding the pulp fibers using less concentrated liquor is known as pulp washing. In the present study, a pulp washing model involving diffusion-dispersion through packed beds of finite length is presented. Separation of variables is applied to solve system of governing partial differential equations and the resulting equations are solved using Mathematica. Results from the present case are compared with those of previous investigators. The present case is giving better results than the previous investigators.

This study was conducted to determine the optimum conditions of phosphate (P2O5) and the anionic polyacrylamide flocculant (APF) that could result in best cane juice clarification. Two sugar cane varieties (B52298 and NCO334) were used. The P2O5 for both varieties was at 158.6, 200, 300, 400 and 441.4 (mg/L) and APF were used at 0.59, 1, 2, 3 and 3.41 ppm and 0.17, 1, 3, 5 and 5.83 for B52298 and NCO334, respectively. For the B52298 variety, the optimum ranges of levels were 192.2–270 mg/L P2O5 and 2.91–3.41 ppm of APF. For NCO334 variety, the optimum ranges of levels were 229–264.5 mg/L P2O5 and 5.13–5.83 ppm of APF. Practical Applications A profitable and economical process calls for optimal combination process input. High clear juice turbidity, high product color and lower rate of crystallization were some of the problems that the sugar factory is facing. To minimize these problems, dosing of the optimum amount of phosphate and anionic polyacrylamide flocculant is essential and remains a question to be answered by research. The variability in the composition of the juice as a result of differing geographical location, cane variety and seasonal influence as well as the conditions to which the cane is subjected during harvesting and transportation makes the nature of the research to be area specific; hence, there is no universal dose of phosphate and flocculant so as to produce the best possible quality clear juice. Each factory is therefore essentially unique and adopts a system of clarification based on the simple defecation process with modifications usually determined by a combination of research and experience.

Background and Aims Winemaking generates a large quantity of grape marc that causes environmental and economic problems, which could be minimised by exploiting and adding value to these by-products. Marc is composed of seeds, skins and stems that are an important source of phenolic substances, which have antioxidant properties and potential benefits to human health. It is necessary to develop novel methods for assessing the composition of marc because conventional analyses are destructive and require lengthy preparation procedures and chemical reagents. Methods and Results Near-infrared hyperspectral imaging has been used for evaluating 27 individual phenolic substances in the components of grape marc after freeze-drying, the only sample preparation step. By applying partial least squares regression to the spectral data, values of R2 up to 0.98 were obtained even for estimating some minor compounds. Conclusions This methodology arises as an attractive alternative to analyse the phenolic composition of grape marc because of its speed and simplicity. Significance of the Study The use of this technique will allow wine producers to quickly determine the phenolic composition and decide the destination of this by-product.

On the basis of basic law in AASHTO2007 model, the forecasting mathematical model of drying shrinkage of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) is established by regression analysis and experimental study. The research results show that (1) with the replacement rate of RCA increases, the drying shrinkage value of RAC increases; this trend is even more obvious in the early drying time. (2) The addition of fly ash can inhibit the drying shrinkage of RAC, but the effect is not very obvious. Specifically, the addition of fly ash will increase the shrinkage to some extent when the mixing amount is 20%. (3) The addition of expansive agent can obviously inhibit the shrinkage of RAC; the inhibition affection is better than that of fly ash. (4) The forecasting mathematical models of drying shrinkage of RAC established in this paper have high accuracy and rationality according to experiment validation and error analysis.

This work was aimed at optimizing the mechanized drying conditions for wadi using response surface methodology. Three separate variables, found to influence the quality of wadi, were selected. The effect of these independent variables, viz. relative humidity (RH) (20–65%), drying time (24–120 h) and sample diameter (15–35 mm), on the overall acceptability (OAA) based on its sensory attributes and the aw was studied using a central composite design. Twenty experimental runs in triplicate were conducted to obtain the optimal conditions as 42.5% RH, 72-h time and a sample diameter of 25 mm. Wadi prepared under these conditions was organoleptically acceptable. Although all the three factors had an influence on the OAA, the present study indicates that the drying time and size of wadi had a greater influence. The experimental value of both the responses OAA and aw obtained had no significant difference from the predicted values. Practical Applications Wadi is a legume-based condiment popularly consumed in the Indian subcontinent. In spite of its popularity, a large-scale production by mechanizing the manufacturing process is not carried out. The manufacturers rely on the solar energy for drying wadi, which restricts its production only to the winter season when the temperature and humidity are optimum for proper fermentation and drying. In order to remove this climate-dependent constraint, the present work was taken up with an aim to optimize the drying conditions of wadi inside a dehumidifier. The conditions, thus, optimized were found to produce wadi of satisfactory sensory qualities and aw values. The latter is an important factor determining the shelf stability of any food, and aw beyond the critical limit can lead to food spoilage. So, optimized manufacturing conditions will always ensure quality production.

Recently, we introduced a type of autocorrelation function (ACF) to describe a long-range dependent (LRD) process indexed with two parameters, which takes standard fractional Gaussian noise (fGn for short) as a special case. For simplicity, we call it the generalized fGn (GfGn). This short paper gives the power spectrum density function (PSD) of GfGn.

The chhana roll is an indigenous, milk-based sweet of the Indian subcontinent that is sold at cottage scale without any packaging. It is prepared from chhana, an intermediate product obtained from heat and acid coagulation of milk. In order to enhance its shelf life, the product was processed in a retort pouch using a stationary retort. Product optimization was carried out through response surface methodology using two variables, i.e., level of nisin (0.00–692 IU/g) and process time (15–25 min). The Fo varied from 4.48 to 12.04 min. The lag period for the heating curve, jh (0.82–0.96), heating rate index, fh (8.5–13.9 min) and the lag factor for the cooling curve, jc (0.83–1.77) implied a conductive heating regime. The total process time (B′) ranged from 13.94 to 28.13 min. The process time of 15 min and nisin concentration of 118.73 IU/g resulted in a shelf life of 90 days at 37C. Practical Applications The chhana roll is an indigenous, milk-based sweet of Indian subcontinent. It is sold at cottage scale without any packaging. There is no large-scale process to manufacture this product, which could result in its commercialization. However, it is also very susceptible to microbial spoilage due to unhygienic conditions adopted during its manufacture, handling and its poor packaging. Hence, with a view to improve the shelf life of the chhana roll, it was subjected to thermal sterilization in combination with a biopreservative. This study could be useful as it aims at developing a large-scale retort-based process for production of the channa roll with a commercially useful shelf life under ambient conditions.

Artificial neural network (ANN) model was used for predicting colour properties of 100% cotton denim fabrics, including colour yield (in terms of K/S value) and CIE L*, a*, b*, C*, and h° values, under the influence of cellulase treatment with various combinations of cellulase processing parameters. Variables examined in the ANN model included treatment temperature, treatment time, pH, mechanical agitation, and fabric yarn twist level. The ANN model was compared with a linear regression model where the ANN model produced superior results in the prediction of colour properties of cellulase-treated 100% cotton denim fabrics. The relative importance of the examined factors influencing colour properties was also investigated. The analysis revealed that cellulase treatment processing parameters played an important role in affecting the colour properties of the treated 100% denim cotton fabrics.

Moisture content is an important feedstock quality in converting it into energy through biochemical or thermochemical platforms. Knowledge of moisture sorption relationship is useful in drying and storage to preserve the quality of feedstocks. Moisture sorption isotherms for potential feedstocks such as corn stover and big bluestem are missing. EMC values of corn stover and big bluestem were determined using static gravimetric technique with saturated salt solutions (ERH 0.12–0.89) at different temperatures (20, 30, and 40°C). Depending upon the ERH values, EMC values were ranged from 8.0 to 19.6 and 8.8 to 19.2% db for corn stover and big bluestem, respectively, and they followed typical type II isotherm found in food materials. Nonlinear regression was used to fit five commonly used three-parameter isotherm models (i.e., modified Oswin model, modified Halsey model, modified Chung-Pfost model, modified Henderson model, and the modified Guggenheim-Anderson-de Boer (GAB) model) to the experimental data. Modified Halsey emerged as the best model with highF-statistic andR2values with lowEmandEsand fairly random scattered residual plot for corn stover and big bluestem. These models can be used to predict the equilibrium moisture content of these feedstocks starting from harvesting, drying, preprocessing, transportation, storage, and conversion.

SummaryThe genomic control (GC) approach is extensively used to effectively control false positive signals due to population stratification in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). However, GC affects the statistical power of GWAS. The loss of power depends on the magnitude of the inflation factor (λ) that is used for GC. We simulated meta-analyses of different GWAS. Minor allele frequency (MAF) ranged from 0·001 to 0·5 and λ was sampled from two scenarios: (i) random scenario (empirically-derived distribution of real λ values) and (ii) selected scenario from simulation parameter modification. Adjustment for λ was considered under single correction (within study corrected standard errors) and double correction (additional λ corrected summary estimate). MAF was a pivotal determinant of observed power. In random λ scenario, double correction induced a symmetric power reduction in comparison to single correction. For MAF λ adjustment. Moderate λ approach yielded more conservative results for population stratification adjustment, especially for MAF λ approach yielded an approximate two fold decrease in power when compared to moderate λ approach and almost four fold when the original random λ scenario was considered. Meta-analysis power can be adequate to detect significant variants even for double GC correction when effect size exceeds >1·2 and MAF >5%. Our results provide a quick but detailed index for power considerations of future meta-analyses of GWAS that enables a more flexible design from early steps based on the number of studies accumulated in different groups and the λ values observed in the single studies.

An alternative approach to classical correspondence analysis was developed in [3] and involves decomposing the matrix of Pearson contingencies of a contingency table using orthogonal polynomials rather than via singular value decomposition. It is especially useful in analysing contingency tables which are of an ordinal nature. This short paper demonstrates that the confidence circles of Lebart, Morineau and Warwick (1984) for the classical approach can be applied to ordinal correspondence analysis. The advantage of the circles in analysing a contingency table is that the researcher can graphically identify the row and column categories that contribute or not to the hypothesis of independence.

The shelf life of the organic passion fruit pulp, both fresh and pasteurized at 70C and 90C and stored under refrigeration, was evaluated. The heat treatment did not affect the sensory and physicochemical characteristics of the pasteurized pulps when compared with the fresh pulp, except for the ascorbic acid content. The pulps were also microbiologically safe. The pulps pasteurized at 70 and 90C were suitable for consumption for a minimum shelf-life period of 207 days of storage under refrigeration and for the fresh pulp it was attributed a shelf-life period of 60 to 90 days. The pulp pasteurized at 70C showed higher acceptance scores for all the attributes and purchase intention scores, suggesting a more stable behavior and higher sensory quality. Practical Applications This work intended to evaluate the influence of the minimum pasteurization on the sensory acceptance and microbiological and physicochemical characteristics of the organic passion fruit pulp stored under refrigeration, with the aim to identify the shelf life. Heat treatment is one of the processes used for food preservation. Lower pasteurization temperature than that used by the Brazilian industries and storage under refrigeration showed to be appropriate for passion fruit pulp quality. In this way, the microbiological, physicochemical and sensory features of passion fruit were preserved. This work can be used as a reference for passion fruit pasteurization, which is able to increase the shelf life of this fruit while preserving its desirable original features.

Microwave drying characteristics of Assam crush, tear, curl (CTC) tea were determined at five different microwave power of 180, 360, 540, 720 and 900 W respectively. The effect of power level on moisture content and drying rate (d.b.) of 50 g CTC tea sample were investigated. The time required to reduce the moisture content to any given level in microwave drying was dependent on the power level. Four mathematical models (Henderson and Pabis, Lewis, Page and logarithmic) were used for fitting experimental data. The estimated empirical parameters together with the corresponding sum of square error from nonlinear regression analysis for all the models were tested. The Page model was found to have the better suitability for describing drying characteristics of Assam CTC tea. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS Assam crush, tear, curl tea is an important process food commodity involving substantial commercial activities at national as well as international levels. Appropriate processing of this commercially important commodity is a critical issue to be addressed to fetch higher prices at competitive tea markets. The major disadvantages of present conventional dryers used in tea drying are low-energy efficiency and long drying time. But reduction in time and energy consumption by using microwave in tea drying could make a significant contribution to tea industry. This study may successfully used for design, analysis and performance evolution of microwave tea drying.