Efficacy of Chitosan, Pectin and Xanthan as Cold Gelling Agents in Emulsion Gels Stabilized with Legume Proteins to Be Used as Pork Backfat Replacers in Beef Burgers.

This study aimed to develop stable emulsion gels enriched in polyunsaturated fatty acids, formulated with a mixture of olive (75%) and linseed (25%) oils, by incorporating two different stabilizers-pea and soy protein isolates-and three different cold gelling agents-chitosan, pectin and xanthan-to be used as pork backfat replacers in beef burgers. The color, pH, stability and textural properties of the emulsion gels were analyzed as affected by cold storage (4 °C, 7 days). Proximate composition, fatty acid content, technological and sensory properties were determined after burger processing.

Physico-Chemical, Textural and Sensory Evaluation of Emulsion Gel Formulated with By-Products from the Vegetable Oil Industry.

The aim of this study was to obtain low fat mayonnaise-like emulsion gels using sesame cake and walnut cake by-products resulting from vegetable oil extraction. The ingredients used to formulate the mayonnaise like emulsion gel samples were corn starch, sesame seed cake (SSC), walnuts seed cake (WSC), lemon juice, sunflower oil, mustard, sugar, salt, gelatin and water. Five different samples were prepared: one control lab sample (M) containing only corn starch and the other ingredients (without SSC and WSC), two samples (SO1 and SO2) with 2 and 4% of SSC (without corn starch and WSC) and two samples (WO1 and WO2) with 2 and 4% of WSC (without corn starch and SSC).

A comparative study regarding the adulteration detection of honey: Physicochemical parameters vs. impedimetric data.

Honey adulteration is a major issue for European Union and its members because of an unfair practice of different producers and beekeepers, many adulterations involve the addition of sweet, concentrated syrups which may appear like honey. In our study we analysed the influence of adulteration of tilia honey with different syrups (such as corn, rice, inverted sugar, agave, maple syrups) in different percentages (5%, 10%, and 20% respectively) on physicochemical parameters (moisture content, L*, hc, pH, free acidity, electrical conductivity (EC), 5-hydroxymetilfurfural (HMF), fructose, glucose, sucrose, turanose, trehalose, melesitose and raffinose) and impedimetric properties using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The impedimetric sensing was made using an electrochemical cell composed of two gold electrodes, and the frequency ranged between 0.

Recent European drying and its link to prevailing large-scale atmospheric patterns.

The extreme 2018 and 2022 droughts pose as recent examples of a series of drought events that have hit Europe over the last decades with wide ranging social, environmental and economic impacts. Although the link between atmospheric circulation and meteorological drought is clear and often highlighted during major drought events, there is a lack of in-depth studies linking historical changes in meteorological drought indices and prevailing large-scale atmospheric patterns in Europe. To meet this shortfall, we investigated the relation between changes in large-scale atmospheric patterns and meteorological drought, as indicated by the geopotential height at 500mb (Z500) and the Standardised Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), respectively.

Cerebellar Abscess Secondary to Cholesteatomatous Otomastoiditis-An Old Enemy in New Times.

Chronic otitis with cholesteatoma is a potentially dangerous disease that can lead to the development of intracranial abscesses. Although cerebellar abscess is half as common as cerebral abscess, it is known for its particularly difficult diagnosis, which requires the visualization of the pathological process continuity from the mastoid to the posterior fossa. In this article, we present an extremely rare case from the literature of cholesteatomatous otomastoiditis complicated with meningitis and cerebellar abscess, along with the description of technical surgical details for the plugging of the bony defect between the mastoid and posterior fossa with muscle and surgical glue.

COVID-19 positive cases in a pediatric surgery department from Romania: Case series from 2 years of pandemics.

Rationale: The COVID-19 pandemic had a dramatic effect on various health systems in terms of admissions and outcomes, including pediatric surgery activity. The aim of this paper was to analyze the outcome of SARS-CoV-2-positive patients admitted to our department during the regional COVID-19 pandemic in North-Eastern Romania. We also evaluated the changes generated in our daily practice by the COVID-19 pandemic and the dynamic response to this major challenge.

Pancreatic steatosis is an independent risk factor for post-transplant diabetes mellitus in kidney transplant patients.

Background And Aim: Post-transplant diabetes mellitus (PTDM) is associated with an increased risk of post-transplant cardiovascular diseases, and several risk factors of PTDM have been shown in the literature. Yet, the relationship between hepatic and pancreatic steatosis with post-transplant diabetes mellitus remains vague. We aimed to evaluate pancreatic steatosis, a novel component of metabolic syndrome, and hepatic steatosis association with post-transplant diabetes mellitus in a single-center retrospective cohort study conducted on kidney transplant recipients.

Personality Moderates Intra-Individual Variability in EEG Microstates and Spontaneous Thoughts.

Variability in brain activity that persists after accounting for overt behavioral and physiological states is often considered noise and controlled as a covariate in research. However, studying intra-individual variability in brain function can provide valuable insights into the dynamic nature of the brain. To explore this, we conducted a study on 43 participants analyzing the EEG microstate dynamics and self-reported spontaneous mental activity during five-minute resting-state recordings on two separate days with a twenty days average delay between recordings.

Pattern of Primary Resistance of to Clarithromycin among Pediatric Patients from North-Eastern Romania.

Background: antibiotic resistance has increased worldwide and affects the effectiveness of current therapies. The recommended first-line empiric treatment should be tailored to the local clarithromycin resistance rate. This study aimed to determine the pediatric patient profile and rate of clarithromycin resistance for patients diagnosed with by gastric biopsy.

Integrated global assessment of the natural forest carbon potential.

Forests are a substantial terrestrial carbon sink, but anthropogenic changes in land use and climate have considerably reduced the scale of this system. Remote-sensing estimates to quantify carbon losses from global forests are characterized by considerable uncertainty and we lack a comprehensive ground-sourced evaluation to benchmark these estimates. Here we combine several ground-sourced and satellite-derived approaches to evaluate the scale of the global forest carbon potential outside agricultural and urban lands.

The global biogeography of tree leaf form and habit.

Understanding what controls global leaf type variation in trees is crucial for comprehending their role in terrestrial ecosystems, including carbon, water and nutrient dynamics. Yet our understanding of the factors influencing forest leaf types remains incomplete, leaving us uncertain about the global proportions of needle-leaved, broadleaved, evergreen and deciduous trees. To address these gaps, we conducted a global, ground-sourced assessment of forest leaf-type variation by integrating forest inventory data with comprehensive leaf form (broadleaf vs needle-leaf) and habit (evergreen vs deciduous) records.

Hotspot movement of compound events on the Europe continent.

Climate indices are often used as a climate monitoring tool, allowing us to understand how the frequency, intensity, and duration of extreme weather events are changing over time. Here, based on complex statistical analysis we identify highly correlated significant pairs of compound events at the highest spatial resolution, on a monthly temporal scale across Europe. Continental-scale monthly analysis unleashes information on compound events such as high-risk zones, hotspots, monthly shifts of hotspots and trends, risk exposure to land cover and population, and identification of maximum increasing trends.

Keratoconus Detection-based on Dynamic Corneal Deformation Videos Using Deep Learning.

Objective: To assess the performance of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for automated detection of keratoconus (KC) in standalone Scheimpflug-based dynamic corneal deformation videos.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Participants: We retrospectively analyzed datasets with records of 734 nonconsecutive, refractive surgery candidates, and patients with unilateral or bilateral KC.

A cases series of endovascular and microsurgical combined treatment of intracranial aneurysms.

Objective: Our scientific paper is aimed at describing multimodal treatment of intracranial aneurysms represented by microsurgery and endovascular therapy.

Patients, Materials And Methods: We report four cases of intracranial aneurysms treated in our Department of Neurosurgery by microsurgery (clipping) and endovascular treatment (coiling), through the joint efforts of a team of highly skilled neurosurgeons.

Results: Mixed treatment has been imposed by the complications we were presented with, resulting from either of the two surgical methods employed.

Do Emotion Regulation Strategies Mediate the Relationship of Parental Emotion Socialization with Adolescent and Emerging Adult Psychological Distress?

A child's ability to cope with stress is shaped by experiences in a parent-child relationship. In this study, the direct effect of a parent's response to anger and happiness in childhood on adolescents' and emerging adults' psychological distress and the indirect effect through the mediating role of emotion regulation strategies-specifically, cognitive reappraisal and emotional suppression-were measured. To achieve our research aim, we tested four parallel mediation models using the bootstrapping method.

Climate response of a glacial relict conifer across its distribution range is invariant in space but not in time.

Climate change impacts on forest trees will be particularly severe for relict species endemic to the subalpine forest, such as Pinus cembra in the Alps and Carpathians. Most current knowledge about the response of this species to climate comes from tree-ring width analysis. However, this approach cannot perform in-depth and highly time-resolved analysis on the climate influence on specific growth processes and xylem functions.

Rowanberry-A Source of Bioactive Compounds and Their Biopharmaceutical Properties.

After a period of intense development in the synthesis pharmaceutical industry, plants are making a comeback in the public focus as remedies or therapeutic adjuvants and in disease prevention and ensuring the wellbeing and equilibrium of the human body. Plants are being recommended more and more in alimentation, in their natural form, or as extracts, supplements or functional aliments. People, in general, are in search of new sources of nutrients and phytochemicals.

Fabrication and Characterization of Dielectric ZnCrO Nanopowders and Thin Films for Parallel-Plate Capacitor Applications.

We report here the successful shape-controlled synthesis of dielectric spinel-type ZnCrO nanoparticles by using a simple sol-gel auto-combustion method followed by successive heat treatment steps of the resulting powders at temperatures from 500 to 900 °C and from 5 to 11 h, in air. A systematic study of the dependence of the morphology of the nanoparticles on the annealing time and temperature was performed by using field effect scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and structure refinement by the Rietveld method, dynamic lattice analysis and broadband dielectric spectrometry, respectively. It was observed for the first time that when the aerobic post-synthesis heat treatment temperature increases progressively from 500 to 900 °C, the ZnCrO nanoparticles: (i) increase in size from 10 to 350 nm and (ii) develop well-defined facets, changing their shape from shapeless to truncated octahedrons and eventually pseudo-octahedra.

Survival Prediction in Diabetic Foot Ulcers: A Machine Learning Approach.

Our paper proposes the first machine learning model to predict long-term mortality in patients with diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs). The study includes 635 patients with DFUs admitted from January 2007 to December 2017, with a follow-up period extending until December 2020. Two multilayer perceptron (MLP) classifiers were developed.

Reformulation of Bologna Sausage by Total Pork Backfat Replacement with an Emulsion Gel Based on Olive, Walnut, and Chia Oils, and Stabilized with Chitosan.

Bologna sausage, also called "la grassa", is a very popular meat product despite its high fat content and lipidic profile raising serious negative health concerns. An emulsion gel containing olive, walnut, and chia oils, stabilized with soy protein isolate, transglutaminase, and chitosan, was used as total pork backfat replacer in Bologna sausage. The nutritional, textural, and technological properties were assessed and sensory analyses were conducted.

The oldest known clones of Salix herbacea growing in the Northern Apennines, Italy are at least 2000 years old.

Premise: Dominant in many ecosystems around the world, clonal plants can reach considerable ages and sizes. Due to their modular growth patterns, individual clonal plants (genets) can consist of many subunits (ramets). Since single ramets do not reflect the actual age of genets, the ratio between genet size (radius) and longitudinal annual growth rate (LAGR) of living ramets is often used to approximate the age of clonal plants.

Eco-innovations, green growth, and environmental taxes in EU countries: a panel quantile regression approach.

The purpose of this study is to examine how environmental taxation, green growth, and eco-innovations contribute to a more sustainable environment. This study examines the influence of green growth, environmental taxes, and eco-innovations on carbon dioxide emissions in 26 environmentally responsive European Union (EU) countries from 2000 to 2020. The analysis was conducted using the second-generation panel unit root test, cross-sectional dependence, panel cointegration, and panel quantile regression.