1,720,959 research outputs found
Oil Structuring for improving healthy and sustainable diets
No full textThe development of a sustainable food system is the biggest challenge that the modern food industry has to face. This comes from the necessity to guarantee a safe future for new generations and it is the reason why EU, with its recent publication European Green Deal, claims the need to a carbon neutral Union by 2050, recognizing the inextricable link between healthy people, healthy society, and healthy planet. Based on these considerations, the EU is asking for actions and strategies to promote a sustainable food consumption. It is a matter of fact that current food consumption patterns are unsustainable from both health and environmental points of view. Food scientist and technologist are so required to keep in consideration these aspects in developing new foods (European Commission, 2020).
Over the last decade, overweight and obesity have reached critical level all over the world, increasing the risks of life-threatening diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer (European Commission, 2020). A key strategy to fight this problem is the promotion a more plant-based diet with a balanced intake of saturated/unsaturated lipids. For these reasons, the nutritional improvement of lipid-containing foods has gained more and more interest The most promising strategy to reach this goals is the oleogelation, technique that allows the conversion of liquid oils into solid-like materials (Patel & Dewettinck, 2016). Up to now, a series of oleogelators has been studied in literature, including low-molecular weight compounds (e.g., monoglycerides, waxes, phytosterols, fatty alcohols) and polymeric high-molecular weight molecules, such as polysaccharides and proteins (Manzocco et al, 2017; Patel & Dewettinck, 2016; Plazzotta et al, 2020). However, the research of novel oil structuring approaches is still highly demanded.
Currently there are a significant number of papers dealing with the possible applications of oleogels in different foods as fat mimetics, such as bakery products, ice-cream, chocolate based products (Adili et al, 2020; Demirkesen & Mert, 2020; Patel et al, 2020; Zulim Botega et al, 2013). In these products, the inclusion in the formulation of oleogels allowed at the same time the reduction of saturated fats and the increase of unsaturated and polyunsaturated ones, while maintaining good sensory and technological performances. Beside their potential use as fat-replacers, oleogels have been recently proposed as functional components able to modulate lipolysis as well as the delivery of bioactive lipophilic molecules (Calligaris et al, 2020; Osullivan et al, 2017). It has been shown that the inclusion of lipophilic molecules into gelled oils could improve their stability during storage as well as during the passage through the gastrointestinal tract, improving their bioacessibility. From the other side, oleogelation is under study for the possibility to modulate lipolysis during digestion. Both these aspects could open new horizons for the potential of oleogels as innovative tool to improve food health functionality as well as energy management deriving from lipid ingestion (Calligaris et al, 2020; Tan et al, 2017).
Thus, innovation in the field of food oleogelation is today highly demanded in the attempt of creating the ideal oleogel that not only has good performances in foods but can bring additional benefits to human health and/or to the environment. In fact, there is still the need of developing sustainable oleogelation strategies based on the exploitation of innovative food processes and/or the structuring ability of biopolymers deriving from food waste
Application of DSC analysis to study oil gelation
No full textOver the last decades, overweight and obesity have reached critical levels all over the world, increasing risks of life-threatening diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. This has been mainly attributed to eating habits including a high consumption of palm oil or hydrogenated fats rich in saturated and trans fatty acids. The EU is asking for actions and strategies to improve the nutritional value of lipid-containing foods, thus assuring healthier and more sustainable diets, ultimately reducing health-related costs.
One of the most innovative and promising ways to face these issues is oil gelation (oleogelation). This is a relatively novel strategy by which liquid oils are structured into semi- solid materials, called oleogels, by exploiting the structuring ability of defined molecules in oil.
The interest in oleogels has increased dramatically in the last decade due to their potential as replacers of hard stock fats in different foods, such as bakery products, ice-cream, chocolate-based products. Beside their potential use as fat-replacers, oleogels have been recently proposed as functional components able to modulate lipolysis as well as the delivery of bioactive lipophilic molecules. This aspect could open new horizons for their use as a tool to improve food health functionality as well as energy management deriving from lipid ingestion.
Based on these considerations, the present research studied the effect of gelator molecules on the structural properties of oleogels obtained by using sunflower oil (SO) or extra virgin olive oil (EVOO). To this aim, a selection of gelators, i.e., rice wax (RW), monoglycerides (MG), ethyl-cellulose (EC) and γ-oryzanol and β-sitosterol (PS) were considered at 10% w/w concentration.
In this context, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis was applied to characterize the oleogelators and oleogels thermal properties as well as to study their destructuring behavior upon heating. Beside thermal properties, to better study system structure, macro- and microscopic appearance as well as oil absorbing capacity, and rheological properties were evaluated.
Both SO and EVOO were efficiently gelled by the selected molecules, showing self-standing appearance and good capacity to bind oil. However, the gelator type definitively affected the gel macro and micro characteristics. Considering thermal properties, all oleogels revealed a broad endothermic peak with lower Tpeak as compared to neat gelators. This behavior was expected and is attributable to the initial disaggregation of the network in oil followed by the melting of crystals.
Beside other analytical methodologies needed to characterized oleogel structure, DSC analysis resulted fundamental to understand the susceptibility of oleogel structure to temperature changes. This information is crucial in the attempt to use oleogel in food applications, being foods subjected to different temperature changes during food processing
Exploring the Potentialities of Cellulose Aerogels and Cryogels as Food Ingredients
Get PDFAerogels are unique nanostructured solid materials, showing extremely low density (0.01-0.2 g/cm3), high specific surface area (200-400 m2/g) and high porosity (>90%). Aerogels can be prepared from different biopolymers, such as proteins and carbohydrates. In this context, cellulose, produced from agro-industrial vegetable waste by closed-loop technologies, is a good candidate for developing food-grade aerogels. The latter could represent novel fiber-rich ingredients able to exert peculiar functionalities in foods. Nevertheless, up to now, no studies have investigated the possible development of cellulose aerogels intended as novel food ingredients.
In this work, food-grade cellulose aerogels were developed and characterized to explore their potential as food ingredients. To this aim, monolithic cellulose hydrogels (3, 4, 5% w/w) were prepared and further converted into aerogels by freeze-drying (FD) or supercritical-CO2-drying (SCD). Samples were analyzed for density, BET internal surface area, porosity, pore size, glass transition temperature (Tg), microstructure by SEM and firmness. Additionally, water and oil compatibility was assessed by monitoring absorption kinetics, maximum solvent uptake, and solvent retention ability.
SCD aerogels presented higher firmness and lower pore size as compared to FD ones. Water and oil uptake kinetics were dependent on aerogel density, with FD aerogels showing a faster and 2-times higher solvent uptake than SCD aerogels. While water absorption caused SCD and FD aerogel swelling, the oil-loaded aerogels well retained their structure.
This work demonstrates the feasibility of converting cellulose into aerogels with tailored functionalities depending on cellulose concentration and drying technique. This structural approach can be regarded as an innovative strategy to turn valuable components from plant-food side streams into novel ingredients for food applications.
This work is based upon work from COST Action "Advanced Engineering of aeroGels for Environment and Life Sciences" (AERoGELS, ref. CA18125), supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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