1,720,955 research outputs found
Efficacy of cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) and ginger (Zingiber officinale) extracts against microbial spoilage of locally produced soymilk at ambient storage
Get PDFThere is a global concern at present with the use of synthetic chemical preservatives in foods due to carcinogenic and mutagenic related problems, resulting to the use of natural preservatives especially culinary herbs and spices in food products. Herein, efficacy of clove (Syzygium aromaticum) fruit and ginger (Zingiber officinale) rhizome was evaluated against rapid deterioration of locally produced soymilk at ambient storage by microorganisms and their bioactive compounds determined with gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Interestingly, soymilk treated with 5% ginger extract among other tested concentrations had the least bacterial (2.00±0.50 ×104 cfu/ ml) and fungal (2.00±0.00 ×104 sfu/ml) counts that did not exceed the acceptable limit for pasteurized milk (3 ×104 cfu/ ml) by day 3 of storage when compared with untreated soymilk that recorded very high bacteria (56.50±6.50 ×104 cfu/ml) and fungi (13.50±1.50 ×104 sfu/ml) counts. The efficacy could be traced to beta-amyrin (24.15%), hexadecanoic acid (15.71%) and phytol (16.55%) that are major bioactive compounds detected in the ginger extract. Thus, the ginger extract offers prospect as promising alternative that can be applied in extending the shelf life of soymilk and other liquid processed foods.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1457231
Influence of gasoline emissions on tomato fruit rot by two fungi in tropical ambient conditions
No full textAbstract Background The release of pollutant gases into the atmosphere as a result of anthropogenic activities exert effect on biological systems at many levels. Combustion engines such as those in vehicles and power generators pollute the air with emissions from their exhausts. The gases released which are oxides of carbon, nitrogen; sulphur and particulate matter have effect on living things in the immediate environment. Up to 25% of harvested fruits and vegetables are lost mainly due to microbial activities before consumption. Disease development in ripe tomato fruit (host) by two of its fungal pathogens in the presence of generator emissions is presently being studied. Results Treatment produced variable effects depending on the fungus and the route of infection. For Rhizopus stolonifer coated and Fusarium oxysporum wound inoculated fruits, significant disease reduction was noticeable in the later days of storage, specifically from day 11. Fruits coated with F. oxsporum spores without wounding however, rotted more with gasoline emissions treatment also noticeably at the later period of storage. Long exposures caused greater rot reduction where disease was reduced and more severe rot where disease was enhanced. Rhizopus infected fruits were best preserved for 14 days by 40 min exposure while wound inoculated Fusarium infected fruits were best preserved by 45 min exposure. Disease reduction was 40–50% in both types of infection. Conversely, disease was most aggravated by about 50% by 45 min exposure of unwounded Fusarium infected fruits. Other exposures also caused increased rotting by about 5–35%. Conclusions The results demonstrate that air pollution by fumes from generators may under certain host–pathogen conditions be advantageous in prolonging postharvest life of ripe tomatoes, while at other times could be devastating when fruits are subsequently stored or marketed at tropical ambient temperature. The advantage, however, outweighs the negative effects
Screening for antifungal activity of garlic (Allium sativum) powder against mycelia growth of three post-harvest pathogens
Get PDFScreening for antifungal activity of garlic powder against mycelia growth of three post-harvest pathogens (Aspergillus, Rhizopus and Mucor species) was investigated in this study. Five grams of malt extract agar (MEA) were poured into a conical flask, 100 ml of water and different weight of garlic powder (1, 3, 5 and 7 g) were separately added, stirred and later sterilized while MEA medium with no garlic added (0 g) served as control. The mycelia of each post-harvest pathogen was cut with 6mm cork borer and placed on the solidified medium in the Petri dish and incubated at 28±2oC for 72 hours. Phytochemical screening of the garlic powder was also investigated. Results from this study showed that the different weights of the garlic powder apart from the control (0 g garlic) significantly inhibited the mycelia growth of the three post-harvest pathogens tested in the study and the order of antifungal activity of the garlic powder against mycelia growth of Aspergillus, Rhizopus and Mucor species was 7 g > 5 g > 3 g > 1 g > 0 g, 5 g > 7 g >1 g > 3 g > 0 g and 7 g > 5 g > 3 g > 1 g > 0 g respectively. The antifungal activity of the garlic powder may be related to the presence of active antimicrobial agents including alkaloids, saponins, tannins, flavonoids and cardiac glycosides that were detected in the powder
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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