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Nutritional value of "Ready to Eat" Endive during storage as influenced by conventional, integrate and organic farming.
Full text linkIntroduction and methodology
The aim of this study was the understanding of how growing protocols would affect ready-to-eat produce quality and shelf-life. Therefore, modifications in nutritional compounds occurring during storage at 4°C of endive (Cichorium endivia L. var. crispa) were investigated. Plants were grown at the experimental station of parco Gussone (Portici, NA), on a sandy soil. Before sowing, fertilization of 110 kg N ha-1 N was applied, using three different fertilization protocols: organic farming (OF, Bioilsa®, N = 12%), conventional farming (CF, ammonium nitrate N = 34,5%) and integrated fertilization management (IF, ammonium nitrate, N = 34,5% and Bioilsa®, N = 12%). Planting density was 10 plants m-2. Cropping cycle lasted from the 14th of January to 26th of April 2007. The experimental design was a randomized block with three replications. At harvest, fresh produce was husked, washed and dried under air-flow, packaged into plastic boxes and closed in permeable bags. Fresh weight loss and moisture content were recorded and antioxidant capacity and nitrate content were measured spectrophotometrically on fresh produce and after 3, 5 and 10 days of storage.
Results and Discussion
Integrate and conventional fertilization management gave maximum yield (3.6 kg m-2) whereas lowest value (2.0 kg m-2) were recorded for the organic protocol. Concurrently, leaf area was reduced from 4,458 (IF and CF) to 2,984 (OF) cm2 plant-1. According to Worthington (1998), organic fertilizer give less prompt availability of nitrogen, and this leads to reduced plant development.
The visual quality did not change during the first five days of storage, whereas an evident decay was observed at the end of the storage period (10 days). For all treatments, a significant fresh weight loss was measured mainly attributable to water loss. Conformingly, no difference in dry matter content were attributable to growing protocols, but the moisture content was reduced during the storage period from 94.3 to 93.9%.
No differences were observed in terms of nitrate content among protocols (750, 790 and 815 mg kg FW-1, respectively for OF, CF and IF). Nevertheless, nitrate contents were far below limits imposed by the European Union for other crops (2,500 to 4,500 mg kg FW-1 in lettuce, Reg CE 194/97). Nitrate content was reduced during storage period, in measure of the 37% of the initial value.
Hidrophil antioxidant capacity (HAC) was much higher in organic farming than either conventional or integrate farming (0.27, 0.18 and 0.20 mmol Ascorbic Acid eq 100 g FW-1, respectively). The higher nitrogen availability in both conventional and integrate cropping protocols could have affected the synthesis of ascorbic acid, leading to the lower antioxidant capacity, as reported by Brandt and Molgaard (2001). A linear decrease of the HAC value was observed in all treatments during storage, mainly attributable to vitamin C degradation (Lee and Kader, 2000), also related to the air-flow drying procedure (Asami et al., 2003). Lipohil antioxidant capacity (LAC) did not differ among cropping treatments (mean value 1,27 mmol Trolox eq 100 g FW-1). No effects on LAC could be attributed to the storage period. Possibly, a reduction of the lipophil fraction could have happen, but real values were hidden by the easier extraction of lipophil antioxidants as a consequence of the cell membrane degradation occurring during the shelf-life of the produce (De Pascale et al., 2006).
Literature cited
Asami, D. K., Hong, Y. J., Barrett, D. M., and Mitchell, A. E. Comparison of the total phenolic and ascorbic acid content of freeze-dried and air-dried marionberry, strawberry, and corn grown using conventional, organic, and sustainable agricultural practices. J.Agric.Food Chem. 51(5), 1237-1241. 2-26-2003.
Brandt, K. and Molgaard, J.P. 2001. Organic agriculture: does it enhance or reduce the nutritional value of plant foods? J. Sci. Food & Agri. 81:924-931.
De Pasca..
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Full text link“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
Full text linkWe 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
Percutaneous vertebroplasty as therapy for vertebral fractures: results in a series of osteoporotic patients
No full textIn the recent years, percutaneous vertebroplasty is available for the treatment of the vertebral fractures, primarily to relieve pain related to the lesion. In order to evaluate the efficacy and the safety of this technique, we have treated with percutaneous vertebroplasty, using polymethylmethacrylate, 22 patients, affected by one or more vertebral fractures caused by osteoporosis. All the patients satisfied the inclusion criteria of the American College of Radiology for percutaneous vertebroplasty. These patients were compared with a control group of 23 not treated subjects with vertebral fractures, using questionnaires for assessment of pain and quality of life, drug intake, use of corset, and tolerability of the surgery. In the large majority of patients, the treatment of osteoporotic vertebral fractures with percutaneous vertebroplasty resulted in a prompt, marked and sustained relief of vertebral pain with a persistent improvement of quality of life
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe 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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