Extended ageing time and temperature effects on quality of sub-primal cuts of boxed beef

[EN]Most of the information indicating ageing improves tenderness has been collected on the loin and rib-eye muscles over relatively short ageing times, assuming that all muscles will react similarly. In the present study, the effect of extended ageing times on instrumental texture (56 d) and sensory characteristics (42 d) of six different beef sub-primals [striploin (SL), inside round (IR), outside round (OR), eye of round (ER), blade eye (BE) and chuck tender (CT)] was studied. The effects of two ageing temperatures (1and 58C) were also compared. In general, ageing increased tenderness (P<0.05) of SL, BE, ER and CT sub-primals, although BE shear force increased after 42 d of ageing. On the other hand, ageing had no effect on IR tenderness (P<0.05) and resulted in a decrease in tenderness of OR (P<0.05) until day 35, with a later increase after 42 d of ageing. Increasing ageing temperature (58C) had limited effect on tenderness, but ageing time and temperature increases led to lower flavour and higher off-flavour intensity (P<0.05) of the studied sub-primals. These results suggest that cutspecific maximum ageing times and rigid adherence to temperature maximums would be of benefit to optimize postslaughter processes and meat quality

On Bounded Strictly Positive Operators of Closed Range and Some Applications to Asymptotic Hyperstability of Dynamic Systems

The problem discussed is the stability of two input-output feedforward and feedback relations, under an integral-type constraint defining an admissible class of feedback controllers. Sufficiency-type conditions are given for the positive, bounded and of closed range feed-forward operator to be strictly positive and then boundedly invertible, with its existing inverse being also a strictly positive operator. The general formalism is first established and the linked to properties of some typical contractive and pseudocontractive mappings while some real-world applications and links of the above formalism to asymptotic hyperstability of dynamic systems are discussed later on.

Clinical factors associated with a Candida albicans Germ Tube Antibody positive test in Intensive Care Unit patients

Background: Poor outcomes of invasive candidiasis (IC) are associated with the difficulty in establishing the microbiological diagnosis at an early stage. New scores and laboratory tests have been developed in order to make an early therapeutic intervention in an attempt to reduce the high mortality associated with invasive fungal infections. Candida albicans IFA IgG has been recently commercialized for germ tube antibody detection (CAGTA). This test provides a rapid and simple diagnosis of IC (84.4% sensitivity and 94.7% specificity). The aim of this study is to identify the patients who could be benefited by the use of CAGTA test in critical care setting. Methods: A prospective, cohort, observational multicentre study was carried out in six medical/surgical Intensive care units (ICU) of tertiary-care Spanish hospitals. Candida albicans Germ Tube Antibody test was performed twice a week if predetermined risk factors were present, and serologically demonstrated candidiasis was considered if the testing serum dilution was >= 1: 160 in at least one sample and no other microbiological evidence of invasive candidiasis was found. Results: Fifty-three critically ill non-neutropenic patients (37.7% post surgery) were included. Twenty-two patients (41.5%) had CAGTA-positive results, none of them with positive blood culture for Candida. Neither corrected colonization index nor antifungal treatment had influence on CAGTA results. This finding could corroborate that the CAGTA may be an important biomarker to distinguish between colonization and infection in these patients. The presence of acute renal failure at the beginning of the study was more frequent in CAGTA-negative patients. Previous surgery was statistically more frequent in CAGTA-positive patients. Conclusions: This study identified previous surgery as the principal clinical factor associated with CAGTA-positive results and emphasises the utility of this promising technique, which was not influenced by high Candida colonization or antifungal treatment. Our results suggest that detection of CAGTA may be important for the diagnosis of invasive candidiasis in surgical patients admitted in ICU.