Enhancing consumer liking of low salt tomato soup over repeated exposure by herb and spice seasonings

There is strong evidence for the link between high dietary sodium and increased risk of cardiovascular disease which drives the need to reduce salt content in foods. In this study, herb and spice blends were used to enhance consumer acceptability of a low salt tomato soup (0.26% w/w). Subjects (n=148) scored their liking of tomato soup samples over five consecutive days. The first and last days were pre-and post-exposure visits where all participants rated three tomato soup samples; standard, low salt and low salt with added herbs and spices. The middle 3 days were the repeated exposure phase where participants were divided into three balanced groups; consuming the standard soup, the low salt soup, or the low salt soup with added herbs and spices. Reducing salt in the tomato soup led to a significant decline in consumer acceptability, and incorporating herbs and spices did not lead to an immediate enhancement in liking. However, inclusion of herbs and spices enhanced the perception of the salty taste of the low salt soup to the same level as the standard. Repeated exposure to the herbs and spice-modified soup led to a significant increase in the overall liking and liking of flavour, texture and aftertaste of the soup, whereas no changes in liking were observed for the standard and low salt tomato soups over repeated exposure. Moreover, a positive trend in increasing the post-exposure liking of the herbs and spices soup was observed. The findings suggest that the use of herbs and spices is a useful approach to reduce salt content in foods; however, herbs and spices should be chosen carefully to complement the food as large contrasts in flavour can polarise consumer liking.

Bile salt composition is secondary to bile salt concentration in determining hydrocortisone and progesterone solubility in intestinal mimetic fluids.

Simulated intestinal fluids (SIFs) used to assay the solubility of orally administered drugs are typically based on a single bile salt; sodium taurocholate (STC). The aim of this study was to develop mimetic intestinal fluids with a closer similarity to physiological fluids than those reported to date by developing a mixed bile salt (MBS) system (STC, sodium glycodeoxycholate, sodium deoxycholate; 60:39:1) with different concentrations of lecithin, the preponderant intestinal phospholipid. Hydrocortisone and progesterone were used as model drugs to evaluate systematically the influence of SIF composition on solubility. Increasing total bile salt concentration from 0 to 30 mM increased hydrocortisone and progesterone solubility by 2- and ∼25-fold, respectively. Accordingly, higher solubilities were measured in the fed-state compared to the fasted-state SIFs. Progesterone showed the greatest increases in solubility in STC and MBS systems (2-7-fold) compared to hydrocortisone (no significant change; P>0.05) as lecithin concentration was increased. Overall, MBS systems gave similar solubility profiles to STC. In conclusion, the addenda of MBS and lecithin were found to be secondary to the influence of BS concentration. These data provide a foundation for the design of more bio-similar media for pivotal decision-guiding assays in drug development and quality control settings.

Salt forms of Amides: protonation and polymorphism of Carbamazepine and Cytenamide

In situ generation of HCl or HBr in alcohol leads to O-protonation of the amide group of carbamazepine. Six salt phases have been produced using this method and their crystal structures determined by single crystal diffraction. A new polymorph of carbamazepine hydrochloride is described as are two polymorphs of carbamazepine hydrobromide. All are protonated at the amide O atom to give RC(OH)NH2 cations. Prolonged exposure to air results in addition of water to the solid salt forms. Such hydration of carbamazepine hydrobromide simply gives a monohydrated phase, but similar treatment of the equivalent hydrochloride results in partial loss of HCl and the transfer of the remaining proton from the amide group to water to give [carbamazepine][H3O]0.5[Cl]0.5·H2O. A similar hydronium chloride species is the only product isolated after reaction of the carbamazepine analogue cytenamide with HCl generated in methanol.

An aggregate resource efficiency perspective on sustainability: a Sustainable Value application to the EU-15 countries

The Sustainable Value approach integrates the efficiency with regard to environmental, social and economic resources into a monetary indicator. It gained significant popularity as evidenced by diverse applications at the corporate level. However, its introduction as a measure adhering to the strong sustainability paradigm sparked an ardent debate. This study explores its validity as a macroeconomic strong sustainability measure by applying the Sustainable Value approach to the EU-15 countries. Concretely, we assessed environmental, social and economic resources in combination with the GDP for all EU-15 countries from 1995 to 2006 for three benchmark alternatives. The results show that several countries manage to adequately delink resource use from GDP growth. Furthermore, the remarkable difference in outcome between the national and EU-15 benchmark indicates a possible inefficiency of the current allocation of national resource ceilings imposed by the European institutions. Additionally, by using an effects model we argue that the service degree of the economy and governmental expenditures on social protection and research and development are important determinants of overall resource efficiency. Finally, we sketch out three necessary conditions to link the Sustainable Value approach to the strong sustainability paradigm.

Fractal geometry of aggregate snowflakes revealed by triple wavelength radar measurements

Radar reflectivity measurements from three different wavelengths are used to retrieve information about the shape of aggregate snowflakes in deep stratiform ice clouds. Dual-wavelength ratios are calculated for different shape models and compared to observations at 3, 35 and 94 GHz. It is demonstrated that many scattering models, including spherical and spheroidal models, do not adequately describe the aggregate snowflakes that are observed. The observations are consistent with fractal aggregate geometries generated by a physically-based aggregation model. It is demonstrated that the fractal dimension of large aggregates can be inferred directly from the radar data. Fractal dimensions close to 2 are retrieved, consistent with previous theoretical models and in-situ observations.

Equation for the microwave backscatter cross section of aggregate snowflakes using the self-similar Rayleigh–Gans approximation

In this paper an equation is derived for the mean backscatter cross section of an ensemble of snowflakes at centimeter and millimeter wavelengths. It uses the Rayleigh–Gans approximation, which has previously been found to be applicable at these wavelengths due to the low density of snow aggregates. Although the internal structure of an individual snowflake is random and unpredictable, the authors find from simulations of the aggregation process that their structure is “self-similar” and can be described by a power law. This enables an analytic expression to be derived for the backscatter cross section of an ensemble of particles as a function of their maximum dimension in the direction of propagation of the radiation, the volume of ice they contain, a variable describing their mean shape, and two variables describing the shape of the power spectrum. The exponent of the power law is found to be −. In the case of 1-cm snowflakes observed by a 3.2-mm-wavelength radar, the backscatter is 40–100 times larger than that of a homogeneous ice–air spheroid with the same mass, size, and aspect ratio.

Just add water and salt: the optimisation of petrogenic hydrocarbon biodegradation in soils from semi-arid Barrow Island, Western Australia

We investigated the potential of soil moisture and nutrient amendments to enhance the biodegradation of oil in the soils from an ecologically unique semi-arid island. This was achieved using a series of controlled laboratory incubations where moisture or nutrient levels were experimentally manipulated. Respired CO2 increased sharply with moisture amendment reflecting the severe moisture limitation of these porous and semi-arid soils. The greatest levels of CO2 respiration were generally obtained with a soil pore water saturation of 50–70%. Biodegradation in these nutrient poor soils was also promoted by the moderate addition of a nitrogen fertiliser. Increased biodegradation was greater at the lowest amendment rate (100 mg N kg−1 soil) than the higher levels (500 or 1,000 mg N kg−1 soil), suggesting the higher application rates may introduce N toxicity. Addition of phosphorous alone had little effect, but a combined 500 mg N and 200 mg P kg−1 soil amendment led to a synergistic increase in CO2 respiration (3.0×), suggesting P can limit the biodegradation of hydrocarbons following exogenous N amendment.

Salt and ionic cocrystalline forms of amides: protonation of carbamazepine in aqueous media

The products of reactions of the pharmaceutical amide carbamazepine (CBZ) with strong acids under aqueous conditions were investigated by both powder and single crystal X-ray diffraction. Despite previous claims to the contrary, it was found that salt forms with CBZ protonated at the amide O atom could be isolated from reactions with both HCl and HBr. These forms include the newly identified hydrate phase [CBZ(H)][Cl]·H O. Reactions with other mineral acids (HI and HBF ) gave ionic cocrystalline (ICC) forms (CBZ· [acridinium][I ]·2.5I and CBZ·[H O ] [BF ] ·H O) as well as the salt form CBZ·[CBZ(H)][BF ]·0.5H O. Reaction 2 4 3 2 5 2 0.25 4 0.25 2 4 2 of CBZ with a series of sulfonic acids also gave salt forms, namely, [CBZ(H)][O SC H ], [CBZ(H)][O SC H (OH)]· 3 6 5 3 6 4 0.5H O, [CBZ(H)] [O SCH CH SO ], and [CBZ(H)][O SC H (OH) (COOH)]·H O. CBZ and protonated CBZ(H) 2 2 3 2 2 3 3 6 3 2 moieties can be differentiated in the solid state both by changes to molecular geometry and by differing packing preferences