Els fongs de Catalunya occidental segons les prospeccions recents. II

This paper contains the conclusion of a mycological survey of western Catalonia. The first part of the results was published in Acta Bot. Barc. 45 (Homenatge a Oriol de Bolòs): 57-89. The present part covers the last two groups of Basidiomycota: the agarics (326 species) and the gasteromycetes (44 species). The data regarding the surveyed area, collection localities, abbreviations used in the information on ecology, collectors and identifiers are found in the mentioned first part, which contains records of 37 species of Myxomycota, 5 of Zygomycota, 101 of mitosporic fungi, 8 of Teliomycetes, 1 of Ustomycetes, 16 of Phragmobasidiomycetes and 92 of Aphyllophorales. Together with the first part, the results of our survey are a useful contribution to an improved understanding of the fungal component of plant communities of the dry, warm lowlands of the western Mediterranean region, and highlight the remarkable reproductive activity of the fungi observed during late Autumn and Winter, in the studied area.

Els fongs de Catalunya occidental segons les prospeccions recents. I.

The fungi of occidental Catalonia after recent prospections I. This work intends to collect the mycological data gathered during the last four years as a result of the project "Fungal biodiversity of Catalonia", in the western and southern, mainly lowland areas of this country. The climate is mainly dry (400-600 mm/year) and warm. The survey, that covers 160 localities, has enabled the identification of 37 species of Myxomycota, 5 of Zygomycora, 159 of Ascomyctra, 101 mitosporic fungi, 8 Teliomycetes, 1 Ustomycetes, 16 Phragmobasidiomycetes and 92 Apliyllopllorates, that are included in this paper. Because of space limitations, the remaining 326 agarics and 44 Gasteromycetes will be published in the next number of this journal. This work is a contribution to a best understanding of the fungal flora, chorology, ecology and phenology of the West-Mediterranean dry lowlands.

Forage yield and quality of a dense thorny and thornless "jurema-preta" stand

The objective of this work was to compare forage production and quality of thorny and thornless "jurema-preta" (Mimosa tenuiflora (Willd.) Poiret) in a dense planted stand, subjected to annual pruning of fine branches, in Patos, PB, Brazil. The experiment consisted of two treatments (thornless and thorny "jurema-preta") in a complete randomized block design, with ten replicates of two linear plots subdivided in time. Forage mass and chemical composition of fine branches and the basal diameter of plants were measured during five years. Pruning decreased (p<0.05) increments in basal diameter and forage production. Annual dry matter yields reached 4,108 and 5,833 kg ha-1, respectively, for thornless and thorny plants, and forage quality was similar (p>0.05) for both genotypes. This roughage fodder (minimum NDF and ADF averages were 56±1.1% and 43±1.0%, respectively) had low P and K concentrations. Its average crude protein content was greater than 9.9±0.5%, which exceeds the minimum necessary for animal maintenance. Both "jurema-preta" genotypes tolerated pruning of fine branches and contributed with a significant amount of roughage fodder for animal maintenance in the dry season.

Produtividade de milho solteiro ou em aléias de gliricídia adubado com duas fontes orgânicas

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a produtividade de biomassa de milho, solteiro ou consorciado com gliricídia (Gliricidia sepium), e o efeito da adubação, com esterco e ramas de gliricídia, sobre a produtividade de milho e da vegetação espontânea. O trabalho foi conduzido de 2003 a 2005, em uma área com fileiras de gliricídia, espaçadas 6 m entre si e 1 m entre as árvores, em um Neossolo Regolítico, em Esperança, PB. O delineamento experimental foi o de blocos ao acaso e parcelas subdivididas, com dois tratamentos principais (presença e ausência de aléias de gliricídia), três tratamentos secundários (testemunha, adubação com esterco, adubação com ramas de gliricídia), e quatro repetições. Nos 1º, 2º e 3º anos do estudo, a produtividade de grãos de milho, no sistema sem gliricídia, foi 268, 129 e 116% maior que em presença de árvores, respectivamente. Entretanto, a produtividade total de biomassa (soma da biomassa produzida pelo milho, gliricídia e vegetação espontânea) foi 86, 120 e 37% maior no sistema com árvores nos 1º, 2º e 3º anos, respectivamente. A produtividade de milho e de vegetação espontânea não diferiu entre as parcelas adubadas com esterco ou gliricídia, mas essas duas fontes orgânicas aumentaram significativamente a produtividade, comparadas à testemunha.

Acumulação de nutrientes em solos arenosos adubados com esterco bovino

Os objetivos deste trabalho foram quantificar as concentrações de carbono e nutrientes em solos de áreas adubadas e não adubadas com esterco; quantificar as concentrações de nutrientes em amostras de esterco bovino utilizado na região e calcular o acúmulo de nutrientes resultantes dessa adubação e o potencial de perdas por lixiviação. Foram amostradas 18 áreas agrícolas, com adição anual de esterco por pelo menos dois anos e, como controle, quatro áreas sob pastagem não adubadas, coletando-se amostras de solo das camadas de 0-20, 20-40 e 40-60 cm, que foram analisadas quanto à granulometria, densidade do solo, pH, C, N e P totais, bases trocáveis, P extraível por água e por Mehlich-1. Amostras de esterco utilizadas em nove áreas também foram analisadas. A aplicação de esterco resultou em acumulações médias ao redor de 20 Mg ha-1 de C, 2 Mg ha-1 de N total e Ca, e de 0,5 a 1 Mg ha-1 de P total, K e Mg (0-60 cm). Acumulações de P solúvel em água e bases trocáveis na camada de 40-60 cm, em relação às testemunhas, indicam grande potencial de perda desses nutrientes.

Use of recovered frying oils in chicken and rabbit feeds: effect on the fatty acid and tocol composition and on the oxidation levels of meat, liver and plasma

The addition of some fat co- and by-products to feeds is usual nowadays; however, the regulations of their use are not always clear and vary between countries. For instance, the use of recycled cooking oils is not allowed in the European Union, but they are used in other countries. However, oils recovered from industrial frying processes could show satisfactory quality for this purpose. Here we studied the effects of including oils recovered from the frying industry in rabbit and chicken feeds (at 30 and 60 g/kg, respectively) on the fatty acid (FA) and tocol (tocopherol + tocotrienol) compositon of meat, liver and plasma, and on their oxidative stability. Three dietary treatments (replicated eight times) were compared: fresh non-used oil (LOX); oil discarded from the frying industry, having a high content of secondary oxidation compounds (HOX); and an intermediate level (MOX) obtained by mixing 50 : 50 of LOX and HOX. The FA composition of oil diets and tissues was assessed by GC, their tocol content by HPLC, the thiobarbituric acid value was used to assess tissue oxidation status, and the ferrous oxidation-xylenol orange method was used to assess the susceptibility of tissues to oxidation. Our results indicate that FA composition of rabbit and chicken meat, liver and plasma was scarcely altered by the addition of recovered frying oils to feed. Differences were encountered in the FA composition between species, which might be attributed mainly to differences in the FA digestion, absorption and metabolism between species, and to some physiological dietary factors (i.e. coprophagy in rabbits that involves fermentation with FA structure modification). The α-tocopherol (αT) content of tissues was reduced in response to the lower αT content in the recovered frying oil. Differences in the content of other tocols were encountered between chickens and rabbits, which might be attributable to the different tocol composition of their feeds, as well as to species differences in the digestion and metabolism of tocols. Tissue oxidation and susceptibility to oxidation were in general low and were not greatly affected by the degree of oxidation of the oil added to the feeds. The relative content of polyunsaturated fatty acids/αT in these types of samples would explain the differences observed between species in the susceptibility of each tissue to oxidation. According to our results, oils recovered from the frying industry could be useful for feed uses.

Dietary n-6- or n-3-rich vegetable fats and antioxidants: effects on fatty acid composition and stability of rabbit plasma, liver and meat

We supplemented diets with a-tocopheryl acetate (100 mg/kg) and replaced beef tallow (BT) in feeds with increasing doses of n-6- or n-3-rich vegetable fat sources (linseed and sunflower oil), and studied the effects on the fatty acid (FA) composition, the a-tocopherol (aT) content and the oxidative stability of rabbit plasma and liver. These effects were compared with those observed in a previous study in rabbit meat. As in meat, the content of saturated, monounsaturated and trans FA in plasma and liver mainly reflected feed FA profile, except stearic acid in liver, which increased as feeds contained higher doses of vegetable fat, which could be related to an inhibition of the activity of the stearoyl-CoA-desaturase. As linseed oil increased in feeds, the n-6/n-3 FA ratio was decreased in plasma and liver as a result of the incorporation of FA from diets and also, due to the different performance and selectivity of desaturase enzymes. However, an increase in the dose of vegetable fat in feeds led to a significant reduction in the aT content of plasma and liver, which was greater when the fat source was linseed oil. Increasing the dose of vegetable fat in feeds also led to an increase in the susceptibility to oxidation (lipid hydroperoxide (LHP) value) of rabbit plasma, liver and meat and on the thiobarbituric acid (TBA) values of meat. Although the dietary supplementation with a-tocopheryl acetate increased the aT content in plasma and liver, it did not modify significantly their TBA or LHP values. In meat however, both TBA and LHP values were reduced by the dietary supplementation with a-tocopheryl acetate. The plasma aT content reflected the aT content in tissues, and correlated negatively with tissue oxidability. From the studied diets, those containing 1.5% linseed oil plus 1.5% BT and 100 mg of a-tocopheryl acetate/kg most improved the FA composition and the oxidative stability of rabbit tissues.

Use of recovered frying oils in chicken and rabbit feeds: effect on the fatty acid and tocol composition and on the oxidation levels of meat, liver and plasma

The addition of some fat co- and by-products to feeds is usual nowadays; however, the regulations of their use are not always clear and vary between countries. For instance, the use of recycled cooking oils is not allowed in the European Union, but they are used in other countries. However, oils recovered from industrial frying processes could show satisfactory quality for this purpose. Here we studied the effects of including oils recovered from the frying industry in rabbit and chicken feeds (at 30 and 60 g/kg, respectively) on the fatty acid (FA) and tocol (tocopherol1tocotrienol) compositon of meat, liver and plasma, and on their oxidative stability. Three dietary treatments (replicated eight times) were compared: fresh non-used oil (LOX); oil discarded from the frying industry, having a high content of secondary oxidation compounds (HOX); and an intermediate level (MOX) obtained by mixing 50 : 50 of LOX and HOX. The FA composition of oil diets and tissues was assessed by GC, their tocol content by HPLC, the thiobarbituric acid value was used to assess tissue oxidation status, and the ferrous oxidation-xylenol orange method was used to assess the susceptibility of tissues to oxidation. Our results indicate that FA composition of rabbit and chicken meat, liver and plasma was scarcely altered by the addition of recovered frying oils to feed. Differences were encountered in the FA composition between species, which might be attributed mainly to differences in the FA digestion, absorption and metabolism between species, and to some physiological dietary factors (i.e. coprophagy in rabbits that involves fermentation with FA structure modification). The a-tocopherol (aT) content of tissues was reduced in response to the lower aT content in the recovered frying oil. Differences in the content of other tocols were encountered between chickens and rabbits, which might be attributable to the different tocol composition of their feeds, as well as to species differences in the digestion and metabolism of tocols. Tissue oxidation and susceptibility to oxidation were in general low and were not greatly affected by the degree of oxidation of the oil added to the feeds. The relative content of polyunsaturated fatty acids/aT in these types of samples would explain the differences observed between species in the susceptibility of each tissue to oxidation. According to our results, oils recovered from the frying industry could be useful for feed uses.

Waveform-independent frame-timing acquisition for UWB signals

In this paper, the problem of frame-level symboltiming acquisition for UWB signals is addressed. The main goalis the derivation of a frame-level timing estimator which does notrequire any prior knowledge of neither the transmitted symbolsnor the received template waveform. The independence withrespect to the received waveform is of special interest in UWBcommunication systems, where a fast and accurate estimation ofthe end-to-end channel response is a challenging and computationallydemanding task. The proposed estimator is derived under theunconditional maximum likelihood criterion, and because of thelow power of UWB signals, the low-SNR assumption is adopted. Asa result, an optimal frame-level timing estimator is derived whichoutperforms existing acquisition methods in low-SNR scenarios.

Asymptotic equivalence between the unconditional maximum likelihood and the square-law nonlinearity symbol timing estimation

This paper provides a systematic approach to theproblem of nondata aided symbol-timing estimation for linearmodulations. The study is performed under the unconditionalmaximum likelihood framework where the carrier-frequencyerror is included as a nuisance parameter in the mathematicalderivation. The second-order moments of the received signal arefound to be the sufficient statistics for the problem at hand and theyallow the provision of a robust performance in the presence of acarrier-frequency error uncertainty. We particularly focus on theexploitation of the cyclostationary property of linear modulations.This enables us to derive simple and closed-form symbol-timingestimators which are found to be based on the well-known squaretiming recovery method by Oerder and Meyr. Finally, we generalizethe OM method to the case of linear modulations withoffset formats. In this case, the square-law nonlinearity is foundto provide not only the symbol-timing but also the carrier-phaseerror.

NDA waveform estimation in the low-SNR regime

This correspondence addresses the problem of nondata-aidedwaveform estimation for digital communications. Based on the unconditionalmaximum likelihood criterion, the main contribution of this correspondenceis the derivation of a closed-form solution to the waveform estimationproblem in the low signal-to-noise ratio regime. The proposed estimationmethod is based on the second-order statistics of the received signaland a clear link is established between maximum likelihood estimation andcorrelation matching techniques. Compression with the signal-subspace isalso proposed to improve the robustness against the noise and to mitigatethe impact of abnormals or outliers.

Effect of Tocopherol Extract, Staphylococcus carnosus Culture, and Celery Concentrate Addition on Quality Parameters of Organic and Conventional Dry-Cured Sausages

The effects of the addition to sausage mix of tocopherols (200 mg/kg), a conventional starter culture with or without Staphylococcus carnosus, celery concentrate (CP) (0.23% and 0.46%), and two doses of nitrate (70 and 140 mg/kg expressed as NaNO(3)) on residual nitrate and nitrite amounts, instrumental CIE Lab color, tocol content, oxidative stability, and overall acceptability were studied in fermented dry-cured sausages after ripening and after storage. Nitrate doses were provided by nitrate-rich CP or a chemical grade source. The lower dose complies with the EU requirements governing the maximum for ingoing amounts in organic meat products. Tocopherol addition protected against oxidation, whereas the nitrate dose, nitrate source, or starter culture had little influence on secondary oxidation values. The residual nitrate and nitrite amounts found in the sausages with the lower nitrate dose were within EU-permitted limits for organic meat products and residual nitrate can be further reduced by the presence of the S. carnosus culture. Color measurements were not affected by the CP dose. Product consumer acceptability was not affected negatively by any of the factors studied. As the two nitrate sources behaved similarly for the parameters studied, CP is a useful alternative to chemical ingredients for organic dry-cured sausage production.

Effectiveness of antioxidants in preventing oxidation of palm oil enriched with heme iron: A model for iron fortification in baked products

Bakery products such as biscuits, cookies, and pastries represent a good medium for iron fortification in food products, since they are consumed by a large proportion of the population at risk of developing iron deficiency anemia, mainly children. The drawback, however, is that iron fortification can promote oxidation. To assess the extent of this, palm oil added with heme iron and different antioxidants was used as a model for evaluating the oxidative stability of some bakery products, such as baked goods containing chocolate. The palm oil samples were heated at 220°C for 10 min to mimic the conditions found during a typical baking processing. The selected antioxidants were a free radical scavenger (tocopherol extract (TE), 0 and 500 mg/kg), an oxygen scavenger (ascorbyl palmitate (AP), 0 and 500 mg/kg), and a chelating agent (citric acid (CA), 0 and 300 mg/kg). These antioxidants were combined using a factorial design and were compared to a control sample, which was not supplemented with antioxidants. Primary (peroxide value and lipid hydroperoxide content) and secondary oxidation parameters (p-anisidine value, p-AnV) were monitored over a period of 200 days in storage at room temperature. The combination of AP and CA was the most effective treatment in delaying the onset of oxidation. TE was not effective in preventing oxidation. The p-AnV did not increase during the storage period, indicating that this oxidation marker was not suitable for monitoring oxidation in this model.