Processing of chopped mussel meat in retort pouch

Abstract Chopped mussel meat packaged in retort pouches was processed in a laboratory-scale water immersion retort, adapted for processing under overpressure conditions. Retort temperature effects on product yield and on cook value were evaluated by setting the F0 at 7 min. The effects of different pre-treatments (salting and marination) on the characteristics of mussels were evaluated after processing at retort temperature of 118 °C and during a whole year of storage at 25 °C. The salted samples showed better yield during storage, while no differences were found for the other physicochemical parameters.

University students’ regulation of learning and text processing – examples from medical and teacher education

The general aim of the thesis was to study university students’ learning from the perspective of regulation of learning and text processing. The data were collected from the two academic disciplines of medical and teacher education, which share the features of highly scheduled study, a multidisciplinary character, a complex relationship between theory and practice and a professional nature. Contemporary information society poses new challenges for learning, as it is not possible to learn all the information needed in a profession during a study programme. Therefore, it is increasingly important to learn how to think and learn independently, how to recognise gaps in and update one’s knowledge and how to deal with the huge amount of constantly changing information. In other words, it is critical to regulate one’s learning and to process text effectively. The thesis comprises five sub-studies that employed cross-sectional, longitudinal and experimental designs and multiple methods, from surveys to eye tracking. Study I examined the connections between students’ study orientations and the ways they regulate their learning. In total, 410 second-, fourth- and sixth-year medical students from two Finnish medical schools participated in the study by completing a questionnaire measuring both general study orientations and regulation strategies. The students were generally deeply oriented towards their studies. However, they regulated their studying externally. Several interesting and theoretically reasonable connections between the variables were found. For instance, self-regulation was positively correlated with deep orientation and achievement orientation and was negatively correlated with non-commitment. However, external regulation was likewise positively correlated with deep orientation and achievement orientation but also with surface orientation and systematic orientation. It is argued that external regulation might function as an effective coping strategy in the cognitively loaded medical curriculum. Study II focused on medical students’ regulation of learning and their conceptions of the learning environment in an innovative medical course where traditional lectures were combined wth problem-based learning (PBL) group work. First-year medical and dental students (N = 153) completed a questionnaire assessing their regulation strategies of learning and views about the PBL group work. The results indicated that external regulation and self-regulation of the learning content were the most typical regulation strategies among the participants. In line with previous studies, self-regulation wasconnected with study success. Strictly organised PBL sessions were not considered as useful as lectures, although the students’ views of the teacher/tutor and the group were mainly positive. Therefore, developers of teaching methods are challenged to think of new solutions that facilitate reflection of one’s learning and that improve the development of self-regulation. In Study III, a person-centred approach to studying regulation strategies was employed, in contrast to the traditional variable-centred approach used in Study I and Study II. The aim of Study III was to identify different regulation strategy profiles among medical students (N = 162) across time and to examine to what extent these profiles predict study success in preclinical studies. Four regulation strategy profiles were identified, and connections with study success were found. Students with the lowest self-regulation and with an increasing lack of regulation performed worse than the other groups. As the person-centred approach enables us to individualise students with diverse regulation patterns, it could be used in supporting student learning and in facilitating the early diagnosis of learning difficulties. In Study IV, 91 student teachers participated in a pre-test/post-test design where they answered open-ended questions about a complex science concept both before and after reading either a traditional, expository science text or a refutational text that prompted the reader to change his/her beliefs according to scientific beliefs about the phenomenon. The student teachers completed a questionnaire concerning their regulation and processing strategies. The results showed that the students’ understanding improved after text reading intervention and that refutational text promoted understanding better than the traditional text. Additionally, regulation and processing strategies were found to be connected with understanding the science phenomenon. A weak trend showed that weaker learners would benefit more from the refutational text. It seems that learners with effective learning strategies are able to pick out the relevant content regardless of the text type, whereas weaker learners might benefit from refutational parts that contrast the most typical misconceptions with scientific views. The purpose of Study V was to use eye tracking to determine how third-year medical studets (n = 39) and internal medicine residents (n = 13) read and solve patient case texts. The results revealed differences between medical students and residents in processing patient case texts; compared to the students, the residents were more accurate in their diagnoses and processed the texts significantly faster and with a lower number of fixations. Different reading patterns were also found. The observed differences between medical students and residents in processing patient case texts could be used in medical education to model expert reasoning and to teach how a good medical text should be constructed. The main findings of the thesis indicate that even among very selected student populations, such as high-achieving medical students or student teachers, there seems to be a lot of variation in regulation strategies of learning and text processing. As these learning strategies are related to successful studying, students enter educational programmes with rather different chances of managing and achieving success. Further, the ways of engaging in learning seldom centre on a single strategy or approach; rather, students seem to combine several strategies to a certain degree. Sometimes, it can be a matter of perspective of which way of learning can be considered best; therefore, the reality of studying in higher education is often more complicated than the simplistic view of self-regulation as a good quality and external regulation as a harmful quality. The beginning of university studies may be stressful for many, as the gap between high school and university studies is huge and those strategies that were adequate during high school might not work as well in higher education. Therefore, it is important to map students’ learning strategies and to encourage them to engage in using high-quality learning strategies from the beginning. Instead of separate courses on learning skills, the integration of these skills into course contents should be considered. Furthermore, learning complex scientific phenomena could be facilitated by paying attention to high-quality learning materials and texts and other support from the learning environment also in the university. Eye tracking seems to have great potential in evaluating performance and growing diagnostic expertise in text processing, although more research using texts as stimulus is needed. Both medical and teacher education programmes and the professions themselves are challenging in terms of their multidisciplinary nature and increasing amounts of information and therefore require good lifelong learning skills during the study period and later in work life.

Central auditory processing and the acquisition of phonology in 2-year-old children with recurrent acute otitis media

Middle ear infections (acute otitis media, AOM) are among the most common infectious diseases in childhood, their incidence being greatest at the age of 6–12 months. Approximately 10–30% of children undergo repetitive periods of AOM, referred to as recurrent acute otitis media (RAOM). Middle ear fluid during an AOM episode causes, on average, 20–30 dB of hearing loss lasting from a few days to as much as a couple of months. It is well known that even a mild permanent hearing loss has an effect on language development but so far there is no consensus regarding the consequences of RAOM on childhood language acquisition. The results of studies on middle ear infections and language development have been partly discrepant and the exact effects of RAOM on the developing central auditory nervous system are as yet unknown. This thesis aims to examine central auditory processing and speech production among 2-year-old children with RAOM. Event-related potentials (ERPs) extracted from electroencephalography can be used to objectively investigate the functioning of the central auditory nervous system. For the first time this thesis has utilized auditory ERPs to study sound encoding and preattentive auditory discrimination of speech stimuli, and neural mechanisms of involuntary auditory attention in children with RAOM. Furthermore, the level of phonological development was studied by investigating the number and the quality of consonants produced by these children. Acquisition of consonant phonemes, which are harder to hear than vowels, is a good indicator of the ability to form accurate memory representations of ambient language and has not been studied previously in Finnish-speaking children with RAOM. The results showed that the cortical sound encoding was intact but the preattentive auditory discrimination of multiple speech sound features was atypical in those children with RAOM. Furthermore, their neural mechanisms of auditory attention differed from those of their peers, thus indicating that children with RAOM are atypically sensitive to novel but meaningless sounds. The children with RAOM also produced fewer consonants than their controls. Noticeably, they had a delay in the acquisition of word-medial consonants and the Finnish phoneme /s/, which is acoustically challenging to perceive compared to the other Finnish phonemes. The findings indicate the immaturity of central auditory processing in the children with RAOM, and this might also emerge in speech production. This thesis also showed that the effects of RAOM on central auditory processing are long-lasting because the children had healthy ears at the time of the study. An effective neural network for speech sound processing is a basic requisite of language acquisition, and RAOM in early childhood should be considered as a risk factor for language development.

Predicting performance on fluid intelligence from speed of processing, working memory, and controlled attention

Fluid inteliigence has been defined as an innate ability to reason which is measured commonly by the Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPM). Individual differences in fluid intelligence are currently explained by the Cascade model (Fry & Hale, 1996) and the Controlled Attention hypothesis (Engle, Kane, & Tuholski, 1999; Kane & Engle, 2002). The first theory is based on a complex relation among age, speed, and working memory which is described as a Cascade. The alternative to this theory, the Controlled Attention hypothesis, is based on the proposition that it is the executive attention component of working memory that explains performance on fluid intelligence tests. The first goal of this study was to examine whether the Cascade model is consistent within the visuo-spatial and verbal-numerical modalities. The second goal was to examine whether the executive attention component ofworking memory accounts for the relation between working memory and fluid intelligence. Two hundred and six undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 28 completed a battery of cognitive tests selected to measure processing speed, working memory, and controlled attention which were selected from two cognitive modalities, verbalnumerical and visuo-spatial. These were used to predict performance on two standard measures of fluid intelligence: the Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPM) and the Shipley Institute of Living Scales (SILS) subtests. Multiple regression and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were used to test the Cascade model and to determine the independent and joint effects of controlled attention and working memory on general fluid intelligence. Among the processing speed measures only spatial scan was related to the RPM. No other significant relations were observed between processing speed and fluid intelligence. As 1 a construct, working memory was related to the fluid intelligence tests. Consistent with the predictions for the RPM there was support for the Cascade model within the visuo-spatial modality but not within the verbal-numerical modality. There was no support for the Cascade model with respect to the SILS tests. SEM revealed that there was a direct path between controlled attention and RPM and between working memory and RPM. However, a significant path between set switching and RPM explained the relation between controlled attention and RPM. The prediction that controlled attention mediated the relation between working memory and RPM was therefore not supported. The findings support the view that the Cascade model may not adequately explain individual differences in fluid intelligence and this may be due to the differential relations observed between working memory and fluid intelligence across different modalities. The findings also show that working memory is not a domain-general construct and as a result its relation with fluid intelligence may be dependent on the nature of the working memory modality.

Engineers and technicians : the effect of cognitive style and gender on visual information processing

The purpose of this project was to identify in a subject group of engineers and technicians (N = 62) a preferred mode of representation for facilitating correct recall of information from complex graphics. The modes of representation were black and white (b&w) block, b&w icon, color block, and color icon. The researcher's test instrument included twelve complex graphics (six b&w and six color - three per mode). Each graphics presentation was followed by two multiple-choice questions. Recall performance was better using b&w block mode graphics and color icon mode graphics. A standardized test, the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) was used to identify a cognitive style preference (field dependence). Although engineers and technicians in the sample were strongly field-independent, they were not significantly more field-independent than the normative group in the Witkin, Oltman, Raskin, and Karp study (1971). Tests were also employed to look for any significant difference in cognitive style preference due to gender. None was found. Implications from the project results for the design of visuals and their use in technical training are discussed.

Beyond g : putting multiple intelligences theory to the test /

The purpose of this study was to investigate Howard Gardner's (1983) Multiple Intelligences theory, which proposes that there are eight independent intelligences: Linguistic, Spatial, Logical/Mathematical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Naturalistic, Bodily-Kinesthetic, and Musical. To explore Gardner's theory, two measures of each ability area were administered to 200 participants. Each participant also completed a measure of general cognitive ability, a personality inventory, an ability self-rating scale, and an ability self-report questionnaire. Nonverbal measures were included for most intelligence domains, and a wide range of content was sampled in Gardner's domains. Results showed that all tests of purely cognitive abilities were significantly correlated with the measure of general cognitive ability, whereas Musical, Bodily-Kinesthetic, and one of the Intrapersonal measures were not. Contrary to what Multiple Intelligences theory would seem to predict, correlations among the tests revealed a positive manifold and factor analysis indicated a large factor of general intelligence, with a mathematical reasoning test and a classification task from the Naturalistic domain having the highest ^- loadings. There were only minor sex differences in performance on the ability tests. Participants' self-estimates of ability were significantly and positively correlated with actual performance in some, but not all, intelligences. With regard to personality, a hypothesized association between Openness to Experience and crystallized intelligence was supported. The implications of the findings in regards to the nature of mental abilities were discussed, and recommendations for further research were made.

Aspects of spatial and habitat ecology of multiple Anopheles species (Diptera: Culicidae): malaria vectors in the highlands and foothills of Ecuador

The resurgence of malaria in highland regions of Africa, Oceania and recently in South America underlines the importance of the study of the ecology of highland mosquito vectors of malaria. Since the incidence of malaria is limited by the distribution of its vectors, the purpose of this PhD thesis was to examine aspects of the ecology of Anopheles mosquitoes in the Andes of Ecuador, South America. A historical literature and archival data review (Chapter 2) indicated that Anopheles pseudopunctipennis transmitted malaria in highland valleys of Ecuador prior to 1950, although it was eliminated through habitat removal and the use of chemical insecticides. Other anopheline species were previously limited to low-altitude regions, except in a few unconfirmed cases. A thorough larval collection effort (n=438 attempted collection sites) in all road-accessible parts of Ecuador except for the lowland Amazon basin was undertaken between 2008 - 2010 (Chapter 3). Larvae were identified morphologically and using molecular techniques (mitochondrial COl gene), and distribution maps indicated that all five species collected (Anopheles albimanus, An. pseudopunctipennis, Anopheles punctimacula, Anopheles oswaldoi s.l. and Anopheles eiseni) were more widespread throughout highland regions than previously recorded during the 1940s, with higher maximum altitudes for all except An. pseudopunctipennis (1541 m, 1930 m, 1906 m, 1233 m and 1873 m, respectively). During larval collections, to characterize species-specific larval habitat, a variety of abiotic and biotic habitat parameters were measured and compared between species-present and species-absent sites using chi-square tests and stepwise binary logistic regression analyses (Chapter 4). An. albimanus was significantly associated with permanent pools with sand substrates and An. pseudopunctipennis with gravel and boulder substrates. Both species were significantly associated with floating cyanobacterial mats and warmer temperatures, which may limit their presence in cooler highland regions. Anopheles punctimacula was collected more often than expected from algae-free, shaded pools with higher-than-average calculated dissolved oxygen. Anopheles oswaldoi s.l., the species occurring on the Amazonian side of the Andes, was associated with permanent, anthropogenic habitats such as roadside ditches and ponds. To address the hypothesis that human land use change is responsible for the emergence of multiple highland Anopheles species by creating larval habitat, common land uses in the western Andes were surveyed for standing water and potential larval habitat suitability (Chapter 5). Rivers and road edges provided large amounts of potentially suitable anopheline habitat in the western Andes, while cattle pasture also created potentially suitable habitat in irrigation canals and watering ponds. Other common land uses surveyed (banana farms, sugarcane plantations, mixed tree plantations, and empty lots) were usually established on steep slopes and had very little standing water present. Using distribution and larval habitat data, a GIS-based larval habitat distribution model for the common western species was constructed in ArcGIS v.l 0 (ESRI 2010) using derived data layers from field measurements and other sources (Chapter 6). The additive model predicted 76.4 - 97.9% of the field-observed collection localities of An. albimanus, An. pseudopunctipennis and An. punctimacula, although it could not accurately distinguish between species-absent and speciespresent sites due to its coarse scale. The model predicted distributional expansion and/or shift of one or more anopheline species into the following highland valleys with climate warming: Mira/Chota, Imbabura province, Tumbaco, Pichincha province, Pallatanga and Sibambe, Chimborazo province, and Yungilla, Azuay province. These valleys may serve as targeted sites of future monitoring to prevent highland epidemics of malaria. The human perceptions of malaria and mosquitoes in relation to land management practices were assessed through an interview-based survey (n=262) in both highlands and lowlands, of male and female land owners and managers of five property types (Chapter 7). Although respondents had a strong understanding of where the disease occurs in their own country and of the basic relationship among standing water, mosquitoes and malaria, about half of respondents in potential risk areas denied the current possibility of malaria infection on their own property. As well, about half of respondents with potential anopheline larval habitat did not report its presence, likely due to a highly specific definition of suitable mosquito habitat. Most respondents who are considered at risk of malaria currently use at least one type of mosquito bite prevention, most commonly bed nets. In conclusion, this interdisciplinary thesis examines the occurrence of Anopheles species in the lowland transition area and highlands in Ecuador, from a historic, geographic, ecological and sociological perspective.

A Scalability Study and New Algorithms for Large-Scale Many-Objective Optimization

Many real-world optimization problems contain multiple (often conflicting) goals to be optimized concurrently, commonly referred to as multi-objective problems (MOPs). Over the past few decades, a plethora of multi-objective algorithms have been proposed, often tested on MOPs possessing two or three objectives. Unfortunately, when tasked with solving MOPs with four or more objectives, referred to as many-objective problems (MaOPs), a large majority of optimizers experience significant performance degradation. The downfall of these optimizers is that simultaneously maintaining a well-spread set of solutions along with appropriate selection pressure to converge becomes difficult as the number of objectives increase. This difficulty is further compounded for large-scale MaOPs, i.e., MaOPs possessing large amounts of decision variables. In this thesis, we explore the challenges of many-objective optimization and propose three new promising algorithms designed to efficiently solve MaOPs. Experimental results demonstrate the proposed optimizers to perform very well, often outperforming state-of-the-art many-objective algorithms.

Early adversity, brain development and emotion processing in monozygotic twins

Il existe actuellement de nombreuses preuves démontrant que des facteurs génétiques et environnementaux interagissent pendant des périodes spécifiques du développement pour rendre une personne vulnérable aux troubles psychologiques via diverses adaptations physiologiques. Cette thèse porte sur l'impact de l’adversité prénatale (représentée par le petit poids à la naissance, PPN) et de l’adversité postnatale précoce (symptômes dépressifs maternels et comportements maternels négatifs), sur le développement du cerveau, particulièrement les régions fronto-limbiques impliquées dans le traitement des émotions, pendant l'enfance et l'adolescence. Des jumeaux monozygotes (MZ) sont utilisés, lorsque possible, afin de contrôler pour les effets génétiques. Les chapitres 1 et 2 présentent les résultats de la vérification de l'hypothèse que l’adversité prénatale et postnatale précoce sont associées à une altération du fonctionnement des régions fronto-limbique tels que l’amygdale, l’hippocampe, l’insula, le cortex cingulaire antérieur et le cortex préfrontal, en réponse à des stimuli émotifs chez des enfants et des adolescents. On observe que les symptômes dépressifs maternels sont associés à une activation plus élevée des régions fronto-limbiques des enfants en réponse à la tristesse. Les résultats de l’étude avec des adolescents suggèrent que le PPN, les symptômes dépressifs et les comportements maternels négatifs sont associés à une fonction altérée des régions fronto-limbiques en réponse à des stimuli émotionnels. Chez les jumeaux MZ on observe également que la discordance intra-paire de PPN et de certains comportements maternels est associée à une discordance intra-paire du fonctionnement du cerveau et que ces altérations diffèrent selon le sexe. Le chapitre 3 présente les résultats de la vérification de l'hypothèse que l’adversité prénatale et postnatale précoce sont associées à un volume total réduit du cerveau et de l’hypothèse que les comportements maternels peuvent servir de médiateur ou de modérateur de l'association entre le PPN et le volume du cerveau. Avec des jumeaux MZ à l’adolescence on observe a) que le PPN est effectivement associé à une diminution du volume total du cerveau et b) que la discordance intra-paire de PPN est associée à une discordance du volume du cerveau. En somme, cette thèse présente un ensemble de résultats qui soutiennent deux hypothèses importantes pour comprendre les effets de l’environnement sur le développement du cerveau : que l’environnement prénatal et postnatal précoce ont un impact sur le développement du cerveau indépendamment du code génétique et que les mécanismes impliqués peuvent différer entre les garçons et les filles. Finalement, l’ensemble de ces résultats sont discutés à la lumière des autres travaux de recherche dans ce domaine et des avenues à explorer pour de la recherche ultérieure sont proposées.

PSWT Based Linear Predictive Coding and Development of a Parallel Multiple Subsequence Structure for DWT Computation

During 1990's the Wavelet Transform emerged as an important signal processing tool with potential applications in time-frequency analysis and non-stationary signal processing.Wavelets have gained popularity in broad range of disciplines like signal/image compression, medical diagnostics, boundary value problems, geophysical signal processing, statistical signal processing,pattern recognition,underwater acoustics etc.In 1993, G. Evangelista introduced the Pitch- synchronous Wavelet Transform, which is particularly suited for pseudo-periodic signal processing.The work presented in this thesis mainly concentrates on two interrelated topics in signal processing,viz. the Wavelet Transform based signal compression and the computation of Discrete Wavelet Transform. A new compression scheme is described in which the Pitch-Synchronous Wavelet Transform technique is combined with the popular linear Predictive Coding method for pseudo-periodic signal processing. Subsequently,A novel Parallel Multiple Subsequence structure is presented for the efficient computation of Wavelet Transform. Case studies also presented to highlight the potential applications.

Development of solar air heaters & thermal energy storage system for drying applications in food processing industries

In the present work, the author has designed and developed all types of solar air heaters called porous and nonporous collectors. The developed solar air heaters were subjected to different air mass flow rates in order to standardize the flow per unit area of the collector. Much attention was given to investigate the performance of the solar air heaters fitted with baffles. The output obtained from the experiments on pilot models, helped the installation of solar air heating system for industrial drying applications also. Apart from these, various types of solar dryers, for small and medium scale drying applications, were also built up. The feasibility of ‘latent heat thermal energy storage system’ based on Phase Change Material was also undertaken. The application of solar greenhouse for drying industrial effluent was analyzed in the present study and a solar greenhouse was developed. The effectiveness of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) in the field of solar air heaters was also analyzed. The thesis is divided into eight chapters.

Technical and scale efficiency of cassava production system in Delta State, Nigeria: an application of Two-Stage DEA approach

The present study examines the level of pure technical and scale efficiencies of cassava production system including its sub-processes (that is production and processing stages) of 278 cassava farmers/processors from three regions of Delta State, Nigeria by applying Two-Stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach. Results reveal that pure technical efficiency (PTE) is significantly lower at the production stage 0.41 vs 0.55 for the processing stage, but scale efficiency (SE) is high at both stages (0.84 and 0.87), implying that productivity can be improved substantially by reallocation of resources and adjusting operation size. The socio-economic determinants exert differential impacts on PTE and SE at each stage. Overall, education, experience and main occupation as farmer significantly improve SE while subsistence pressure reduces it. Extension contact significantly improves SE at the processing stage but reduces PTE and SE overall. Inverse size-PTE and size-SE relationships exist in cassava production system. In other words, large/medium farms are technically and scale inefficient. Gender gap exists in performance. Male farmers are technically efficient at processing stage but scale inefficient overall. Farmers in northern region are technically efficient. Investments in education, extension services and infrastructure are suggested as policy options to improve the cassava sector in Nigeria.

Local map update for large scale SLAM

A technique for simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) for large scale scenarios is presented. This solution is based on the use of independent submaps of a limited size to map large areas. In addition, a global stochastic map, containing the links between adjacent submaps, is built. The information in both levels is corrected every time a loop is closed: local maps are updated with the information from overlapping maps, and the global stochastic map is optimised by means of constrained minimisation

Visual SLAM for 3D large-scale seabed acquisition employing underwater vehicles

This paper presents a novel technique to align partial 3D reconstructions of the seabed acquired by a stereo camera mounted on an autonomous underwater vehicle. Vehicle localization and seabed mapping is performed simultaneously by means of an Extended Kalman Filter. Passive landmarks are detected on the images and characterized considering 2D and 3D features. Landmarks are re-observed while the robot is navigating and data association becomes easier but robust. Once the survey is completed, vehicle trajectory is smoothed by a Rauch-Tung-Striebel filter obtaining an even better alignment of the 3D views and yet a large-scale acquisition of the seabed

Review about neuropsychological processing of tonal attributes of music in the Western context

Many discussions about the music processing have occurred over the years. It is stated, on one hand, the existence of a single joint for grasping the music or any of its attributes by the Central Nervous System. Furthermore, it is claimed also the existence of multiple and diverse systems to understand each aspect of music. In general, model-independent set, studies focusing on the processing of sound components, specifically the musical tones, can significantly clarify the basic functioning of the auditory system and other higher brain functions. In this sense, one of the most prominent approaches in the study of sensory and perceptual processes of hearing, or changed unharmed, has been Neuroscience, which is interested in the interaction between the brain areas corresponding to different cognitive processes. Thus, the purpose of this study was to review the studies that dealt processing models of the attributes of tonal Western music, based on the conception that neuropsychological neural structures are interdependent sensory pathways.