Would a Restaurant Menu Item by Any Other Name Taste as Sweet?

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of words on a restaurant menu, and to evaluate the impact that they have on the selection of menu items. The research comprised two distinct parts. First, four focus groups were held examining responses to five menus, each with the same menu items but using different wording. The results from the focus group analysis were used to develop a survey which was more widely distributed. From the focus group it was revealed that the occasion and participants in the dining experience influence the wording for menu item selection. Respondents discussed the mystique of the menu and confirmed a desire for menu items that would not normally be prepared at home. It was also of interest the "mouthwatering" effect that the words haw on potential customers and what a strong persuader these words were. The survey reinforced the focus group research in many ways, also stressing the positive effect of descriptive words such as "Tender'; "Golden" and "Natural" to the choice of menu items. The research has identified the importance of the choice and use of words in the design of a menu that operations management need to be aware of

Sweet cherry: composition, postharvest preservation, processing and trends for its future use

Background Sweet cherries (Prunus avium L.) are a nutritious fruit which are rich in polyphenols and have high antioxidant potential. Most sweet cherries are consumed fresh and a small proportion of the total sweet cherries production is value added to make processed food products. Sweet cherries are highly perishable fruit with a short harvest season, therefore extensive preservation and processing methods have been developed for the extension of their shelf-life and distribution of their products. Scope and Approach In this review, the main physicochemical properties of sweet cherries, as well as bioactive components and their determination methods are described. The study emphasises the recent progress of postharvest technology, such as controlled/modified atmosphere storage, edible coatings, irradiation, and biological control agents, to maintain sweet cherries for the fresh market. Valorisations of second-grade sweet cherries, as well as trends for the diversification of cherry products for future studies are also discussed. Key Findings and Conclusions Sweet cherry fruit have a short harvest period and marketing window. The major loss in quality after harvest include moisture loss, softening, decay and stem browning. Without compromising their eating quality, the extension in fruit quality and shelf-life for sweet cherries is feasible by means of combination of good handling practice and applications of appropriate postharvest technology. With the drive of health-food sector, the potential of using second class cherries including cherry stems as a source of bioactive compound extraction is high, as cherry fruit is well-known for being rich in health-promoting components.

FIELD TOLERANCE OF SELECTED VARIETIES TO AND FUNGICIDE EFFICACY AGAINST ALTERNARIA BLIGHT OF SWEET POTATO

Alternaria blight (AB) of sweet potato ( Ipomoea batatas L. ), caused by Alternaria spp., was recently reported in South Africa, but is common in southern and eastern Africa. Elsewhere in the world, AB is controlled primarily using resistant varieties. Twenty-five sweet potato varieties/breeding lines, from different origins were assessed for tolerance to AB. The materials were planted in fields having a history of AB disease and rated for tolerance based on a General Disease Index (GDI), with the lowest scores representing tolerance, and the higher scores representing susceptibility. Variety 199062-1 had the lowest GDI value, and was the most tolerant to AB; while W119 had the highest GDI value and was the most susceptible to the disease. Other varieties/breeding lines showed a variation in GDI values between most tolerant and most susceptible. Among the fungicides tested under field conditions, the mixture azoxystrobin-difenoconazole was the most effective in reducing AB intensity. Fungicides pyraclostrobin-boscalid, unizeb, azoxystrobin-chlorothalonil and cymoxanil-mancozeb were also effective against the disease.

Transcriptional dynamics of the developing sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) fruit: sequencing, annotation and expression profiling of exocarp-associated genes

The exocarp, or skin, of fleshy fruit is a specialized tissue that protects the fruit, attracts seed dispersing fruit eaters, and has large economical relevance for fruit quality. Development of the exocarp involves regulated activities of many genes. This research analyzed global gene expression in the exocarp of developing sweet cherry (Prunus avium L., 'Regina'), a fruit crop species with little public genomic resources. A catalog of transcript models (contigs) representing expressed genes was constructed from de novo assembled short complementary DNA (cDNA) sequences generated from developing fruit between flowering and maturity at 14 time points. Expression levels in each sample were estimated for 34 695 contigs from numbers of reads mapping to each contig. Contigs were annotated functionally based on BLAST, gene ontology and InterProScan analyses. Coregulated genes were detected using partitional clustering of expression patterns. The results are discussed with emphasis on genes putatively involved in cuticle deposition, cell wall metabolism and sugar transport. The high temporal resolution of the expression patterns presented here reveals finely tuned developmental specialization of individual members of gene families. Moreover, the de novo assembled sweet cherry fruit transcriptome with 7760 full-length protein coding sequences and over 20 000 other, annotated cDNA sequences together with their developmental expression patterns is expected to accelerate molecular research on this important tree fruit crop.

Associations between liking for fat, sweet or salt and obesity risk in French adults

International audience

EFFECT OF BAP, NAA AND GA3, EITHER ALONE OR IN COMBINATION, ON MERISTEM CULTURE AND PLANTLET ESTABLISHMENT IN SWEET POTATO (CV BRONDAL)

In Zimbabwe, the average sweet potato yield (6 t/ha) is relatively low when compared to Asian counterparts (17 t/ha). These low crop yields have been blamed on weevil infestations and viral infections which account for 60-90% of sweet potato yield losses in Africa. Meristem tip culture, a Centre for Potato Improvement (CIP) initiated tissue culture technique, has been widely used to eradicate viruses from clonally propagated crops and has been noted to be one of the instrumental techniques that helped China to increase sweet potato yields. In an effort to adopt the meristem tip culture technique for the production of virus-free planting material of a local sweet potato (cv Brondal), a study was conducted to evaluate the effect of Benzylamino purine (BAP), 1-Naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) and Gibberellic acid (GA3) (either alone or in combination) on cultured Brondal meristems. The different hormonal treatments were assessed on the following parameters: plantlet regenerative capacity, multiple plantlet production, shoot height, average leaf number per shoot and average node number per shoot, ten weeks after meristem culture. All treatments containing a combination of BAP (1 mg-L) and GA3 (at either 5 mg-L, 10 mg-L, or 20 mg-L) had a significantly (p<0.01) higher plantlet regenerative capacity of 33-66% when compared to other treatment combinations. Only treatments, 10 mg-L GA3 + 1 mg-L BAP and 20 mg-L GA3 + 1 mg-L BAP were capable of inducing multiple plantlet formation, producing an average of three plantlets/meristem and two plantlets/meristem respectively. Overall, treatment 10 mg-L GA3 + 1 mg-L BAP gave rise to significantly (p<0.01) taller shoots (20 mm) compared to the rest of the treatments used. For average leaf number per shoot, all GA3 treatments (5 mg-L, 10 mg-L, or 20 mg-L) supplemented with 1 mg-L BAP gave significantly (p<0.01) higher numbers of leaves (six leaves/shoot) than the rest of the treatments. Treatments 10 mg-L GA3 + 1 mg-L BAP and 20 mg-L GA3 + 1 mg-L BAP gave rise to the highest number of nodes per shoot, producing an average of three nodes per shoot. In sharp contrast to treatments containing a combination of BAP and GA3, all treatments containing a combination of BAP and NAA performed poorly in all parameters tested for plant regeneration of Brondal sweet potato variety. In conclusion, the best hormonal treatment for culturing Brondal meristems proved to be 10 mg-L GA3 + 1 mg-L BAP.

The bioconcentration factor of pesticides in potatoes.

We presented a model that estimates the bioconcentration factor (BCF) of pesticides in potatoes supposing that the pesticide in the soil solution is absorbed by the potato by passive diffusion, following Fick?s second law. The pesticides in the model are nonionic organic substances, traditionally used in potato crops that degrade in the soil according to a first order kinetic equation. This presents an expression that relates BCF with the pesticide elimination rate by the potato, with the pesticide accumulation rate within the potato, with the rate of growth of the potato and with the pesticide degradation rate in the soil. BCF was estimated supposing steady state equilibrium of the quotient between the pesticide concentration in the potato and the pesticide concentration in the soil solution. It is suggested that a negative correlation exists between the pesticide BCF and the soil sorption partition coefficient. The model was built based on the work of Trapp et al. (2007), [Diffusion of PAH in Potato and Carrot Slices and Applications for a Potato Model] in which an expression to calculate the diffusivity of persistent organic substances in potatoes is presented. The model consists in adding to the expression of Trapp et al. (2007) the hypothesis that the pesticide degrades in the soil. The value of BCF suggests which pesticides should be monitored in potatoes.

Home sweet home: evidence for nest-fidelity in the rocky intertidal fish, the shanny Lipophrys pholis

The ability to be faithful to a particular area or site was analysed in the shanny Lipophrys pholis. Using passive integrated transponders, adults from a population of L. pholis at Cabo Raso, Portugal, were followed over a period of 3 years. The findings showed that site fidelity is a consistent behaviour during the breeding season with specific breeding males being found only in particular sectors within the area, and in specific nests throughout the years. The fact that, in general, L. pholis individuals were absent from the study area during the non-breeding season and breeding males were recorded returning to the same nests and sectors for consecutive breeding seasons suggests that they have developed excellent homing abilities. Translocation data corroborate this idea showing that breeding males successfully returned to their nests after a displacement of >100 m. Altogether, these findings highlight the relevance of life-history traits (e.g. nesting) in the conditioning of site fidelity and homing for this species of rocky intertidal fish, and more importantly, provide evidence for the need of a well-developed navigational system.

Sweet syndrome presenting late after non Hodgkin’s lymphoma and dermatomyositis

Abstract Sweet syndrome is a rare neutrophilic dermatosis consisting in the onset of high fever, neutrophilia, and typical painful skin lesions including erythematous papules, nodules, and plaques on the face, trunk, and extremities, with a bilateral and asymmetrical pattern. Sweet syndrome is classiied as idiopathic, predominating in women; malignancy-associated, mainly with hematological cancer, and drug-induced. The diagnosis is based on clinical history and skin manifestations, being conirmed by a complete blood count showing neutrophilic leukocytosis, and speciic indings in the skin biopsy. We report the case of a 68 year-old man with a 10-year evolution of dermatomyositis complicated by lung ibrosis, followed 8 years later by non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) accompanied by worsening of his ibrosis. Two years after the successful treatment of NHL the patient developed an acute episode of severe dyspnea, multiple skin lesions, and 95% neutrophilia. At that time the patient had a severe lung function impairment complicated by nosocomial pneumonia that led to his death, a few days after the diagnosis of Sweet syndrome was established by histopathology examination. Sweet syndrome is a rare dermatologic entity that can appear several years after diseases characterized by immune dysfunction such as dermatomyositis and NHL.

Molecular characterization of 'sweet' cassavas (Manihot esculenta) from a germplasm bank in Brazilian Eastern Amazonia.

2016

Bebidas espirituosas do Algarve

Tese de Doutoramento, Química, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade do Algarve, 2016