Evaluation of thermo-physical properties and drying kinetics of carrots in a convective hot air drying system

This paper presents an experimental study on the evolution of carrot properties along convective drying by hot air at different temperatures (50ºC, 60ºC and 70ºC). The thermo-physical properties calculated were: specific heat, thermal conductivity, diffusivity, enthalpy, heat and mass transfer coefficients. Furthermore, the data of drying kinetics were treated and adjusted according to the three empirical models: Page, Henderson & Pabis and Logarithmic. The sorption isotherms were also determined and fitted using the GAB model. The results showed that, generally, the thermo-physical properties presented a decline during the drying process, and the decrease was faster for the temperature of 70ºC. It was possible to verify that the Page model presented the best prediction ability for the representation of kinetics of the drying process. The GAB model used to fit the sorption isotherms showed a good prediction capacity and, at a given water activity, despite some variations, the amount of water sorbed increased with the decrease of drying temperature.

High body mass index is not a barrier to physical activity: Analysis of international rugby players' anthropometric data

Recent data indicate that levels of overweight and obesity are increasing at an alarming rate throughout the world. At a population level (and commonly to assess individual health risk), the prevalence of overweight and obesity is calculated using cut-offs of the Body Mass Index (BMI) derived from height and weight. Similarly, the BMI is also used to classify individuals and to provide a notional indication of potential health risk. It is likely that epidemiologic surveys that are reliant on BMI as a measure of adiposity will overestimate the number of individuals in the overweight (and slightly obese) categories. This tendency to misclassify individuals may be more pronounced in athletic populations or groups in which the proportion of more active individuals is higher. This differential is most pronounced in sports where it is advantageous to have a high BMI (but not necessarily high fatness). To illustrate this point we calculated the BMIs of international professional rugby players from the four teams involved in the semi-finals of the 2003 Rugby Union World Cup. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) cut-offs for BMI, approximately 65% of the players were classified as overweight and approximately 25% as obese. These findings demonstrate that a high BMI is commonplace (and a potentially desirable attribute for sport performance) in professional rugby players. An unanswered question is what proportion of the wider population, classified as overweight (or obese) according to the BMI, is misclassified according to both fatness and health risk? It is evident that being overweight should not be an obstacle to a physically active lifestyle. Similarly, a reliance on BMI alone may misclassify a number of individuals who might otherwise have been automatically considered fat and/or unfit.