Progressive Freeze Concentration of Coconut Water and Use of Partial Ice Melting Method for Yield Improvement

Coconut water is a highly nutritious liquid food which is a by-product of the desiccated coconut industry. Freeze concentration is the most suitable concentration method for coconut water since the low-temperature operation for concentration does not deteriorate the original quality of coconut water. Suspension freeze concentration (SFC) and progressive freeze concentration (PFC) are the available FC methods, and SFC is a complex and expensive method compared with PFC. PFC is a novel freeze concentration technique to concentrate liquid food by using a simple system. The limitation of PFC is the lower product yield than SFC, and to overcome the problem, the partial ice-melting technique can be used. A simple cylindrical apparatus was used for PFC which consists of a sample vessel, agitator system, and a cooling bath (at −23°C±2°C temperature). The final concentration of the liquid product was directly affected by the apparatus agitator speed and sample vessel dipping speed. PFC agitator speed of 290 rpm and dipping speed of 1.3 cm h-1 were reported as the optimum operating conditions to achieve the highest concentration for the PFC apparatus used in this study. Using optimized agitation speed and dipping speed, coconut water was concentrated up to Brix 8.5° from the initial concentration of Brix 3.5°. PFC coconut water achieved 73.56% of total yield, 2.42 of concentration ratio, 0.7° of ice phase concentration, and 0.08 of effective partition coefficient. The partial melting technique was successfully explored by recovering initial ice fractions with high solute concentrations, and the total yield was improved up to 80%.

How to collect verifiable length data on tuna from photographs: an approach for sample vessels

Chang, S-K., Lin, T-T., Lin, G-H., Chang, H-Y., and Hsieh, C-L. 2009. How to collect verifiable length data on tuna from photographs: an approach for sample vessels. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 907–915. Length frequencies are essential data for fish stock assessments, particularly for longer-lived species. They are usually provided by commercial vessels, or by port sampling, observers, or sample-vessel programmes, but each of these has limitations. Collection by sample vessels might be the most balanced way if the data quality is verifiable. We introduce a photograph-based length-measurement approach for sample vessels to photograph fish images with a calibration board, using a regular digital camera to obtain length estimates that can be verified after the images are transformed to reduce errors of perspective distortions. We analyse this approach under ideal conditions, develop a set of objective criteria for choosing acceptable photographs from observers, and compare estimated lengths for bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) based on this approach with lengths measured by observers. The criteria can serve as guidelines for photographing: if images are captured following these guidelines, the approach shows the potential for obtaining cheaply a large quantity of length estimates that deviate around 3% (up and down) on average from the actual measurements taken by observers.

Recommendations on measurement and analysis of results obtained on biological substances using isothermal titration calorimetry (IUPAC Technical Report)

Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) is widely used to determine the thermodynamics of biological interactions including protein-protein, small molecule-protein, protein-DNA, small molecule-DNA, and antigen-antibody interactions. An ITC measurement consists of monitoring the transfer of heat between an analyte solution in a sample vessel and a reference solution in a reference vessel upon injection of a small aliquot of titrant solution into the sample vessel at a fixed ITC operating temperature. A binding isotherm is generated from the heat-transferred-per-injection data and values for the binding constants, the apparent binding enthalpies, and the apparent ratio of the amount of titrant to analyte for the binding reaction are then determined from fits of a binding model, whether it is a single site, identical multi-site, or an interacting multi-site binding model, to the binding isotherm. Prior to the fitting procedure, corrections should be made for contributions from extraneous heat of mixing determined separately from injections of the titrant into just the dialysate/buffer solution. Ultra-high binding constants, which cannot be directly determined from an ITC measurement, can be determined by a displacement ITC method where injections of the tight-binding titrant into a solution of a weaker-binding titrant-analyte complex displaces the weaker-binding titrant from the complex. The Michaelis and catalytic constants can be determined for an enzyme reaction from injections of a substrate or enzyme titrant into an enzyme or substrate analyte solution. Several binding reactions are suggested to check the operating performance of the ITC. The reporting of ITC results must be specific with regard to the composition of the titrant and the analyte solutions, the temperature, and the model used in the analysis.

Code Case 2286 Applied to the Design of Pressure Vessels

Code Case 2286-1 [1] of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code [2][3] provides alternate rules for determining the allowable external pressure and compressive stresses for cylinders, cones, spheres, and formed heads in lieu of the rules of Section VIII, Divisions 1 and 2. The authors in this paper present a comparison of the longitudinal and circumferential compressive stresses in pressure vessels based on the methods outlined in Paragraph UG-28 of Division 1, Section VIII of the ASME Code and Code Case 2286-1. The Do/t ratio in this paper is limited to 600 which covers the majority of pressure vessel designs found in the petrochemical industry. A sample vessel shell design is presented applying both the ASME Code, Section VIII, Div. 1 method and that of Code Case 2286-1.