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Structural, functional and nutritional properties of protein recovered from brown seaweed, S. latissima with alkaline solubilization/isoelectric precipitation as a function of different post-harvest stabilization methods were studied. The latter included freezing at −20 °C/-80 °C, oven-drying, sun-drying, freeze-drying and ensilaging. Also, the efficacy of freeze/thaw-aided precipitation (F/T) in improving protein recovery of the process was evaluated. The freeze-dried, oven-dried, and −20 °C frozen seaweeds resulted in significantly higher protein yield than the −80°C-frozen, sun-dried and ensiled biomasses. F/T increased protein precipitation and doubled total protein yield. Sun-drying and −20°C-freezing caused extensive protein degradation as revealed by SDS-PAGE and HP-SEC, while oven-drying altered the seaweed protein structure with less α-helices. Functional properties of the seaweed proteins were remarkably affected by stabilization condition and F/T, but nutritional value of the proteins was only dependent on stabilization method. Thus, to efficiently recover seaweed proteins, its post-harvest stabilization condition must be carefully chosen based on the final application of the proteins.

BACKGROUND Pseudocereals are nutrient‐rich grains with high mineral content but also phytate content. Phytate is a mineral absorption inhibitor. The study's aim was to evaluate phytate degradation during spontaneous fermentation and during Lactobacillus plantarum 299v® fermentation of quinoa, canihua, and amaranth grains and flours. It also aimed to evaluate the accessibility of iron, zinc, and calcium and to estimate their bioavailability before and after the fermentation of flours with starter culture. Lactic acid, pH, phytate, and mineral content were analyzed during fermentation. RESULTS Higher phytate degradation was found during the fermentation of flours (64–93%) than during that of grains (12–51%). Results suggest that phytate degradation was mainly due to endogenous phytase activity in different pseudocereals rather than the phytase produced by added microorganisms. The addition of Lactobacillus plantarum 299v® resulted in a higher level of lactic acid (76.8–82.4 g kg−1 DM) during fermentation, and a relatively quicker reduction in pH to 4 than in spontaneous fermentation. Mineral accessibility was increased (1.7–4.6‐fold) and phytate : mineral molar ratios were reduced (1.5–4.2‐fold) in agreement with phytate degradation (1.8–4.2‐fold) in fermented flours. The reduced molar ratios were still above the threshold value for the improved estimated mineral bioavailability of mainly iron. CONCLUSION Fermentation proved to be effective for degrading phytate in pseudocereal flours, but less so in grains. Fermentation with Lactobacillus plantarum 299v® improved mineral accessibility and estimated bioavailability in flours. © 2019 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

There is a strong need in animal production for sustainable protein sources used in feed. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the potential of the pH-shift process as a method to concentrate proteins from complex bone-rich herring (Clupea harengus) by-products. By-product parts (frame, head, guts), protein solubilization pH (pH 2.8 or 11.3) and separation g-force (800 or 8000 g) were varied. The findings revealed that protein recovery yields of up to 60% were obtained and that higher protein yield was obtained from the alkaline than the acid process. By-product part and g-force had no significant impact on protein yield. Protein levels reached in the concentrates were 75–80 % (dw basis). Protein concentrates contained a similar amino acid profile as have been reported for fishmeal, with ~40% essential amino acids and up to 7.8% and 2.8% of lysine and methionine. Residual levels of LC n-3 PUFA as well as calcium, magnesium, potassium and phosphorous were also found in the produced protein concentrates which could be an added value. Acid produced concentrates were particularly high in calcium potassium and phosphorous. Provided a careful evaluation, the pH-shift process could become a successful alternative to classic fish meal production for increasing the use of fish by-products for production of protein ingredients for feed.

One of the most common strategies used in large-scale logistics problems is districting, in which one divides a service region into smaller pieces. This is particularly useful when one does not know the true locations of demand, but has only limited information such as a probability distribution or a small set of sample data. In “Wasserstein Distance and the Distributionally Robust TSP,” Carlsson et al. show how to partition a region so as to balance the traveling salesman tours of a set of unknown points, using a distributionally robust method defined by a bound on the Wasserstein distance to a set of landmark points.

Carbamazepine (CBZ) is an anticonvulsant medication with highly persistent properties in the aquatic environment, where it has the potential to affect nontarget biota. Because CBZ and many other pharmaceuticals are not readily removed in conventional sewage treatment plants (STP), additional STP effluent treatment technologies are being evaluated and implemented. Whole effluent ozonation is a prospective method to remove pharmaceuticals such as CBZ, yet knowledge on the toxicity of CBZ ozonation byproducts (OBPs) is lacking. This study presents, for the first time, in vivo individual and mixture toxicity of four putative OBPs, that is, carbamazepine 10,11-epoxide, 10,11-Dihydrocarbamazepine, 1-(2-benzaldehyde)-4-hydro-(1H,3H)-quinazoline-2-one (BQM), and 1-(2-benzaldehyde)-(1H,3H)-quinazoline-2,4-dione (BQD) in developing zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos. BQM and BQD were isolated from the ozonated solution as they were not commercially available. The study confirmed that the OBP mixture caused embryotoxic responses comparable to that of ozonated CBZ. Individual compound embryotoxicity assessment further revealed that BQM and BQD were the drivers of embryotoxicity. OBP chemical stability in ozonated CBZ water solution during 2 week dark storage at 22 °C was also assessed. The OBP concentrations remained over time, except for BQD which decreased by 94%. Meanwhile, ozonated CBZ persistently induced embryotoxicity over 2 week storage, potentially illustrating environmental concern.

We determine the efficiency of a delivery system in which an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) provides service to customers while making return trips to a truck that is itself moving. In other words, a UAV picks up a package from the truck (which continues on its route), and after delivering the package, the UAV returns to the truck to pick up the next package. Although the hardware for such systems already exists, the extent to which such an approach can actually provide a significantly improved quality of service is not yet understood. By combining a theoretical analysis in the Euclidean plane with real-time numerical simulations on a road network, we demonstrate that the improvement in efficiency is proportional to the square root of the ratio of the speeds of the truck and the UAV. The online supplement is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2824 . This paper was accepted by Vishal Gaur, operations management.

peer-reviewed The demand for vegetable proteins increases globally and seaweeds are considered novel and promising protein sources. However, the tough polysaccharide-rich cell walls and the abundance of polyphenols reduce the extractability and digestibility of seaweed proteins. Therefore, food grade, scalable, and environmentally friendly protein extraction techniques are required. To date, little work has been carried out on developing such methods taking into consideration the structural differences between seaweed species. In this work, three different protein extraction methods were applied to three Swedish seaweeds (Porphyra umbilicalis, Ulva lactuca, and Saccharina latissima). These methods included (I) a traditional method using sonication in water and subsequent ammonium sulfate-induced protein precipitation, (II) the pH-shift protein extraction method using alkaline protein solubilization followed by isoelectric precipitation, and (III) the accelerated solvent extraction (ASE®) method where proteins are extracted after pre-removal of lipids and phlorotannins. The highest protein yields were achieved using the pH-shift method applied to P. umbilicalis (22.6 ± 7.3%) and S. latissima (25.1 ± 0.9%). The traditional method resulted in the greatest protein yield when applied to U. lactuca (19.6 ± 0.8%). However, the protein concentration in the produced extracts was highest for all three species using the pH-shift method (71.0 ± 3.7%, 51.2 ± 2.1%, and 40.7 ± 0.5% for P. umbilicalis, U. lactuca, and S. latissima, respectively). In addition, the pH-shift method was found to concentrate the fatty acids in U. lactuca and S. latissima by 2.2 and 1.6 times, respectively. The pH-shift method can therefore be considered a promising strategy for producing seaweed protein ingredients for use in food and feed.

The study was conducted to examine if crude enzymes (E) produced from Aspergillus niger by solid state fermentation could bio-transform carbohydrates, proteins, inositol phosphate (InsP) and saponins in soybean meal (SBM) under low moisture conditions. Two experiments were performed to determine the effect of mixing, moisture content, treatment time and E levels during enzyme hydrolysis. 1) A single replicate 2 3 full factorial screening design was used to determine the effect of the independent continuous variables time (30 and 70 min), moisture (350 and 450 g kg −1 DM), and the category variable mixing (i.e. effect of static conditions vs. active mixing (X3, S/M)) during the enzyme hydrolysis. 2) A three factorial central composite design (CCD) was used to study the effects of moisture content (316–484 g kg −1 DM), time of hydrolysis (16.4–83.6 min), and E content (0.32-3.68 g kg −1 SBM dry matter (DM)). The first experiment demonstrated that hydrolysis of InsP 6 was significantly affected by time (P < 0.01), moisture content (P < 0.0001) and static vs. mixing (P < 0.01). The hydrolysis of Bb-DDMP was also significantly affected by static vs. mixing (P < 0.05). The second experiment demonstrated that the hydrolysis of InsP 6 was significantly affected by time (P < 0.001), moisture (P ˂ 0.001) and enzyme content (P ˂ 0.01). The InsP 6 content was reduced 84% after 70 min, at a moisture content of 450 g kg −1 DM with the addition of 3 g enzyme kg −1 SBM DM, the InsP 5 -InsP 3 were not accumulated at these parameter settings. The hydrolysis of the saponin group Bb was explained by the enzyme square regressor (P < 0.001) and the interaction between moisture and enzyme (P < 0.001) reaching a maximum by the addition of 2.5 g enzymes kg −1 SBM DM at 484 g kg −1 moisture content. No significant effects on soluble protein and dietary fiber were observed. Mink were fed three diets containing 50% of the protein from SBM, SBM treated without enzymes or treated with enzymes. There was a trend of improved ash apparent digestibility in mink by the enzyme treatment (P = 0.07), but not for phosphorous. The apparent digestibility of protein and amino acids (AA) in mink was improved by the heat treatment used to inactivate the enzymes (P < 0.001), however, not by the enzyme treatment itself.

Aim: Vitamin A plays a role in mucosal immunity and tolerance, but the association between vitamin A status and allergy is still unclear. The aim of the study was to analyze the levels of vitamin A in serum from adolescents with or without atopic rhinoconjunctivitis. Method: Thirteen-year-old children with atopic rhinoconjunctivitis (n = 53) and non-allergic, nonsensitized controls (n = 52) were randomly selected from a population based prospective birth cohort comprising 1228 children in Northern Sweden born in 1996-1997.

A recent focal point in research on the vehicle routing problem (VRP) is the issue of robustness in which customer demand is uncertain. In this paper, we conduct a theoretical analysis of the demand distributions whose induced workloads are as undesirable as possible. We study two common variations of VRP in a continuous approximation setting: the first is the VRP with time windows, and the second is the capacitated VRP, in which regular returns to the vehicle’s point of origin are required.

One of the fundamental concerns in the analysis of logistical systems is the trade-off between localized, independent provision of goods and services versus provision along a centralized infrastructure such as a backbone network. One phenomenon in which this trade-off has recently been made manifest is the transition of businesses from traditional brick-and-mortar stores to retail sales facilitated via e-commerce, such as grocery delivery services. Conventional wisdom would dictate that such services ought to be more efficient—say from the perspective of the overall carbon footprint—because of the economy of scale achieved by aggregating demand through a delivery van, as opposed to the many separate trips that customers would otherwise take using their own means of transport. In this paper, we quantify the changes in overall efficiency due to such services by looking at “household-level” economies of scale in transportation: a person might perform many errands in a day (such as going to the bank, grocery store, and post office), and that person has many choices of locations at which to perform these tasks (e.g., a typical metropolitan region has many banks, grocery stores, and post offices). Thus, the total driving distance (and therefore the overall carbon footprint) that that person traverses is the solution to a generalized travelling salesman problem (GTSP) in which they select both the best locations to visit and the sequence in which to visit them. We perform a probabilistic analysis of the GTSP under the assumption that all relevant locations are independently and identically distributed uniformly in a region and then determine the amount of adoption of such services that is necessary, under our model, in order for the overall carbon footprint of the region to decrease.

Background Quinoa is a pseudocereal with relatively high content of proteins and minerals that also contains mineral inhibitors such as phytate. The aim of the present study was to evaluate lactic acid fermentation and dry roasting on the nutritional quality and sensory attributes of quinoa. Various processes were evaluated, and quinoa grains were dry‐roasted, milled, and fermented, either with or without the addition of wheat phytase or activated quinoa phytase (added as back‐slop starter), for 10 hr. In other processes, raw quinoa flour was fermented for 10 hr or 4 hr and dry‐roasted. Hedonic sensory evaluation was then performed to evaluate the acceptability of the fermented flours prepared as porridges. Results The combined dry roasting and fermentation processes significantly (p, The combined dry roasting and fermentation processes degraded phytate in quinoa between 30% and 73% from initial content. The most effective process was fermentation of raw quinoa flour followed by dry roasting, which improved the estimated zinc and iron bioavailability. Phytate degradation was mainly attributed to the activation of endogenous phytase during fermentation. Dry roasting was effective in improving the sensory attributes of the fermented quinoa flour. Fermentation of quinoa flour for 4 hr followed by dry roasting was successful in improving both nutritional and sensory attributes of the final product.

Pharmaceutical residues are polluting the surface water environments worldwide. Sewage and wastewater treatment, therefore, needs to be improved in order to remove pharmaceutical residues from the effluent. One such treatment improvement is effluent ozonation. Even though ozonation has proven to be very efficient in reducing pharmaceutical parent compound concentrations in wastewater effluents, much remains unclear regarding potentially toxic ozonation by-product (OBP) formation. In this study, we sought to elucidate the aquatic toxicity of ozonated pharmaceuticals in zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos in a static 144 h post fertilization (hpf) fish embryotoxicity (ZFET) assay. Three pharmaceuticals commonly detected in wastewater effluents, i.e. carbamazepine, diclofenac, and oxazepam, were selected for testing. Toxicity was assessed before and after 1 min ozonation (0.053 mg L

The threat of hardware Trojans has been widely recognized by academia, industry, and government agencies. A Trojan can compromise security of a system in spite of cryptographic protection. The damage caused by a Trojan may not be limited to a business or reputation, but could have a severe impact on public safety, national economy, or national security. An extremely stealthy way of implementing hardware Trojans has been presented by Becker et al. at CHES'2012. Their work have shown that it is possible to inject a Trojan in a random number generator compliant with FIPS 140-2 and NIST SP800-90 standards by exploiting non-zero aliasing probability of Logic Built-In-Self-Test (LBIST). In this paper, we present two methods for modifying LBIST to prevent such an attack. The first method makes test patterns dependent on a configurable key which is programed into a chip after the manufacturing stage. The second method uses a remote test management system which can execute LBIST using a different set of test patterns at each test cycle., 16 pages, 5 figures

We present fast approximation algorithms for the problem of dividing a given convex geographic region into smaller sub-regions so as to distribute the workloads of a set of vehicles. Our objective is to partition the region in such a fashion as to ensure that vehicles are capable of communicating with one another under limited communication radii. We consider variations of this problem in which sub-regions are constrained to have equal area or be convex, and as a side consequence, our approach yields a factor 1.99 approximation algorithm for the continuous k-centers problem on a convex polygon.

Quality changes of vacuum-packed Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus) fillets during 12 months’ frozen storage at −27°C and 9 days’ chilled storage at +4°C were evaluated. Freezing at −27°C preserved the long chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC n-3 PUFAs), both in light and dark muscle, vitamin D, and the low molecular weight metabolites (LMW) (studied by high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, HR NMR). Protein oxidation took place, especially between 1 and 7 months, decreasing water holding capacity and protein extractability. During chilled storage, no lipid or protein oxidation was observed, but lipolysis increased, and several LMW metabolites relevant for sensory and nutritional quality degraded into non-favorable compounds. The content of biogenic amines was high at day 9 (e.g., 18 mg histamine/100 g), jeopardizing safety. Preservation of mackerel fillets by freezing at −27°C is thus a better option compared to prolonged chilled storage at +4°C; the quality was well preserved for 12 months’ frozen storage. Locked until 16.2.2019 due to copyright restrictions. This is an [Accepted Manuscript] of an article published by Taylor & Francis in [Journal of Aquatic Food Product Technology] on [16 Feb 2018], available at https://doi.org/10.1080/10498850.2018.1436107

We consider a continuous facility location problem in which our objective is to minimize the weighted sum of three costs: (1) fixed costs from installing the facilities, (2) backbone network costs incurred from connecting the facilities to each other, and (3) transportation costs incurred from providing services from the facilities to the service region. We first analyze the limiting behavior of this model and derive the two asymptotically optimal configurations of facilities: one of these configurations is the well studied honeycomb heuristic, and the other is an Archimedean spiral. We then give a fast constant-factor approximation algorithm for finding the placement of a set of facilities in any convex polygon that minimizes the sum of the three aforementioned costs.

Determination of microalgaes’ fatty acid content is often done with chloroform and methanol according to the Bligh and Dyer extraction, though faster methods exist. A number of comparisons between the Bligh and Dyer and faster methods have resulted in contradicting data, possibly due to differences in algae used and the different versions of the Bligh and Dyer method applied. Here, various forms of direct-transesterification (D-TE) and two-step transesterification (2-TE), including three versions developed in our lab, are compared with the original Bligh and Dyer (Can J Biochem Physiol 37: 911–917, 1959) extraction and two modifications thereof (Lee et al. J AOAC Int 79:487–492, 1996, and our own acidified version) on microalgae with different cell walls: Isochrysis galbana, Nannochloropsis oculata, and Phaeodactylum tricornutum. In total, fatty acid extracts from 11 methods were separated and quantified by gas chromatography with mass spectrometry. Results show that, for N. oculata and P. tricornutum, methods based on chloroform–methanol underestimated the fatty acid content compared with the 2-TE and D-TE methods, which gave similar results. Moreover, D-TE methods are faster than chloroform–methanol methods and use chemicals that are less toxic. Of the D-TE methods, the ones using hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid recovered the most fatty acids, while boron trifluoride recovered slightly less. The main qualitative difference between the fatty acids recovered was that the chloroform–methanol methods recovered less saturated fatty acids in P. tricornutum. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00216-014-8155-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

We give a fast and simple factor 2.74 approximation algorithm for the problem of choosing the k medians of the continuum of demand points defined by a convex polygon C. Our algorithm first surrounds the input region with a bounding box, then subdivides the bounding box into subregions with equal area. Simulation results on the convex hulls of the 50 states in the United States show that the practical performance of our algorithm is within 10% of the optimal solution in the vast majority of cases.

The hub-and-spoke distribution paradigm has been a fundamental principle in geographic network design for more than 40 years. One of the primary advantages that such networks possess is their ability to exploit economies of scale in transportation by aggregating network flows through common sources. In this paper, we consider the problem of designing an optimal hub-and-spoke network in continuous Euclidean space: the “spokes” of the network are distributed uniformly over a service region, and our objective is to determine the optimal number of hub nodes and their locations. We consider seven different backbone network topologies for connecting the hub nodes, namely, the Steiner and minimum spanning trees, a travelling salesman tour, a star network, a capacitated vehicle routing tour, a complete bipartite graph, and a complete graph. We also perform an additional analysis on a multilevel network in which network flows move through multiple levels of transshipment before reaching the service region. We describe the asymptotically optimal (or near-optimal) configurations that minimize the total network costs as the demand in the region becomes large and give an approximation algorithm that solves our problem on a convex planar region for any values of the relevant input parameters.

We consider the problem of dividing a geographic region into subregions so as to minimize the maximum workload of a collection of facilities over that region. We assume that the cost of servicing a demand point is a monomial function of the distance to its assigned facility and that demand points follow a continuous probability density. We show that, when our objective is to minimize the maximum workload of all facilities, the optimal partition consists of a collection of circular arcs that are induced by a multiplicatively weighted Voronoi diagram. When we require that all subregions have equal area, the optimal partition consists of a collection of hyperbolic or quartic curves. We show that, for both problems, the dual variables correspond to “prices” for a facility to serve a demand point, and our objective is to determine a set of prices such that the entire region is “purchased” by the facilities, i.e., that the market clears. This allows us to solve the partitioning problem quickly without discretizing the service region.

The problem of coordinating a fleet of vehicles so that all demand points on a territory are serviced and the workload is most evenly distributed among the vehicles is a hard one. For this reason, it is often an effective strategy to first divide the service region and impose that each vehicle is only responsible for its own subregion. This heuristic also has the practical advantage that over time, drivers become more effective at serving their territory and customers. In this paper, we assume that client locations are unknown at the time of partitioning the territory and that each of them will be drawn identically and independently according to a distribution that is actually also unknown. In practice, it might be impossible to identify precisely the distribution if, for instance, information about the demand is limited to historical data. Our approach suggests partitioning the region with respect to the worst-case distribution that satisfies first- and second-order moments information. As a side product, our analysis constructs for each subregion a closed-form expression for the worst-case density function, thus providing useful insights about what affects the completion time most heavily. The successful implementation of our approach relies on two branch-and-bound algorithms: whereas the first finds a globally optimal partition of a convex polygon into two convex subregions, the second finds a local optimum for the harder n-partitioning problem. Finally, simulations of a parcel delivery problem will demonstrate that our data-driven approach makes better use of historical data as it becomes available.

We consider an uncapacitated stochastic vehicle routing problem in which vehicle depot locations are fixed, and client locations in a service region are unknown but are assumed to be independent and identically distributed samples from a given probability density function. We present an algorithm for partitioning the service region into subregions so as to balance the workloads of all vehicles when the service region is simply connected and point-to-point distances follow some “natural” metric, such as any Lp norm. This algorithm can also be applied to load balancing of other combinatorial structures, such as minimum spanning trees and minimum matchings.

In this work, we investigated lipid oxidation of cod liver oil during gastrointestinal (GI) digestion using two types of in vitro digestion models. In the first type of model, we used human GI juices, while we used digestive enzymes and bile from porcine origin in the second type of model. Human and porcine models were matched with respect to factors important for lipolysis, using a standardized digestion protocol. The digests were analysed for reactive oxidation products: malondialdehyde (MDA), 4-hydroxy-trans-2-nonenal (HNE), and 4-hydroxy-trans-2-hexenal (HHE) by liquid chromatography/atmospheric pressure chemical ionization-mass spectrometry (LC/APCI-MS), and for free fatty acids (FFA) obtained during the digestion by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The formation of the oxidation products MDA, HHE, and HNE was low during the gastric digestion, however, it increased during the duodenal digestion. The formation of the oxidation products reached higher levels when digestive juices of human origin were used (60 μM of MDA, 9.8 μM of HHE, and 0.36 μM of HNE) [corrected] compared to when using enzymes and bile of porcine origin (0.96, and 1.6 μM of MDA; 0.16, and 0.23 μM of HHE; 0.026, [corrected] and 0.005 μM of HNE, respectively, in porcine models I and II). In all models, FFA release was only detected during the intestinal step, and reached up to 31% of total fatty acids (FA). The findings in this work may be of importance when designing oxidation oriented lipid digestion studies.

Aims: To screen 19 strains of bifidobacteria for main folate forms composition in synthetic folate-free and complex folate-containing media. Methods and Results: HPLC was used to analyse deconjugated folates extracted from bacterial biomass. Most strains had a total folate content above 4000 mu g per 100 g dry matter (DM). The highest value of 9295 mu g per 100 g DM was found in Bifidobacterium catenulatum ATCC 27539 and the lowest in Bifidobacterium animalis ssp. animalis ATCC 25527 containing 220 mu g per 100 g DM. Ten strains grew in a synthetic folate-free medium (FFM), showing folate autotrophy and suggesting folate auxotrophy of the remaining nine. In the autotrophic strains, a consistently higher folate level was found in FFM as compared to a more complex folate-containing medium, suggesting reduced requirements for folates in the presence of growth factors otherwise requiring folates for synthesis. The contents of total folate, 5-CH3-H(4)folate and H(4)folate were strain dependent. 5-CH3-H(4)folate dominated in most strains. Conclusions: Our results show that bifidobacteria folate content and composition is dynamic, is strain specific and depends on the medium. Suitable selection of the growth conditions can result in high levels of folate per cell unit biomass. Significance and Impact of the Study: This suggests that certain bifidobacteria may contribute to the folate intake, either directly in foods, such as fermented dairy products, or in the intestine as folate-trophic probiotics or part of the natural microbiota.

Previous work has developed algorithms for finding an equitable convex partition that partitions the plane into n convex pieces each containing an equal number of red and blue points. Motivated by a vehicle routing heuristic, we look at a related problem where each piece must contain one point and an equal fraction of the area of some convex polygon. We first show how algorithms for solving the older problem lead to approximate solutions for this new equitable convex partition problem. Then we demonstrate a new algorithm that finds an exact solution to our problem in O ( N n log N ) time or operations, where n is the number of points, m the number of vertices or edges of the polygon, and N := n + m the sum.

Phytases are nutritionally important for increased bioavailability of dietary minerals and phosphate for monogastric animals including humans. Release of minerals and phosphate is accomplished by the enzymatic stepwise degradation of phytate (inositol hexaphosphate, IP6). Activity determinations of phytase is often based on analysis of total released phosphate (Pi), but phytase activity in its purest form represents released product per time from IP6 only. Microbial and plant preparations often also contain mixtures of phosphatases and organic phosphate compounds; hence some released phosphate in enzymatic assays may originate from non-phytase phosphatases degrading non-phytate molecules. Moreover, even purified enzyme extracts assessed via Pi release may result in errors, since commercial IP6 commonly contains contamination of lower inositol phosphates, and further, the products of phytase IP6 hydrolysis are also substrates for the phytase. These facts motivate a quantitative comparative study. We compared enzyme activity determination in phytase assay samples at four different time points, based on analyzing the substrate IP6 versus the product Pi using different selected methods. The calculated activities varied substantially. For example, at 15 min into enzymatic assay, variations from 152 mU/ml (by IP6 analysis on HPIC) to 275-586 mU/ml (by Pi analysis using several methods) was detected. Our work emphasizes the importance of defining the type of activity assessed, showing that phytase activity based on released Pi may yield false positive results and/or overestimations. We propose to differentiate between phytase activity, being the activity by which IP6 is degraded, and total inositol phosphatase activity, corresponding to total released phosphate during the enzymatic reaction.

1 Department of Business Management, National Taipei University of Technology, No. 1, Section 3, Chung-Hsiao East Road, Taipei 10608, Taiwan 2 Program in Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Minnesota, 111 Church Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA 3 Antai College of Economics & Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Room 423, North Building, 535 Fahua Zhen Road, Changning, Shanghai 200052, China 4 Department of Business Administration, Chung Yuan Christian University, Chung-Li 320, Taiwan 5 Department of Information and Electronic Engineering, Muroran Institute of Technology, 27-1 Mizumoto-cho, Muroran 050-8585, Japan

Correction for ‘Formation of reactive aldehydes (MDA, HHE, HNE) during the digestion of cod liver oil: comparison of human and porcine in vitro digestion models’ by Cecilia Tullberg et al., Food Funct., 2016, 7, 1401–1412.

The project has studied a number of questions related to data fusion. One is the investigation of zig-zag persistent homology, which is a tool which permits one to study the behavior of qualitative shape invariants (such as homology) across different samples from a larger data set, as well as understand time varying data sets. We have also demonstrated the utility of the Mapper methodology in the study of various different data types, by demonstrating that it provides insight into complex data sets that allow one to obtain useful knowledge concerning the data. In addition, we have constructed a coordinatization of the space of persistence barcodes, which will be very useful in allowing the application of traditional machine learning to data sets where the entries themselves carry geometric structure, such as chemical compounds. We have also applied earlier topological findings to construct compression schemes as well as algorithms for discriminating between types of texture patches.

It is common to embed instruments when developing integrated circuits (ICs). These instruments are accessed at post-silicon validation, debugging, wafer sort, package test, burn-in, printed circuit board bring-up, printed circuit board assembly manufacturing test, power-on self-test, and operator-driven in-field test. At any of these scenarios, it is of interest to access some but not all of the instruments. IEEE 1149.1-2013 and IEEE 1687 propose Test Access Port based (TAP-based) mechanisms to design flexible scan networks such that any combination of instruments can be accessed from outside of the IC. Previous works optimize TAP-based scan networks for one scenario with a known number of accesses. However, at design time, it is difficult to foresee all needed scenarios and the exact number of accesses to instruments. Moreover, the number of accesses might change due to late design changes, addition/exclusion of tests, and changes of constraints. In this paper, we analyze and compare seven IEEE 1687 compatible network design approaches in terms of instrument access time, hardware overhead, and robustness. Given the similarities between IEEE 1149.1-2013 and IEEE 1687, the conclusions are also applicable to IEEE 1149.1-2013 networks.

Autonomous vehicles (or drones) are very frequently used for servicing a geographic region in numerous applications. Given a geographic territory and a set of n fixed vehicle depots, we consider the problem of designing service districts so as to balance the workload of a collection of vehicles which service this region. We assume that the territory is a connected polygonal region, i.e. a simply connected polygon containing a set of simply connected obstacles. We give a fast algorithm, based on an infinite-dimensional optimization formulation, that divides the territory into compact, connected sub-regions, each of which contains a vehicle depot, such that all regions have equal area. We also show how we can use this algorithm to find better locations of the vehicle depots.

Using a combination of high-performance ion chromatography analysis and kinetic studies, the stereospecificity of myo -inositol hexakisphosphate dephosphorylation by the phytate-degrading enzyme P2 of Escherichia coli was established. High-performance ion chromatography revealed that the phytate-degrading enzyme P2 of E. coli degrades myo -inositol hexakisphosphate by stepwise dephosphorylation via d / l -Ins(1,2,3,4,5)P 5 , d / l -Ins(2,3,4,5)P 4 , d / l -Ins(2,4,5)P 3 or d / l -Ins(1,2,4)P 3 , d / l -Ins(1,2)P 2 or Ins(2,5)P 2 or d / l -Ins(4,5)P 2 to finally Ins(2)P or Ins(5)P. Kinetic parameters for myo -inositol pentakisphosphate hydrolysis by E. coli and wheat phytase, respectively, showed that the myo -inositol pentakisphosphate intermediate produced either by the phytate-degrading enzyme of wheat or E. coli are not identical. The absolute configuration of the myo -inositol pentakisphosphate isomer produced by the E. coli enzyme was determined by taking into consideration that wheat phytase produces predominantly the d -Ins(1,2,3,5,6)P 5 isomer (Lim, P.E., Tate, M.E., 1973. The phytases: II. Properties of phytase fraction F 1 and F 2 from wheat bran and the myo -inositol phosphates produced by fraction F 2 . Biochim. Biophys. Acta 302, 326–328). The data demonstrate that the phytate-degrading enzyme P2 of E. coli dephosphorylates myo -inositol hexakisphosphate in a stereospecific way by sequential removal of phosphate groups via d -Ins(1,2,3,4,5)P 5 , d -Ins(2,3,4,5)P 4 , d -Ins(2,4,5)P 3 , Ins(2,5)P 2 to finally Ins(2)P (notation 6/1/3/4/5).

This paper applies topological methods to study complex high dimensional data sets by extracting shapes (patterns) and obtaining insights about them. Our method combines the best features of existing standard methodologies such as principal component and cluster analyses to provide a geometric representation of complex data sets. Through this hybrid method, we often find subgroups in data sets that traditional methodologies fail to find. Our method also permits the analysis of individual data sets as well as the analysis of relationships between related data sets. We illustrate the use of our method by applying it to three very different kinds of data, namely gene expression from breast tumors, voting data from the United States House of Representatives and player performance data from the NBA, in each case finding stratifications of the data which are more refined than those produced by standard methods. Publisher PDF

This paper discusses the reuse and retargeting of test instruments and test patterns using the IEEE P1687 standard in an era where reuse of existing functional elements and integration of IP blocks is accelerating rapidly. It briefly discusses the deficiencies of existing 1149.1 (JTAG) and 1500 standards and demonstrates how the new standard, P1687, plugs these exposures by specifying JTAG as an off-chip to on-chip interface to the instrument access infrastructure. It provides a simple example to underscore the need for the standard and then builds on this example to show how the standard can be used for more complex situations.

The IEEE P1687 (IJTAG) standard proposal aims at providing a standardized interface between the IEEE Standard 1149.1 test access port (TAP) and on-chip embedded test, debug and monitoring logic (instruments), such as scan chains and temperature sensors. A key feature in P1687 is to include Segment Insertion Bits (SIBs) in the scan path to allow flexibility both in designing the instrument access network and in scheduling the access to instruments. This paper presents algorithms to compute the overall access time (OAT) for a given P1687 network. The algorithms are based on analysis for flat and hierarchical network architectures, considering two access schedules, i.e., concurrent schedule and sequential schedule. In the analysis, two types of overhead are identified, i.e., network configuration data overhead and JTAG protocol overhead. The algorithms are implemented and employed in a parametric analysis and in experiments on realistic industrial designs.