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Provitamin A carotenoids (ß-carotene, α-carotene, and ß-cryptoxanthin) contribute to the dietary intake of vitamin A and are associated with decreased risk of many chronic diseases. Besides their contents in foods, their bioaccessibility is of great interest since it represents the amount that will be absorbed in the gut. The aim of this study was to adopt, for the first time, the in vitro digestion model suitable for food, proposed in a consensus paper by Minekus et al. (2014), to assess the bioaccessibility of carotenoids from the fruits that are the major contributors to the intake of ß-cryptoxanthin in Spain (orange, tangerine, red pepper, peach, watermelon, and persimmon) and loquat. The highest ß-cryptoxanthin content and the lowest bioaccessibility was found in mandarin and loquat (13331.6 and 929.2 μg per 100 g respectively), whereas the highest contents of ß-carotene and α-carotene were recorded in red pepper (1135.3 and 90.4 μg per 100 g respectively). The bioaccessibility of ß-cryptoxanthin was similar to that of ß-carotene (0.02-9.8% and 1-9.1%, respectively) and was higher than that of ß-carotene in red pepper, watermelon and peach. α-Carotene bioaccessibility ranged between 0% and 4.6%. We discuss the critical factors for comparing our data: the form of the food being analyzed (raw/cooked/previously frozen, in the presence or absence of oil/fat) and the protocol for bioaccessibility assessment. Different food processing techniques may increase carotenoid bioaccessibility compared to raw food. However, given the difficulties encountered when comparing the results of studies on bioaccessibility, it seems logical to propose the application of the previously mentioned standardized in vitro protocol., Rocío Estévez-Santiago is the recipient of a JAE-Predoc grant from the Spanish Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), awarded under the program of the Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios, cofinanced by the European Social Fund (ESF). The support of the program for international connection iLINK+ (I-LINK0770) of the CSIC and the AZ Mercadante’s (Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP, proc. 13/50789-0), E Murillo’s (Universidad de Panamá) and AA Durant’s (INDICASAT, Panamá) critical contributions are acknowledged. The authors wish to thank Milagros Sánchez-Prieto for technical support and the financial support from ALIMNOVA-UCM951505.

This article belongs to the Special Issue State-of-the-Art Sensors Technology in Spain 2015., Manual prodding is still one of the most utilized procedures for identifying buried landmines during humanitarian demining activities. However, due to the high number of accidents reported during its practice, it is considered an outmoded and risky procedure and there is a general consensus about the need of introducing upgrades for enhancing the safety of human operators. With the aim of contributing to reduce the number of demining accidents, this paper presents an intelligent multisensory system for training operators in the use of prodders. The proposed tool is able to provide to deminers useful information in two critical issues: (a) the amount of force exerted on the target and if it is greater than the safe limit and, (b) to alert them when the angle of insertion of the prodder is approaching or exceeding a certain dangerous limit. Results of preliminary tests show the feasibility and reliability of the proposed design and highlight the potential benefits of the tool., Authors acknowledge funding from the European Commission under 7th Framework Programme (TIRAMISU Grant Agreement N° 284747) and partial funding from the CSIC project Robótica y sensors para los retos sociales (ROBSEN—PIE 20165E050) and the Robocity2030-III-CM project (Robótica aplicada a la mejora de la calidad de vida de los ciudadanos. Fase III; S2013/MIT-2748), funded by Programas de Actividades I+D en la Comunidad de Madrid and cofounded by Structural Funds of the EU. Roemi Fernández acknowledges the financial support from Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the Ramón y Cajal Programme. Héctor Montes acknowledges support from Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá., CHF 1,350 APC fee funded by the EC FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot

Image registration for sensor fusion is a valuable technique to acquire 3D and colour information for a scene. Nevertheless, this process normally relies on feature-matching techniques, which is a drawback for combining sensors that are not able to deliver common features. The combination of ToF and RGB cameras is an instance that problem. Typically, the fusion of these sensors is based on the extrinsic parameter computation of the coordinate transformation between the two cameras. This leads to a loss of colour information because of the low resolution of the ToF camera, and sophisticated algorithms are required to minimize this issue. This work proposes a method for sensor registration with non-common features and that avoids the loss of colour information. The depth information is used as a virtual feature for estimating a depth-dependent homography lookup table (Hlut). The homographies are computed within sets of ground control points of 104 images. Since the distance from the control points to the ToF camera are known, the working distance of each element on the Hlut is estimated. Finally, two series of experimental tests have been carried out in order to validate the capabilities of the proposed method., The authors acknowledge funding from the European commission in the 7th Framework Programme (CROPS Grant Agreement No. 246252) and partial funding under ROBOCITY2030-III-CM project (Robótica aplicada a la mejora de la calidad de vida de los ciudadanos. Fase III; S2013/MIT-2748), funded by Programa de Actividades I+D en la Comunidad de Madrid and cofunded by Structural Funds of the EU. Héctor Montes also acknowledges support from Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá. We acknowledge support by the CSIC Open Access Publication Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI)., CHF 1,620 APC fee funded by the EC FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot