Functional Ingredients and Food Preservative in Immature Persimmon “Tekka-Kaki”

Immature persimmons are unripe fruits that are cut off during the persimmon cultivation process and immediately discarded, amounting to an annual fruit loss of approximately 100 to 400 kg per 1000 m2. The purpose of this study was to make effective use of unused resources, namely, immature persimmons, and attempt to use them as food additives. In this study, we studied the Tone Wase (fully astringent persimmon) and Fuyu (fully sweet persimmon) cultivars. As a result, we performed a component analysis of the immature persimmons, isolating 12 compounds, of which two were newly identified. Differences in the components and their contents were found between cultivars and between the peel and flesh. To effectively use immature persimmons as food for the elderly, we searched for active substances that inhibit AGE formation and found that extracts of immature persimmons and isolated compounds showed high activity. In particular, high activity was observed for catechin and its polymeric form, procyanidin. Regarding the inhibition of aroma deterioration, 5 mg/L of gallic acid in octadecane was found to be the optimal condition for the inhibition of citral deterioration. As for antimicrobial activity, we found that extracts at a concentration of 500 mg/L had no antimicrobial effect. Based on these findings, we made a microencapsulation process, and plan to advance to the clinical trial study in future. These findings confirmed the effectiveness of immature persimmons, which are an unused resource, and reveal their potential as a food for the elderly and as a food additive in other food products, which we hope will lead to new industrial innovations.

Large-scale preparation of sialyl-Tn antigen-containing peptides from mucin-like glycoproteins in boar seminal gel

Sialyl-Tn antigen, a tumor antigen, is a valuable ligand for the purification of proteins that specifically bind to it. Here, we developed a new method for the preparation of large amounts of sialyl-Tn antigen-containing peptides from an unused resource, boar seminal gel. The glycopeptides were prepared from the actinase E digests by a combination of gel filtration and hydrophilic partitioning.

Environmental Assessment of Upgrading Horticultural Side Streams—The Case of Unharvested Broccoli Leaves

To facilitate transition to a sustainable food system, it is necessary to address food losses. A large proportion of waste occurs during primary production, with large quantities of edible crop parts left in the field at harvest. One such product is broccoli, where normally only around one-third of the edible parts of the plant are harvested in Sweden. Much of the broccoli plant consists of edible leaves and this side stream represents an unused resource with great potential. This study assessed the potential environmental savings that can be achieved by utilising broccoli side streams as a powder in soups and bread. Consequential and attributional life cycle assessments were conducted, based on scenarios relevant for growers in southern Sweden. The results showed that the scenario with the largest saving potential was to process the broccoli side streams into a powder for use in broccoli soup. The main saving was due to substitution of imported broccoli powder, which was assumed to be produced from broccoli florets using a more fossil-based energy mix. The second best scenario was to use the side-stream broccoli powder as a wheat substitute in bread but, since wheat flour is less resource-demanding than imported broccoli powder, the emission savings were lower in this case. However, replacing wheat flour with a vegetable-based product could provide additional health benefits that are important in achieving a healthy, locally available, and environmentally friendly diet suitable for a sustainable food system.

VALORISATION OF BY-PRODUCTS OF THE COTTON SECTOR IN BENIN: DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING OF A DEFIBRATOR AND A THERMOPRESS FOR THE PRODUCTION OF INSULATION PANELS

Cotton production is an important sector in the development of West African countries, particularly Benin. This waste constitutes an unused resource and a threat to the environment. The aim of this work is the design and manufacture of a defibrator and a thermopress for the valorisation of this waste into insulation panels. These two machines have been dimensioned and designed using TopSolid, Schemaplic, Matlab and RDM6 software. The defibrator is manual and enables the shredding of fiber waste and the extraction of impurities. The thermopress is manual and has an electric heating and temperature control system. It can form 30 mm thick panels with a surface area of 400 x 400 mm2 at temperatures up to 200 °C. These two equipments have made it possible to produce new bio-based materials that will help reduce the harmful effects of climate change.

Faraday Rotation of Extended Emission as a Probe of the Large-Scale Galactic Magnetic Field

The Galactic magnetic field is an integral constituent of the interstellar medium (ISM), and knowledge of its structure is crucial to understanding Galactic dynamics. The Rotation Measures (RM) of extragalactic (EG) sources have been the basis of comprehensive Galactic magnetic field models. Polarised extended emission (XE) is also seen along lines of sight through the Galactic disk, and also displays the effects of Faraday rotation. Our aim is to investigate and understand the relationship between EG and XE RMs near the Galactic plane, and to determine how the XE RMs, a hitherto unused resource, can be used as a probe of the large-scale Galactic magnetic field. We used polarisation data from the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (CGPS), observed near 1420 MHz with the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) Synthesis Telescope. We calculated RMs from a linear fit to the polarisation angles as a function of wavelength squared in four frequency channels, for both the EG sources and the XE. Across the CGPS area, 55 ∘ < ℓ < 193 ∘ , − 3 ∘ < b < 5 ∘ , the RMs of the XE closely track the RMs of the EG sources, with XE RMs about half the value of EG-source RMs. The exceptions are places where large local HII complexes heavily depolarise more distant emission. We conclude that there is valuable information in the XE RM dataset. The factor of 2 between the two types of RM values is close to that expected from a Burn slab model of the ISM. This result indicates that, at least in the outer Galaxy, the EG and XE sources are likely probing similar depths, and that the Faraday rotating medium and the synchrotron emitting medium have similar variation with galactocentric distance.

External Corporate Board Members in Small and Medium-Sized Companies

Very few small and medium-sized companies use external members on their corporate boards. An external member is an individual who does not work in the company and who is not financially dependent on the company. We postulate that external board members are an unused resource in small and medium sized companies, but it is not clear how this resource could be used to its full potential. Thus, the objective of this study is to increase understanding of using external board members in small and medium-sized companies. The study is based on survey responses from 290 small and medium sized companies in Finland. As a result of our study, many positive effects of having an external member in the corporate board could be identified. External board members broaden the views of the company management. External members help the company to get access to a broader network of stakeholders. Having an external member in the board induces more professional practices to the management of the company. This leads to better performance of the board. Boards with an external member more often than other boards had had prescheduled meetings, had received in advance agendas of the meetings and had held meetings dedicated purely to strategic planning. Boards with an external member had especially contributed by supporting top management and by participating in strategy formulation. All in all, board work was experienced to be more successful in companies with external board members.

Energetic comparison of some stump-removing methods

Concerns about climate change and fossil fuel shortages are encouraging interest in stumps, as alternative energy sources. Stumps are an almost unused resource in the context of bio fuels. Stump harvesting signifies an intensification of forest management compared with conventional stem-only or above-ground biomass-only harvesting. There are many benefits of stump harvesting. These include: the production of wood fuel, fossil fuel substitution, and improved soil preparation.Removing tree trunks in Hungary has been going on according to the principle of stump extraction, which means stumps are removed by grabbing technology. Experiments have been carried out to reduce the extraction force. In the Great Hungarian Lowland, where large areas require the operation implementation, stump extraction is done by special, hydraulic driven baggers equipped with a special bucket. During operation of the equipment, we carried out measurements of the extraction force and the time requirement. The experiments are designed to carry out the measurements with different soils and different tree species. According to our proposal the suitable force and torque required to remove stumps can be significantly reduced if before the lifting the soil — root connection is loosened. One of the possible ways to implement this task is the use of vibration. Since relatively great vibration power and wide domain of frequency are necessary, therefore we prepared the loosening machinery elements of alternating-current hydraulics system. Based on constructions variants we created a tractor-mounted experimental alternating-current hydraulic stump-loosening machine. It was designed with the ability to produce horizontal vibration in order to loosen stumps.