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"FUNCTIONALITY"
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Exploitation of Seaweed Functionality for the Development of Food Products
Salubriousness, sustainability, low environmental footprint, and low production cost make seaweed an exciting food source for meeting food security and nutritional challenges. Seaweeds are increasingly being utilized in various food systems to avail dietary benefits for human health. The supplementation of seaweed with foods imparts its nutritional, techno-functional, and sensory functionalities to the food product. Thus, seaweeds present an interesting prospect to design tailor-made novel food products which are healthy, palatable, and at the same time ‘convenience food’. The utilization of seaweeds for the development of food products is an excellent opportunity for food scientists, technologists, and phycologists for optimal exploitation of this food resource. The appropriate usage of seaweed in food systems could possibly give rise to a novel segment of seaweed-based composite/hybrid health foods. The review briefly summarises the trend and opportunities of seaweed utilization in functional food systems and the modifications occurring in food products upon supplementation with seaweed. Further, the review also discusses food safety concerns such as the presence of toxins, microplastics, heavy metals, and micropollutants in seaweed and challenges in adoption due to neophobia.
Journal Article
Correction: The antipsychotics functional index (AFI) in schizophrenia
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1591763.].
Journal Article
Effect of atmospheric cold plasma treatment on technological and nutrition functionality of protein in foods
Atmospheric cold plasma (ACP) is an emerging technology which has increased attraction due to the consumers’ tendency toward fresh and minimally processed food products. This non-thermal technology has been considered as a promising tool for decontamination of foods, modification of food components as well as food packaging. The potential interactions of cold plasma species with food components and consequently its effect on food quality is of high importance. Proteins are the main food constituent in food formulations regarding both nutritional and technological points of view. The susceptibility of native proteins to reactive species created through ACP treatment should be considered regarding the power supply, type of feeding gas and its pressure, exposure time, input voltage and current flow. However, the protein characteristics and the manner in which they are exposed are also important to be considered. This review article is aimed to investigate the technological and nutritional characteristics of proteins during atmospheric cold plasma treatment.
Journal Article
Next-generation electrocaloric and pyroelectric materials for solid-state electrothermal energy interconversion
Thin-film electrocaloric and pyroelectric sources for electrothermal energy interconversion have recently emerged as viable means for primary and auxiliary solid-state cooling and power generation. Two significant advances have facilitated this development: (1) the formation of high-quality polymeric and ceramic thin films with figures of merit that project system-level performance as a large percentage of Carnot efficiency and (2) the ability of these newer materials to support larger electric fields, thereby permitting operation at higher voltages. This makes the power electronic architectures more favorable for thermal to electric energy interconversion. Current research targets to adequately address commercial device needs including reduction of parasitic losses, increases in mechanical robustness, and the ability to form nearly freestanding elements with thicknesses in the range of 1–10 μm. This article describes the current state-of-the-art materials, thermodynamic cycles, and device losses and points toward potential lines of research that would lead to substantially better figures of merit for electrothermal energy interconversion.
Journal Article
Redefining bilingualism as a spectrum of experiences that differentially affects brain structure and function
Learning and using an additional language is shown to have an impact on the structure and function of the brain, including in regions involved in cognitive control and the connections between them. However, the available evidence remains variable in terms of the localization, extent, and trajectory of these effects. Variability likely stems from the fact that bilingualism has been routinely operationalized as a categorical variable (bilingual/monolingual), whereas it is a complex and dynamic experience with a number of potentially deterministic factors affecting neural plasticity. Here we present a study investigating the combined effects of experience-based factors (EBFs) in bilingual language use on brain structure and functional connectivity. EBFs include an array of measures of everyday usage of a second language in different types of immersive settings (e.g., amount of use in social settings). Analyses reveal specific adaptations in the brain, both structural and functional, correlated to individual EBFs and their combined effects. Taken together, the data show that the brain adapts to be maximally efficient in the processing and control of two languages, although modulated ultimately by individual language experience.
Journal Article
Eco-functionality of organic matter in soils
Background
Soil organic matter (SOM) supports multiple soil ecosystem functions, underpinned by processes such as C sequestration, N mineralization, aggregation, promotion of plant health and compound retention. We know little about the relationship between these functions and SOM quality.
Scope
We aimed to develop “eco-functionality” as a framework to address questions on the relation between SOM properties and soil ecosystem functions.
Conclusions
Paradigm shifts in SOM research have not led to metrics for eco-functionality beyond decomposability and C:N ratio. Recalcitrant OM is under-researched despite its essential role in aggregation and C sequestration, especially in C-saturated soils. Most soil functions are dependent on SOM decomposition and require labile compounds. We conclude that eco-functionality is context-dependent and needs to take time scales into account. We plea for attempts to link operationally defined SOM fractions to functions in order to make SOM research more applicable.
Journal Article
Printing mesoscale architectures
The ability to pattern materials in three dimensions is crucial for structural, optical, electronic, and energy applications. Three-dimensional printing allows one to design and rapidly fabricate materials in complex shapes without the need for expensive tooling, dies, or lithographic masks. A growing palette of printable materials, coupled with the ability to programmably control mesoscale architecture, open new avenues for creating designer materials with unprecedented performance.
Journal Article
Perspectives on Saponins: Food Functionality and Applications
Saponins are a diverse group of naturally occurring plant secondary metabolites present in a wide range of foods ranging from grains, pulses, and green leaves to sea creatures. They consist of a hydrophilic sugar moiety linked to a lipophilic aglycone, resulting in an amphiphilic nature and unique functional properties. Their amphiphilic structures enable saponins to exhibit surface-active properties, resulting in stable foams and complexes with various molecules. In the context of food applications, saponins are utilized as natural emulsifiers, foaming agents, and stabilizers. They contribute to texture and stability in food products and have potential health benefits, including cholesterol-lowering and anticancer effects. Saponins possess additional bioactivities that make them valuable in the pharmaceutical industry as anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antiviral, and antiparasitic agents to name a few. Saponins can demonstrate cytotoxic activity against cancer cell lines and can also act as adjuvants, enhancing the immune response to vaccines. Their ability to form stable complexes with drugs further expands their potential in drug delivery systems. However, challenges such as bitterness, cytotoxicity, and instability under certain conditions need to be addressed for effective utilization of saponins in foods and related applications. In this paper, we have reviewed the chemistry, functionality, and application aspects of saponins from various plant sources, and have summarized the regulatory aspects of the food-based application of quillaja saponins. Further research to explore the full potential of saponins in improving food quality and human health has been suggested. It is expected that this article will be a useful resource for researchers in food, feed, pharmaceuticals, and material science.
Journal Article
Evaluating the Quality of Machine Learning Explanations: A Survey on Methods and Metrics
The most successful Machine Learning (ML) systems remain complex black boxes to end-users, and even experts are often unable to understand the rationale behind their decisions. The lack of transparency of such systems can have severe consequences or poor uses of limited valuable resources in medical diagnosis, financial decision-making, and in other high-stake domains. Therefore, the issue of ML explanation has experienced a surge in interest from the research community to application domains. While numerous explanation methods have been explored, there is a need for evaluations to quantify the quality of explanation methods to determine whether and to what extent the offered explainability achieves the defined objective, and compare available explanation methods and suggest the best explanation from the comparison for a specific task. This survey paper presents a comprehensive overview of methods proposed in the current literature for the evaluation of ML explanations. We identify properties of explainability from the review of definitions of explainability. The identified properties of explainability are used as objectives that evaluation metrics should achieve. The survey found that the quantitative metrics for both model-based and example-based explanations are primarily used to evaluate the parsimony/simplicity of interpretability, while the quantitative metrics for attribution-based explanations are primarily used to evaluate the soundness of fidelity of explainability. The survey also demonstrated that subjective measures, such as trust and confidence, have been embraced as the focal point for the human-centered evaluation of explainable systems. The paper concludes that the evaluation of ML explanations is a multidisciplinary research topic. It is also not possible to define an implementation of evaluation metrics, which can be applied to all explanation methods.
Journal Article