The Sensorial Production of the Social

In China temple festivals are replete with noises, sights, smells, tastes, and ambient sensory productions. When worshipers converge on a particular temple festival, they produce and experience honghuo (social heat or red-hot sociality). This native concept of honghuo highlights the importance of the social production of a heightened sensory ambience as well as the sensorial production of sociality. In co-producing honghuo the festivalgoers are exhibiting a ‘resonant body-person’ that is in accord with the spirit of mutual responsiveness. I propose a sensory-production model of sensory analysis that foregrounds the active participatory role of social agents in producing a sensorially rich social world. This model extends from, yet also critiques the prevalent cultural phenomenological approach to investigating sensory orders in different cultures. A ‘mindful body’ or an ‘attentive body’ is only the pre-condition for any person's action-full lifeworld.     

Vacant habitats in the Universe

The search for life on other planets usually makes the assumption that where there is a habitat, it will contain life. On the present-day Earth, uninhabited habitats (or vacant habitats) are rare, but might occur, for example, in subsurface oils or impact craters that have been thermally sterilized in the past. Beyond Earth, vacant habitats might similarly exist on inhabited planets or on uninhabited planets, for example on a habitable planet where life never originated. The hypothesis that vacant habitats are abundant in the Universe is testable by studying other planets. In this review, I discuss how the study of vacant habitats might ultimately inform an understanding of how life has influenced geochemical conditions on Earth.     

Habitable Zones in the Universe

Habitability varies dramatically with location and time in the universe. This was recognized centuries ago, but it was only in the last few decades that astronomers began to systematize the study of habitability. The introduction of the concept of the habitable zone was key to progress in this area. The habitable zone concept was first applied to the space around a star, now called the Circumstellar Habitable Zone. Recently, other, vastly broader, habitable zones have been proposed. We review the historical development of the concept of habitable zones and the present state of the research. We also suggest ways to make progress on each of the habitable zones and to unify them into a single concept encompassing the entire universe.     

Re-Designing Clouds to Increase Turbidity in Beverage Emulsions

Clouds represent oil-in-water emulsions, which are used to create a turbid appearance in beverage emulsions. Aim of the present study was to investigate whether crystalline structures at the oil-water interface or a solidified dispersed phase sufficiently increase the refractive index difference between the two phases to create turbidity in a more efficient manner. Bulk materials and dispersions were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry and time-domain-NMR for crystal structure and solid fat content, respectively. Use of high melting emulsifiers (HME), 1% sodium stearoyl lactylate (SSL), 1% glyceryl stearoyl citrate (GSC), respectively 1.5% phospholipid (PL) did not result in an increase in turbidity. Data indicate that the emulsifiers did not crystallize at the interface. However, modification of the dispersed phase with high melting lipids (HML) was successful. Using fats with increasing melting point, it was shown that turbidity increased with increasing degree of crystallinity. Compared to a liquid medium chain triglyceride (MCT) turbidity increased significantly from 290 NTU (ratio) using hydrogenated palm fat (HPF, 400 NTU (ratio)) or tristearin (SSS, 440 NTU (ratio)) instead. In order to induce that effect, a critical degree of crystallinity of more than 36% needed to be achieved.     

Evaluation of the Stability of Concentrated Emulsions for Lemon Beverages Using Sequential Experimental Designs

The study of the stability of concentrated oil-in-water emulsions is imperative to provide a scientific approach for an important problem in the beverage industry, contributing to abolish the empiricism still present nowadays. The use of these emulsions would directly imply a reduction of transportation costs between production and the sales points, where dilution takes place. The goal of this research was to evaluate the influence of the main components of a lemon emulsion on its stability, aiming to maximize the concentration of oil in the beverage and to correlate its physicochemical characteristics to product stability, allowing an increase of shelf life of the final product. For this purpose, analyses of surface and interface tension, electrokinetic potential, particle size and rheological properties of the emulsions were conducted. A 2^4-1 fractional factorial design was performed with the following variables: lemon oil/water ratio (30% to 50%), starch and Arabic gum concentrations (0% to 30%) and dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate (0 mg/L to 100 mg/L), including an evaluation of the responses at the central conditions of each variable. Sequentially, a full design was prepared to evaluate the two most influential variables obtained in the first plan, in which concentration of starch and gum ranged from 0% to 20%, while concentration of lemon oil/water ratio was fixed at 50%, without dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate. Concentrated emulsions with stability superior to 15 days were obtained with either starch or Arabic gum and 50% lemon oil. The most stable formulations presented viscosity over 100 cP and ratio between the surface tension of the emulsion and the mucilage of over 1. These two answers were selected, since they better represent the behavior of emulsions in terms of stability and could be used as tools for an initial selection of the most promising formulations.     

光照因子对鹿茸生长发育的影响作用

控制光照周期中的光照强度(I)和光照／黑暗比率(L／D)对鹿茸的生长发育影响的作用明显,其中,在I=300lx和L/D=1.00-3.00时,鹿茸的生长发育最好。此外,鹿体内的性腺激素对鹿茸的生长发育有明显的作用。     

Contribution to the study of dermatomycosis in Catalonia

We report the results of a study which aim was the mycological identification of specimens coming from patients included in a clinical trial. A total of 445 specimens from patients with clinical diagnosis of dermatomicosis were processed during 8 months (138 pityriasis versicolor, 28 cutaneous candidosis and 279 dermatophytosis). A 48% of pityriasis versicolor cultures were positive for Malassezia furfur, 50% of candidosis cultures were positive for yeasts and 67% of dermatophytosis cultures were positive for dermatophytes. According to our results Candida albicans was the principal causative agent for cutaneous candidosis and Trichophyton mentagrophytes and Trichophyton rubrum were the most frequent isolated species causing dermatophytosis.     

Contribution to the Staining of Neuroglia

The chemistry of Weigert's glia staining method is critically discussed. An investigation of the Heidelberger Victoria blue staining method has shown that Victoria blue may be replaced by other phenylmethane dyes as methyl violet, ethyl violet, and crystal violet. It was found that the exposure of the stained section to sunlight is an oxidation process. Artificial ultra violet rays or chemical oxidation agents give the same effect. Frozen sections fixed in formalin or alcohol may be stained in a concentrated aqueous solution of any of the above mentioned phenylmethane dyes, dried, and exposed to ultra violet rays for 30 minutes, then treated with 1/10 N. iodine solution, differentiated in xylol anilin and cleared in xylol. The glia cell body as well as the fibrils are clearly differentiated from the nervous elements and connective tissue.