Alternaria in food: Ecophysiology, mycotoxin production and toxicology

Alternaria species are common saprophytes or pathogens of a wide range of plants pre- and post-harvest. This review considers the relative importance of Alternaria species, their ecology, competitiveness, production of mycotoxins and the prevalence of the predominant mycotoxins in different food products. The available toxicity data on these toxins and the potential future impacts of Alternaria species and their toxicity in food products pre- and post-harvest are discussed. The growth of Alternaria species is influenced by interacting abiotic factors, especially water activity (a w ), temperature and pH. The boundary conditions which allow growth and toxin production have been identified in relation to different matrices including cereal grain, sorghum, cottonseed, tomato, and soya beans. The competitiveness of Alternaria species is related to their water stress tolerance, hydrolytic enzyme production and ability to produce mycotoxins. The relationship between A. tenuissima and other phyllosphere fungi has been examined and the relative competitiveness determined using both an Index of Dominance (I D ) and the Niche Overlap Index (NOI) based on carbon-utilisation patterns. The toxicology of some of the Alternaria mycotoxins have been studied; however, some data are still lacking. The isolation of Alternaria toxins in different food products including processed products is reviewed. The future implications of Alternaria colonization/infection and the role of their mycotoxins in food production chains pre- and post-harvest are discussed

Data-driven Localization and Estimation of Disturbance in the Interconnected Power System

Identifying the location of a disturbance and its magnitude is an important component for stable operation of power systems. We study the problem of localizing and estimating a disturbance in the interconnected power system. We take a model-free approach to this problem by using frequency data from generators. Specifically, we develop a logistic regression based method for localization and a linear regression based method for estimation of the magnitude of disturbance. Our model-free approach does not require the knowledge of system parameters such as inertia constants and topology, and is shown to achieve highly accurate localization and estimation performance even in the presence of measurement noise and missing data

Self-assessment as an Autonomous Learning Tool in an Interpretation Classroom

This paper explores the usefulness of self-assessment in an interpretation classroom. Students of the Korean-English Program in a two-year graduate school of translation and interpretation were asked to analyze and assess their interpretation performances and submit a self-assessment report to the instructor. Later, a survey was conducted to find out what aspects of self-assessment the students found positive or negative. Based on the responses of the student and the teacher, selfassessment was found to be positive in identifying students’ weaknesses and strengths, enable targeted practice, and allow them to monitor their own progresses. But students also found selfassessment to be time-consuming and emotionally draining. However, all students and the instructor agreed that self-assessment was conducive to students. learning in an interpretation classroom.Cette étude a pour but d’examiner l’utilité de l’auto-évaluation dans les cours d’interprétation. Les étudiants de l’école d’interprétation et de traduction d’un cursus de 2 ans ont participé à cette étude qui consiste à analyser et à évaluer leur propre performance interprétative et à remettre un rapport d’auto-évaluation au professeur. Un questionnaire a été donné par la suite pour déterminer ce que pensent les étudiants de l’auto-évaluation. Les étudiants et le professeur ont tous répondu que l’auto-évaluation jouait un rôle positif car elle permet de déterminer les faiblesses et les points forts de chacun ainsi qu’un exercice ciblé et le monitorat du progrès. Cependant, les étudiants ont également indiqué que l’auto-évaluation nécessite beaucoup de temps et qu’elle est émotivement difficile. Cependant, les étudiants et le professeur ont été unanime à affirmer que l’auto-évaluation apporte une grande contribution pédagogique aux cours

Experimental verification of the commutation relation for Pauli spin operators using single-photon quantum interference

We report experimental verification of the commutation relation for Pauli spin operators using quantum interference of the single-photon polarization state. By superposing the quantum operations $\sigma_z \sigma_x$ and $\sigma_x \sigma_z$ on a single-photon polarization state, we have experimentally implemented the commutator, $[\sigma_{z}, \sigma_{x}]$, and the anticommutator, $\{\sigma_{z}, \sigma_{x}\}$, and have demonstrated the relative phase factor of $\pi$ between $\sigma_z \sigma_x$ and $\sigma_x \sigma_z$ operations. The experimental quantum operation corresponding to the commutator, $[\sigma_{z}, \sigma_{x}]=k\sigma_y$, showed process fidelity of 0.94 compared to the ideal $\sigma_y$ operation and $|k|$ is determined to be $2.12\pm0.18$.Comment: 4pages, 3 figure