Wild edible plants: Nutritional and toxicological characteristics, retrieval strategies and importance for today's society

Wild edible plants (WEPs) are part of the cultural and genetic heritage of different regions of the world. In times of famine and scarcity, these sources of nutrients and health-promoting compounds have received high importance mainly in rural and suburban areas. Although currently underutilized, WEPs are still consumed traditionally by different communities and are gaining relevance in today's society. However, these foods lack recognition as significant contributors to the human diet in developed areas. This review describes the nutritional value of WEPs from the North-eastern region of Portugal and points out those containing potentially toxic compounds. Several retrieval strategies are presented with the aim of promoting the (re)use, production, commercialization and conservation of WEPs (wild harvested plants and crop wild relatives), and their importance for social, economic and agro-ecological development is highlighted.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal and FEDER, under Programme PT2020, for financial support to CIMO (UID/AGR/00690/2013). J. Pinela thanks FCT for his grant (SFRH/BD/92994/2013) funded by European Social Fund and Portuguese Ministry of Education and Science (MEC) through Programa Operacional Capital Humano (POCH).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Magnetic resonance, a phenomenon with a great potential in medicine, but with a complex physical background – Part 3: The basic principles of magnetic resonance imaging

Two basic problems have to be solved when dealing with imaging techniques – the adequate image contrast and the spatial reconstruction of images. In this article, the basic concepts of solving these two problems in the case of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are shown. Based on the spin echo, three ways of contrast optimization, i.e., spin density, T1- and T2-weighted MRI, are dealt with more thoroughly. The use of contrast media is also discussed. Furthermore, we explain the basic method of spatial encoding in MRI, i.e., the determination of the location of tissue signal source with the use of magnetic field gradients (“the principle of frequency encoding”), and the use of the Fourier transform. Finally, the back-projection reconstruction technique is presented.</p

Steel silos for particulate solid materials. Part 1, Actions at filling and discharge.

V članku podajamo izraze za membranske sile v osno-simetričnem jeklenem silosu med procesoma polnjenja in praznjenja s sipkim materialom. Izrazi so predstavljeni tudi v grafični obliki, kar omogoča hitro in enostavno oceno velikosti in razporeditve membranskih sil v posameznih delih silosa. Grafi veljajo za poljubno geometrijo silosa in za poljuben material, ki se hrani. Na podlagi teh grafov lahko preverimo, kakšen je vpliv geometrije silosa in shranjenega materiala na razporeditev in velikost membranskih sil. Na koncu podajamo ilustrativen primer izračuna vplivov (pritiskov) in membranskih sil pri polnjenju in praznjenju silosa.In the paper, the expressions for membrane forces in an axisymmetric steel silo structure at filling and discharge with a particulate solid material are presented. Graphical plots of these expressions are given. They can be used for a quick and easy estimate of membrane forces distribution in all parts of a silo structure. The plots are valid for any silo geometry and for any material stored. The influence of silo geometry and stored material properties on the size and distribution of membrane forces can be thus checked. The paper completes with an illustrative example where actions (pressure loads) at filling and discharge on the walls of a silo are computed and the corresponding membrane forces are evaluated