Dairy desserts, which have an important place in Turkish cuisine, are mild, more digestible and have high nutritional value than dough and syrup desserts. In recent years, studies for developing these products have increased due to the increase in consumer demand for low and zero fat products for many different reasons such as nutrition, health and weight control. However, the reduction of fat in food products often leads to undesirable changes in the structural properties of foods, which affects consumer preference. Fat in the formulation of such products, affects the appearance, texture, mouthfeel, and especially flavor. To eliminate the problems associated with the reduction of fat content in foods, whey protein-pectin complexes, λ-carrageenan, κ-carrageenan, short and long chain inulin mixtures, starch substitutes are generally used. Changes in fat content of dairy desserts with the use of substitutes affect color, rheology, texture, sensory perception, aroma release and perception. Milk fat content is effective on sensory detection, in vivo flavor and flavor release in semi-solid dairy desserts. The milk fat content (whole-fat, low-fat or non-fat) used in the production of dairy dessert affects the rheological and sensory properties of the product, the taste intensity perceived in the mouth, flavor release, flow behavior, flavor and viscoelastic properties. According to the reviewed literature, in dairy desserts with reduced fat content, the thickener type and concentration (starch, κ-carrageenan, carboxymethyl cellulose) have been determined to cause perceptible changes in the product’s color, flavor and texture, and may alter the physical and structural properties of the product. In this review, it was aimed to examine the aroma release and rheological properties of dairy desserts with reduced fat content by using fat substitutes.

Knowledge of root architecture is significant since it influences on pathways from, photosynthesis products, water and nutrient movement. This study purposed to elucidate root mass, root length, root/shoot ratio, root/total mass ratio and above-ground characteristics in Vicia pannonica Crantz., Carthamus tinctorius L. and Pisum sativum ssp. arvense L. with taproot and Triticum aestivum L., Hordeum vulgare L. conv. distichon, X Triticosecale Wittmack, Avena sativa L. and Secale cereale L. with fibrous roots at 200 cm long tubes under field-grown condition. Crop harvesting is based on early and late growth stages of cereal crops. The results indicated that winter field crops had a wide range of differences with regard to root and above-ground traits at both growth stages. The root traits of field crop species varied considerably from 0.3 to 5.9 g and 2.4 to 11.9 g for root mass and 84.7 to 127.7 cm and 84.5 to 166 cm for root length at early and late growth stages respectively, while shoot mass was between 0.3–5.7 g and 5.5–29.8 g. Furthermore, the percentage distribution of root mass accumulated in 0-20 cm root length at early and late growth stages, ranged between 52.3 to 81.4 % and 27.7 to 75.2 %, respectively. The findings showed that crops with taproot had less root and shoot mass and shorter root length than cereals with fibrous roots at both growth stages. This study also significantly advances our understanding of root-shoot competition by comparing the agronomical traits of winter field crops with tap and fibrous roots at different growth stages.

Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) is one of the important antioxidants, which naturally present in seminal plasma of fish. On the other hand, whether its effect may improve sperm quality following cryopreservation process still remains its uncertainty. Thus, the present study aimed to analyse the effect of different extenders supplemented with different ascorbic acid concentrations on post-thaw motility and fertility of frozen-thawed rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) sperm. Selected sperm samples were pooled and diluted at 1:3 ratios with two different extenders (E) composing such as (E-1) 300 mM glucose, 10% egg yolk and 10% DMSO and (E-2) 0.6 mM sucrose and 10% DMSO. Each extender was supplemented with vitamin C at 1, 5 and 10 mM concentrations. Following dilution, the sperm was loaded into 0.25 ml straws and frozen in liquid nitrogen vapour. The straws were then plunged into liquid nitrogen for storage. Fertilization was carried out using the dry fertilization technique. Highest post-thaw motility (50±5.77) and fertilization (56±1.00) results were obtained with the extender-1 (E-1) containing 10% DMSO concentration. In conclusion, the present study indicated that addition of ascorbic acid to the extenders improved rainbow trout sperm motility resulting higher fertilization of the eggs.

Propolis is a special resin and wax material collected from the leaves and shells of trees, buds and shoots of plants by honey bees (Apis mellifera L.). In recent years, many researchers have studied the chemical composition, biological activity and pharmacological properties of propolis. The colour, odour and pharmacological properties of the propolis composition also vary as the composition changes depending on the plant, region, season and bee colony. Flavonoids, aromatic acids, phenolic acids and esters are the main compounds responsible for the biological activity of propolis. A number of studies have been conducted on the use of propolis or its active ingredients in the treatment of cancer. It has been observed that the use of propolis did not cause side effects according to in-vitro and in-vivo studies. Propolis should be extracted with different compounds for use in biological assays. The most commonly used compounds for extraction are ethanol, methanol, oil and water. A number of studies have been carried out showing the antitumor effect of propolis in cell culture and animal tests. The search for new drugs derived from natural products, which may function as chemotherapeutic agents and have low side effects, has increased in recent years. Combination with antioxidant therapy may improve the side effects of chemotherapy on leukocytes, liver and kidney, thus increasing the effect of chemotherapy with dose increase.

Sous-vide process is a cooking method for vacuumed products which are placed in a water bath or steam oven at controllable low temperatures and specific long times. This technique is widely used for cooking of meat and meat products which have limited shelf life throughout cold storage. Temperature, time and vacuum parameters used in sous-vide method are effective factors on meat quality. It is realised that meat tenderness increases with this technique due to cooking is performed at low temperatures. For the same reason, more water is retained in the texture and cooking losses are reduced. In addition to this, it is appeared that the sous-vide method provides protection of nutrient components that are water-soluble and/or adversely affected by high temperature applications, so that this method increases the nutritional value of meat. On the other hand, use of controllable cooking temperatures facilitates to reach targeted core temperatures in meat. With the help of homogeneous distribution of heat, even colour formation on meat can be observed. Oxidative reactions in the product are limited by the application of vacuum, so that product quality can be preserved for a long time. The risk of food safety as a result of low temperature applications in sous-vide cooking is eliminated by increasing cooking times. In this review, it is aimed to inform about effects of sous-vide cooking technique on meat quality under the heads of; texture, juiciness and cooking losses, colour, flavour, lipid and protein oxidation and microbial quality. Besides, the effects of sous-vide cooking method on quality parameters, different effects of sous-vide and traditional cooking methods on quality parameters were deeply discussed.

Ultraviolet-B (UV-B: 280 to 320 nm) radiations have appeared to be detrimental to plants, due to their damaging effects on proteins, lipids, membranes and DNA. UV-B radiations are a significant regulator of plants’ secondary metabolites. High intensity of ultraviolet radiations may interfere with growth and productivity of crops. But low levels of UV-B radiations give rise to changes in the plants’ secondary metabolites such as phenolic compounds, carotenoids and glucoseinolates. Therefore, low intensity of UV-B radiations may be used to generate plants, enriched with secondary metabolites, having improved reproductive ability, early ripening and tolerance against fungi, bacteria and herbivores.

The amount of secondary metabolites can be increased with different elicitor applications in vitro. It has been determined that zinc sulphate significantly increases the amount of capsaicin in the cell culture of red hot pepper. It is important to determine how the metal applied as elicitor will have an effect on plant metabolism. In the study, it was aimed to determine the effects of zinc sulphate (ZnSO4) applied to the cell suspension cultures of pepper seeds at different concentrations (0.1 M, 0.2 M, 0.4 M) and for periods (24, 48, 72 hours) on the total protein and phenolic substance amounts, and superoxide dismutase-peroxidase enzyme activities of pepper calluses. It was observed that the amount of protein increased, superoxide dismutase and peroxidase enzyme activities decreased, and the total amount of phenolic substance increased especially in 72 hours of treatment where zinc was applied as elicitor. These results show that ZnSO4 can be used as an abiotic elicitor in plant cell culture media.

Progesterone plays a key role in the establishment and maintenance of pregnancy in mammalian. Increasing levels of circulating progesterone in the post-conception period are associated with conceptus elongation and high pregnancy rates in cattle. Contradictory results are available on the direct role of progesterone in early embryo development. The objective of this study was to evaluate direct effects of progesterone on in vitro development of cattle embryos. Immature oocytes collected from slaughtered animals and cultured in the presence of different concentrations of progesterone (25, 50, 100 ng/mL) following in vitro fertilization. Cleavage rates in 25 and 50 ng/mL concentrations of progesterone were significantly higher than those in controls and 100 ng/mL. Rate of embryos that reached to the morula stage was similar in all groups. Supplementation of 25 and 50 ng/mL progesterone to the culture media significantly increased blastocyst yield while 100 ng/mL progesterone resulted in a decrease. As a conclusion, we can suggest that progesterone supplementation in in vitro culture may support embryo development at low levels.