The effect of ultrasound pretreatment on drying kinetics and physical properties as color and rehydration rate of dried apple slices was investigated. Apple samples var. Idared were submitted to ultrasonic treatment using 21 and 35 kHz for 30 min in an ultrasound bath securing sound intensity of 3 and 4 W/cm 2 , respectively. After pretreatment, the material was dried in a convective oven at 70C and at an air velocity of 2 m/s. The sonication reduced drying time by 13-17% in comparison with the untreated sample. Ultrasound treatment changed the color of apples tissue by decreasing the value of a* parameter and increasing the dried material lightness, chromaticity and the value of b* coefficient. Moreover, obtained results showed that there was a significant effect of pretreatment on rehydration properties as compared with untreated apple tissue. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONSThe most energy-consuming processes existing in the food technologies are the processes based on heat and/or mass transfer, for instance drying. Thus, a lot of attention is paid by researchers to conserve the energy and minimally change the physicochemical properties of food, which shape its quality. Additionally, increasing growth of consumers' expectations and their nutritional knowledge stimulate to seek some new solutions even more. Aforementioned is a reason why nonthermal technologies as ultrasound seem to be the one of the most interesting propositions.

Results of decay spectroscopy on nuclei in vicinity of the doubly magic 48 Ni are presented. The measurements were performed with a Time Projection Chamber with optical readout which records tracks of ions and protons in the gaseous volume. Six decays of 48 Ni, including four events of twoproton ground-state radioactivity were recorded. An advanced reconstruction procedure yielded the 2p decay energy for 48 Ni of Q2p = 1.29(4) MeV. In addition, the energy spectra of β-delayed protons emitted in the decays of 44 Cr and 46 Fe, as well as half-lives and branching ratios were determined. The results were found to be consistent with the previous measurements made with Si detectors. A new proton line in the decay of 44 Cr corresponding to the decay energy of 760 keV is reported. The first evidence for the β2p decay of 46 Fe, based on one clear event, is shown.

Gamma-Beams at the HIγS facility in the USA and anticipated at the ELI-NP facility, now constructed in Romania, present unique new opportunities to advance research in nuclear astrophysics; not the least of which is resolving open questions in oxygen formation during stellar helium burning via a precise measurement of the 12 C(α, γ) reaction. Time projection chamber (TPC) detectors operating with low pressure gas (as an active target) are ideally suited for such studies. We review the progress of the current research program and plans for the future at the HIγS facility with the optical readout TPC (O-TPC) and the development of an electronic readout TPC for the ELI-NP facility (ELITPC).

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Excited states in 133 Sn were investigated through the β decay of 133 In at the ISOLDE facility. The ISOLDE Resonance Ionization Laser Ion Source (RILIS) provided isomer-selective ionization for 133 In, allowing us to study separately, and in detail, the β-decay branch of 133 In J π = (9/2 +) ground state and its J π = (1/2 −) isomer.

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The β-delayed neutron emission of 83;84 Ga isotopes was studied using the neutron time-of-flight technique. The measured neutron energy spectra showed emission from states at excitation energies high above the neutron separation energy and previously not observed in the β decay of midmass nuclei. The large decay strength deduced from the observed intense neutron emission is a signature of Gamow-Teller transformation. This observation was interpreted as evidence for allowed β decay to 78 Ni core-excited states in 83;84 Ge favored by shell effects. We developed shell model calculations in the proton fpg 9=2 and neutron extended fpg 9=2 þ d 5=2 valence space using realistic interactions that were used to understand measured β-decay lifetimes. We conclude that enhanced, concentrated β-decay strength for neutron-unbound states may be common for very neutron-rich nuclei. This leads to intense β-delayed high-energy neutron and strong multineutron emission probabilities that in turn affect astrophysical nucleosynthesis models. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.092502 β-delayed neutron emission from fission fragments was first observed in 1939 following the neutron bombardment of uranium salts [1]. It was recognized that the delayed neutron energies and emission probabilities, P n , are important parameters to model environments that involve neutron-rich isotopes. Two of the main applications are in nuclear reactor physics [2] and r-process nucleosynthesis [3]. Because β-delayed neutron precursors are neutron rich and far from stability, they are always relatively difficult to produce and study. Advances in detector capabilities allowed for pioneering measurements of neutron emission spectra of fission fragments [4,5]. In these experiments, resonancelike behavior was observed in the neutron emission spectrum [4,6].These efforts were halted in the following decade by several factors. First, it became increasingly difficult to produce species with larger neutron excess. Second, the very influential work by Hardy, Johnson, and Hansen on "pandemonium" attributed the features of the neutron spectra to purely statistical effects and warned against overinterpretation of the measurements [7]. Misinterpretations of their work attributed decay observables of all heavy nuclei to gross features of the decay strength and statistical fluctuations of the level density. A more accurate depiction of their work is that neutron emission characteristics cannot be interpreted without considering the effects of high level density. The pandemonium controversy [8] arose partly from the fact that, at the time, there was no capability to compute nuclear properties using a sufficiently complete microscopic model of the nucleus.State-of-the-art models are now capable of computing decay properties of atomic nuclei, such as lifetimes and branching ratios. It has become increasingly clear that the β-decay observables are profoundly influenced by nuclearPublished by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Lic...

The active volume of the detector is approximately one ton of NaI(Tl), which results in very high full γ energy peak efficiency of 71% at 6 MeV and nearly flat efficiency of around 81.5 % for low energy γ-rays between 300 keV and 1 MeV. In addition to the high peak efficiency, the modular construction of the detector permits the use of a γ-coincidence technique in data analysis as well as β-delayed neutron observation.