19Background 20Commercially available convenience rice such as retorted, quick cooking or frozen rice suffers 21 from sensory deficiencies compared to home cooked rice. The mechanisms causing deterioration in 22 texture and flavour during convenience rice processing are, in many cases, poorly understood. 23 Scope and Approach 24This review describes pre-cooking methods including washing and soaking, cooking methods 25 including cooking in excess water, by absorption and by high pressure, and post-cooking 26 technologies including cooling, freezing, retorting, canning, drying and storage, as well as the 27 influence of each process on physical properties and sensory attributes of cooked rice. 28 Key findings and conclusions 29Water diffusion and starch leaching, which occur in many processing steps, are important factors 30 affecting cooked rice quality. Soaking saves energy by reducing cooking time. Cooking by 31 absorption increases stickiness, but does not ensure uniform moisture distribution compared to 32 cooking in excess water, thus is not applicable for rice manufacturers. Leached amylose during 33 soaking and cooking affects hardness and stickiness of cooked rice significantly. Non-thermal 34 treatments such as high pressure soaking and cooking has potential to improve rice sensory 35 M A N U S C R I P T A C C E P T E D ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPTAbstract 2 properties compared to high temperature treatments, which change colour and flavour of 36 convenience rice. Drying and freezing results in a porous structure resulting in spongy texture after 37 rehydration and thawing, respectively. During storage, starch retrogradation deteriorates texture, but 38 can be retarded by high pressure processing or storage below the glass transition temperature. Much 39 is known about processing factors that affect freshly cooked rice, but more substantial knowledge of 40 how processing steps affect the structure property relationships and sensory properties of 41 convenience rice will assist manufacturers to specifically design products to meet the ever growing 42 consumer demands for convenience food. 43 44

Novel and distinct enhancement in electrochemiluminescence (ECL) signals of advanced organic luminophores are of importance for expanding their applications in early diagnosis. This work reported the construction of an ultrasensitive label-free ECL aptasensor for thrombin (TB) detection by grafting zinc proto-porphyrin IX (ZnP) onto an aminated zeolitic imidazole framework-8 (defined as ZnP-NH-ZIF-8 for clarity) as the luminophore. The structure and optical properties of the resulting ZnP-NH-ZIF-8 were carefully characterized. For that, there appeared to be weak ECL radiation for ZnP in dichloromethane (DCM) containing tetra-n-butylammonium perchlorate (TBAP) because of the as-formed singlet-state oxygen via the “reduction–oxidation” route. More notably, the ECL signals display 153-times enhancement for ZnP-NH-ZIF-8, thanks to the excellent catalytic kinetics for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). By virtue of the specific interactions of the TB aptamer (TBA) with the TB protein and the highly efficient catalysis of the ZnP-NH-ZIF-8 for ORR, the as-prepared aptasensor showed a wider linear range (0.1 fM∼1 pM) and a lower detection limit (ca. 58.6 aM). This work provides some useful guidelines for synthesis of an advanced organic luminophore with largely boosted ECL signals in ultrasensitive analysis and clinical diagnosis.

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Interactions between the cathodic and anodic processes during electroless Cu deposition using glyoxylic acid reducing agent are studied. It is shown that application of the mixed potential theory by decoupling the anodic and cathodic processes leads to erroneous predictions of the electroless deposition rate and the surface mixed potential observed in this electroless system. Chronoamperometry under various conditions of bath composition, electrode surface preparation and applied potential provides evidence for an autocatalytic mechanism in the glyoxylic acid based electroless Cu system. Specifically, it is observed that the electroless Cu surface accelerates the glyoxylic acid oxidation and the glyoxylic acid in turn enhances the cupric-ion reduction leading to a positive feedback loop. The autocatalysis explains shortcomings in the simplistic application of the mixed potential theory to the decoupled partial reactions, and suggests a more complex reaction mechanism in which the partial reactions are coupled.