Heterocyclic amines (HCAs) are suspected human carcinogens formed in muscle foods during high temperature grilling or cooking. Inhibition of HCAs by commercial marinades rich in polyphenolic antioxidant containing spices was evaluated with beef round steaks cooked at 204 degrees C (400 degrees F). Treatment effects on the levels of 4 HCAs were investigated: 2-amino-3,8-dimethylimidazo[4,5-flquinoxaline (MeIQx), 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenyl-imidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (PhIP), 1-methyl-9H-pyrido[4,3-b]indol (harman), and 9H-pyrido[4,3-blindol (norharman). The marinades were formulated according to the package label instruction in an oil, water, and vinegar mixture, and the steaks were treated for 1 h prior to grilling. All 3 marinades, Caribbean, Southwest, and herb, significantly decreased the imidazo-azaarene HCAs (MeIQx, PhIP) as contrasted to controls and liquid blanks. The Caribbean mixture showed the highest decrease in the total HCA content (88%), followed by the herb (72%) and Southwest (57%). With a few exceptions there were significant decreases in HCAs for treatments with only the marinade bases (ingredients without any spices/herbs). As measured by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), the marinades contained considerable amounts of the polyphenolic antioxidants carnosic acid, carnosol, and rosmarinic acid with Caribbean being the highest. Commonly available spice-containing marinades can be effective inhibitors of HCA formation and provide reduced exposure to some of the carcinogens formed during grilling.

In this work we develop semi-automatic road extraction system for updating and storage road network data bases. Combination of some of the existing road extraction techniques such as spectral and spatial data clustering, morphological functions and graph theory is used in this proposed system. Input data of the proposed road extraction system are multi-spectral and pan-sharpened IKONOS images of Lavasan city in Iran (with respectively 4 and 1 meters spatial resolution). The proposed system investigates capability and amount of system success in extraction of different shaped roads such as straight, spiral, junction and square. In the proposed method, primarily the input image is spectrally classified by use of Fuzzy C-Means (FCM) clustering technique and road class binary image is obtained by definition of threshold value. Afterwards, quality of detected road features is improved using morphological operators like dilation, erosion, opening, closing, bridge and etc. Our approach proceeds by performing spatial cluster analysis using C-Means technique and hence, road centerline nodes are attained. Finally by use of graph theory and minimum spanning tree (MST) and defining an appropriate cost function, these key points are connected and vector road centerline is obtained. The only drawback of this system is limitation in completely extraction of road centerline in place of squares and closed loops. Attaining mean overall accuracy (OA) of 98.2% and Kappa coefficient of 86.26% in classification of image to road and non-road classes, and also mean RMS error of 0.64 pixel in comparing automatic extracted road centerline with manual extracted one, are a good criterion of proposed system success in semi-automatic extraction of roads.

ABSTRACT: The effects of rosmarinic acid and a rosemary antioxidant powder were evaluated on the reduction and mutagenicity of MeIQx, PhIP, and comutagens norharman and harman in beef patties fried at 375 °F for 5 min each side and 400 °F for 7.5 min each side. Both rosemary extracts were found to effectively decrease the formation and overall mutagenic activity of heterocyclic amines (HCAs) due to their antioxidative characteristics. At the lower temperature, rosmarinic acid was able to reduce MeIQx by up to 64% and PhIP by 48%, while rosemary powder reduced the formations of MeIQx up to 69% and PhIP up to 66%. The effects of the rosemary extracts were more dramatic when cooking temperature and time were increased, as rosmarinic acid was able to reduce MeIQx formation up to 70% and PhIP up to 64%; also, rosemary powder significantly reduced MeIQx up to 57% and PhIP up to 77%. The overall mutagenic activity was evaluated by the Ames Salmonella assay and both rosemary extracts were capable of reducing mutagenicity in beef patties at the higher cooking temperature of 400 °F. At 375 °F there was an insignificant trend of the rosemary extracts decreasing the number of Salmonella revertants. There was no significant inhibiting effect by any of the rosemary extracts on the formation of either norharman and harman as measured in this study.