Wheat quality evaluation methods to predict wheat flour tortilla production

Abstract

Commercial wheat flours from Canada, Mexico, and USA were evaluated to determine their processing ability for tortillas. All 64 flours were evaluated by sedimentation, moisture, protein, pH, and color. Doughs were evaluated by mixograph, farinograph, subjective dough properties, and stress relaxation. All flours were prepared into tortillas using a standardized tortilla bake test while some of the flours were prepared into tortillas using an optimized tortilla bake test, i.e., optimized for resting time to attain a uniform diameter. Tortillas were evaluated by weight, diameter, color, pH, moisture, and shelf stability. Flours that yielded easily machinable doughs that processed easily into tortillas which have long shelf stability were viewed as desirable. The flours were divided into weak, intermediate, and strong protein strength flours based on mixograph analysis. Both bake tests produced good quality tortillas. The standardized bake test was able to differentiate the flours, i.e., tortilla tortilla diameter, weight, moisture content, and storage stability. Strong protein strength flours produced significantly tougher doughs and tortillas with smaller diameters. Weak protein strength flours produced doughs that required less resting time and tortillas with a short shelf stability, i.e., tortillas cracked after 5 days of storage. Intermediate protein strength flours yielded optimum dough viscosity and elasticity and tortillas with good shelf stability. Intermediate protein strength flours met the criteria and processed more easily into wheat flour tortillas. Tortilla flour specifications utilized by manufacturers impart information to the miller for the production of the desired flours. Tortilla bake tests provide additional information that supplements information received from normal flour evaluation methods. Wide access distributed area network services are increasing in range and capacity at an exponential rate. With the continuation of this growth, the requirements of providing uniform security management will become more and more difficult to manage without occupying a significant portion of the network traffic capability available to the end-users the network is intended to service. Current methods rely on the network architecture itself to provide the mechanisms by which traffic is monitored and, when the situation warrants, suppressed in order to ensure that security methods are enforced. With the introduction of ATM/SONET technologies into this arena, the possibility of integrating every class of information service into a common transmission framework comes closer to reality through its high bandwidth capability and very large scalability. However, this expansion of types of services available and range offered complicates the task of minimizing the possibility that unauthorized persons may rely on covert traffic creation and reception in order to use the network in a manner not permitted by its controlling bodies. To address this deficiency, this thesis presents the groundwork for the implementation of a dedicated security framework which should be able to accomplish the task of minimizing the potential for covert channels in such networks without creating the associated traffic overhead normally associated with such operations within the network itself. For this security framework, the system described presents a design which incorporates both the mechanisms for the detection and suppression of covert traffic, as well as, the implementation by which these mechanisms may be linked to a unifying control authority. Performance analyses of the design show that it may be feasibly implemented with current levels of semiconductor manufacturing technology and incorporates elements that are readily available on the market. Secondly, these analyses show that the associated response delay experienced by transiting network traffic is n-minimal with respect to the overall time the information spends while en route through the network. Thirdly, the delays associated with connection management are constant under all global traffic conditions. Finally, the design is shown to incur no overhead in excess network traffic due to the enforcement functions which it implements.