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Published online: 27 May 2019 ; The microbial composition of farmed and wild Scapsipedus icipe and Gryllus bimaculatus is presented. The aim of this study is to determine the microbial load of the two cricket species and evaluate the efficiency of processing methods (boiling, sun-drying, freeze-drying, snap-freezing and deep-frying) in reducing microbial counts. Farmed and wild species were compared based on microbial diversity. Fresh crickets had high microbial counts, bacterial and fungal populations ranged from 4.26-4.58 log cfu/g and 3.48-4.48 log cfu/g fresh weight, respectively. Upon processing, microbial counts reduced, bacterial counts ranged from 1.00-2.08 log cfu/g dry weight (boiled) and 2.70-3.34 log cfu/g dry weight (sun-dried). Fungal counts ranged from1.85-1.95 log cfu/g dry weight (boiled) and 2.95-3.51 log cfu/g dry weight (sun-dried). Deep-frying, freeze-drying and snap-freezing emerged as the best processing methods. Although there is no alarm in consuming fresh crickets, a processing method is advisable to minimize any possible risks. ; International Development Research Centre ; Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research ; Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany ; Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency ; Department for International Development, United Kingdom ; Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation ; Government of Kenya ; Peer Review

To evaluate spectral photon-counting CT's (SPCCT) objective image quality characteristics in vitro, compared with standard-of-care energy-integrating-detector (EID) CT. We scanned a thorax phantom with a coronary artery module at 10 mGy on a prototype SPCCT and a clinical dual-layer EID-CT under various conditions of simulated patient size (small, medium, and large). We used filtered back-projection with a soft-tissue kernel. We assessed noise and contrast-dependent spatial resolution with noise power spectra (NPS) and target transfer functions (TTF), respectively. Detectability indices (d') of simulated non-calcified and lipid-rich atherosclerotic plaques were computed using the non-pre-whitening with eye filter model observer. SPCCT provided lower noise magnitude (9-38% lower NPS amplitude) and higher noise frequency peaks (sharper noise texture). Furthermore, SPCCT provided consistently higher spatial resolution (30-33% better TTF 10 ). In the detectability analysis, SPCCT outperformed EID-CT in all investigated conditions, providing superior d'. SPCCT reached almost perfect detectability (AUC ≈ 95%) for simulated 0.5-mm-thick non-calcified plaques (for large-sized patients), whereas EID-CT had lower d' (AUC ≈ 75%). For lipid-rich atherosclerotic plaques, SPCCT achieved 85% AUC vs. 77.5% with EID-CT. SPCCT outperformed EID-CT in detecting simulated coronary atherosclerosis and might enhance diagnostic accuracy by providing lower noise magnitude, markedly improved spatial resolution, and superior lipid core detectability.