Acids in wine

The acids in wine are an important component in both winemaking and the finished product of wine. They are present in both grapes and wine, having direct influences on the color, balance and taste of the wine as well as the growth and vitality of yeast during fermentation and protecting the wine from bacteria. The measure of the amount of acidity in wine is known as the “titratable acidity” or “total acidity”, which refers to the test that yields the total of all acids present, while strength of acidity is measured according to pH, with most wines having a pH between 2.9 and 3.9. Generally, the lower the pH, the higher the acidity in the wine. However, there is no direct connection between total acidity and pH (it is possible to find wines with a high pH for wine and high acidity). In wine tasting, the term “acidity” refers to the fresh, tart and sour attributes of the wine which are evaluated in relation to how well the acidity balances out the sweetness and bitter components of the wine such as tannins. Three primary acids are found in wine grapes: tartaric, malic and citric acids. During the course of winemaking and in the finished wines, acetic, butyric, lactic and succinic acids can play significant roles. Most of the acids involved with wine are fixed acids with the notable exception of acetic acid, mostly found in vinegar, which is volatile and can contribute to the wine fault known as volatile acidity. Sometimes, additional acids, such as ascorbic, sorbic and sulfurous acids, are used in winemaking.

Acid (disambiguation)

An acid is any chemical compound that, when dissolved in water, gives a solution with a pH less than 7.0.

Acid or ACID may also refer to:

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Lysergic acid diethylamide

Lysergic acid diethylamide (/daɪ eθəl ˈæmaɪd/ or /æmɪd/ or /eɪmaɪd/), abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide (INN) and colloquially as acid, is a psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects—which can include altered thinking processes, closed- and open-eye visuals, synesthesia, an altered sense of time, and spiritual experiences—as well as for its key role in 1960s counterculture. It is used mainly as an entheogen and recreational drug. LSD is not addictive. However, acute adverse psychiatric reactions such as anxiety, paranoia, and delusions are possible.

LSD was first synthesized by Albert Hofmann in 1938 from ergotamine, a chemical derived by Arthur Stoll from ergot, a grain fungus that typically grows on rye. The short form "LSD" comes from its early code name LSD-25, which is an abbreviation for the German "Lysergsäure-diethylamid" followed by a sequential number. LSD is sensitive to oxygen, ultraviolet light, and chlorine, especially in solution, though its potency may last for years if it is stored away from light and moisture at low temperature. In pure form it is a colorless, odorless, tasteless solid. LSD is typically either swallowed (oral) or held under the tongue (sublingual), usually on a substrate such as absorbent blotter paper, a sugar cube, or gelatin. In its liquid form, it can also be administered by intramuscular or intravenous injection. Interestingly, unlike most other classes of illicit drugs and other groups of psychedelic drugs such as tryptamines and phenethylamines, when LSD is administered via intravenous injection the onset is not immediate, instead taking approximately 30 minutes before the effects are realized. LSD is very potent, with 20–30 µg (micrograms) being the threshold dose.

Mumps

Mumps, also known as epidemic parotitis, is a viral disease caused by the mumps virus. Initial signs and symptoms often include fever, muscle pain, headache, and feeling tired. This is then usually followed by painful swelling of one or both parotid glands. Symptoms typically occur 16 to 18 days after exposure and resolve after 7 to 10 days. Symptoms in adults are often more severe than in children. About a third of people have mild or no symptoms. Complications may include infections of the covering of the brain (15%), pancreatitis (4%), permanent deafness, and painful testicular swelling which uncommonly results in infertility. Women may develop ovarian swelling but this does not increase the risk of infertility.

Mumps is highly contagious and spreads rapidly among people living in close quarters. The virus is transmitted by respiratory droplets or direct contact with an infected person. Only humans get and spread the disease. People are infectious to each other from a few days before the start of symptoms to four days after. After an infection a person is typically immune for life. Reinfection is possible but tends to be mild. Diagnosis is usually suspected due to parotid swelling and can be confirmed by isolating the virus on a swab of the parotid duct. Testing for IgM antibodies in the blood is simple and may be useful; however, can be falsely negative in those who have been immunized.

MUMPS (software)

MUMPS (MUltifrontal Massively Parallel sparse direct Solver) is a software application for the solution of large sparse systems of linear algebraic equations on distributed memory parallel computers. It was developed in European project PARASOL (1996–1999) by CERFACS, IRIT-ENSEEIHT and RAL. The software implements the multifrontal method, which is a version of Gaussian elimination for large sparse systems of equations, especially those arising from the finite element method. It is written in Fortran 90 with parallelism by MPI and it uses BLAS and ScaLAPACK kernels for dense matrix computations. Since 1999, MUMPS has been supported by CERFACS, IRIT-ENSEEIHT, and INRIA.

The importance of MUMPS lies in the fact that it is a supported public domain implementation of the multifrontal method.

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