Antioxidant Properties of Novel Solid-State Fermented Culinary-Medicinal Mushroom and Fungi Products

[[abstract]]Four culinary-medicinal fungi and mushrooms (Cordyceps sinensis, Termitomyces albuminosus, Antrodia camphorata, and A. salmonea) were individually inoculated into different cooked grains, and new products were formed after fungal fermentation and their antioxidant properties studied. The effectiveness of ethanolic extracts in antioxidant activities was in the descending order: the grains > products > mycelia. EC50 values of the hot water extract from four products in reducing power were 2.14-10.11 mg/mL, whereas those of the ethanolic extracts were 2.56-71.34 mg/mL. With regard to scavenging ability, all EC50 values of both extracts from 12 samples were less than 13 mg/mL, except for the hot water extract from A. camphorata mycelium. EC50 values of both extracts from four products in chelating ability were 1.50-9.96 mg/mL, except for the hot water extract from Cordyceps-fermented polished rice and the ethanolic extract from A. camphorata-fermented embryo rice. Total phenol contents of both extracts from mycelia, products, and grain substrates were 2.45-12.26, 3.24-13.13, and 1.15-7.74 mg/g, respectively. Overall, four medicinal mushroom and fungi-fermented products were relatively effective in the antioxidant properties assayed and might be potential antioxidants for application in food products

Estimating Trust Strength For Supporting Effective Recommendation Services

In the age of information explosion, Internet facilitates product searching and collecting much more convenient for users. However, it is time-consuming and exhausting for users to deal with large amounts of product information. In response, various recommendation approaches have been developed to recommend products that match users’ preferences and requirements. In addition to the well-known collaborative filtering recommendation approach, the trust-based recommendation approach is the emerging one. The reason is that most of online communities allow users to express their trust on other users. Based on the analysis of trust relationships, the trust-based recommendation approach finds out and consults the opinions of more reliable users and therefore makes better recommendations. Existing trust-based recommendation techniques consider all trust relationships in a given trust network equally important and give them the same trust strength. However, in a real-world setting, trust relationships may be of various strengths. In response, in this study, we propose a mechanism for trust strength estimation on the basis of the machine learning approach and estimate the trust strength for each existing trust relationship in a given trust network. To overcome the sparsity of the trust network, we also develop a modified trust propagation method to expand the original trust network. Finally, we perform a series of experiments to demonstrate the performance of our trust-based recommendation approach based on the trust strength estimation mechanism. Our empirical evaluation results show that our proposed approach outperforms our benchmark techniques, i.e., the traditional collaborative filtering approach and the original trust-based one

Design of High Efficiency Illumination for LED Lighting

A high efficiency illumination for LED street lighting is proposed. For energy saving, this paper uses Class-E resonant inverter as main electric circuit to improve efficiency. In addition, single dimming control has the best efficiency, simplest control scheme and lowest circuit cost among other types of dimming techniques. Multiple serial-connected transformers used to drive the LED strings as they can provide galvanic isolation and have the advantage of good current distribution against device difference. Finally, a prototype circuit for driving 112 W LEDs in total was built and tested to verify the theoretical analysis

Knowledge Creation and Organizational Performation: An Organizational Agility Perspective

This paper is an extended summary of a research that examines the role of organizational agility as a mediator between knowledge creation processes and organizational performance. The moderating role of two knowledge characteristics, tacitness and institutionalization, in the mediation processes are also analyzed. Our results indicate that organizational agility significantly mediated the effect of knowledge creation on organizational creativity, which, in turn, affects organizational performance

Topological Entropy for Shifts of Finite Type Over Z\mathbb{Z} and Tree

We study the topological entropy of hom tree-shifts and show that, although the topological entropy is not conjugacy invariant for tree-shifts in general, it remains invariant for hom tree higher block shifts. In doi:10.1016/j.tcs.2018.05.034 and doi:10.3934/dcds.2020186, Petersen and Salama demonstrated the existence of topological entropy for tree-shifts and $h(\mathcal{T}_X) \geq h(X)$, where $\mathcal{T}_X$ is the hom tree-shift derived from $X$. We characterize a necessary and sufficient condition when the equality holds for the case where $X$ is a shift of finite type. In addition, two novel phenomena have been revealed for tree-shifts. There is a gap in the set of topological entropy of hom tree-shifts of finite type, which makes such a set not dense. Last but not least, the topological entropy of a reducible hom tree-shift of finite type is equal to or larger than that of its maximal irreducible component

Knowledge Creation and Firm Performance: Mediating Processes from an Organizational Agility Perspective

Knowledge creation has emerged as a critical area in information systems research in the past decade (Nonaka 1994). However, the mechanism through which knowledge creation enhances firm performance remains unclear. This paper examines the role of organization agility as a mediator between knowledge creation processes and firm performance. Our survey study of 134 firms indicates that two forms of organizational agility – customer agility and operational agility, significantly and fully mediate the effect of knowledge creation on firm performance. Our findings extend prior research by providing insights into the role of organizational agility in facilitating the effect of knowledge creation processes on firm performance. Implications for researchers and managers are discussed