Organic cheese market (Río Cuarto, Argentina). Consumer attitudes

The consumer attitudes and buying behaviour to ecological cheese, in Río Cuarto city were studied. This research was carried out as a semi -structured survey, based on personal interviews and taste panels. Forty-four percent of the consumers showed willingness to pay up to a 25 to 35 percent premium price for organic foods. Flavour and ecological nature of the product were the chief motivations for buying behaviour.Se estudió mediante encuestas semiestructuradas, la actitud de los consumidores respecto a un queso ecológico y su valoración, en la ciudad de Río Cuarto. El 44 p.100 de los consumidores manifestó intención de pagar desde un 25 a 35 p.100 de sobreprecio por el producto ecológico. Entre las principales motivaciones para la compra están el sabor (91 p.100) y la naturaleza ecológica del producto (81 p.100)

Organic cheese market (Río Cuarto, Argentina). Valuation associated variables

Although most argentinian ecological products are targeted for export markets, domestic markets show signs of slow, but sustained growth. In order to assess the perception and willingness to purchase a new product (an organic cheese), attitudes and consumer behaviors were studied among consumers in Rio Cuarto. Data collection methods used in the survey were personal interviews with semi-structured questionaries and tasting of the new product. Bivariate and multivariate statistical analysis were performed. It was found that the willingness to pay a premium of 25 to 35 percent for this new product was associated with: social-economical variables as well as others related to food quality, like additive free and those concerned with specific attributes of the cheese such as brand and packaging. However, price and its organic label had more influence on the products valuation and potential buying decision.Si bien la producción ecológica argentina se ha destinado principalmente al mercado externo, el mercado interno manifiesta signos de crecimiento, lento, pero sostenido. Con el objetivo de conocer la valoración de los consumidores hacia un queso ecológico se estudiaron las actitudes y el comportamiento de los consumidores de la ciudad de Río Cuarto. La investigación se implementó a través de encuestas semiestructuradas, basadas en entrevistas personales a las familias y degustación del nuevo producto. Se realizaron análisis estadísticos bivariados y multivariados. La voluntad de pagar un sobreprecio de 25 a 35 p.100 por el nuevo producto se asoció a variables socioeconómicas, como así también a variables relacionadas con la calidad alimentaria (ausencia de conservantes y aditivos) y con atributos específicos del queso, como marca y presentación. Sin embargo, el precio del producto y su imagen de calidad ecológica fueron los factores que fundamentalmente incidieron en la valoración del producto y la decisión potencial de compra

Provenance explorer: Customized provenance views using semantic inferencing

This paper presents Provenance Explorer, a secure provenance visualization tool, designed to dynamically generate customized views of scientific data provenance that depend on the viewer's requirements and/or access privileges. Using RDF and graph visualizations, it enables scientists to view the data, states and events associated with a scientific workflow in order to understand the scientific methodology and validate the results. Initially the Provenance Explorer presents a simple, coarse-grained view of the scientific process or experiment. However the GUI allows permitted users to expand links between nodes (input states, events and output states) to reveal more fine-grained information about particular sub-events and their inputs and outputs. Access control is implemented using Shibboleth to identify and authenticate users and XACML to define access control policies. The system also provides a platform for publishing scientific results. It enables users to select particular nodes within the visualized workflow and drag-and-drop them into an RDF package for publication or e-learning. The direct relationships between the individual components selected for such packages are inferred by the rule-inference engine

Nova cultivar de amendoim para as condições do nordeste brasileiro.

A BRS 151 L-7 é uma nova cultivar de amendoim, de sementes de coloração vermelha, de forma oblonga, desenvolvida pela Embrapa-Centro Nacional de Pesquisa de Algodão (CNPA), e destinada ao consumo in natura e à indústria de alimentos. A cultivar é de porte ereto, resultante do cruzamento entre a cultivar produtiva IAC-Tupã (tipo Valência) e a cultivar Senegal 55-437 (tipo Spanish), de ciclo curto. Em ensaios regionais realizados em 27 municípios de quatro estados da Região Nordeste, a cultivar apresentou grande potencial para produtividade de sementes, ciclo vegetativo de 87 dias, tolerância ao estresse hídrico, e grande adaptação ao cultivo em clima semi-árido. Sua produtividade média de vagens em condições experimentais é de 1.850 kg ha-1 em cultivo de sequeiro, e 4.500 kg ha-1 em condições irrigadas, o que corresponde a uma elevação na ordem de 12% e 38%, respectivamente, com relação à produtividade da cultivar tradicional Tatu. No aspecto nutricional, a cultivar BRS 151 L-7 tem baixo teor de óleo (46%), e sua farinha desengordurada contém 55% de proteína; entre os aminoácidos essenciais, é limitante apenas no teor de lisina, em comparação com o padrão da FAO/85

Finding Faint Intermediate-mass Black Holes in the Radio Band

We discuss the prospects for detecting faint intermediate-mass black holes, such as those predicted to exist in the cores of globular clusters and dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We briefly summarize the difficulties of stellar dynamical searches, then show that recently discovered relations between black hole mass, X-ray luminosity and radio luminosity imply that in most cases, these black holes should be more easily detected in the radio than in the X-rays. Finally, we show upper limits from some radio observations of globular clusters, and discuss the possibility that the radio source in the core of the Ursa Minor dwarf spheroidal galaxy might be a $\sim 10,000-100,000 M_\odot$ black hole.Comment: 10 pages, no figures, to appear in From X-ray Binaries to Quasars: Black Hole Accretion on All Mass Scales, ed. T. J. Maccarone, R. P. Fender, and L. C. Ho (Dordrecht: Kluwer

Influence of age on the occurrence of adverse events in rheumatic patients at the onset of biological treatment : Data from the BIOBADASER III register

To assess whether age, at the beginning of biologic treatment, is associated with the time a first adverse event (AE) appears in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), or psoriatic arthritis (PsA). All patients in the BIOBADASER registry diagnosed with RA, AS, and PsA, and classified as young ( 75 years old) at start of biological treatment were included. Factors associated with the appearance of a first AE using adjusted incidence rate ratios (IRR) (Poisson regression) were analyzed. Survival to first AE was studied by Kaplan-Meier analysis and hazard ratios (HR) by Cox regression. 2483 patients were included: 1126 RA, 680 PsA, and 677 AS. Age group stratification was as follows: 63 young, 2127 adults, 237 elderly, and 56 very elderly. Regression model revealed an increased probability of suffering a first AE at age 65 years or older [IRR elderly: 1.42 (CI95% 1.13-1.77)]. Other characteristics associated with AE were female gender, the use of DMARDs, including methotrexate, the presence of comorbidities, and the time of disease duration. Factors that had the greatest impact on survival over a first AE were age > 75 years [HR 1.50 (1.01-2.24)] and female gender [HR 1.42 (1.22-1.64)]. Age at the start of treatment and female gender are key factors associated with the appearance of a first AE with biologics. Other factors related to patient status and treatment were also associated with a first AE in rheumatic patients treated with biologics

Polydisperse star polymer solutions

We analyze the effect of polydispersity in the arm number on the effective interactions, structural correlations and the phase behavior of star polymers in a good solvent. The effective interaction potential between two star polymers with different arm numbers is derived using scaling theory. The resulting expression is tested against monomer-resolved molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the theoretical pair potential is in agreement with the simulation data in a much wider polydispersity range than other proposed potentials. We then use this pair potential as an input in a many-body theory to investigate polydispersity effects on the structural correlations and the phase diagram of dense star polymer solutions. In particular we find that a polydispersity of 10%, which is typical in experimental samples, does not significantly alter previous findings for the phase diagram of monodisperse solutions.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure