Understanding Blood versus Blond Orange Consumption: A Cross-Cultural Study in Four Countries

Understanding consumer perceptions and attitudes to specific fruit is key information for not only increasing fruit consumption, but also for marketing reasons. It may also give clues to breeders to set quality objectives. This study explores different aspects that help to explain blood vs. blond orange consumption: availability and consumption habit, satisfaction attributes, facilitators and consumption barriers, consumption contexts, expectations and purchase intention. The study was conducted in China, Mexico, Spain and Italy, where citrus fruit consumers were invited to respond an online questionnaire. Our results revealed Italy as the country with the highest availability and consumption of blood oranges, followed by China, Mexico and Spain. "Liking" and "healthy properties" were the most important reasons for consumption irrespectively of orange type, but certain differences among countries were detected in secondary reasons. In all the countries, "juicy" was the most relevant attribute for consumer satisfaction, followed by flavour/taste attributes. "Aromatic" and "unfibrous" were substantial requirements for Italians and Chinese, while Spaniards attached importance to the blood oranges colour. Regarding consumption contexts, "eat with salt or chilly powder" was specific for Mexico, while "to improve health", "as a gift" or "at a restaurant" were contexts mainly cited in China. Despite taste preferences for other fruit being the main consumption barrier in all the countries for both orange types, the relevance of other barriers depended on culture and orange type. Mexican participants seemed to take a more neophobic attitude to blood oranges, while "inconvenient" was reported as a barrier for consuming blond ones in Spain and China. We conclude that blond and blood oranges can co-exist on markets at a high consumption rate, as in Italy. Specific interventions are needed in other countries because consumer attitudes to oranges, mainly blood ones, depend on culture

Influencia de la información sobre la sostenibilidad del riego en la elección, percepción y disposición a pagar del consumidor de vino (póster)

Este trabajo evalúa el efecto de añadir información sobre la sostenibilidad del riego en la respuesta del consumidor de vino. Se evaluaron dos formas diferentes de incluir la información en la etiqueta trasera de la botella, mediante un texto y mediante un logo diseñado específicamente con ese fin. El 52% de los 167 consumidores que participaron en el estudio eligió el vino con el logo. El vino con el texto fue elegido por un 38% de los consumidores mientras que únicamente un 10% eligió el control. El principal motivo para elegir los vinos con información sobre la sostenibilidad del riego fue que ambos se percibieron como más respetuosos con el medio ambiente. De hecho, en una escala de sostenibilidad de 9 puntos, estos vinos recibieron puntuaciones cercanas a 7 frente a valores inferiores a 5 del control. Además, el logo hizo que la etiqueta resultase más atractiva al consumidor, mientras que, en el caso del texto, el ahorro de agua fue la segunda causa que más influyó en la elección. Un 70% de los consumidores estuvo dispuesto a pagar entre un 15 y 30% más por el vino regado de forma sostenible respecto al vino control

Interactive handwriting recognition with limited user effort

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10032-013-0204-5[EN] Transcription of handwritten text in (old) documents is an important, time-consuming task for digital libraries. Although post-editing automatic recognition of handwritten text is feasible, it is not clearly better than simply ignoring it and transcribing the document from scratch. A more effective approach is to follow an interactive approach in which both the system is guided by the user, and the user is assisted by the system to complete the transcription task as efficiently as possible. Nevertheless, in some applications, the user effort available to transcribe documents is limited and fully supervision of the system output is not realistic. To circumvent these problems, we propose a novel interactive approach which efficiently employs user effort to transcribe a document by improving three different aspects. Firstly, the system employs a limited amount of effort to solely supervise recognised words that are likely to be incorrect. Thus, user effort is efficiently focused on the supervision of words for which the system is not confident enough. Secondly, it refines the initial transcription provided to the user by recomputing it constrained to user supervisions. In this way, incorrect words in unsupervised parts can be automatically amended without user supervision. Finally, it improves the underlying system models by retraining the system from partially supervised transcriptions. In order to prove these statements, empirical results are presented on two real databases showing that the proposed approach can notably reduce user effort in the transcription of handwritten text in (old) documents.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant Agreement No 287755 (transLectures). Also supported by the Spanish Government (MICINN, MITyC, "Plan E", under Grants MIPRCV "Consolider Ingenio 2010", MITTRAL (TIN2009-14633-C03-01), erudito.com (TSI-020110-2009-439), iTrans2 (TIN2009-14511), and FPU (AP2007-02867), and the Generalitat Valenciana (Grants Prometeo/2009/014 and GV/2010/067).Serrano Martinez Santos, N.; Giménez Pastor, A.; Civera Saiz, J.; Sanchis Navarro, JA.; Juan Císcar, A. (2014). Interactive handwriting recognition with limited user effort. International Journal on Document Analysis and Recognition. 17(1):47-59. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10032-013-0204-5S4759171Agua, M., Serrano, N., Civera, J., Juan, A.: Character-based handwritten text recognition of multilingual documents. In: Proceedings of Advances in Speech and Language Technologies for Iberian Languages (IBERSPEECH 2012), Madrid (Spain), pp. 187–196 (2012)Ahn, L.V., Maurer, B., Mcmillen, C., Abraham, D., Blum, M.: reCAPTCHA: human-based character recognition via web security measures. 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In: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces and the 6th Workshop on Machine Learning for Multimodal Interaction, Cambridge, MA (USA), pp. 289–292 (2009)Serrano, N., Castro, F., Juan, A.: The RODRIGO database. In: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, Valleta (Malta), pp. 2709–2712 (2010)Serrano, N., Giménez, A., Sanchis, A., Juan, A.: Active learning strategies for handwritten text transcription. In: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces and the 7th Workshop on Machine Learning for Multimodal, Interaction, Beijing (China) (2010)Serrano, N., Sanchis, A., Juan, A.: Balancing error and supervision effort in interactive-predictive handwriting recognition. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, Hong Kong (China), pp. 373–376 (2010)Serrano, N., Tarazón, L., Pérez, D., Ramos-Terrades, O., Juan, A.: The GIDOC prototype. 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Charged-particle multiplicities in pp interactions at root s=900 GeV measured with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

The first measurements from proton-proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC are presented. Data were collected in December 2009 using a minimum-bias trigger during collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 900 GeV. The charged-particle multiplicity, its dependence on transverse momentum and pseudorapidity, and the relationship between mean transverse momentum and charged-particle multiplicity are measured for events with at least one charged particle in the kinematic range |eta|500 MeV. The measurements are compared to Monte Carlo models of proton-proton collisions and to results from other experiments at the same centre-of-mass energy. The charged-particle multiplicity per event and unit of pseudorapidity at eta = 0 is measured to be 1.333 +/- 0.003 (stat.) +/- 0.040 (syst.), which is 5-15% higher than the Monte Carlo models predict

The Rossiter-McLaughlin effect in Exoplanet Research

The Rossiter-McLaughlin effect occurs during a planet's transit. It provides the main means of measuring the sky-projected spin-orbit angle between a planet's orbital plane, and its host star's equatorial plane. Observing the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect is now a near routine procedure. It is an important element in the orbital characterisation of transiting exoplanets. Measurements of the spin-orbit angle have revealed a surprising diversity, far from the placid, Kantian and Laplacian ideals, whereby planets form, and remain, on orbital planes coincident with their star's equator. This chapter will review a short history of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, how it is modelled, and will summarise the current state of the field before describing other uses for a spectroscopic transit, and alternative methods of measuring the spin-orbit angle.Comment: Review to appear as a chapter in the "Handbook of Exoplanets", ed. H. Deeg & J.A. Belmont

Cognitive impairment induced by delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol occurs through heteromers between cannabinoid CB1 and serotonin 5-HT2A receptors

Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive compound of marijuana, induces numerous undesirable effects, including memory impairments, anxiety, and dependence. Conversely, THC also has potentially therapeutic effects, including analgesia, muscle relaxation, and neuroprotection. However, the mechanisms that dissociate these responses are still not known. Using mice lacking the serotonin receptor 5-HT2A, we revealed that the analgesic and amnesic effects of THC are independent of each other: while amnesia induced by THC disappears in the mutant mice, THC can still promote analgesia in these animals. In subsequent molecular studies, we showed that in specific brain regions involved in memory formation, the receptors for THC and the 5-HT2A receptors work together by physically interacting with each other. Experimentally interfering with this interaction prevented the memory deficits induced by THC, but not its analgesic properties. Our results highlight a novel mechanism by which the beneficial analgesic properties of THC can be dissociated from its cognitive side effects

Pasados y presente. Estudios para el profesor Ricardo García Cárcel

Ricardo García Cárcel (Requena, 1948) estudió Historia en Valencia bajo el magisterio de Joan Reglà, con quien formó parte del primer profesorado de historia moderna en la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. En esta universidad, desde hace prácticamente cincuenta años, ha desarrollado una extraordinaria labor docente y de investigación marcada por un sagaz instinto histórico, que le ha convertido en pionero de casi todo lo que ha estudiado: las Germanías, la historia de la Cataluña moderna, la Inquisición, las culturas del Siglo de Oro, la Leyenda Negra, Felipe II, Felipe V, Austrias y Borbones, la guerra de la Independencia, la historia cultural, los mitos de la historia de España... Muy pocos tienen su capacidad para reflexionar, ordenar, analizar, conceptualizar y proponer una visión amplia y llena de matices sobre el pasado y las interpretaciones historiográficas. A su laboriosidad inimitable se añade una dedicación sin límites en el asesoramiento de alumnos e investigadores e impulsando revistas, dosieres, seminarios o publicaciones colectivas. Una mínima correspondencia a su generosidad lo constituye este volumen a manera de ineludible agradecimiento

Quantitative ocular anatomy in vivo: comparison of axial length and anterior chamber depth values obtained by a single observer by means of optical biometry and immersion and applanation ultrasound biometry

The aim of the present work was to analyze and compare axial length and anterior chamber depth values obtained by means of IOLMaster ¿, immersion and applanation ultrasound. Axial length and the anterior chamber depth measurements were carried out by a single observer in 30 volunteers (n=30; mean age, 68±10.7 years of age; range 44 to 83 years) using IOLMaster¿ (Zeiss Humphrey System, CA, USA), immersion and applanation ultrasound biometry. Ultrasound measurements were carried out with the Compuscan A-B Storz (San Louis, MO, USA). The IOLMaster¿ provided axial length measurements that were 0.04 mm (p=0.936) and 0.13 mm (p=0.606) higher than those from immersion and applanation ultrasound respectively. The mean difference between the optical and applanation measurements was -0.11 mm, and -0.03 mm between the optical and immersion measurements. In conclusion, there are no significant differences between IOLMaster¿, immersion and applanation ultrasound axial length and anterior chamber depth values