FACTORS AFFECTING CONSUMER PREFERENCES FOR MAJOR FOOD MARKETS IN TAIWAN

The Food Industry Research and Development Institute conducted a nationwide survey of food consumption in Taiwan in 1999. A sample of 1200 consumers responded to a questionnaire, which asked whether there was a use/visit experience in the past year for each of six types of food markets: traditional vegetable market, supermarket, hypermarket, consumer cooperative, chain convenience store, and grocery store. Questions also asked which types of food markets consumers used most frequently for the purchase of fresh foods, planned purchases or occasional purchases of processed foods, and what factors influenced consumers to choose their most frequently used market. Nearly 84 percent of surveyed consumers have used/visited traditional vegetable markets in the past year, while 47 percent choose traditional markets as their most frequented marketplace for buying fresh food in Taiwan. Some 81 percent of surveyed consumers have used or visited a supermarket in past year, while 17.7 percent and 29.0 percent choose supermarkets as the most frequented marketplace for planned and occasional purchases of processed foods, respectively. We apply stepwise logistic regression to identify significant sociodemographic factors (such as gender, age, and others) which influence the choice of each of the six major types of food markets and to identify the promotional factors which positively or negatively influence consumers' preferences for the most often used market. Female consumers have almost four times higher odds of frequently using traditional vegetable markets in the past year. The unmarried, divorced/widowed, and/or those who had higher family monthly incomes demonstrate lower odds of frequently using traditional markets. For purchases of fresh foods, female respondents, older consumers, and/or those living in northern Taiwan have higher odds of choosing traditional vegetable markets as the most frequently used market, while occupation "chief," and those with higher levels of education have lower odds of choosing traditional markets. Price level influences consumers positively in choosing traditional vegetable markets, while products with mark registrations, such as GMP or CAS, negatively influence this choice. For planned purchases of processed foods, older consumers are more likely than others to choose traditional vegetable markets, and price level is also a positive influence for choosing these markets. For occasional purchases of processed foods, manual laborers and/or those living in northern Taiwan have higher odds of choosing traditional vegetable markets, while unmarried respondents have lower odds. Price level and products with nutrition labeling are positive promotional factors influencing consumers to choose traditional vegetable markets. For the other five market types, sociodemographic factors influence consumers' choices of markets differently in each case, but marketing factors also influence choices of which type of marketplace to use most frequently.Consumer/Household Economics,

Interview by Li Ho Sin

Charles comes from a nuclear family. Father, mother and a little brother. They have a close relationship with each other, although Charles more likely to talk with mother rather than father. Their family shows some typical events that many families also have it. For example, the father and the eldest son made the final decision in tackle the problems. The mother does the household tasks and take care the kids. The kids more like their mother than father. Charles talked three special events which stick in his mind. Most of the people did not remember what they did in pre-school life. They were told by their parents. That was same to Charles’s situation. He had his best friends in different period when they meet. He has a good teacher who let him to study the Science subject. No matter how the friends and teachers treating Charles, his family is the best and the most important persons in the world

Fabrication methods for creating flexible polymer substrate sensor tags

The authors describe the design, fabrication, and testing of a passive wireless sensor platform utilizing low-cost commercial surface acoustic wave filters and sensors. Polyimide and polyethylene terephthalate sheets are used as substrates to create a flexible sensor tag that can be applied to curved surfaces. A microfabricated antenna is integrated on the substrate in order to create a compact form factor. The sensor tags are fabricated using 315 MHz surface acoustic wave filters and photodiodes and tested with the aid of a fiber-coupled tungsten lamp. Microwave energy transmitted from a network analyzer is used to interrogate the sensor tag. Due to an electrical impedance mismatch at the SAW filter and sensor, energy is reflected at the sensor load and reradiated from the integrated antenna. By selecting sensors that change electrical impedance based on environmental conditions, the sensor state can be inferred through measurement of the reflected energy profile. Testing has shown that a calibrated system utilizing this type of sensor tag can detect distinct light levels wireless and passively. The authors also demonstrate simultaneous operation of two tags with different center passbands that detects light. Ranging tests show that the sensor tags can operate at a distance of at least 3.6 m

Testing Modified Dark Matter with Galaxy Clusters: Does Dark Matter know about the Cosmological Constant?

We discuss the possibility that the cold dark matter mass profiles contain information on the cosmological constant, and that such information constrains the nature of cold dark matter (CDM). We call this approach Modified Dark Matter (MDM). In particular, we examine the ability of MDM to explain the observed mass profiles of 13 galaxy clusters. Using general arguments from gravitational thermodynamics, we provide a theoretical justification for our MDM mass profile and successfully compare it to the NFW mass profiles both on cluster and galactic scales. Our results suggest that indeed the CDM mass profiles contain information about the cosmological constant in a non-trivial way

Testing MONDian Dark Matter with Galactic Rotation Curves

MONDian dark matter (MDM) is a new form of dark matter quantum that naturally accounts for Milgrom's scaling, usually associated with modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND), and theoretically behaves like cold dark matter (CDM) at cluster and cosmic scales. In this paper, we provide the first observational test of MDM by fitting rotation curves to a sample of 30 local spiral galaxies (z approximately 0.003). For comparison, we also fit the galactic rotation curves using MOND, and CDM. We find that all three models fit the data well. The rotation curves predicted by MDM and MOND are virtually indistinguishable over the range of observed radii (~1 to 30 kpc). The best-fit MDM and CDM density profiles are compared. We also compare with MDM the dark matter density profiles arising from MOND if Milgrom's formula is interpreted as Newtonian gravity with an extra source term instead of as a modification of inertia. We find that discrepancies between MDM and MOND will occur near the center of a typical spiral galaxy. In these regions, instead of continuing to rise sharply, the MDM mass density turns over and drops as we approach the center of the galaxy. Our results show that MDM, which restricts the nature of the dark matter quantum by accounting for Milgrom's scaling, accurately reproduces observed rotation curves.Comment: Preprint number IPMU13-0147. Accepted for publication in Ap

Two-Component Structure of the Hbeta Broad-Line Region in Quasars. I. Evidence from Spectral Principal Component Analysis

We report on a spectral principal component analysis (SPCA) of a sample of 816 quasars, selected to have small Fe II velocity shifts with spectral coverage in the rest wavelength range 3500--5500 \AA. The sample is explicitly designed to mitigate spurious effects on SPCA induced by Fe II velocity shifts. We improve the algorithm of SPCA in the literature and introduce a new quantity, \emph{the fractional-contribution spectrum}, that effectively identifies the emission features encoded in each eigenspectrum. The first eigenspectrum clearly records the power-law continuum and very broad Balmer emission lines. Narrow emission lines dominate the second eigenspectrum. The third eigenspectrum represents the Fe II emission and a component of the Balmer lines with kinematically similar intermediate velocity widths. Correlations between the weights of the eigenspectra and parametric measurements of line strength and continuum slope confirm the above interpretation for the eigenspectra. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate the validity of our method to recognize cross talk in SPCA and firmly rule out a single-component model for broad Hbeta. We also present the results of SPCA for four other samples that contain quasars in bins of larger Fe II velocity shift; similar eigenspectra are obtained. We propose that the Hbeta-emitting region has two kinematically distinct components: one with very large velocities whose strength correlates with the continuum shape, and another with more modest, intermediate velocities that is closely coupled to the gas that gives rise to Fe II emission.Comment: 22 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Deep Eutectic Solvent Pretreatment of Transgenic Biomass With Increased C6C1 Lignin Monomers.

The complex and heterogeneous polyphenolic structure of lignin confers recalcitrance to plant cell walls and challenges biomass processing for agroindustrial applications. Recently, significant efforts have been made to alter lignin composition to overcome its inherent intractability. In this work, to overcome technical difficulties related to biomass recalcitrance, we report an integrated strategy combining biomass genetic engineering with a pretreatment using a bio-derived deep eutectic solvent (DES). In particular, we employed biomass from an Arabidopsis line that expressed a bacterial hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA hydratase-lyase (HCHL) in lignifying tissues, which results in the accumulation of unusual C6C1 lignin monomers and a slight decrease in lignin molecular weight. The transgenic biomass was pretreated with renewable DES that can be synthesized from lignin-derived phenols. Biomass from the HCHL plant line containing C6C1 monomers showed increased pretreatment efficiency and released more fermentable sugars up to 34% compared to WT biomass. The enhanced biomass saccharification of the HCHL line is likely due to a reduction of lignin recalcitrance caused by the overproduction of C6C1 aromatics that act as degree of polymerization (DP) reducers and higher chemical reactivity of lignin structures with such C6C1 aromatics. Overall, our findings demonstrate that strategic plant genetic engineering, along with renewable DES pretreatment, could enable the development of sustainable biorefinery