Coffee attraction experiences: A narrative sStudy

Reflecting a rich global coffee culture this paper explores the experience of visitors to coffee attractions as reflected through travel narratives published in the coffee trade literature. It first positions coffee related tourism within culinary tourism and then examines the types of attractions related to coffee. Using a typology of coffee attractions derived from the literature on both attractions and coffee travel narratives from five specialized coffee periodicals are reviewed. In doing so the paper makes a dual contribution to both furthering the study of attractions related to coffee tourism and to using narrative study methods in tourism research. In particular it is suggested that the narrative methodology may be applied to the study of other sectors of culinary tourism. A limitation of this study however is the use of secondary sources mainly derived from the coffee specialist literature. Nonetheless the narratives reveal the rich coffee culture and coffee experiences that can be associated with coffee related travel. In addition this exploratory study using published coffee narratives indicates the potential for future research investigating on a first hand basis the coffee experiences of tourists

Independent café entrepreneurships in Klang Valley, Malaysia – challenges and critical factors for success: does family matter?

This article investigates the challenges of Klang Valley's independent cafés at the entry stage, while also identifying their shared critical factors for success and their common practices. A total of five exemplar cases and two coffee industry experts were sampled in a two-phase qualitative approach. A list of eight challenges were identified and thematic analysiswas used to find four critical success factors essential to survive past the entry stage: (1) concept vs. strategies; (2) an extended notion of location selection; (3) building foundations; and (4) family factors and family life-cycle management. By understanding the critical success factors of the exemplar cafés, foodservice entrepreneurs can gain insights on how these factors could be incorporated into their business strategies to survive the entry stage. Moreover, by investigating Klang Valley’s café culture, this study broadens the understanding of Klang Valley's destination characteristics, and provides practical and realistic implications that contribute to the development of Klang Valley through cultural and culinary tourism initiatives

Should I stay or should I go? The settlement-inducing protein complex guides barnacle settlement decisions

Reproduction in barnacles relies on chemical cues that guide their gregarious settlement. These cues have been pinned down to several sources of settlement pheromones, one of which is a protein termed settlement-inducing protein complex (SIPC), a large glycoprotein acting as a pheromone to induce larval settlement and as an adhesive in surface exploration by the cyprids. Settlement assays in laboratory conditions with Amphibalanus (=Balanus) amphitrite cyprids in the presence of SIPC showed that cyprids exhibit settlement preference behaviour at lower concentrations of SIPC [half maximal effective concentration (EC50)=3.73 nmol l-1] and settlement avoidance behaviour at higher concentrations (EC50=101 nmol l-1). By using truncated fragments of SIPC in settlement assays, we identify that domains at the N-terminus of SIPC transduce settlement preference cues that mask the settlement avoidance cues transduced by domains at its C-terminus. Removing the N-terminal 600 amino acids from SIPC resulted in truncated fragments that transduced only settlement avoidance cues to the cyprids. From the sexual reproduction point of view, this bimodal response of barnacles to SIPC suggests that barnacles will settle gregariously when conspecific cues are sparse but will not settle if conspecific cues inform of overcrowding that will increase reproductive competition and diminish their reproductive chances. © 2018 Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd

Synthesis of novel non-toxic naphthenic and benzoic acid ionic liquids. Structure-properties relationship and evaluation of their biodegradability potential

Protic Ionic Liquids (PILs) are promising solvents with desirable physicochemical properties for a variety of applications. They are considered as greener alternatives to common organic solvents but in order to efficiently be characterized as green their environmental impact has to be assessed. In the present study, the design, synthesis and an initial potential hazard assessment of 11 naphthenic and benzoic acid based PILs is presented. PILs’ “greenness” is enhanced considering that they are non-toxic according to the aquatic toxicity evaluation and most of them show satisfactorily to extremely high biodegradability level. Moreover, two of their most important physicochemical properties, viscosity and glass transition temperature (Tg), were determined for selected ILs. The effect of the aromatic and alicyclic ring on the anions, the size and the presence of a hydroxyl substituent at anions and cations has been also discussed for the studied environmental and physicochemical properties. © 2019 Elsevier B.V

Synthesis and structure-properties relationship studies of biodegradable hydroxylammonium-based protic ionic liquids

In this work sixteen hydroxyl ammonium Protic Ionic Liquids derived from a proton transfer reaction between four different substituted amines and four different low molecular weight aliphatic and alicyclic carboxylic acids have been synthesized. The synthesized PILs were structurally characterized by NMR and FT-IR spectroscopy whereas two of their more important physicochemical properties namely viscosity and glass transition temperature (Tg) were evaluated. The effect of alkyl chain length and substitution on the anionic and cationic component of the PILs scaffold has been discussed for the studied properties. It seems that Tg values are mainly affected by the carboxylate anion structure whereas viscosity is controlled mainly by the structural features of the cationic part of the PILs. In order to estimate their environmental impact and reinforce their “green” character, biodegradation studies, as well as toxicity evaluation experiments have also been conducted. The synthesized PILs can be confidently labelled as green considering that they are not toxic or present low toxicity to the nauplii of the brine shrimp A. salina whereas they show biodegradability levels between 41–64%, according to the manometric respirometric method which measures the biological oxygen demand (BOD5) by microorganisms in order to degrade PILs via bio-oxidation in five days. © 2016 Elsevier B.V