Canadian Orange Juice Imports and Production Level Import Demand

Import demand equations are estimated in order to identify the own-, cross-price, and volume elasticities that can be used to determine the best marketing strategy to increase U.S. orange juice gallons in the Canadian import market. This study uses the firm’s version of production differential, AIDS, CBS, and NBR models. An expansion of total Canadian orange juice import gallons using advertising favors the U.S. much more than it does the other three origins investigated— Brazil, Mexico, and ROW. A 1% increase in imported gallons of orange juice due to advertising will increase U.S. imports by 1.20% and Brazil’s gallons by 0.60%.AIDS model, CBS model, import demand, international trade, NBR model, Agribusiness, International Relations/Trade,

Cross-disciplinary collaboration through WuZhiQiao Project to foster cultural exchange and community engagement

In 2013, students of the Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong (THEi), with the support of WuZhiQiao (WZQ) Charitable Foundation, formed a core team of 11 students to organize and participate in social service projects to help the underprivileged in the Chinese mainland. WuZhiQiao (WZQ) projects, the first cross-region social service engagement by THEi students, bring together students from Hong Kong and the Mainland. WZQ Charitable Foundation aims to help the Chinese traditional village in building Pedestrian Bridge and organizing community projects. Since there are Chinese villages facing flooding during rainy seasons, the local villagers will be trapped inside the village without the chance to go outside or wade outside the village. There are hundreds of such villages and they highly need our help. Each project mainly involves two or three institutes from Hong Kong and the Mainland, and they organize the whole volunteer project including planning, investigation, design, promotion and operation. Through involvement in different states or provinces, WZQ projects provide good chance of communication and interaction between Hong Kong teams and the Mainland teams and advocate intercultural social services. The projects can foster the cultural exchange between Hong Kong and the Mainland. Moreover, the majority of WZQ project members are coming from the fields of engineering, architecture and health care. We can practice our learning from lectures through the project implementation. Different parties are involved in the engineering projects including clients, consultants, contractors, surveyors, engineers and workers. Engineering students can gain good understanding of the holistic picture of a real-life engineering project. We visited the location village for investigation to learn more about the local culture, geometry and the people’s needs and discussed with the Mainland Team through online chatting tools in order to propose the optimal pedestrian building design and other community projects. Having spent over six months in planning and preparation, THEi students will implement a bridge-building and community project in Chongqing in January 2015. Through engagement in this service-learning project, not only the undergraduates of THEi can benefit through personal development but the life quality of the disadvantaged can also be improved

Effects of various drying processes on Malaysian brown seaweed, Sargassum polycystum pertaining to antioxidants content and activity

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of different drying methods on phytochemicals and in vitro antioxidant activity of brown seaweed, Sargassum polycystum. Six different drying methods employed in this study were freeze drying, oven drying at 40 °C, oven drying at 60 °C, sun drying, vacuum drying at 40 °C and vacuum drying at 60 °C. Five different polarity solvents, methanol, ethanol, acetone, ethyl acetate, cold water and hot water were used as extraction solvents to determine phytochemicals content for total phenolic content, total flavonoid content and total carotenoid content while that antioxidant activity was assessed by employing ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), 2,2- diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical scavenging activity (DPPH) and beta carotene bleaching (BCB) assay. Ethyl acetate extracts vacuum dried at 40 °C showed highest total phenolic content (58.54 ± 1.30 mg PGE g-1 dry extract), total flavonoid content (35.91 ± 1.54 mg RE g-1 dry extract), FRAP value 379.41 ± 1.17 µmol TE g-1 dry extract and DPPH EC50 values, 3.83 ± 0.18 mg mL-1 among all drying methods. Sun dried extracts possessed lowest retention of phytochemicals content and antioxidant activity among other drying methods. As a conclusion, S. polycystum was best dried by vacuum drying method at 40 °C which has the higher retention of phytochemicals and antioxidant content

Effects of food matrix on the bioactivity properties of malaysian brown seaweed, sargassum polycystum

The objective of the study is to evaluate the effects of food matrix on the bioactivity properties of Malaysian brown seaweed, Sargassum polycystum. Antioxidant activities were employed using ferric reducing ability power, beta-carotene bleaching assay and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl-hydrate free radical scavenging activity. S. polycystum powder was subjected to a simulated gastrointestinal model to mimic digestion at different phases (oral, gastric and post gastric) to investigate the bioavailability of antioxidant activities. The food matrix effects were studied using 17 different types of common foodstuffs cooking oil, sodium chloride, sugar, honey, vinegar, 95% protein isolate, skim milk, full cream milk, soy milk, bread, rice, meat, vitamin C, broccoli, apple, lemon juice, and apple juice were used as food models. The antioxidant activity has shown the highest recovery in the post gastric section. Food matrix results suggested seaweed was best to be taken with a combination of high-fat content food where full cream milk and oil showed promoting effects on the release of fucoxanthin and beta-carotene by increasing 12-18% of fucoxanthin and 17-26% of beta-carotene content. Bread, salt, and vinegar showed promoting effect in recovery by 4-7%. Fat’s products were able to increase the bio-accessibility of fucoxanthin by 12-15% and beta-carotene by 15-20%. Protein and dietary fibre products have shown inhibiting effects on the recovery of fucoxanthin and beta-carotene content, wherein a decrease in bio-accessibility of fucoxanthin by 22-40% and beta-carotene by 8-23% respectively. In conclusion, fucoxanthin and beta-carotene recovery and bio-accessibility were affected by types of food matrix mainly fat and fibre content

Lasing on nonlinear localized waves in curved geometry

The use of geometrical constraints opens many new perspectives in photonics and in fundamental studies of nonlinear waves. By implementing surface structures in vertical cavity surface emitting lasers as manifolds for curved space, we experimentally study the impacts of geometrical constraints on nonlinear wave localization. We observe localized waves pinned to the maximal curvature in an elliptical-ring, and confirm the reduction in the localization length of waves by measuring near and far field patterns, as well as the corresponding dispersion relation. Theoretically, analyses based on a dissipative model with a parabola curve give good agreement remarkably to experimental measurement on the transition from delocalized to localized waves. The introduction of curved geometry allows to control and design lasing modes in the nonlinear regime.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Enhancement of tolerance development to morphine in rats prenatally exposed to morphine, methadone, and buprenorphine

[[abstract]]BACKGROUND: Abuse of addictive substances is a serious problem that has a significant impact on areas such as health, the economy, and public safety. Heroin use among young women of reproductive age has drawn much attention around the world. However, there is a lack of information on effects of prenatal exposure to opioids on their offspring. In this study, an animal model was established to study effects of prenatal exposure to opioids on offspring. METHODS: Female pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were sub-grouped to receive (1) vehicle, (2) 2-4 mg/kg morphine (1 mg/kg increment per week), (3) 7 mg/kg methadone, and (4) 3 mg/kg buprenorphine, subcutaneously, once or twice a day from E3 to E20. The experiments were conducted on animals 8-12 weeks old and with body weight between 250 and 350 g. RESULTS: Results showed that prenatal exposure to buprenorphine caused higher mortality than other tested substance groups. Although we observed a significantly lower increase in body weight in all of the opioid-administered dams, the birth weight of the offspring was not altered in all treated groups. Moreover, no obvious behavioral abnormality or body-weight difference was noted during the growing period (8-12 weeks) in all offspring. When the male offspring received morphine injection twice a day for 4 days, the prenatally opioid-exposed rats more quickly developed a tolerance to morphine (as shown by the tail-flick tests), most notably the prenatally buprenorphine-exposed offspring. However, the tolerance development to methadone or buprenorphine was not different in offspring exposed prenatally to methadone or buprenorphine, respectively, when compared with that of the vehicle controlled group. Similar results were also obtained in the female animals. CONCLUSIONS: Animals prenatally exposed to morphine, methadone, or buprenorphine developed tolerance to morphine faster than their controlled mates. In our animal model, prenatal exposure to buprenorphine also resulted in higher mortality and much less sensitivity to morphine-induced antinociception than prenatal exposure to morphine or methadone. This indicates that buprenorphine in higher doses may not be an ideal maintenance drug for treating pregnant women. This study provides a reference in selecting doses for clinical usage in treating pregnant heroin addicts

Computational Prediction of Protein-Protein Interactions of Human Tyrosinase

The various studies on tyrosinase have recently gained the attention of researchers due to their potential application values and the biological functions. In this study, we predicted the 3D structure of human tyrosinase and simulated the protein-protein interactions between tyrosinase and three binding partners, four and half LIM domains 2 (FHL2), cytochrome b-245 alpha polypeptide (CYBA), and RNA-binding motif protein 9 (RBM9). Our interaction simulations showed significant binding energy scores of −595.3 kcal/mol for FHL2, −859.1 kcal/mol for CYBA, and −821.3 kcal/mol for RBM9. We also investigated the residues of each protein facing toward the predicted site of interaction with tyrosinase. Our computational predictions will be useful for elucidating the protein-protein interactions of tyrosinase and studying its binding mechanisms

CVD-grown monolayer MoS2 in bioabsorbable electronics and biosensors

Transient electronics entails the capability of electronic components to dissolve or reabsorb in a controlled manner when used in biomedical implants. Here, the authors perform a systematic study of the processes of hydrolysis, bioabsorption, cytotoxicity and immunological biocompatibility of monolayer MoS2