Authenticity and Nostalgia: A Gastronomic Experience of a Local Food Night Market

The purpose of this study was to explore the roles of authenticity (food authenticity and atmosphere authenticity) and nostalgia in tourist’ food experiences. Data were collected with tourists visiting a local food night market in Macao. CFA and SEM were used for data analysis. Results suggested that authenticity, especially atmosphere authenticity, has a positive influence on nostalgia, which in turn influences attitude towards local food, perceived gastronomy destination image, as well as revisit intention for food consumption. The findings also provide some practical implications for the food night market as well as DMOs

A Review on Bradykinin-Related Peptides Isolated from Amphibian Skin Secretion

Amphibian skin secretion has great potential for drug discovery and contributes hundreds of bioactive peptides including bradykinin-related peptides (BRPs). More than 50 BRPs have been reported in the last two decades arising from the skin secretion of amphibian species. They belong to the families Ascaphidae (1 species), Bombinatoridae (3 species), Hylidae (9 speices) and Ranidae (25 species). This paper presents the diversity of structural characteristics of BRPs with N-terminal, C-terminal extension and amino acid substitution. The further comparison of cDNA-encoded prepropeptides between the different species and families demonstrated that there are various forms of kininogen precursors to release BRPs and they constitute important evidence in amphibian evolution. The pharmacological activities of isolated BRPs exhibited unclear structure–function relationships, and therefore the scope for drug discovery and development is limited. However, their diversity shows new insights into biotechnological applications and, as a result, comprehensive and systematic studies of the physiological and pharmacological activities of BRPs from amphibian skin secretion are needed in the future

Risk factors for high-altitude headache upon acute high-altitude exposure at 3700 m in young Chinese men: a cohort study.

BackgroundThis prospective and observational study aimed to identify demographic, physiological and psychological risk factors associated with high-altitude headache (HAH) upon acute high-altitude exposure.MethodsEight hundred fifty subjects ascended by plane to 3700 m above Chengdu (500 m) over a period of two hours. Structured Case Report Form (CRF) questionnaires were used to record demographic information, physiological examinations, psychological scale, and symptoms including headache and insomnia a week before ascending and within 24 hours after arrival at 3700 m. Binary logistic regression models were used to analyze the risk factors for HAH.ResultsThe incidence of HAH was 73.3%. Age (p =0.011), physical labor intensity (PLI) (p =0.044), primary headache history (p <0.001), insomnia (p <0.001), arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2) (p =0.001), heart rate (HR) (p =0.002), the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) (p <0.001), and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) (p <0.001) were significantly different between HAH and non-HAH groups. Logistic regression models identified primary headache history, insomnia, low SaO2, high HR and SAS as independent risk factors for HAH.ConclusionsInsomnia, primary headache history, low SaO2, high HR, and high SAS score are the risk factors for HAH. Our findings will provide novel avenues for the study, prevention and treatment of HAH

Jasmine (Jasminum grandiflorum) Flower Extracts Ameliorate Tetradecanoylphorbol Acetate Induced Ear Edema in Mice

Published data from in vitro assays support the anti-inflammatory effects of jasmine (Jasminum grandiflorum Linn.) but limited studies are reported in animal models. Herein, the anti-inflammatory effects of jasmine flower extracts (JFEs) including ethanol extract (JF-EE), petroleum ether extract (JF-PEE), ethyl acetate extract (JF-EAE), and n-butanol extract (JF-BE) were evaluated in a mouse ear edema model. Acute mouse ear skin inflammation was induced by tetradecanoylphorbol acetate (TPA; 125 µg/mL) and then treated with JFEs (100 mg/mL) or dexamethasone (DEX; 6.25 mg/mL; as a positive control). Jasmine flower extracts alleviated ear edema by reducing TPA-increased ear thickness and ear weight by 30.8% to 64.1% and 24.0% to 47.1%, respectively, whereas DEX showed comparable activity (by 71.8% and 49.1%, respectively). Their anti-inflammatory effects were supported by data from the immunohistochemical assays. Jasmine flower extracts reduced the inflammatory cells (from 5.5- to 9.5-fold) and the expressions of inflammation related enzymes including cyclooxygenase-2 and inhibitor of kappa-B kinase (from 1.9- to 2.8-fold and from 7.1- to 11.0-fold, respectively). Findings from this study showed that JFEs were able to ameliorate TPA-induced mouse skin inflammation. However, future studies on the underlying mechanisms of jasmine flower’s anti-inflammatory effects are warranted

Large anomalous Hall effect in a hexagonal ferromagnetic Fe5Sn3 single crystal

In this paper, we report an experimental observation of the large anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in a hexagonal ferromagnetic Fe5Sn3 single crystal with current along the b axis and a magnetic field normal to the bc plane. The intrinsic contribution of the anomalous Hall conductance sigma_AH^int was approximately 613 {\Omega}-1 cm-1, which was more than 3 times the maximum value in the frustrated kagome magnet Fe3Sn2 and nearly independent of the temperature over a wide range between 5 and 350 K. The analysis results revealed that the large AHE was dominated by a common, intrinsic term, while the extrinsic contribution, i.e., the skew scattering and side jump, turned out to be small. In addition to the large AHE, it was found the types of majority carriers changed at approximately 275 and 30 K, consistent with the critical temperatures of the spin reorientation. These findings suggest that the hexagonal ferromagnetic Fe5Sn3 single crystal is an excellent candidate to use for the study of the topological features in ferromagnets.Comment: accepted as a rapid communication in Phy. Rev.

Accelerated electromagnetic transient (EMT) equivalent model of solid-state transformer

Accurate and efficient electromagnetic transient (EMT) simulation of various types of solid-state transformers (SST) is extremely time-consuming due to the complex module structure, flexible topology connections, large number of electrical nodes and simulation time-steps limited in the range of micro-seconds. Therefore, it is urgent to develop the EMT equivalent modelling and fast simulation of SSTs for system level studies. Taking the modular multilevel converter (MMC) based SST as an example, this paper proposes an accelerated EMT model which focuses on the equivalence of the dual active bridge (DAB) based high-frequency link (HFL) in the SST. Compared with the existing algorithms, two critical factors of the proposed method that contribute the most to the efficiency improvement are the preprocessing of the nodal admittance equation and the conversion of the short-circuit admittance parameters. The proposed model is verified in PSCAD/EMTDC by comparing it with the detailed EMT model. The results show that the accelerated model is one to two orders of magnitude faster than the detailed model without sacrificing the accuracy. The experiment validation also confirms the validity of the proposed model