Analytical Strategies for Fingerprinting of Antioxidants, Nutritional Substances, and Bioactive Compounds in Foodstuffs Based on High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry: An Overview

New technology development and globalisation have led to extreme changes in the agri-food sector in recent years that need an important food supply chain characterisation from plant materials to commercial productions. Many analytical strategies are commonly utilised in the agri-food industry, often using complementary technologies with different purposes. Chromatography on-line coupled to mass spectrometry (MS) is one of the most selective and sensitive analytical methodologies. The purpose of this overview is to present the most recent MS-based techniques applied to food analysis. An entire section is dedicated to the recent applications of high-resolution MS. Covered topics include liquid (LC)– and gas chromatography (GC)–MS analysis of natural bioactive substances, including carbohydrates, flavonoids and related compounds, lipids, phenolic compounds, vitamins, and other different molecules in foodstuffs from the perspectives of food composition, food authenticity and food adulteration. The results represent an important contribution to the utilisation of GC–MS and LC–MS in the field of natural bioactive compound identification and quantification

Exploring Local Perceptions of and Attitudes toward Endangered François’ Langurs (Trachypithecus francoisi) in a Human-Modified Habitat

Understanding local community attitudes toward wildlife is critical for making context-sensitive conservation planning and management decisions that may facilitate better human–wildlife coexistence. We conducted questionnaire-based interviews with local households in Qinglong Village of Mayanghe National Nature Reserve (MNNR) in China from March to August 2015. We used a mixed analysis technique based on a theoretical framework of categorical variables to explain attitudes to investigate the key factors that influenced local attitudes toward Endangered François’ langurs (Trachypithecus francoisi). We found that 53% (40, N = 75) of interviewees liked François’ langurs presence around the village, 27% did not, and 20% were neutral. Respondents with favorable attitudes to langurs associated them mainly with tangible benefits from local tourism and their positive aesthetic and emotional values. Respondents with negative attitudes to langurs associated them with tangible costs such as crop feeding and the destruction of their houses. Over half (N = 9) of respondents with neutral attitudes associated langurs with various cost and benefit trade-offs. Overall, local people tended to have slightly negative perceptions of the langurs’ impacts at the household level, while they had very positive perceptions of their impacts at the community level. Ordinal logistic regression models revealed that age, gender, and impact perceptions were significantly associated with local residents’ attitudes toward the langurs at the household and community levels. We suggest that such socioeconomic monitoring efforts should be periodically conducted in protected areas such as MNNR, especially in the context of rapid economic and infrastructure development