What do they eat? A survey of eat-out habit of university students in Taiwan

[EN] Main purpose of this research is trying to understand food likeliness of Taiwan college students, and probe whether these food are healthy. Three survey steps are taken as: step 1, market survey for what kind of foods are selling around the campuses; step 2, questionnaire investigation for students food preference; step 3, analyzing whether these favorite foods are healthy or not. The result shows: major consideration for students food selection are “taste” and “price”; 63% of students are taking food or snacks late at night at least once a week. Top three most favorite foods are: Taiwanese fries (yan su ji), carbon grilled chicken and fried fish steaks. Quantities of these foods are small, prices are low, and easy access from roadside food stands. Problems of them are high calories, easy to accumulate free radical in human body, plus insanitary food processing environment. They are harmful to student health. We suggest Taiwan government take it seriouslyShih, K.; Wang, M.; Shih, H.; Lee, S.; Lin, T. (2020). What do they eat? A survey of eat-out habit of university students in Taiwan. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 421-430. https://doi.org/10.4995/INN2019.2019.10562OCS42143

Effect of dietary organic zinc sources on growth performance, incidence of diarrhoea, serum and tissue zinc concentrations, and intestinal morphology in growing rabbits

[EN] This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary organic zinc (Zn) sources on growth performance, the incidence of diarrhoea, serum and tissue Zn concentration, and intestinal morphology in growing rabbits. A total of 120 New Zealand White rabbits aged 35 d and with an initial body weight of 755±15 g, were randomly divided into 4 treatment groups for a 49 d feeding trial. Dietary treatments were designed with different Zn supplements as follows: (1) Control group: 80 mg/kg Zn as ZnSO4; (2) ZnLA group: 80 mg/kg Zn as Zn lactate; (3) ZnMet group: 80 mg/kg Zn as Zn methionine; (4) ZnGly group: 80 mg/kg Zn as Zn glycine. The results showed that, when compared with rabbits fed ZnSO4, supplementation with ZnLA improved (P4. Supplementing with ZnLA increased duodenum villi height (681.63 vs. 587.14 μm, P4, except that feeding ZnMet led to higher (P4. The results indicated that supplementation with 80 mg/kg Zn as ZnLA could improve growth performance, increase liver Zn concentration and enhance duodenum morphology, while reducing the incidence of diarrhoea in growing rabbits.Yan, J.; Zhang, G.; Zhang, C.; Tang, L.; Kuang, S. (2017). Effect of dietary organic zinc sources on growth performance, incidence of diarrhoea, serum and tissue zinc concentrations, and intestinal morphology in growing rabbits. World Rabbit Science. 25(1):43-49. doi:10.4995/wrs.2017.5770.SWORD434925

The Effect Of Food Safety Accidents On The Perception Of Risk Among Taiwanese Vocational School Students Majoring In Tourism

[EN] In this study we analyze the degree of awareness of food safety risk among tourism students. Questionnaires were distributed to 148 students randomly selected from tourism majors in vocational schools in Tainan, Taiwan. A total of 30 questions over the topics on the sanitation, washroom sanitation, food sanitation, staff sanitation and table ware cleanliness were graded on a scale of 5 according to the perceived importance of the topic The survey reveals that of the five sanitation items, food sanitation received the highest score while the washroom sanitation the lowest.Shih, K.; Hong, T.; Lee, S.; Lin, T. (2019). The Effect Of Food Safety Accidents On The Perception Of Risk Among Taiwanese Vocational School Students Majoring In Tourism. En INNODOCT/18. International Conference on Innovation, Documentation and Education. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 247-253. https://doi.org/10.4995/INN2018.2018.8917OCS24725

Global analysis of a Holling type II predator–prey model with a constant prey refuge

A global analysis of a Holling type II predator–prey model with a constant prey refuge is presented. Although this model has been much studied, the threshold condition for the global stability of the unique interior equilibrium and the uniqueness of its limit cycle have not been obtained to date, so far as we are aware. Here we provide a global qualitative analysis to determine the global dynamics of the model. In particular, a combination of the Bendixson–Dulac theorem and the Lyapunov function method was employed to judge the global stability of the equilibrium. The uniqueness theorem of a limit cycle for the Lineard system was used to show the existence and uniqueness of the limit cycle of the model. Further, the effects of prey refuges and parameter space on the threshold condition are discussed in the light of sensitivity analyses. Additional interesting topics based on the discontinuous (or Filippov) Gause predator–prey model are addressed in the discussion

Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors for Structural Health Monitoring of Tsing Ma Bridge: Background and experimental observation

The rapid expansion of the optical fiber telecommunication industry due to the explosion of the Internet has substantially driven down the cost of optical components, making fiber optic sensors more economically viable. In addition, the rapid development of fiber-optic sensors, particularly the fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensors offers many advantages and capability that could not be achieved otherwise. In the past few years, fiber Bragg grating sensors have attracted a lot of interest and they are being used in numerous applications. This paper describes the FBG sensors developed for structural health monitoring, and were installed on Hong Kong's landmark Tsing Ma bridge (TMB), which is the world longest (1377 m) suspension bridge that carried both railway and regular road traffic. Forty FBG sensors divided into three arrays were installed on the hanger cable, rocker bearing and truss girders of the TMB. The objectives of the study are to investigate the feasibility of using the developed FBG sensors for structural health monitoring, via monitoring the strain of different parts of the TMB under both the railway and highway loads as well as comparing the FBG sensors' performance with the conventional structural health monitoring system - Wind and Structural Health Monitoring System (WASHMS) that has been operating at TMB since the bridge's commissioning in May 1997. The experimental observations in this project show that the results using FBG sensors were in excellent agreement with those acquired by WASHMS