Improvement of dry-cured Iberian ham sensory characteristics through the use of a concentrate high in oleic acid for pig feeding

peer-reviewedThe aim of this study was to investigate the sensory characteristics of dry-cured hams from confined Iberian pigs fed on a high oleic (HO) concentrate (HO-Pienso hams), and to study how different the characteristics of these hams are from those of Iberian hams from the best grade (Montanera hams, from extensively reared pigs). Nearly half of the fatty acids studied were similar in HO-Pienso and Montanera hams. No differences were found for 18:1, but some major fatty acids of subcutaneous fat of Iberian hams were different between the HO-Pienso and the Montanera hams (C16:0, C18:0, C18:2). The descriptive test revealed that 15 of the 23 sensory characteristics were not significantly different between both groups of hams. No sensory differences appeared for fat appearance or lean texture characteristics, but lean appearance, oiliness, saltiness and the most intensively perceived characteristics of odour and flavour were significantly different. These differences in the sensory traits between Montanera and Pienso hams were not as marked as found in previous studies. Therefore, the use of a concentrate high in oleic acid enables simulation, at least in part, of the sensory characteristics, especially texture.Ángela Jurado thanks the Junta de Extremadura for its support

Building a Mobile Advertising System for Target Marketing

Mobile advertising has become one of the most exciting new technological frontiers in advertising area in recent years. The ubiquitous nature of mobile phones makes it possible for advertisers to target users effectively. This paper proposes a targeted mobile advertising system (TMAS) that works as a platform to provide consumers personalized ads based on the consumers’ contextual and preference. The platform allows shops to provide contextual and time-sensitive ads and consumers to locate ads and promotion information using their smart phone. A demonstration is conducted to show the validity of the key process in the TMAS

Building a Semantic Tendering System

In the new B2B e-commerce arena, applications such as auctions and data exchange are growing rapidly. However, Web content is currently designed for human consumption rather than computer manipulation. This limits the possibility of Web automation. Fortunately, the new development of the Semantic Web that allows Web pages to provide information not only in terms of their content, but also in terms of the properties of that content, can be used for automation. Electronic tendering systems are among the successfully commercial systems that can tremendously benefit from the availability of Semantic Web. This study proposes an e-tendering system that uses the Semantic Web to investigate the automatic negotiation process. The system is built in a P2P environment to simulate a two-player negotiation. It is found that the ontology of semantic information can be used to locate qualified suppliers and precede negotiation. The bargaining power of each party is then determined by the relative magnitude of the negotiators’ respective costs of haggling and the utility that varies with the degree of risk preference. Our experiments showed that applying automatic negotiation strategies to e-tendering system in semantic web can reflect the risk preference of the participants

Why People Are Willing to Share More Knowledge than Required

Knowledge sharing is critical for modern organizations. Besides in-role knowledge sharing, there exists knowledge sharing beyond one’s role, which is called extra-role knowledge sharing. This study investigates the antecedents of the extra-role knowledge sharing from the perspective of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Previous studies on OCB and works on knowledge sharing were reviewed to develop a model explaining the factors behind extra- role knowledge sharing. Willingness to help that is hypothesized to be influenced by procedural justice, job satisfaction, and employee personality (extraversion and agreeableness) is believed to influence extra- role knowledge sharing. Empirical data confirmed most of the hypotheses of this study