Chinese Food in Australia: Diaspora, taste, and affect

This thesis examines the political and cultural significance of Chinese food in Australia by considering its specific discourses and representations. It begins by mapping the politicised history of early Chinese food in the 19th century and considers the circumstances underpinning its emergence and later proliferation. Building on cultural studies scholarship about migration and food from Australia and the United States, this thesis examines the interrelated link between migration and the generation of new cultural products. I reframe westernised Chinese food as an innovative and necessary response from the Chinese community. By identifying the adaptable and creative nature of Chinese food (and people), I problematise the belief that westernised Chinese food is “inauthentic” and a complete victim to western supremacy. This thesis indicates how Chinese food is an effective place from which to understand differences, identity, and power. Situating Chinese food in the 21st century, I analyse how notions and tastes for it have changed over time, within the Chinese Australian diaspora and more broadly. With a focus on material examples and auto-ethnography, I examine how intergenerational and cultural differences in the diaspora can influence what we eat and how we eat. Cautious not to undermine the structuring effects of racism and class privilege in food discourses, I consider how whiteness and middle-upper class “tastemakers” shape how we perceive and relate to Chinese food. Finally, this thesis considers the capacities of Chinese food by looking at the visceral feelings and affects it can produce. I examine how commensality (eating together) can help encourage new ways of thinking, feeling, sharing, and relating. Ultimately, this thesis moves toward a view of Chinese food that embraces multiplicities and variance, as opposed to singularities and tradition

Group processes in emergency evacuation

Dr Anne Templeton and Dr Yunhe Tong discuss recent research into the importance of group processes in emergency evacuations. When considering how people will react in evacuations, planners presume which information people will attend to, whose instructions they will follow, which evacuation routes they will take, and how long they will spend before initiating evacuation. To understand these reactions, much research has focused on important issues affecting evacuation behaviour such as how clear the evacuation guidance is, how much knowledge the evacuees have about the environment, and how relevant evacuees believe a threat is to them personally

Cultural motives affecting tea purchase behavior under two usage situations in China: a study of renqing, mianzi, collectivism, and man-nature unity culture

Peer reviewe

Dipeptidyl Peptidase 10 (DPP10789): A Voltage Gated Potassium Channel Associated Protein Is Abnormally Expressed in Alzheimer’s and Other Neurodegenerative Diseases

Copyright © 2014 Tong Chen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.The neuropathological features associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) include the presence of extracellular amyloid- peptidecontaining plaques and intracellular tau positive neurofibrillary tangles and the loss of synapses and neurons in defined regions of the brain. Dipeptidyl peptidase 10 (DPP10) is a protein that facilitates Kv4 channel surface expression and neuronal excitability. This study aims to explore DPP10789 protein distribution in human brains and its contribution to the neurofibrillary pathology of AD and other tauopathies. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed predominant neuronal staining of DPP10789 in control brains, and the CA1 region of the hippocampus contained strong reactivity in the distal dendrites of the pyramidal cells. In AD brains, robust DPP10789 reactivity was detected in neurofibrillary tangles and plaque-associated dystrophic neurites, most of which colocalized with the doubly phosphorylated Ser-202/Thr-205 tau epitope. DPP10789 positive neurofibrillary tangles and plaque-associated dystrophic neurites also appeared in other neurodegenerative diseases such as frontotemporal lobar degeneration, diffuse Lewy body disease, and progressive supranuclear palsy. Occasional DPP10789 positive neurofibrillary tangles and neurites were seen in some aged control brains.Western blot analysis showed both full length and truncatedDPP10789 fragments with the later increasing significantly in AD brains compared to control brains. Our results suggest that DPP10789 is involved in the pathology of AD and other neurodegenerative diseases

Effective discrimination of flavours and tastes of Chinese traditional fish soups made from different regions of the silver carp using an electronic nose and electronic tongue

Silver carp is a one of the most important freshwater fish species in China, and is popular when making soup in the Chinese dietary culture. In order to investigate the profile of fish soup tastes and flavours cooked using different regions of the same fish, the silver carp was cut into four different regions: head, back, abdomen, and tail. The differences in taste and flavour of the four kinds of homemade fish soup were investigated by an electronic nose and electronic tongue. The basic chemical components of the different fish regions and the SDS-PAGE profile of the fish soup samples were investigated. Two chemometrics methods (principal component analysis and discriminant factor analysis) were used to classify the odour and taste of the fish soup samples. The results showed that the electronic tongue and nose performed outstandingly in discriminating the four fish soups even though the samples were made from different regions of the same fish. The taste and flavour information of different regions of the silver carp fish could provide the theoretical basis for food intensive processing

A Smooth Transition Long-Memory Model

This paper proposes a new fractional model with a time-varying long-memory parameter. The latter evolves nonlinearly according to a transition variable through a logistic function. We present a LR-based test that allows to discriminate between the standard fractional model and our model. We further apply the nonlinear least squares method to estimate the long memory parameter. We present an application to the unemployment rate in the United -States from 1948 to 2012

Validation of a Dietary Questionnaire to Screen Omega-3 Fatty Acids Levels in Healthy Adults

To facilitate a clinical observational study to identify healthy volunteers with low (defined as ≤4%) and high (defined as ≥5.5%) omega-3 indices, a dietary questionnaire to rapidly assess habitual dietary intake of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) was developed. This study aimed to determine the validity of this newly developed dietary questionnaire. One hundred and eight volunteers were included and were assessed for habitual dietary intake of EPA and DHA using the questionnaire. The United States Department of Agriculture food products database and nutrition fact label was referenced for calculation. Blood samples were collected for the analysis of fatty acids in whole blood specimens and to derive omega-3 indices. A linear correlation was observed between reported dietary consumption of EPA, DHA, EPA+DHA and the whole blood levels of EPA, DHA, and the omega-3 indices ( = 0.67, 0.62, 0.67, respectively, \u3c 0.001 for all). The findings also suggested that the questionnaire was substantially better at identifying volunteers with high omega-3 indices (sensitivity 89%, specificity 84%, and agreement 86%) compared to volunteers with low omega-3 indices (sensitivity 100%, specificity 66%, and agreement 42%). In conclusion, this newly developed questionnaire is an efficient tool for the assessment of omega-3 indices in study populations and is particularly effective in identifying individuals with high omega-3 indices

The Quest for National Digital Agility: Digital Responses to Covid-19 in Five Countries

Countries worldwide have employed different digital solutions to contain and cope with the Covid-19 pandemic. In this explorative case research, we examine national-level digital responses to the pandemic in four specific areas—tracking and tracing, health data reporting, teleconsultation, and vaccination mobilization—across five countries: China, Denmark, Germany, South Korea, and the U.S. Drawing on the notion of agility and digital infrastructures, our cross-case analysis unveils how the countries’ digital responses to the pandemic have been shaped by their national health system characteristics. In addition, we highlight how existing digital health infrastructures, regulatory adaptations, and industry collaborations fostered the alacrity with which nations responded to the pandemic. We define national-level digital agility as the ability of a nation to leverage digital infrastructure capabilities to address urgent societal challenges in a contextually appropriate way. Our key contribution is a model of this complex, but urgently needed concept containing five building blocks, each of which is a critical prerequisite to building such agility. Despite focusing on addressing the existing challenges of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, we believe that researchers and policymakers can also take pointers away from our framework to tackle other socio-environmental challenges

Individual maternal and child exposure to antibiotics in hospital : a national population-based validation study

Aim: Exposure to antibiotics in early life may affect future health. Most antibiotics are prescribed in outpatient care, but inpatient exposure is also important. We estimated how specific diagnoses in hospitals corresponded to individual antibiotic exposure. Methods: All pregnant women and children from birth to five-years-of-age with infectious diseases and common inpatient diagnoses between July 2005 and November 2011were identified from the Swedish National Patient Register. Random samples of individuals from pre-defined groups were drawn and medical records received from the clinics were manually reviewed for antibiotics. Results: Medical records for 4,319 hospital visits were requested and 3,797 (88%) were received. A quarter (25%) of children diagnosed as premature had received antibiotics and in children from one to five-years-of-age, diagnoses associated with bacterial infections were more commonly treated with antibiotics (62.4-90.6%) than those associated with viruses (6.3-22.2%). Pregnant women who had undergone a Caesarean section were more likely to be treated with antibiotics than those who had had a vaginal delivery (40.1% versus 11.1%). Conclusions: This study defines the proportion of new mothers and young children who received individual antibiotic treatment for specific inpatient diagnoses in Sweden and provides a useful basis for future studies focusing on antibiotic use.Swedish Research Council, 2011-3060Swedish Initiative for Research on Microdata in the Social And Medical Sciences (SIMSAM), 80748301 and 340-2013- 5867Stockholm County Council (ALF)Swedish Heart Lung FoundationStrategic Research Program in Epidemiology at Karolinska InstitutetManuscrip

Tackling Obesity in Aged-Care Homes : The Effects of Environmental Cues

Peer reviewedPostprin