How consumers’ need for variety and social consumption influences festival patronage and spending

This paper investigates the influence of motivational goals such as variety seeking and social consumption on consumers’ patronage and spending at craft beer festivals. In doing so, we develop and test a number of hypotheses by examining information collected via means of a survey questionnaire proposed in 2017 to visitors of a large beer festival in the UK. Findings of our analysis unveil how cognitive engagement affects individuals’ behavior with regard to responding to and financially engage with beer festivals. Results also identify cognitive engagement as an important mediator of the effects related to variety-seeking and social consumption. From a managerial perspective, findings reveal important attributes affecting consumers’ drivers towards craft beers, contributing to understand which dimension of consumer engagement influence their behaviors. Overall, the study provides fresh empirical evidence in terms of identifying and recognizing consumers’ behaviors with regard to defining future trends in the craft beer secto

A review on the effects of light-emitting diode (LED) light on the nutrients of sprouts and microgreens

Background: Sprouts and microgreens, which are tender, flavourful, rich in nutrients, have a short growth cycle, and have been recognized as functional foods in the human diet. Culturing under artificial light sources could regulate the growth, the phytochemical compound content and antioxidant capacity of sprouts and microgreens. Scope and approach: In this review, the effects of light-emitting diode (LED) light on growth, phytochemical compound content and antioxidant capacity, as well as the post-harvest quality of sprouts and microgreens were overviewed, and the underlying mechanisms were discussed. The future applications and research, which aim to improve the growth and nutritional quality of sprouts and microgreens, were also investigated. Key findings and conclusions: LED light can promote the accumulation of different phytochemicals, such as phenolic compounds, vitamins, glucosinolates, chlorophyll and carotenoids. Meanwhile, the antioxidant capacity could also be significantly increased by growth under LED light, in particular UV-B light. The accumulation of mineral elements (Ca2+, Fe2+, K+) increased after light exposure. The effects of LED light on the growth was species dependent. Therefore, growth under LED light is an efficient and promising strategy for producing sprouts and microgreens with higher nutritional values

Isolation and drought-tolerant function analysis of ZmPti1-1, a homologue to Pti1, from maize (Zea mays L.)

Pto-interacting 1(Pti1) has been well established to play important roles in plant disease and salt response, but its potential roles in the response to drought stress is unknown. In this study, the Pti1- like gene named as ZmPti1-1 was cloned from maize, sequence analysis showed that ZmPti1-1 encodes a polypeptide of 363 amino acids with predicted molecular mass of 39.0 kDa and an isoelectric point of 8.14. ZmPt1-1 is dramatically induced by abscisic acid (ABA) and mannitol (data not shown). In order to analyze the further drought tolerant functions, ZmPti1-1 was over-expressed in Arabidopsis. Under drought stress, compared with wild type, survival rate of the three transgenic lines, which was 70, 76 and 87%, respectively, was significantly higher than that of wild type which was 29%; there were lower water loss, lower cell membrane damage, higher relative water content, higher total soluble sugars, higher proline content and higher yield for transgenic plants. Based on the present knowledge, this is the first report that over-expression of Pti1-like gene improved drought tolerance in plants.Key words: ZmPti1-1, transgenic Arabidopsis, drought tolerance

Expert recommendations for the diagnosis and treatment of iron-deficiency anemia during pregnancy and the postpartum period in the Asia-Pacific region

Anemia during pregnancy and the postpartum period is commonly caused by iron deficiency and is a significant worldwide issue with severe consequences for both mother and developing fetus. From a worldwide perspective, iron-deficiency anemia (IDA) during pregnancy is highest in the Asia-Pacific region; however, there has been little guidance in this region for safe and effective treatment. An expert panel was convened to develop a concise and informative set of recommendations for the treatment of IDA in pregnant and postpartum women in the Asia-Pacific region. This manuscript provides these recommendations and aims to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with IDA in pregnant and postpartum women in the Asia-Pacific region. The consensus recommendations define anemia as a hemoglobin (Hb) level <10.5 g/dL during pregnancy and <10 g/dL during the postpartum period, and provide cut-off Hb levels to initiate therapy with oral iron, intravenous iron or red blood cell transfusion

Spatial-temporal dynamics of China's terrestrial biodiversity: A dynamic habitat index diagnostic

Biodiversity in China is analyzed based on the components of the Dynamic Habitat Index (DHI). First, observed field survey based spatial patterns of species richness including threatened species are presented to test their linear relationship with remote sensing based DHI (2001-2010 MODIS). Areas with a high cumulative DHI component are associated with relatively high species richness, and threatened species richness increases in regions with frequently varying levels of the cumulative DHI component. The analysis of geographical and statistical distributions yields the following results on interdependence, polarization and change detection: (1) The decadal mean Cumulative Annual Productivity (DHI-cum 4) in Southeast China are in a stable (positive) relation to the Minimum Annual Apparent Cover (DHI-min) and is positively (negatively) related to the Seasonal Variation of Greenness (DHI-sea); (2) The decadal tendencies show bimodal frequency distributions aligned near DHI-min~0.05 and DHI-sea~0.5 which separated by zero slopes; that is, regions with both small DHI-min and DHI-sea are becoming smaller and vice versa; (3) The decadal tendencies identify regions of land-cover change (as revealed in previous research). That is, the relation of strong and significant tendencies of the three DHI components with climatic or anthropogenic induced changes provides useful information for conservation planning. These results suggest that the spatial-temporal dynamics of China's terrestrial species and threatened species richness needs to be monitored by first and second moments of remote sensing based information of the DHI. © 2016 by the authors

A study of aerosol liquid water content based on hygroscopicity measurements at high relative humidity in the North China Plain

Water can be a major component of aerosol particles, also serving as a medium for aqueous-phase reactions. In this study, a novel method is presented to calculate the aerosol liquid water content at high relative humidity based on measurements of aerosol hygroscopic growth factor, particle number size distribution and relative humidity in the Haze in China (HaChi) summer field campaign (July–August 2009) in the North China Plain. The aerosol liquid water content calculated using this method agreed well with that calculated using a thermodynamic equilibrium model (ISORROPIA II) at high relative humidity (>60%) with a correlation coefficient of 0.96. At low relative humidity (<60%), an underestimation was found in the calculated aerosol liquid water content by the thermodynamic equilibrium model. This discrepancy mainly resulted from the ISORROPIA II model, which only considered limited aerosol chemical compositions. The mean and maximum values of aerosol liquid water content during the HaChi campaign reached 1.69 × 10&minus;4 g m−3 and 9.71 × 10&minus;4 g m−3, respectively. A distinct diurnal variation of the aerosol liquid water content was found, with lower values during daytime and higher ones at night. The aerosol liquid water content depended strongly on the relative humidity. The aerosol liquid water content in the accumulation mode dominated the total aerosol liquid water content

Termination of Cryogenian ironstone deposition by deep ocean euxinia

Widespread deposition of iron-rich sedimentary rocks (ironstones) occurred during the Sturtian ice age, the earlier of two Cryogenian ‘Snowball Earth’ glaciations. However, the reasons for the termination of Cryogenian Iron Formation (CIF) deposition remain poorly understood. Here we report a multi-isotope (Fe-C-S) study of the Xinyu CIF in South China that can directly address this question. The isotopic compositions of these multivalent elements exhibit remarkable covariance at the top of the Xinyu CIF that reflects progressive redox stratification during iron oxide deposition. Iron oxide deposition ended abruptly due to the titration of ferrous iron as pyrite following a large influx of riverine sulfate. Although termination of CIF deposition is commonly attributed to oxygenation, our data show that at least in some Cryogenian ocean basins, CIF deposition ended with the spread of euxinic rather than oxygenated waters

Comparative analysis of phenolic compounds profile, antioxidant capacity, and expression of phenolic biosynthesis-related genes in soybean microgreens grown under different light spectra

The Light-emitting diode (LED)-based light sources, which can selectively and quantitatively provide different spectra, have been frequently applied to manipulate plant growth and development. In this study, the effects of different LED light spectra on the growth, phenolic compounds profile, antioxidant capacity and transcriptional changes in genes regulating phenolic biosynthesis in soybean microgreens were investigated. The results showed that light illumination decreased the seedling length and yield but increased phenolic compounds content. Blue light and ultraviolet-A (UV-A) induced significant increases in total phenolic and total flavonoid content, as compared with the white light control. Sixty-six phenolic compounds were identified in the soybean samples, of which isoflavone, phenolic acid, and flavonol were the main components. Ten phenolic compounds obtained from the orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) were reflecting the effect of light spectra. The antioxidant capacity was consistent with the phenolic metabolite levels, which showed higher levels under blue light and UV-A compared with the control. The highest transcript levels of phenolic biosynthesis-related genes were observed under blue light and UV-A. The transcript levels of GmCHI, GmFLS and GmIOMT were also upregulated under far-red and red light. Taken together, our findings suggested that the application of LED light could pave a green and effective way to produce phenolic compounds-enriched soybean microgreens with high nutrition quality, which could stimulate further investigations for improving plant nutritional value and should have a wide impact on maintaining human health

The Use of Pattern Differentiation in WHO-Registered Traditional Chinese Medicine Trials – a systematic review

Introduction: Pattern differentiation is a critical component for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) diagnosis and treatment. However, the issue of whether pattern differentiation is appropriately applied in TCM Interventional trials, including Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) interventions and non-herbal TCM interventions, is unclear. The aim of this study was to i) systematically review the current status of pattern differentiation used in WHO-registered clinical trials for different types of TCM interventions; and ii) provide suggestions for improving the use of pattern differentiation in future clinical trial design. Methods: The World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) database was searched for all TCM interventional trials registered up to 31 December 2017. In this systematic review trials with a TCM pattern differentiation in their design were included. Descriptive statistics were collated to demonstrate the characteristics of pattern differentiation applied for different TCM interventional trials. Results: Among 2,955 TCM interventional trials registered during 1999-2017, 376 (12.7%) trials included pattern differentiation. Of 376 trials, the use of pattern differentiation was identified in –title (30.6%), objective (50.5%), participants inclusion 4 (100%), outcomes (43.6%) and study background (12.5%). Further, 85.4% reported the specific name of the TCM intervention, 10.6% provided the intervention’s targeted pattern, 83.8% reported the specific name of the TCM pattern, 7.2% presented diagnostic criteria for the pattern studied, and 19.1% adopted a pattern-related outcome as primary outcome for evaluation. Conclusion: The reporting and application of pattern differentiation in TCM trials were inadequate and confusing, which was mainly due to lack of clarity regarding study design, objectives, diagnostic criteria and outcomes