Consumer Perception of Organic Food in Urumqi

The market for organic products in Urumqi is at the beginning of its development. The objective of this paper is to gain knowledge about consumers attitudes toward organic food in Urumqi which is the capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The consumers attitudes were collected by means of a face-to-face survey. Attitudes, purchasing frequency, supply satisfaction and beliefs about organic food were studied with a sample of 720 consumers. The data obtained from the survey were analyzed with univariate analysis, chi-square test, ANOVA and correlation analysis. About 44.9% of Urumqi consumers had never heard of organic food. Urumqi consumers who know organic food consider organically-grown products as very healthy, of good quality and tasty. Consumers are not very familiar with the supply of organic food in the market. One reason might be that there was very little advertisement about organic products. Some groups of consumers have more positive attitudes towards organic food, and they express an increased willingness to pay higher prices for these food. Therefore, marketing strategies for organic food should be targeted towards such groups. According to the research results, an important task for the producers will be to increase consumers knowledge of what organic food is and how to differentiate it in the marketplace.Urumqi, Consumer behavior, Organic food, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Changes of Diurnal Rhythms of Social Media Activities during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed many aspects of our lives throughout the world. The Stay-at-Home orders imposed by the pandemic have exacerbated the stress and anxiety during the pandemic. To investigate how the social confinements affect people’s circadian rhythms at the population level, social activities on Twitter were analyzed for three different stages during the COVID-19 pandemic development. Results confirmed the diurnal rhythms of daily tweets before the Stay-at-Home orders, and also found that the diurnal rhythmicity of tweets was severely abolished during the Stay-at-Home orders, and then was restored after reopening. This study has a public health implication that circadian rhythms of the general public were significantly impacted by the social confinements during the COVID-19 pandemic, and circadian health education targeting the general population should be given enough attention and priority

Source-sink Relationship During Papaya Fruit Development and Ripening

The source sink relationship during papaya fruit development and ripening was investigated. The source size and sink strength were modified by single or continual defoliation, and fruit thinning, respectively. The relationship between fruit growth, respiration, sugar accumulation and the activity of sucrose phosphate synthase (SPS), sucrose synthase (SS), and acid invertase were determined in fruit from 14 days after anthesis (DAA) to 140 DAA (harvest maturity) and in response to defoliation and fruit removal. A putative complete invertase gene and a SS gene fragment were isolated and characterized from nearly mature green papaya fruit. Single defoliation significantly reduced new flower and fruit set, and ripe fruit total soluble solids (TSS) but did not reduce fruit production, average fruit mass, percentage fruit flesh and seed, seed mass ratio and seed dry mass during a six weeks period. Continual defoliation in addition reduced fruit size, sugar and invertase enzyme activity and fruit production. The responses of defoliation and fruit thinning varied between different cultivars, weather conditions, defoliation time, degree and method. The pattern of gene expression during fruit development was compared with invertase extracted enzyme activity in the presence and absence of sodium chloride (NaCI) and by western blot analysis. The papaya invertase sequence had an open reading frame that encoded a polypeptide chain of 582 residues and calculated molecular weight of 65, 684 Da. The protein was highly homologous to known plant cell wall invertase and 67% identical at the amino acid level to carrot cell wall invertase. The cloned 720 bp SS fragment was highly homologous to A. glutinosa (X92378) and SS genes from other species. Invertase gene was expressed at a higher level during late fruit development stage than in young fruit and other tissues of papaya plant. SS gene expression was higher in young fruit and petiole tissues than in other tissues. The data demonstrated that SS enzyme was a major enzyme in fruit sink establishment and maintenance. Apoplastic invertase had an important function in phloem unloading during papaya fruit sugar accumulation and the activity was regulated at both transcriptional and translational levels

Porphyromonas gingivalis lipopolysaccharides affect gingival stem/progenitor cellsattributes through NF-κB, but not Wnt/β-catenin pathway

Aim: This study investigates for the first time the effect of Porphyromonas gingivalis lipopolysaccharides (Pg-LPS) on proliferative/regenerative aptitudes of gingival stem/ progenitor cells (G-MSCs). Material and Methods: G-MSCs (n = 5) were treated by 0, 10 ng/ml, 100 ng/ml, 1 μg/ ml or 10 μg/ml Pg-LPS. At 1 hour, Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR-4) expression and NF-κB and Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathways were examined. Colony-forming unit assay was conducted at day 12. At 24 and 48 hours, MTT test, ALP activity, mRNA for tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-6, collagen-I (Col-I), collagen-III, RUNX-2, alkaline phosphatase (ALP), osteonectin and protein expression of interleukin-6 and TNF-α were analysed. Results: With increasing Pg-LPS, TLR-4 was upregulated, pNF-κB- p65 rose from median (Q25/Q75) 6.56% (4.19/7.90) to 13.02% (8.90/16.50; p = 0.002) and pNF-κB- p65/ tNF-κB- p65 from 0.14(0.10/0.17) to 0.30(0.21/0.42; p = 0.002). pβ-Catenin, tβ-catenin and pβ-catenin/ tβ-catenin showed no differences. Increasing Pg-LPS concentration increased cell numbers from 288.00(72.98/484.32) to 861.39 (540.41/1599.94; p = 0.002), ALP mRNA from 0.00(0.00/0.01) to 0.56(0.00/1.90; p = 0.004) and TNF-α from 32.47(12.11/38.57) to 45.32(28.68/48.65; p = 0.036). Over time, ALP activity increased from 0.89(0.78/0.95) to 1.90(1.83/2.09; p < 0.001), mRNA for TNF-α from 0.00(0.00/0.12) to 0.01(0.00/0.06; p = 0.007), mRNA for Col-I from 82.70(0.03/171.50) to 124.00(52.85/232.50; p = 0.019), while mRNA for RUNX-2 decreased from 1.73(0.92/3.20) to 0.84(0.48/1.47; p = 0.005). Conclusions: Pg-LPS upregulated G-MSCs’ proliferation, without attenuation of their regenerative potential. The effects were NF-κB, but not Wnt/β-catenin, pathway dependent