Regional differences in willingness to pay for organic vegetables

The concern about vegetable safety, together with a booming population and the rise of the middle class has made Vietnam become a potential market for organic vegetables. This paper investigates the determinants of willingness to pay (WTP) for organic vegetables in Hanoi, Vietnam with a particular attention to regional differences and the effect of risk perception. Using Contingent Valuation Method to analyze the data from a sample of 498 consumers in Hanoi, the paper shows that the perceived use values of organic vegetables, trust in organic labels, and disposable family income increased WTP for organic vegetables in both urban and rural regions.Though risk perception of conventional vegetables was high in both regions, such heightened risk perception just translated into the WTP in the rural region. In addition, the percentage of home-grown vegetables in the total vegetable consumption of the family influenced the WTP in the rural region only. Moreover, being an organic purchaser was positively related to the WTP in the urban region but not in the rural region. The paper also discusses three policy implications for Vietnam to boost the demand for organic food.fals

Enzymatic Preparation of Low-Phenylalanine Formula Derived from Skim Milk Hydrolysate for Phenyl ketonuric Patients

Background: Phenylketonuria (PKU) is one of the most common inborn errors of amino acids metabolism. WHO guidelines introduced in 1979 and revised 1988 for breast-feeding infants with PKU included a formula containing low amounts of phenylalanine as a part of dietary prescription. Mental retardation can be prevented if PKU is diagnosed in the 1st three weeks of life and diet therapy started straightaway throughout life and especially in the hyper phenylalaninemic mothers before conception and during pregnancy. Aim of the Work: The aim of the present study was to synthesize a lowphenylalanine formula suitable to be taken by PKU children, adolescents and the hyperphenylalaninemic mothers. Materials and Method: This formula should be of high biological value, taken safely by those patients and to be of low cost. The formula was prepared from skim milk hydrolysate using two proteolytic enzymes. The first was the immobilized purified papain enzyme and the second was the modified protease XXIII prepared from Aspergillus oryzae. The skim milk hydrolysate was adsorbed on barium sulphate or activated carbon for removing phenylalanine. They were applied separately for the purpose of debittering and nutritional value comparison. Results: This skim milk hydrolysate had been supplemented with the amino acids tryptophan, tyrosine, methionine and valine. Beside the comprehensive amino acids analysis (Especially for the free amino acids), this formula was then analyzed for protein, fat, lactose and ash contents as well as microbiological and biological testing on mice. Hyperphenylalaninemia was induced in BALB/c mice model then changes in blood phenylalanine level and weight were scored during the periods of mutagenesis as well as the treatment period compared with the control group. Conclusion: The amino acids analysis showed that phenylalanine was 0.71gm/100 gram protein in the skim milk hydrolysate compared to 3.26gm amino acid/100 gram protein in the skim milk. The level of free phenylalanine decreased from 6.34% (In the skim milk) to 0% after adsorption to barium sulphate and compared to 3.41% after adsorption to activated carbon. The formula adsorbed on barium sulphate, although it is more preserving to the nutritional composition; yet, it is less effective in the debittering effect than that adsorbed on activated carbon. This formula, in addition to being of high nutrional value, it is not expensive since it is obtained from skim milk hydrolysate. From the present study, it could be concluded that: The synthesized low-phenylalanine formula was effective in supplying most of the needed dietary intakes for conditions of hyperphenylalaninemia. The use of the immobilized purified Papain and modified protease XXIII from Aspergillus oryzae in enzymatic hydrolysis of skim milk has been proved to be effective in hydrolysis and emulsification. Keywords: Phenylketonuria, skim milk. Egypt. J. Hum. Genet Vol. 9 (1) 2008: pp. 51-7

Expression of Estrogen Alpha and Beta Receptors in Prostate Cancer and Hyperplasia: Immunohistochemical Analysis

Objectives: Estrogen receptors are believed to play a significant role in the pathogenesis of prostate carcinoma (PCa). The aim of this study is to evaluate the expression of ER-α and ER-β in human benign and malignant prostatic tissue.Patients and Methods: The archival materials of 100 prostatic specimens (65 PCa, 35 BPH) were collected from the Department of Pathology, King Abdul-Aziz University Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Seven PCa cases contained foci of high-grade prostate intraepithelial neoplasia (HGPIN). Immunohistochemistry was used to test the protein expression of ER-α and ER-β utilizing monoclonal mouse antihuman antibodies.Results: Among the 65 cases of PCa, ER-α was expressed in 3 cases (4.6%) in epithelial cells and 4 cases (6.1%) in stromal cells. ER-α was not expressed in any of the HGPIN foci. Additionally, ER-α was not expressed in either luminal or basal cells in any of the 35 BPH cases. However it was expressed in 4 cases (11.4%) in stromal cells of BPH. In PCa, ER-β was expressed in 61 cases (93.8%) and 35 cases (53.8%) in the epithelial and stromal cells respectively. ER-β was expressed only in 2 cases (28.5%) out of 7 HGPIN foci. It was expressed in 33 cases (94.3%) of epithelialand stromal cells of BPH. Conclusion: The majority of PCa and BPH exhibited nuclear immunoreactivity for ER-β in both tumor and stromal cells and they are usually negative for ER-α. There is probably partial loss of ER-β in HGPIN. ER-β may have a role in the process of prostatic hyperplasia and malignancy.Key Words: ER-α, ER-β, prostate, hyperplasia, premalignant, cancer,  immunohistochemistr

MCMC based Generative Adversarial Networks for Handwritten Numeral Augmentation

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer via the DOI in this record.In this paper, we propose a novel data augmentation framework for handwritten numerals by incorporating the probabilistic learning and the generative adversarial learning. First, we simply transform numeral images from spatial space into vector space. The Gaussian based Markov probabilistic model is then developed for simulating synthetic numeral vectors given limited handwritten samples. Next, the simulated data are used to pre-train the generative adversarial networks (GANs), which initializes their parameters to fit the general distribution of numeral features. Finally, we adopt the real handwritten numerals to fine-tune the GANs, which increases the authenticity of generated numeral samples. In this case, the outputs of the GANs can be employed to augment original numeral datasets for training the follow-up inference models. Considering that all simulation and augmentation are operated in 1-D vector space, the proposed augmentation framework is more computationally efficient than those based on 2-D images. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that our proposed augmentation framework achieves improved recognition accuracy.This work was supported by grants from the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) program

Innovator resilience potential: A process perspective of individual resilience as influenced by innovation project termination

Innovation projects fail at an astonishing rate. Yet, the negative effects of innovation project failures on the team members of these projects have been largely neglected in research streams that deal with innovation project failures. After such setbacks, it is vital to maintain or even strengthen project members’ innovative capabilities for subsequent innovation projects. For this, the concept of resilience, i.e. project members’ potential to positively adjust (or even grow) after a setback such as an innovation project failure, is fundamental. We develop the second-order construct of innovator resilience potential, which consists of six components – self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, optimism, hope, self-esteem, and risk propensity – that are important for project members’ potential of innovative functioning in innovation projects subsequent to a failure. We illustrate our theoretical findings by means of a qualitative study of a terminated large-scale innovation project, and derive implications for research and management

Properties of Light Flavour Baryons in Hypercentral quark model

The light flavour baryons are studied within the quark model using the hyper central description of the three-body system. The confinement potential is assumed as hypercentral coulomb plus power potential ($hCPP_\nu$) with power index $\nu$. The masses and magnetic moments of light flavour baryons are computed for different power index, $\nu$ starting from 0.5 to 1.5. The predicted masses and magnetic moments are found to attain a saturated value with respect to variation in $\nu$ beyond the power index $\nu>$ 1.0. Further we computed transition magnetic moments and radiative decay width of light flavour baryons. The results are in good agreement with known experimental as well as other theoretical models.Comment: Accepted in Pramana J. of Physic

Shot Noise in Digital Holography

We discuss on noise in heterodyne holography in an off-axis configuration. We show that, for a weak signal, the noise is dominated by the shot noise on the reference beam. This noise corresponds to an equivalent noise on the signal beam of one photoelectron per pixel, for the whole sequence of images used to build the digital hologram

Sensitivity of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation to South Atlantic freshwater anomalies

The sensitivity of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) to changes in basin integrated net evaporation is highly dependent on the zonal salinity contrast at the southern border of the Atlantic. Biases in the freshwater budget strongly affect the stability of the AMOC in numerical models. The impact of these biases is investigated, by adding local anomaly patterns in the South Atlantic to the freshwater fluxes at the surface. These anomalies impact the freshwater and salt transport by the different components of the ocean circulation, in particular the basin-scale salt-advection feedback, completely changing the response of the AMOC to arbitrary perturbations. It is found that an appropriate dipole anomaly pattern at the southern border of the Atlantic Ocean can collapse the AMOC entirely even without a further hosing. The results suggest a new view on the stability of the AMOC, controlled by processes in the South Atlantic. <br/

Microparticles from patients with metabolic syndrome induce vascular hypo-reactivity via Fas/Fas-ligand pathway in mice

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Crohn's disease activity index and Vienna classification - Is it worthwhile to calculate before surgery?

Background: Crohn's disease (CD) patients with increased disease activity may reveal an increased risk for perioperative complications. The `Crohn's disease activity index' (CDAI) and the `Vienna classification' (VC) were developed for standardized disease activity estimations. The significance of these scores to predict extent, type and early outcome of surgery in CD patients was analyzed. Methods: In 179 surgically treated CD patients, the CDAI and VC were assessed from a prospective database. Relations of the scores with CD risk factors, type, number, location and complications of surgery were analyzed. Results: VC behavior and location subtypes were associated with distinct types of surgery (i.e. `strictureplasty' in `stricturing disease', `colon surgery' in `colon involvement'), but not with surgery type and extent or outcome. Surgery extent (i.e. with 5 vs. 3 `surgical sites' 425 +/- 25 vs. 223.3 +/- 25) and complications (357.1 +/- 36.9 (with) vs. 244.4 +/- 13 (without)) were associated with elevated CDAI levels; however, nicotine abuse remained the only significant risk factor for perioperative complications after multiple logistic regression. Conclusion: The significance of VC or CDAI for predicting the extent of surgery or complications is limited. None of the tested variables except preoperative nicotine abuse influenced the likelihood for perioperative complications. Copyright (c) 2006 S. Karger AG, Base