A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO PREDICTION OF SNACK CHIP ACCEPTABILITY UTILIZING DISCRIMINANT FUNCTIONS BASED ON INSTRUMENTAL MEASUREMENTS

To determine quality characteristics of snack chips, six snack chip prototypes containing cowpea flour, cornmeal, wheat flour and cornstarch (26, 34, and 42%) were formulated. Desirable characteristics as determined by three focus groups were a golden yellow color in a thin, smooth corn-chip form with crunchy or crispy texture, greaseless or dry mouthfeel and salty corn flavor. Chips were undesirable if brown-colored, thick, oily or greasy, had either hard or crumbly texture, and had bland, fishy, or burnt flavors. In consumer acceptance tests, commercial products were found to be more appealing than the experimental products. A discriminant model based on instrumental measurements of color and texture from 11 snack chip samples (six prototypes and five commercial samples) correctly grouped 100% of the acceptable and 90% of unacceptable products.     

SENSORY CHARACTERISTICS AND CONSUMER LIKING FOR CEREAL BAR SNACK FOODS

This study examined sensory aspects of cereal bar snacks for their relative importance to consumer perception and degree of like (DOL). Principal components analysis of conventional profiling data showed a distinct location of each bar type in multivariate space, separation being based on textural aspects for the hard crunchy bar and flavor dimensions (cereal, nutty versus chocolate. sweet, fruit) for others. A consumer panel ( n =56) examined a subset of the bars according to a balanced incomplete block design. Analysis of variance showed that the chewy, nutty and chocolate bars were liked most ( p <0.01) and this was linked to ideal levels of filling flavor and quantity, chewy and crunchy textures and sweetness. The majority of consumers ranked 'taste' as the most important characteristic influencing their purchase intent, followed by textural features, 'price' and 'appearance' . The 'healthy image' aspect was relatively less important. Analysis of the relationship between the sensory measures and DOL, using partial least squares regression, confirmed the above segregation of preference, with sensory aromas and flavors having most influence on consumer liking.     

Differences in the desire to eat in children and adults in the presence of an obese eater

Previous research has shown that the desire to eat foods decreases in adults in the presence of an obese eater compared to a normal-weight eater. This study investigated whether or not this decrease in eating desire was observed in younger children in the same way as in adults. Children aged 5 and 8 years old, as well as adults, were presented with photographs of liked and disliked foods presented either alone or with normal-weight and obese eaters expressing three different emotions--pleasure, disgust, and neutrality--toward these food products. The results showed that the eater's weight status had a greater effect on the adults' desire to eat than on that of the children. Adults were influenced by the eater's weight status, regardless of the facial expression or the food category. Compared to adults, the impact of the eater's weight status on the children's desire to eat depended on the emotional facial expression and the children's food preferences. Thus, when children did not like the foods, their eating desire was negatively influenced by the eater's obese status, as was that of adults. On the other hand, when children liked the food products, the eater's weight status had no effect on their eating desire. They were more influenced by the eater's facial expressions. Thus, an expression of pleasure increased the desire to eat the liked foods in the younger children, whereas an expression of disgust decreased it. These results are discussed in terms of the high sensitivity of young children to emotional facial expressions.     

Dental microwear texture and anthropoid diets

Dental microwear has long been used as evidence concerning the diets of extinct species. Here, we present a comparative baseline series of dental microwear textures for a sample of 21 anthropoid primate species displaying interspecific and intraspecific dietary variability. Four dental microwear texture variables (complexity, anisotropy, textural fill volume, and heterogeneity) were computed based on scale-sensitive fractal analysis and high-resolution three-dimensional renderings of microwear surfaces collected using a white-light confocal profiler. The purpose of this analysis was to assess the extent to which these variables reflect variation in diet. Significant contrasts between species with diets known to include foods with differing material properties are clearly evident for all four microwear texture variables. In particular, species that consume more tough foods, such as leaves, tended to have high levels of anisotropy and low texture complexity. The converse was true for species including hard and brittle items in their diets either as staples or as fallback foods. These results reaffirm the utility of dental microwear texture analysis as an important tool in making dietary inferences based on fossil primate samples.     

Genetics of rough seed coat texture in cowpea

Seed coat texture is an important trait in determining the acceptability of cowpea varieties in different regions. A rough seed coat is preferred in western and central Africa, since it permits easy removal of the seed coat which is essential for indigenous food preparations. On the other hand, a smooth seed coat is preferred in eastern and southern Africa as well as in parts of South America where cowpea is consumed as boiled beans without removing the seed coats. This study was undertaken to elucidate the inheritance of seed coat texture so that cowpea breeders may adopt appropriate breeding strategy to develop cowpea varieties with preferred seed types for different regions. The F1 plants between smooth- and rough-seeded parents as well as between rough- and rough-seeded parents produced smooth seeds, indicating a complementary gene action and dominance for smooth seed coat. The F2 plants from the smooth x rough cross segregated into a 3 smooth:1 rough seed coat ratio, but the F2 plants from rough x rough crosses segregated into a 9 smooth:7 rough seed coat ratio. The F1 plants from backcross to the smooth parent were all smooth, while the F1 plants from backcross to rough parent segregated in a 1 smooth:1 rough seed coat ratio. However, both the backcross populations in rough x rough crosses segregated into 1 smooth:1 rough seed coat ratio. These results indicate that two pairs of independent recessive genes confer rough seed coat texture in cowpea and the presence of at least one dominant gene at each of the two loci results into smooth seed coat. The gene symbols rt1rt1 and rt2rt2 are being assigned for rough seed coat texture in cowpea.     

Jellyfish as food

Jellyfish have been exploited commercially by Chinese as an important food for more than a thousand years. Semi-dried jellyfish represent a multi-million dollar seafood business in Asia. Traditional processing methods involve a multi-phase processing procedure using a mixture of salt (NaCl) and alum (AlK[SO₄]₂12 H₂O) to reduce the water content, decrease the pH, and firm the texture. Processed jellyfish have a special crunchy and crispy texture. They are then desalted in water before preparing for consumption. Interest in utilizing Stomolophus meleagris L. Agassiz, cannonball jellyfish, from the U. S. as food has increased recently because of high consumer demand in Asia. Desalted ready-to-use (RTU) cannonball jellyfish consists of approximately 95% water and 4–5% protein, which provides a very low caloric value. Cannonball jellyfish collagen has shown a suppressing effect on antigen-induced arthritis in laboratory rats. With the great abundance of cannonball jellyfish in the U. S. coastal waters, turning this jellyfish into value-added products could have tremendous environmental and economic benefits.     

Neuronal activity in rat barrel cortex underlying texture discrimination

Rats and mice palpate objects with their whiskers to generate tactile sensations. This form of active sensing endows the animals with the capacity for fast and accurate texture discrimination. The present work is aimed at understanding the nature of the underlying cortical signals. We recorded neuronal activity from barrel cortex while rats used their whiskers to discriminate between rough and smooth textures. On whisker contact with either texture, firing rate increased by a factor of two to ten. Average firing rate was significantly higher for rough than for smooth textures, and we therefore propose firing rate as the fundamental coding mechanism. The rat, however, cannot take an average across trials, but must make an immediate decision using the signals generated on each trial. To estimate single-trial signals, we calculated the mutual information between stimulus and firing rate in the time window leading to the rat's observed choice. Activity during the last 75 ms before choice transmitted the most informative signal; in this window, neuronal clusters carried, on average, 0.03 bits of information about the stimulus on trials in which the rat's behavioral response was correct. To understand how cortical activity guides behavior, we examined responses in incorrect trials and found that, in contrast to correct trials, neuronal firing rate was higher for smooth than for rough textures. Analysis of high-speed films suggested that the inappropriate signal on incorrect trials was due, at least in part, to nonoptimal whisker contact. In conclusion, these data suggest that barrel cortex firing rate on each trial leads directly to the animal's judgment of texture.     

Oral elimination of strobila segments of Taenia saginata]

Within a 14-24 hours lapse after gynecological operative surgery, a 27-year-old woman eliminated with vomit two large taperworm pieces, measuring 3 and 2 meters respectively. At the laboratory they were identified as Taenia saginata strobila with immature, mature and gravid proglottids. The patient informed that she liked to eat raw beef. Treatment consisted in a single dose of praziquantel: 15 mg/kg body weight. Parasitological controls (two series of three fecal samples each), performed three months later, resulted negative for Taenia eggs.     

微波真空干燥大蒜片数学模型边界条件

本文通过确定大蒜片微波真空干燥的临界水分含量,修正Cu i等提出的胡萝卜片微波真空干燥动力学模型,使其适用于大蒜片,并对大蒜片与胡萝卜片微波真空干燥的临界水分含量不同的机理进行了探讨。采用质构仪和扫描电子显微镜分别对新鲜大蒜片、新鲜胡萝卜片以及干燥至边界条件下的大蒜片、胡萝卜片的质构和超微结构进行了测定。确定了大蒜片微波真空干燥的临界水分含量为Xw=1,在干燥后期对此模型进行了修正,修正系数为k=10.924e-3.2394Xw(0相似文献   

高原鼠兔对炔雌醚、左炔诺孕酮和EP-1不育药饵适口性

采用单只饲养方法,选择燕麦(Arena nuda)、颗粒饲料和胡萝卜(Daucus carota)为基饵,分别测定了高原鼠兔(Ochotona curzoniae)对10mg/kg浓度的炔雌醚、左炔诺孕酮和EP-1药饵的适口性。结果表明,高原鼠兔对燕麦和颗粒基饵具有较高的取食偏好性;3种不育成分均未显著改变雄鼠对药饵的适口性;炔雌醚显著降低了雌性高原鼠兔对燕麦药饵的取食量(P=0.0128);但左炔诺孕酮和EP-1均未显著降低高原鼠兔对燕麦、颗粒饵料和胡萝卜药饵的取食量。总之,高原鼠兔对含有10mg/kg浓度3种不育成分的燕麦、颗粒饵料和胡萝卜药饵具有很好的适口性,具有潜在应用前景。     

Designing visually rich, nearly random textures

Camouflaging textures containing as in real life edges at all orientations, were designed by computer, then manually, for use in stereoscopic vision studies. In the manual procedure, the starting point is either a set of photographs (for instance, of barks) or a manually produced first-generation texture. Then patches are cut zigzagging and assembled into successive generations of textures. The absence of extended edges--straight or curved--and the local heterogeneity of the texture are important camouflaging factors, allowing curved surfaces to be covered with these textures without visible join. Small areas of a texture often suggest a scene, but when the areas are assembled, the suggestive power is lost, and the statistical properties of the texture then dominate. However, when symmetry is introduced (as in the Rorschach test), meaningful scenes emerge again.     

Changes in the proportion of young birds in the hunting bag of Eurasian wigeon: long-term decline,but no association with climate

The proportion of first-year birds in annual wing samples provided by hunters has been used as a measure of breeding success in waterfowl. The proportion of first-year birds in the wing samples of Eurasian wigeon (Mareca penelope) from Denmark and the UK shows a long-term decline, probably reflecting a decrease in breeding success. However, previous studies report conflicting results in the relationship between variation in the proportion of first-year birds and variation in climatic conditions. We used wing data of hunter-shot Eurasian wigeon from Finland to study whether the proportion of first-year birds shows a similar long-term decline and whether between-year variation in the proportion of young is associated with variation in climatic conditions. We found a long-term decline in the proportion of first-year birds. The proportion of young also varied considerably between years, but this variation was not associated with weather or the climatic variables considered for the breeding and wintering periods. More research is needed concerning factors that affect long-term changes and annual variation in the proportion of young in the hunting bag and on the suitability of this index to measure productivity in ducks.     

The Visual N1 Is Sensitive to Deviations from Natural Texture Appearance

Disruptions of natural texture appearance are known to negatively impact performance in texture discrimination tasks, for example, such that contrast-negated textures, synthetic textures, and textures depicting abstract art are processed less efficiently than natural textures. Presently, we examined how visual ERP responses (the P1 and the N1 in particular) were affected by violations of natural texture appearance. We presented participants with images depicting either natural textures or synthetic textures made from the original stimuli. Both stimulus types were additionally rendered either in positive or negative contrast. These appearance manipulations (negation and texture synthesis) preserve a range of low-level features, but also disrupt higher-order aspects of texture appearance. We recorded continuous EEG while participants completed a same/different image discrimination task using these images and measured both the P1 and N1 components over occipital recording sites. While the P1 exhibited no sensitivity to either contrast polarity or real/synthetic appearance, the N1 was sensitive to both deviations from natural appearance. Polarity reversal and synthetic appearance affected the N1 latency differently, however, suggesting a differential impact on processing. Our results suggest that stages of visual processing indexed by the P1 and N1 are sensitive to high-order statistical regularities in natural textures and also suggest that distinct violations of natural appearance impact neural responses differently.     

Nutritive value of the nuña popping bean

Nuñas (Thaseolus vulgaris, Fabaceae), commonly called popping beans, are traditionally grown in the Andean highlands of South America, and are consumed as a snack food after a quick toasting process. Proximate analysis of their nutritive value revealed that nunas have a higher content of starch, amylose, and copper than four dry bean varieties and a lower mean content of protein, phosphorous, iron, and boron. The unique texture and taste of nuñas may be related to their high starch content. Antinutritional factors such as lectins were higher in raw and boiled nuña samples than in toasted nuñas, while tannin levels did not change from raw to toasted treatments. Overall in-vitro digestibility was slightly lower for toasted nunas than boiled dry bean.     

Molar microwear textures and the diets of Australopithecus anamensis and Australopithecus afarensis

Many researchers have suggested that Australopithecus anamensis and Australopithecus afarensis were among the earliest hominins to have diets that included hard, brittle items. Here we examine dental microwear textures of these hominins for evidence of this. The molars of three Au. anamensis and 19 Au. afarensis specimens examined preserve unobscured antemortem microwear. Microwear textures of these individuals closely resemble those of Paranthropus boisei, having lower complexity values than Australopithecus africanus and especially Paranthropus robustus. The microwear texture complexity values for Au. anamensis and Au. afarensis are similar to those of the grass-eating Theropithecus gelada and folivorous Alouatta palliata and Trachypithecus cristatus. This implies that these Au. anamensis and Au. afarensis individuals did not have diets dominated by hard, brittle foods shortly before their deaths. On the other hand, microwear texture anisotropy values for these taxa are lower on average than those of Theropithecus, Alouatta or Trachypithecus. This suggests that the fossil taxa did not have diets dominated by tough foods either, or if they did that directions of tooth–tooth movement were less constrained than in higher cusped and sharper crested extant primate grass eaters and folivores.     

Effect of Groove Surface Texture on Tribological Characteristics and Energy Consumption under High Temperature Friction

Energy consumption and tribological properties could be improved by proper design of surface texture in friction. However, some literature focused on investigating their performance under high temperature. In the study, different groove surface textures were fabricated on steels by a laser machine, and their tribological behaviors were experimentally studied with the employment of the friction and wear tester under distinct high temperature and other working conditions. The friction coefficient was recorded, and wear performance were characterized by double light interference microscope, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and x-ray energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS). Then, the performances of energy consumptions were carefully estimated. Results showed that friction coefficient, wear, and energy consumption could almost all be reduced by most textures under high temperature conditions, but to a different extent which depends on the experimental conditions and texture parameters. The main improvement mechanisms were analyzed, such as the hardness change, wear debris storage, thermal stress release and friction induced temperature reduction by the textures. Finally, a scattergram of the relatively reduced ratio of the energy consumption was drawn for different surface textures under four distinctive experimental conditions to illustrate the comprehensive energy consumption improving ability of textures, which was of benefit for the application of texture design.