scholarly journals Relationships between Intensity and Liking for Chemosensory Stimuli in Food Models: A Large-Scale Consumer Segmentation

Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Isabella Endrizzi ◽  
Danny Cliceri ◽  
Leonardo Menghi ◽  
Eugenio Aprea ◽  
Mathilde Charles ◽  
...  

This study, which was conducted as part of the Italian Taste project, was aimed at exploring the relationship between actual liking and sensory perception in four food models. Each food model was spiked with four levels of prototypical tastant (i.e., citric acid, sucrose, sodium chloride, capsaicin) to elicit a target sensation (TS) at an increasing perceived intensity. Participants (N = 2258; 59% women, aged 18–60) provided demographic information, a stated liking for 40 different foods/beverages, and their responsiveness to tastants in water. A food-specific Pearson’s coefficient was calculated individually to estimate the relationship between actual liking and TS responsiveness. Considering the relationship magnitude, consumers were grouped into four food-specific clusters, depending on whether they showed a strong negative (SNC), a weak negative (WNC), a weak positive (WPC), or a strong positive correlation (SPC). Overall, the degree of liking raised in parallel with sweetness responsiveness, fell as sourness and pungency perception increased, and showed an inverted U-shape relationship with saltiness. The SNC clusters generally perceived TSs at higher intensities, except for sourness. Clusters were validated by associating the level of stated liking towards food/beverages; however, some unexpected indications emerged: adding sugar to coffee or preferring spicy foods differentiated those presenting positive correlations from those showing negative correlations. Our findings constitute a step towards a more comprehensive understanding of food preferences.

Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minjoong J. Kim

This study focuses on the changes over time in the relationship between surface temperature and particulate matter (PM) concentration over Seoul using long-term observational data. Correlation coefficients between the daily mean PM10 concentration and surface temperature were calculated to investigate the relationship between the two. The PM10 and temperature displayed a strong positive correlation, suggesting the increase in PM was driven by large-scale synoptic patterns accompanying such high temperatures. It was found that the correlation coefficient in 2002–2009 was significantly higher than that of 2010–2017, indicating that the relationship between PM10 concentration and temperature has weakened over time in recent decades. Correlation coefficients between daily averaged temperature and the PM10 of each year were calculated to account for the decreased correlation in the most recent decade. We found that the correlation coefficients between surface temperature and PM of each year exhibited a clear negative correlation with the longitudinal position of the Siberian High, suggesting that the position of the Siberian High might affect the strength of the relationship between PM concentration and temperature over Seoul. We also found that the eastward shift of the Siberian High reduces the standard deviation of pressure over Seoul, indicating reduction of synoptic perturbation. These results imply that the eastward shift of the Siberian High in recent decades might weaken the relationship between the PM and surface temperature over Seoul. This study suggests that the relationship between PM and meteorological variables is changing over time through changes in large climate variability.


Plant Disease ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 89 (12) ◽  
pp. 1324-1330 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. E. Parker ◽  
C. H. Bock ◽  
T. R. Gottwald

Four techniques were evaluated to sample windblown splash from canker-infected citrus plants. Two volumetric cyclone samplers (PAS450 and Burkard Cyclone) and two passive samplers (funnels and panels) were evaluated. The PAS450 collected no detectable bacteria in any trial. The Burkard cyclone consistently collected spray, but was found to do so even when the power was turned off. Thus, the Burkard cyclone essentially functioned passively, negating the advantage of a volumetric sampler for this application. Panels collected the greatest volume of splash followed by funnel samplers. CFU of Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri per ml collected were significantly different between Burkards and panel samplers, but panels and funnels collected similar concentrations (Burkards, funnels, and panels collected 1,182, 1,426, and 2,667 CFU per ml, respectively). Positive correlations were found between the volume and the total X. axonopodis pv. citri collected, and between CFU per ml and total collected for panel and funnel samples. However, there was no correlation between CFU per ml and volume collected for either sampler. The Burkard sample showed a strong positive correlation (P < 0.01) between volume collected, total number of X. axonopodis pv. citri collected, and CFU per ml. The CFU per ml collected by the panels and funnels were similar (coefficient of determination, R2 = 0.97), compared with the relationship between the Burkard and panel catches (R2 = 0.68), or between the Burkard and funnel catches (R2 = 0.62). Panels collected the greatest volume, and effectively collected bacteria-laden windblown splash. The greater sampling area of the panels allowed a more representative sample than the other methods tested.


Author(s):  
Oluremi Famodu ◽  
Makenzie Barr ◽  
Sarah Colby ◽  
Wenjun Zhou ◽  
Ida Holásková ◽  
...  

The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between neck circumference (NC) and other anthropometric measures and examine cut-off points for males and females according to existing waist circumference cut-off levels in this age group. Across 8 universities, 1562 students underwent a physical assessment. Spearman rho correlations (ρ) were calculated to determine associations between NC and other continuous variables of health. Receiving operating characteristic curves were constructed to assess the optimal cut-off levels of NC of males and females with central obesity. Participants were predominantly Caucasian (67%), female (70%), and outside of Appalachia (82%). Forty-one percent of males and 34% of females had a BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2. In both sexes, significant positive correlations were seen between NC and body weight, BMI, waist circumference, hip circumference, and systolic blood pressure (all p-values < 0.0001). NC ≥ 38 cm for males and ≥33.5 cm for females were the optimal cut-off values to determine subjects with central obesity. NC has been identified to closely correlate with other anthropometric measurements related to disease and could be used as a convenient, low-cost, and noninvasive measurement in large-scale studies.


2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-78
Author(s):  
Farzan Irani ◽  
Edge Megan

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to further explore the relationship between the frequency of stuttering measured in percentage of syllables stuttered (%SS) and perceptual ratings of stuttering severity by the clinician and the client in a clinical setting. Method: Eight adolescent and adult participants attending a stuttering therapy program and their graduate student clinicians perceptually rated stuttering severity using a 9‐point scale. Speech samples were gathered during each therapy session for a total of 167 speech samples. Further, each sample was analyzed for %SS. A Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) was used to determine the strength and direction of correlations between %SS and perceptual ratings by the clinician and client. Results: The correlational analysis indicates significant positive correlations between perceptual severity ratings by the clinician and client as well as %SS. Correlation between perceptual ratings was stronger than the correlation between perceptual ratings and %SS. Conclusion: The strong, positive correlation between the client's self‐measurement and the clinician's perceptual measurement indicates similarities in global severity of stuttering perception. Weaker correlation between %SS and perceptual ratings indicates the need to incorporate a more holistic measure of stuttering severity. Implication and directions for future research are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. e31-e31
Author(s):  
Fereshteh Rafi’i ◽  
Seyed Mohsen Hosaini ◽  
Banafsheh Yalameha ◽  
Hamid Nasri

Introduction: Irisin is a myokine secreted from the skeletal muscle. Preliminary studies showed that the serum irisin level was decreased in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), particularly in hemodialysis patients. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the relationship between serum irisin level and different demographic and biochemical factors in non-diabetic hemodialysis patients. Patients and Methods: This study was conducted on 61 non-diabetic stable hemodialysis patients. Serum level of irisin was measured by ELISA method. Demographic information was recorded for all subjects. In addition, biochemical factors were assessed using standard methods. Results: In this study serum irisin level was 8.15±4.24 ng/mL. There were positive correlations of serum irisin with gender (P=0.014) (higher serum value of irisin in males) and hemodialysis doses (r=0.32, P=0.01). Additionally, a negative correlation of serum irisin with body mass index (BMI) was detected (r= 0.26, P=0.036). Conclusion: The positive correlation of serum irisin with hemodialysis doses and a negative correlation of serum irisin with BMI requires further investigations in other patients with more patients.


VASA ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Hanji Zhang ◽  
Dexin Yin ◽  
Yue Zhao ◽  
Yezhou Li ◽  
Dejiang Yao ◽  
...  

Summary: Our meta-analysis focused on the relationship between homocysteine (Hcy) level and the incidence of aneurysms and looked at the relationship between smoking, hypertension and aneurysms. A systematic literature search of Pubmed, Web of Science, and Embase databases (up to March 31, 2020) resulted in the identification of 19 studies, including 2,629 aneurysm patients and 6,497 healthy participants. Combined analysis of the included studies showed that number of smoking, hypertension and hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy) in aneurysm patients was higher than that in the control groups, and the total plasma Hcy level in aneurysm patients was also higher. These findings suggest that smoking, hypertension and HHcy may be risk factors for the development and progression of aneurysms. Although the heterogeneity of meta-analysis was significant, it was found that the heterogeneity might come from the difference between race and disease species through subgroup analysis. Large-scale randomized controlled studies of single species and single disease species are needed in the future to supplement the accuracy of the results.


2020 ◽  
pp. 27-34
Author(s):  
Vladimir Batiuk

In this article, the ''Cold War'' is understood as a situation where the relationship between the leading States is determined by ideological confrontation and, at the same time, the presence of nuclear weapons precludes the development of this confrontation into a large-scale armed conflict. Such a situation has developed in the years 1945–1989, during the first Cold War. We see that something similar is repeated in our time-with all the new nuances in the ideological struggle and in the nuclear arms race.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Karami ◽  
Brandon Bookstaver ◽  
Melissa Nolan

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted nearly all aspects of life and has posed significant threats to international health and the economy. Given the rapidly unfolding nature of the current pandemic, there is an urgent need to streamline literature synthesis of the growing scientific research to elucidate targeted solutions. While traditional systematic literature review studies provide valuable insights, these studies have restrictions, including analyzing a limited number of papers, having various biases, being time-consuming and labor-intensive, focusing on a few topics, incapable of trend analysis, and lack of data-driven tools. OBJECTIVE This study fills the mentioned restrictions in the literature and practice by analyzing two biomedical concepts, clinical manifestations of disease and therapeutic chemical compounds, with text mining methods in a corpus containing COVID-19 research papers and find associations between the two biomedical concepts. METHODS This research has collected papers representing COVID-19 pre-prints and peer-reviewed research published in 2020. We used frequency analysis to find highly frequent manifestations and therapeutic chemicals, representing the importance of the two biomedical concepts. This study also applied topic modeling to find the relationship between the two biomedical concepts. RESULTS We analyzed 9,298 research papers published through May 5, 2020 and found 3,645 disease-related and 2,434 chemical-related articles. The most frequent clinical manifestations of disease terminology included COVID-19, SARS, cancer, pneumonia, fever, and cough. The most frequent chemical-related terminology included Lopinavir, Ritonavir, Oxygen, Chloroquine, Remdesivir, and water. Topic modeling provided 25 categories showing relationships between our two overarching categories. These categories represent statistically significant associations between multiple aspects of each category, some connections of which were novel and not previously identified by the scientific community. CONCLUSIONS Appreciation of this context is vital due to the lack of a systematic large-scale literature review survey and the importance of fast literature review during the current COVID-19 pandemic for developing treatments. This study is beneficial to researchers for obtaining a macro-level picture of literature, to educators for knowing the scope of literature, to journals for exploring most discussed disease symptoms and pharmaceutical targets, and to policymakers and funding agencies for creating scientific strategic plans regarding COVID-19.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 365-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Olthaar ◽  
Wilfred Dolfsma ◽  
Clemens Lutz ◽  
Florian Noseleit

In a competitive business environment at the Bottom of the Pyramid smallholders supplying global value chains may be thought to be at the whims of downstream large-scale players and local market forces, leaving no room for strategic entrepreneurial behavior. In such a context we test the relationship between the use of strategic resources and firm performance. We adopt the Resource Based Theory and show that seemingly homogenous smallholders deploy resources differently and, consequently, some do outperform others. We argue that the ‘resource-based theory’ results in a more fine-grained understanding of smallholder performance than approaches generally applied in agricultural economics. We develop a mixed-method approach that allows one to pinpoint relevant, industry-specific resources, and allows for empirical identification of the relative contribution of each resource to competitive advantage. The results show that proper use of quality labor, storage facilities, time of selling, and availability of animals are key capabilities.


Author(s):  
Richard Culliford ◽  
Alex J. Cornish ◽  
Philip J. Law ◽  
Susan M. Farrington ◽  
Kimmo Palin ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Epidemiological studies of the relationship between gallstone disease and circulating levels of bilirubin with risk of developing colorectal cancer (CRC) have been inconsistent. To address possible confounding and reverse causation, we examine the relationship between these potential risk factors and CRC using Mendelian randomisation (MR). Methods We used two-sample MR to examine the relationship between genetic liability to gallstone disease and circulating levels of bilirubin with CRC in 26,397 patients and 41,481 controls. We calculated the odds ratio per genetically predicted SD unit increase in log bilirubin levels (ORSD) for CRC and tested for a non-zero causal effect of gallstones on CRC. Sensitivity analysis was applied to identify violations of estimator assumptions. Results No association between either gallstone disease (P value = 0.60) or circulating levels of bilirubin (ORSD = 1.00, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.96–1.03, P value = 0.90) with CRC was shown. Conclusions Despite the large scale of this study, we found no evidence for a causal relationship between either circulating levels of bilirubin or gallstone disease with risk of developing CRC. While the magnitude of effect suggested by some observational studies can confidently be excluded, we cannot exclude the possibility of smaller effect sizes and non-linear relationships.


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