Encapsulation of thyme essential oil using electrospun zein fiber for strawberry preservation

Background Strawberry is a nutrient-rich and important small fruit because of its high content of beneficial phytochemicals and several vitamins like vitamin C, vitamin E and vitamin B6. However, strawberry is highly perishable due to its susceptibility to mechanical damage, microbiological decay, and softening in texture. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in using various essential oils as natural food preservatives. Although, they have limited stability to exposure to high temperatures, light and oxygen, which could eventually affect sensory quality attributes. The electrospinning method is a simple and well-organized process that has been used to encapsulate essential oils. In this study, the effect of thyme essential oil (TEO) encapsulated into zein electrospun fiber film was assessed on extending the shelf life and preserving the quality of strawberry fruit during storage. Findings Results indicated that TEO presented potent antibacterial activity against Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli and Aspergillus fumigatus. The scanning electron microscopy images of zein fiber had a linear shape, absence of beads, and smooth surface. The encapsulation efficiency (EE) of TEO in the zein fiber was about 75.23%. Encapsulated TEO released at a slower rate than free TEO. The zein/TEO fibers (zein fiber film loaded with TEO) significantly (p ˂ 0.05) decreased weight loss and maintained the anthocyanin content, firmness and color of the strawberries during storage. After 15 days of storage, weight loss reduced about 15% and firmness was higher about 20% in packed fruit with zein/TEO fibers compared to control. Conclusions Interestingly, after 15 days of cold storage, the strawberries firmness, appearance, and sensory evaluation, which are important quality factors from both postharvest and consumers’ viewpoint, in zein/TEO fiber treatment were acceptable and had higher scores compared to the control. In conclusion, the present study demonstrated the benefits of incorporating TEO into zein films, which could play a significant role in the active packaging and preservation of strawberry fruits. Graphical Abstract

A Novel Piezoelectric RF-MEMS Resonator with Enhanced Quality Factor

This work presents a novel ultra-high frequency (UHF) Lamb mode Aluminum Nitride (AlN) piezoelectric resonator with enhanced quality factors (Q). With slots introduced in the vicinity of the tether support end, the elastic waves leaking from the tether sidewalls can be reflected, which effectively reduces the anchor loss while retaining size compactness and mechanical robustness. Comprehensive analysis was carried out to provide helpful guidance for obtaining optimal slot designs. For various resonators with frequencies ranging from 630 MHz to 1.97 GHz, promising Q enhancements up to 2 times have all been achieved. The 1.97 GHz resonator implemented excellent f × Q product up to 6.72 × 1012 and low motional resistance down to 340 Ω, which is one of the highest performances among the reported devices. The devices with enhanced Q values as well as compact size could have potential application in advanced RF front end transceivers.

The Effects of the COVID-19 Crisis on Risk Factors and Option-Implied Expected Market Risk Premia: An International Perspective

Institutional investors often have to decide which strategy to use across international business cycles. This is especially important during economic and financial crises. The exogenous nature of the outbreak of the dramatic COVID-19 crisis represents a unique opportunity to understand the performance of risk factors during severe economic times across international stock markets. Even more important is to analyze how these factors behave across very different economic crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Recession. Although, the overall results show that the momentum and quality factors are the winners, with the value factor as the loser, this research also reports different responses of factors across crises and countries. The size, value, and defensive factors tend to perform worse during the health crisis relative to the Great Recession, while the momentum factor shows a poor performance during the financial crisis, but a positive one during the outbreak of COVID-19. The quality factor is an extraordinary defensive factor in both crises. Similarly, this paper reports heterogeneous responses of option-implied expected market risk premia across alternative stock market indices, and between the Great Recession and the COVID-19 crisis.

Systematic literature review on university website quality

Website is a necessity for organizations to enable users worldwide to access their information and gain a competitive edge over others. The diversity of websites makes assessing website quality a difficult task. The aim of this paper is to identify the issues faced in the quality evaluation of university websites, the models and the factors used for evaluating university website quality. Systematic literature review was used to identify and synthesize related scholarly research papers. Findings show that there is a lack of study on university website quality compared to business websites; website designers did not have the appropriate knowledge on the interface design; and the website quality evaluation is complex since there is no specific evaluation model. Webqual 4.0 model was used to evaluate the quality of universities' websites. From 24 studies, initially 79 quality factors were extracted. After performing comparison, filtration and memoing, six quality factors were identified: information quality, specific content, usability, web appearance, service interaction quality, and functionality. This study makes a useful contribution in developing university website quality model by extending the Webqual 4.0 model.

Quality factors in technology system capability decision interest in transactions using mobile banking

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of ease of use, transaction success rate, and technological system capability on trust and to determine the effect of ease of use, transaction success rate, technology system capability and interest in transaction using mobile banking. This research was conducted at PT Bank NIAGA which is located in Denpasar. The data collection technique used a questionnaire to 160 PT Bank NIAGA customers who were selected as samples. Data were analyzed by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with AMOS program. Ease of use, transaction success rate, and technology system capability have a positive and significant influence on trust and interest in transacting using mobile banking. This means that the better the ease of use, the success rate of transactions, and the capability of the technology system, the higher the customer trust and interest in transactions using mobile banking.

Electronic government public value of public institutions in Jordan

Substantially, the theory of e-government public value (PV-EGOV) has been treated as a hot topic to be explored insightfully. This research comes to be considered as the launching point to empirically evaluate the creation of PV-EGOV in Jordan. The main aim of this research is to investigate the factors affecting the PV-EGOV in the context of Jordan. Information System Success Model (IS success model) was selected to determine the factors affecting the e-government public value in Jordan through the quality factors (system, information, and service) and their role in citizens' intention in use and satisfaction of the e-government. The structural Equation Model (SEM) approach was harnessed to obtain the results. The results indicated that the most critical determinant factor that affected the PV-EGOV was service quality. The current article has theoretical and practical implications for public institutions in Jordan. The future work trends are established in their specific section of this article.

The Contribution of Event Quality Factors on the Development of Memorable Tourism Experiences: Evidence from the 2018 FIFA World Cup

The aim of this study is to test the applicability of the construct of memorable tourism experience in the context of a mega-sport event, and to investigate the contribution of event quality factors on the development of memorable tourism experiences. For the accomplishment of this aim, thestudy investigated the experiences of a sample of international spectators who attended the 2018 FIFA World Cup matches hosted in St. Petersburg, Russia. Data collection took place on-site during the group stage matches hosted at the stadium and was conducted with a self-completion questionnaire using two scales, one for memorable tourism experience and one for event quality factors. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses provided support for the psychometric properties of revised versions of the two scales. Multiple regression analysis showed that memorable tourism experiences were significantly predicted by the event quality factors, with the authenticity, entertainment, venue quality, and event competition dimensions having the most significant contributions. Theoretical and management implications are discussed.

Management of Quality, Satisfaction, and Loyalty of Rural Destinations

Tourism is a major global industry that, in its heyday, has become significantly concerned with quality and related themes, satisfaction and loyalty. This chapter aims to identify the factors that influence the quality of a rural destination and the associated visitor satisfaction and loyalty. These factors in turn have an impact on destination management, but also other stakeholders such as tourism entrepreneurs in the destination or residents. In 2020, tourism has undergone significant changes due to the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. For instance, travel abroad was regulated through government regulations, which caused an increase in demand for rural tourism. As the author's research has shown, some quality factors have undergone significant changes. Even the quality management to achieve visitor satisfaction and loyalty has proven to be very important, especially in the sense that by gaining loyalty at this specific time, it can ensure that visitor numbers are maintained even after the pandemic period when the return of and high growth in overseas travel is expected.

Quality Assurance Issues for Big Data Applications in Supply Chain Management

Heterogeneous data types, widely distributed data sources, huge data volumes, and large-scale business-alliance partners describe typical global supply chain operational environments. Mobile and wireless technologies are putting an extra layer of data source in this technology-enriched supply chain operation. This environment also needs to provide access to data anywhere, anytime to its end-users. This new type of data set originating from the global retail supply chain is commonly known as big data because of its huge volume, resulting from the velocity with which it arrives in the global retail business environment. Such environments empower and necessitate decision makers to act or react quicker to all decision tasks. Academics and practitioners are researching and building the next generation of big-data-based application software systems. This new generation of software applications is based on complex data analysis algorithms (i.e., on data that does not adhere to standard relational data models). The traditional software testing methods are insufficient for big-data-based applications. Testing big-data-based applications is one of the biggest challenges faced by modern software design and development communities because of lack of knowledge on what to test and how much data to test. Big-data-based applications developers have been facing a daunting task in defining the best strategies for structured and unstructured data validation, setting up an optimal test environment, and working with non-relational databases testing approaches. This chapter focuses on big-data-based software testing and quality-assurance-related issues in the context of Hadoop, an open source framework. It includes discussion about several challenges with respect to massively parallel data generation from multiple sources, testing methods for validation of pre-Hadoop processing, software application quality factors, and some of the software testing mechanisms for this new breed of applications