Study of Proportion of Milk with Lesser Yam Filtrate and Starter Concentration for Producing Synbiotic Yoghurt

This study aimed to determine the effect of the proportion of cow's milk with lesser yam filtrate and starter concentration on the characteristics of synbiotic yoghurt. The research used a factorial completely randomized design (CRD) with two factors, factor I was the proportion of cow's milk with lesser yam filtrate (100:0; 60:40; 50:50; 40:60; 0:100) and factor II was the starter cocentration (3%, 5%, 7%). The data obtained were analyzed using analysis of variant (ANOVA) and if there was a significant difference between treatments, then continued with Duncan's test at the 5% level. Synbiotic yoghurt from proportion of cow's milk with lesser yam filtrate (50:50) and 5% starter concentration was the best treatment with total Lactic Acid Bacteria of 7.23 log CFU/ml; pH 4.20; total dietary fiber 3.05%, soluble fiber content 1.3%, inulin content 1.2%, fat content 0.41% and soluble protein content 2.66% with an average texture preference score of 6.13 (like much); taste core 6.02 (like much) and smell score 5.20 (like).

The Mobility of Income-related Inequality in Food Preferences Among Chinese Adults: a Population-based Longitudinal Study

Background:This study aimed to investigate the income-related inequality of food preference and its mobility in the long run, and to quantify the determinants’ contributions of socioeconomic inequality mobility in food preference in China.Methods:The data were sourced from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) conducted in 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2015, respectively. A study sample of 3940 adults were included for analysis. Five preselected questions were used to construct a summary food preference index. Cross-sectional and longitudinal concentration indices were used to measure the income-related inequality in food preference at a certain time and for a period, respectively. Health-related income mobility index was used to measure the gap between cross-sectional and longitudinal income-related health inequality concentration indices. Decomposition analysis was used to decompose income mobility index into its determinants.Results:The mean scores of food preference increased from 17.641 in 2006 to 18.881 in 2015. The richest people had the highest mean scores of food preference compared to other income groups in each year. Age, gender, income, education, and dietary knowledge score were positively associated with healthy food preference. The concentration indices of food preference score on income in each year were all positive, indicating that there was pro-rich inequality in food preference score with the rich having higher preference scores in each period. The income mobility index of food preference was -0.1426 after 4 periods, indicating that the degree of pro-rich inequality in food preference was larger than that at the baseline in the long run. Decomposition analysis showed that being married and living in Western China made healthy food preference more concentrated among the rich in the long run. Whereas increasing age and dietary knowledge contributed to making healthy food preference behavior less concentrated among the rich in the long run.Conclusions:The cross-sectional measure of food preference score inequality was underestimated in the long run. Our study suggests that people with decreased income could be taken as targeted population in future public intervention measures, and narrowing the regional gap between Eastern and Western China could be strengthened in future Chinese policies.

Validity, reliability, and ceiling and floor effects of the PROMIS Preference score (PROPr) in patients with rheumatological and psychosomatic conditions

Background: The PROMIS Preference score (PROPr) is a new generic preference-based health-related quality of life (HRQoL) score that can be used as a health state utility (HSU) score for quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) in cost-utility analyses (CUAs). It is the first HSU score based on item response theory (IRT) and has favorable psychometric properties. The PROPr combines the seven PROMIS domains: cognition, depression, fatigue, pain, physical function, sleep disturbance, and ability to participate in social roles and activities. It was developed based on preferences of the US general population. We aimed to validate the PROPr in a patient sample and to compare it to the EQ-5D. Methods: We collected PROPr and EQ-5D-5L data from 141 patients treated in the rheumatology and psychosomatic departments. We evaluated the convergent validity, reliability, known-groups construct validity, and ceiling and floor effects of the PROPr and compared those characteristics to those of the EQ-5D. Results: The mean PROPr (0.26, 95% CI: 0.23; 0.29) and the mean EQ-5D (0.44, 95% CI: 0.38; 0.51) differed significantly (d = 0.18, p < 0.001). The Pearson correlation coefficient between the two scores was r = 0.72. The PROPr and EQ-5D demonstrated high reliability and similar discrimination power across sex, age, and conditions. While the PROPr showed a floor effect, the EQ-5D showed a ceiling effect. Conclusion: PROPr and EQ-5D measure HSU differently. The PROPr shows a broader definition of perfect health, with a wider range of measurements at the top end. The previous results of excellent validity and precision were confirmed.

Effects of Tactile Textures on Preference in Visuo-Tactile Exploration

The use of haptic technologies has recently become immensely essential in Human-Computer Interaction to improve user experience and performance. With the introduction of tactile feedback on a touchscreen device, commonly known as surface haptics, several applications and interaction paradigms have become a reality. However, the effects of tactile feedback on the preference of 2D images in visuo-tactile exploration task on touchscreen devices remain largely unknown. In this study, we investigated differences of preference score (the tendency of participants to like/dislike a 2D image based on its visual and tactile properties), reach time, interaction time, and response time under four conditions of feedback: no tactile feedback, high-quality of tactile information (sharp tactile texture), low-quality of tactile information (blurred tactile texture), and incorrect tactile information (mismatch tactile texture). The tactile feedback is rendered in the form of roughness that is simulated by modulating the friction between the finger and the surface and is derived from the 2D image. Thirty-six participants completed visuo-tactile exploration tasks for a total of 36 trials (3 2D images × 4 tactile textures × 3 repetitions). Results showed that the presence of tactile feedback enhanced users’ preference (tactile feedback conditions were rated significantly higher than the no tactile feedback condition for preference regardless of the quality/correctness of tactile feedback). This finding is also supported through results from self-reporting where 88.89% of participants preferred to experience the 2D image with tactile feedback. Additionally, the presence of tactile feedback resulted in significantly larger interaction time and response time compared to the no tactile feedback condition. Furthermore, the quality and correctness of tactile information significantly impacted the preference rating (sharp tactile textures were rated statistically higher than blurred tactile and mismatched tactile textures). All of these findings demonstrate that tactile feedback plays a crucial role in users’ preference and thus motivates further the development of surface haptic technologies.

Synthetic Network and Search Filter Algorithm in English Oral Duplicate Correction Map

Combining the communicative language competence model and the perspective of multimodal research, this research proposes a research framework for oral communicative competence under the multimodal perspective. This not only truly reflects the language communicative competence but also fully embodies the various contents required for assessment in the basic attributes of spoken language. Aiming at the feature sparseness of the user evaluation matrix, this paper proposes a feature weight assignment algorithm based on the English spoken category keyword dictionary and user search records. The algorithm is mainly based on the self-built English oral category classification dictionary and converts the user’s query vector into a user-English-speaking type vector. Through the calculation rules proposed in this paper, the target user’s preference score for a specific type of spoken English is obtained, and this score is assigned to the unrated item of the original user’s feature matrix as the initial starting score. At the same time, in order to solve the problem of insufficient user similarity calculation accuracy, a user similarity calculation algorithm based on “Synonyms Cilin Extended Edition” and search records is proposed. The algorithm introduces “Synonyms Cilin” to calculate the correlation between the semantic items, vocabulary, and query vector in the user query record to obtain the similarity between users and finally gives a user similarity calculation that integrates user ratings and query vectors method. For the task of Chinese grammar error correction, this article uses two methods of predicting the relationship between words in the corpus, Word2Vec and GloVe, to train the word vectors of different dimensions and use the word vectors to represent the text features of the experimental samples, avoiding sentences brought by word segmentation. On the basis of word vectors, the advantages and disadvantages of CNN, LSTM, and SVM models in this shared task are analyzed through experimental data. The comparative experiment shows that the method in this paper has achieved relatively good results.

Anti-Sebum Efficacy of Phyllanthus emblica L. (Emblica) Toner on Facial Skin

Oily skin is a problem for a large number of people, especially in tropical countries. This condition results in comedones, inflammatory acne, and other aesthetic problems in the skin. Emblica (Phyllanthus emblica L.) has a number of benefits for the skin; for instance, there were some studies that suggested that emblica has skin whitening effects, and anti-collagenase and anti-elastase activities; however, its anti-sebum efficacy has not been reported.The objective of this research was to study the anti-sebum efficacy of emblica toner on facial skin. The toner base was formulated, accelerated stability was tested, and preferences were evaluated in 10 volunteers. The toner base with the highest preference score was mixed with emblica extract. Then, the toner base and emblica toners were assessed for skin irritation by a single patch test in 30 volunteers. The anti-sebum efficacy was conducted using the randomized, single-blind, placebo-controlled, split-face method with unwashed and only-washed skin positions added to the middle of the forehead in the same group of volunteers assessed by a skin sebum measurement, SebumScale®, at 1 h before the test, once after washing, and 1, 2, 3 and 4 h after applying the toners on forehead and cheek skin. The stable toner base with the highest preference (85.6 ± 1.8%) was mixed with 1%, 2%, and 3% emblica extract. The toners were stable and did not cause any skin irritation. The 3% emblica toner was chosen for efficacy evaluation. The casual sebum levels of the forehead skin and cheek skin were 66.66 ± 7.01 and 56.12 ± 7.75 µg/cm2, respectively. The sebum level of the unwashed skin position changed (5.0 ± 1.66%) insignificantly up to 4 h (p > 0.05). In comparison, the sebum level of the only-washed skin position was recovered to the casual sebum level (99.4 ± 1.23%) within 3 h. Furthermore, the anti-sebum efficacy of the emblica toner (23.5 ± 1.24%) was higher than that of the toner base (12.0 ± 1.52%) (p < 0.05). The anti-sebum efficacy of emblica toner on cheek skin (26.9 ± 1.78%) was higher than that on forehead skin (20.1 ± 1.34%) (p < 0.05). In summary, the model of evaluation of anti-sebum efficacy used in this study has been found to be practical, and the emblica toner is safe and has apparent anti-sebum efficacy on facial skin.

Organoleptic Characteristics of Rimau Gerga Lebong (RGL) Orange Coated With Cassava Peel Starch and Chitosan Saved at Temperature Room For 20 Days

Consumers’ preference level, especially on agricultural or food products, can be used as a benchmark measure or determine the market or shelf life of the product. This research aims to determine organoleptic quality through the level of people's preference for RGL citrus fruits coated with edible coating starch from cassava peel plus chitosan. Aplication of coating on the fruits and storage layout of this study was conducted following a completely randomized design (CRD) with 2 different factors; cassava skin starch concentration; namely 3%, 5%, and 7%; and chitosan concentration; i.e. 0%, 0.5%, 1%, 1.5%. The observed variables are the panelists’ preference level with organoleptic test on color, flavor, texture and taste of RGL orange that has been treated and stored at room temperature for 20 days. Research result indicates that the color of the orange that the panelists favored is absent; the level of panelist most prefer is neutral, if the starch is 3% with chitosan 0% (preference score 3.92); and if the starch 7% with chitosan 0.5% (score 3.44). The preferred aroma of orange is absent; the level of panelist highest preference on aroma is neutral, if the starch is 5% with chitosan 1.5% (score 3.12); and if the starch 7% with chitosan 0.5% (score 3.04). The texture of the orange is preferred to be absent; the level of panelist higherst preference on texture is neutral, if the starch is 7% with chitosan 0.5% (score 3.60); and if the starch is 3% with chitosan 0.5% (score 3.56). The taste of citrus fruits is preferred if the starch is 7% with chitosan 0.5% (score 4.00); and if the starch is 3% with chitosan 0% (score 3.44). Therefore, RGL citrus fruits can be stored at room temperature for up to 20 days, if it is coated with 7% cassava peel starch with 0.5% chitosan

PENGARUH GLUKOSA DAN JAHE MERAH TERHADAP KARAKTERISTIK MINUMAN PROBIOTIK DARI KULIT NANAS MADU

The availability of sufficient energy sources to grow lactic acid bacteria and spices addition can influence probiotic drinks' characteristics. This study aimed to study the effect of glucose and red ginger extract on honey pineapple skin probiotic drinks' characteristics. This study used a Complete Randomized Block Design (RCBD) with two factors. The first factor was glucose concentration, namely 1%, 2%, 3%, and 4% w/v, while the second factor was the concentration of red ginger extract, namely 0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, and 5% (v/v). The data were analyzed using variance analysis (ANOVA), and the differences between means were determined using the orthogonal polynomials. The results showed that glucose increased total lactic acid bacteria and pH, but decreased the preference score of taste, color, and overall reception, but did not affect those of honey pineapple probiotic juice extract's aroma. The red ginger extract increased the taste, aroma, color, and overall acceptance scores, but did not affect the pH and total lactic acid bacteria of pineapple probiotic drinks. The best probiotic drink was from 2% glucose, and 3% red ginger extract, which had 1.3 x 109 colony lactic acid bacteria /mL; total lactic acid 0.63%; pH 3.69; somewhat like the taste, somewhat like the aroma; and somewhat like overall reception.Keywords: glucose, honey pineapple peel, lactic acid bacteria, probiotic beverage, red ginger

Resistant Starch from Mixed Flours (Banana, Jackfruit Seed and Job’s Tear) and The Application in Food Product

This research aimed to investigate resistant starch content and RVA property of three flours (Banana; BN, Jackfruit seed; JS and Job’s tear; JT) with pre-treatment and dried under double drum dryer. Results showed that BN had the highest resistant starch content followed by JS and JT, respectively. The seven ratios of three flour mixtures from BN:JS:JT had been formulated using the mixture design. Results showed that the mixture containing BN:JS:JT ratio of 60:30:10 had the highest resistant starch content (42.85%). Therefore, the waffle cones had been made with the flour mixture (60:30:10) using a previously developed waffle cone recipe. The developed flour mixture could be able to replace wheat flour up to 30% of total flour according to the highest overall preference score. It was found that the final waffle cone recipe contained 9.96% and 54.60% of resistant and digestible starch, respectively. In conclusion, the developed flour mixture might be alternative flour for customers to reduce carbohydrate consumption and the nutritional enhancement of high resistant starch from banana, jackfruit seed and job’s tear mixed flour in prototype food product.