The mediating role of subjective health complaints on willingness to use selected functional foods

There is an increasing demand for functional foods in the market because such foods can either enhance physiological function or reduce disease risks. The present study draws on a research to develop a model that is believed to shed light on the extent to which modern health worries (MHWs), negative affect (NA), and healthy lifestyles (HL) are relevant to consumers’ willingness to use functional foods in Taiwan through the mediator of consumers’ subjective health complaints (SHCs). As expected, the results indicated that consumers’ SHCs play a mediating role in the relationship between NA and attitudes toward functional foods and in the relationship between HL and attitudes toward functional foods. Moreover, though people’s MHWs do not lead directly to SHCs, they do have a direct impact on their attitudes toward functional foods, resulting in further influencing their willingness to use such foods. Some suggestions for the public, the government authorities, and the marketers of functional foods are also provided in this study.     

Infinite capacity planning for IC packaging plants

An infinite capacity planning system (ICPS) considering the capacity and capability of machines as well as the capacity of jigs is developed for an integrated circuit packaging plant. ICPS consists of five modules: work-in-process (WIP) pulling module, lot release module, resource selection module, workload accumulation module, and workload balance module. The WIP-pulling module pulls WIP from the end of the process route to meet the master production schedule (MPS). If WIP cannot meet the MPS requirement, the lot release module is executed to release new lots. The resource selection module helps a lot to select an appropriate resource, by taking into account the resource's capacity and capability, at each operation step and calculate the lot's planned start time and planned finished time at each step. The workload accumulation module accumulates the workload of each machine and each jig on each day. The workload balance module balances the loading of machines and jigs by adjusting the lot's start time using these resources. Simulation is used to evaluate ICPS performance, and results show that ICPS can effectively and efficiently balance the workload of production resources: machines and jigs.     

Quality evaluation of internal cylindrical grinding process with multiple quality characteristics for gear products

Gears are among the most crucial components in the transmission systems of machine tools. Gear manufacturing includes a number of processing procedures. The grinding process is an important procedure involving high precision and fairly small grinding surfaces. For this reason, this study aimed at developing a quality assessment model for the internal cylindrical grinding process of gears. The Six Sigma quality indices (SSQIs) were used to directly assess the quality of the internal cylindrical grinding process due to their ability to directly reflect quality level and process yield. Since the process may include nominal-the-best (NTB), larger-the-better (LTB) and smaller-the-better (STB) quality characteristics, so we used the variable transformation method to normalise the specifications of each quality characteristic for the convenient and effective management and analysis of process performance for multiple quality characteristics. We then constructed a multi-characteristic process quality analysis chart (MPQAC) to simultaneously assess the quality levels of various quality characteristics. Furthermore, the MPQAC can provide references for process improvement. This ensures the quality of internal cylindrical grinding and enhances the quality of gear and machine tool products. Finally, a real-world application and numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and practical applicability of the proposed method.     

CuO掺杂SrFe0.9Sno.1O3-δ负温度系数厚膜热敏电阻的电学性能

采用印刷法制备了CuO掺杂SrFe0.9Sn0.1O3-δ(CSFS)厚膜负温度系数(NTC)热敏电阻(掺杂量为20mol%～50mo1%).对其微观结构及电性能研究发现:随着CuO掺杂含量的增加,厚膜表面变得更加致密,室温电阻逐渐降低至0.46 MΩ,而热敏常数基本保持在3300K附近.CuO的加入导致SrFe0.9...     

二乙氧基甲烷与乙醇水溶液的液液萃取模拟计算

研究各种萃取剂对二乙氧基甲烷(DEM)和乙醇水溶液的液液萃取分离影响,以UNIQUAC方程为模型,采用丙三醇为萃取剂模拟计算液液萃取(LLEX)分离结果,结果表明,在理论板数N=3时,DEM收率达98.9％,纯度可达99.5以上,证明二甘醇是比较合适的萃取剂,模拟结果为DEM萃取试验提供理论依据。     

透水性铺装的生态效用及推广

介绍了城市生态环境现状及透水性铺装的优越性,分析了透水性铺装在推广过程中存在的问题,提出了应对措施以加快透水性铺装的推广应用.     

分子束外延Hg0.68Cd0.32Te薄膜光致发光和喇曼散射的研究

对利用ＭＥＢ技术生长的Ｈｇ０．６８Ｃｄ０．３２Ｔｅ薄膜进行了光致发光和喇曼光谱的研究，拟合薄膜光致发光谱得到的禁带宽度，与红外透射谱得到的薄膜带宽相近；其半宽仅为５ｍｅＶ，带尾能量小于１．３ｍｅＶ，显示了较高的薄膜质量。     

The Role of Receptor for Advanced Glycation End Products (RAGE) in the Proliferation of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

The receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) is oncogenic and overexpressed in human cancers, but its role in hepatocellular carcinoma remains unclear. Here we demonstrated that RAGE is overexpressed in primary hepatocellular carcinoma (PHC) compared to adjacent para-neoplastic liver samples. Serum endogenous secretory RAGE levels were also increased in PHC patients (p < 0.01). Moreover, we demonstrated that RAGE regulates cellular proliferation in Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Knockdown of RAGE by specific siRNA inhibited cellular growth in the hepatocellular carcinoma cell line, Huh7, whereas the RAGE ligand, high mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1) increased cellular proliferation. In addition, knockdown of RAGE by siRNA arrested cells in the G1 phase and inhibited DNA synthesis (p < 0.01), while HMGB1 protein decreased the number of cells in the G1 phase and increased the number in the S phase (p < 0.05). Furthermore, quantitative real time RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) and Western Blot results demonstrated that RAGE and HMGB1 positively regulate NF-κB p65 expression in Huh7 cells. These studies suggest that RAGE and RAGE ligands are important targets for therapeutic intervention in hepatocellular carcinoma.     

Filtration and loading characteristics of granular bed filters

The purpose of this study was to investigate the filtration and loading characteristics of granular bed filters. Stainless steel holders (diameter 71.6 mm, height 70 mm) were fabricated to accommodate 500 g of zirconium oxide (ZrO₂) beads, as the packed media of granular bed. Monodisperse ZrO₂ granules (0.3, 0.8, 2 and 4 mm in diameter) were used to demonstrate the effect of the granule size and packing geometry on both pressure drop and aerosol penetration. From the filter quality perspective, the selection of the ‘best” filter is complicated. Assuming a low face velocity (e.g., 0.58 cm/s), large granule size is more cost-effective because of the higher filter quality factor. The phenomenon implies that the gain in filtration efficiency due to larger surface area (of small granules in the filter) did not compensate for the increase in air resistance. After the cake formation point, the dust cake on glass fiber filter became compressed. This dust cake compaction caused the pressure to drop precipitously and intermittently. In contrast, the rate of increase in pressure drop of the dust cake formed on the granular bed filters decreased with time probably due to the pinhole channels in the increasing mass load. The size and density of the pinholes are determined by the granule size, the face velocity and the size of the challenge aerosols.     

Synthesis and characterization of carbon aerogels with different catalysts

Journal of Porous Materials - Carbon aerogels were synthesized by a sol–gel process by polycondensation of phloroglucinol, resorcinol and formaldehyde, using sodium hydroxide, calcium...