Consumer perception of extruded snacks containing brown rice and dried mushroom

Effects of mushroom type, seasoning and health benefit information (HBI) on consumers’ saltiness expectation, sensory liking, elicited emotions and purchase intent (PI) of extruded snacks were investigated. Five snacks were evaluated: straw mushroom (Volvariella volvacea) extrudates without (SME) or with seasoning (SMES), phoenix mushroom (Pleurotus pulmonarius) extrudates without (PME) or with seasoning (PMES), and the control without mushroom and seasoning. Hedonic scores and positive emotions were generally higher for seasoned mushroom-containing snacks (SMES and PMES) with 65% and 75.83% of consumers reporting willingness to purchase, respectively, after receiving HBI. Bored, interested and satisfied were identified as significant emotional predictors for PI odds. Flavour, saltiness, overall liking, bored, good and interested were critical attributes, differentiating snacks. This study demonstrated that sensory liking and PI of extruded brown rice-based snacks containing mushroom could be improved through savoury seasoning addition, which also allowed saltiness expectations to be met.     

Controlled Secure Direct Communication Protocol via the Three-Qubit Partially Entangled Set of States

In this paper, we first re-examine the previous protocol of controlled quantum secure direct communication of Zhang et al.’s scheme, which was found insecure under two kinds of attacks, fake entangled particles attack and disentanglement attack. Then, by changing the party of the preparation of cluster states and using unitary operations, we present an improved protocol which can avoid these two kinds of attacks. Moreover, the protocol is proposed using the three-qubit partially entangled set of states. It is more efficient by only using three particles rather than four or even more to transmit one bit secret information. Given our using state is much easier to prepare for multiqubit states and our protocol needs less measurement resource, it makes this protocol more convenient from an applied point of view.     

Continuous phase quadrature phase shift keyed signaling techniquewith coding

A continuous phase quadrature phase shift keyed (CPQPSK) modulation technique is presented. This method utilizes a conventional QPSK modulator and a phase trajectory converter to approximate M=4, h=1/4 continuous phase signal and allows low cost, low complexity, and high rate (>1 Gbit/s) CPM modem implementation for bandwidth efficient transmission through nonlinear satellite channels. Using a communications analysis computer program it has been found that CPQPSK has 99 percent out-of-band power of 0.8R (MSK has 99 percent out-of-band power of 1.2 R where R is defined as bit rate), continuous phase trajectories, and nearly constant envelope amplitude. Simulation of realistic hardware designs indicate that the CPQPSK will require an Eb/No of 14 dB to achieve a bit error rate (BER) of 10^-6. Forward error correcting techniques using block codes with an overhead of 10 percent indicate that the Eb/No requirements can be reduced to 11.2 dB for 10^-6 BER     

Bridging the research traditions of task/ego involvement and intrinsic/extrinsic motivation: Comment on Butler (1987).

In an experiment on the effects of different feedback conditions on motivationally relevant variables, R. Butler (see record 1988-21628-001) tested the hypothesis that the effects of feedback on intrinsic motivation would depend on whether that feedback promotes a task-involving or ego-involving orientation. She interpreted the findings as they relate to J. G. Nicholls's (see record 1984-28719-001) theory of task/ego involvement and our cognitive evaluation theory (E. L. Deci and R. M. Ryan, 1985). Although the data were very interesting, Butler failed to review a series of highly relevant studies, she misportrayed cognitive evaluation theory, and she drew conclusions that were not necessarily warranted given her experimental manipulations and data. This article provides a commentary on that research and presents a discussion of the relation between the two theories that Butler claimed to have tested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Plagiarism, Graduate Education, and Information Security

Plagiarism in the classroom has changed since the period of 1997 to 2002, during which the author saw predominately word-for-word plagiarism in papers in his classes. Some came from single sources, but more often they came from two or more. With that kind of plagiarism, it was fairly easy, although time-consuming, to detect copying. Most students engaging in such behaviors believed their professors knew little about the World Wide Web, and many believed that few, if any, professors spent the time needed to check for plagiarism. The development of widely available plagiarism-detection tools also helped raise awareness and make it easier to check papers against online sources.     

A phase II trial of weekly infusional 5-fluorouracil in combination with low-dose leucovorin in patients with advanced colorectal cancer

We examined 59 breast cancers for p53 and bcl-2 protein expression by immunohistochemistry. The results were correlated with Ki-67 immunostaining. p53-negativity was noted in 40 cases and the remaining 19 tumours were p53-positive. Thirty-six tumours showed strong expression of bcl-2 and in 23 no staining for this protein was observed. We found statistically significant reverse correlation between expression of p53 and bcl-2 in majority of carcinomas: 31 cases were bcl-2 positive and p53-negative, and 14 tumours were bcl-2-negative and p53-positive. Six carcinomas showed no nuclear staining for Ki-67 and in the remaining 53 the percent of cancer cells positive for Ki-67 ranged from 1 to 60 (mean: 14.6). In these 53 cases we found that bcl-2-positive tumours were characterized by lower proliferation than bcl-2-negative tumours, the mean value of Ki-67 immunostaining being 10.7% and 23.0%, respectively. p53-negative tumours showed lower proliferation than p53-positive tumours: mean Ki-67 index was 10.2% and 23.9%, respectively. We conclude that immunohistochemically detected p53 and bcl-2 proteins show a significant inverse relationship in majority of breast carcinomas and their expression correlates with tumour proliferation (Ki-67 immunostaining).     

Conformational Molecular Switches for Post-CMOS Nanoelectronics

Theoretical treatments forecast that bistable CMOS devices using electronic charge as a state variable will operate at their maximum thermal dissipation limit possibly as early as 2012. The problem is further compounded by increasing manufacturing challenges associated with the ever decreasing logic switch dimensions. These challenges require the development of new fabrication strategies that replace or complement current top-down lithography with bottom-up protocols using controlled self-assembly of nanomaterial building blocks. To answer some of these issues, this paper focuses on a new device paradigm consisting of an arene-metal-arene conformational switch, addressable through capacitive, inductive, or resonant-tunneling field coupling. The operating principle is based on voltage-tunable modulation in quantum electron transmission. The switch is open (off) when the metal ion is displaced to a position at a C-H bond on the arene ring due to an externally applied bias. Conversely, when the external bias is removed, the metal ion moves to an axis- symmetric position on the arene ring, and the switch is closed (on). The paper presents a summary of the architecture, operating principle, and advantages of the conformational switch, along with associated findings from proof-of-concept theoretical and experimental studies of its target specifications and performance. The paper also discusses opportunities and challenges related to the integration of conformational switches into hybrid CMOS-molecular and monolithic (all molecular) circuits.