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Optical fibre sensors are finding wide applications in biotechnology and medicine, as a European specialist explains.

The purpose of this paper is to offer greater insight in the role of blogs in the creation of a more transparent news media system and a more democratic political reality.

Framing theory is employed as a conceptual tool to re‐interpret existing evidence of the performance of news blogs during situations of political conflict and war. A theoretical analysis is developed setting out the premises of the challenge that blogs can pose to the framing of conflict by mainstream media. The analysis incorporates empirical examples of reporting conflict and war in the blogosphere. Finally, with the aid of international relations theories, the role of blogs is evaluated in terms of the political transparency and accountability they could offer during conflict and war.

The analysis demonstrated that by promoting alternative and progressive voices, blogs have the capacity to shift the power over framing away from the usual sources in the news reporting of political conflict and turn the media system into a greater constraining factor for governments than even before.

The paper presents a novel approach to the interaction between blogs and mainstream media by combining theories from the disciplines of communications and international relations. The analysis generated a hypothesis that can be empirically assessed with the investigation of the framing output of influential news blogs and mainstream news media during political conflict and war.

The aim of this study is to develop a soy‐based cream cheese (SCC) with textural characteristics comparable to that of commercial dairy cream cheese (DCC) via the addition of microbial transglutaminase (MTG), soy protein isolate (SPI) and maltodextrin (MD).

Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed in this study to determine the effects of MTG, MD and SPI on firmness of SCC.

The second‐order model generated via RSM was significant with only a 9.76 per cent variation not explained by the model. The coefficient of regression revealed that MTG, MD and SPI showed significant linear effects (P<0.0001) on the firmness of SCC, while MTG and SPI showed significant quadratic effects. The model successfully predicted and developed a SCC model with similar firmness as that of DCC; via the combination of 2.57 per cent (w/w) of MTG, 19.69 per cent (w/w) of SPI and 19.69 per cent (w/w) of MD. Physicochemical analyses revealed that SCC possessed lower fat content, reduced saturated fatty acid and zero trans fat. Further rheological measurements revealed that SCC was more solid‐like at room temperature, but less elastic at refrigerated temperature compared to DCC. SEM and SDS‐PAGE analyses affirmed that the textural changes of SCC were attributed to MTG‐induced cross‐linking.

The research demonstrated that a non‐dairy cream cheese could be developed using soy. In addition, the SCC also contained better nutritional properties compared to its dairy counterpart.

This paper aims to discuss opportunities for pairing the carbon dioxide (CO₂) points of supply from stationary sources such as power plants, steel and cement production, coal to liquid plants and refineries, with potential oil reservoirs in China.

This study builds a linear optimization model to analyze the tradeoffs in developing CO₂-enhance oil recovery (EOR) projects in China for a range of policy options to match points of supply with the points of demand (oil fields). The model works on optimizing CO₂ application costs by meeting four principal components; CO₂ storage, CO₂ capture, transport costs and additional oil recovery.

This study reveals new opportunities and economic sources to feed CO₂-EOR applications and offers reasonable options to supply CO₂ for potential points of demand. Furthermore, power plants and coal to liquid industries had the most significant and economic contributions to potential CO₂-EOR projects in China. Total annual emission reduction is expected to be 10% (based on 10 Gton annual emissions). The emission reductions and potential CO₂ storage from the different industries as follow; 94% from power plants, 4% from biofuel and 2% from coal to liquid plants.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one practice aiming to reduce the amounts of anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere and reduce the related social costs. However, given the relatively high cost associated with this practice, coupling it with EOR could offer a significant financial incentive to facilitate the development of CCS projects and meet climate change objectives.

The model used in this study can be straightforwardly adapted to any geographic location where industry and policymakers are looking to simultaneously reduce CO₂ emissions while increasing hydrocarbon recovery. The model is highly adaptable to local values in the parameters considered and to include additional local considerations such as geographic variation in capture costs, taxes and premiums to be placed on CO₂ capture in so-called “non-attainment zones” where pollution capture make could make a project politically and economically viable. Regardless of how and where this model is applied, it is apparent that CO₂ from industrial sources has substantial potential value as a coproduct that offsets its sequestration costs using existing, commercially available CO₂-EOR technology, once sources and sinks are optimally paired.

This paper aims to elucidate some of the complexity around food consumption by drawing from neuroscience research of food as a motivated choice (i.e. a neurobehavioral process sensitive to dopaminergic response to food and environmental cues such as marketing). The authors explore the single and compounded effect of the motivational salience of food’s intrinsic reinforcing value tied to its sugar content and that of two marketing food cues, price and in-store display, on actual consumer purchase behavior.

The authors test the above hypotheses in two perceived “healthy” product categories with a wide distribution of sugar content. The authors estimate a within-category model using three years of retail transaction data to test the effect on weekly sales.

The authors confirm the single effect of each of food’s and marketing cues’ motivational salience as well as their compounded effect with high-motivational-salience food being less price elastic and more susceptible to in-store display activities.

This research highlights the need to complement current reliance on unhealthy/healthy perception with finer grained objective evidence linked to the formulation of the food itself and the marketing applied to them.

The present study findings may help marketing managers and policymakers develop better targeted pricing and display strategies for low- and high-motivational-salience food, attempting to strike a better balance between consumer welfare and commercial performance.

This paper is one of the few that links real-world market outcomes to predictions derived from a unique combination of consumer neuroscience and neurobiology of food, advancing data-driven decisions.

A healthy diet has been recognized as one of the most important factors associated with maintaining human health and helping in preventing the development of some chronic diseases. Therefore, this paper aims to study the perceptions of a sample of university people regarding a healthy diet.

It was undertaken a descriptive cross-sectional study on a non-probabilistic sample of 382 participants. The data were collected among a sample of Portuguese university people and measured whether people’s perceptions were compliant with a healthy diet.

The results revealed that the participants’ perceptions were, in general, compliant with a healthy diet (scores between 0.5 and 1.5, on a scale from −2 to +2). However, significant differences were found between age groups (p = 0.004), with a higher average score for young adults, and also between groups with different levels of education (p = 0.025), with a higher score for university degree. The variable chronic diseases also showed significant differences (p = 0.017), so that people who did not have any chronic diseases obtained a higher score.

This study is considered important because it provides evidences about the relation between nutrition knowledge and the perceptions towards a healthy diet. The study allowed concluding that the participants were aware about some nutritional aspects of their diets and, therefore, their perceptions were compliant with a healthy diet. This finding is very relevant because it could be a support for health policy initiatives directed at promoting healthy eating behaviours.

This study aims to investigate gendered meanings of food and its relationship with identity management for Turkish university students’ food practices and beliefs.

Methodologically, both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used in this study as a complementary way. Data were collected from a total of 711 university students.

Taken together, the findings strongly support gender-based food stereotypes as consistent with previous literature with some cultural variations. As another important finding, gendered associations of foods are stronger than those of non-alcoholic beverages among Turkish university students.

In terms of original contribution, this study not only provides valuable information about young consumers’food beliefs and practices in terms of gender-based stereotypes and identity management, but also enriches the current literature, specifically focusing on Turkey, which has a completely different cultural background as compared to Europe, the USA and the Far East. To the best of authors’knowledge, this is the very first study on this subject specifically focusing on Turkish consumers’ gift-buying behaviors through the internet channel.

This article seeks to analyse the skills and knowledge that have a positive impact on the reproduction of the core frames of social actors in the mass media.

The theoretical discussion is accompanied by a cross‐cultural case study of the debate surrounding the leaked e‐mail correspondence between climate researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in 2009. First, the authors analysed the framing work of the three main actors with their respective views, namely UEA and the blogs “Real climate”, “Climate audit” and “The air vent”. Second, they conducted an analysis of the media coverage of the issue in the UK, the USA, Germany and Norway, focusing on the importance of cultural factors, psychological biases and conformity to journalistic needs.

The literature review came to the conclusion that public relations practitioners stand good chances to succeed with their framing when they are able to conceive a message in a way that: is resonant with the underlying culture; appeals to psychological biases; and conforms to journalistic needs. The authors use “framing expertise” as an umbrella term for the knowledge and the skills related to these aspects when designing and promoting frames. In the case study, these theoretical assumptions were tested. While three different frames dominated the discourse, no clear winner of the framing contest was observed. Though qualitative differences in their framing expertise were noted, the frames of all of the strategic actors were accepted in the media, perhaps due to the norms of journalistic balance.

As this study is based on a single case, more research is needed to back up the findings and elaborate on the knowledge and skills needed when framing an issue.

The article pulls together, discusses and elaborates on a body of literature that thus far has been scattered, and makes contributions towards a better understanding of what it is that public relations practitioners actually do.

There has been contradictory evidence as to whether implicit attitudes are more indicative of food consumption behavior than explicit attitudes. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the predictive validity of implicit attitudes for food consumption behaviors with two popular indirect measures – the implicit association test (IAT) and the affective misattribution procedure (AMP).

The authors examined the predictive validity of the IAT and AMP for focal and incidental food consumption behaviors (n=277).

Results revealed that the IAT and the AMP were more context-dependent than initially expected. The IAT only predicted incidental consumption behaviors in Study 1, and the AMP only predicted incidental consumption behaviors when preceding the IAT. However, the indirect measures provided unique variance for predicting incidental consumption behaviors. Only a direct, self-report measure predicted focal behaviors.

These findings suggest that both the AMP and the IAT can predict incidental consumption behaviors, but the presence and strength of these effects may be moderated by unsuspected variables such as task order.

The current study provides evidence for the benefits of utilizing implicit measures in addition to self-report measures during consumer and market research.

This research reevaluates the predictive validity of the IAT and AMP for food consumption behaviors and employs two measures of food consumption behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of providing information regarding antioxidant content on the liking for a food item consumed in relatively small quantities as a complement to main dishes.

Heavy users consuming chilli paste three to four times a week were recruited for consumer tests (n=129). Two sessions of taste tests (with and without antioxidant information) were conducted for hedonic measurement of six ready‐to‐eat Thai chilli pastes. Antioxidant activity of the samples were analysed by DPPH and hydroxyl scavenging methods and reported relative to vitamin C. The four experimental and two commercial samples tested ranged between mild to medium hot levels classified by capsaicin quantity and were served using balanced first‐order carry‐over effect design. Principal component analysis and analysis of variance for split‐plot design of the experiment were employed for data analysis.

The key finding is that the antioxidant information had no significant effect on consumer liking (p > 0.05). Even though one of the research samples presented high antioxidant efficiency (1.63‐1.80 times higher than commercial samples sold in market places), the sample received only low liking scores and liking was not increased when the antioxidant information was attached. An interaction effect occurred when commercial samples gained high liking scores and increased to even higher when antioxidant information was given with the samples.

The research was based on a target group of Thai consumers whose ages ranged between 18‐40 years old and who were frequent consumers of the product. Also, the product tested in this research was not a principal meal item but was a condiment. Hence, caution must be exercised in generalising to other target groups or food products.

Health benefit labelling by producers needs to take into account the usage context of the food. Health information provision may not boost consumer demand in all contexts.

This is one of very few studies exploring the effect of health information provision on liking for a food that is not consumed as a main dish in large quantities, but rather as a condiment consumed in small quantities.