Authenticity Assessments Research Articles

HRMAS-NMR-Based Metabolomics Approach to Discover Key Differences in Cow and Goat Milk Yoghurt Metabolomes

This study highlights the differences in the metabolomes of cow milk yoghurt (CY) and goat milk yoghurt (GY) using a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabolomic approach. The 1H HRMAS-NMR spectrum displayed 21 metabolites comprising organic acids, sugars, amino acids, amino acid derivatives and phospholipids. The orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis model clearly separated CY and GY groups, implying differences in metabolite composition. The corresponding Variable Importance in Projection (VIP) plot revealed that choline, sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, O-phosphocholine, fucose, citrate, sucrose, glucose and lactose mainly contributed to the group separation (VIP > 1). Hierarchical cluster analysis further confirmed the metabolome similarities and differences between CY and GY. Additionally, 12 significantly differential metabolites (with a fold change > 1.5 and p-value < 0.05) were identified, with 1 downregulated and 11 upregulated. Pathway impact analysis revealed the correlation of significant metabolites with starch and sucrose metabolism, galactose metabolism, and the citrate cycle. Furthermore, receiver operating characteristic curve analysis identified eight metabolites (choline, sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, fucose, O-phosphocholine, glucose, citrate, 2-oxoglutarate, lactose and sucrose) as candidate biomarkers. This study represents the first utilization of HRMAS-NMR to analyze the metabolomic profiles of yoghurt made from cow and goat milk. In conclusion, these findings provide preliminary information on how NMR-based metabolomics can discriminate the metabolomes of yoghurt prepared from the milk of two different animals, which may be valuable for authenticity and adulteration assessments.

PENDEKATAN FILOLOGIS DAN SHAR? AL-?AD?TH DALAM KRITIK HADIS ANCAMAN DAN GANJARAN MEMBACA AL-QUR'AN

This research focuses on manuscripts owned by Khomsatun, containing various texts, including hadiths discussing threats and rewards in reciting the Qur'an. The primary objective of this study is to present a critical edition of the texts and elucidate the meanings of these hadiths through the approach of ?har? al-?ad?th. The research methodology employed is qualitative, utilizing philological and shar? al-?ad?th approaches. Data collection techniques are conducted through documentation. Three hadiths cited by the compiler were found not to originate from primary hadith sources. The first hadith cannot be further researched as it is proven not to be a hadith. The second hadith, despite differences in authenticity assessments, contains a profound understanding of the position of Surah al-Baqarah as the core of the Qur'an and the virtue of Ayat al-Kursi encompassing divine teachings. The third hadith, although considered ?a‘?f, still conveys an important message about the significance of prayer and reciting the Qur'an as means to draw closer to Allah.

Electrochemical fingerprinting of complex solutions using boron-doped diamond electrodes: Advanced classifications by machine learning

Boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrochemical sensors exhibit high sensitivity and a wide-ranging voltammogram scan capability, facilitating the generation of unique fingerprinting information. These attributes are invaluable for the rigorous quality control and real-time monitoring of intricate liquid compositions. In this study, we present an advanced approach for the authentication of complex liquid using BDD electrochemical sensors, in conjunction with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms. Leveraging the heightened sensitivity of BDD sensor signals, it was demonstrated 96 % accuracy rate in authenticity assessments from 21 distinct varieties of red wines. Additionally, high accuracy of classification by grape varieties was demonstrated using electrochemical fingerprints combined with machine learning. Our novel non-specific electronic tongue system offers multimodal electrochemical fingerprinting, ensuring fast and user-friendly measurements without relying on sensor arrays.

Quality Assessment of Bee Pollen-Honey Mixtures Using Thin-Layer Chromatography in Combination with Chemometrics.

The aim of this study is to develop a rapid, effect-directed screening method for quality assessment of bee pollen-honey mixtures. The comparative antioxidant potential and phenolic content of honey, bee pollen, and the bee pollen-honey mixtures, was performed using spectrophotometry. The total phenolic content and antioxidative activity of bee pollen-honey mixtures with 20 % bee pollen share were in the range 3.03-3.11 mg GAE/g, and 6.02-6.96 mmol TE/kg, respectively, while mixtures with 30 % bee pollen share contained 3.92-4.18 mg GAE/g, and 9.69-10.11 mmol TE/kg. Chromatographic fingerprint of bee pollen-honey mixtures was performed by high-performance thin-layer chromatography with conditions developed by authors and reported for the first time. Fingerprint analysis hyphenated with chemometrics enabled authenticity assessments of honey in mixtures. Results indicate that bee pollen-honey mixtures represent a food with highly, both, nutritious characteristics and health-promoting effect.

How fakes make it through: the role of review features versus consumer characteristics

PurposeThis study aims to examine how characteristics of an online review and a consumer reading the review influence the probability that the consumer will assess the review as authentic (real) or inauthentic (fake). This study further examines the specific factors that increase or decrease a consumer’s ability to detect a review’s authenticity and reasons a consumer makes these authenticity assessments.Design/methodology/approachHypothesized relationships were tested using an online experiment of over 400 respondents who collectively provided 3,224 authenticity assessments along with 3,181 written self-report reasons for assessing a review as authentic or inauthentic.FindingsThe findings indicate that specific combinations of factors including review valence, length, readability, type of content and consumer personality traits and demographics lead to systematic bias in assessing review authenticity. Using qualitative analysis, this paper provided further insight into why consumers are deceived.Research limitations/implicationsThis research showed there are important differences in the way the authenticity assessment process works for positive versus negative reviews and identified factors that can make a fake review hard to spot or a real review hard to believe.Practical implicationsThis research has implications for both consumers and businesses by emphasizing areas of vulnerability for fake information and providing guidance for how to design review systems for improved veracity.Originality/valueThis research is one of the few works that explicates how people assess information authenticity and their consequent assessment accuracy in the context of online reviews.

Gas sensing technology for meat quality assessment: A review

AbstractMeat is rich in many nutritional elements and is one of the most basic foods for human beings. The demand for meat is increasing year by year, but at the same time, meat is highly susceptible to spoilage during storage and transportation, and consumption of such meat can be hazardous to human health. Gas sensing technology provides a nondestructive, less time‐consuming, and convenient detection method compared with traditional meat quality testing techniques. In this review, we briefly describe the working principle, the common sensors, signal processing, and pattern recognition for gas sensing technology. Then, we discuss the most relevant contributions of gas sensing technology to meat freshness evaluations and authenticity assessments using different data processing methods in recent years. Finally, the problems, prospects, and likely future development of gas sensing technology are highlighted.Practical applicationsThis article analyzes each key technology of gas sensing, points out some existing defects and future trends, reviews the practical applications of gas sensing technology in meat quality inspection in recent years, and puts forward feasible technology enhancement suggestions.

Production Method and Wine Style Influence Metal Profiles in Sparkling Wines

The elemental composition of wine provides important information about origin, authenticity, and sensory considerations. Although various wine regions and varieties of still wines have been extensively studied, limited research has evaluated the metal profiles of sparkling wines, which can be produced via the bottle-fermented traditional method (TM) or the tank-fermented Charmat method (CM) in both rosé and non-rosé styles. In this study, 73 commercial sparkling wines from Canada’s Niagara Peninsula were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry to quantify 28 metal ions (silver [Ag], aluminum [Al], arsenic [As], boron [B], barium [Ba], beryllium [Be], calcium [Ca], cadmium [Cd], cobalt [Co], chromium [Cr], copper [Cu], iron [Fe], potassium [K], magnesium [Mg], manganese [Mn], molybdenum [Mo], sodium [Na], nickel [Ni], lead [Pb], antimony [Sb], selenium [Se], tin [Sn], strontium [Sr], titanium [Ti], thallium [Tl], uranium [U], vanadium [V], zinc [Zn]). All metal levels were below internationally regulated maximum limits. Higher mean levels of Cr, Ni, and Sr (0.021 ± 0.008 mg/L, 0.018 ± 0.004 mg/L, and 0.32 ± 0.07 mg/L, respectively) and lower mean levels of B (3.0 ± 0.6 mg/L) were identified in CM compared with TM wines. Cr and Ni are of particular interest because of their association with stainless steel contact during CM production. In addition, the results identified higher mean levels of K (613 ± 153 mg/L) and lower mean levels of Cu (0.034 ± 0.036 mg/L) in rosé wines compared with non-rosé style wines. These results represent the first investigation of metal content in Canadian sparkling wines and identify important elemental differences related to production technique that can inform future authenticity assessments.

Application of intelligent sensory technology in the authentication of alcoholic beverages

Alcoholic beverages play an important role in social gatherings and the consumption of alcohol drinks keep increasing worldwide in recent years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic months. The authentication of alcoholic beverage is usually evaluated by trained panels or chromatography analysis. Over the last few decades, intelligent sensory technology (IST) that imitate the human sensory organs have been developed for quality control and authentication of alcoholic beverages. The artificial sensing system consist of arrays of sensors with cross-sensitivity and various pattern recognition methods, which can be used to discriminate or classify the samples based on the detection requirements. Application of IST on wine authenticity have been extensively studied, however, application of IST in authentication of other alcoholic beverages lacks of systemic study. This paper firstly describes the basic mechanism of current IST instruments and then summarizes the applications of IST in alcoholic beverages authenticity assessments, including discrimination of varietal and geographical origins, detection of frauds and adulterations, discrimination of years of aging, distinction of brands and types, aroma analysis, detection of spoilage and off-flavors, and monitoring of the production process. The potential applications and future development of IST in the brewing industry are also discussed.

Application of the Metabolomics Approach in Food Authentication

The authentication of food products is essential for food quality and safety. Authenticity assessments are important to ensure that the ingredients or contents of food products are legitimate and safe to consume. The metabolomics approach is an essential technique that can be utilized for authentication purposes. This study aimed to summarize food authentication through the metabolomics approach, to study the existing analytical methods, instruments, and statistical methods applied in food authentication, and to review some selected food commodities authenticated using metabolomics-based methods. Various databases, including Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, etc., were used to obtain previous research works relevant to the objectives. The review highlights the role of the metabolomics approach in food authenticity. The approach is technically implemented to ensure consumer protection through the strict inspection and enforcement of food labeling. Studies have shown that the study of metabolomics can ultimately detect adulterant(s) or ingredients that are added deliberately, thus compromising the authenticity or quality of food products. Overall, this review will provide information on the usefulness of metabolomics and the techniques associated with it in successful food authentication processes, which is currently a gap in research that can be further explored and improved.

What makes a corporate heritage brand authentic for consumers? A semiotic approach

In this article, the purpose is to develop a consumer-focused understanding of authenticity within corporate heritage research. Our research question is as follows: “What makes a corporate heritage brand authentic for consumers?” We employ Peirce’s semiotic concepts of icon, index and symbol to analyse consumers’ perceptions of the Finnish corporate heritage brand Fazer, founded in 1891. Our study shows that childhood memories, consumer experiences and expectations as well as shared social conventions make the corporate heritage brand authentic for consumers. Thus, our research empirically advances the understanding of authenticity as socially constructed. Importantly, our study highlights the temporal dimension of this construction and advances the current knowledge on corporate heritage brands by showing that uniqueness, credibility and consistency over time are key dimensions of corporate heritage brand authenticity assessments. This understanding is fundamental for corporate heritage management practice, especially for developing the strategic positioning of corporate heritage brands in the markets by harnessing the assessments of authenticity.

Metal Concentrations in Grape Spirits

Metals are a necessity for human health as they play significant roles in biological systems. However,contamination of food and beverages by heavy metals such as lead (Pb), iron (Fe), chromium (Cr), cadmium(Cd), copper (Cu), cobalt (Co), Nickel (Ni) and zinc (Zn) is a major public health problem in developingcountries. In this study we evaluated the levels of Li, Be, B, Al, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Se, Sr,Mo, Cd, Sb, Ba, Hg and Pb in grape spirits, including pot still spirit, neutral wine spirit and commercialbrandies. Interesting variations in the levels of metals was observed. Factors such as origin and type ofspirits influenced levels of metals in spirits. These differences in some metal levels such as copper canbe used to determine possible adulteration and in authenticity assessments of brandies. Surprisingly thecommercial brandies had higher metal concentrations when compared to pot still spirit and neutral winespirit. Unmatured pot still spirit had the highest copper levels. Our study shows that generally the metallevels in most of the commercial brandies were within permissible limits.

The spectral treasure house of miniaturized instruments for food safety, quality and authenticity applications: A perspective

BackgroundOptical technologies, relying on spectral analysis, are more and more implemented in portable devices for food analysis. Thereby, each food safety, quality or authenticity provision as well as each technology requires the generation of a dedicated spectral database with reference data. Currently, knowledge on how these databases might be connected or transferred across food commodities, targeted compounds or devices are very limited. Hence, repetitive work is conducted and technologies are not optimally used. Scope and approachThis perspective focuses on the currently available technologies and approaches for data handling and database transfer across miniaturized devices and technologies for food safety, quality and authenticity assessments. Key findings and conclusionsFor almost every food commodity or target compound a miniaturized spectroscopic device can be applied with the respective database to compare findings. Recent developments in optical spectroscopy allow more possibilities for their use as well as facilitate the production of portable devices. A multifunctional device hyphenating several sensors and broadening the application range is still not marketed. Newly developed software architecture, accessing and extracting data, helps to overcome sample heterogenicity or spurious measured data. In addition, several data fusion approaches using machine learning and deep learning strategies are available to fuse spectroscopic data with itself or other non-spectroscopic data. Following the research results presented in this field, spectral data can possibly be re-used and shared across instruments and locations, highly increasing the applicability of data sets. Thereby, obstacles such as policy or confidentiality are taken into account.

Electrochemical Sensors Coupled with Multivariate Statistical Analysis as Screening Tools for Wine Authentication Issues: A Review

Consumers are increasingly interested in the characteristics of the products they consume, including aroma, taste, and appearance, and hence, scientific research was conducted in order to develop electronic senses devices that mimic the human senses. Thanks to the utilization of electroanalytical techniques that used various sensors modified with different electroactive materials coupled with pattern recognition methods, artificial senses such as electronic tongues (ETs) are widely applied in food analysis for quality and authenticity approaches. This paper summarizes the applications of electrochemical sensors (voltammetric, amperometric, and potentiometric) coupled with unsupervised and supervised pattern recognition methods (principal components analysis (PCA), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), partial least square (PLS) regression, artificial neural network (ANN)) for wine authenticity assessments including the discrimination of varietal and geographical origins, monitoring the ageing processes, vintage year discrimination, and detection of frauds and adulterations. Different wine electrochemical authentication methodologies covering the electrochemical techniques, electrodes types, functionalization sensitive materials and multivariate statistical analysis are emphasized and the main advantages and disadvantages of using the proposed methodologies for real applications were concluded.

Electronic Noses as a Powerful Tool for Assessing Meat Quality: a Mini Review

Food quality is a fundamental requirement for consumers, and there is growing interest in food quality assessment. An electronic nose is a machine that is designed to mimic biological olfaction and detect and discriminate among complex odors using an array of chemical sensors. Electronic noses have been widely applied for food quality evaluations because they are rapid, sensitive, and non-destructive. In the present paper, we review important applications of electronic noses to meat analysis. First, we briefly describe the components, working principle, and data processing for an electronic nose. Then, we discuss the applications of electronic noses to meat freshness evaluations, quality classification, and authenticity assessments using different pattern recognition algorithms. Despite many successful results, sensor technology limitations still restrict electronic nose applications at the industrial scale. Finally, we discuss existing problems and prospects for electronic noses in food analysis.

The Impact of Servicescape Cues on Consumer Prepurchase Authenticity Assessment and Patronage Intentions to Ethnic Restaurants

In the context of ethnic dining services, authenticity is the key ingredient. This study aims to investigate the impact of servicescape dimensions on consumers’ prepurchase authenticity perceptions and patronage intentions to ethnic restaurants. The authors propose that three key dimensions of the servicescape—the physical setting, service providers, and other customers—provide ethnic-associated cues for consumers to assess authenticity in the preconsumption stage. Empirical results from a between-subject experimental design suggest that servicescape dimensions can induce preconsumption authenticity perceptions of ethnic restaurants and that the dimensional cues interplay to affect authenticity assessments. Furthermore, a customer’s ethnicity (referent ethnic vs. mainstream) affects how she/he interprets servicescape cues and, therefore, his/her authenticity assessment. The perceived authenticity, together with a consumer’s trait of cosmopolitanism and his/her familiarity with such ethnic restaurants, consequently affect consumers’ patronage intentions. These findings contribute to hospitality research on consumers’ authenticity assessments of ethnic restaurants. Furthermore, managerial implications for ethnic restaurants in terms of marketing strategies will be discussed.

Analysis of phytosteryl and phytostanyl fatty acid esters in enriched dairy foods: a combination of acid digestion, lipid extraction, and on-line LC-GC

Qualitative and quantitative methods for the analysis of intact phytosteryl/phytostanyl esters in enriched dairy products with substantial amounts of protein and fat were established. Lipids were extracted after acid digestion in order to achieve a complete extraction of the esters. The extracted lipids were separated via liquid chromatography on a normal phase, and the fraction containing the phytosteryl/phytostanyl esters was subsequently transferred on-line and analyzed by means of capillary gas chromatography. The applicability of the method was demonstrated for the analysis of intact phytosteryl/phytostanyl fatty acid esters in enriched yogurt, cheese-based spread, and milk. The approach enables the determination of individual phytosteryl/phytostanyl esters as well as of their total contents and provides detailed information on the distributions of esterified phytosterols/phytostanols and fatty acids. The employed approach complements the existing GC-based methods for the analysis of phytosteryl/phytostanyl esters in low-fat and fat-based products and thus creates a base for authenticity assessments of these types of novel foods.

Service with an e-smile: Employee authenticity and customer use of web-based support services

Many companies work hard to ensure that service representatives are friendly when interacting with customers. Friendliness, however, is not always enough; customers must believe that service employees are not just acting out a friendly role. In our study, we extrapolated this idea to web-based support services. Integrating IS and marketing perspectives, we suggested that user judgment of human service representatives’ authenticity operate through two mechanisms, system-, and service-representative assessments, to augment a visitor's continuance intention. Data collected from 86 users of a library web-based live-chat service supported this view. The perceived authenticity of the service representatives increased information satisfaction, which in turn increased perceptions of usefulness, and ultimately strengthened the customer's continuance intention. Authenticity assessments also increased the perceived friendliness of the service provider, which in turn increased the visitor's continuance intentions. Implications of this dual-path concept are discussed.

Do they [all] see my true self? Leader's relational authenticity and followers' assessments of transformational leadership

Responding to calls for a more positive and holistic perspective on leadership, Gardner, Avolio, Luthans, May, and Walumbwa (2005), Ilies, Morgeson, and Nahrgang (2005), and Luthans and Avolio (2003) have discussed the concept of authentic leadership. However, up to this point, little is known on how leader authenticity influences leader relationships with followers. Consistent with the overall theme of this special issue, we seek to fill this gap by investigating empirically how leader authenticity predicts transformational leadership behaviours. Specifically, we focus on relational authenticity as a component of authenticity because it has been argued to be particularly salient for interpersonal relationships (Ilies et al., 2005). We further propose that leader authenticity is associated with a greater convergence of followers' perceptions of transformational leadership behaviours. Finally, we predict that not all group members will be influenced by leader authenticity to the same extent. Instead, we hypothesize and find that more critical group members are especially likely to be positively influenced by leader authenticity.