Scientific Theories Research Articles

Physicochemical Properties and Rheological Behavior of Gluten-Free Flour Blends for Bakery Products

Purpose: The general aim of the study was to investigate the physicochemical properties and rheological behavior of gluten-free flour blends for bakery products. Methodology: The study adopted a desktop research methodology. Desk research refers to secondary data or that which can be collected without fieldwork. Desk research is basically involved in collecting data from existing resources hence it is often considered a low cost technique as compared to field research, as the main cost is involved in executive’s time, telephone charges and directories. Thus, the study relied on already published studies, reports and statistics. This secondary data was easily accessed through the online journals and library. Findings: The findings reveal that there exists a contextual and methodological gap relating to physicochemical properties and rheological behavior of gluten-free flour blends for bakery products. Preliminary empirical review revealed that hydrocolloids such as xanthan gum and guar gum significantly improved dough viscoelasticity, texture, and stability, while the efficacy of carrageenan was limited. Optimizing the concentrations and combinations of hydrocolloids was deemed essential for achieving superior rheological properties. Additionally, the study emphasized the importance of considering physicochemical properties alongside rheological behavior to develop gluten-free bakery products that meet consumer expectations. Overall, the findings highlighted the complexity of gluten-free baking and underscored the need for a multidimensional approach integrating physicochemical analyses with rheological assessments. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The Food Material Science theory, Rheology theory and Biopolymer theory may be used to anchor future studies on physicochemical properties and rheological behavior of gluten-free flour blends. The study provided valuable recommendations. It contributed to theory by exploring the effects of various hydrocolloids on dough properties, highlighting the importance of xanthan gum and guar gum in improving dough viscoelasticity. In practice, it suggested optimizing hydrocolloid concentrations for superior rheological properties in gluten-free bakery products. Moreover, the study offered insights for policy-makers regarding the formulation of gluten-free bread to meet quality standards. Overall, the research advanced understanding in the field and provided practical guidelines for industry and policymakers.

Preparation and Structural Analysis of a Water-Soluble Aminated Lignin.

Lignin is insoluble in water, thereby limiting its use in the synthesis of adhesives. Therefore, in this study, an aminated lignin compound was prepared through a lignin amination reaction to increase the amount of raw lignin material that can be used in the synthesis of adhesives; moreover, structural analysis was conducted. The main result of this was the introduction of amino groups into phenolic hydroxyl groups in the hydrolyzing lignin from the raw lignin materials, thus generating the product of aminated lignin. The resulting particle sizes were about 100 nm, the average molecular weight was 57,627 g/mol, and the water solubility of the aminated lignin was about 0.45 g/100 mL. Therefore, the water solubility of raw lignin was greatly improved. The proposed reaction mechanism of phenolic hydroxyl groups and carboxylic acid groups in lignin is a reaction with ammonia molecules; thus, the successful introduction of amino groups generated the aminated lignin compounds. Hence, this article enriches the scientific theory of lignin reactions and provides a reference for the widespread application of raw lignin materials in the field of adhesives.

Target-constrained Bidirectional Planning for Generation of Target-oriented Proactive Dialogue

Target-oriented proactive dialogue systems aim at leading conversations from a dialogue context toward a pre-determined target, such as making recommendations on designated items or introducing new specific topics. To this end, it is critical for such dialogue systems to plan reasonable actions to drive the conversation proactively, and meanwhile, to plan appropriate topics to move the conversation forward to the target topic smoothly. In this work, we mainly focus on effective dialogue planning for target-oriented dialogue generation. Inspired by decision-making theories in cognitive science, we propose a novel target-constrained bidirectional planning (TRIP) approach, which plans an appropriate dialogue path by looking ahead and looking back. By formulating the planning as a generation task, our TRIP bidirectionally generates a dialogue path consisting of a sequence of <action, topic> pairs using two Transformer decoders. They are expected to supervise each other and converge on consistent actions and topics by minimizing the decision gap and contrastive generation of targets. Moreover, we propose a target-constrained decoding algorithm with a bidirectional agreement to better control the planning process. Subsequently, we adopt the planned dialogue paths to guide dialogue generation in a pipeline manner, where we explore two variants: prompt-based generation and plan-controlled generation. Extensive experiments are conducted on two challenging dialogue datasets, which are re-purposed for exploring target-oriented dialogue. Our automatic and human evaluations demonstrate that the proposed methods significantly outperform various baseline models.

Using formal theory in evaluation – What is it and how is it used?

Little information is available about how formal, social science theory has been used in outcome evaluations. This gap exists in debates about what role theory has in evaluation. To help address this, we need to understand variation in formal theory use in real-world practice. This research applied systematic qualitative coding to identify and classify patterns of theory use, followed by qualitative comparative analysis. The terms describing theory are defined and formal theory is differentiated from other kinds of theory, such as program theory. The study found instances of borrowing and repurposing theoretical material in a cohesive sample of 17 outcome evaluation reports covering programs addressing complex social problems, drawn from cross-cultural contexts. Theory was mostly used for post hoc explanation and less often used upfront in framing, design and conduct of evaluation. The concrete approach in the literature of applying formal theory to measure and explain causal pathways to behavioural outcomes was found, as was layered use of a range of theoretical material. This article offers insights that may assist evaluators to undertaken more sophisticated and reflective approaches to using theory. Thinking about ways we use theory could form part of the tool-kit of techniques available to evaluation practice.

Polychronicity: Matching Time Styles and Task Types. Some Evidence from a Student Experiment

Polychronicity, an under-researched dimension of diversity, refers to the degree to which a person likes to engage in several tasks at once. Common sense, scientific theory and initial evidence suggest that individuals will perform better when faced with a job whose demands on multi-tasking match their individual time styles. This paper reports on an experiment among students to test the performance effect of the person-job-fit with respect to polychronicity. Unlike prior research, our experimental conditions focus on the mode of allocating scarce time among multiple tasks. The preliminary results confirm a performance premium in case of a match between time styles and task types.

Minimizing Entropy and Complexity in Creative Production from Emergent Pragmatics to Action Semantics.

New insights into intractable industrial challenges can be revealed by framing them in terms of natural science. One intractable industrial challenge is that creative production can be much more financially expensive and time consuming than standardized production. Creative products include a wide range of goods that have one or more original characteristics. The scaling up of creative production is hindered by high financial production costs and long production durations. In this paper, creative production is framed in terms of interactions between entropy and complexity during progressions from emergent pragmatics to action semantics. An analysis of interactions between entropy and complexity is provided that relates established practice in creative production to organizational survival in changing environments. The analysis in this paper is related to assembly theory, which is a recent theoretical development in natural science that addresses how open-ended generation of complex physical objects can emerge from selection in biology. Parallels between assembly practice in industrial production and assembly theory in natural science are explained through constructs that are common to both, such as assembly index. Overall, analyses reported in the paper reveal that interactions between entropy and complexity underlie intractable challenges in creative production, from the production of individual products to the survival of companies.

How can a behavioral economics lens contribute to implementation science?

BackgroundImplementation science in health is an interdisciplinary field with an emphasis on supporting behavior change required when clinicians and other actors implement evidence-based practices within organizational constraints. Behavioral economics has emerged in parallel and works towards developing realistic models of how humans behave and categorizes a wide range of features of choices that can influence behavior. We argue that implementation science can be enhanced by the incorporation of approaches from behavioral economics.Main bodyFirst, we provide a general overview of implementation science and ways in which implementation science has been limited to date. Second, we review principles of behavioral economics and describe how concepts from BE have been successfully applied to healthcare including nudges deployed in the electronic health record. For example, de-implementation of low-value prescribing has been supported by changing the default in the electronic health record. We then describe what a behavioral economics lens offers to existing implementation science theories, models and frameworks, including rich and realistic models of human behavior, additional research methods such as pre-mortems and behavioral design, and low-cost and scalable implementation strategies. We argue that insights from behavioral economics can guide the design of implementation strategies and the interpretation of implementation studies. Key objections to incorporating behavioral economics are addressed, including concerns about sustainment and at what level the strategies work.ConclusionScholars should consider augmenting implementation science theories, models, and frameworks with relevant insights from behavioral economics. By drawing on these additional insights, implementation scientists have the potential to boost efforts to expand the provision and availability of high quality care.

Implementation of Food is Medicine Programs in Healthcare Settings: A Narrative Review.

Food is Medicine (FIM) programs to improve the accessibility of fruits and vegetables (FVs) or other healthy foods among patients with low income and diet-related chronic diseases are promising to improve food and nutrition security in the United States (US). However, FIM programs are relatively new and implementation guidance for healthcare settings using an implementation science lens is lacking. We used a narrative review to describe the evidence base on barriers and facilitators to FIM program integration in US healthcare settings following the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, and Sustainment (EPIS) Framework. Evidence surrounding the EPIS Inner Context was a focus, including constructs Leadership, Organizational Characteristics, Quality and Fidelity Monitoring and Support, Organizational Staffing Processes, and Individual Characteristics. Peer-reviewed and grey literature about barriers and facilitators to FIM programs were of interest, defined as programs that screen and refer eligible patients with diet-related chronic disease experiencing food insecurity to healthy, unprepared foods. Thirty-one sources were included in the narrative review, including 22 peer-reviewed articles, four reports, four toolkits, and one thesis. Twenty-eight sources (90%) described EPIS Inner Context facilitators and 26 sources (84%) described FIM program barriers. The most common barriers and facilitators to FIM programs were regarding Quality and Fidelity Monitoring and Support (e.g., use of electronic medical records for tracking and evaluation, strategies to support implementation) and Organizational Staffing Processes (e.g., clear delineation of staff roles and capacity); although, barriers and facilitators to FIM programs were identified among all EPIS Inner Context constructs. We synthesized barriers and facilitators to create an EPIS-informed implementation checklist for healthcare settings for use among healthcare organizations/providers, partner organizations, and technical assistance personnel. We discuss future directions to align FIM efforts with implementation science terminology and theories, models, and frameworks to improve the implementation evidence base and support FIM researchers and practitioners.

Evolutionary Computation in bioinformatics: A survey

Bioinformatics is a subject that studies life phenomena by using mathematical and information science theories and techniques. Its main tasks, such as DNA sequence comparison, protein structure prediction and cell metabolism analysis, can be regarded as complex optimization problems with different characteristics. Evolutionary computing is a kind of global optimization algorithm inspired by nature. Over the years, scholars have accumulated fruitful results in solving complex optimization problems such as large-scale, dynamic, multi-modal, multi-objective and multi-constrained problems by using Evolutionary Computation algorithms, and have successfully applied to the above optimization tasks in bioinformatics. This paper mainly summarizes the work of Evolutionary Computation technologies in bioinformatics from 2019 to 2023 at multiple levels, including Genomics, Proteomics, metabolomics and molecular networks related optimization tasks, as well as further applications in disease diagnosis and drug development.

Cursory Review Of The Material Teaching Abstracting In The Process Of Learning English

It is customary to call an abstract a summary of the main provisions of a book, a scientific theory. Therefore, setting ourselves the goal of laying down the elementary foundations of this skill, we must teach students to determine what the main thing in a given text is, and to separate this main from the secondary, highlight the details and determine their meaning in this context. But, first of all, it is necessary to develop in students the ability, after a cursory glance at an article or book, to determine what it is about and whether it will be able to answer the questions that interest him. At the same time, it is very important to be able to bypass incomprehensible places. [1]

Neurocinematic therapy - An interdisciplinary perspective

The present article is a typical perspective paper. It neither substantiates nor confirms theories, nor does it produce robust data-driven outcomes in the context of evidence-based medicine. It rather sheds light on the emerging field of neurocinematic therapy and promotes interdisciplinary discussion. Within the broad realm of neurocinematics, neurocinematic therapy is considered a realm of applied sciences with a particular impact on clinical areas and public health systems. It does not necessarily comply with standardised diagnostic manuals but inspires a multifaceted view of notions referring to pathology. Neuropsychological processing of individual movie experiences plays a crucial role and regards the interplay between psycho-affective phenomena and central-nervous functioning of specific brain areas, network connectivities and neural principles such as brain plasticity. According to the characteristics of meta-syntheses, the article respects all kinds of relevant approaches such as neuroimaging or qualitative empirical research, and harmonises their outcomes from the perspective of scientific epistemology, meta-methodology and theory of science. From a translational medical point of view, such scientific syntheses are designed to impact clinical practice and public health. The present study identifies seven potentially therapeutic features of movie experience which suggest a preliminary scientific framework: i) change of pathological cognitive patterns and compulsive thought, ii) integration of fragmentised identities, iii) intuitive development of self-therapeutic measures, iv) re-balancing of inner calmness and dynamic lifestyles, v) biographical work and episodic exposure training, vi) synchronisation of movie rhythms, life rhythms and inner rhythms, and vii) clinical trance as well as movie-based auto-hypnosis.

Predicting COVID-19 Vaccination Intentions to Inform Evidence-Based Messaging for Building Vaccine Confidence Among Rural Americans.

Examine possible message topics to promote rural vaccination using psychosocial antecedents of vaccination. Cross-sectional survey administered by Research America, Inc. West Virginia (WV). 756 WV adults via convenience sample (n = 370; ∼2% response rate from online panel of ∼20 000 WV residents), and random digit dial of landlines (n = 174; ∼1% response rate from 18 432 numbers) and cellphones (n = 212; ∼1% response rate from 20 486 numbers). Outcome measures included self-reported vaccination intention and behavior. Predictor measures, rooted in theories of social and behavioral science that have been found to be predictive of vaccination outcomes (i.e., Reasoned Action Approach, Extended Parallel Process Model), included perceived severity and susceptibility, negative affect, instrumental and affective attitudes, social norms, self-efficacy, response efficacy, and perceived control. Multivariate linear regression for intention and logistic regression for behavior. Intention was positively predicted by affective attitude, β = .30, P < .05, instrumental attitude, β = .19, P < .05, response efficacy, β = .19, P < .05, negative affect, β = .16, P < .05, self-efficacy, β = .13, P < .05, and subjective norm, β = .13, P < .05, F(10, 267) = 30.12, Adj. R2 = .53. Vaccination status was predicted by instrumental attitude, exp(B) = 2.09, and subjective norm, exp(B) = 2.00, Pseudo R2 = .29, log likelihood = 125.11, χ2(10) = 38.34, P < .05. Promising message targets were instrumental attitude, M = 3.21, SD = 1.46, and subjective norms, M = 3.76, SD = 1.71. COVID-19 vaccine confidence messages should address (1) positive feelings and safety perceptions, (2) vaccination's effectiveness in preventing serious COVID-19, and (3) subjective vaccination norms.

Bolzano on sense and reference

In the present article author examines the concept of B. Bolzano's sign, its place in the “Theory of Science” and the philosophical premises that determine its specificity. The closest attention is paid to the concepts of “sign”, “sense” and “meaning”. The author provides a comparative analysis of the use of these concepts by B. Bolzano and G. Frege and demonstrates the fundamental difference between G. Frege's understanding of sense and meaning and B. Bolzano's ideas. The ontological premises are demonstrated that don’t allow to derive one conception from another. The author reviews the hypothesis of E. Casari that proposes an alternative way for comparing the conceptions of B. Bolzano and G. Frege. The author analyses the conceptual structure of the hypothesis, compares it with the conceptual structure of the “Theory of Science”, and demonstrates presuppositions introduced by E. Casari. It is concluded that these presuppositions are not typical for the work of B. Bolzano and are not compatible with the premises of the “Theory of Science”. The author shows that the statements of E. Casari’s hypothesis that coincide with G. Frege’s statements about meaning and significance are direct implications of the presuppositions introduced by E. Casari, and cannot be deduced from B. Bolzano’s conception without them.

Promises and Perils of Big Data: Philosophical Constraints on Chemical Ontologies.

Chemistry is experiencing a paradigm shift in the way it interacts with data. So-called "big data" are collected and used at unprecedented scales with the idea that algorithms can be designed to aid in chemical discovery. As data-enabled practices become ever more ubiquitous, chemists must consider the organization and curation of their data, especially as it is presented to both humans and increasingly intelligent algorithms. One of the most promising organizational schemes for big data is a construct termed an ontology. In data science, ontologies are systems that represent relations among objects and properties in a domain of discourse. As chemistry encounters larger and larger data sets, the ontologies that support chemical research will likewise increase in complexity, and the future of chemistry will be shaped by the choices made in developing big data chemical ontologies. How such ontologies will work should therefore be a subject of significant attention in the chemical community. Now is the time for chemists to ask questions about ontology design and use: How should chemical data be organized? What can be reasonably expected from an organizational structure? Is a universal ontology tenable? As some of these questions may be new to chemists, we recommend an interdisciplinary approach that draws on the long history of philosophers of science asking questions about the organization of scientific concepts, constructs, models, and theories. This Perspective presents insights from these long-standing studies and initiates new conversations between chemists and philosophers.

The Effects of Work-Family Conflict and Work-Family Support on Job Performance of Chinese Grassroots Civil Servants

Objective: As an important and special professional group in Chinese society, the career development of grassroots civil servants has received much attention. With the development of information technology and the strengthening of workplace competition, new conflicts between work and family continue to intensify, and their conflict issues have received widespread attention. Theoretical framework: This study focuses on grassroots civil servants and explores the impact of work family relationships on job performance. Theoretical assumptions are proposed based on management science theory and previous research on the relationship between variables. Method: Obtain survey data and interview response texts through questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews. The proposed hypothesis was validated based on quantitative and qualitative analysis methods. Results and Conclusion: The empirical results indicate that the quality and balance of work family relationships have a significant impact on job performance, and work engagement and job burnout play a mediating role in the influencing process. Implication of the Study: The research results enrich the systematic exploration of the specific context of work family relationships and the impact of groups on work behavior, which is conducive to improving humanized and organized management mechanisms, providing guidance for the practice of work family coordination and division of labor within the grassroots civil servant team. Originality/Value: The study aims to improve the living and development environment of grassroots civil servants, and stimulating deep work motivation.

Embedding Democratic Values into Social Media AIs via Societal Objective Functions

Mounting evidence indicates that the artificial intelligence (AI) systems that rank our social media feeds bear nontrivial responsibility for amplifying partisan animosity: negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors toward political out-groups. Can we design these AIs to consider democratic values such as mitigating partisan animosity as part of their objective functions? We introduce a method for translating established, vetted social scientific constructs into AI objective functions, which we term societal objective functions, and demonstrate the method with application to the political science construct of anti-democratic attitudes. Traditionally, we have lacked observable outcomes to use to train such models-however, the social sciences have developed survey instruments and qualitative codebooks for these constructs, and their precision facilitates translation into detailed prompts for large language models. We apply this method to create a democratic attitude model that estimates the extent to which a social media post promotes anti-democratic attitudes, and test this democratic attitude model across three studies. In Study 1, we first test the attitudinal and behavioral effectiveness of the intervention among US partisans (N=1,380) by manually annotating (alpha=.895) social media posts with anti-democratic attitude scores and testing several feed ranking conditions based on these scores. Removal (d=.20) and downranking feeds (d=.25) reduced participants' partisan animosity without compromising their experience and engagement. In Study 2, we scale up the manual labels by creating the democratic attitude model, finding strong agreement with manual labels (rho=.75). Finally, in Study 3, we replicate Study 1 using the democratic attitude model instead of manual labels to test its attitudinal and behavioral impact (N=558), and again find that the feed downranking using the societal objective function reduced partisan animosity (d=.25). This method presents a novel strategy to draw on social science theory and methods to mitigate societal harms in social media AIs.

An analysis of Chinese female sports consumption fever from the perspective of behavioral economics

This paper interprets and analyzes the trends and causes of the Chinese female sports consumption craze from the perspective of behavioral economics and corresponding scientific theories through the literature review method and puts forward relevant suggestions to guide female sports consumption. The analysis results show that female sports consumption is on the rise because of the psychology of reference dependence, with the promotion of women’s status, higher pursuit of appearance, and emotional or psychological satisfaction. Therefore, the marketing of the consumer market needs to use more emotion to impress women, carry out more promotional activities, improve the quality of goods and aesthetics, and highlight the characteristics of goods.

Contextualization, Authenticity, and the Problem Description Effect

In recent years, computing education researchers have investigated the impact of problem context on students’ learning and programming performance. This work continues the investigation motivated, in part, by cognitive load theory and educational research in computer science and other disciplines. The results of this study could help inform computing assessment design. If the context and authenticity of a programming problem aid student performance then, instructors’ time in creating appropriately contextualized programming problem descriptions is time well-spent. On the other hand, if the context of a programming problem hinders performance, then instructors should leave it out of programming problems. Recent studies investigating the impact of programming problem context on student success have arrived at different conclusions. Presented here is a series of experiments, conducted over 3 years, investigating the impact of context on novice programmers’ success in algorithmic programming assignments using three contextualized tasks and their generic counterparts. This experiment series also looked into the possibility of “authenticity” as a factor affecting performance. Common sense would suggest that a student would perform better on a problem if they understood or cared about it. Contextualization could provide authenticity and authenticity could provide interest. Research suggests that perceiving a problem as authentic has a positive effect on engagement and learning. Alternatively, if a problem is “just an abstract set of numbers”, it may be harder to make sense of the details and the lack of context could consequently contribute additional cognitive load to an already challenging assignment. The results of this study show that assignment context and problem context authenticity have no effect on the performance of novice programmers. We think, however, that contextualization could be worth investing in to support students’ interest in computing. Additional implications of the results suggest that instructors can assign equivalent versions of the same problem in varied contexts to suit their students’ interests without worrying if the context will hinder performance.

Research on Promoting the Practice and Construction of Civilization in the New Era with High Quality in Minority Areas

To build the Center for the practice of civilization in the New Era into a public platform for disseminating scientific theories, a strong position for strengthening ideological and political work at the grassroots level, a spiritual home for carrying forward the new trends of The Times, and a broad stage for carrying out voluntary services with Chinese characteristics, a command center for integrating resources, making good use of existing resources and making good use of additional resources, and a service center for meeting the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life. The belief center, which guides people to be confident, inspires them to fight, and works with one heart and one mind, has created a “model” for civilized practice in the new era

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Current Scientific Theories and Approaches on the use of New Learning Technologies Summary The article analyzes the current scientific theories and approaches about the use of new learning technologies. The main point is in what form this work is carried out in preschool educational institutions. I would like to emphasize one aspect that the article mentions the importance of what educators-teachers learn when using new learning technologies. Key words: new learning, technologies, preschool, development, attitude