Stored Items Research Articles

Environmental Barriers to and Availability of Healthy Foods for People With Mobility Disabilities Living in Urban and Suburban Neighborhoods

Mojtahedi MC, Boblick P, Rimmer JH, Rowland JL, Jones RA, Braunschweig CL. Environmental barriers to and availability of healthy foods for people with mobility disabilities living in urban and suburban neighborhoods. Objective To assess the impact of the built environment on access to healthy foods for people with mobility disabilities by measuring wheelchair accessibility of grocery stores and availability of healthy affordable foods. Design A survey consisting of 87 questions. Setting A low-income, multiracial urban Chicago neighborhood with a 3-mile radius was compared with a suburban neighborhood of the same size in which the population is similar in income level and racial distribution. Participants Not applicable. Interventions Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures Accessibility issues outside and within grocery stores and the availability of healthy affordable food items in these grocery stores. Results The urban area had more stores (n=48) than the suburban area (n=34); however, only 46% of urban stores had an entrance that would allow an individual requiring a ramp or level entrance to gain access compared with 88% of suburban stores ( P<.001). Wheelchair accessibility characteristics of grocery and convenience stores did not differ between the urban and suburban areas. The availability of healthy affordable foods in urban and suburban stores was relatively low, with only 33% to 40% of the 18 items available, and did not differ between urban and suburban stores. Conclusions People with mobility impairments are at a disadvantage in maintaining healthy food choices because of limited access to stores and healthy foods.

Quantum-inspired resonance for associative memory

A new kind of dynamics for simulations based upon quantum-classical hybrid is discussed. The model is represented by a modified Madelung equation in which the quantum potential is replaced by different, specially chosen potentials. As a result, the dynamics attains both quantum and classical properties: it preserves superposition and entanglement of random solutions, while allowing one to measure its state variables using classical methods. Such an optimal combination of characteristics is a perfect match for quantum-inspired information processing. In this paper, the retrieval of stored items from an exponentially large unsorted database is performed by quantum-inspired resonance using polynomial resources due to quantum-like superposition effect.

278 POSTER New curcumin analogues show enhanced antitumour activity in malignant melanoma cells

A total of 14 odoriferous angiospermic essential oils were tested against the toxigenic strain of Aspergillus flavus. The essential oil of Thymus vulgaris L. showed highest antifungal efficacy. The thyme oil absolutely inhibited the mycelial growth of A. flavus at 0.7 μl ml− 1 and exhibited a broad fungitoxic spectrum against eight different food contaminating fungi viz. Fusarium oxysporum, Cladosporium herbarum, Curvularia lunata, Aspergillus terreus, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus fumigatus, Alternaria alternata and Botryodiploidia theobromae. The oil also showed significant antiaflatoxigenic efficacy as it completely arrested the aflatoxin B1 production at 0.6 μl ml− 1. Thyme oil as fungitoxicant was also found superior over most of the prevalent synthetic fungicides. The LC50 of thyme oil against mice was recorded as 7142.85 μl kg− 1 body weight indicating its non-mammalian toxicity and strengthening its safe exploitation as preservative for stored food commodities. The findings recommend the thyme oil as potential botanical preservative in eco-friendly control of biodeterioration of food commodities during storage.The thyme essential oil may be recommended for large scale application as a plant based preservative for stored food items because of its strong antifungal as well as antiaflatoxigenic efficacy. Because of broad antimicrobial spectrum, more efficacy over prevalent synthetic preservatives as well as non-mammalian toxicity, the thyme essential oil may be formulated as a safe and economical plant based preservative against post harvest fungal infestation and aflatoxin contamination of food commodities.

Assessment of Pelargonium graveolens oil as plant‐based antimicrobial and aflatoxin suppressor in food preservation

AbstractBACKGROUND: Contamination of stored food commodities by moulds and mycotoxins results in qualitative as well as quantitative losses. Most of the synthetic antimicrobials used for preservation of stored food items produce side effects in the form of residual and mammalian toxicity. Recently some higher plant products have been recommended as safe alternatives of such synthetic antimicrobials. In the present investigation antifungal efficacy of some essential oils was evaluated against two toxigenic strains of Aspergillus flavus with special reference to the oil of Pelargonium graveolens to investigate its potential to inhibit aflatoxin B1 secretion.RESULTS: Essential oil of P. graveolens exhibited absolute fungitoxicity against both the toxigenic strains of A. flavus. The minimum inhibitory concentration of the oil was found to be 0.75 g L−1 and exhibited a fungistatic nature. It was found superior over the synthetic fungicides tested and exhibited a broad fungitoxic spectrum. The oil showed excellent anti‐aflatoxigenic efficacy as it completely inhibited aflatoxin B1 production even at 0.50 g L−1.CONCLUSION: This is the first report on the aflatoxin B1 inhibitory nature of P. graveolens oil. It may be recommended as a novel plant‐based antimicrobial as well as aflatoxin B1 suppressor over synthetic preservatives in food protection. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry

Assessment of Thymus vulgaris L. essential oil as a safe botanical preservative against post harvest fungal infestation of food commodities

Abstract A total of 14 odoriferous angiospermic essential oils were tested against the toxigenic strain of Aspergillus flavus. The essential oil of Thymus vulgaris L. showed highest antifungal efficacy. The thyme oil absolutely inhibited the mycelial growth of A. flavus at 0.7 μl ml− 1 and exhibited a broad fungitoxic spectrum against eight different food contaminating fungi viz. Fusarium oxysporum, Cladosporium herbarum, Curvularia lunata, Aspergillus terreus, Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus fumigatus, Alternaria alternata and Botryodiploidia theobromae. The oil also showed significant antiaflatoxigenic efficacy as it completely arrested the aflatoxin B1 production at 0.6 μl ml− 1. Thyme oil as fungitoxicant was also found superior over most of the prevalent synthetic fungicides. The LC50 of thyme oil against mice was recorded as 7142.85 μl kg− 1 body weight indicating its non-mammalian toxicity and strengthening its safe exploitation as preservative for stored food commodities. The findings recommend the thyme oil as potential botanical preservative in eco-friendly control of biodeterioration of food commodities during storage. Industrial relevance The thyme essential oil may be recommended for large scale application as a plant based preservative for stored food items because of its strong antifungal as well as antiaflatoxigenic efficacy. Because of broad antimicrobial spectrum, more efficacy over prevalent synthetic preservatives as well as non-mammalian toxicity, the thyme essential oil may be formulated as a safe and economical plant based preservative against post harvest fungal infestation and aflatoxin contamination of food commodities.

Protecting Critical Data

TrustZone technology provides a defense against malicious software attempting to tamper with critical data such as digital-rights management (DRM) counters. The basic premise of our solution is that the state of the flash can serve as a point of reference to detect when rollback has occurred. Our solution is embodied in a trusted software application that needs the protection provided by the TrustZone Secure World. This application represents the flash's state by generating a hash over a 32-byte sample of contiguous flash content, starting at a randomly selected address. The reference hash of the critical data is retrieved by decrypting the stored items just described and reversing the process. Next, the critical data itself is decrypted, and a new hash is generated from it. The new hash is compared with the reference hash to determine the critical data's integrity.

Condorcet criterion to support consumer decision making for online shopping

Consumers typically evaluate an enormous amount of product information before making a final purchase. As such, overloading consumers with too much information during the purchasing process can be a serious problem. Eliminating consumers’ confusion by filtering out inappropriate product alternatives can be a crucial issue when the number of items in an online store are in excess a consumer’s ability to evaluate. This study examines the feasibility of adopts the Condorcet criterion to filter product choice to minimize consumer effort when making a purchase decision. The Condorcet criterion is used frequently in the field of social choice to compare vote counting systems. This study applied the Condorcet criterion to sort alternatives into a useful rank of sale items for consumers. An example is conducted which employs the Condorcet criterion to support online consumer purchasing of hotel rooms.

AHP(Analytic Hierarchy Process)를 이용한 의류점포선택기준에 관한 연구

This study aimed to construct an effective decision-making model on selection of cloth stores using AHP technique. The proposed AHP structure consists of three levels. The highest level includes the cloth stores alternative which are department store, specialty store, and a clothes store. The second level consists of the key performance measurements for evaluating the optimal selection of cloth stores, such as location, facilities, product, service, and promotion. The lowest level consists of items which affects the performance measurements in the upper level. The items are convenience location, courteous service, decor/ambience, availability of parking, etc. The data for this research were collected from questionnaires of 132 in Busan. Data were analyzed by frequency and AHP. As the result of this study, 'product' was decided as a most important item in department store, while 'location' was decided as a most important item in specialty store and a clothes store. And 'variety goods' evaluated as that of first priority in the totality evaluation items in department store, but 'convenience location' evaluated as that of first priority in the totality evaluation items specialty store and a clothes store.

Order oriented slotting: a new assignment strategy for warehouses

This paper deals with a new strategy for the assignment of Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) to storage locations in a warehouse, called Order Oriented Slotting (OOS). Given an empty warehouse, a set of orders to be picked and a routing policy, OOS stores the SKUs in such a way that the total time needed to pick all the orders is minimised. Unlike the Cube per Order Index (COI) slotting strategy which stores an item based on how frequently it is picked without regard to picking sequences, OOS aims to store items, that appear together in orders, close to each other. OOS can be formulated as an Integer Linear Programming model when the routing is S-shaped and when a Vertical Lift Module (VLM) is adopted. Given the computational complexity of the problem, we present several heuristics. Their performance is compared through a set of VLM test problems with different order characteristics. [Received 7 November 2006; Revised 17 March 2007; Accepted 18 May 2007]

On modeling panels of time series*

This paper reviews research issues in modeling panels of time series. Examples of this type of data are annually observed macroeconomic indicators for all countries in the world, daily returns on the individual stocks listed in the S&amp;P500, and the sales records of all items in a retail store. A panel of time series concerns the case where the cross‐sectional dimension and the time dimension are large. Often, there is no a priori reason to select a few series or to aggregate the series over the cross‐sectional dimension. The use of, for example, a vector autoregression or other types of multivariate models then becomes cumbersome. Panel models and associated estimation techniques are more useful. Due to the large time dimension, one should however incorporate the time‐series features. And, the models should not have too many parameters to facilitate interpretation. This paper discusses representation, estimation and inference of relevant models and discusses recently proposed modeling approaches that explicitly aim to meet these requirements. The paper concludes with some reflections on the usefulness of large data sets. These concern sample selection issues and the notion that more detail also requires more complex models.

Functional Specializations in Lateral Prefrontal Cortex Associated with the Integration and Segregation of Information in Working Memory

Control processes are thought to play an important role in working memory (WM), by enabling the coordination, transformation, and integration of stored information. Yet little is known about the neural mechanisms that subserve such control processes. This study examined whether integration operations within WM involve the activation of distinct neural mechanisms within lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC). Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to monitor brain activity while participants performed a mental arithmetic task. In the integration (IN) condition, a WM preload item had to be mentally inserted into the last step of the math problem. This contrasted with the segregation (SG) condition, which also required maintenance of the WM preload while performing mental arithmetic but had no integration requirement. Two additional control conditions involved either ignoring the preload (math only condition) or ignoring the math problem (recall only condition). Left anterior PFC (Brodmann's Area [BA] 46/10) was selectively engaged by integration demands, with activation increasing prior to, as well as during the integration period. A homologous right anterior PFC region showed selectively increased activity in the SG condition during the period in which the math problem and preload digit were reported. Left middorsolateral PFC regions (BA 9/46) showed increased, but equivalent, activity in both the SG and IN conditions relative to both control conditions. These results provide support for the selective role of lateral PFC in cognitive control over WM and suggest more specific hypotheses regarding dissociable PFC mechanisms involved during the integration and segregation of stored WM items.

How do price-based sales affect market basket prices? Evidence for fresh food products in German grocery stores

Abstract Sales of fresh food products are a predominant feature in retail pricing around the world. Price-based sales offer significant price cuts in products for a limited time and are the most popular form of promotional sales in Europe. From a consumer perspective, it is of interest to determine whether such price-based sales are reflected in the price of typical market baskets, or whether they are financed by price increases for other products as suggested by the loss- leader hypothesis. Competitive market theories suggest that a sale signals a reduction in market basket price. Within this setting, this article empirically examines the implications of sales for the market basket prices. Results are drawn from analysis of a unique data set for fresh food items in German grocery stores over the period from 1995 to 2000. Results indicate that in the short-run the market basket price for fresh food decreases with the number of fresh food product sales, consistent with competitive pricing. However, over ti...

Semantic similarity dissociates short- from long-term recency effects: Testing a neurocomputational model of list memory

The finding that recency effects can occur not only in immediate free recall (i.e., short-term recency) but also in the continuous-distractor task (ie., long-term recency) has led many theorists to reject the distinction between short- and long-term memory stores. Recently, we have argued that long-term recency effects do not undermine the concept of a short-term store, and we have presented a neurocomputational model that accounts for both short- and long-term recency and for a series of dissociations between these two effects. Here, we present a new dissociation between short- and long-term recency based on semantic similarity, which is predicted by our model. This dissociation is due to the mutual support between associated items in the short-term store, which takes place in immediate free recall and delayed free recall but not in continuous-distractor free recall.

Enhancement of Phonological Memory Following Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

Phonologically similar items (mell, rell, gell) are more difficult to remember than dissimilar items (shen, floy, stap), likely because of mutual interference of the items in the phonological store. Low-frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), guided by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to disrupt this phonological confusion by stimulation of the left inferior parietal (LIP) lobule. Subjects received TMS or placebo stimulation while remembering sets of phonologically similar or dissimilar pseudo-words. Consistent with behavioral performance of patients with neurological damage, memory for phonologically similar, but not dissimilar, items was enhanced following TMS relative to placebo stimulation. Stimulation of a control region of the brain did not produce any changes in memory performance. These results provide new insights into how the brain processes verbal information by establishing the necessity of the inferior parietal region for optimal phonological storage. A mechanism is proposed for how TMS reduces phonological confusion and leads to facilitation of phonological memory.

Economics of head injuries

Head injuries account for significant proportion of neurosurgical admissions and bed occupancy. Patients with head injuries also consume significant proportions of neurosurgical resources. A prospective 6-month study has been carried out to evaluate the expenditure incurred on head injury patients in a modern neurosurgical center equipped with state of the art infrastructure. Costing areas included wages / salaries of health care personnel, cost of medicines / surgical items / crystalloids, general store items, stationary, all investigation charges, equipment cost, overhead building cost, maintenance cost, electricity and water charges and cost of medical gases, air conditioning and operation theatre expenses. Expenditure in each area was calculated and apportioned to each bed. The statistical analysis was done using X2 test. The cost of stay in ward was found to be Rs. 1062 / bed / day and in neurosurgical ICU Rs. 3082 / bed / day. The operation theatre cost for each surgery was Rs. 11948. The cost of hospital stay per day for minor, moderate and severe head injury group was found to be Rs. 1921, Rs. 2569 and Rs. 2713 respectively. The patients who developed complications, the cost of stay per day in the hospital were Rs. 2867. In the operative group, the cost of hospital stay per day was Rs. 3804. The total expenditure in minor head injury was Rs. 7800 per patient, in moderate head injury was Rs. 22172 per patient, whereas in severe head injury, it was found to be Rs. 32852 per patient. Patients who underwent surgery, the total cost incurred was Rs. 33100 per operated patient.

Cross-modal processing in auditory and visual working memory

This study aimed to further explore processing of auditory and visual stimuli in working memory. Smith and Jonides (1997) [Smith, E.E., Jonides, J., 1997. Working memory: A view from neuroimaging. Cogn. Psychol. 33 , 5-42] described a modified working memory model in which visual input is automatically transformed into a phonological code. To study this process, auditory and the corresponding visual stimuli were presented in a variant of the 2-back task which involved changes from the auditory to the visual modality and vice versa. Brain activation patterns underlying visual and auditory processing as well as transformation mechanisms were analyzed. Results yielded a significant activation in the left primary auditory cortex associated with transformation of visual into auditory information which reflects the matching and recoding of a stored item and its modality. This finding yields empirical evidence for a transformation of visual input into a phonological code, with the auditory cortex as the neural correlate of the recoding process in working memory.

Understanding Customer Needs in Designing Automotive Center Consoles

This paper presents results of two studies conducted to determine customer needs in designing future center console designs for automotive products. The first study involved an observational survey of 150 vehicles in three parking lots to determine what items people store in their vehicles and the item locations. The data obtained from the survey provided a list of all the stored items, their distribution and their locations inside the vehicle. Papers, bottles, cups, books, bags and sunglasses were most frequently observed items in the vehicles. The second study was conducted to determine storage preferences of items in the center console. A foam-core center console with velcro surfaces was built inside a minivan. Thirty-six drivers were asked to select items that they would carry most often in their vehicles and place them on the center console surfaces. The resulting layouts of stored items were summarized. The summary data were provided to four teams of industrial design and engineering students to create design concepts for future automotive center consoles.

Storage Bins: Mobile Storage for Collaborative Tabletop Displays

The ability to store resource items anywhere in the workspace and move them around can be critical for coordinating task and group interactions on a table. However, existing casual storage techniques for digital workspaces only provide access to stored items at the periphery of the workspace, potentially compromising collaborative interactions at a digital tabletop display. To facilitate this storage behavior in a digital tabletop workspace, we developed the storage bin mobile storage mechanism, which combines the space-preserving features of existing peripheral storage mechanisms with the capability to relocate stored items in the workspace. A user study explores the utility of storage bins on tabletop display collaboration.

Supermarket access and consumer well‐being

PurposeTo extend the research stream that, in the UK and USA has linked supermarket access to consumer diet by focusing on Pathmark, a supermarket chain that operates in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City.Design/methodology/approachThe paper examines the square footage allocated to fresh produce, fish, meats, snack foods, soft drinks and similar items in Pathmark's Harlem store, and the pricing and promotion of those various foods. It also reviews news accounts of the controversy leading to the selection of Pathmark as the operator of a second store in Harlem.FindingsThe allocation of space to nutritious foods and to those with minimal nutritional value as well as the pricing and promotion of those goods at the Pathmark Harlem store is similar to that of suburban supermarkets. The debate over the second supermarket in Harlem further shows that community leaders, food activists, and neighborhood residents recognize that large chain supermarkets may be uniquely positioned to improve access to healthy foods in lower‐income urban areas.Research limitations/implicationsThe study examines only one chain in one US city.Originality/valueThe paper uses retail space allocation rather than self‐report data to consider the likely impact of the availability of nutritious foods on shoppers' diets. It also supports growing beliefs that large chains as well as small entrepreneurs may play important roles in urban regeneration.

Economic order quantity models for ameliorating/deteriorating items under inflation and time discounting

The items that incur a gradual loss in quality or quantity over time while in inventory are usually called deteriorating items. In reality, there are some items whose value or utility or quantity increase with time and those items can be termed as ameliorating items. In this paper, an effort has been made to incorporate these two opposite physical characteristics of stored items into inventory model. We develop models for ameliorating/deteriorating items with time-varying demand pattern over a finite planning horizon, taking into account the effects of inflation and time value of money. Optimal solutions of the proposed models are derived and the effects of amelioration/deterioration on the inventory replenishment policies are studied with the help of numerical examples.