Hasil untuk "Home economics"

Sojeong Yun, Youn-kyung Lim

The advancement of Vision-Language Model (VLM) camera sensors, which enable autonomous understanding of household situations without user intervention, has the potential to completely transform the DIY smart home building experience. Will this simplify or complicate the DIY smart home process? Additionally, what features do users want to create using these sensors? To explore this, we conducted a three-week diary-based experience prototyping study with 12 participants. Participants recorded their daily activities, used GPT to analyze the images, and manually customized and tested smart home features based on the analysis. The study revealed three key findings: (1) participants' expectations for VLM camera-based smart homes, (2) the impact of VLM camera sensor characteristics on the DIY process, and (3) users' concerns. Through the findings of this study, we propose design implications to support the DIY smart home building process with VLM camera sensors, and discuss living with intelligence.

Cesar A. Hidalgo, Viktor Stojkoski

We develop a dynamic model of economic complexity that endogenously generates a transition between unconditional and conditional convergence. In this model, convergence turns conditional as the capability intensity of activities rises. We solve the model analytically, deriving closed-form solutions for the boundary separating unconditional from conditional convergence and show that this model also explains the path-dependent diversification process known as the principle of relatedness. This model provides an explanation for transitions between conditional and unconditional convergence and path-dependent diversification.

Craig S Wright

The CAP theorem asserts a trilemma between consistency, availability, and partition tolerance. This paper introduces a rigorous automata-theoretic and economically grounded framework that reframes the CAP trade-off as a constraint optimization problem. We model distributed systems as partition-aware state machines and embed economic incentive layers to stabilize consensus behavior across adversarially partitioned networks. By incorporating game-theoretic mechanisms into the global transition semantics, we define provable bounds on convergence, liveness, and correctness. Our results demonstrate that availability and consistency can be simultaneously preserved within bounded epsilon margins, effectively extending the classical CAP limits through formal economic control.

Petra Fant, Juana C.C. Chagas, Mohammad Ramin

This study evaluated the effects of barley and four oat cultivars differing in lipid content, including one high-oil cultivar, and the replacement of rapeseed meal (RSM) with cold-pressed rapeseed cake (RSC), on in vitro ruminal fermentation, degradability, and methane (CH4) production. An in vitro gas production experiment was conducted using a 5 × 3 factorial arrangement of treatments with four 48-h runs. Treatments included a barley mixture [22.6 g crude fat/kg dry matter (DM)] and the oat cultivars Sonja, Niklas, Perttu, and the high-oil oat cultivar Fatima (41.2, 53.7, 58.5, and 81.2 g crude fat/kg DM, respectively), each combined with three levels of RSC (0, 50, and 100 % of protein feed). The basal diet consisted of grass silage (550 g/kg diet DM). Dynamic rumen models were applied to in vitro gas data to predict in vivo CH4 production. Predicted CH4 production (mL/g DM) was 8.3, 9.0, and 12.6 % lower, respectively, for Niklas, Perttu, and Fatima compared with barley (P ≤ 0.01), and was also lower for Fatima than for Sonja and Niklas (P ≤ 0.01). Replacing RSM with RSC linearly reduced predicted CH4 production by 4.3 % (P ≤ 0.01). In vitro ruminal DM and organic matter degradability were lower for all oat cultivars compared with barley (P ≤ 0.01), and further reduced for Perttu and Fatima compared with Sonja (P ≤ 0.04). Acetate proportion was higher for Sonja, Niklas, and Perttu than for barley and Fatima (P ≤ 0.02), while propionate was higher for Perttu and Fatima than for barley, at the expense of butyrate (P ≤ 0.02). In conclusion, high-oil oats and RSC each reduced predicted in vivo CH4, with additive effects when combined. However, high-oil oats also lowered in vitro ruminal degradability. Further in vivo studies are required to evaluate effects on digestibility, CH4 production, and animal performance.

Shasha Qi, Chengjie Hou, Honglei Tian et al.

To optimize the compatibility with target ingredients in food processing and ensure standardized application, it is essential to characterize thyme's volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from specific species and origins. In this study, 116 VOCs were identified in thyme samples from four main Chinese production regions by two-dimensional gas chromatography/time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC × GC-TOFMS). Among them, eight compounds- thymol (5.27 %–13.28 %), eucalyptol (9.25–12.23 %), thymoquinone (11.16–15.98 %), etc.- were identified as the most abundant constituents. Samples NX, WQ, JB, and NM were classified into different chemotypes: thymol/eucalyptol/thymoquinone/p-cymene, thymoquinone/eucalyptol/thymol, thymoquinone/eucalyptol/p-cymene, and thymoquinone/carvacrol/isoborneol, respectively. Forty odor-active compounds were determined through relative odor activity value (ROAV) analysis. Furthermore, the variable importance in projection (VIP) method was applied to identify 14 and 5 VOCs as potential markers for thyme volatility and odor activity, respectively. These findings provide a valuable reference for expanding the application of Chinese thyme as a culinary herb in the food processing industry.

Xianglong Ou, Yi Dai, Ting Huang et al.

Severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) is an abrupt inflammation of the pancreas, frequently associated with intestinal barrier injury. Chitosan oligosaccharides (COS) possess anti-inflammatory effects observed in multiple disease contexts. The protective effect of COS (200 mg/kg) was evaluated in a mouse model of SAP induced via intraperitoneal injection of cerulein (100 μg/kg) and lipopolysaccharide (5 mg/kg) in this study. The results shown that COS reduced serum amylase and lipase levels and alleviated pancreatic and ileal pathological damage in SAP mice. COS effectively diminished pancreatic and ileal pro-inflammatory cytokines levels (MCP-1, IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α), ileal cell apoptosis and intestinal permeability, and bacterial translocation as well. Moreover, COS administration restored the intestinal epithelial junction proteins expression (Claudin-1, Occludin, and ZO-1) and enhanced Paneth cell functional recovery. Mechanically, COS alleviated SAP-associated inflammatory response by suppressing the TLR4/NF-κB/NRLP3 pathway, which suggest that COS intervention may be a potential strategy to protect against SAP.

Monika Zimmermann, Florian Ziel

Accurate forecasts of the impact of spatial weather and pan-European socio-economic and political risks on hourly electricity demand for the mid-term horizon are crucial for strategic decision-making amidst the inherent uncertainty. Most importantly, these forecasts are essential for the operational management of power plants, ensuring supply security and grid stability, and in guiding energy trading and investment decisions. The primary challenge for this forecasting task lies in disentangling the multifaceted drivers of load, which include national deterministic (daily, weekly, annual, and holiday patterns) and national stochastic weather and autoregressive effects. Additionally, transnational stochastic socio-economic and political effects add further complexity, in particular, due to their non-stationarity. To address this challenge, we present an interpretable probabilistic mid-term forecasting model for the hourly load that captures, besides all deterministic effects, the various uncertainties in load. This model recognizes transnational dependencies across 24 European countries, with multivariate modeled socio-economic and political states and cross-country dependent forecasting. Built from interpretable Generalized Additive Models (GAMs), the model enables an analysis of the transmission of each incorporated effect to the hour-specific load. Our findings highlight the vulnerability of countries reliant on electric heating under extreme weather scenarios. This emphasizes the need for high-resolution forecasting of weather effects on pan-European electricity consumption especially in anticipation of widespread electric heating adoption.

Sunwoo Kim, Joungho Park, Jay H. Lee

In the global pursuit of sustainable energy solutions, mitigating carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions stands as a pivotal challenge. With escalating atmospheric CO2 levels, the imperative of direct air capture (DAC) systems becomes evident. Simultaneously, green hydrogen (GH) emerges as a pivotal medium for renewable energy. Nevertheless, the substantial expenses associated with these technologies impede widespread adoption, primarily due to significant installation costs and underutilized operational advantages when deployed independently. Integration through sector coupling enhances system efficiency and sustainability, while shared power sources and energy storage devices offer additional economic benefits. In this study, we assess the economic viability of polymer electrolyte membrane electrolyzers versus alkaline electrolyzers within the context of sector coupling. Our findings indicate that combining GH production with solid DAC systems yields significant economic advantages, with approximately a 10% improvement for PEM electrolyzers and a 20% enhancement for alkaline electrolyzers. These results highlight a substantial opportunity to improve the efficiency and economic viability of renewable energy and green hydrogen initiatives, thereby facilitating the broader adoption of cleaner technologies.

Aryan Eftekhari, Doris Folini, Aleksandra Friedl et al.

We introduce a framework for developing efficient and interpretable climate emulators (CEs) for economic models of climate change. The paper makes two main contributions. First, we propose a general framework for constructing carbon-cycle emulators (CCEs) for macroeconomic models. The framework is implemented as a generalized linear multi-reservoir (box) model that conserves key physical quantities and can be customized for specific applications. We consider three versions of the CCE, which we evaluate within a simple representative agent economic model: (i) a three-box setting comparable to DICE-2016, (ii) a four-box extension, and (iii) a four-box version that explicitly captures land-use change. While the three-box model reproduces benchmark results well and the fourth reservoir adds little, incorporating the impact of land-use change on the carbon storage capacity of the terrestrial biosphere substantially alters atmospheric carbon stocks, temperature trajectories, and the optimal mitigation path. Second, we investigate pattern-scaling techniques that transform global-mean temperature projections from CEs into spatially heterogeneous warming fields. We show how regional baseline climates, non-uniform warming, and the associated uncertainties propagate into economic damages.

Saeid Madadi-Barough, Pau Ruiz-Blanco, Jiadeng Lin et al.

The smart home is a major Internet of Things (IoT) application domain with tremendous market expectations. However, communication solutions for smart home devices have exhibited a lack of interoperability, challenging the success of the smart home concept. Aiming to overcome this problem, crucial industry organizations have collaborated to produce Matter, a connectivity solution intended as a universal smart home standard. This paper overviews, evaluates and discusses Matter, focusing on its design, features, performance, and future directions.

Kongtao Wei, Hang Xiang, Yaofeng Liu et al.

Medicago ruthenica is a promising leguminous forage crop due to its lack of saponins, which prevents bloat in livestock from excessive consumption. Legume/grass mixed cropping is an effective forage planting method widely used in agricultural and pastoral regions. However, there is a lack of research on using legume-grass mixed cropping to establish perennial, high-yield, and high-quality cultivated grasslands in the Longxi Loess Plateau. This study conducted a legume/grass intercropping experiment in the Longxi Loess Plateau region of northwestern China, using Medicago ruthenica and Bromus inermis. Experimental plots were established in 2021, with field sampling and laboratory analysis starting in 2022 and 2023, respectively. The research aimed to investigate the effects of intercropping Medicago ruthenica with Bromus inermis on forage yield and quality, and to determine the optimal intercropping ratios. The experiment tested various intercropping ratios of Medicago ruthenica and Bromus inermis in the fall (2:8, 3:7, 4:6, 5:5, 6:4, 7:3, 8:2), with sole crops of each species serving as controls. Results showed that, in the second and third years of mixed cropping, the forage yield under mixed cropping treatments was significantly higher than that of Medicago ruthenica and Bromus inermis monoculture, with increases of 40.89–70.88% and 13.97–38.22% in the second year, and 131.91–199.13% and 44.06–85.82% in the third year. When the legume proportion in the mixed cropping system was around 30%, competition between the two forages reached equilibrium, demonstrating the benefits of mixed cropping. The crude protein and ether extract content of mixed forage were significantly higher than those of monoculture, while the neutral detergent fiber and acid detergent fiber contents were significantly lower, indicating a higher feeding value for the mixed forage. The legume proportion was a key factor influencing the yield of mixed forage. In conclusion, a mixed planting ratio of Medicago ruthenica and Bromus inermis at 3:7 resulted in higher yield and nutritional quality, making it an optimal ratio for establishing cultivated forage fields in the Longxi Loess Plateau.

M Profe-Fuchsloch, N Koen, M Wicks

Objectives: A study was undertaken to describe South African dietitians and key role players’ perceptions regarding their role in reporting food labelling legislation transgressions.Design: A multimethod study design was employed to explore a previously unstudied topic.Setting: Dietitians registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) together with key role players in food labelling in South Africa.Methods: Quantitative data were collected using a self-administered electronic questionnaire and qualitative data using a semi-structured interview guide. Quantitative data were analysed using Microsoft Excel and qualitative data using ATLAS.ti software. Data were analysed independently in the results section but integrated for interpretation of the findings.Results: In total, only 6% (n = 7) of the included dietitians (n = 126) reported food labelling transgressions, and 12% (n = 15) believed dietitians have a role to play in reporting transgressions. Interestingly, half of the included dietitians (50%, n = 63) stated they would report an identified transgression. Dietitians demonstrated a lack of awareness of the current food labelling regulations, with 43% wrongly identifying the draft regulation to consult. Almost all (99%, n = 125) of the included dietitians reported that their transgression reporting practices would improve if a clear guideline from the Department of Health: Directorate Food Control (DoH DFC) was available. Key role players (n = 8) cited enforcement issues and a perceived gap in dietitians’ understanding of legislation and reporting processes as barriers to reporting non-compliance. Key role players identified enablers such as awareness of regulations, contacts within the DoH DFC and familiarity with the reporting process for transgressions. They also provided insight on the proper procedure for reporting food labelling transgressions.Conclusion: The low prevalence of food labelling transgression reporting by dietitians stems from several barriers, including a perceived lack of confidence regarding the current regulation, awareness of the applicable legislation, uncertainty regarding the correct reporting procedure and scepticism that transgression reports will be acted upon. Regular communication regarding food and nutrition regulations and the development of an easy-to-use transgression reporting framework could support the implementation and impact of food labelling regulations in South Africa.

Pedro M. Silva, Miguel A. Cerqueira, Lorenzo Pastrana et al.

Micro-nano encapsulation can be impactful in flavour masking of bioactives, and it has the potential to be used in the development of functional food ingredients.This work aimed to develop functional foods using emulsified resveratrol, assessing the impact of resveratrol addition and its consumer acceptance. Resveratrol-loaded emulsions were produced through high-speed homogenization/ultrasonication. Functional snacks (crackers and cookies) loading 4 mg resveratrol/g were developed using resveratrol-loaded emulsions and free resveratrol. Results showed that the incorporation of emulsified resveratrol in the dough led to an increase in its elasticity and a decrease in its consistency. Slight color differences were noticed between non-encapsulated resveratrol and reference samples. The texture of baked crackers and cookies showed a decrease in hardness for the emulsified cookies and an increase in the crackers.Sensory analysis was conducted with over one-hundred volunteers. For both products, the reference sample was the highest-rated sample in overall liking, followed by the emulsion-loaded sample and the unencapsulated resveratrol-loaded sample. Unencapsulated resveratrol-loaded and emulsion-loaded samples displayed an increase in bitterness when compared to the reference. The sensory analysis revealed a slight positive impact of the encapsulation of resveratrol versus the unencapsulated resveratrol. Nonetheless, further progress needs to be achieved to reduce resveratrol's impact.

Aldair A. Meza-Santiago, Maria Guadalupe Hernandez-Herrera, Erick A. Zuñiga-Estrada et al.

While fruit is a common ingredient in beer, our research takes a unique approach by studying the effects of pomegranate juice (PJ) on the physicochemical and nutraceutical characteristics of craft fruit beer. These properties have been studied in PJ and other beverages using pomegranate; however, there is insufficient information on fruit beer. PJ, known for its health benefits, was obtained by compressing the fruit in a manual press and characterizing it. The base beer, a blonde ale with two hops, Cascade (C) and Saaz (S), was used. PJ was added to the beer during the second and third fermentation steps. Beer quality was analyzed using ASBC methods: phenolic compounds, sugars, and ethanol content by HPLC, and antioxidant capacity by ORAC. PJ presented a pH of 3.8 and 14°Brix. The beer evaluated was the third fermentation beer called 3FC and 3FS; due to the type of hops used, in general, 3FS presented better physicochemical characteristics; the relevant result was alcohol content around 6.0%, but ethanol content by HPLC was 7.36% for 3FS and 7.19% for 3FC. PJ in phenolic compounds provides the beer with 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, epicatechin, and synaptic acid. However, the hop used influenced the phenolic profile of each beer. The antioxidant capacity of 3FC was higher at 19.75 mm ET/L. In conclusion, our study demonstrated that pomegranate juice in a fruit beer style provides good physicochemical and nutraceutical characteristics, offering a unique twist to the craft beer industry.

José Luis Sánchez-Hernández

Sustainable food networks involve different food supply arrangements which attempt to construct a more sustainable, democratic, and egalitarian food system. Since the concept appeared at the end of the 20th century (labelled as ‘alternative food networks’), two approaches have been employed to explore these initiatives. The ‘view of differences’ emphasizes alternativeness and opposition to the hegemonic food system, governed by large food production and retail firms. The ‘view of influences’ highlights the complex interactions between the mainstream food system and these more sustainable initiatives. As a result of these interactions, many sustainable food networks apply organizational practices similar to those of mainstream companies: this process has been called ‘hybridization’. The present article studies the process of hybridization in the sustainable food networks based in the Spanish provinces of Salamanca and Zamora (region of Castilla y León). An inventory of sustainable food initiatives across the region has been compiled and semi-structured interviews have been conducted with initiatives all along the food value chain. According to qualitative data recorded in the interviews, it is argued that the broad set of hybrid practices embodied in these sustainable food networks are legitimized by the members’ values because they contribute to achieving three key objectives: protecting the environment, promoting health, and fostering local development. These three goals frame an ‘inward’ notion of sustainability rooted on the product itself that is likely to turn these networks less transformative, but also more resilient against the competition of the mainstream companies.

Journal of Food Quality

Abdulelah ALGHAMDI, Asier BAQUERO, Hazem Ahmed KHAIRY et al.

Employees are crucial resources for organizations, and their job performance is highly important for their success, especially in the hotel industry. The study investigated the impact of social loafing (SL) on hotel employees' job performance (EJP), considering transactional leadership (TL) as a moderator. A total of 390 responses were gathered from full-time employees employed at 5-star hotels in Egypt. The data was analyzed using PLS-SEM software by WarpPLS 7.0. The study found that a negative effect exists between social loafing and employee job performance. In addition, transactional leadership has a negative effect on SL and a positive effect on EJP. Furthermore, TL has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between SL and EJP, the study indicates that TL weakens the negative relationship between SL and EJP. The study contributes to transactional leadership by recognizing and regulating negative job behaviors in modern organizational contexts, such as levels of workplace social loafing. The study highlights the importance of hotel premises in reducing social loafing in the workplace, highlighting the importance of incorporating ethical concepts with transactional leadership in fostering a healthy environment and improved job performance.

Jacob Smith

This paper presents a method for incorporating risk aversion into existing decision tree models used in economic evaluations. The method involves applying a probability weighting function based on rank dependent utility theory to reduced lotteries in the decision tree model. This adaptation embodies the fact that different decision makers can observe the same decision tree model structure but come to different conclusions about the optimal treatment. The proposed solution to this problem is to compensate risk-averse decision makers to use the efficient technology that they are reluctant to adopt.

Yuan Liao, Xinjie Ma, Andreas Neuhierl et al.

This paper addresses a key question in economic forecasting: does pure noise truly lack predictive power? Economists typically conduct variable selection to eliminate noises from predictors. Yet, we prove a compelling result that in most economic forecasts, the inclusion of noises in predictions yields greater benefits than its exclusion. Furthermore, if the total number of predictors is not sufficiently large, intentionally adding more noises yields superior forecast performance, outperforming benchmark predictors relying on dimension reduction. The intuition lies in economic predictive signals being densely distributed among regression coefficients, maintaining modest forecast bias while diversifying away overall variance, even when a significant proportion of predictors constitute pure noises. One of our empirical demonstrations shows that intentionally adding 300~6,000 pure noises to the Welch and Goyal (2008) dataset achieves a noteworthy 10% out-of-sample R square accuracy in forecasting the annual U.S. equity premium. The performance surpasses the majority of sophisticated machine learning models.

Nur Muhammad Mahi Shafiullah, Anant Rai, Haritheja Etukuru et al.

Throughout history, we have successfully integrated various machines into our homes. Dishwashers, laundry machines, stand mixers, and robot vacuums are a few recent examples. However, these machines excel at performing only a single task effectively. The concept of a "generalist machine" in homes - a domestic assistant that can adapt and learn from our needs, all while remaining cost-effective - has long been a goal in robotics that has been steadily pursued for decades. In this work, we initiate a large-scale effort towards this goal by introducing Dobb-E, an affordable yet versatile general-purpose system for learning robotic manipulation within household settings. Dobb-E can learn a new task with only five minutes of a user showing it how to do it, thanks to a demonstration collection tool ("The Stick") we built out of cheap parts and iPhones. We use the Stick to collect 13 hours of data in 22 homes of New York City, and train Home Pretrained Representations (HPR). Then, in a novel home environment, with five minutes of demonstrations and fifteen minutes of adapting the HPR model, we show that Dobb-E can reliably solve the task on the Stretch, a mobile robot readily available on the market. Across roughly 30 days of experimentation in homes of New York City and surrounding areas, we test our system in 10 homes, with a total of 109 tasks in different environments, and finally achieve a success rate of 81%. Beyond success percentages, our experiments reveal a plethora of unique challenges absent or ignored in lab robotics. These range from effects of strong shadows, to variable demonstration quality by non-expert users. With the hope of accelerating research on home robots, and eventually seeing robot butlers in every home, we open-source Dobb-E software stack and models, our data, and our hardware designs at https://dobb-e.com