Purpose This paper aims to investigate the impact of three critical dimensions of supply chain resilience, supply chain preparedness, supply chain alertness and supply chain agility, all aimed at increasing a firm’s financial outcomes. In a turbulent environment, firms require resilience in their supply chains to prepare for potential changes, detect changes and respond to actual changes, thus providing superior value. Design/methodology/approach Using survey data from 77 firms, this study develops scales for preparedness, alertness and agility. It then tests their hypothesized relationships with a firm’s financial performance. Findings The results reveal that the three dimensions of supply chain resilience (i.e. preparedness, alertness and agility) significantly impact a firm’s financial performance. It is also found that supply chain preparedness, as a proactive resilience capability, has a greater influence on a firm’s financial performance than the reactive capabilities including alertness and agility, suggesting that firms should pay more attention to proactive approaches for building supply chain resilience. Originality/value First, this study develops a comparatively comprehensive definition for supply chain resilience and explores its dimensionality. Second, this study provides empirically validated instruments for the dimensions of supply chain resilience. Third, this study is one of the first to provide empirical evidence for direct impact of supply chain resilience dimensions on a firm’s financial performance.

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A diode-like artificial ionic skin for strain and humidity sensing with controlled ion mobility, high toughness, stretchability, ambient stability and transparency.

Natural microbiota plays an essential role in flavor compounds used in traditional food fermentation; however, the fluctuation in natural microbiota results in inconsistency in food quality. Thus, it is critical to reveal the core microbiota for flavor compound production and to construct a synthetic core microbiota for use in constant food fermentation. Here, we reveal the core microbiota based on their flavor production and cooccurrence performance, using Chinese light-aroma-type liquor as a model system. Five genera, Lactobacillus, Saccharomyces, Pichia, Geotrichum, and Candida, were identified to be the core microbiota. The synthetic core microbiota of these five genera presented a reproducible dynamic profile similar to that in the natural microbiota. A Monte Carlo test showed that the effects of five environmental factors (lactic acid, ethanol, and acetic acid contents, moisture, and pH) on the synthetic microbiota distribution were highly significant (P Ͻ 0.01), similar to those effects on a natural fermentation system. In addition, 77.27% of the flavor compounds produced by the synthetic core microbiota showed a similar dynamic profile ( Ͼ 0) with that in the natural liquor fermentation process, and the flavor profile presented a similar composition. It indicated that the synthetic core microbiota is efficient for reproducible flavor metabolism. This work established a method for identifying core microbiota and constructing a synthetic microbiota for reproducible flavor compounds. This work is of great significance for the tractable and constant production of various fermented foods. IMPORTANCE The transformation from natural fermentation to synthetic fermentation is essential in constructing a constant food fermentation process, which is the premise for stably making high-quality food. According to flavor-producing and cooccurring functions in dominant microbes, we provided a system-level approach to identify the core microbiota in Chinese light-aroma-type liquor fermentation. In addition, we successfully constructed a synthetic core microbiota to simulate the microbial community succession and flavor compound production in the in vitro system. The constructed synthetic core microbiota could not only facilitate a mechanistic understanding of the structure and function of the microbiota but also be beneficial for constructing a tractable and reproducible food fermentation process.

The Bacillus subtilis GlmR (formerly YvcK) protein is essential for growth on gluconeogenic carbon sources. Mutants lacking GlmR display a variety of phenotypes suggestive of impaired cell wall synthesis including antibiotic sensitivity, aberrant cell morphology and lysis. To define the role of GlmR, we selected suppressor mutations that ameliorate the sensitivity of a glmR null mutant to the beta-lactam antibiotic cefuroxime or restore growth on gluconeogenic carbon sources. Several of the resulting suppressors increase the expression of the GlmS and GlmM proteins that catalyze the first two committed steps in the diversion of carbon from central carbon metabolism into peptidoglycan biosynthesis. Chemical complementation studies indicate that the absence of GlmR can be overcome by provision of cells with N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc), even under conditions where GlcNAc cannot re-enter central metabolism and serve as a carbon source for growth. Our results indicate that GlmR facilitates the diversion of carbon from the central metabolite fructose-6-phosphate, which is limiting in cells growing on gluconeogenic carbon sources, into peptidoglycan biosynthesis. Our data suggest that GlmR stimulates GlmS activity, and we propose that this activation is antagonized by the known GlmR ligand and peptidoglycan intermediate UDP-GlcNAc. Thus, GlmR presides over a new mechanism for the regulation of carbon partitioning between central metabolism and peptidoglycan biosynthesis.

In order to synthesize the extensively studied place identities and their meanings, this paper reviews how researchers have conceived and deconstructed place identity. CiteSpace, a scientometric tool for visualizing and analyzing trends and patterns in scientific literature, is used to identify the active topics and new developments of publications in place identity. The data set input into CiteSpace consists of 1,011 bibliographic records retrieved from the core database of Web of Science with a title search of the articles published between 1985 and July 2019. The scientometric review reveals the extensive applications of place identity in various topics. Studies in this field experienced an active exploration in plural disciplines after 2000, and the hot area gradually concentrated on the discipline of humanities and social sciences after 2010 and shifted toward place marketing until now. A network of co-cited references identified seven dominant research clusters, of which the research on the influence of place identity on social actors' attitudes and behaviors is most prominent and the research on the effects of physical environment change on place identity captures the latest emerging area. Versatile meanings of place identity are witnessed in different clusters and articles of a cluster. These meanings are intertwined in shaping the knowledge base of thematic concentrations. To supplement the scientometric analysis, a deep survey on measuring methods and roles of place identity in the contents of academic articles was done to trace knowledge connections between different empirical understandings of place identity. Finally, this paper summarizes the meanings of place identity in four dimensions and in turn offers some suggestions for further research directions.

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Selection of a starter culture with excellent viability and metabolic activity is important for inoculated fermentation of traditional food. To obtain a suitable starter culture for making Chinese sesame-flavored liquor, the yeast and bacterium community structures were investigated during spontaneous and solid-state fermentations of this type of liquor. Five dominant species in spontaneous fermentation were identified: Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Pichia membranaefaciens, Issatchenkia orientalis, Bacillus licheniformis, and Bacillus amyloliquefaciens. The metabolic activity of each species in mixed and inoculated fermentations of liquor was investigated in 14 different cocultures that used different combinations of these species. The relationships between the microbial species and volatile metabolites were analyzed by partial least-squares (PLS) regression analysis. We found that S. cerevisiae was positively correlated to nonanal, and B. licheniformis was positively associated with 2,3-butanediol, isobutyric acid, guaiacol, and 4-vinyl guaiacol, while I. orientalis was positively correlated to butyric acid, isovaleric acid, hexanoic acid, and 2,3-butanediol. These three species are excellent flavor producers for Chinese liquor. Although P. membranaefaciens and B. amyloliquefaciens were not efficient flavor producers, the addition of them alleviated competition among the other three species and altered their growth rates and flavor production. As a result, the coculture of all five dominant species produced the largest amount of flavor compounds. The result indicates that flavor producers and microbial interaction regulators are important for inoculated fermentation of Chinese sesame-flavored liquor.