Adult articular cartilage exhibits little capacity for intrinsic repair, and thus even minor injuries or lesions may lead to progressive damage and osteoarthritic joint degeneration, resulting in significant pain and disability. While there have been numerous attempts to develop tissue-engineered grafts or patches to repair focal chondral and osteochondral defects, there remain significant challenges in the clinical application of cell-based therapies for cartilage repair. This paper reviews the current state of cartilage tissue engineering with respect to different cell sources and their potential genetic modification, biomaterial scaffolds and growth factors, as well as preclinical testing in various animal models. This is not intended as a systematic review, rather an opinion of where the field is moving in light of current literature. While significant advances have been made in recent years, the complexity of this problem suggests that a multidisciplinary approach -combining a clinical perspective with expertise in cell biology, biomechanics, biomaterials science and high-throughput analysis will likely be necessary to address the challenge of developing functional cartilage replacements. With this approach we are more likely to realise the clinical goal of treating both focal defects and even large-scale osteoarthritic degenerative changes in the joint.
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore different levels of place-based marketing in the form of region of origin strategies used by wineries in their branding efforts. The overall aim is to obtain insights into wine consumer dynamics such as product involvement level, consumption frequency and differences between segments on the basis of gender and age from a regional branding perspective. Design/methodology/approach -Data collection took place by means of a highly-structured online survey of wine consumers across the USA. The request to participate was directed to legal wine drinking age people of 21 years and older to 9,922 e-mail boxes that yielded a response rate of 5.7 percent, finally resulting in 570 usable surveys. Findings -Consumers used regional branding cues, information and images in their assessment and valuation of comparative wine labels. Almost without exception, the addition of regional information on a wine label increased consumer confidence in the quality of the product. Research limitations/implications -Any follow-on work to the study should also include a broader sampling of consumer types throughout the USA and comparisons made with the study to assess the validity of generalising the results here. Practical implications -Regional branding efforts should be targeted at high wine product involvement consumers rather than their low involvement counterparts, as high involvement consumers are likely to be more influenced by brand-based cues. Originality/value -The paper is of value to academic readers, wine industry practitioners and regional trade and tourism associations and other commercial entities that market their products with regional branding cues.
In Lake Superior there are three principal forms of lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush): lean, siscowet and humper. Wild lean and siscowet differ in the shape and relative size of the head, size of the fins, location and size of the eyes, caudal peduncle shape and lipid content of the musculature. To investigate the basis for these phenotypic differences, lean and siscowet lake trout, derived from gametes of wild populations in Lake Superior, were reared communally under identical environmental conditions for 2.5 years. Fish were analysed for growth, morphometry and lipid content, and differences in liver transcriptomics were investigated using Roche 454 GS-FLX pyrosequencing. The results demonstrate that key phenotypic differences between wild lean and siscowet lake trout such as condition factor, morphometry and lipid levels, persist in these two forms when reared in the laboratory under identical environmental conditions. This strongly suggests that these differences are genetic and not a result of environmental plasticity. Transcriptomic analysis involving the comparison of hepatic gene frequencies (RNAseq) and expression (quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)) between the two lake trout forms, indicated two primary gene groups that were differentially expressed; those involving lipid synthesis, metabolism and transport (acylCoA desaturase, acyl-CoA binding protein, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma, and apolipoproteins), and those involved with immunity (complement component C3, proteasome, FK506 binding protein 5 and C1q proteins). The results demonstrate that RNA-seq can be used to identify differentially expressed genes; however, some discrepancies between RNA-seq analysis and qPCR indicate that methods for deep sequencing may need to be refined and ⁄ or different RNA-seq platforms utilized.
Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to examine the consumer use of geographical information in the wine purchase decision. Consumers often rely upon the place of origin of a wine product in order to assess its quality. This research examines the importance of place-of-origin information and what level of place is meaningful to consumers, as well as which consumers utilize that information. Design/methodology/approach-Data collection took place by means of a highly structured online survey of 409 geographically dispersed wine consumers across the USA. Respondents were recruited by Survey Sampling International and screened for at least occasional wine consumption. Findings-Brand and place-of-origin information such as region, country and state were the most important attributes in the consumers' choice of a wine. One type of geographical indicator, appellation, was not well utilized. Core wine consumers and those with greater expertise utilized place-of-origin cues to a greater extent than less frequent and less knowledgeable consumers. Research limitations/implications-The study sample represents US wine drinkers and should not be taken as a general population sample. Potential respondents were required to have consumed at least one bottle in the last year in order to take the survey. The non-probability sample includes participants from 46 states, 189 of whom are male and 211 are female. Practical implications-Wineries in established regions should increase their efforts to promote regional identity at the county, state and national level, to enhance their existing product images. Regional information is more heavily utilized by consumers than appellation information, which allows producers to take advantage of pre-existing levels of awareness. This research suggests that marketers develop strategies to increase sales that emphasize larger regions such as county or state rather than appellations. Originality/value-This paper is of value to academic readers, wine industry practitioners and regional trade and tourism associations and other commercial entities that market their products with regional cues. The geographically dispersed sample provides results that generalize well to the wine consuming public.
This paper discusses the economic analysis and environmental impacts of integrating a photovoltaic (PV) array into diesel-electric power systems for remote villages. MATLAB Simulink is used to match the load with the demand and apportion the electrical production between the PV and diesel-electric generator. The economic part of the model calculates the fuel consumed, the kilowatthours obtained per gallon of fuel supplied, and the total cost of fuel. The environmental part of the model calculates the 2 , particulate matter (PM), and the x emitted to the atmosphere. Simulations based on an actual system in the remote Alaskan community of Lime Village were performed for three cases: 1) diesel only; 2) diesel-battery; and 3) PV with diesel-battery using a one-year time period. The simulation results were utilized to calculate the energy payback, the simple payback time for the PV module, and the avoided costs of 2 , x , and PM. Post-simulation analysis includes the comparison of results with those predicted by Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables (HOMER). The life-cycle cost (LCC) and air emissions results of our Simulink model were comparable to those predicted by HOMER.Index Terms-Energy payback period, greenhouse emissions, hybrid power system, photovoltaic (PV) array, power system monitoring, remote terminal unit.
Limited information is available on digestibility of nutrients in various practical ingredients used in diets for commercially important finfish species, such as hybrid striped bass. This information is especially needed for sunshine bass, Morone chrysops 3 M. saxatilis, to improve least-cost diet formulations and to allow effective substitution of feedstuffs. A study was conducted with large (867 g) sunshine bass to determine the apparent digestibility coefficients (ADCs) for moisture, protein, lipid, and organic matter (OM) in a variety of ingredients in floating, extrusion-processed, diets. The practical ingredients tested were menhaden (MEN) fish meal (FM), anchovy (ANCH) FM, pet-food grade poultry by-product meal, feed-grade poultry by-product meal, dehulled soybean meal (SBM), and distiller's dried grains with solubles (DDGS). Test diets consisted of a 70:30 mixture of reference diet to test ingredient with chromic oxide (1.0%) as the inert marker. Reference and test diet ingredients were mixed and extruded on a Wenger X85 single-screw extruder to produce floating pellets. The digestibility trials were conducted in twelve 1200-L circular tanks. Diets were randomly assigned to tanks of 30 sunshine bass and were fed once daily to satiation. Protein digestibility coefficients were significantly (P , 0.05) different among test ingredients and ranged from 86.42% for MEN to 64.94% for DDGS. Lipid ADCs were significantly different (P , 0.05) among test ingredients and ranged from 92.14% for MEN to 57.11% for SBM. OM ADCs were significantly different (P , 0.05) among test ingredients and ranged from 89.41% for MEN to 16.94% for DDGS. This information will assist in the formulation of more efficient, economical diets for sunshine bass.
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