Application of TOPSIS to evaluate the effects of different conditions of sonication on eggless cake properties, structure, and mass transfer

A comparative evaluation of child health care in China using multicriteria decision analysis methods

Child health is an important public health issue in China and the Chinese government always attached great importance to child health care. With the implementation of a series of medical and health reforms in China in recent decades, the status of child health improved year by year. Objectives This study aims to comprehensively evaluate if the measures implemented in the medical and health reforms effectively promoted the development of Chinese child health care in recent years and provide theoretical support for future decision-making on the policies of child health care in China. Methods A total of six indicators were selected from the China Health Statistics Yearbook. Based on the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) algorithm, three different evaluation methods were applied in the study, which are the weighted technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) method, the weighted rank-sum ratio (RSR) method, and the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE). Each indicator's weight was calculated by the entropy weight methods objectively. The sensitivity analysis was conducted to validate the stability and accuracy of the rank results. Results The results indicated that the rank values of each year's child health care calculated by the different evaluation methods were not exactly the same, but the overall trend is consistent which is that child health care in China improved year by year from 2000 to 2020. The top 5 were ranked from 2016-2020 and the bottom 5 were ranked from 2000-2004. Conclusions The results indicated that the policies and measures implemented in the medical and health reforms, as well as improved sanitation conditions, availability of healthy food and water, etc., have jointly promoted the development of child health care in China in the past 20 years, providing a scientific theoretical basis for future policy-making to promote child health care.

Synergism of selective thermal denaturation and glycosylation improves quality characteristics of green soybean tofu

BACKGROUND

Tofu is rich in nutrients and contains high-quality protein. However, commercial tofu products usually have weak gel strength and low water holding capacity (WHC). In the present study, the effects of selective thermal denaturation (STD) time (0-20 min, 5-min interval; 85 °C) and glycosylation (100 °C; 0, 10 and 20 g kg-1 glucose) on the quality characteristics of green soybean tofu were studied through by the evaluation method of the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) model for the best synergism condition of STD and glycosylation.

RESULTS

Compared to STD or glycosylation, combination treatment of STD and glycosylation improved hardness, WHC, yield, protein and fat contents of green soybean tofu. Furthermore, the gel strength, WHC, yield, protein and fat contents of tofu was increased by 135.21%, 20.18%, 12.21%, 24.91%, 44.15% compared to untreated tofu. Meanwhile, synergistic treatment of STD and glycosylation significantly improved microstructure network structure of green soybean tofu and made it more homogeneous and denser. However, the green soybean tofu was faded and turned yellow under the combination of the STD and glycosylation.

CONCLUSION

The results obtained through TOPSIS showed that the combination of thermal treatment (85 °C for 15 min) and glycosylation (20 g kg-1 glucose at 100 °C) had the greatest improvement in the characteristics of green soybean tofu. Hence, the combination treatment of STD and glycosylation should be useful for improving the quality characteristics of green soybean tofu and providing the technical references for industrial processing of tofu. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.

Egg-free low-fat mayonnaise from virgin coconut oil

Introduction. Mayonnaise is a widely consumed product all over the world. Nowadays, the number of vegetarians, egg allergy cases, and heart diseases are increasing. This makes manufacturers develop alternatives. The research objective was to select the optimal concentration of emulsifiers for egg-free mayonnaise made from virgin coconut oil. Study objects and methods. We produced 20 egg-free mayonnaise samples with different amounts of emulsifiers. We also determined physicochemical properties of the samples, as well as performed proximate and statistical analyses. Results and discussion. The response surface methodology made it possible to define such parameters as viscosity, stability, and firmness as affected by the following concentrations: cashew nut protein isolates – 5–15%, xanthan gum – 0–1%, and modified starch – 0–0.5%. The optimal values of emulsifiers were obtained as follows: cashew nut protein isolates – 13 g, xanthan gum – 1.0 g, and modified starch – 0.4 g. The optimized mayonnaise had the following parameters: viscosity – 120.2 mPa·s, stability – 98.7%, and firmness – 25 g. The study revealed no significant differences (P > 0.05) between the actual and predicted data, which confirmed the efficiency of the suggested models. Conclusion. The obtained low-fat egg-free mayonnaise was relatively similar to the traditional commercial products. However, virgin coconut oil should be emulsified with a combination of cashew nut protein isolates, modified starch, and xanthan gum.

An integrated model for evaluation of maternal health care in China

In recent years, in the context of China’s continuous medical and health reforms, the health status of Chinese women and children has been significantly improved through the continuous efforts of staff at all levels of maternal and child health care institutions. Many indicators in maternal health care have improved significantly, but the speed and magnitude of changes have varied. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the dynamic changes in China’s maternal health status from 2004 to 2018, in order to determine whether China’s medical and health reform measures in recent years have improved maternal health. A total of 6 evaluation indicators from the data of China Health Statistics Yearbook 2019 were selected. Then, based on the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDA) methodology, the entropy weighted technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS), entropy weighted rank-sum ratio (RSR) method and the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation were employed in this study. In addition, sensitivity analysis was engaged to validate the stability and accuracy of the achieved results. The study results shows the ranking values of various methods were not exactly the same, but the overall trend was consistent. Overall, the maternal health care in China improved from 2004 to 2018 year by year, of which the top four were ranked from 2015 to 2018, and relatively poor from 2004 to 2006. This means that the policies and measures implemented in China’s medical and health reform in the past few decades have effectively promoted China’s maternal health care, and this will also provide a theoretical basis for future decisions to promote maternal health care.