Making Full Use of Qualitative Data to Generate New Fish Product Ideas through Co-Creation with Consumers: A Methodological Approach

Co-creation is a process that directly involves different stakeholders in the idea generation phase of a new product development process. A pool of 112 new aquaculture fish product ideas was obtained by applying a combination of creative and projective techniques to the co-creation process with consumers in six focus groups conducted in three European countries (Germany, France, and Spain). The subjectivity of qualitative data analysis (e.g., focus groups) is one of its recognised disadvantages. To overcome this drawback, a combination of specialised software (i.e., Alceste), along with word frequency, co-occurrence, and context checking, was applied to provide a different approach to data analyses in qualitative studies. The method identified the most salient dimensions behind the participants’ discourse (naturalness, quality, ethics, price, and health) and inferred the importance those dimensions had for them, thus proving the existence of a correlation of 0.7 between what the participants said (frequency of mention) and what they liked the most (importance). Overall, the exploratory approach proposed is deemed useful for drawing key conclusions from qualitative research, thus offering an alternative to traditional content analysis. In future, the results obtained may be useful for selecting the co-created ideas with the greatest potential to be well received in the market.

Influence of hydration on the dynamics of lysozyme

Quasielastic neutron and light-scattering techniques along with molecular dynamics simulations were employed to study the influence of hydration on the internal dynamics of lysozyme. We identified three major relaxation processes that contribute to the observed dynamics in the picosecond to nanosecond time range: 1), fluctuations of methyl groups; 2), fast picosecond relaxation; and 3), a slow relaxation process. A low-temperature onset of anharmonicity at T approximately 100 K is ascribed to methyl-group dynamics that is not sensitive to hydration level. The increase of hydration level seems to first increase the fast relaxation process and then activate the slow relaxation process at h approximately 0.2. The quasielastic scattering intensity associated with the slow process increases sharply with an increase of hydration to above h approximately 0.2. Activation of the slow process is responsible for the dynamical transition at T approximately 200 K. The dependence of the slow process on hydration correlates with the hydration dependence of the enzymatic activity of lysozyme, whereas the dependence of the fast process seems to correlate with the hydration dependence of hydrogen exchange of lysozyme.

Protein and solvent dynamics: How strongly are they coupled?

Analysis of Raman and neutron scattering spectra of lysozyme demonstrates that the protein dynamics follow the dynamics of the solvents glycerol and trehalose over the entire temperature range measured 100-350 K. The protein's fast conformational fluctuations and low-frequency vibrations and their temperature variations are very sensitive to behavior of the solvents. Our results give insight into previous counterintuitive observations that protein relaxation is stronger in solid trehalose than in liquid glycerol. They also provide insight into the effectiveness of glycerol as a biological cryopreservant.

Structural study of the low-temperature phase of TlH2PO4 at 180 K

The low-temperature phase of TlH(2)PO(4) has been studied by X-ray diffraction. A structural model is proposed with space group P1. This model is compared with the structure of the antiferroelectric phase of TlD(2)PO(4) at room temperature to analyze the expected isomorphism at low temperature. Given the structural distortion of TlH(2)PO(4), such isomorphism present in the common high-temperature phase is not recovered in this phase. Through the analysis of the displacements of the PO(4) groups there is some evidence that the ordering of the H atoms responsible for the appearance of antiferroelectricity seems to be incomplete. An exhaustive study of the detected ferroelastic domains is also performed.

Average structure of the composite crystal urea/octanedioic acid at room temperature within the superspace formalism

The average structure of the composite urea/octanedioic acid has been refined using the superspace formalism [superspace group H'3(1)21(00gamma)001;]. Modulation effects seem to be almost negligible. The guest substructure appears to be largely disordered and has been modelled using rigid units occupying 12 equiprobable different orientations inside the urea tunnels. Guest molecules are slightly tilted with respect to the tunnel axis favouring a stronger guest-guest intratunnel interaction.

Superspace description of the structure of the composite crystal urea/n-octane at room temperature

A structural model for the composite crystal urea/n-octane is proposed. Despite the lack of information from the largely disordered guest substructure, the final model is consistent with the collected diffraction pattern. The use of the superspace approach stresses the composite character of the inclusion compounds and makes easier a unified view of the whole urea/n-alkane family. In particular, a comparison between the octane and heptadecane derivatives shows a common pattern for the origin of the modulation of the guest chains based on the distribution of the NH(2) groups within each tunnel wall.

[Cystic angiomatosis of bone with hematologic involvement. Report of a case]

A case of cystic angiomatosis of bone without visceral involvement is presented. Lesions were noted in: skull, ribs, pelvis, long bones and phalanges. Besides clinical and radiological findings, the case, associates pancytopenia and coagulation disorders. The possibility of a bone marrow failure due to invasion of marrow by cystic angiomas and localized intravascular coagulation are discussed as cause of hematologic alterations.