Amongst volatile compounds (VCs) present in exhaled breath, ammonia has held great promise and yet it has confounded researchers due to its inherent reactivity. Herein we have evaluated various factors in both breath instrumentation and the breath collection process in an effort to reduce variability. We found that the temperature of breath sampler and breath sensor, mouth rinse pH, and mode of...

Optimal sperm cryopreservation is a prerequisite for the sustainable commercial application of frozen-thawed boar semen for AI. Three experiments were performed to identify factors influencing variability of postthaw sperm survival among 464 boar ejaculates. Sperm-rich ejaculate fractions were cryopre-served using a standard freezing-thawing procedure for 0.5-mL plastic straws and computer-cont...

Searching for the influencing factors on team decision-making quality is the hot issue in academic circles and business circles. Based on summarizing the main influencing factors on team decision-making quality, this thesis divides the main influencing factors into team composition factors and team process factors and researches the internal relationship between them. Targeted at the field deci...

Ultimate pH (pHu) of pork is a major quality determinant. Higher pHu is associated with darker color (Kauffman et al., 1993). A lower pHu is associated with higher drip loss (Kauffman et al., 1993). Pale, soft, exudative (PSE) and red, soft, exudative (RSE) pork is undesirable because it has a low water-holding capacity. At pHu above 5.7, PSE and RSE pork quality problems do not occur (Fernande...

In contemporary societies there is a growing need to coordinate and legitimize different perspectives. Instead of a dialogical search for consensus polarizing communication still prevails. The legitimacy of formal political institutions and conventional forms of political participation is in decline; increasingly publicly expressed people’s need for a greater influence on social developments re...

The steroid hormone vitamin D is required for normal calcium and phosphorus metabolism and is thus an important contributor to musculoskeletal health. Recent data have linked low vitamin D levels to a wide range of diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disease and infection. Adequate levels of vitamin D are maintained through its cutaneous photosynthesis and oral ingest...

Over the years, the emergence of innovative and revolutionary integration technologies (e.g. Enterprise Application Integration [EAI], Service Oriented Architecture [SOA] and more recently – Cloud Computing) has highly influenced the top management in their decision-making process – decisions that are imperative to transform Local Government Authorities (LGAs). LGAs that plan to adopt such inte...

Following the launch of a publicly funded influenza immunization program for all residents of Ontario over the age of 6 months, we evaluated 203 parents of children who presented to our emergency department between January and March of the following year (2001). Overall, 54 (27%) of the children had been vaccinated. Parents of non-immunized children were more likely to believe that immunization...

According to recent findings that beside cancers traditionally considered as hormone-dependent, several other tumor types show different behavior in the two sexes, indicating the possible role of endocrine factors in the course of these diseases. The possibility that endocrine factors may influence the clinical course of human malignant melanoma is suggested by the higher survival rate in preme...

Plentiful data from both animal and human studies support the importance of genetic influences in substance abuse and dependence (Bierut et al., 1998; Tsuang et al., 1998; Kendler et al., 2003). This review summarizes the evidence supporting such genetic influences, places them into perspective regarding animal and human studies, discusses the importance of both genes and environment, and highl...