Research on the useful mushroom was done at Aurora Memorial National Park (AMNP). The Park is situated in Central Luzon Region with a total land area of 5,676 hectares. AMNP has no distinct wet and dry season thus provides a favorable climate, which promotes the growth of useful mushrooms. The photo-documentation and collections were performed to assess diversity. Five Transect Lines (TL) were laid out in five areas, with 20m x 30m quadrat and interval of 100 meters between quadrats. The study resulted in the identification of 36 families, 53 genera, and 104 species of which 97 are basidiomycetes and 6 are ascomycetes. Simpson’s and Shannon diversity indexes resulted in 0.7254 and 1.4295, respectively. In both indexes, useful mushrooms at AMNP showed moderately diverse. While the evenness revealed 0.1565 indicating low species evenness in each TL. Among the significant findings revealed two new possible new species of Microporus and Cymatoderma.

The release profiles of nisin from nisin-incorporating gel foods and the antimicrobial activities of the gels on the growth of Brochothrix thermosphacta in an aqueous system containing the gels have been investigated. A linear regression model was applied to determine the diffusion coefficient (D) for the diffusion of nisin in the gel. The antimicrobial activities of nisin released from 1, 2 and 3% (w/v) agar gels on the growth of B. thermosphacta in a broth medium with and without nisin were investigated. The D decreased from 1.2×10 -2 to 8.2×10 -3 and 6.4×10 -3 cm 2 /s as the agar concentration in the gel increased from 1 to 2 and 3% (w/v), demonstrating the diffusion rate in the gels can be controlled by the agar concentration in gel. The agar gel incorporating nisin inhibited the B. thermosphacta growth in the broth medium by prolonging the lag phase. The growth inhibition was enhanced by the addition of nisin in the medium. The results of this study exhibited that the gel food is a feasible nisin delivery system with a controlled release achieved by the adjustment of agar concentration in the system, demonstrating the potential of nisin-incorporating gel for preserving particulate-containing drinks.

Strawberry jelly as a universal design food was developed using strawberry juice (SJ), sugar, xanthan gum (XG), and locust bean gum (LBG). Experimental variables included SJ concentration (30-40% (w/w)), sugar concentration (7.5-10.0% (w/w)), and the ratio of XG/LBG (0.3-4.0% (w/w)), and response variables were textural (hardness, gumminess, chewiness) and color properties. The formulation of strawberry jelly was optimized against hardness and the interactions among variables were predicted using the response surface methodology. Controlled storage test at 5 or 15°C was conducted to determine the values of the jelly at different temperatures. The optimal SJ and sugar concentrations and the ratio of XG/LBG against hardness were 40, 10, and 1.5%, respectively. The color did not change significantly during storage at 5 and 15°C (p>0.05). However, the textural characteristics during storage increased significantly at 5°C (p<0.05) and the hardness was appropriate to be used as a criterion for determining the shelf life of the jelly. The shelf life at 5°C generated from a zero-order kinetics (R²=0.96) was 40 d according to a criterial value, 1.8 N, of hardness. The Q10 value was calculated as 0.6, which allowed prediction of the shelf life values at different temperatures. The results from this study suggested a formulation of strawberry jelly as a universal design food and allowed determination of the shelf life of the food product.

Effects of dielectric barrier discharge atmospheric cold plasma (DACP) treatment on the inhibition of Salmonella and the storability of grape tomato were investigated. Grape tomatoes, with or without inoculation with a cocktail of three strains of Salmonella (~8 log CFU/g tomato), were packaged in a polyethylene terephthalate commercial clamshell container and cold plasma-treated at 35 kVat 1.1 kHz for 3 min using an DACP treatment system equipped with a pin-type high-voltage electrode. DACP treatment resulted in ~1 log CFU/tomato reduction of Salmonella, irrespectively of the size of container (316, 595vs. 758 cm3), the number of grape tomatoes in the container (3, 7, vs. 11), and the position of the tomato in the container(P > 0.05).Rolling integrated during treatment significantly increased the Salmonella reduction rates to 3.1±0.3 and 3.3±0.8 log CFU/tomato in the single-layer and double-layer configurations of the tomato samples in the container (992 cm3), respectively. Rolling-adopted DACP initially reduced the number of total mesophilic aerobes and yeast and molds in the double layer configuration of tomato samples by 1.3±0.3 and 1.5±0.2 log CFU/tomato, respectively, without altering the color and firmness of the tomatoes. The growth of Salmonella, total aerobes, and yeast and molds on DACP-treated grape tomatoes was effectively prevented during storage at 10 °C. DACP treatment did not influence the tomato color index (a*/b*), firmness, weight loss, pH, total soluble solid content, and lycopene concentration of grape tomatoes at 10 and 25 °C (P> 0.05). DACP treatment holds promise as a post-packaging process for improving microbial safety against Salmonella and storability of fresh grape tomatoes.

With the fast pace of technological change, the role of innovation on a firm’s survival has received increased scholarly attention. This study investigates the relationship between a firm’s strategic orientations, exploration and exploitation, on innovation activity. Also, the synergy effects of four types of innovation: product, process, marketing, and organizational innovation are examined with the consideration of the level of innovativeness and the firm’s industrial category. The OECD Oslo Manual (2005) and the standard of OECD (2011) classification are used as a main source to define four different types of innovation and the industry category into high-tech and low-tech. This study uses data from 856 firms taken from the Korea Innovation Survey (KIS) 2014 which is the Korean version of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS). Since most of the measures are composed of multiple items, their reliability and the underlying dimensions of each measure are tested by principal component analysis (PCA). Structural equation modeling (SEM) is then used to carry out a simultaneous test the relationships among the constructs. The moderating effects of marketing and organizational innovation are examined through multi group analysis. Results indicate that exploration and exploitation have positive impacts on the product innovation and process innovation respectively. Also, a new process encourages firms to develop radical product innovation. In case of the moderating effect of marketing and organizatioanl innovation, there are some differences between high-tech and low-tech industry. For high-tech firms, the positive relationship between a new product and firm performance is increased with the introduction of marketing innovation. In case of low-tech firms, process innovation has direct and positive impacts on a firm’s performance with organizational innovation. The findings show that the synergy effect of innovation exists and its significance could be changed depending on an industrial category.

A growing body of research has discovered that even the trivial attribute of similarity, that is, incidental similarity, will have significant favorable impact on initial social interactions (Burger et al. 2004; Guéguen, Pichot, and Le Dreff 2005; Jiang et al. 2010; Martin and Guéguen 2013). Incidental similarities are chance similarities between individuals, such as a shared first name or birthplace, which create a sense of association between two people (Burger et al. 2004). Prior research shows that people who perceive they share a birthday, first name, or similar fingerprints with a stranger are more likely to comply with the stranger’s request (Burger et al. 2004; Guéguen, et al. 2005) and are more willing to respond to the stranger’s questions on intimate topics (Martin and Guéguen 2013). Jiang et al. (2010) applied these findings in a service interaction context and found that incidental similarities between consumers and service providers will increase consumers’ liking for the services and purchase intentions. The key reason for these favorable impacts is that an incidental similarity creates a sense of connectedness between two strangers. This sense of connectedness creates a unit relationship between two strangers that is not shared by other people around them. Therefore an incidental similarity generates a fleeting sense of liking and it has been linked to positive affect (Burger et al. 2004) and interpersonal attraction (Insko and Wilson 1977). Although existing research suggests that incidental similarities lead to favorable reactions to the similar other, we propose that the effects of incidental similarities are not invariably favorable. Incidental similarities can elicit unfavorable effects, and can make an otherwise disinterested observer become involved in an exchange between a stranger and a company that (s)he merely witnessed. For example, a service failure involves the service provider and the suffering customer. From the perspective of an individual observing the failure, the nature of the effect of incidental similarities would depend on whether one feels a sense of association with the provider or the customer. Imagine a situation in which someone observes a customer being told that a table he had reserved is actually not available. If the observer notices that customer’s surname happens to be the same as his own, he may be disposed to view the situation from the customer’s perspective and blame the provider for the failure. However, if the observer notices from the provider’s name tag that they happen to have the same surname, he may feel more similar to the provider and attributing him less responsibility for the failure.

We report the characterization of a massive (mp = 3:91:4Mjup) microlensing planet (OGLE- 2015-BLG-0954Lb) orbiting an M dwarf host (M = 0:33  0:12M) at a distance toward the Galactic bulge of 0:6+0:4 􀀀0:2 kpc, which is extremely nearby by microlensing standards. The planet-host projected separation is a?  1:2AU. The characterization was made possible by the wide-eld (4 deg2) high cadence (􀀀 = 6 hr􀀀1) monitoring of the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet), which had two of its three telescopes in commissioning operations at the time of the planetary anomaly. The source crossing time t = 16 min is among the shortest ever published. The high-cadence, wide-eld observations that are the hallmark of KMTNet are the only way to routinely capture such short crossings. High-cadence resolution of short caustic crossings will preferentially lead to mass and distance measurements for the lens. This is because the short crossing time typically implies a nearby lens, which enables the measurement of additional eects (bright lens and/or microlens parallax). When combined with the measured crossing time, these eects can yield planet/host masses and distance.

A full-scale process has been developed to immobilize fission products that accumulate within the Mark IV electrorefiner (ER) electrolyte at Idaho National Laboratory. ER salt was blended with treatment additives, followed by pressureless consolidation (PC) in a furnace to produce a durable ceramic waste form (CWF). The goal is the development of a process to consolidate actual radioactive ER salt into a form suitable for transportation and disposal.Four batches (300 to 400 kg per batch) of full-scale pre-qualification material preparation runs have been prepared. From these four batches of nonradioactive salt-loaded surrogate material, three full-scale PC trials have been conducted. The first PC test run, established equipment parameters with a basic CWF container design. The second trial included a modified CWF container design, real-time measurement of CWF consolidation, and an audio recording to identify cracking during the CWF cool-down. During the third trial, salt was doped (from the fourth material preparation batch) to create a nonradioactive salt material and to more closely represent actual ER salt. The second and third trials were also used to validate a model developed for the CWF. The CWF model is beneficial for understanding and predicting the physical processes that occur during the heat cycle. This would be particularly useful when the CWF is located in a hot cell, which makes accessing and examining a CWF difficult.