The alternative food market has attracted much attention due to concerns about climate change, increasing consumer awareness of value consumption, and the development of the Food-Tech industry. This study aimed to analyze the factors that drive consumers to purchase alternative food products and identify the mechanisms that can induce consumers to continue buying. We surveyed 1,200 consumers and estimated data using a logit model. The results showed that the presence of vegetarians in the household, environmental concerns, a vegetable-oriented diet, and a mixed diet of meat and vegetables were positively associated with purchasing plant-based alternatives. Of particular interest was the non-linear relationship between respondents’ age and their purchasing experience with plant-based options, with the likelihood of purchasing alternatives increasing with age from the mid-50s onward. These findings suggest that in addition to the growing number of consumers who share the environmental value, which leads to increased interest in and purchase of plant-based alternatives, alternative foods are also health-oriented and meet the needs of older consumers, who are becoming an increasingly important segment of the super-aged society, suggesting the potential for continued growth in the alternative food market.

Carcass grade primarily depends on marbling of intramuscular fat, which is associated with the texture and tenderness of beef. Accordingly, various economical molecular tests for high intramuscular fat in beef have been attempted. Especially, Hanwoo (Korean Cattle) intramuscular fat has higher levels of monounsaturated fatty acids than that in the beef of other cattle. Intramuscular fats are associated with levels of lipid metabolic genes in the liver transcriptome. Therefore, hepatic triglyceride synthesis can considerably increase intramuscular fat. To investigate the relationship between hepatic lipogenesis and carcass grade, we analyzed 52 Hanwoo liver samples from domestic farms, and evaluated lipid levels and transcript levels of glucose and lipid metabolism-related genes according to carcass grade. Oil-Red-O staining revealed fatty livers in high carcass grades. Moreover, we found significantly higher levels of mRNA for lipogenesis, glycolysis, and triglyceride synthesis genes in high carcass grade livers. Importantly, progesterone receptor membrane component 1 (Pgrmc1) levels were significantly lower in high carcass grade livers. As Pgrmc1 suppression is correlated with induction of de novo lipogenesis (DNL) and glycolysis genes, it has a diagnostic impact for high carcass grades. These results could be used for genetic improvements in carcass grades of cattle. More importantly, as Pgrmc1 can be detected in blood peripheral nucleated cells, it also has value for rapid blood diagnosis.

For a long time, genetic algorithms have been recognized as a new method to solve difficult and complex problems and the performance of genetic algorithms depends on genetic operators, especially crossover operator. Various problems like the traveling salesman problem, the transportation problem or the job shop problem, in logistics engineering can be modeled as a sequencing problem This paper proposes modified genetic crossover operators to be used at various sequencing problems and uses the traveling salesman problem to be applied to a real world problem like the delivery problem and the vehicle routing problem as a benchmark problem Because the proposed operators use parental information as well as network information, they could show better efficiency in performance and computation time than conventional operators.

Kwanganbyeo is a japonica rice variety developed from the cross between Namyang 7 and SR14779-HB234-31, anelite line derived from the cross between Cheonmabyeo and Aichi 37 at the National Crop Experiment Station, RDA, and washi-tecture and light-dark gre