Communities in DSpace
Select a community to browse its collections.
Recent Submissions
Consumo de tacaco (Sechium tacaco; Cucurbitaceae) en cinco ciudades de Costa Rica
(2025-07-17) Monge Pérez, José Eladio; Loría Coto, Michelle
Introducción: El tacaco es una hortaliza endémica de Costa Rica con alto valor nutricional, pero no existen estudios previos sobre su consumo. Objetivo: Caracterizar los patrones de consumo de tacaco en Costa Rica. Métodos: Estudiamos cinco ciudades costarricenses entre marzo y noviembre de 2019, mediante 600 entrevistas presenciales sobre conocimiento y prácticas de consumo. Resultados: El conocimiento (64–79%) y el consumo (33–51%) de tacaco fueron mayores en San José, Alajuela, Heredia y Cartago que en Liberia (11 % y 8%, respectivamente). El consumo varió según el sexo (mujeres: 37–49%; hombres: 25–58%) y la edad (15–29 años: 20–37%; 30–44: 33–50%; 45–59: 27–61%; 60–99: 37–67%). La mayoría de los consumidores lo comía una vez al mes, adquiriéndolo en ferias del agricultor o supermercados. Los precios fueron percibidos como bajos (San José, Heredia, Liberia), altos (Alajuela) o muy altos (Cartago). Las características de calidad incluyeron textura suave (al hervirse), pocas o ninguna espina, gran tamaño y ternura. Se consume principalmente hervido, salvo en Heredia, donde los métodos de preparación fueron más diversos. Conclusión: Existen diferencias geográficas significativas en el consumo de tacaco en Costa Rica, con variaciones según edad y sexo. La mayoría lo consume ocasionalmente, mediante métodos tradicionales y comprado en mercados locales. Estos datos son fundamentales para promover y conservar esta especie endémica.
Modelo de la influencia de los factores climáticos y la contaminación del aire en la incidencia de enfermedades respiratorias en las regiones y subregiones climáticas de Costa Rica
(2025-07-17) Parra Rodríguez, Emanuelle; Show Chen, Shu Wei
Este estudio presenta un análisis de la asociación no lineal y rezagada entre la exposición a variables climáticas (temperatura, precipitación y humedad relativa) y la profundidad óptica de aerosoles (AOD), como aproximación de la contaminación del aire, con los egresos hospitalarios semanales y el riesgo relativo asociado por enfermedades respiratorias en Costa Rica, bajo condiciones previas a la pandemia de COVID-19, durante el período 2000–2019. Se analizaron las siete regiones climáticas oficiales y sus subregiones mediante bases de datos satelitales validadas y registros administrativos de salud. Para capturar la heterogeneidad espacio-temporal y la presencia de ceros estructurales, se integraron modelos de rezago distribuido no lineal (DLNM) en marcos de modelos lineales generalizados mixtos (DLNM-GLMM) y de modelos de localización, escala y forma
(DLNM-GAMLSS) con inflación de ceros, a partir de diversas distribuciones y sus extensiones en la variable de respuesta, tales como Poisson, Binomial Negativa, Gamma, Normal, Inversa Gaussiana y Logit. La selección de especificaciones óptimas se basó
en los criterios AIC y BIC, así como en métricas predictivas (MAE, MAPE, RMSE, SAME). El marco DLNM permitió analizar la asociación no lineal y rezagada entre las variables de exposición y el riesgo relativo de los egresos hospitalarios. El DLNM con
distribución Binomial Negativa describió adecuadamente los egresos hospitalarios en la mayoría de regiones; sin embargo, considerar efectos aleatorios subregionales, mediante el DLNM-GLMM, esta distribución capturó mejor la variabilidad intrarregional en la Región Valle Central. En regiones periféricas, la inclusión de inflación de ceros mediante DLNM-GAMLSS mejoró la bondad de ajuste. Para los riesgos relativos a egresos hospitalarios, según la densidad poblacional, el DLNM con distribución Gamma, sin incorporar factores aleatorios por subregión, mostró un mejor desempeño en las regiones.
Asimismo, el DLNM-GLMM con distribución normal, capturó de manera más precisa la asociación rezagada al considerar los factores mixtos por subregiones. Los pronósticos con ventanas móviles para el período 2017 – 2019 mostraron estabilidad
y precisión, confirmando la influencia moduladora de los factores climáticos y de la contaminación sobre la salud respiratoria y aportando evidencia valiosa para anticipar brotes estacionales y optimizar la asignación de recursos sanitarios.
Sensory perception and food-evoked emotions of older adults assessing microwave-processed meals with different salt concentrations
(2024-02-19) Montero Díaz, María Laura; Duizer, Lisa M.; Ross, Carolyn F.
This study employed a home-use test to explore the sensory perception and evoked emotions of older adults in the assessment of chicken pasta meals with different salt concentrations. Ready-to-eat (RTE) meals with three salt levels (100%, 75%, and 50%) and two treatments —with and without added herbs— were tested. Multiple sensory attributes and overall meal liking were evaluated by participants (n = 54; 60–86 years of age) with hedonic and just-about-right scores. Twenty-five food-evoked emotions were also tested. Sensory results suggested a 50% salt reduction is possible with minimal impact on the overall liking, while a 25% salt reduction did not affect the saltiness and flavor liking of the meals. Herb addition positively impacted the aroma, flavor, and spiciness liking of the meals. The emotions that differed (p < 0.05) among meals were active, aggressive, bored, calm, happy, and wild, with the meals with herbs added eliciting more positive emotions. A questionnaire elicited information about participants’ interest in healthy eating, food technology neophobia, and picky behaviors to determine the influence of these factors on participants’ salt consumption habits. Sensory acceptance data combined with questionnaires explored what influenced this group of older adults in their acceptance of and interest in RTE meals.
The interaction between wheat and pea protein influences the final chemical and sensory characteristics of extruded high moisture meat analogs
(2023-11-22) Richter, Jana K.; Montero Díaz, María Laura; Ikuse, Marina; Wagner, Caleb E.; Ross, Carolyn F.; Saunders, Steven R.; Ganjyal, Girish M.
Plant-based meat analog products, including those produced by extrusion processing, have become increasingly popular. Complete comprehension of the texturization mechanism and the formation of fibrousness would help improve existing products and extend the variety of plant sources used. Therefore, this study aimed to provide improved insight into the mechanism of texturization during the processing of high-moisture meat analog (HMMA) products. Blends with different wheat and pea protein ratios (100:0, 80:20, 60:40, 40:60, 20:80, and 0:100 wheat:pea) were extruded at a screw speed of 400 rpm, two different moisture contents (50% and 55%), and a feed rate of 90 g/min using a co-rotating twin-screw extruder. Extrudates were analyzed for their texture, free sulfhydryl groups, disulfide bonds, and solubility in different extractants relative to the raw ingredient blends. In addition, a sensory analysis was conducted using the rapid and cost-effective “rate-all-that-apply” (RATA) methodology. The interplay between the two protein types had synergistic effects on the system parameters torque, pressure, and specific mechanical energy, as well as on some textural and sensory parameters. Molecular analyses were not influenced by the interplay between wheat and pea protein as the molecular analyses followed linear trends with the pea inclusion level. Analysis of protein solubility suggests that the texturization mechanism differs slightly depending on the protein type. It is suggested that the texturization of wheat protein depends highly on disulfide bonds, whereas the texturization of pea protein relies on the combination of disulfide bonds and non-covalent interactions. Additionally, RATA was found to be a valuable tool for HMMA products.
Sensory profiling of pears from the Pacific Northwest: Consumers' perspective and descriptive analysis
(2024-02-15) Montero Díaz, María Laura; Colonna, Anne E.; Gallardo, R. Karina; Ross, Carolyn F.
This study used data from consumer testing, descriptive analysis (DA), and preference mapping to determine the sensory characteristics of pear cultivars from two harvest seasons in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). A trained sensory panel (n = 10) used generic DA to evaluate multiple sensory modalities of 22 pear cultivars. Six pears from summer and six from winter season were evaluated by consumers (n = 219) to assess their liking of different attributes. Results of the DA showed the trained panel significantly discriminated the summer and winter pears on most of the sensory modalities. To identify the attributes driving consumer acceptability, external preference mapping was applied. Attributes such as pear aroma, pear flavor, sweet, sour, and juicy were the most contributory attributes to the liking of the summer pears. Conversely, fermented aroma, stemmy–woody aroma, fermented flavor, stemmy–woody flavor, and grainy–gritty attributes were associated with a reduction in consumer liking. Summer cultivars, “Bartlett,” coded pear 573, and “Seckel” had the broadest preference, satisfying 60% to 80% of the consumers. Seventy-five percent of the consumers identified winter cultivars “Comice” and “Paragon” as the most appealing. Overall, cluster analysis showed that different pears appeal to different types of consumers; however, summer cultivars like “Bartlett” and “Seckel” and winter cultivars like “Comice” and “Paragon” would appeal to the greatest number of consumers in the PNW market.