A comparison of consumer sensory acceptance, purchase intention, and willingness to pay for high quality United States and Spanish beef under different information scenarios.

Tests were performed to identify variation across consumer evaluation ratings for 2 types of beef (Spanish yearling bull beef and US Choice and Prime beef), using 3 information levels (blind scores; muscle fat content + production conditions; and all production data including geographical origin) and 3 consumer evaluation ratings (hedonic rating, willingness to pay, and purchase intention). Further testing was carried out to assess the extent to which expert evaluations converged with those of untrained consumers. Taste panel tests involving 290 consumers were conducted in Navarra, a region in northern Spain. The beef samples were 20 loins of Pyrenean breed yearling bulls that had been born and raised on private farms located in this Spanish region and 20 strip loins from high quality US beef that ranged from high Choice to average Prime US quality grades. The Spanish beef were slaughtered at 507 +/- 51 kg of BW and 366 +/- 23 d of age. The US beef proved more acceptable to consumers and received greater ratings from the trained panel, with greater scores for juiciness (3.33), tenderness (3.33), flavor (3.46), and fat content (5.83) than for Spanish beef (2.77, 2.70, 3.14, 1.17). The differences in sensory variable rating were more pronounced for the Spanish beef than for the US beef, always increasing with the level of information. The variation in the ratings across different information levels was statistically significant in the case of the Spanish beef, whereas the variation observed in the ratings of the US beef was highly significant in the willingness of consumers to pay a premium. Consumers who appreciated greater quality were also more willing to pay for the additional level of quality.

Assessment of children's Type A behavior: relationship with negative behavioral characteristics and children and teacher demographic characteristics.

Thirty-two teachers rated Type A behavior, using Matthews Youth Test for Health, (MYTH) and negative characteristics of hyperactivity, negative peer relations, social withdrawal, and depression in 105 children, between the ages of 6 and 11, from lower to middle class Black and White families. Children's age, gender, race, and socioeconomic status (SES) and teachers' gender, grade taught, and years of teaching experience were not related to teachers' MYTH ratings. However, White teachers rated children higher on Type A behavior than Black teachers. Controlling for teacher race effects, MYTH total scores, rather than reflecting a global negative view of the child, showed a strong overlap with hyperactivity and were differentiated from social withdrawal and depression. The MYTH Impatience/Aggression factor was highly related to hyperactivity and negative peer interactions; the Competitiveness factor was associated with a lack of social withdrawal. The conclusions verify the multidimensional nature of children's Type A behavior pattern and the importance of rater demographic characteristics in the assessment of children's behavior.

Magnetic resonance imaging for detecting lesions of multiple sclerosis: comparison with computed tomography and clinical assessment.

Eighty-two patients with known or suspected multiple sclerosis (MS) were examined by means of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with a 0.15-T resistive scanner. The diagnosis could be made by MRI in 34 (97%) of the 35 patients with chronic, well-documented, stable MS and by high-volume delayed x-ray computed tomography (HVD CT) in only 6 (54%) of 11 patients in this group. The stage of the disease as judged from the MRI scans correlated poorly with the clinical status of the patient and with the known duration of the disease. MRI identified 28 (88%) of the 32 patients in whom MS was subsequently diagnosed by a neurologist, whereas regular contrast or HVD CT identified only 11 (52%) of 21 such patients. MRI is the most sensitive imaging modality for MS but is of little value in assessing the severity of the disease: many of the lesions seen on MRI scans are clinically "silent", and MRI does not usually detect small lesions in the brainstem, cerebellum or spinal cord that may be clinically significant.

Perceptions of community life which distinguish between participants and nonparticipants in a neighborhood self-help organization.

Questionnaire, Edwards-Kirkpatrick scale, and semantic differential techniques were used to provide converging measures of psychosocial factors affecting participation in a community self-help organization. This group is attempting to maintain the racially mixed residential character of a neighborhood located in a zone of transition between large tracts of project housing and an area of stores, apartment buildings, and offices on the edge of a southern center city. Results indicate that a complexly integrated set of attitudes toward the area as a place to live, one's neighbors as active and potent yet stable people, and the future as a promising and secure time of life seems to determine attitudes toward and participation in the community organization.