A Study on Instructional Humor: How Much Humor Is Used in Presentations?

Humor is applied in pedagogy to create a positive learning environment. Recent research focuses on the theories, effects, individual differences, and qualitative aspects of humor for instruction. However, there is a lack of studies focusing on quantitative features. Therefore, this research explored the quantitative characteristics of instructional humor in a naturalistic setting and applied techniques from natural language processing (NLP). This paper describes the results of two studies. The first study focused on instructional humor frequency and the placement of humor, while the linguistic features of instructional humor and non-instructional humor were compared in the second study. Two corpora were used in this research: TED Talks and user-submitted jokes from "stupidstuff.org" The results found that educators used humor 12.92 times for popular talks, while less popular talks only had 3.92 times. Humor is also more commonly placed during the first parts of the talk and lessens toward the end. There were also significant differences between the linguistic features of instructional and non-instructional humor in terms of readability scores and sentiment. These results provide a substantial update on quantitative instructional humor research and help educators understand how to use humor in the classroom in terms of quantitative and linguistic features.

Evaluation of the acceptability of low glycaemic index preparations, formulated by replicating traditional Chilean culinary preparations with a high glycaemic index / Evaluación de la aceptabilidad de preparaciones de bajo índice glicémico, formuladas como réplicas de preparaciones típicas chilenas de alto índice glicémico

The aim of this study was to determine the acceptability of low glycaemic index (GI) preparations, equivalent to the traditional high GI ones in Chile, elaborated with minimal changes in the ingredients and culinary techniques that significantly diminish the GI and maintain acceptability level. Twelve high-GI traditional lunches and their low GI counterparts were prepared. For 12 days, 20 apparently healthy women randomly tasted 2 paired preparations per day (low and high GI). The attributes of appearance, taste, smell, and texture of salads, main course, and desserts, as well as those of the full lunch, were evaluated using a hedonic scale of 7 and 9 points. Lunches with a high GI (90 ± 20.5 %) were modified by changing types of food ingredients, and/or by using culinary techniques to provide a low-GI counterpart with 47 ± 5.9 % GI (p < 0.001). All the preparations were classified as optimal, exceeding the established cut-off point. The "Legume with CHO" lunch had a higher acceptability level in its low GI version (p = 0.006), while the "Chicken with corn" lunch had it in its high GI version (p = 0.004). There was a preference for low-GI salad appearance (p = 0.003) and dessert flavour (p = 0.024), while high-GI main dishes were better praised for flavour (p = 0.034) and texture (p = 0.012). It is therefore possible to prepare low-GI menus equivalent to their traditional counterparts that are received as generally acceptable, with components and sensory attributes equal to, or even better than typical Chilean cuisine dishes

El objetivo de este estudio fue determinar la aceptabilidad de preparaciones de bajo índice glicémico (IG) diseñadas a partir de aquellas de alto IG de consumo habitual en Chile, elaboradas con mínimos cambios en sus ingredientes y basándose en técnicas culinarias que diminuyen el IG. Doce preparaciones tradicionales de alto IG se eligieron para preparar sus homólogos de bajo IG. Durante 12 días, 20 mujeres en buen estado de salud probaron, de forma aleatoria, 2 preparaciones equivalentes por día (de bajo y alto IG), y evaluaron la aceptabilidad promedio de las ensaladas, los platos principales y los postres, así como el almuerzo completo, a través de una escala hedónica de 7 puntos y una de 9 puntos para evaluar aceptabilidad de los atributos: apariencia, sabor, olor y textura. Los almuerzos de alto IG (90 ± 20,5 %) se modificaron cambiando los tipos de ingredientes y/o las técnicas culinarias, formulando preparaciones homólogas de bajo IG (47 ± 5,9 %, p < 0,001). Todas las nuevas preparaciones se calificaron de óptimas, excediendo el punto de corte establecido. La preparación "legumbres con cereales" obtuvo la más alta aceptabilidad en su versión de bajo IG (p = 0,006), mientras que la preparación "Pollo con choclo" lo hizo en su versión de alto IG (p = 0,004). Hubo mayores preferencias por la apariencia de las ensaladas (p = 0,003) y el sabor de los postres de bajo IG (p = 0,024), mientras que los platos principales fueron mejor valorados en cuanto a sabor (p = 0,034) y textura (p = 0,012) en su versión de alto IG. Por lo tanto, es posible preparar menús de bajo IG equivalentes a sus homólogos tradicionales que son considerados generalmente como aceptables, con componentes y atributos iguales o mejores que las preparaciones tradicionales chilenas

Thymol nanoemulsions incorporated in quinoa protein/chitosan edible films; antifungal effect in cherry tomatoes.

Thymol nanoemulsions were produced by spontaneous emulsification, ultrasound, and a combination of both methods. The best result in terms of size and polydispersion was spontaneous emulsification where thymol was efficiently encapsulated, the nanoemulsions inhibited Botrytis cinerea at 110 ppm of thymol. A 10% dilution of this nanoemulsion in water was used to prepare quinoa-chitosan films. The film microstructure was porous and heterogeneous. The tensile strength of the film was significantly lower but its mean elongation at break was similar to that of the control film. The water vapour permeability was similar to that of the control film. The effect of nanoemulsion-thymol-quinoa protein/chitosan coating on mould growth in inoculated cherry tomatoes was evaluated. Compared with control samples (tomatoes without coating and those coated with quinoa protein/chitosan), tomatoes with this coating and inoculated with B. cinerea showed a significant decrease in fungal growth after 7 days at 5 °C.

Reglamento del comité de ética en investigación del Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Salud de la Universidad Nacional de Asunción (IICS-UNA) / Regulation of the committee of ethics in Investigation of the Institute of Investigations in Sciences of the Health of the National University of Asunción (IICS-UNA)

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