Descriptive Terms (descriptive + term)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


A modest proposal: a testable differentiation between third- and fourth-order information complexity

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDIES, Issue 4 2006
Kathryn Cason
Abstract In Human Capability, Jaques and Cason (1994) described the importance of the Third and Fourth Orders of Information Complexity used by adults working to create and manage our commercial endeavors, govern our countries, and provide services such as healthcare and education to our populations. Today our knowledge of these two Orders is still in descriptive terms, therefore less subject to testing than meets the necessary scientific rigor. In order to pursue a better understanding of how to more effectively educate and employ this capability in the adult population it is necessary to have clarity about the boundaries of these apparently discontinuous innate human "processes." The authors here set out important aspects of their continued inquiry. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


APPLICATION OF SENSORY DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS TO COMPLETE THE CURRENT OFFICIAL CARD OF THE GALICIAN ORUJO SPIRITS

JOURNAL OF SENSORY STUDIES, Issue 3 2009
SANDRA CORTÉS
ABSTRACT Ten samples of young Galician Orujo spirits from different grape varieties were evaluated using sensory descriptive analysis by a panel of 12 professional Orujo tasters. The aim of this study was to generate attributes to sensorially describe this kind of drinks in order to complete the current official card and permit their differentiation and varietal characterization. In the first session of analysis, the Orujo tasters identified a high number of descriptors, that they were then reduced after the elimination of hedonic terms and inappropriate attributes by using statistical methods. High significant correlations were found between the new descriptive parameters selected and the original terms employed to qualify the Orujo samples. Herbaceous, floral, ensilage and heads for aroma, spicy,caustic and sweet for taste and fruity for aftertaste were the attributes that showed significant differences between the Orujo samples. These terms may qualitatively be considered as typical descriptors of Orujos from Galicia. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS In the original card employed to qualify Galician Orujo spirits, only hedonic terms are used, all of them with an important subjective influence. The new card, in which descriptive terms generated by the official panel are included, too, permits, besides qualifying of the samples, defining of their profile in the same tasting session. With the new terms, the tasters can justify the total points given to each sample. The final sensory profile obtained for a single Orujo variety will result of a large group of Orujo samples tasted during several sessions. This tool will be very useful for the Regulating Commission to obtain more information about the sensory characteristics of this kind of alcoholic beverage and for the corresponding distillery, in case a sample was rejected, to know which attributes were found as negatives. [source]


SENSORY CHARACTERISTICS OF EZINE CHEESE

JOURNAL OF SENSORY STUDIES, Issue 1 2007
YONCA KARAGUL-YUCEER
ABSTRACT Ezine cheese is a full-fat, white pickled cheese ripened in tinplate containers. A mixture of milks from goat, sheep and cow is used to make Ezine cheese. It has its own characteristic taste and aroma that differ from other white cheeses. In this study, the chemical composition and sensory attributes of Ezine cheese were characterized. A descriptive sensory evaluation technique was used to determine flavor and texture characteristics. Representative Ezine cheeses (22) were provided by local producers. A highly trained (n = 9) panel generated the descriptive terms and identified the references. Fourteen flavors and 10 texture terms were developed to describe Ezine cheese flavor and texture. Some characteristic flavor and taste descriptors for Ezine cheese were free fatty acids, cooked, creamy, whey-like, goaty, salty and sour. Cheese texture was evaluated using hand, mouth and residual techniques. Texture analysis indicated that Ezine cheese had soft and semi-hard texture properties. In general, most of the Ezine cheeses showed similarities in terms of hand firmness, mouth firmness, fracturability and number of particles attributes. [source]


Pastoral and species flavour in lambs raised on pasture, lucerne or maize

JOURNAL OF THE SCIENCE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE, Issue 2 2003
Owen A Young
Abstract Variations in diet, age and castration were employed to generate a range of flavours that were chemically analysed to find the cause of ,pastoral' flavour in sheepmeat and its relationship to species flavour. Lambs were raised on pasture (ram or castrate) or on a maize-based or lucerne-based concentrate diet (ram only). They were slaughtered at 132 and 232 days. Fat from animals raised on concentrates had lower proportions of fat-hardening stearic acid and higher proportions of oxidation-prone fat-softening oleic and linoleic acids. Concentrations of species-characterising short branched-chain fatty acids (BCFAs), typified by 4-methyloctanoic acid, were lower for pasture-fed lambs, particularly at 232 days, although between-animal variation was high. Castration did not statistically affect BCFA concentration at this age. Correlations between BCFAs and testes weight were not significant, suggesting that they were not acting as sex pheromones. Concentrations of 3-methylindole (skatole) in perirenal fat were higher for the pasture diet at both slaughter dates. Concentrations of 4-methylphenol in the fat were not affected by diet. However, 3-methylphenol was more abundant in pasture treatments. A sensory panel found that the intensity of ,sheepmeat' flavour was higher for pasture-raised animals, but that associations of ,barnyard' flavour (which has been linked to pastoral flavour) with diet were more complex. The issue was resolved by fat sniffing. Panel responses to heated subcutaneous fat were recorded as frequency of descriptive terms drawn from a limited lexicon. Volatiles from fats pooled by treatment were resolved on a gas chromatographic column whose effluent was monitored by odourport sniffing. Compounds were identified by parallel chromatographic/mass spectrometric runs. The headspace concentrations of these compounds were then measured for individual animals. These data were related to frequency data by the principal component method. ,Mutton' and ,sheepmeat' odour notes were clearly linked to indoles (skatole particularly) and, to a lesser extent, methylphenol, setting these notes apart from ,lamb', an odour note more associated with lucerne and maize diets through higher concentrations of BCFAs. It was concluded that 3-methylindole was the major cause of pastoral flavour in sheepmeat, and that fat oxidation products represented a background flavour that varied quantitatively but not qualitatively with fatty acid profile. © 2002 Society of Chemical Industry [source]


Combining idiographic and nomothetic methods in the study of internal working models

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS, Issue 2 2000
WARREN A. REICH
Attachment theory's notion of internal working model refers to an affective,cognitive structure that guides how individuals experience, and act within, their close relationships. Understanding working models in general (i.e., nomothetically) can be greatly enhanced by attending to the unique (i.e., idiographic) properties of individuals'data. A general method is described for eliciting and empirically representing both the common and unique properties of individuals'descriptions of self and others. This approach is illustrated by two studies in which participants described self and others in a variety of significant roles and relationships by choosing from a list of attachment-related descriptive terms. A hierarchical clustering algorithm, HICLAS (DeBoeck & Rosenberg, 1988), is used to generate a unique graphical representation for each individual's responses. We illustrate the use of HICLAS to (a) assess nomothetic properties of the structures and relate those properties to other variables such as attachment style, and (b) link aspects of any individual's structure with other idiographic data such as interview narratives. Data from HICLAS enhances the interpretation of other, more qualitative idiographic information, and helps to produce new constructs, variables, and propositions amenable to rigorous hypothesis tests in future research. [source]


Communicating breast cancer treatment complication risks: When words are likely to fail

ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF CLINICAL ONCOLOGY, Issue 3 2009
Peter H GRAHAM
Abstract Aim: The aim of the present study was to describe women's preferences for the quantification of the risk of a serious complication after regional nodal radiotherapy for breast cancer and women's interpretation of a range of descriptive terms. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted to elicit risk expression preferences and interpretation of words commonly used to describe the risk or frequency of a complication. Two hundred and sixty-two women who had experienced breast-only radiotherapy for early breast cancer at a Sydney teaching hospital were recruited for the survey. Results: The most preferred single method of expression of a risk is descriptive words, for example "uncommon" (52%), followed by percentages (27%) and numbers, for example 1 in 100 (21%). Lower education levels, more advanced cancer stage and older age increase the preference for descriptive words. When considering a serious complication of treatment, such as loss of the function of an arm, the modal interpretation of the descriptors "sometimes" was 1/100 (36% of women), "uncommon" was 1/1000 (35%), "very uncommon" was 1/10 000 (40%), "rare" was 1/10 000 (58%) and "very rare" was 1/10 000 (51%). However, the range of interpretations and the consistent assignment of extremely low frequencies of risk generally render descriptive words without numerical quantification inadequate for informed consent. Conclusion: Although risks of side-effects are often described in words such as common, uncommon and rare, qualification should be provided with numerical values to ensure better understanding of risk. [source]


Multi-dimensional phenotyping: towards a new taxonomy for airway disease

CLINICAL & EXPERIMENTAL ALLERGY, Issue 10 2005
A. J. Wardlaw
Summary All the real knowledge which we possess, depends on methods by which we distinguish the similar from the dissimilar. The greater the number of natural distinctions this method comprehends the clearer becomes our idea of things. The more numerous the objects which employ our attention the more difficult it becomes to form such a method and the more necessary. [1]. Classification is a fundamental part of medicine. Diseases are often categorized according to pre-20th century descriptions and concepts of disease based on symptoms, signs and functional abnormalities rather than on underlying pathogenesis. Where the aetiology of disease has been revealed (for example in the infectious diseases) a more precise classification has become possible, but in the chronic inflammatory diseases, and in the inflammatory airway diseases in particular, where pathogenesis has been stubbornly difficult to elucidate, we still use broad descriptive terms such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which defy precise definition because they encompass a wide spectrum of presentations and physiological and cellular abnormalities. It is our contention that these broad-brush terms have outlived their usefulness and that we should be looking to create a new taxonomy of airway disease,a taxonomy that more closely reflects the spectrum of phenotypes that are encompassed within the term airway inflammatory diseases, and that gives full recognition to late 20th and 21st century insights into the disordered physiology and cell biology that characterizes these conditions in the expectation that these will map more closely to both aetiology and response to treatment. Development of this taxonomy will require a much more complete and sophisticated correlation of the many variables that make up a condition than has been usual to employ in an approach that encompasses multi-dimensional phenotyping and uses complex statistical tools such as cluster analysis. [source]