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The incidence of metabolic and chronic diseases including cancer, obesity, inflammation-related diseases sharply increased in the 21st century. Major underlying causes for these diseases are inflammation and oxidative stress. Accordingly, natural products and their bioactive components are obvious therapeutic agents for these diseases, given their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Research in this area has been significantly expanded to include chemical identification of these compounds using advanced analytical techniques, determining their mechanism of action, food fortification and supplement development, and enhancing their bioavailability and bioactivity using nanotechnology. These timely topics were discussed at the 20th Frontier Scientists Workshop sponsored by the Korean Academy of Science and Technology, held at the University of Hawaii at Manoa on 23 November 2019. Scientists from South Korea and the U.S. shared their recent research under the overarching theme of Bioactive Compounds, Nanoparticles, and Disease Prevention. This review summarizes presentations at the workshop to provide current knowledge of the role of natural products in the prevention and treatment of metabolic diseases.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) aims to improve food security among low‐income households and is one of the largest safety net programs in the United States. SNAP benefits are legislated at the federal level and fixed across the contiguous United States. Hence, due to regional food price differences, the real value of SNAP benefits is unequal and could have consequential impacts on program participation. This paper estimates the extent to which SNAP purchasing power differs across states by constructing the first spatially and temporally consistent Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) price index using retail scanner data for the period 2006–2016. We find that the difference in the real value of SNAP benefits between the highest and the lowest cost states ranges from 5% to 9% for a household of four during the sample period. Subsequently, we estimate the effect of real SNAP benefits on program participation. Our results show that a 10% increase in SNAP purchasing power leads to a 0.9 percentage point increase in the SNAP caseload per capita and an 8.1 percentage point increase in the SNAP caseload per eligible individual. We show that these effects would be overlooked if the TFP price index is not corrected for expenditure and outlet biases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The elasticities of substitution between marketing and farm inputs are important for modeling the shape of derived demand and understanding the market structure in the food market. Wohlgenant develops a theoretical framework and finds significant substitution between marketing and farm inputs. The estimates in Wohlgenant have been widely used in economic studies on the US food market, and in this paper, we replicate the results, perform robustness checks, and update the estimates using recent data. Despite minor discrepancies, we are able to replicate most of the results in Wohlgenant and maintain robust estimates when we apply ridge regression. Using updated data, we calculate new estimates of the elasticities and find that marketing firms have become less competitive. We discuss important market trends in recent years and highlight potential venues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, taking α gypsum, β gypsum, iron tailings sand as main raw materials, and adding suitable admixture, orthogonal experiment was designed to explore the influences of the dosages of the α gypsum, the β gypsum, the iron tailings sand and the water reducing agent on the setting time, the fluidity, the water consumption, the contraction rate, and the strength of the self-leveling mortar, and the gypsums-based self-leveling mortar meeting the requirements of JC/T 1023--2007 is prepared. Considering economic factors, the optimal matching ratio is determined as follows: α gypsum:β gypsum:iron tailings sand:water reducing agent:retarder:water-binding agent:redispersible emulsion powder:antifoaming agent is 640:320:220:2.12:4.8:2.88:14.4:0.96. Microscopic analysis shows that the strength of self-leveling mortar could be improved with the increasing of the number and the dense structures of the thick lamellars and the short columnar hydration products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temptation plays a key role in theoretical work on spending and saving in developing countries. The limited empirical evidence on its importance, however, suggests that cash transfers do not induce increases in temptation spending. This paper expands the evidence base by studying the effect of randomized exposure to temptation on spending decisions in rural Malawi. Consistent with the cash transfer literature, a more tempting environment does not induce significant changes in temptation spending. However, the magnitudes of both temptation spending levels and the treatment effects are somewhat sensitive to the definition of temptation spending used. This paper examines the potential factors that may be driving these null results, and suggests that future research may find a limited role for temptation in the economic decisions of the poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of COVID‐19 on fruits and vegetable prices in the United States and China in a difference‐in‐differences framework. Our main results show differing impacts of the pandemic on the U.S. and Chinese wholesale prices. We conclude that despite the unprecedented disruptions, the U.S. produce industry remained intact. However, the long‐run effects could be mixed. We conjecture that the industry would stay resilient in the long run by having gained practical know‐how. Nevertheless, potential structural changes, such as changing household expenditure patterns due to income loss and increasing concentration in the food service market, could hurt the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]