Fish Sauce Fermentation with Silver Carp or Offal of Surimi Processing

Fish sauce is a kind of condiments processed from fish. The L9（34） orthogonal tests have been carried out to inspect the effects of technological conditions for fermentation on the comprehensive quality of fish sauce. The conditions of the orthogonal tests are following: the fermentation temperature takes values of 35℃, 40℃ and 45℃, the percentage of Koji values of 40%, 20% and 10% and the percentage of salt values of 10%, 14% and 18%. The obtained experimental results indicate that fermentation temperature plays an important role in the improvement of sauce quality. The optimal technological conditions for sauce fermentation are of 10% salt, 45℃ and 40% koji mixed. The composition of fish sauce processed from offal of silver carp-surimi processing under the above-mentioned conditions and two commercial products have been analyzed. The results show that fish sauce processed from fish offal is nutritious and delicious. It is suggested that the fermentation of fish sauce is a potential and promising pathway to make full use of freshwater fish resources and offal in fish processing. In this study, fuzzy theory and analytic hierarchy process have been applied and the quality evaluation has been established by the combination of physico-chemical indices and sensory evaluation. The comprehensive evaluation has been taken to reflect the optimal factors for the process of sauce fermentation. The quality indexes for fish sauce contain sensory evaluation, amino nitrogen, total nitrogen, specific gravity, volatile basic nitrogen, salt concentration, brown index and acidity, represented by y1, y2, y3, y4, y5, y6, y7, y8, and y9, respectively. They form a group U= {y1, y2, y3, y4, y5, y6, y7, y8, y9,}. Using the fuzzy functions, the values of all these factors are transformed into fuzzy degrees of single factor, i.e. numerical values between 0 and 1. The fuzzy degrees of single factor in several samples are made up a matrix R. Following that, a weight of each index can be determined in the comprehensive evaluation. In the analytic hierarchy process, the weight can be obtained by the cross comparison between two different factors. The results show that the weights （W） of sensory evaluation, amino nitrogen, total nitrogen, specific gravity, volatile basic nitrogen, salt concentration, brown index and acidity are 0.356, 0.189, 0.107, 0.054, 0.097, 0.063, 0.061 and 0.073 respectively. Finally the aggregated fuzzy degree （B） of different samples is computed by B=W·R, which can be taken as the final result of comprehensive evaluation. The larger this value is, the higher the quality of sauce product would be.

村上春树的美食厨房

“我在秋天早晨的阳光中，呆呆地望着架子上的锅盆和盛调味料的瓶子，厨房就像是世界本身，世界是厨房。”——村上春树（人造卫星恋人）。

Corporate governance and financing decisions by Saudi companies

This paper aims to contribute to the corporate governance literature in emerging economies by examining the effect of some corporate governance mechanisms on financing decisions in Saudi Arabian listed companies. A multiple regression model is used to examine the association between financing decisions and corporate governance mechanisms for a sample of 37 listed Saudi companies. In particular, we examine the effect of board size, ownership concentration and corporate governance reporting on the debt-to-equity ratio. Corporate governance reporting is measured by the content analysis approach. After controlling for companies＇ profitability and their growth opportunities, we found that both board size and ownership concentration are positively associated with debt-to-equity ratio. We limit our analysis to a small sample of firms that use the internet to communicate corporate governance information between October 2005 and January 2006. The findings suggest that managers are likely to choose higher financial leverage when they have stronger corporate governance （large number of directors on the board and higher ownership concentration）. However, we did not find any statistical association between corporate governance disclosure and debt-to-equity ratio. This suggests that firm＇s asymmetric information is not an important driver of the financing decision of Saudi Arabian companies. This might be due to the nature of the Saudi business environment. We strongly believe that this paper provides a novel contribution to the existing literature as we are the first to examine this issue in Saudi Arabia.

Thales of Miletus, Archimedes and the Solar Eclipses on the Antikythera Mechanism

Thales of Miletus （640？-546 BC） is famous for his prediction of the total solar eclipse in 585 BC. In this paper, the author demonstrate how Thales may have used the same principle for prediction of solar eclipses as that used on the Antikythera Mechanism. At the SEAC conference in Alexandria in 2009, the author presented the paper ＂Ten solar eclipses show that the Antikythera Mechanism was constructed for use on Sicily.＂ The best defined series of exeligmos cycles started in 243 BC during the lifetime of Archimedes （287-212 BC） from Syracuse. The inscriptions on the Antikythera Mechanism were made in 100-150 BC and the last useful exeligmos started in 134 BC. The theory for the motion of the moon was from Hipparchus （ca 190-125 BC）. A more complete investigation of the solar eclipses on the Antikythera Mechanism reveals that the first month in the first saros cycle started with the first new moon after the winter solstice in 542 BC. Four solar eclipses 537-528 BC, from the first saros cycle, and three one exeligmos cycle later, 487-478 BC, are preserved and may have been recorded in Croton by Pythagoras （ca 575-495 BC） and his school.

CTO of Saudi Aramco: China's Oil Demand to Rise

At the World Economic Forum＇s threeday meeting in Dalian,Liaoning Province,China＇s economic growth is once again in the spotlight.More than 1,700 participants from 90 countries are attending＂Summer Davos＂,opening in early September,to chart a new course for growth as global recovery sinks into uncertainty.Before the conference began,business leaders from international companies shared their opinions with China＇s news media about China＇s economic prospects and what strategies they may take to readjust to the nation＇s new normal of growth.Here are the excerpts from the interview with Ahmad Khowaiter, Chief Technology Officer of Saudi Aramco：