: The possible beneficial properties of functional foods are due to their content in bioactive ingredients, with specific biological properties. A number of processed functional foods are available in the market – probiotic yogurt, calcium and ω-3 fatty acids enriched orange juice and milk. Simultaneously, new research studies confer potential health benefits of various conventional foods (salmon, berries, green tea, vegetables, fruits, nuts, cereals and breads etc) termed as “superfood” which is a marketing term and there is no established medical definition. Following suitable dietary patterns superfood reduces the risk of degerative diseases by promoting physical and emotional health. Scientific evidences suggests that superfood are dense source of antioxidants, minerals, vitamins and other nutrients. There is insufficient research on the exact explanation of term ‘superfood’and its health claims by different companies without any legislation. This buzz word making confusion among consumers, that how much and what quantity should make a food superfood, as no single food may be as nutritious to be stated as superfood. This article introduces further investigation on superfood which was categorized on the basis of their major constituents and potential health benefits. Further there is a need of more reviews, researches, clinical trials and human case studies to investigate or test superfood.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a quality management tool that transmits customer requirements into product design or innovation process to improve products' customer satisfaction. For the first time, this paper points out the distortions of customer requirements existing in the transmission process of QFD that are caused by the methods for calculating the importance degree of output information. The distortions lead to the designed or innovated product meeting less important customer requirements, without meeting more important customer requirements, so products' customer satisfactions are decreased. In order to avoid the distortions, a new method for calculating the importance degree of output information is proposed and an example is illustrated to demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the new method.

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Objective: To observe the effects of angiotensin-(1-7) (Ang-(1-7)) on glucose metabolism, islet function and insulin resistance in a rat model of streptozotocin-induced diabetes mellitus (DM) and investigate its mechanism. Method: Thirty-four male Wistar rats were randomly divided into 3 groups: control group, which was fed standard diet, DM group, high-fat diet and injected with streptozotocin, and Ang-(1-7) group receiving injection of streptozotocin followed by Ang-(1-7) treatment. Blood glucose level, fasting serum Ang II and insulin levels, and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) were measured. The pancreases were collected for histological examination, protein and gene expressions analysis. Results: Compared with control group, fasting blood glucose, serum angiotensin II level, and HOMA-IR value increased, while serum insulin level decreased in DM group. Moreover, islet structure was damaged, β cells were irregularly arranged, the cytoplasm was loose in DM group. Expressions of Pancreatic duodenal homeobox-1 (Pdx1), glucose transporter-2 (Glut2) and glucokinase (Gk) were significantly decreased in DM group compared with control group. However, the DMassociated changes were dramatically reversed following Ang-(1-7) treatment. Conclusion: Ang-(1-7) protects against streptozotocin-induced DM through the improvement of insulin secretion, insulin resistance and islet fibrosis, which is associated with the upregulation of Pdx1, Glut2 and Gk expressions.

In the process of product innovations, it is necessary to evaluate the sustainability of innovative products in order to meet the demands of sustainable development. So, the calculation process for evaluating the sustainability of innovative products is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the performances of the innovative products in social, economic, and environmental aspects are calculated based on the concepts proposed in this paper, including social matching degree, economic feasible degree, and environmental improving rate. Then, the vector-cosine method in the three-dimensional space is proposed to calculate the sustainability integrated in the three aspects, which regards innovative products as the vectors. Both the size and direction of the vectors are considered to calculate the sustainability. Finally, a case study of the cloud rail made by BYD Company in China is provided to illustrate the validity of the proposed calculation process.