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Food evaluation is a topic central to consumer research and food marketing. However, there is little consensus regarding how consumers combine sensory stimuli, product information, and visual impressions to shape their evaluation. Moreover, the bulk of research relies on studies based on questionnaires and declarative responses, raising questions about subliminal processes and their hierarchy in an evaluation process. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted a study with more than 400 participants in Morocco and Tunisia and investigated how factors such as flavor/taste, product information, and packaging design in a variety of olive oils influence visual attention and are reflected in willingness to pay (WTP). We implemented incentivization through an auction to reduce the hypothetical bias in stated WTP values. The results revealed that, compared to tasting the oils, the provision of cognitive information led to an increase in consumers' WTP. However, a drastic increase in WTP occurred when the consumers were exposed to package designs, overshadowing the formerly dominant effects of product attributes. These findings support theories suggesting a visual perceptual processing advantage due to the picture superiority effect–a picture says a thousand words. Further, it underlines the importance of graphic design in food marketing. The findings have ramifications for food marketing, product development, and pricing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2) re-analysis to identify long-term Mediterranean Sea Offshore Wind (OW) classification possible locations. In particular, an OW classification based on the last 40-years period OW speeds highlighted the best areas for potential Offshore Wind Turbine Generators (OWTG) installations in the Mediterranean basin. Preliminary, long-term OW classification results show that several Mediterranean basin zones in the Aegean Sea, Gulf of Lyon, the Northern Morocco and Tunisia regions have attractive OW potential. Secondly, a combined forecasting model based on the wavelet decomposition method and long-term memory neural network has been developed to predict the short-term wind speed considering the last ten years of hourly data for Mediterranean areas. The results of the proposed model for wind speed prediction have been compared with other single models, Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), highlighting a higher level of accuracy. Finally, three Weibull fitting algorithms have been provided to analyze the wind energy potential in the Mediterranean basin. • Offshore wind classification using 40 years of re-analysis data and learning models. • Offshore wind speed assessment and mapping of the Mediterranean Sea hot region's. • A prediction model based on wavelet transform and long short-term memory network. • The evaluated model based on re-analysis data for offshore wind hot region's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salvia officinalis (Common sage, Culinary sage) is an aromatic plant that is frequently used as a spice in Mediterranean cookery and in the food industry and as a traditional medicine for the treatment of several infectious diseases. The essential oils were obtained by two different methods [hydrodistillation (HD) and microwave (Mw)] from the aerial part of S. officinalis L. growing wild in Ourika-Marrakech in Morocco. Ourika is a large zone of the Atlas Mountains which is considered as a large reserve of Flora, especially medicinal and aromatic plants. The obtained oils were analysed by gas chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and compared with that of Tunisia. Thirty-six compounds were identified from the Mw-extracted oil which accounted for 97.32% of the total oil composition. However, 33 compounds obtained by HD representing 98.67%. The major components were trans-thujone (14.10% and 29.84%), 1,8-cineole (5.10% and 16.82%), camphor (4.99% and 9.14%), viridiflorol (16.42% and 9.92%), β-caryophyllene (19.83% and 5.20%) and α-humulene (13.54% and 4.02%). Antibacterial, allelopathic (% germination in lettuce seeds and inhibited root growth obtained after treatment with S. officinalis oils) and antioxidant (IC₅₀ values 22 mg/mL) activities were studied.