INFLUENCE OF DISCOUNT PRICE ANNOUNCEMENTS ON CONSUMER'S BEHAVIOR

The theoretical framework that underpins this research study is based on the Prospect Theory formulated by Kahneman and Tversky, and Thaler's Mental Accounting Theory. The research aims to evaluate the consumers' behavior when different patterns of discount are offered (in percentage and absolute value and for larger and smaller discounts). Two experiments were conducted to explore these patterns of behavior and the results that were obtained supported the view that the framing effect was a common occurrence. The patterns of choice of individuals in a sample were found to be different due to changes in the ways discounts were offered. This can be explained by the various ways of presenting discount rates that had an impact on the influence of purchase intentions, recommendations and quality perception.

Influence of discount price announcements on consumer's behavior

The theoretical framework that underpins this research study is based on the Prospect Theory formulated by Kahneman and Tversky, and Thaler's Mental Accounting Theory. The research aims to evaluate the consumers' behavior when different patterns of discount are offered (in percentage and absolute value and for larger and smaller discounts). Two experiments were conducted to explore these patterns of behavior and the results that were obtained supported the view that the framing effect was a common occurrence. The patterns of choice of individuals in a sample were found to be different due to changes in the ways discounts were offered. This can be explained by the various ways of presenting discount rates that had an impact on the influence of purchase intentions, recommendations and quality perception.

Average control of Markov decision processes with Feller transition probabilities and general action spaces

This paper studies the average control problem of discrete-time Markov Decision Processes (MDPs for short) with general state space, Feller transition probabilities, and possibly non-compact control constraint sets A(x). Two hypotheses are considered: either the cost function c is strictly unbounded or the multifunctions A(r)(x) = {a is an element of A(x) : c(x, a) <= r} are upper-semicontinuous and compact-valued for each real r. For these two cases we provide new results for the existence of a solution to the average-cost optimality equality and inequality using the vanishing discount approach. We also study the convergence of the policy iteration approach under these conditions. It should be pointed out that we do not make any assumptions regarding the convergence and the continuity of the limit function generated by the sequence of relative difference of the alpha-discounted value functions and the Poisson equations as often encountered in the literature. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Triiodothyronine Acutely Stimulates Glucose Transport into L6 Muscle Cells Without Increasing Surface GLUT4, GLUT1, or GLUT3

Background: Thyroid hormones (THs) act genomically to stimulate glucose transport by elevating glucose transporter (Slc2a) expression and glucose utilization by cells. However, nongenomic effects of THs are now emerging. Here, we assess how triiodothyronine (T-3) acutely affects glucose transport and the content of GLUT4, GLUT1, and GLUT3 at the surface of muscle cells, and possible interactions between T-3 and insulin action. Methods: Differentiated L6 myotubes transfected with myc-tagged Slc2a4 (L6-GLUT4myc) or Slc2a1 (L6-GLUT1myc) and wild-type L6 myotubes were studied in the following conditions: control, hypothyroid (Tx), Tx plus T3, Tx plus insulin, and Tx plus insulin and T-3. Results: Glucose uptake and GLUT4 content at the cell surface decreased in the Tx group relative to controls. T-3 treatment for 30 minutes increased glucose transport into L6-GLUT4myc cells without altering surface GLUT4 content, which increased only thereafter. The total amount of GLUT4 protein remained unchanged among the groups studied. The surface GLUT1 content of L6-GLUT1myc cells also remained unaltered after T-3 treatment; however, in these cells glucose transport was not stimulated by T-3. In wild-type L6 cells, although T-3 treatment increased the total amount of GLUT3, it did not change the surface GLUT3 content. Moreover, within 30 minutes, T-3 stimulation of glucose uptake was additive to that of insulin in L6-GLUT4myc cells. As expected, insulin elevated surface GLUT4 content and glucose uptake. However, interestingly, surface GLUT4 content remained unchanged or even dropped with T-3 plus insulin. Conclusions: These data reveal that T-3 rapidly increases glucose uptake in L6-GLUT4myc cells, which, at least for 30 minutes, did not depend on an increment in GLUT4 at the cell surface yet potentiates insulin action. We propose that this rapid T-3 effect involves activation of GLUT4 transporters at the cell surface, but cannot discount the involvement of an unknown GLUT.

Within-plant isoprene oxidation confirmed by direct emissions of oxidation products methyl vinyl ketone and methacrolein

Isoprene is emitted from many terrestrial plants at high rates, accounting for an estimated 1/3 of annual global volatile organic compound emissions from all anthropogenic and biogenic sources combined. Through rapid photooxidation reactions in the atmosphere, isoprene is converted to a variety of oxidized hydrocarbons, providing higher order reactants for the production of organic nitrates and tropospheric ozone, reducing the availability of oxidants for the breakdown of radiatively active trace gases such as methane, and potentially producing hygroscopic particles that act as effective cloud condensation nuclei. However, the functional basis for plant production of isoprene remains elusive. It has been hypothesized that in the cell isoprene mitigates oxidative damage during the stress-induced accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), but the products of isoprene-ROS reactions in plants have not been detected. Using pyruvate-2-13C leaf and branch feeding and individual branch and whole mesocosm flux studies, we present evidence that isoprene (i) is oxidized to methyl vinyl ketone and methacrolein (iox) in leaves and that iox/i emission ratios increase with temperature, possibly due to an increase in ROS production under high temperature and light stress. In a primary rainforest in Amazonia, we inferred significant in plant isoprene oxidation (despite the strong masking effect of simultaneous atmospheric oxidation), from its influence on the vertical distribution of iox uptake fluxes, which were shifted to low isoprene emitting regions of the canopy. These observations suggest that carbon investment in isoprene production is larger than that inferred from emissions alone and that models of tropospheric chemistry and biotachemistryclimate interactions should incorporate isoprene oxidation within both the biosphere and the atmosphere with potential implications for better understanding both the oxidizing power of the troposphere and forest response to climate change.

Microcollinearity between autopolyploid sugarcane and diploid sorghum genomes

Abstract Background Sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) has become an increasingly important crop for its leading role in biofuel production. The high sugar content species S. officinarum is an octoploid without known diploid or tetraploid progenitors. Commercial sugarcane cultivars are hybrids between S. officinarum and wild species S. spontaneum with ploidy at ~12×. The complex autopolyploid sugarcane genome has not been characterized at the DNA sequence level. Results The microsynteny between sugarcane and sorghum was assessed by comparing 454 pyrosequences of 20 sugarcane bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) with sorghum sequences. These 20 BACs were selected by hybridization of 1961 single copy sorghum overgo probes to the sugarcane BAC library with one sugarcane BAC corresponding to each of the 20 sorghum chromosome arms. The genic regions of the sugarcane BACs shared an average of 95.2% sequence identity with sorghum, and the sorghum genome was used as a template to order sequence contigs covering 78.2% of the 20 BAC sequences. About 53.1% of the sugarcane BAC sequences are aligned with sorghum sequence. The unaligned regions contain non-coding and repetitive sequences. Within the aligned sequences, 209 genes were annotated in sugarcane and 202 in sorghum. Seventeen genes appeared to be sugarcane-specific and all validated by sugarcane ESTs, while 12 appeared sorghum-specific but only one validated by sorghum ESTs. Twelve of the 17 sugarcane-specific genes have no match in the non-redundant protein database in GenBank, perhaps encoding proteins for sugarcane-specific processes. The sorghum orthologous regions appeared to have expanded relative to sugarcane, mostly by the increase of retrotransposons. Conclusions The sugarcane and sorghum genomes are mostly collinear in the genic regions, and the sorghum genome can be used as a template for assembling much of the genic DNA of the autopolyploid sugarcane genome. The comparable gene density between sugarcane BACs and corresponding sorghum sequences defied the notion that polyploidy species might have faster pace of gene loss due to the redundancy of multiple alleles at each locus.