A consumer-based method for retailer equity measurement: Results of an empirical study

This research extends the consumer-based brand equity measurement approach to the measurement of the equity associated with retailers. This paper also addresses some of the limitations associated with current retailer equity measurement such as a lack of clarity regarding its nature and dimensionality. We conceptualise retailer equity as a four-dimensional construct comprising retailer awareness, retailer associations, perceived retailer quality, and retailer loyalty. The paper reports the result of an empirical study of a convenience sample of 601 shopping mall consumers at an Australian state capital city. Following a confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modelling to examine the dimensionality of the retailer equity construct, the proposed model is tested for two retailer categories: department stores and speciality stores. Results confirm the hypothesised four-dimensional structure.

Energy and calcium stores are preserved in girls and young women with CF, independent of disease severity: An explanation for the 'gender gap'?

Bioenergetics differ between males and females of many species. Human females apportion a substantial proportion of energy resources towards gynoid fat storage, to support the energetic burden of reproduction. Similarly, axial calcium accrual is favoured in females compared with males. Nutritional status is a prognostic indicator in cystic fibrosis (CF), but girls and young women are at greater risk of death despite equivalent nutritional status to males. The aim of this study was to compare fat (energy) and calcium stores (bone density) in males and females with CF over a spectrum of disease severity. Methods: Fat as % body weight (fat%) and lumbar spine (LS) and total body (TB) bone mineral density (BMD) were measured using dual absorption X-ray photometry in 127(59M) control and 101(54M) CF subjects, aged 9–25 years. An equation for predicted age at death had been determined using survival data and history of pulmonary function for the whole clinic, based on a trivariate normal model using maximum likelihood methods (1). For the CF group, a disease severity index (predicted age at death) was calculated from the derived equations according to each subjects history of pulmonary function, current age, and gender. Disease severity was classified according to percentile of predicted age at death (‘mild’ ≥75th, ‘moderate’ 25th–75th, ‘severe’ ≤25th percentile). Wt for age z-score was calculated. Serum testosterone and oestrogen were measured in males and females respectively. Fat% and LSBMD were compared between the groups using ANOVA. Results: There was an interaction between disease severity and gender: increasing disease severity was associated with greater deficits in TB (p=0.01), LSBMD (p

Retail restructuring and consumer choice 2:understanding consumer choice at the household level

This paper complements the preceding one by Clarke et al, which looked at the long-term impact of retail restructuring on consumer choice at the local level. Whereas the previous paper was based on quantitative evidence from survey research, this paper draws on the qualitative phases of the same three-year study, and in it we aim to understand how the changing forms of retail provision are experienced at the neighbourhood and household level. The empirical material is drawn from focus groups, accompanied shopping trips, diaries, interviews, and kitchen visits with eight households in two contrasting neighbourhoods in the Portsmouth area. The data demonstrate that consumer choice involves judgments of taste, quality, and value as well as more ‘objective’ questions of convenience, price, and accessibility. These judgments are related to households’ differential levels of cultural capital and involve ethical and moral considerations as well as more mundane considerations of practical utility. Our evidence suggests that many of the terms that are conventionally advanced as explanations of consumer choice (such as ‘convenience’, ‘value’, and ‘habit’) have very different meanings according to different household circumstances. To understand these meanings requires us to relate consumers’ at-store behaviour to the domestic context in which their consumption choices are embedded. Bringing theories of practice to bear on the nature of consumer choice, our research demonstrates that consumer choice between stores can be understood in terms of accessibility and convenience, whereas choice within stores involves notions of value, price, and quality. We also demonstrate that choice between and within stores is strongly mediated by consumers’ household contexts, reflecting the extent to which shopping practices are embedded within consumers’ domestic routines and complex everyday lives. The paper concludes with a summary of the overall findings of the project, and with a discussion of the practical and theoretical implications of the study.

Challenging market conventions:supermarket diversification and consumer resistance in children's apparel purchases

Purpose – In the UK, while fashion apparel purchasing is available to the majority of consumers, the main supermarkets seem – rather against the odds and market conventions – to have created a new, socially-acceptable and legitimate, apparel market offer for young children. This study aims to explore parental purchasing decisions on apparel for young children (below ten years old) focusing on supermarket diversification into apparel and consumer resistance against other traditional brands. Design/methodology/approach – Data collection adopted a qualitative research mode: using semi-structured interviews in two locations (Cornwall Please correct and check againand Glasgow), each with a Tesco and ASDA located outside towns. A total of 59 parents participated in the study. Interviews took place in the stores, with parents seen buying children fashion apparel. Findings – The findings suggest that decisions are based not only on functionality (e.g. convenience, value for money, refund policy), but also on intuitive factors (e.g. style, image, quality) as well as broader processes of consumption from parental boundary setting (e.g. curbing premature adultness). Positive consumer resistance is leading to a re-drawing of the cultural boundaries of fashion. In some cases, concerns are expressed regarding items that seem too adult-like or otherwise not as children's apparel should be. Practical implications – The paper highlights the increasing importance of browsing as a modern choice practice (e.g. planned impulse buying, sanctuary of social activity). Particular attention is given to explaining why consumers positively resist buying from traditional label providers and voluntarily choose supermarket clothing ranges without any concerns over their children wearing such garments. Originality/value – The paper shows that supermarket shopping for children's apparel is now firmly part of UK consumption habits and choice. The findings provide theoretical insights into the significance of challenging market conventions, parental cultural boundary setting and positive resistance behaviour.

Trends in the foodservice industry : convenience foods

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Regulation of lipocalin 2 (Lcn2) gene expression by iron stores, anemia and inflammation

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Regulation of lipocalin 2 (Lcn2) gene expression by iron stores, anemia and inflammation

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Dealing with Shifting Labor Employment Sands

Changes in regulations and tighter interpretations of existing regulations engaged participants in 14th annual Labor and Employment Roundtable, hosted by the Cornell Institute for Hospitality Labor and Employment Relations. They also reviewed changes in union organizing rules. Two Supreme Court decisions dealt with the challenging application of accommodating workers’ health and religious needs, while a new ruling by the National Labor Relations Board calls into question the supposedly arm’s length relationship of employee leasing firms and their clients, as well as franchisors and franchisees. The NLRB also has shortened the campaign time for union elections. In one Supreme Court case, Young v. United Parcel Services, Inc., the Court pointed to a simple principle when employers implement policies for those with illness or medical conditions. Policies must be consistent with regard to how on-job and off-job health issues are treated, and the company’s policy must not be driven by economic considerations. That is, the Court stated that an employer’s denial of a light-duty assignment for an employee could not be based on cost or convenience. The case relating to religious accommodation also involved an economic hinge. In an earlier case, the Court had held that religious accommodations are limited to that which would have no more than a de minimus cost on the employer. In this case, EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores Inc., Abercrombie had declined to hire a woman wearing a headscarf on the assumption that she would need a religious accommodation. The Court frowned on the idea that an employer would take religious accommodations into account when deciding whether to hire a person. The franchising industry is attempting to make sense of the NLRB ruling regarding joint employment, in which the board ruled that franchisors that maintain some kind of control over their franchisees’ employees should be considered joint employers of those employees. This is a complicated matter, and the situation is still in flux. Finally, with regard to the telescoped union campaign ruling, these are supposed to benefit the unions. So far, however, there’s no indication that the change has affected the overall outcome of union election campaigns.

Central Stores Inventory: Employing the IBM 1410 Magnetic Tape Computer System

The Property and Equipment Department has a central supply of automotive parts, tools, and maintenance supplies. This central supply is used to supply the repair shop and also to supply parts to the various field garages and all departments of the Commission. The old procedure involved keeping track manually of all of the parts, which involved some 22,000 items. All records, billings, arid re-order points were kept manually. Mani times the re-order points were located by reaching into a bin and finding nothing there. Desiring to improve this situation, an inventory control system was established for use on the computer. A complete record of the supplies that are stored in the central warehouse was prepared and this information was used to make a catalog. Each time an item is issued or received, it is processed through the inventory program. When the re-order point is reached, a notice is given to reorder. The procedure for taking inventory has been improved. A voucher invoice is now prepared by the computer for all issues to departments. These are some of the many benefits that have been de rived from this system.

Resident perceptions of natural resources between cities and across scales in the Pacific Northwest

As the global population becomes increasingly urban, research is needed to explore how local culture, land use, and policy will influence urban natural resource management. We used a broad-scale comparative approach and survey of residents within the Portland (Oregon)-Vancouver (Washington) metropolitan areas, USA, two states with similar geographical and ecological characteristics, but different approaches to land-use planning, to explore resident perceptions about natural resources at three scales of analysis: property level (“at or near my house”), neighborhood (“within a 20-minute walk from my house”), and metro level (“across the metro area”). At the metro-level scale, nonmetric multidimensional scaling revealed that the two cities were quite similar. However, affinity for particular landscape characteristics existed within each city with the greatest difference generally at the property-level scale. Portland respondents expressed affinity for large mature trees, tree-lined streets, public transportation, and proximity to stores and services. Vancouver respondents expressed affinity for plentiful accessible parking. We suggest three explanations that likely are not mutually exclusive. First, respondents are segmented based on preferences for particular amenities, such as convenience versus commuter needs. Second, historical land-use and tax policy legacies may influence individual decisions. Third, more environmentally attuned worldviews may influence an individual’s desire to produce environmentally friendly outcomes. Our findings highlight the importance of acknowledging variations in residents’ affinities for landscape characteristics across different scales and locations because these differences may influence future land-use policies about urban natural resources.

Evaluating, predicting and mapping belowground carbon stores in Kenyan mangroves.

Despite covering only approximately 138,000 km2, mangroves are globally important carbon sinks with carbon density values 3 to 4 times that of terrestrial forests. A key challenge in evaluating the carbon benefits from mangrove forest conservation is the lack of rigorous spatially resolved estimates of mangrove sediment carbon stocks; most mangrove carbon is stored belowground. Previous work has focused on detailed estimations of carbon stores over relatively small areas, which has obvious limitations in terms of generality and scope of application. Most studies have focused only on quantifying the top 1m of belowground carbon (BGC). Carbon stored at depths beyond 1m, and the effects of mangrove species, location and environmental context on these stores, is poorly studied. This study investigated these variables at two sites (Gazi and Vanga in the south of Kenya) and used the data to produce a country-specific BGC predictive model for Kenya and map BGC store estimates throughout Kenya at spatial scales relevant for climate change research, forest management and REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). The results revealed that mangrove species was the most reliable predictor of BGC; Rhizophora muronata had the highest mean BGC with 1485.5t C ha-1. Applying the species-based predictive model to a base map of species distribution in Kenya for the year 2010 with a 2.5m2 resolution, produced an estimate of 69.41 Mt C (± 9.15 95% C.I.) for BGC in Kenyan mangroves. When applied to a 1992 mangrove distribution map, the BGC estimate was 75.65 Mt C (± 12.21 95% C.I.); an 8.3% loss in BGC stores between 1992 and 2010 in Kenya. The country level mangrove map provides a valuable tool for assessing carbon stocks and visualising the distribution of BGC. Estimates at the 2.5m2 resolution provide sufficient detail for highlighting and prioritising areas for mangrove conservation and restoration.

A contribution towards the performance and structural understanding of copper and nickel salts as ammonia stores

The ongoing depletion of fossil fuels and the severe consequences of the greenhouse effect make the development of alternative energy systems crucially important. While hydrogen is, in principle, a promising alternative, releasing nothing but energy and pure water. Hydrogen storage is complicated and no completely viable technique has been proposed so far. This work is concerned with the study of one potential alternative to pure hydrogen: ammonia, and more specifically its storage in solids. Ammonia, NH3, can be regarded as a chemical hydrogen carrier with the advantages of strongly reduced flammability and explosiveness as compared to hydrogen. Furthermore, ammine metal salts presented here as promising ammonia stores easily store up to 50 wt.-% ammonia, giving them a volumetric energy density comparable to natural gas. The model system NiX2–NH3 ( X = Cl, Br, I) is studied thoroughly with respect to ammine salt formation, thermal decomposition, air stability and structural effects. The system CuX2–NH3 ( X = Cl, Br) has an adverse thermal decomposition behaviour, making it impractical for use as an ammonia store. This system is, however, most interesting from a structural point of view and some work concerning the study of the structural behaviour of this system is presented. Finally, close chemical relatives to the metal ammine halides, the metal ammine nitrates are studied. They exhibit interesting anion arrangements, which is an impressive showcase for the combination of diffraction and spectroscopic information. The characterisation techniques in this thesis range from powder diffraction over single crystal diffraction, spectroscopy, computational modelling, thermal analyses to gravimetric uptake experiments. Further highlights are the structure solutions and refinements from powder data of (NH4)2[NiCl4(H2O)(NH3)] and Ni(NH3)2(NO3)2, the combination of crystallographic and chemical information for the elucidation of the (NH4)2[NiCl4(H2O)(NH3)] formation reaction and the growth of single crystals under ammonia flow, a technique allowing the first documented successful growth and single crystal diffraction measurement for [Cu(NH3)6]Cl2.

Utilização de plantas medicinais no tratamento de feridas : perfil do stryphnodendron barbatiman

Introdução – O recurso à utilização de plantas com fins terapêuticos, é uma das mais antigas formas de prática medicinal da humanidade, sobretudo por parte da população de países menos desenvolvidos, que ainda hoje, segundo a Organização Mundial de Saúde, recorre, em muitas situações, à utilização das plantas medicinais como a única forma de acesso aos cuidados básicos de saúde. Porém, e apesar do advento da medicina moderna, que se correndo do avanço da biotecnologia, por meio da qual as plantas, consideradas medicinais, podem ter seu potencial terapêutico aprovado pela ciência para fins medicamentosos, uma parte significativa da comercialização de plantas medicinais continua a não ser feita em farmácias ou lojas de produtos naturais, mas sim comercializadas em feiras livres, pelos chamados raizeiros. Partindo deste enquadramento, os objetivos centrais desta investigação foram: identificar quais as espécies de plantas medicinais mais indicadas por comerciantes, raizeiros, no tratamento de feridas e que são comercializadas nas mais importantes feiras livres da cidade de Maceió, e caracterizar a fonte de conhecimento desses raizeiros, em relação às mesmas. Métodos – Realizou-se um estudo que seguiu os pressupostos de uma pesquisa de natureza qualitativa, de matriz transversal, com recurso a uma amostra não probabilística, acidental e por conveniência constituída por 26 raizeiros, na sua maioria pertencentes ao do grupo etário dos 37-52 anos (46,14%), que desenvolvem a atividade comercial de plantas medicinais como sua única e/ou principal atividade produtiva (76,90%), e em que 50% são do sexo feminino. Como instrumento de recolha de dados recorreu-se à entrevista, a partir de convites efectuados pela autora do estudo na sequência da realização de visitas às principais feiras livres da cidade de Maceió-AL. Resultados – Os dados recolhidos pela totalidade das entrevistas permitiram constatar que o barbatimão (Stryphnodendron barbatiman) é a planta mais frequentemente indicada para o tratamento em feridas, logo seguida da Aroeira (MyracrodruonurundeuvaLâmina), e da Sambacaitá (Hyptis pectinata). As menos recomendadas são a Garra do Diabo (Harpagophytum procubens); a Jatobá (Hymenae acourbaril L.) e a Babosa (Aloe arborescens). A maioria dos raizeiros afirmaram também que recomendavam a “casca” e a “entre casca” como a forma farmacêutica mais eficaz. Em relação à aprendizagem/ conhecimento sobre a utilização medicinal do barbatimão (Stryphnodendron barbatiman): 69,3% dos raizeiros entrevistados afirmaram ter aprendido com familiares; 19,2 com amigos e 11,5% através de conversas com outros comerciantes do mesmo ramo de negócio. Cem por cento dos entrevistados afirmaram que o Stryphnodendron barbatiman, independetemente de ser a planta mais recomendada pelos raizeiros, é a planta mais procurada pela população e, que segundo a mesma, é a que apresenta um melhor resultado. Apenas 50% dos entrevistados refere que o barbatimão é armazenado seco e ensacado, e quanto questionados sobre a validade do mesmo, 69,3% dos raizeiros afirmaram que esse prazo é indeterminado. Quanto à duração da “terapia” pelo barbatimão, 100% dos raizeiros entrevistados, afirmaram que deve permanecer durante o tempo que o paciente ou o profissional de saúde que estiver acompanhando o caso, julgar necessário. Conclusões – Os resultados deste estudo vêm confirmar que o recurso à utilização de plantas com fins terapêuticos no tratamento de feridas, por parte da população brasileira, continua sendo muito usual, sendo o barbatimão (Stryphnodendron barbatimam) o mais indicado e conhecido pela cultura popular. Nesse sentido é relevante que, por um lado, o profissional de enfermagem, procure entender a utilização dessa planta medicinal, popularmente utilizada, com afirmativa de êxito, no tratamento de feridas, e por outro, entendemos ser necessária a realização de estudos multidisciplinares que permitam a ampliação e a profundidade dos conhecimentos das plantas medicinais, como agem, quais são os seus efeitos tóxicos e colaterais, e quais as suas verdadeiras indicações terapêuticas. Palavras-chave: Plantas Medicinais, Ferimentos e lesões, Tratamento, Enfermagem, Raizeiros.

Auditoría de sistemas al cumplimiento de los requerimientos 7, 8, 9 de la norma PCIDSS aplicada a Coral Hipermercado, Racar plaza con corte a Junio de 2015

Coral Hipermercado GO es una empresa dedicada a la comercialización de diversos productos de consumo masivo. Debido a la demanda que mantienen y el nivel de transacciones que realizan en ventas diariamente,

Stress-testing centralised model stores

One of the current challenges in model-driven engineering is enabling effective collaborative modelling. Two common approaches are either storing the models in a central repository, or keeping them under a traditional file-based version control system and build a centralized index for model-wide queries. Either way, special attention must be paid to the nature of these repositories and indexes as networked services: they should remain responsive even with an increasing number of concurrent clients. This paper presents an empirical study on the impact of certain key decisions on the scalability of concurrent model queries, using an Eclipse Connected Data Objects model repository and a Hawk model index. The study evaluates the impact of the network protocol, the API design and the internal caching mechanisms and analyzes the reasons for their varying performance.