Understanding consumer loyalty to technology-based self-services with credence qualities

Purpose This paper aims to use the Model of Goal-Directed Behavior (MGB) to examine the factors affecting consumers’ continued use of emerging technology-based self-services (TBSSs) with credence qualities. Professional services, which traditionally require specialized knowledge and high levels of interpersonal interaction to produce owing to their credence qualities, are increasingly delivered via self-service technologies. Health services delivered via mobile devices, for example, facilitate self-care without direct involvement from health professionals. Design/methodology/approach A mental health service delivered via the Internet and mobile phone, myCompass, was selected as the research context. Twenty interviews were conducted with users of myCompass and the data were thematically analyzed. Findings The findings of the study showcase the unique determinants of consumers’ continued use of TBSSs with credence qualities relative to the more routine services which have been the focus of extant research. The findings further provide support for the utility of the MGB in explaining service continuance, although the importance of distinguishing between extrinsic and intrinsic motivational components of behavioral desire and capturing the impact of social influence beyond subjective norms is also highlighted. Originality/value This study contributes to recent research examining differences in consumer responses across TBSSs and behavioral loyalty to these services. It also provides empirical evidence for broadening and deepening the MGB within this behavioral domain.

Varying sun protection of young children by migrant and Australian-born mothers

OBJECTIVE: To compare sun protection by Australian-born and migrant mothers of three-year-old children. METHODS: Australian-born and migrant mothers taking part in the Environments for Healthy Living prospective birth-cohort study were asked standard questions about their child's sun protection. Children were given a skin cancer susceptibility score based on grandparents' ethnic origin. Logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) to measure the association of sun protection of children according to mothers' migrant status adjusted for socio-demographic characteristics. RESULTS: A total of 613 Australian-born and 224 migrant mothers of three-year-old children were studied. Mothers who had migrated less than four years ago were more likely to allow their three-year-old to spend more than two hours outdoors between 10 am and 3 pm compared to Australian-born mothers (OR=2.80, 95%CI 1.20-6.57). Mothers from high latitude countries (>45 degrees) were more likely to apply sunscreen to their child than those from lower latitude countries (OR=3.15, 95%CI 1.03-9.61). CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Strategies should aim to increase general awareness about the need for sun protection of young children, and recent migrants should be alerted to the harms of excessive sun exposure.

Towards development of a rapid and effective non-destructive testing strategy to identify brominated flame retardants in the plastics of consumer products

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are a class of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) once extensively used in the plastics of a wide range of consumer products. The listing of certain congeners that are constituents of commercial PBDE mixtures (including c-octaBDE) in the Stockholm Convention and tightening regulation of many other BFRs in recent years have created the need for a rapid and effective method of identifying BFR-containing plastics. A three-tiered testing strategy comparing results from non-destructive testing (X-ray fluorescence (XRF)) (n = 1714), a surface wipe test (n = 137) and destructive chemical analysis (n = 48) was undertaken to systematically identify BFRs in a wide range of consumer products. XRF rapidly identified bromine in 92% of products later confirmed to contain BFRs. Surface wipes of products identified tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), c-octaBDE congeners and BDE-209 with relatively high accuracy (> 75%) when confirmed by destructive chemical analysis. A relationship between the amounts of BFRs detected in surface wipes and subsequent destructive testing shows promise in predicting not only the types of BFRs present but also estimating the concentrations present. Information about the types of products that may contain persistent BFRs will assist regulators in implementing policies to further reduce the occurrence of these chemicals in consumer products.

Empowering the consumer through Accountable-eHealth (AeH) systems

Allowing consumers to designate preferred healthcare professionals; Accountable-eHealth systems create a transparent and accountable eHealth environment for better healthcare delivery.

Protection of rabbits against lapinized rinderpest virus with purified envelope glycoproteins of peste-des-petits-ruminants and rinderpest viruses

Haemagglutinin (HA) and fusion (F) proteins of peste-des-petits-ruminants virus (PPRV) and rinderpest virus (RPV) were purified by immunoaffinity chromatography. The purified proteins were characterized by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS-PAGE). Rabbit hyperimmune sera were raised against the purified HA and F proteins and assayed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), haemagglutination-inhibition (HAI) and virus neutralization (VN) tests. The immunized animals were challenged with a virulent lapinized (rabbit-adapted) strain of RPV: Both HA and F proteins of PPRV protected rabbits against a lethal challenge with lapinized RPV. As expected, RPV HA and F proteins also conferred a similar protection against the homologous challenge. The postchallenge antibody responses were of a true anamnestic type.

Implementation mechanism: Protection against harassment of women at workplace

Pakistan is widely known and appreciated in the world for its history, Islamic culture and norms. Since the creation of Pakistan, it inherited poverty in its roots. There are many reasons for poverty but one lies on the shoulder of women who are 50% of the total population of Pakistan. On the apex of it, women do not take part in the development of Pakistan because when they step out of their homes, they suffer a lot of problems. These problems are a hurdle in their active participation in development .Government has tried to create an environment for those women, who suffer different problems. Harassment of women at work place is one of those problems which discourage women in taking active part in economic and social development of society. Women Activists, from the last decade, were working for the protection of woman’s right at workplace and they succeeded in formulation of Harassment Act 2010. Since law is ineffective without its proper mechanism of implementation, steps should be taken for its proper implementation mechanism. This article aims to provide information about the provisions of law, related to the harassment of women at workplace with an attempt to explore the effectiveness of its implementation. The study was conducted in twin cities of Pakistan, Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Interviews were conducted with the employees and employers of organizations, educational institutions, women activists, NGOs workers, lawyers, judges and some law enforcement officers. Group discussions were also held with teachers, students of Human rights and religious personalities. This report focuses on the implementation mechanism of new legislation in Pakistan. It also highlights some important facts related to its enforcement.

Using the evolution of consumer products to inform design

The development of a new consumer product and its release to market is typically an expensive and risky process. It is estimated that up to 80% of all new products fail in the marketplace (Savoia, 2014). The consequences of failure can be ruinous for a manufacturer both financially and in terms of brand reputation. So even small improvements in success prediction have the potential to save money, effort and brand reputation. This paper proposes an approach where the history and evolution of a product is mapped and analyzed. The results of the analysis can then be used to inform design decisions. This paper will also demonstrate the similarities between biological evolution and the evolution of consumer products. Using the existing structure and terminology of biological evolution allows us to focus on the aspects of innovations that have led to success and those that have led to failure. This paper uses the case study of the wristwatch and its development over 100 years. The analysis of this leads to recommendations for contemporary “smartwatches.”

Submission to Queensland Law Reform Commission WP 73 Review of Child Protection Mandatory Reporting Laws for the Early Childhood Education and Care Sector

In 2015 the QLRC is conducting an inquiry into whether to extend legislative mandatory reporting duties for physical abuse and sexual abuse to early childhood education and care practitioners. The current legislation does not require these practitioners to report suspected cases of significant harm from physical or sexual absue to child welfare agencies. Based on the literature, and a multidisciplinary analysis, our overall recommendation is that we endorse the extension to selected early childhood education and care practitioners of Queensland’s current mandatory reporting duty in the Child Protection Act 1999 s 13E.

Pesticide residues in food - acute dietary exposure

Consumer risk assessment is a crucial step in the regulatory approval of pesticide use on food crops. Recently, an additional hurdle has been added to the formal consumer risk assessment process with the introduction of short-term intake or exposure assessment and a comparable short-term toxicity reference, the acute reference dose. Exposure to residues during one meal or over one day is important for short-term or acute intake. Exposure in the short term can be substantially higher than average because the consumption of a food on a single occasion can be very large compared with typical long-term or mean consumption and the food may have a much larger residue than average. Furthermore, the residue level in a single unit of a fruit or vegetable may be higher by a factor (defined as the variability factor, which we have shown to be typically ×3 for the 97.5th percentile unit) than the average residue in the lot. Available marketplace data and supervised residue trial data are examined in an investigation of the variability of residues in units of fruit and vegetables. A method is described for estimating the 97.5th percentile value from sets of unit residue data. Variability appears to be generally independent of the pesticide, the crop, crop unit size and the residue level. The deposition of pesticide on the individual unit during application is probably the most significant factor. The diets used in the calculations ideally come from individual and household surveys with enough consumers of each specific food to determine large portion sizes. The diets should distinguish the different forms of a food consumed, eg canned, frozen or fresh, because the residue levels associated with the different forms may be quite different. Dietary intakes may be calculated by a deterministic method or a probabilistic method. In the deterministic method the intake is estimated with the assumptions of large portion consumption of a ‘high residue’ food (high residue in the sense that the pesticide was used at the highest recommended label rate, the crop was harvested at the smallest interval after treatment and the residue in the edible portion was the highest found in any of the supervised trials in line with these use conditions). The deterministic calculation also includes a variability factor for those foods consumed as units (eg apples, carrots) to allow for the elevated residue in some single units which may not be seen in composited samples. In the probabilistic method the distribution of dietary consumption and the distribution of possible residues are combined in repeated probabilistic calculations to yield a distribution of possible residue intakes. Additional information such as percentage commodity treated and combination of residues from multiple commodities may be incorporated into probabilistic calculations. The IUPAC Advisory Committee on Crop Protection Chemistry has made 11 recommendations relating to acute dietary exposure.

Cross-protection study of the nine serovars of Haemophilus paragallinarum in the Kume haemagglutinin scheme

The cross-protection and haemagglutination-inhibition antibodies present in chickens vaccinated with one of the nine currently recognized Kume haemagglutinin serovars of Haemophilus paragallinarum were investigated. The results confirmed the widely accepted dogma that serogroups A, B, and C represent three distinct immunovars. Within Kume serogroup A, there was generally good cross-protection among all four serovars. However, within Kume serogroup C, there was evidence of a reduced level of cross protection between some of the four serovars. The haemagglutination-inhibition antibody levels generally showed the same trend as with the cross-protection results. This study suggests that some apparent field failures of infectious coryza vaccines may be due to a lack of cross-protection between the vaccine strains and the field strains. Our results will help guide the selection of strains for inclusion in infectious coryza vaccines.

Transparency and ‘uncomfortable knowledge’ in child protection

Australia's child protection systems and the provision of out-of-home care, in particular, have been subject to sustained criticism for decades from dozens of official inquiries and reviews. It is now well established that many children in state care are treated significantly less well than required by relevant legal frameworks and community standards. Much attention and significant resources have been directed toward trying to ameliorate this ‘wicked problem’ and yet it continues. This article focuses on one reason the problems persists, namely the secrecy and closed cultures that characterize relevant organizations which reinforce strategies of denial that avoid acknowledging or dealing with ‘uncomfortable knowledge’. It is a situation many people in child protection systems confront. It is, for example, when we know abuse is taking place, or when they see or are ourselves party to corrupt or negligent practices. It is knowing that important ethical principles are being abrogated. We draw on recent official reports and inquiries noting the repeated calls for greater transparency and independent oversight. An argument is made for a default position of total transparency subject to caveats that protect privacy and any investigation underway. An account of what this can look like is offered.

Borate protection of softwood from Coptotermes acinaciformis (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) damage: Variation in protection thresholds explained

Laboratory and field data reported in the literature are confusing with regard to “adequate” protection thresholds for borate timber preservatives. The confusion is compounded by differences in termite species, timber species and test methodology. Laboratory data indicate a borate retention of 0.5% mass/mass (m/m) boric acid equivalent (BAE) would cause >90% termite mortality and restrict mass loss in test specimens to ≤5%. Field data generally suggest that borate retentions appreciably >0.5% m/m BAE are required. We report two field experiments with varying amounts of untreated feeder material in which Coptotermes acinaciformis (Froggatt) (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) responses to borate-treated radiata (Monterey) pine, Pinus radiata D. Don, were measured. The apparently conflicting results between laboratory and field data are explained by the presence or absence of untreated feeder material in the test environment. In the absence of untreated feeder material, wood containing 0.5% BAE provided adequate protection from Coptotermes sp., whereas in the presence of untreated feeder material, increased retentions were required. Furthermore, the retentions required increased with increased amounts of susceptible material present. Some termites, Nasutitermes sp. and Mastotermes darwiniensis Froggatt, for example, are borate-tolerant and borate timber preservatives are not a viable management option with these species. The lack of uniform standards for termite test methodology and assessment criteria for efficacy across the world is recognized as a difficulty with research into the performance of timber preservatives with termites. The many variables in laboratory and field assays make “prescriptive” standards difficult to recommend. The use of “performance” standards to define efficacy criteria (“adequate” protection) is discussed.

New tools for management of phosphine resistance

Phosphine is the primary fumigant used to protect the majority of the world' s grain and a variety of other stored commodities from insect pests. Phosphine is playing an increasingly important role in the protection of commodities for two primary reasons. Firstly, use of the alternative fumigant, methyl bromide, has been sharply curtailed and is tightly regulated due to its role in ozone depletion, and secondly, consumers are becoming increasingly intolerant of contact pesticides. Niche alternatives to phosphine exist, but they suffer from a range of factors that limit their use, including: 1) Limited commercial adoption due to expense or slow mode of action; 2) Poor efficacy due to low toxicity, rapid sorption, limited volatility or high density; 3) Public health concerns due to toxicity to handlers or nearby residents, as well as risk of explosion; 4) Poor consumer acceptance due to toxic residues or smell. These same factors limit the prospects of quickly identifying and deploying a new fumigant. Given that resistance toward phosphine is increasing among insect pests, improved monitoring and management of resistance is a priority. Knowledge of the mode of action of phosphine as well as the mechanisms of resistance may also greatly reduce the effort and expense of identifying synergists or novel replacement compounds.