Burrowing rodents as ecosystem engineers: the ecology and management of plateau zokors Myospalax fontanierii in alpine meadow ecosystems on the Tibetan Plateau

1. Plateau zokors, Myospalax fontanierii, are the only subterranean herbivores on the Tibetan plateau of China. Although the population biology of plateau zokors has been studied for many years, the interactions between zokors and plants, especially for the maintenance and structure of ecological communities, have been poorly recognized. In the past, plateau zokors have been traditionally viewed as pests, competitors with cattle, and agents of soil erosion, thus eradication programmes have been carried out by local governments and farmers. Zokors are also widely and heavily exploited for their use in traditional Chinese medicine.2. Like other fossorial animals, such as pocket gophers Geomys spp. and prairie dogs Cynomys spp. in similar ecosystems, zokors may act to increase local environmental heterogeneity at the landscape level, aid in the formation, aeration and mixing of soil, and enhance infiltration of water into the soil thus curtailing erosion. The changes that zokors cause in the physical environment, vegetation and soil clearly affect the herbivore food web. Equally, plateau zokors also provide a significant food source for many avian and mammalian predators on the plateau. Zokor control leading to depletion of prey and secondary poisoning may therefore present problems for populations of numerous other animals.3. We highlight the important role plateau zokors play in the Tibetan plateau ecosystem. Plateau zokors should be managed in concert with other comprehensive rangeland treatments to ensure the ecological equilibrium and preservation of native biodiversity, as well as the long-term sustainable use of pastureland by domestic livestock.

一种3自由度并联柔索驱动机器人的变刚度特性研究

以一种3自由度并联驱动机器人为研究对象,研究这种机器人的变刚度特性。从操作臂的静力学出发,对并联柔索驱动机器人的刚度进行了分析得到刚度公式。从得到的公式可以看出,操作臂的刚度不仅与各分支的刚度有关,与操作臂位姿有关,还与张紧柔索的张紧力有关。在机器人各分支上串联刚度较低的弹簧后做刚度实验,试验结果验证了对刚度理论分析所得的结论。

品牌表现评价反应时与关注特性的关系

The decision making of customers has been a great concern in the field of customer research. Although China has entered the era of brand consumption and development, due to the different understanding of the regarded attributes between companies and customers, the phenomenon of “The awarded products don’t sell well, but the products which sell well can’t get the award.” appears. At the same time there is little research on the relationship between the brand and the customers has been conducted in China now. Traditional research on customer psychology employ questionnaires, depth interview and group discussions as the major methods. In cognitive psychology, the limitation of explicit memory has been revealed by implicit memory; moreover, unconscious cognition and implicit memory can also influence customers' remark of the brand. Therefore, the traditional methods are not accurate enough. Reaction time is an effective way to reveal testing equality, and it can also reveal implicit cognition. Based on the researches intends to investigate the validity of attention attributes in the method of reaction time by questionnaires and time reaction testing of 360 customers in 3 cities, which may, probably, overcomes the limitation of the traditional research methods. The 352 valid samples were analyzed by SPSS. The results showed there was no distinct corresponding relationship between the product attributes and reaction time. The different key attributes from questionnaire importance rating and the shortest reaction time standards were used to regressively analyze the results of customers’ overall rating (such as overall satisfaction,objective quality, recommend intention).The results indicated that the coefficiency of regression of the special attributes chosen from reaction time to overall rating was distinct, while the coefficiency of the special attributes chosen from importance rating to overall rating was not. The main conclusions are: 1. Regarded attributes can be obtained by the reaction time of brand performance rating. 2. Regarded attributes obtained by the reaction time of brand performance rating are more accurate than those by importance rating questionnaires. 3. The brand’s core attributes should includes regarded attributes during the decision making process.

品牌属性权重判断的反应时研究

In current days, many companies have carried out their branding strategies, because strong brand usually provides confidence and reduce risks to its consumers. No matter what a brand is based on tangible products or services, it will possess the common attributes of this category, and it also has its unique attributes. Brand attribute is defined as descriptive features, which are intrinsic characteristics, values or benefits endowed by users of the product or service (Keller, 1993; Romaniuk, 2003). The researches on models of brand multi-attributes are one of the most studied areas of consumer psychology (Werbel, 1978), and attribute weight is one of its key pursuits. Marketing practitioners also paid much attention to evaluations of attributes. Because those evaluations are relevant to the competitiveness and the strategies of promotion and new product development of the company (Green & Krieger, 1995). Then, how brand attributes correlate with weight judgments? And what features the attribute judgment reaction? Especially, what will feature the attribute weight judgment process of consumer who is facing the homogeneity of brands? Enlightened by the lexical hypothesis of researches on personality traits of psychology, this study choose search engine brands as the subject and adopt reaction time, which has been introduced into multi-attributes decision making by many researchers. Researches on independence of affect and cognition and on primacy of affect have cued us that we can categorize brand attributes into informative and affective ones. Meanwhile, Park has gone further to differentiate representative and experiential with functional attributes. This classification reflects the trend of emotion-branding and brand-consumer relationship. Three parts compose the research: the survey to collect attribute words, experiment one on affective primacy and experiment two on correlation between weight judgment and reaction. The results are as follow: In experiment one, we found: (1) affect words are not rated significantly from cognitive attributes, but affect words are responded faster than cognitive ones; (2) subjects comprehend and respond in different ways to functional attribute words and to representative and experiential words. In experiment two, we fund: (1) a significant negative correlation between attributes weight judgment and reaction time; (2) affective attributes will cause faster reaction than cognitive ones; (3) the reaction time difference between functional and representative or experiential attribute is significant, but there is no different between representative and experiential. In sum, we conclude that: (1): In word comprehension and weight judgment, we observed the affective primacy, even when the affect stimulus is presented as meaningful words. (2): The negative correlation between weight judgment and reaction time suggest us that the more important of attribute, the quicker of the reaction. (3): The difference on reaction time of functional, representative and experiential reflects the trend of emotional branding.

植入式广告与普通插播广告的效果比较及其影响因素

Brand placement is to present the information of products and brands through certain entertainments and non-commercial areas. Since 1990's, brand placement has become a major way of spreading advertisement and a new growing point of the global advertising market. In china, it is easily seen from spring festival evening gala of CCTV to all kinds of movie and TV shows, and is thus interested by many brand owners, advertisers and communication researchers. Since 2006, the people in the media circles have begin to take full care of the study of the brand placement. In general, there is still certain distance between the theoretical studies and the reality. It's a general problem over the world and is especially true for China as this was just a new idea. As the biggest global economic entity, China is the most potential and powerful market, thus the market of the brand placement will be huge. To push its development, it's then crucial to have theoretical studies on it. Many questions have not been explained yet in this area, mostly essential is to ask what kind of advantage it acquires compared with the traditional advertisement, if there is, how does such advantage show? What kind of factors influents the market effect of the brand placement? All these questions are not answered yet. Also it's well-known that a successful advertisement relies heavily on the understanding of the culture. Thus a specific thing to deal with is to study the effects according to the Chinese culture, which can make constructive suggestion to the whole industry. Our research is to compare the effects between the brand placement with the ordinary media advertisements, discuss its possible influences, and try to make certain suggestions to the future running and development. Our research obtains the following results by using the movie and advertisement in reality: (1) Like ordinary media ad’s, brand placement can improve the brand recognition of the audience significantly. (2) The ordinary ad's make the people easier to remember them than brand placement, while not too much difference in the brand recognition. (3) The brand placement has a significant 'emotional shifting' effect, i.e. the more positive to the movie, the more you love the built-in brand. (4) It is an important factor that how much brand information is involved in the movie; while how much the plot is involved has great impact on the 'emotional shifting' effect. (5) The familiarity is a great factor for the ad's, it's obvious that the popular products get way better effects through brand replacement. (6) An effective way is to choose those positive, interesting and eye-catching movies and TV shows as carriers of the brand and to use it as natural as possible.

品牌形象的消费行为学分析

Brand image is the attributes set and the related associations of a brand in consumers mind, and it is the subjective reflections of brands. The paper explored the factors of brand image system and their weight. As the traditional means to evaluate weight coefficients are not perfect, a new method, conjoint analysis, was attempted. The factors of brand image were explored through questionnaire. Sports sneaker, toothpaste, and personal stereo were chosen as product sample, and four hundred and twenty university students from Tangshan city and Beijing as subjects(each person evaluated two kinds of products). The first two kinds of products were requisites of students, and sports sneaker belonged to High conspicuous products and toothpaste was low conspicuous product. On the other hand, personal stereo was the sample of development and entertainment products. Several factors of three products brand were taken out with factor analysis. In order to explore the weight of the brand image factors, a contrast of factor contribution ratio method, holistic quartation method and conjoint analysis is made here. Twenty university students evaluated the weight of the image factors of three kinds of brand with holistic quartation method, then they gave the weight of personal stereo with conjoint analysis method. Product function, advertising and propaganda, symbolic meaning, market orientation, brand appetency, consuming experience are the factors of sports sneaker brand image. Product function, advertising and propaganda, market orientation, product grade, corporation image are the factors of toothpaste brand image. Corporation image and product function, advertising and propaganda, consuming experience, symbolic meaning, price and function ratio are the factors of personal stereo brand image. So the hypothesis was proved that brand image is an ordinal and organical system, "ordinal" means the weight of factors are different, "organical" means that brand image can be deposed into several factors and the factors belonged to function components and meaning components (function components are the factors about physical characteristics and function, which are called "hard factors"); meaning factors are those that can show the personality、value and lifestyle of consumers, which are called "soft factors". The research also gave evidence of the hypothesis below: the factor structures of brand image of different product category have commonness and individuality; the function components of low conspicuous products are more important than the high conspicuous products. The exploration of conjoint analysis is what the paper seeks to be some creative in some degree.

Desafios da pecuaria de corte a pasto na regiao do cerrado.

Os mercados e os desafios para producao animal a pasto; Mercado; Eliminacao da pratica do extrativismo; Equacionamento da oferta de forragem de qualidade durante todo o ano; Integracao dos sistemas de producao de graos e carne.

Sistema São Mateus - Sistema de integração lavoura-pecuária para a região do Bolsão Sul-Mato-Grossense.

2013

Festival Images: brand image and stakeholders' brand relationship types at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (The Fringe) is the largest arts festival in the world and it has inspired the creation of similar festivals world-wide. Since its conception in 1947, the Fringe has demonstrated significant growth in visitor numbers; ticket sales; and its economic contribution. Despite this, the sustainable future of Edinburgh’s festivals is debated as Edinburgh, ‘the Festival City’, faces threats from other festival destinations. Festivals position Edinburgh creatively in contrast to the city’s traditionally perceived image as a cultural-historic centre. Despite this, little research has been undertaken into the creative and cultural significance of Edinburgh’s festivals, including the Fringe. This interdisciplinary research grounded in marketing, tourism, and festival and event management; and underpinned by constructivism, presents an understanding of types of brand relationships that exist between the Fringe and its primary stakeholders. This is achieved through defining both the Fringe brand image and its primary stakeholders; and applying these definitions to the development of a typology of Fringe-stakeholders’ brand relationships. The significance of this study is evident within its topic of inquiry and the research methods applied. In the little-considered arena of arts festivals and their stakeholders, this is the first in-depth study into the Fringe as a festival and festival brand. Within this, the definition of a Fringe brand image contributes to understanding the cultural and creative significance of the Fringe. Furthermore, this research contributes a unique understanding of the types of stakeholders that are engaged with the Fringe. The types of brand relationships that exist between these stakeholders and the Fringe are another significant contribution to knowledge and understanding. While specific to the present context, these findings may prove transferable to further festivals or events, and related areas and industries. The contribution made by this research to the methodological developments in festival and event studies is of additional significance. The application of visual research methods, including semiotic analysis and photo-elicitation within phenomenological interviews, has previously been applied in marketing, consumer, and tourism research, but not to the understanding of festival brands and stakeholders’ brand relationship types. Findings of this research illustrate that existing marketing and consumer brand frameworks and stakeholder theories are applicable to festivals. Further, it is possible to define ‘a’ Fringe brand image which is subjective and contradictory. The unique open-access and organic, operational model of the Fringe facilitates its many contributors, and consumers. Fringe stakeholders may be categorised according to their level of engagement with the Fringe (as primary or secondary) and their particular stakeholder role(s), which are varied and multiple. Fringe-stakeholder brand relationship types are overwhelmingly positive; and are based upon interpersonal relationship dimensions (including friendships, marriages, kinships and partnerships). Fringe-stakeholder brand relationship types can be classified therefore as having similar dimensions to those brand relationship types previously described for consumer products and brands.

Modern Bedouin exposures to copper contamination: an imperial legacy?

Grattan, J. Huxley, S. Pyatt, B. Modern Bedouin exposures to copper contamination: an imperial legacy? Ecotoxicology and environmental safety. 2003. 55 pp 108-115

An assessment of the ability of the stay-green phenotype in Lolium species to provide an improved protein supply for ruminants

Kingston-Smith, A. H., Bollard, A. L., Humphreys, M. O,, Theodorou, M. K. (2002). An assessment of the ability of the stay-green phenotype in Lolium species to provide an improved protein supply for ruminants. Annals of Botany, 89(6), 731-740. Sponsorship: BBSRC/MAFF/Milk Development Council/Meat and Livestock Commission/Industry. RAE2008

Comparative proteomics of excretory-secretory proteins released by the liver fluke Fasciola hepatica in sheep host bile and during in vitro culture ex host

Russell M. Morphew, Hazel A. Wright, E. James LaCourse, Debra J. Woods and Peter M. Brophy (2007). Comparative proteomics of excretory-secretory proteins released by the liver fluke Fasciola hepatica in sheep host bile and during in vitro culture ex host. Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, 6 (6), 963-972. Sponsorship: BBSRC / EU RAE2008

A comunicação das marcas de motos nos concessionários multimarca em Portugal

Dissertação apresentada à Universidade Fernando Pessoa como parte dos requisitos para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ciências da Comunicação, especialização em Marketing e Comunicação Estratégica.

A importância da marca no processo de tomada de decisão de compra industrial

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada à Universidade Fernando Pessoa como parte dos requisitos para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ciências da Comunicação, com especialização em Marketing e Comunicação Estratégica.

Análise das atitudes e comportamento dos jovens face ao consumo de refrigerantes

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada à Universidade Fernando Pessoa como parte dos requisitos para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ciências da Comunicação, especialização em Marketing e Publicidade.