Drivers of in‐group and out‐of‐group electronic word‐of‐mouth (eWOM)

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to address a recent call for additional research on electronic word‐of‐mouth (eWOM). In response to this call, this study draws on the social network paradigm and the uses and gratification theory (UGT) to propose and empirically test a conceptual framework of key drivers of two types of eWOM, namely in‐group and out‐of‐group. Design/methodology/approach– The proposed model, which examines the impact of usage motivations on eWOM in‐group and eWOM out‐of‐group, is tested in a sample of 302 internet users in Portugal. Findings– Results from the survey show that the different drivers (i.e. mood‐enhancement, escapism, experiential learning and social interaction) vary in terms of their impact on the two different types of eWOM. Surprisingly, while results show a positive relationship between experiential learning and eWOM out‐of‐group, no relationship is found between experiential learning and eWOM in‐group. Research limitations/implications– This is the first study investigating the drivers of both eWOM in‐group and eWOM out‐of‐group. Additional research in this area will contribute to the development of a general theory of eWOM. Practical implications– By understanding the drivers of different eWOM types, this study provides guidance to marketing managers on how to allocate resources more efficiently in order to achieve the company's strategic objectives. Originality/value– No published study has investigated the determinants of these two types of eWOM. This is the first study offering empirical considerations of how the various drivers differentially impact eWOM in‐group and eWOM out‐of‐group.

Using the Technology Acceptance Model to explore community dwelling older adults’ perceptions of a 3D interior design application to facilitate pre-discharge home adaptations

Background In the UK occupational therapy pre-discharge home visits are routinely carried out as a means of facilitating safe transfer from the hospital to home. Whilst they are an integral part of practice, there is little evidence to demonstrate they have a positive outcome on the discharge process. Current issues for patients are around the speed of home visits and the lack of shared decision making in the process, resulting in less than 50 % of the specialist equipment installed actually being used by patients on follow-up. To improve practice there is an urgent need to examine other ways of conducting home visits to facilitate safe discharge. We believe that Computerised 3D Interior Design Applications (CIDAs) could be a means to support more efficient, effective and collaborative practice. A previous study explored practitioners perceptions of using CIDAs; however it is important to ascertain older adult’s views about the usability of technology and to compare findings. This study explores the perceptions of community dwelling older adults with regards to adopting and using CIDAs as an assistive tool for the home adaptations process. Methods Ten community dwelling older adults participated in individual interactive task-focused usability sessions with a customised CIDA, utilising the think-aloud protocol and individual semi-structured interviews. Template analysis was used to carry out both deductive and inductive analysis of the think-aloud and interview data. Initially, a deductive stance was adopted, using the three pre-determined high-level themes of the technology acceptance model (TAM): Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU), Actual Use (AU). Inductive template analysis was then carried out on the data within these themes, from which a number of sub-thmes emerged. Results Regarding PU, participants believed CIDAs served as a useful visual tool and saw clear potential to facilitate shared understanding and partnership in care delivery. For PEOU, participants were able to create 3D home environments however a number of usability issues must still be addressed. The AU theme revealed the most likely usage scenario would be collaborative involving both patient and practitioner, as many participants did not feel confident or see sufficient value in using the application autonomously. Conclusions This research found that older adults perceived that CIDAs were likely to serve as a valuable tool which facilitates and enhances levels of patient/practitioner collaboration and empowerment. Older adults also suggested a redesign of the interface so that less sophisticated dexterity and motor functions are required. However, older adults were not confident, or did not see sufficient value in using the application autonomously. Future research is needed to further customise the CIDA software, in line with the outcomes of this study, and to explore the potential of collaborative application patient/practitioner-based deployment.

Antecedents of travellers' electronic word-of-mouth communication

Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) is recognised as a means of interpersonal communication and a powerful marketing tool. However, previous studies have focussed on related motivations, and limited attention has been given to understanding the antecedents of eWOM communication behaviour in the travel industry. This study proposes a full and partial mediation model, which brings together for the first time three key antecedents: adoption of electronic communication technology, consumer dis/satisfaction with travel consumption experience, and subjective norm. The model aims to understand the impact of these antecedents on travellers' attitude towards eWOM communication and intention to use eWOM communication media. The data were collected from international travellers (n = 524), and structural equation modelling is used to test the conceptual framework. The findings of the study suggest that overall attitude towards eWOM communication partially mediates the impact of the traveller's adoption of electronic communication technology and subjective norm, and fully mediates the impact of consumer dis/satisfaction with travel consumption experience on travellers' intention to use eWOM communication media.

Assessing multilingual lexical incorporation hypotheses through a primed picture-naming task

The incorporation of new representations into the mental lexicon has raised numerous questions about the organisational principles that govern the process. A number of studies have argued that similarity between the new L3 items and existing representations in the L1 and L2 is the main incorporating force (Hall & Ecke, 2003; Herwig, 2001). Experimental evidence obtained through a primed picture-naming task with L1 Polish-L2 English learners of L3 Russian supports Hall and Ecke’s Parasitic Model of L3 vocabulary acquisition, displaying a significant main effect for both priming and proficiency. These results complement current models of vocabulary acquisition and lexical access in multilingual speakers.

Metabolic recovery of adipose tissue is associated with improvement in insulin resistance in a model of experimental diabetes

Obesity and insulin resistance are highly correlated with metabolic disturbances. Both the excess and lack of adipose tissue can lead to severe insulin resistance and diabetes. Adipose tissue plays an active role in energy homeostasis, hormone secretion, and other proteins that affect insulin sensitivity, appetite, energy balance, and lipid metabolism. Rats with streptozotocin-induced diabetes during the neonatal period develop the classic diabetic picture of hyperglycemia, hypoinsulinemia, and insulin resistance in adulthood. Low body weight and reduced epididymal (EP) fit mass were also seen in this model. The am) of this study was to investigate the glucose homeostasis and metabolic repercussions on the adipose tissue following chronic treatment with antidiabetic drugs in these animals. In the 4th week post birth, diabetic animals started an 8-week treatment with pioglitazone, metformin, or insulin.

An investigation into feature construction to assist word sense disambiguation

Identifying the correct sense of a word in context is crucial for many tasks in natural language processing (machine translation is an example). State-of-the art methods for Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) build models using hand-crafted features that usually capturing shallow linguistic information. Complex background knowledge, such as semantic relationships, are typically either not used, or used in specialised manner, due to the limitations of the feature-based modelling techniques used. On the other hand, empirical results from the use of Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) systems have repeatedly shown that they can use diverse sources of background knowledge when constructing models. In this paper, we investigate whether this ability of ILP systems could be used to improve the predictive accuracy of models for WSD. Specifically, we examine the use of a general-purpose ILP system as a method to construct a set of features using semantic, syntactic and lexical information. This feature-set is then used by a common modelling technique in the field (a support vector machine) to construct a classifier for predicting the sense of a word. In our investigation we examine one-shot and incremental approaches to feature-set construction applied to monolingual and bilingual WSD tasks. The monolingual tasks use 32 verbs and 85 verbs and nouns (in English) from the SENSEVAL-3 and SemEval-2007 benchmarks; while the bilingual WSD task consists of 7 highly ambiguous verbs in translating from English to Portuguese. The results are encouraging: the ILP-assisted models show substantial improvements over those that simply use shallow features. In addition, incremental feature-set construction appears to identify smaller and better sets of features. Taken together, the results suggest that the use of ILP with diverse sources of background knowledge provide a way for making substantial progress in the field of WSD.

Cross-situational learning of object-word mapping using Neural Modeling Fields

The issue of how children learn the meaning of words is fundamental to developmental psychology. The recent attempts to develop or evolve efficient communication protocols among interacting robots or Virtual agents have brought that issue to a central place in more applied research fields, such as computational linguistics and neural networks, as well. An attractive approach to learning an object-word mapping is the so-called cross-situational learning. This learning scenario is based on the intuitive notion that a learner can determine the meaning of a word by finding something in common across all observed uses of that word. Here we show how the deterministic Neural Modeling Fields (NMF) categorization mechanism can be used by the learner as an efficient algorithm to infer the correct object-word mapping. To achieve that we first reduce the original on-line learning problem to a batch learning problem where the inputs to the NMF mechanism are all possible object-word associations that Could be inferred from the cross-situational learning scenario. Since many of those associations are incorrect, they are considered as clutter or noise and discarded automatically by a clutter detector model included in our NMF implementation. With these two key ingredients - batch learning and clutter detection - the NMF mechanism was capable to infer perfectly the correct object-word mapping. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

From Pettson and Findus to Festus and Mercury...and Back Again: A Comparison of Four Translations of Sven Nordqvist's Picture Books

In order to examine how children's literature might be translated, two different English translations of two Swedish picture books have been analyzed. The original Swedish books are Rävjakten and Pannkakstårtan by Sven Nordqvist. Rävjakten was translated as The Fox Hunt in 1988 and as The Fox Hunt in 2000. Pannkakstårtan was translated as Pancake Pie in 1985 and as The Birthday Cake in 1999. Literary translation in general, specific translation issues for children's literature, and trends in international English style have been considered. Analysis of the four texts has been made, with consideration given to the following areas: changes in illustrations, layout, or format; text changes; lexical choices; and retention, deletion, or modification of names and culturally specific references. The analysis revealed that the following tendencies were true for the later translations: foreignization of the text, word-for-word translation of the text, and a neutral international English variety.

Football supporters an the negative word of mouth of their rival team's brand

This article has the objective of identifying whether the loyalty for the team has a negative effect on the word of mouth of the rival team’s brand. It has been developed a model based on the works of Fagundes (2013) and Santana and Akel Sobrinho (2010), through the use of Structural Equation Modeling - SEM, which presents three constructions: the identification with the team, the loyalty to the team and the negative word of mouth of the rival’s brand. 528 students from two college were interviewed and it has been identified that the emotional involvement of the supporter with his team reflects on the identification of a supporter by his team (KWON e ARMSTRONG, 2004; KAYNAK, 2008; JORDAN et al., 2014), it is thus formed a loyalty for the team (FUNK and JAMES, 2006). It influences other people in their personal relationships through the negative word of mouth communication.

Word of mouth marketing in the digital age: a case study analysis of viral marketing campaigns

A era digital viu a ascensão da empresa focada no consumidor. Todos os dias, marcas e produtos são objeto de milhões de conversas em que os consumidores trocam pontos de vista, opiniões e informações antes de tomar a decisão de compra. Os profissionais de marketing entenderam a importância do boca a boca como um novo canal de comunicação estratégica e começaram a ancorar técnicas de boca a boca à estratégia de marketing global. A propaganda tornou-se um negócio de conversa: o novo desafio do marketing é criar um conteúdo envolvente e compartilhável que possa expandir e ressoar dentro de redes de sociais de consumidores. Quanto mais as pessoas falam sobre a sua marca, mais a probabilidade de ganhar a competição dura e aumentar as vendas. Mas como o boca a boca funciona? O que faz uma campanha de marketing um sucesso viral? Este trabalho tem como objetivo fornecer uma análise abrangente da teoria de marketing de boca a boca e usa um modelo descritivo para investigar as variáveis-chave de campanhas bem-sucedidas de marketing viral, a fim de proporcionar insights e sugestões para as práticas de marketing viral.

Antecedents of e-loyalty and electronic word-of-mouth

O objetivo principal da dissertação foi o de examinar a relação entre lealdade (e-loyalty) e o boca-a-boca (eWOM) no contexto do varejo eletrônico. Como objetivo secundário, foi feito uma verificação da significância das variáveis preditoras de e-loyalty. Essa pesquisa foi focada em um tipo de produto/serviço: compra de livros através da internet. Duzentos e quarenta e dois questionários online foram respondidos por um público representativo da geração Y (millennials), e rresidentes em diferentes localidades no Brasil e nos Estados Unidos. A análise de dados foi efetuada pela aplicação do método PLS-SEM sobre um modelo de pesquisa cuidadosamente formulado com base em resultados empíricos prévios. Enquanto que a relação entre e-loyalty e eWOM foi classificada como fraca, um ambiente de boca-a-boca online de alta qualidade representou uma variável preditora significativa para o sentimento de e-loyalty. Todas as variáveis preditoras foram classificadas como significativas nesse estudo, sendo que comprometimento tem o efeito mais forte sobre a variável e-loyalty.

Monte Carlo thermodynamic and structural properties of the TIP4P water model: dependence on the computational conditions

Classical Monte Carlo simulations were carried out on the NPT ensemble at 25°C and 1 atm, aiming to investigate the ability of the TIP4P water model [Jorgensen, Chandrasekhar, Madura, Impey and Klein; J. Chem. Phys., 79 (1983) 926] to reproduce the newest structural picture of liquid water. The results were compared with recent neutron diffraction data [Soper; Bruni and Ricci; J. Chem. Phys., 106 (1997) 247]. The influence of the computational conditions on the thermodynamic and structural results obtained with this model was also analyzed. The findings were compared with the original ones from Jorgensen et al [above-cited reference plus Mol. Phys., 56 (1985) 1381]. It is notice that the thermodynamic results are dependent on the boundary conditions used, whereas the usual radial distribution functions g(O/O(r)) and g(O/H(r)) do not depend on them.

Cerebellar Cognitive Affective Syndrome in Machado Joseph Disease: Core Clinical Features

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Teleparallel origin of the Fierz picture for spin-2 particle

A new approach to the description of a spin-2 particle in flat and curved spacetime is developed on the basis of the teleparallel gravity theory. We show that such an approach is in fact a true and natural framework for the Fierz representation proposed recently by Novello and Neves. More specifically, we demonstrate how the teleparallel theory fixes uniquely the structure of the Fierz tensor, discover the transparent origin of the gauge symmetry of the spin-2 model, and derive the linearized Einstein operator from the fundamental identity of the teleparallel gravity. In order to cope with the consistency problem on the curved spacetime, similarly to the usual Riemannian approach, one needs to include the nonminimal (torsion dependent) coupling terms.

Semiclassical particle spectrum of double sine-Gordon model

We present new theoretical results on the spectrum of the quantum field theory of the double sine-Gordon model. This non-integrable model displays different varieties of kink excitations and bound states thereof. Their mass can be obtained by using a semiclassical expression of the matrix elements of the local fields. In certain regions of the coupling-constants space the semiclassical method provides a picture which is complementary to the one of the form factor perturbation theory, since the two techniques give information about the mass of different types of excitations. In other regions the two methods are comparable, since they describe the same kind of particles. Furthermore, the semiclassical picture is particularly suited to describe the phenomenon of false vacuum decay, and it also accounts in a natural way the presence of resonance states and the occurrence of a phase transition. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.