Mobilie Banking adoption: a novel in the portuguese context

Dissertação apresentada como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Estatística e Gestão de Informação

Communicating trustworthiness in online stores

Even though e-commerce systems are expected to have many advantages compared to the traditional ways of doing business, it is not always the reality. Lack of trust is still said to be one of the most important barriers to online shopping. In traditional stores, trust has usually been established in a direct contact between the customer and the company or its personnel. In online stores, there is no direct interaction. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the key antecedents to online trust and to distinguish between effective and ineffective practices. A model on how consumers establish initial trust towards an unknown online vendor was proposed based on previous theories. The model was tested empirically by targeting an online survey at higher degree students in Finland and in Germany. The data confirmed the proposed view that trusting intentions are affected by individual characteristics, characteristics of the company as well as characteristics of the website. Additionally national differences were found between Finnish and German respondents. The data suggested that online vendors can convey a message of trustworthiness by improving information quality and overall usefulness of the website. Perceived risk of online shopping was found to depend especially on general trust in the Internet, service quality and ease of use. A trustworthy online store should include several payment methods as well as means to access and modify given data. The vendors should also make sure that inquiries are addressed quickly, transactions are confirmed automatically and that customers have a possibility to track their order. A model that includes three different sources of trust should contribute to the theoretical understanding of trust formation in online stores. The resulting list of trust antecedents can also be used as a checklist when e-commerce practitioners wish to optimize the trust building.

Modeling security and cooperation in wireless networks using game theory

This research involves the design, development, and theoretical demonstration of models resulting in integrated misbehavior resolution protocols for ad hoc networked devices. Game theory was used to analyze strategic interaction among independent devices with conflicting interests. Packet forwarding at the routing layer of autonomous ad hoc networks was investigated. Unlike existing reputation based or payment schemes, this model is based on repeated interactions. To enforce cooperation, a community enforcement mechanism was used, whereby selfish nodes that drop packets were punished not only by the victim, but also by all nodes in the network. Then, a stochastic packet forwarding game strategy was introduced. Our solution relaxed the uniform traffic demand that was pervasive in other works. To address the concerns of imperfect private monitoring in resource aware ad hoc networks, a belief-free equilibrium scheme was developed that reduces the impact of noise in cooperation. This scheme also eliminated the need to infer the private history of other nodes. Moreover, it simplified the computation of an optimal strategy. The belief-free approach reduced the node overhead and was easily tractable. Hence it made the system operation feasible. Motivated by the versatile nature of evolutionary game theory, the assumption of a rational node is relaxed, leading to the development of a framework for mitigating routing selfishness and misbehavior in Multi hop networks. This is accomplished by setting nodes to play a fixed strategy rather than independently choosing a rational strategy. A range of simulations was carried out that showed improved cooperation between selfish nodes when compared to older results. Cooperation among ad hoc nodes can also protect a network from malicious attacks. In the absence of a central trusted entity, many security mechanisms and privacy protections require cooperation among ad hoc nodes to protect a network from malicious attacks. Therefore, using game theory and evolutionary game theory, a mathematical framework has been developed that explores trust mechanisms to achieve security in the network. This framework is one of the first steps towards the synthesis of an integrated solution that demonstrates that security solely depends on the initial trust level that nodes have for each other.^

On the Regulation of Small Actors: Three Experimental Essays about Policies based on Voluntary Compliance and Decentralized Monitoring

Monitoring and enforcement are perhaps the biggest challenges in the design and implementation of environmental policies in developing countries where the actions of many small informal actors cause significant impacts on the ecosystem services and where the transaction costs for the state to regulate them could be enormous. This dissertation studies the potential of innovative institutions based on decentralized coordination and enforcement to induce better environmental outcomes. Such policies have in common that the state plays the role of providing the incentives for organization but the process of compliance happens through decentralized agreements, trust building, signaling and monitoring. I draw from the literatures in collective action, common-pool resources, game-theory and non-point source pollution to develop the instruments proposed here. To test the different conditions in which such policies could be implemented I designed two field-experiments that I conducted with small-scale gold miners in the Colombian Pacific and with users and providers of ecosystem services in the states of Veracruz, Quintana Roo and Yucatan in Mexico. This dissertation is organized in three essays.

The first essay, “Collective Incentives for Cleaner Small-Scale Gold Mining on the Frontier: Experimental Tests of Compliance with Group Incentives given Limited State Monitoring”, examines whether collective incentives, i.e. incentives provided to a group conditional on collective compliance, could “outsource” the required local monitoring, i.e. induce group interactions that extend the reach of the state that can observe only aggregate consequences in the context of small-scale gold mining. I employed a framed field-lab experiment in which the miners make decisions regarding mining intensity. The state sets a collective target for an environmental outcome, verifies compliance and provides a group reward for compliance which is split equally among members. Since the target set by the state transforms the situation into a coordination game, outcomes depend on expectations of what others will do. I conducted this experiment with 640 participants in a mining region of the Colombian Pacific and I examine different levels of policy severity and their ordering. The findings of the experiment suggest that such instruments can induce compliance but this regulation involves tradeoffs. For most severe targets – with rewards just above costs – raise gains if successful but can collapse rapidly and completely. In terms of group interactions, better outcomes are found when severity initially is lower suggesting learning.

The second essay, “Collective Compliance can be Efficient and Inequitable: Impacts of Leaders among Small-Scale Gold Miners in Colombia”, explores the channels through which communication help groups to coordinate in presence of collective incentives and whether the reached solutions are equitable or not. Also in the context of small-scale gold mining in the Colombian Pacific, I test the effect of communication in compliance with a collective environmental target. The results suggest that communication, as expected, helps to solve coordination challenges but still some groups reach agreements involving unequal outcomes. By examining the agreements that took place in each group, I observe that the main coordination mechanism was the presence of leaders that help other group members to clarify the situation. Interestingly, leaders not only helped groups to reach efficiency but also played a key role in equity by defining how the costs of compliance would be distributed among group members.

The third essay, “Creating Local PES Institutions and Increasing Impacts of PES in Mexico: A real-Time Watershed-Level Framed Field Experiment on Coordination and Conditionality”, considers the creation of a local payments for ecosystem services (PES) mechanism as an assurance game that requires the coordination between two groups of participants: upstream and downstream. Based on this assurance interaction, I explore the effect of allowing peer-sanctions on upstream behavior in the functioning of the mechanism. This field-lab experiment was implemented in three real cases of the Mexican Fondos Concurrentes (matching funds) program in the states of Veracruz, Quintana Roo and Yucatan, where 240 real users and 240 real providers of hydrological services were recruited and interacted with each other in real time. The experimental results suggest that initial trust-game behaviors align with participants’ perceptions and predicts baseline giving in assurance game. For upstream providers, i.e. those who get sanctioned, the threat and the use of sanctions increase contributions. Downstream users contribute less when offered the option to sanction – as if that option signal an uncooperative upstream – then the contributions rise in line with the complementarity in payments of the assurance game.

Are informed citizens more trusting? Transparency of performance data and trust towards a British police force

In Britain, substantial cuts in police budgets alongside controversial handling of incidents such as politically sensitive enquiries, public disorder and relations with the media have recently triggered much debate about public knowledge and trust in the police. To date, however, little academic research has investigated how knowledge of police performance impacts citizens’ trust. We address this long-standing lacuna by exploring citizens’ trust before and after exposure to real performance data in the context of a British police force. The results reveal that being informed of performance data affects citizens’ trust significantly. Furthermore, direction and degree of change in trust are related to variations across the different elements of the reported performance criteria. Interestingly, the volatility of citizens’ trust is related to initial performance perceptions (such that citizens with low initial perceptions of police performance react more significantly to evidence of both good and bad performance than citizens with high initial perceptions), and citizens’ intentions to support the police do not always correlate with their cognitive and affective trust towards the police. In discussing our findings, we explore the implications of how being transparent with performance data can both hinder and be helpful in developing citizens’ trust towards a public organisation such as the police. From our study, we pose a number of ethical challenges that practitioners face when deciding what data to highlight, to whom, and for what purpose.

Trust-based trade

There is substantially more trade within national borders than across borders. An important explanation for this fact is the weak enforcement of international contracts. We develop a model in which agents build reputations to overcome this institutional failure. The model describes the interplay between institutional quality, reputations and the dynamics of international trade. It also rationalizes several empirical regularities. We find that history matters for trade volumes, but that its effects vary with the institutional setting of the country. The same is true for the efticacy of trade liberalization programs. Moreover, while stricter enforcement of contracts enhances trade in the short run, it makes it harder for individual traders to develop good reputations. We show that this indirect negative effect may produce an "institutional trap": for sufliciently low initial levels of contract enforcement, a small tightening in enforcement reduces future trade fiows. We find also that search frictions aggravate the problems created by weak enforceability of contracts, even if they impose no direct cost on agents. The model allows extensions in several directions. We outline two of them, indicating how one could study transnational networks and the effects of firm heterogeneity within our structure.

Trust and Social Networks in a Changing Europe.

This project set out to investigate the effects of the recent massive social transitions in Eastern Europe on the everyday social lives of the inhabitants of three very different nations: Georgia, Russia and Hungary. It focused in particular on the availability and nature of the support networks available to three different segments of each of the societies (manual workers, students and entrepreneurs) and the impact of network participation on psychological and physical well-being. The group set four specific questions to investigate: the part played by individual psychological beliefs in the formation and maintenance of social networks and the consequent formation of trusting relations; the implication of the size and quality of these networks for mental health; the nature of the social groups inhabited by the respondents and the implication of their work schedule and daily routines on the maintenance of a social and family life; and an analysis of how cultures vary in their social networks and intimacy. Three different methods were used to examine social support and its implications: structured questionnaires, semi-structured short interviews and a media analysis of newspaper materials. The questionnaires were administered to 150 participants in each country, equally divided between students studying full time, manual workers employed in factories, and business people (small kiosk owners, whose work and life style differs considerably from that of the manual workers). The questionnaires investigated various predictors of social support including the locus of control, relationship beliefs, individualism-collectivism and egalitarianism, demographic variables (age, gender and occupation), social support, both in general and in relation to significant events that have occurred since the transition from communism. Those with an internal locus of control were more likely to report a higher level of social support, as were collectivists, while age too was a significant predictor, with younger respondents enjoying higher levels of support, regardless of the measures of support employed. Respondents across the cultures referred to a decline of social support and the group also found a direct correlation between social support and mental health outcomes. All 450 respondents were interviewed on their general responses to changes in their lives since the fall of communism and the effects of their work lives on their social lives and the home environment. The interviews revealed considerable variations in the way in which work-life offered opportunities for a broader social life and also provided a hindrance to the development of fulfilling relationships. Many of the work experiences discussed were culture specific, with work having a particularly negative impact on the social life of Russian entrepreneurs but being seen much more positively in Georgia. This may reflect the nature of support offered in a society as overall support levels were lowest in Russia, meaning that social support may be of particular importance there. The way in cultural values and norms about personal relationships are transmitted in a culture is a critical issue for social psychologists and the group examined newspaper articles in those newspapers read by the respondents in each of the three countries. These revealed a number of different themes. The concept of a divided society and its implications for personal relationships was clearest in Russian and Hungary, where widely-read newspapers dwelt on the contrast between "new Russians/Hungarians" and the older, poorer ones and extended considerable sympathy to those suffering from neglect in institutions. Magyar Nemzet, a paper widely read by Hungarian students reflects the generally more pessimistic tone about personal relationships in Russia and Hungary and gave a particularly detailed analysis of the implications this holds for human relations in a modern society. In Georgia, however, the tone of the newspapers is more positive, stressing greater social cohesion. Part of this cohesion is framed in the context of religion, with the church appealing to a broader egalitarianism, whereas in less egalitarian Hungary appeals by the Church are centred more on the nuclear family and its need for expansion in both size and influence. The division between the sexes was another prominent issue in Hungary and Russia, while the theme of generational conflict also emerged in Hungarian and Georgian papers, although with some understanding of "young people today". The team's original expectation that the different newspapers read by the different groups of respondents would present differing images of personal relationships was not fulfilled, as despite variations in style, they found little clear "ideological targeting" of any particular readership. They conclude that the vast majority of respondents recognised that the social transition from communism has had a significant impact on the well-being of social relationships and that this is a pertinent issue for all segments of society. While the group see the data collected as a source to be worked on for some time in the future, their initial impressions include the following. Social support is clearly an important concern across all three countries. All respondents (including the students) lament the time taken up by their heavy work schedules and value their social networks and family ties in particular. The level of social support differs across the countries investigated, with Georgian apparently enjoying significantly higher levels of social support. The analysis produced an image of a relatively cohesive and egalitarian society in which even the group most often seen as distant from the general population, business people, is supported by a strong social network. In contrast, the support networks available to the Russian respondents seem particularly weak and reflect a general sense of division and alienation within the culture as a whole. The implications of low levels of social support may vary across countries. While Russians reported the lowest level of mental health problems, the link between social support and mental health may be strongest in that country. In contrast, in Hungary it is the link between fatalism and mental health problems which is particularly strong, while in Georgia the strongest correlation was between mental health and marital quality, emphasising the significance of the marital relationship in that country.

Evaluation of the Heart of Birmingham teaching Primary Care Trust (HoBtPCT): My Choice Weight Management Programme:report commissioned by Heart of Birmingham teaching Primary Care Trust

This report details an evaluation of the My Choice Weight Management Programme undertaken by a research team from the School of Pharmacy at Aston University. The My Choice Weight Management Programme is delivered through community pharmacies and general practitioners (GPs) contracted to provide services by the Heart of Birmingham teaching Primary Care Trust. It is designed to support individuals who are ‘ready to change’ by enabling the individual to work with a trained healthcare worker (for example, a healthcare assistant, practice nurse or pharmacy assistant) to develop a care plan designed to enable the individual to lose 5-10% of their current weight. The Programme aims to reduce adult obesity levels; improve access to overweight and obesity management services in primary care; improve diet and nutrition; promote healthy weight and increased levels of physical activity in overweight or obese patients; and support patients to make lifestyle changes to enable them to lose weight. The Programme is available for obese patients over 18 years old who have a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than 30 kg/m2 (greater than 25 kg/m2 in Asian patients) or greater than 28 kg/m2 (greater than 23.5 kg/m2 in Asian patients) in patients with co-morbidities (diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease). Each participant attends weekly consultations over a twelve session period (the final iteration of these weekly sessions is referred to as ‘session twelve’ in this report). They are then offered up to three follow up appointments for up to six months at two monthly intervals (the final of these follow ups, taking place at approximately nine months post recruitment, is referred to as ‘session fifteen’ in this report). A review of the literature highlights the dearth of published research on the effectiveness of primary care- or community-based weight management interventions. This report may help to address this knowledge deficit. A total of 451 individuals were recruited on to the My Choice Weight Management Programme. More participants were recruited at GP surgeries (n=268) than at community pharmacies (n=183). In total, 204 participants (GP n=102; pharmacy n=102) attended session twelve and 82 participants (GP n=22; pharmacy 60) attended session fifteen. The unique demographic characteristics of My Choice Weight Management Programme participants – participants were recruited from areas with high levels of socioeconomic deprivation and over four-fifths of participants were from Black and Minority Ethnic groups; populations which are traditionally underserved by healthcare interventions – make the achievements of the Programme particularly notable. The mean weight loss at session 12 was 3.8 kg (equivalent to a reduction of 4.0% of initial weight) among GP surgery participants and 2.4 kg (2.8%) among pharmacy participants. At session 15 mean weight loss was 2.3 kg (2.2%) among GP surgery participants and 3.4 kg (4.0%) among pharmacy participants. The My Choice Weight Management Programme improved the general health status of participants between recruitment and session twelve as measured by the validated SF-12 questionnaire. While cost data is presented in this report, it is unclear which provider type delivered the Programme more cost-effectively. Attendance rates on the Programme were consistently better among pharmacy participants than among GP participants. The opinions of programme participants (both those who attended regularly and those who failed to attend as expected) and programme providers were explored via semi-structured interviews and, in the case of the participants, a selfcompletion postal questionnaire. These data suggest that the Programme was almost uniformly popular with both the deliverers of the Programme and participants on the Programme with 83% of questionnaire respondents indicating that they would be happy to recommend the Programme to other people looking to lose weight. Our recommendations, based on the evidence provided in this report, include: a. Any consideration of an extension to the study also giving comparable consideration to an extension of the Programme evaluation. The feasibility of assigning participants to a pharmacy provider or a GP provider via a central allocation system should also be examined. This would address imbalances in participant recruitment levels between provider type and allow for more accurate comparison of the effectiveness in the delivery of the Programme between GP surgeries and community pharmacies by increasing the homogeneity of participants at each type of site and increasing the number of Programme participants overall. b. Widespread dissemination of the findings from this review of the My Choice Weight Management Project should be undertaken through a variety of channels. c. Consideration of the inclusion of the following key aspects of the My Choice Weight Management Project in any extension to the Programme: i. The provision of training to staff in GP surgeries and community pharmacies responsible for delivery of the Programme prior to patient recruitment. ii. Maintaining the level of healthcare staff input to the Programme. iii. The regular schedule of appointments with Programme participants. iv. The provision of an increased variety of printed material. d. A simplification of the data collection method used by the Programme commissioners at the individual Programme delivery sites.

Triggering trust : to what extent does the question influence the answer when evaluating the perceived importance of trust triggers?

Trust is a critical component of business to consumer (B2C) e-Commerce success. In the absence of typical environmental cues that consumers use to assess vendor trustworthiness in the offline retail context, online consumers often rely on trust triggers embedded within e-Commerce websites to contribute to the establishment of sufficient trust to make an online purchase. This paper presents and discusses the results of a study which took an initial look at the extent to which the context or manner in which trust triggers are evaluated may exert influence on the importance attributed to individual triggers.

Trust in leader-follower relationships:how and when trust building enhances dyadic and organisational outcomes

Guided by theory in both the trust and leadership domains, the overarching aim of this thesis was to answer a fundamental question. Namely, how and when does trust-building between leaders and followers enhance leader-member exchange (LMX) development and organisational trust? Although trust is considered to be at the crux of the leader-follower relationship, surprisingly little theoretical or empirical attention has been devoted to understanding the precise nature of this relationship. By integrating both a typology of trustworthy behaviour and a process model of trust development with LMX theory, study one developed and tested a new model of LMX development with leader-follower trust-building as the primary mechanism. In a three wave cross-lagged design, 294 student dyads in a business simulation completed measures of trust perceptions and LMX across the first 6 months of the LMX relationship. Trust-building was found to account for unexplained variance in the LMX construct over time, while controlling for initial relationship quality, thus confirming the critical role of the trust-building process in LMX development. The strongest evidence was found for the role of integrity-based trust-building behaviour, albeit only when such behaviour was not attributed to insincere motives. The results for ability and benevolence-based trustworthy behaviour revealed valued insights into the developmental nature of trustworthiness perceptions within LMX relationships. Thus, the pattern of results in study one provided a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the dynamic interplay between trust and LMX. In study two, leader trust-building was investigated cross-sectionally within an organisational sample of 201 employees. The central aim of this study was to investigate whether leader trust-building within leader-follower relationships could be leveraged for organisational trust. As expected, the trust-building process instigated by members in study one was replicated for leaders in study two. In addition, the results were most consistent for benevolence-based trust building, whereas both integrity- and ability-based trust-building were moderated by the position of the leader within the organisation’s hierarchy. Overall, the findings of this thesis shed considerable light on the richness of trusting perceptions in organisations, and the critical role of trust-building in LMX development and organisational trust.

Triggering trust:to what extent does the question influence the answer when evaluating the perceived importance of trust triggers?

Trust is a critical component of business to consumer (B2C) e-Commerce success. In the absence of typical environmental cues that consumers use to assess vendor trustworthiness in the offline retail context, online consumers often rely on trust triggers embedded within e-Commerce websites to contribute to the establishment of sufficient trust to make an online purchase. This paper presents and discusses the results of a study which took an initial look at the extent to which the context or manner in which trust triggers are evaluated may exert influence on the importance attributed to individual triggers.

How does personality affect trust in B2C e-commerce?

Trust is a critical component of successful e-Commerce. Given the impersonality, anonymity, and automation of transactions, online vendor trustworthiness cannot be assessed by means of body language and other environmental cues that consumers typically use when deciding to trust offline retailers. It is therefore essential that the design of e-Commerce websites compensate by incorporating circumstantial cues in the form of appropriate trust triggers. This paper presents and discusses the results of a study which took an initial look at whether consumers with different personality types (a) are generally more trusting and (b) rely on different trust cues during their assessment of first impression vendor trustworthiness in B2C e-Commerce.

Evaluation Of Soft-tissue Lesions With (18)f-fdg Pet/ct: Initial Results Of A Prospective Trial.

Although MRI is utilized for planning the resection of soft-tissue tumors, it is not always capable of differentiating benign from malignant lesions. The risk of local recurrence of soft-tissue sarcomas is increased when biopsies are performed before resection and by inadequate resections. PET associated with computed tomography using fluorodeoxyglucose labeled with fluorine-18 ((18)F-FDG PET/CT) may help differentiate between benign and malignant tumors, thus avoiding inadequate resections and making prior biopsies unnecessary. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of (18)F-FDG PET/CT in differentiating benign from malignant solid soft-tissue lesions. Patients with solid lesions of the limbs or abdominal wall detected by MRI were submitted to (18)F-FDG PET/CT. The maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) cutoff was determined to differentiate malignant from benign tumors. Regardless of the (18)F-FDG PET/CT results all patients underwent biopsy and surgery. MRI was performed in 54 patients, and 10 patients were excluded because of purely lipomatose or cystic lesions. (18)F-FDG PET/CT was performed in the remaining 44 patients. Histopathology revealed 26 (59%) benign and 18 (41%) malignant soft-tissue lesions. A significant difference in SUVmax was observed between benign and malignant soft-tissue lesions. The SUVmax cutoff of 3.0 differentiated malignant from benign lesions with 100% sensitivity, 83.3% specificity, 89.6% accuracy, 78.3% positive predictive value, and 100% negative predictive value. (18)F-FDG PET/CT seems to be able to differentiate benign from malignant soft-tissue lesions with good accuracy and very high negative predictive value. Incorporating (18)F-FDG PET/CT into the diagnostic algorithm of these patients may prevent inadequate resections and unnecessary biopsies.

Value Of Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy In Papillary Thyroid Cancer: Initial Results Of A Prospective Trial.

The objectives of the study were to evaluate the performance of sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) in detecting occult metastases in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) and to correlate their presence to tumor and patient characteristics. Twenty-three clinically node-negative PTC patients (21 females, mean age 48.4 years) were prospectively enrolled. Patients were submitted to sentinel lymph node (SLN) lymphoscintigraphy prior to total thyroidectomy. Ultrasound-guided peritumoral injections of (99m)Tc-phytate (7.4 MBq) were performed. Cervical single-photon emission computed tomography and computed tomography (SPECT/CT) images were acquired 15 min after radiotracer injection and 2 h prior to surgery. Intra-operatively, SLNs were located with a gamma probe and removed along with non-SLNs located in the same neck compartment. Papillary thyroid carcinoma, SLNs and non-SLNs were submitted to histopathology analysis. Sentinel lymph nodes were located in levels: II in 34.7 % of patients; III in 26 %; IV in 30.4 %; V in 4.3 %; VI in 82.6 % and VII in 4.3 %. Metastases in the SLN were noted in seven patients (30.4 %), in non-SLN in three patients (13.1 %), and in the lateral compartments in 20 % of patients. There were significant associations between lymph node (LN) metastases and the presence of angio-lymphatic invasion (p = 0.04), extra-thyroid extension (p = 0.03) and tumor size (p = 0.003). No correlations were noted among LN metastases and patient age, gender, stimulated thyroglobulin levels, positive surgical margins, aggressive histology and multifocal lesions. Sentinel lymph node biopsy can detect occult metastases in PTC. The risk of a metastatic SLN was associated with extra-thyroid extension, larger tumors and angio-lymphatic invasion. This may help guide future neck dissection, patient surveillance and radioiodine therapy doses.

In Vivo Evaluation Of The Genetic Toxicity Of Rubus Niveus Thunb. (rosaceae) Extract And Initial Screening Of Its Potential Chemoprevention Against Doxorubicin-induced Dna Damage.

Rubus niveus Thunb. plant belongs to Rosaceae family and have been used traditionally to treat wounds, burns, inflammation, dysentery, diarrhea and for curing excessive bleeding during menstrual cycle. The present study was undertaken to investigate the in vivo genotoxicity of Rubus niveus aerial parts extract and its possible chemoprotection on doxorubicin (DXR)-induced DNA damage. In parallel, the main phytochemicals constituents in the extract were determined. The animals were exposed to the extract for 24 and 48h, and the doses selected were 500, 1000 and 2000mg/kg b.w. administered by gavage alone or prior to DXR (30mg/kg b.w.) administered by intraperitoneal injection. The endpoints analyzed were DNA damage in bone marrow and peripheral blood cells assessed by the alkaline alkaline (pH>13) comet assay and bone marrow micronucleus test. The results of chemical analysis of the extract showed the presence of tormentic acid, stigmasterol, quercitinglucoronide (miquelianin) and niga-ichigoside F1 as main compounds. Both cytogenetic endpoints analyzed showed that there were no statistically significant differences (p>0.05) between the negative control and the treated groups with the two higher doses of Rubus niveus extract alone, demonstrating absence of genotoxic and mutagenic effects. Aneugenic/clastogenic effect was observed only at 2000mg/kg dose. On the other hand, in the both assays and all tested doses were observed a significant reduction of DNA damage and chromosomal aberrations in all groups co-treated with DXR and extract compared to those which received only DXR. These results indicate that Rubus niveus aerial parts extract did not revealed any genotoxic effect, but presented some aneugenic/clastogenic effect at higher dose; and suggest that it could be a potential adjuvant against development of second malignant neoplasms caused by the cancer chemotherapic DXR.