Does Product Diversity Signal Bargains in Australian Wine?

The residuals from a set of linear regression equations built to explain the quality of a bottle of Australian wine via eight quality signals are examined to determine whether there is any relationship between their signs for individual producers and the diversity of their offerings. Product diversity is found to be a fault-ridden signal of a quality-bargain, which we define as a bottle of wine whose quality rating exceeds its regression-based expectation. Indeed, to the extent that the signal does impart useful information, the message would be that consumers are less likely to get their money's worth the greater is the diversity of the producer's offerings.wine marketing, product diversity, wine quality, predicted quality, quality-bargain, Agribusiness, Marketing,

Establishing a vineyard in Missouri

"Decide to establish a vineyard two years before your proposed planting date. Two years gives you time for adequate evaluation and preparation of the site, ordering plants, and finding a market for the grapes. All of these are important for a successful vineyard. In fact, failure to plan properly often has caused growers to abandon a vineyard long before its financial potential can be realized. With proper care, a well planted vineyard should last at least 25 years. Choose the best possible site because you will have to live with that choice for the life of the vineyard."--First page.Larry Lockshin (Department of Horticulture College of Agriculture)New 11/82/10

Training systems for Missouri vineyards

"6/83/10M""This guide sheet does not include an exhaustive list of training systems, only those most adaptable to Missouri conditions. (The advantages and disadvantages listed for each system do not necessarily carry the same weight.) Also see Guide 6161, "Pruning and Training Missouri Grapes.""--First page.Larry Lockshin (Department of Horticulture College of Agriculture

Pruning and training grapevines

"The grapevine is remarkable because its vining habit can be trained in innumerable ways. Over the several thousand year history of grapevine cultivation, standard training systems have evolved in established grape-growing regions. However, new research and growers in new regions like Missouri have refined these techniques. Growers need a good understanding of the physiology of the grape plant, the differences in cultivar behavior, the characteristics of the specific soil and site, and the intended market before deciding on a training system."--First page.Larry Lockshin (Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture)New 5/83/10

Analysis of consumer preferences for information and expert opinion using a discrete choice experiment

We present a study of consumer preferences for information in wine purchases. Consumers are presented with extra information in the form of qualitative product descriptions and quantitative expert ratings. We implement a discrete choice exper- iment in which we vary experimentally the presence of the descriptions and ratings and the values of the ratings themselves. Respondents are asked to choose amongst a set of 5 wine bottles in a sequence of 21 choice scenarios. We find that the presence of extra information and high expert ratings have a significant impact on the will- ingness to pay for a given wine. The dispersion of ratings for a given wine does not affect respondents’ choices. In our estimates high average ratings by experts carry a premium of AUD $10.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Cell death in health and disease

Cell death is clearly an important factor in development, homeostasis, pathology and in aging, but medical efforts based on controlling cell death have not become major aspects of medicine. There are several reasons why hopes have been slow to be fulfilled, and they present indications for new directions in research. Most effort has focused on the machinery of cell death, or the proximate effectors of apoptosis and their closely associated and interacting proteins. But cells have many options other than apoptosis. These include autophagy, necrosis, atrophy and stepwise or other alternate means of self-disassembly. The response of a cell to a noxious or otherwise intimidating signal will depend heavily on the history, lineage and current status of the cell. Many metabolic and other processes adjust the sensitivity of cells to signals, and viruses aggressively attempt to regulate the death of their host cells. Another complicating factor is that many deathassociated proteins may have functions totally unrelated to their role in cell death, generating the possibility of undesirable side effects if one interferes with them. In the future, the challenge will be more to understand the challenge to the cell from a more global standpoint, including many more aspects of metabolism, and work toward alleviating or provoking the challenge in a targeted fashion

Best-Worst Scaling: A simple method to determine drinks and wine style preferences

Wine marketers are continually involved with measuring consumer preferences usually by means of surveys or consumer purchase panel data. In this paper we provide initial results using a relatively new and very straightforward method for measuring consumer preferences. The best-worst scaling method (also called max-diffs) simply asks consumers to look at sets of products, attributes, or other factors to be compared and choose from each set the best/most favourable and the worst/least favourable. A simple count and manipulation results in a single preference scale, where the differences may be compared as distances rather than rank order. Managerial implications of the importance of wine attributes that influence consumer drinks purchasing and wine style selection are discussed as well as suggestions for future research. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the practical and a scholarly usefulness of this approach and present a call for replication in other markets in an ongoing manner.Steven Goodman, Larry Lockshin and Eli Cohe

Using the best-worst method to examine market segments and identify different influences of consumer choice

Wine marketers use market segmentation to target different products to different segments in order to increase sales, often with little evidence about what influences choice within or between segments. In this paper we provide initial results using a relatively new and very straightforward method for measuring consumer preferences. The best-worst scaling method (also called max-diffs) simply asks consumers to look at sets of products, attributes, or other factors to be compared and choose from each set the best/most favourable and the worst/least favourable. A simple count and manipulation results in a single preference scale, where the differences may be compared as distances rather than rank order. This paper shows how segmenting the consumers using factors such as gender, frequency of consumption, wine involvement and age produce segments with similar preferences for different varietal wines. Two country examples are used, Israel and Australia, to show the ability of the Best-Worst method to develop ‘maps’ of segments across markets based on patterns of choice. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the practical and a scholarly usefulness of this approach and to show the method for a larger cross-national study across major wine consuming markets.Steven Goodman, Larry Lockshin and Eli Cohenhttp://academyofwinebusiness.com/?page_id=33

Programmed cell death and apoptosis — where it came from and where it is going: From Elie Metchnikoff to the control of caspases

The story of cell death began with the origins of cell biology, including important observations by Elie (Ilya) Metchnikoff, who realized that phagocytes engulfed dying cells. Most of the early studies were observational. By the middle of the 20th C, researchers were beginning to explore how cells died, had recognized that cell death was a physiologically controlled process, that the most common mode of death (“shrinkage necrosis”, later apoptosis) was tightly controlled, and were speculating whether lysosomes were “suicide bags”. Just prior to 1990 several discoveries led to rapid expansion of interest in the field and elucidation of the mechanisms of apoptosis. Closer to the beginning of the 21st C comprehensive analysis of the molecules that controlled and effected apoptosis led to the conclusion that autophagic processes were linked to apoptosis and could serve to limit or increase cell death. Today, realizing that knowledge of the components of cell death has not yet produced pharmaceuticals of therapeutic value, research is turning to questions of what metabolic or other mechanisms indirectly control the activation or suppression of the cell death positive feedback loop. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled “Apoptosis: Four Decades Later”