The Relationships Between Prosocial Consumer Behavior, Consumer Resilience, Consumer Risk Taking Propensity and Consumer Hoarding During COVID-19

The Relationships Between Prosocial Consumer Behavior, Consumer Resilience, Consumer Risk Taking Propensity and Consumer Hoarding During COVID-1

Entrepreneurship Marketing in North Carolina’s Wine Industry

Entrepreneurial marketing seeks to create, communicate and deliver value to customers and manage customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization. This paper explores whether increased entrepreneurial marketing practices at North Carolina wineries can lead to enhanced winery performance. A web survey was delivered to N.C. wineries by email. The results suggest that winery customer intensity and innovation was positively related to winery satisfaction of winery performance. Also, innovation and value creation were found to be positively related to percentage sales change at wineries

Multi-laboratory evaluation of ReaScan TBE IgM rapid test, 2016 to 2017

Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is a potentially severe neurological disease caused by TBE virus (TBEV). In Europe and Asia, TBEV infection has become a growing public health concern and requires fast and specific detection. Aim: In this observational study, we evaluated a rapid TBE IgM test, ReaScan TBE, for usage in a clinical laboratory setting. Methods: Patient sera found negative or positive for TBEV by serological and/or molecular methods in diagnostic laboratories of five European countries endemic for TBEV (Estonia, Finland, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Sweden) were used to assess the sensitivity and specificity of the test. The patients' diagnoses were based on other commercial or quality assured in-house assays, i.e. each laboratory's conventional routine methods. For specificity analysis, serum samples from patients with infections known to cause problems in serology were employed. These samples tested positive for e.g. Epstein-Barr virus, cytomegalovirus and Anaplasma phagocytophilum, or for flaviviruses other than TBEV, i.e. dengue, Japanese encephalitis, West Nile and Zika viruses. Samples from individuals vaccinated against flaviviruses other than TBEV were also included. Altogether, 172 serum samples from patients with acute TBE and 306 TBE IgM negative samples were analysed. Results: Compared with each laboratory's conventional methods, the tested assay had similar sensitivity and specificity (99.4% and 97.7%, respectively). Samples containing potentially interfering antibodies did not cause specificity problems. Conclusion: Regarding diagnosis of acute TBEV infections, ReaScan TBE offers rapid and convenient complementary IgM detection. If used as a stand-alone, it can provide preliminary results in a laboratory or point of care setting.Peer reviewe

Anti-SARS-CoV2 antibody responses in serum and cerebrospinal fluid of COVID-19 patients with neurological symptoms

Antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 in serum and CSF from 16 COVID-19 patients with neurological symptoms were assessed using two independent methods. IgG specific for the virus spike protein was found in 81% of cases in serum and in 56% in CSF. SARS-CoV-2 IgG in CSF was observed in two cases with negative serology. Levels of IgG in both serum and CSF were associated with disease severity (p<0.05). All patients with elevated markers of CNS damage in CSF also had CSF antibodies (p=0.002), and CSF antibodies had the highest predictive value for neuronal damage markers of all tested clinical variables

The Platformed Money Ecosystem: Digital Financial Platforms, Datafication, and Reimagining Financial Well-being

Digital financial platforms have become an integral part of consumers\u27 lives–resulting in the datafication of everyday life and potential for uniquely impacting financial well-being. Extending previous transformative consumer research, we suggest financial well-being must center the ways digital financial platforms and their resulting data are increasingly enmeshed with financial decision making and consumption. Drawing on a theoretical lens of platformization, we propose the Platformed Money Ecosystem, which accounts for increased embeddedness of digital financial platforms within consumers\u27 lives and the subtlety of how everyday life is transformed into data: producing data at the micro-level, monetizing data at the meso-level, and regulating data at the macro-level. In conceptualizing the Platformed Money Ecosystem, we identify three data-informed considerations for scholars and policymakers to reimagine financial well-being: protecting consumer data, limiting data biases, and supporting data literacy

Perovskite solar cells using polymer electrolytes

This study deals with the characterization of methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI3) material and the fabrication of perovskite solar cells using gel polymer electrolyte as the charge transport medium. The crystalline lead–based perovskite has been verified by x-ray diffraction (XRD). The [100], [200], [210], [211], [220], [300] and [222] reflection planes can be observed at 2θ angles of 14.10°, 28.35°, 31.90°, 34.95°, 40.40°, 43.15° and 50.20°, indicating a cubic crystal symmetry for CH3NH3PbI3. EDX spectrum showed a Pb:I ratio of approximately 1:3 as in CH3NH3PbI3. The band gap for lead-based perovskite is 1.45 eV estimated from UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy. The nanocrystalline MAPbI3 have been observed using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), where the average cuboid size of perovskite nanocrystals is 380 nm. The cell have been fabricated using gel polymer electrolyte with composition 17.02 wt.% PVA–13.93 wt.% TBAI–0.96 wt.% I2– 68.09 wt.% DMF. The cell exhibits a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 1.28% with open circuit voltage (Voc) 0.58 mV, short circuit current density (Jsc) 3.74 mA cm−2 and fill factor (FF) 59.18%

Polyacrylonitrile gel polymer electrolyte based dye sensitized solar cells for a prototype solar panel

Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) based gel polymer electrolytes (GPE) were prepared using lithium iodide (LiI), 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium iodide (BMII) and tetrapropyl ammonium iodide (TPAI). The LiI mass fraction in the electrolyte was varied while keeping the masses of other components constant in order to enhance the solar cell performance. The addition of 4.61 wt.% LiI in the GPE increased the electrolyte room temperature ionic conductivity from (2.32 ± 0.02) to (3.91 ± 0.04) mS cm−1. The increase in conductivity with the addition of LiI salts was attributed to the increase in diffusion coefficient, mobility and number density of charge carriers as determined from Nyquist plot fitting. The incorporation of LiI salts in PAN-based GPE has enhanced the efficiency of the DSSC as expected. The best cell performance was obtained with an electrolyte containing 4.61 wt.% LiI sandwiched between a single mesoporous layer of TiO2 soaked in N3 dye sensitizer and a platinum counter electrode, which showed a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of (5.4 ± 0.1) % with a short circuit current density (Jsc) of (21.0 ± 1.1) mA cm−2, an open circuit voltage (Voc) of (0.48 ± 0.02) V and a fill factor (FF) of (53.4 ± 0.9) %. The DSSCs with 4.61 wt.% of LiI have been used to fabricate prototype solar panels for operating small devices. The panels were assembled using a number of cells, each having an area of 2 cm × 2 cm, connected in series and parallel. The panel, consisting of a set of eight cells in series which was connected in parallel with another set of eight cells in series, produces an average power conversion efficiency of (3.7 ± 0.2)% with a maximum output power of (17.1 ± 0.9) mW