SCIENTOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE ON NEUROMARKETING TOOLS IN ADVERTISING

Neuromarketing (NM) is a relatively new area of marketing that involves innovative technological changes in the marketing research process and the tools and methods used. Considering the novelty of the domain, the subject of the study is chosen to be articles published in scientific literature describing neuromarketing tools used in advertising. This study examined articles in the field of advertising that used neuromarketing techniques to measure consumers' neural and physiological responses to advertising, which has not yet been covered in the literature. Methodology. To fill the gap in the literature, the authors, guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol, selected relevant articles and conducted a bibliometric analysis to identify global trends and developments in the field of advertising and neuromarketing. From the Web of Science (WoS) database, 41 articles published between 2009 and 2020 were extracted and analyzed. Purpose of the study was to establish a background for advertising research based on the application of NM tools. The findings revealed that Spain was the most productive country with eleven papers published in a domain of advertising research, followed by Italy and the USA with eight and seven papers, respectively. Among academic institutions, Sapienza University Rome was recognized as the leading academic organization with three articles. As for the most productive journals, Frontiers in Psychology was the most cited journal with eight articles and 29 total citations (TC). As the highest productive author, Babiloni, F. with two papers and 68 TCs by 2020 was identified. Keyword analysis showed that "advertising" (27 occurrences and 127 total references) is the most frequently used keyword. The analysis of co-occurrence of keywords showed that NM focused on marketing research such as advertising (12 occurrences, 63 total link strength (TLS)), followed by brain processes such as attention, emotions and memory. The paper titled “Neuromarketing: The new science of consumer behavior” was the most-cited paper with 152 TCs. Conclusion of the study. This study presents a brief overview of the latest universal areas of neuromarketing and advertising research. The findings suggest that neuroscientific methods and techniques are extremely important for mapping consumers' neural and physiological responses to advertising

A Survey on the Use of Plastic versus Biodegradable Bottles for Drinking Water Packaging in the United Arab Emirates

Due to intensive utilization and extensive production, plastic waste is becoming a serious threat to the environment and human health. The situation is even worse in countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where single-use plastic water bottles add to the load of plastic pollution. The main objective of this survey was to assess the extent of bottled water utilization by the UAE residents and their awareness of the environmental concerns arising from single-use plastic bottles. The aim was also to evaluate their willingness to shift towards using biodegradable plastic bottles. This study involved the feedback of 2589 respondents living in the UAE. The eigenvalue decomposition (EVD) was applied to determine the most responsible variables explaining the variability of our data set. A chi-square analysis was also used to determine the significance among the responses. Most of the respondents to this survey were UAE nationals (79.8%) of ages ranging from 21 to 35 years (42%), who were educated, with most holding a university degree (69.6%). Regardless of their gender, age, occupation, education, and income, a large group of respondents (40.7%) was concerned about the impact of their purchased items on the environment; however, the frequency of plastic products recycled was observed to be low (49.7%). According to the findings of this survey, 42.4% of the respondents were likely to purchase 100% biodegradable bottles, and about 70% of the respondents expressed a willingness to spend at least AED 1 more for purchasing 100% biodegradable bottles

A biochemical, theoretical and immunohistochemical study comparing the therapeutic efficacy of curcumin and taurine on T-2 toxin induced hepatotoxicity in rats

Introduction: Foodborne trichothecene T-2 Toxin, is a highly toxic metabolite produced by Fusarium species contaminating animal and human food, causing multiple organ failure and health hazards. T-2 toxins induce hepatotoxicity via oxidative stress causing hepatocytes cytotoxicity and genotoxicity. In this study, curcumin and taurine were investigated and compared as antioxidants against T-2-provoked hepatotoxicity.Methods: Wistar rats were administrated T-2 toxin sublethal oral dose (0.1 mg/kg) for 2 months, followed by curcumin (80 mg/kg) and taurine (50 mg/kg) for 3 weeks. Biochemical assessment of liver enzymes, lipid profiles, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARs), AFU, TNF-α, total glutathione, molecular docking, histological and immunohistochemical markers for anti-transforming growth factor-β1 (TGFβ1), double-strand DNA damage (H2AX), regeneration (KI67) and apoptosis (Active caspase3) were done.Results and Discussion: Compared to T-2 toxin, curcumin and taurine treatment significantly ameliorated hepatoxicity as; hemoglobin, hematocrit and glutathione, hepatic glycogen, and KI-67 immune-reactive hepatocytes were significantly increased. Although, liver enzymes, inflammation, fibrosis, TGFβ1 immunoexpressing and H2AX and active caspase 3 positive hepatocytes were significantly decreased. Noteworthy, curcumin’s therapeutic effect was superior to taurine by histomorphometry parameters. Furthermore, molecular docking of the structural influence of curcumin and taurine on the DNA sequence showed curcumin’s higher binding affinity than taurine.Conclusion: Both curcumin and taurine ameliorated T-2 induced hepatotoxicity as strong antioxidative agents with more effectiveness for curcumin

Context Management for Supporting Context-aware Android Applications Development

Building context-aware mobile applications is one of the most ambitious areas of research. Such applications can change their behavior according to context or perform specific tasks in specific contexts. Regardless of the application, all context-aware mobile applications share the need to retrieve and process context information. This paper presents a Context Management tool for the Android platform (ACM). ACM allows easy access to internal on-board mobile sensors and hardware features extracting corresponding raw data. Raw context is processed into higher-level more human-readable context that is provided seamlessly to the mobile applications. Different methods are used for this purpose including fuzzy classifiers. Since different mobiles have different sensors and hardware features, ACM can adapt to the mobile device by deactivating access to unavailable ones. Information regarding the available sensors and hardware features and their specifications can also be queried. Additionally, applications can request notifications regarding context change or specific context values. In addition to providing developers with supporting classes and methods, ACM is accompanied by an application that allows developers to examine its functionality and capabilities before using it. The application can be also used to examine the readings of the different sensors in different situations and thus calibrate them as needed. Additionally, it can be used to modify and personalize default interpretations of raw context values to high-level ones. ACM has been tested empirically and the results show extreme interest of context-aware mobile application developers in its promising capabilities and that it is conducive to facilitating, speeding up and triggering development of many more of such applications

Prevalence of cardiovascular autonomic neuropathy and gastroparesis symptoms among patients with type 2 diabetes who attend a primary health care center.

IntroductionCardiovascular autonomic neuropathy (CAN) and gastroparesis are two types of diabetic autonomic neuropathy which could affect patients' quality of life and carry significant morbidity and mortality outcomes. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence and risk factors of both CAN and gastroparesis symptoms among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) at primary health care level.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among 400 adults with T2DM from April 1, 2017 to March 20, 2018. CAN was defined by the presence of any of the followings: resting tachycardia, orthostatic hypotension or prolonged corrected QT interval in the electrocardiogram. Gastroparesis symptoms were assessed using a validated questionnaire: the Gastroparesis Cardinal Symptom Index.ResultsThe mean age of study participants and disease duration were 55.26 ± 10.65 years and 10.77 ± 6.89 years, respectively. CAN was present in 15.3% of the participants. Hypertension, smoking, antihypertensive use, body mass index, dyslipidemia and albuminuria were significantly higher in participants with CAN than those without CAN (pConclusionAmong Saudi adults with T2DM at primary care level, the prevalence of CAN is significant and is independently related to disease duration and hypertension, indicating the importance of CAN screening, especially for those with prolonged disease duration, and the importance of controlling blood pressure in order to prevent CAN or its consequences. The prevalence of gastroparesis symptoms is 6% and is independently related to metformin use, and therefore, symptomatic screening is required to decide which patients need further evaluation

The Effects of Isotretinoin on The Menstrual Cycle: A Cross-Sectional Study

Menstrual irregularities during isotretinoin therapy, including amenorrhea, can cause a great deal of health-status uncertainty such as the possibility of pregnancy. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of isotretinoin treatment on the menstrual cycle. This cross-sectional study was conducted among females aged between 15–45 years taking isotretinoin for acne. Descriptive statistics were used in the form of frequencies and percentages to represent categorical variables. Pearson’s chi-squared test was performed to assess the relationship between some of the variables with menstrual irregularities. A logistic regression model was performed to assess the risk factors for developing menstrual irregularities during isotretinoin therapy. Of participants with a known regular menstrual cycle, 10.4% were found to have irregularity in their cycle after starting the drug (p < 0.001). Amenorrhea was the most commonly reported menstrual irregularity in isotretinoin-treated females. Our results showed that single females, those who took isotretinoin for 10–12 months and who were concurrently taking hormonal contraceptives all have a statistically significant higher risk of developing menstrual irregularities than others. In conclusion, we found that a statistically significant number of participants with a regular menstrual cycle pre-isotretinoin intake developed irregularity in their cycle after starting the drug. The mechanism of how isotretinoin influences female hormonal imbalances, thereby affecting menstrual irregularities is still poorly understood and needs to be clarified in further clinical studies

The Effect of Different Storage Conditions on the Levels of Bisphenol A in Bottled Drinking Water in Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia

Bisphenol A (BPA) in drinking water sources is a significant concern in society because BPA is one of the endocrine disruption compounds (EDCs) that can cause hazards to human health even at extremely low concentration levels. This study investigated the leaching potential of BPA from drinking water bottles in five brands of bottled drinking water in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, using high-performance liquid chromatography with a diode array detector (HPLC-DAD). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the level of BPA in bottled water in the city of Jeddah. The separation was carried out under isocratic elution, and the detector was set to UV mode. Low levels of BPA were detected in all samples from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) containers. The mean concentration of BPA in water bottles stored at room temperature for 30 days was 9.46 ng·L−1, while the concentration of BPA in water bottles exposed to sunlight and boiling water bath was 16.13 ng·L−1 and 14.7 ng·L−1, respectively. Although the results show that the daily consumed concentration of BPA for an adult with 60 kg of body weight is 32.26 ng, which is lower than the total tolerable daily intake limit of BPA, health risks from the consumption of bottled water may increase after UV exposure for an extended time

Validation of three weight gain-based algorithms as a screening tool to detect retinopathy of prematurity: A multicenter study

Purpose: Screening guidelines for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) are updated frequently to help clinicians identify infants at risk of type 1 ROP. This study aims to evaluate the accuracy of three different predictive algorithms—WINROP, ROPScore, and CO-ROP—in detecting ROP in preterm infants in a developing country. Methods: This retrospective study was conducted on 386 preterm infants from two centers between 2015 and 2021. Neonates with gestational age ≤30 weeks and/or birth weight ≤1500 g who underwent ROP screening were included. Results: One hundred twenty-three neonates (31.9%) developed ROP. The sensitivity to identify type 1 ROP was as follows: WINROP, 100%; ROPScore, 100%; and CO-ROP, 92.3%. The specificity was 28% for WINROP, 1.4% for ROPScore, and 19.3% for CO-ROP. CO-ROP missed two neonates with type 1 ROP. WINROP provided the best performance for type 1 ROP with an area under the curve score at 0.61. Conclusion: The sensitivity was at 100% for WINROP and ROPScore for type 1 ROP; however, specificity was quite low for both algorithms. Highly specific algorithms tailored to our population may serve as a useful adjunctive tool to detect preterm infants at risk of sight-threatening ROP