Impact of atmospheric design on consumer purchasing behavior at self- serving convenience store

The main aim of this study was to investigate the impact of atmospheric design on consumer purchasing behavior at self-serving convenience stores in Ampara District, Sri Lanka. Today, retail industry became highly competitive with the increasing number of convenience and other types of retail stores in the area. Hence, the retailers need to be more customer focused and have to differentiate from their competitors by making their atmospheric design more attractive to consumers and to encourage them to spend more time, money, purchase more merchandises and to stimulate their repeat purchase intention. A survey research was employed to collect primary information from 292 customers from convenience stores in Ampara District. Atmospheric design factors such as, product assortment, crowd density, and store floor space were used to identify the impact of atmospheric design on consumer purchasing behavior. Convenience sampling was employed for data collection using a questionnaire with a five-point Likert scale. SPSS 20.0 was used to analyze the data. Product assortment, crowd density and store floor space have significant impact on consumer purchasing behavior at self-serving convenience stores in Ampara District

Production of bio-Olefins: tall-oils and waste greases to green chemicals and polymers

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Determination of the best non-linear function to describe the growth of Kajli sheep

The aim of the present study was to determine the best non-linear growth function to describe the growth of Kajli sheep. For this aim, the Brody, von Bertalanffy, Logistic, and Gompertz models were used to describe the sigmoidal relationship between bodyweight and age of the Kajli sheep. The records obtained from the Livestock Experiment Station, Khushab, were collected between 2007 and 2018. The records comprised 9864 age-weight observations (300 for male, 9564 for female, 7392 for single, 2388 for twin, and 84 for triplet lambs), which extended from birth to 12 months old. Candidate non-linear functions were fitted and the curve parameters were estimated by nlsfit (fit non-linear models) function in R statistical package, version 3.6.1. Goodness of fit criteria that were used to evaluate predictive performances of candidate models were adjusted coefficient of determination (R2adj), Akaike’s information criterion (AIC), Bayesian information criterion (BIC) and root means square error (RMSE). The Brody model was the best non-linear function that described the biological growth pattern of all, male, female, single, twin, and triplet lambs. Differences in curve parameter estimates between male and female suggested a definite pattern of sexual dimorphism. Moreover, a higher estimate of rate of maturity in female lambs reflects their early maturity compared with male Kajli lambs. Similarly, the single-born Kajli animals with highest maturity rate were maturing at an earlier age than twins and triplets. This is the first report on the non-linear pattern of visible changes in bodyweight of Kajli sheep from birth to 12 months old.Key words: age, bodyweight, growth curves, regression, shee

Analysis of non-genetic and genetic influences underlying the growth of Kajli lambs

Data on 2931 Kajli lambs, born from 2007 to 2018, were used to quantify environmental and genetic effects on growth performance of Kajli sheep. Traits considered for evaluation were birth weight (BWT), 120-day adjusted weight (120DWT), 180-day adjusted weight (180DWT), 270-day adjusted weight (270DWT), and 365-day adjusted weight (365DWT). Fixed effects of year of birth, season of birth, sex, birth type, and dam age on these traits were evaluated using linear procedures of SAS, 9.1. Similarly, BWT, 120DWT, 180DWT, and 270DWT were used as fixed effects mixed model analyses. Variance components, heritability and breeding values were estimated by restricted maximum likelihood. The genetic trend for each trait was obtained by regression of the estimated breeding values (EBV) on year of birth. Analyses revealed substantial influence of birth year on all traits. Sex and birth type were the significant sources of variation for BWT and 120DWT. Season of birth did not influence birth weight meaningfully, but had a significant role in the expression of 120DWT, 180DWT, and 270DWT. Heritability estimates were generally low (0.003 ± 0.018 to 0.099 ± 0.067) for all traits. With the exception of the genetic correlation of 180DWT and 365DWT, the genetic correlations between trait were strong and positive. Only 365DWT had a positive genetic trend. Although the heritability estimates for almost all weight traits were low, high and positive genetic correlations between BWT and other weight traits suggest that selection based on BWT would result in the improvement of other weight traits as a correlated response.Keywords: bodyweight, breeding value, genetic correlation, shee

Fermion-scalar interactions with domain wall fermions

Domain wall fermions are defined on a lattice with an extra direction the size of which controls the chiral properties of the theory. When gauge fields are coupled to domain wall fermions the extra direction is treated as an internal flavor space. Here it is found that this is not the case for scalar fields. Instead, the interaction takes place only along the link that connects the boundaries of the extra direction. This reveals a richness in the way different spin particles are coupled to domain wall fermions. As an application, 4-Fermi models are studied using large N techniques and the results are supported by numerical simulations with N=2. It is found that the chiral properties of domain wall fermions in these models are good across a large range of couplings and that a phase with parity-flavor broken symmetry can develop for negative bare masses if the number of sites along the extra direction is finite.Comment: LaTeX, 17 pages, 8 eps figures; comment regarding the width of Aoki phase added in sec. 3; references adde

Economical and Structural Feasibility of Concrete Cellular and Solid Blocks in Kurdistan Region

Cellular concrete blocks are the major building materials in Kurdistan Region in Iraq. This study is carried out to check the economical and structural feasibility. The integrity of the blocks as well as its industrial production process compared with local and international standards. Recommendations for the concrete block production have been given in this paper. Samples from 10 local factories of total 60 blocks have been collected and tested at Koya University Laboratory. The carried out tests covered the dimensions, compression strength and water absorption of the samples. The results of this research study were compared with the requirements of the Iraqi and European specifications. They showed that the products of all factories do not fulfil the specified requirements. The dimensions of specimens exhibited relatively high deviations with no recommended tolerances for dimensions of the blocks. The results analysis showed that the weight of the 400x200x200mm block size was about 20-23 kg and the size of the represented voids was about 60% of the volume. This study made some regulatory recommendations to standardise the concrete block production in the region

Aquaculture technologies in Bangladesh: an assessment of technical and economic performance and producer behavior

This study evaluates the performance of a wide range of aquaculture systems in Bangladesh. It is by far the largest of its kind attempted to date. The purpose of this study was to identify and analyze the most important production systems, rather than to provide a nationally representative overview of the entire aquaculture sector of Bangladesh. As such, the study yields a huge amount of new information on production technologies that have never been thoroughly researched before. The study reveals an extremely diverse array of specialized, dynamic and rapidly evolving production technologies, adapted to a variety of market niches and local environmental conditions. This is a testament to the innovativeness of farmers and other value chain actors who have been the principal drivers of this development in Bangladesh. Data was collected from six geographical hubs. This survey was conducted from November 2011 to June 2012. Technological performance in terms of detailed input and output information, fish management practices, credit and marketing, and social and environmental issues were captured by the survey questionnaire, which had both open and closed format questions. The study generated insights that enable better understanding of aquaculture development in Bangladesh

Organoleptic and microbiological quality changes of catla (Catla catla) in immediate and delayed ice storage and at ambient temperature

An investigation was carried out on the quality changes of Catla (Catla calla) stored immediately (0 h) in ice, after 6 hours in ice and at ambient temperature. The samples were examined for organoleptic and microbiological parameters in summer. Organoleptically, the acceptability of fish varied between 16-20 days in both the iced storage conditions and 12-13.5 hours at ambient temperature (28°C). When fish were organoleptically just acceptable on the 16th day of storage, bacterial load were 6.23 and 6.17 log10 cfu/g, respectively for 0 hour and after 6 hours iced fish. But on the 20th day of storage, when fish were just unacceptable SPC were 6.51 and 6.62 log10 cfu/g. In case of ambient temperature storage condition standard plate count was 8.36 log10 cfu/g on 13.5 hours, when fish were organoleptically just unacceptable. At the time of rejection for fish stored in ice (0 hour and after 6 hours) on 20th day, gram negative and gram positive values were 55.45%, 44.55% and 44.52%, 55.48% respectively. While fish were rejected after 13.5 hours at ambient temperature gram negative and gram positive bacteria were found as 43.02% and 56.98%. The differences in SPC, gram positive and gram negative bacteria between the storage times were statistically significant (p<0.05)