Crossmodal Congruency Between Background Music and the Online Store Environment: The Moderating Role of Shopping Goals

Despite the robust evidence that congruent background music in the physical store environment positively affects consumer reactions, less is known about its effects in an online context. The present study aims (1) to examine whether congruency via multiple elicited crossmodal correspondences between background music and the online store environment (e.g., perceived lightness, loudness, and coldness of the cue/environment) leads to more positive affective, evaluative, and behavioral consumer reactions and (2) to investigate the moderating role of shopping goals on this crossmodal congruency effect. Previous research showed that low task-relevant atmospheric cues like music can have a negative effect on consumers when they visit a website with a purchase goal in mind. An online experiment was conducted with 239 respondents randomly assigned to a shopping goal (experiential browsing vs. goal-directed searching) and a music condition (no music, crossmodally congruent music, or crossmodally incongruent music). Our results show that crossmodally incongruent background music (vs. no music) leads to more positive consumer reactions for experiential browsers and more negative consumer reactions for goal-directed searchers. Conversely, crossmodally congruent background music (vs. no music) has a positive effect on experiential browsers and no adverse effect on goal-directed searchers. Additionally, the presence of crossmodally congruent background music leads to more positive consumer reactions than the presence of crossmodally incongruent background music, independent of the shopping goal. We extend previous research on multisensory congruency effects by showing the added value of establishing congruency between music and the store environment via multiple elicited crossmodal correspondences in the online environment, countering previously found negative effects of low-task relevant atmospheric cues for goal-directed searchers

Innovative Platform for Designing Hybrid Collaborative & Context-Aware Data Mining Scenarios

The process of knowledge discovery involves nowadays a major number of techniques. Context-Aware Data Mining (CADM) and Collaborative Data Mining (CDM) are some of the recent ones. the current research proposes a new hybrid and efficient tool to design prediction models called Scenarios Platform-Collaborative & Context-Aware Data Mining (SP-CCADM). Both CADM and CDM approaches are included in the new platform in a flexible manner; SP-CCADM allows the setting and testing of multiple configurable scenarios related to data mining at once. The introduced platform was successfully tested and validated on real life scenarios, providing better results than each standalone technique-CADM and CDM. Nevertheless, SP-CCADM was validated with various machine learning algorithms-k-Nearest Neighbour (k-NN), Deep Learning (DL), Gradient Boosted Trees (GBT) and Decision Trees (DT). SP-CCADM makes a step forward when confronting complex data, properly approaching data contexts and collaboration between data. Numerical experiments and statistics illustrate in detail the potential of the proposed platform.Comment: 15 figure

Towards an Integrated Management and Planning in the Romanian Black Sea Coastal Zones

The socio-economic and 'natural' systems are, to a variable extent, now locked in a co-evolutionary path, characterized by a joint determinism and complex feedback effects. The management of the coastal zones, including also modeling and assessment measures, should, be reoriented over time to properly capture the causes and consequences of the joint system changes as manifested in the coastal areas. This will require a collaborative work among a range of economical, environmental and social science disciplines. The pressures and the high instability are similar between the coast and the sea, in both senses (from the land to the sea and also from the sea to the land), being given by various factors as the strong winds, waves, storms, open sea, currents, as well well also the variability of temperatures, salinity, density, due to the Danube impact, etc. The influence of the rivers discharging into the Black Sea is important, while the coastal erosion, flooding, urbanization, tourism, naval industry have an impact on the coast and the sea environment. The Marine Spatial Planning Directive is appropriate in Romania to put in practice the similar tools, and practical approach from the coast to the maritime space.   This paper aims to represent an useful starting point in the management of the coastal zones for both natural and social science research that would be seeked (by a more integrated modelling and assessment process) to better describe and understand the functioning of the ecosystems, that form the coastal interface, and in particular the filter effect is exerted on nutrients in response to the environmental pressures, both anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic - the climate change, land use/cover change, urbanization and effluent treatment from both point and non-point sources. For this it is necessary a broad analytical framework (rather than a specific model) in which to set a more detailed analysis.&nbsp

Activity Based Costing Applied to an Accounting Company

The paper approaches the application of the Activity-Based Costing (ABC) calculation method within an accounting services company. The method is among the modern methods used in the calculation of the cost which takes into consideration a more cautious distribution of resources based on the activities that lead to the achievement of an objective. The purpose of the study is the distribution of costs to the groups of significant services performed by the accounting company: bookkeeping services, general accounting services and the preparation of financial statements and analysis. The ABC method starts from the organization of the company by processes and activities and from a less subjective allocation of overheads compared to the traditional method

ACCOUNTING EXPERTISE – A PRACTICAL APPROACH. SEPARATE REPORT

The study on the accounting expertise - report separate from(?) follows the research direction of the accounting services field. The accounting expertise is the work drafted by the accounting professional upon the request of the accounting information consumer in order to substantiate economic decisions or to be used as means of evidence to solve cases that require specialty knowledge. Used as means of evidence in civil and criminal trials, it is subject to the procedures in this field where the court appoints chartered accountants and may approve advisor experts to draft specialty works. The purpose of this case study is to outline the coordinates of accounting expertise report separate in a civil trial

Diagnostic algorithm of hyperglycemia in children

Universitatea de Medicină şi Farmacie ”Grigore T.Popa”,Iaşi, România, Spitalul clinic de urgentă pentru copii “Sf.Maria”, Iaşi, RomâniaDefi nim hiperglicemia prin creşterea glicemiei a jeun peste 110 mg/dl sau printr-o glicemie oricand in cursul zilei peste 140 mg/dl. În practica pediatrică, aceste valori pot fi cauzate de anumite medicamente, de stres sau pun problema apariţiei diabetului zaharat. Dintre medicamentele care pot determina hiperglicemie menţionăm steroizii, tiazidele, hormonul de creştere şi unele antipsihotice. Acestea din urmă au fost asociate cu o incidenţă crescută a diabetului de tip 2 si cu înrăutăţirea controlului metabolic în diabetul de tip 1. Hiperglicemia de stres poate avea cauze minore, spre exemplu o infecţie de tract respirator superior, sau cauze severe, chirurgicale. Hiperglicemia din infecţiile minore poate anunţa apariţia unui diabet de tip 1 sau diabet MODY şi trebuie investigată ulterior. Dacă valorile glicemiei sunt peste 126 mg/dl a jeun şi peste 200 mg/dl în cursul zilei, se stabileşte diagnosticul de diabet zaharat. În peste 90% din cazuri, în copilărie şi adolescenţă se diagnostichează diabetul de tip 1, pe baza simptomelor tipice si prin confi rmarea patogeniei autoimune, respectiv a markerilor de autoimunitate. Există şi posibilitatea unui diabet secundar asociat anumitor afectiuni, cum ar fi fi broza chistică, talasemia, feocromocitomul sau afecţiuni genetice. Când valorile glicemiei a jeun sunt între 100-125 mg/dl, pentru a diferenţia diabetul zaharat de tip 2 de un diabet monogenic sau de un prediabet, se recomandă efectuarea testului oral de toleranţă la glucoză asociat cu determinarea hemoglobinei glicozilate A1c, a anticorpilor anticelule insulare ( ICA ), a anticorpilor antiinsulinici şi a peptidului C. În prezent, se remarcă o crestere a incidenţei diabetului zaharat de tip 2 la populatia pediatrică, şi anume la pacientii cu obezitate şi istoric familial pozitiv de obezitate şi/sau diabet de tip 2, cu valori normale sau crescute ale peptidului C şi fără autoanticorpi prezenţi. Diabetul de tip MODY apare la 2-3,5 % din cazurile de diabet zaharat, copiii având un fenotip extrem de variabil, nu prezinta autoanticorpi, iar transmiterea autosomal dominanta este demonstrata de istoricul familial de diabet la 2-3 generaţii. În concluzie, hiperglicemia la copil pune probleme de diagostic diferenţial între debutul diabetului zaharat, un diabet secundar, o hiperglicemie indusa medicamentos sau o hiperglicemie de stres.Hyperglycemia is defined as an increase of the fasting blood glucose level above 110 mg/dl or by random blood glucose level above 140 mg/dl. In pediatric practice, these values may be caused by certain medications, by stress or they may be an indication of diabetes mellitus. Here are some of the medications that may cause hyperglycemia: steroids, thiazides, growth hormone, and some antipsychotics. The latter was associated with an increased incidence of type 2 diabetes and with poor metabolic control in type 1 diabetes. Hyperglycemia caused by stress may have minor causes, for instance, an upper respiratory tract infection, or severe surgical causes. Hyperglycemia caused by minor infections may be the precursor of type 1 diabetes or of MODY diabetes and it should be further and more thoroughly analyzed. When the fasting blood glucose levels exceed 126 mg/dl and when the blood glucose levels are over 200 mg/dl at any time during the day, the diabetes mellitus diagnosis is set. Type 1 diabetes is diagnosed during childhood and adolescence in over 90% of the cases, based on specific symptoms and when confirmed by autoimmune pathogenicity, i.e. autoimmunity markers. There is also the possibility of secondary diabetes associated with certain conditions such as cystic fibrosis, thalassemia, pheochromocytoma, or genetic disorders. When fasting blood glucose levels are between 100-125 mg/dl, in order to distinguish type 2 diabetes from monogenic diabetes or from prediabetes, an oral glucose tolerance test is recommended together with the determination of glycosylated hemoglobin A1c, anti-islet cells (ICA), anti-insulin antibodies, and peptide C. Nowadays, there is an increase in the incidence of type 2 diabetes in the pediatric population, namely in patients with obesity and family history of obesity and/or type 2 diabetes, with normal or elevated C-peptide levels and no autoantibodies present. MODY diabetes occurs in 2-3.5% of the cases of diabetes, as children have a very variable phenotype, do not show autoantibodies, and dominant autosomal transmission is demonstrated by family history of diabetes in 2-3 generations. To conclude, hyperglycemia in children poses a differential diagnosis problem, as it is difficult to distinguish between the onset of diabetes mellitus, secondary diabetes, medication-induced hyperglycemia, or stress-caused hyperglycemia