Modeling in Branding: a critical ethnography approach

Purpose- The paper aims to shed light on the potential of ethnography to provide a dialectical approach to modeling the process of branding as its focus widens from managerial to social. Design/methodology/approach- A critical approach to ethnography is adopted and implemented in light of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s ethnographic modeling technique of ‘Participant Objectification’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). Findings-The paper demonstrates from the customer standpoint- of a case of a grocery retailer- the ability of critical ethnography to dialectically model the branding process as an organic cultural whole, which envelops an intricate set of different, yet interdependent, social and managerial systems, functioning in a coherent and complementary manner. Research limitations- The empirical evidence is limited to the area of grocery retailing. Thus, widening the application of the technique in other areas would be desirable. Practical implications– The dialectical nature of the critical approach to modeling yields a rich multi-faceted view of the branding process that could help remedy the problem of detachment from complex reality, which has often been a criticism of traditional approaches to modeling in marketing. Originality/Value- The suggested dialectical approach to modeling expands the potential use of ethnography within the critical orientation to theory building in marketing generally, and branding in particular through elaborating the process of cultural construction from textual via participant observation to dialectical via participant objectification

Retail brand management: towards modelling the grocery retailer brand from an ethnographic perspective

As producers of national and international brands, manufacturers and service providers were the focus of brand management literature. However, as retailers have become major players nationally and internationally, managing retailers as brands have become a major challenge. The retailer unique business nature, and managerial needs as well as its ever-changing business environment render managing the retail brand a unique and complex task. For the retail brand to embrace and adapt to its managerial challenges, a multitude of brand management approaches should be employed. However, when addressing retailers as brands, the retail management literature has failed to account for this multiplicity exposing a gap in the literature. To fill this gap, a communal retail brand management model is proposed to help retailers embrace and adapt to their various branding requirements inflicted by their business challenges. To build the model, a common core among the various approaches involved in managing retail brands should be identified so as to simplify, by forming a unified approach, yet maintain the essence of each approach. The holistic, humanitarian and managerial orientations of the concept of organizational culture identify it as the common core and thus act as the backbone on which the model will be built. Since the model will be built through cultural interpretation, the ethnographic tradition of qualitative inquiry is utilized because it provides an emic perspective, which is the best strategy (that consequently provides best tools) for interpreting cultures. Besides, the flexibility of the ethnographic tradition allows the adoption of other qualitative traditions of enquiry to aid in building the model. Thus, the case study tradition is employed to confine the study within the precincts of a single retail brand in order to conduct deep analysis for several stakeholders simultaneously. Additionally, the analytical technique of the grounded theory tradition is employed to capitalize on its systematic ability to form conceptual themes out of raw data that, ultimately, become the model's building blocks. In light of conducting a five-months participant observation study in two grocery stores of a leading supermarket brand in two countries (Sainsbury's stores in the UK and Egypt), the findings revealed that modelling the retail brand culture resembles, metaphorically, a tree. The culture symbols resemble the tree attractive leaves, the rituals & local heroes resemble the supportive trunk, and values resemble the roots that anchor in the soil, which, in turn, resembles the cultures in which the retailer operates. The thesis concludes that the Tree- Model is a road map that guides retailers to build and manage their brand identity and consequently enable them to embrace and adapt to the various branding requirements dictated by their business challenges

A Critical Account of the Process of Branding: towards a synthesis

Echoing the shift in orientation from transactional to relationship marketing (Gronroos 2006), the debate over the process of branding has moved from a managerially closed to a socially open orientation (Pitt, Watson, Berthon, Wynn and Zinkhan 2006) creating a multidisciplinary intellectual puzzle. In light of the ‘limit attitude’ approach in critical marketing (Tadajewski and Brownlie 2008), this paper attempts to make sense of this puzzle through a critical examination of the evolution in branding thought. The paper concludes by developing a synthesis, through a constructed tree metaphor, which conceptualizes the multidisciplinary process of branding within a single organic (holistic and integrated) framework

Sainsbury's in Egypt: the strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?

Purpose – First, to explore the role of institutional theory constructs in a case of international retail divestment. Second, to examine the potential of constructed metaphors as a means of analyzing and communicating the findings of managerial research Design/Methodology/Approach – the data was generated from participant observations and interactions with stakeholder groups during a three month ethnographic study based in a Sainsbury store in Egypt. Data was analysed and presented via a constructed metaphor – namely Robert Louis Stevenson’s story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Findings – the case illustrated an apparent paradox between Sainsbury’s technical superiority as a retail operator in the Egyptian market, and its social inferiority in its interactions with a variety of stakeholders, primarily customers and employees. The use of the metaphor to organize, analyse and present the findings proves to be a fruitful way to illustrate these issue, and parallels between the two “stories” provide further insights into behaviour – the denial of responsibility for (and the existence of) social inadequacies; and the implicit (and inevitable) existence of the capacity for social inadequacy in any business organization. Practical Implications – the potential to communicate managerial lessons by telling “stories” (the case) through well known “stories” (the novel) is highglighted. Originality/Value – the use of the constructed metaphor to analyse a case of international retail divestment is, to our knowledge, unique and enhancers our understanding of the legitimisatyion process and the role of socio-moral codes in this process

Study on adsorption behavior and separation efficiency of naturally occurring clay for some elements by batch experiments

This paper describes the versatile nature of clay that was obtained from Suez Gulf, Suez city, Egypt, as a new low cost natural resource which is non toxic to ecosystem and highly effective adsorbent material. The properties of the natural clay and its significance in removing Th(IV) and Ce(IV) as a representative of tetravalent actinides and lanthanides, respectively, La(III) as a representative of trivalent lanthanides as well as homologues of americium and Sr(II) as one of the fission products, in aqueous solutions have been studied, in order to consider its application for nuclear waste treatment. Batch experiments have been carried out to determine the effect of various factors such as initial metal ion concentration, clay dose, pH, contact time, and temperature on the adsorption process. The results have dictated that, the adsorption efficiency of the natural clay was significantly high at pH = 4. Maximum metal ion uptake capacity of clay has been obtained from batch studies was 99.24, 98.21, 77.76 and 57.94% for Th(IV), Ce(IV), La(III) and Sr(II), respectively. The thermodynamic parameters (ΔHo, ΔSo and ΔGo) have been calculated from the temperature dependent adsorption isotherms. Furthermore, separation factors (α) have been calculated in order to separate these elements from each other at pH = 4

Effects of alginates on the growth, haematological, immunity, antioxidant and pro-inflammatory responses of rabbits under high temperature

Heat stress (HS) is one of the most severe hurdles impacting rabbit growth, immunity, homeostasis, and productivity. Alginate oligosaccharides (AOS) have considerable beneficial effects due to their plausible antioxidant and immune-stimulatory properties. This work was planned to explore the preventive function of AOS as a new bio-feed additive against the harmful effects caused by environmental HS on growing rabbits. Rabbits were allotted in four experimental groups (25 animals in each group) and fed on a basal diet supplemented with 0.0 (AOS0), 50 (AOS50), 100 (AOS100), and 150 (AOS150) mg AOS/kg diet reared under summer conditions. Dietary AOS supplementation improved significantly (P ≤ 0.001) feed conversion rate, while both AOS100 and AOS150 significantly (P ≤ 0.001) enhanced the final body weight and body weight gain. All AOS addition significantly increased nitric oxide and lysosome activity and significantly reduced interferon-gamma (IFNγ) compared with those in the control group. Tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα), interleukin1β (IL-1β), myeloperoxidase and protein carbonyl levels were significantly reduced in rabbits fed diets containing AOS (100 and 150 mg/kg) compared with those in the control group under heat stress conditions. In addition, glutathione (GSH) and catalase (CAT) were significantly (P ≤ 0.001) improved with increasing AOS dietary levels compared with the control group. Still, total antioxidant capacity (TAC), malondialdehyde (MDA), hematocrit, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), eosinophils, and lymphocytes did not change. Erythrocyte's indices improved significantly (P ≤ 0.001), while neutrophils and white blood cell counts were decreased by dietary AOS inclusion. Immunological (IgM and IgG) were markedly reduced in AOS-treated groups compared with the control group. The current investigation exemplified that AOS as a novel bio-feed additive that could be an effective strategy to extenuate prejudicial effects in heat-stressed rabbits via enhancing immunity, and antioxidant defence system, further regulating the inflammation cytokines.Universidad King Saud, Riad, Arabia Saudita | Ref. RSP2023R439Universidade de Vigo/CISU

MRBrainS Challenge: Online Evaluation Framework for Brain Image Segmentation in 3T MRI Scans

Many methods have been proposed for tissue segmentation in brain MRI scans. The multitude of methods proposed complicates the choice of one method above others. We have therefore established the MRBrainS online evaluation framework for evaluating (semi) automatic algorithms that segment gray matter (GM), white matter (WM), and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) on 3T brain MRI scans of elderly subjects (65-80 y). Participants apply their algorithms to the provided data, after which their results are evaluated and ranked. Full manual segmentations of GM, WM, and CSF are available for all scans and used as the reference standard. Five datasets are provided for training and fifteen for testing. The evaluated methods are ranked based on their overall performance to segment GM, WM, and CSF and evaluated using three evaluation metrics (Dice, H95, and AVD) and the results are published on the MRBrainS13 website. We present the results of eleven segmentation algorithms that participated in the MRBrainS13 challenge workshop at MICCAI, where the framework was launched, and three commonly used freeware packages: FreeSurfer, FSL, and SPM. The MRBrainS evaluation framework provides an objective and direct comparison of all evaluated algorithms and can aid in selecting the best performing method for the segmentation goal at hand.This study was financially supported by IMDI Grant 104002002 (Brainbox) from ZonMw, the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development, within kind sponsoring by Philips, the University Medical Center Utrecht, and Eindhoven University of Technology. The authors would like to acknowledge the following members of the Utrecht Vascular Cognitive Impairment Study Group who were not included as coauthors of this paper but were involved in the recruitment of study participants and MRI acquisition at the UMC Utrecht (in alphabetical order by department): E. van den Berg, M. Brundel, S. Heringa, and L. J. Kappelle of the Department of Neurology, P. R. Luijten and W. P. Th. M. Mali of the Department of Radiology, and A. Algra and G. E. H. M. Rutten of the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care. The research of Geert Jan Biessels and the VCI group was financially supported by VIDI Grant 91711384 from ZonMw and by Grant 2010T073 of the Netherlands Heart Foundation. The research of Jeroen de Bresser is financially supported by a research talent fellowship of the University Medical Center Utrecht (Netherlands). The research of Annegreet van Opbroek and Marleen de Bruijne is financially supported by a research grant from NWO (the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). The authors would like to acknowledge MeVis Medical Solutions AG (Bremen, Germany) for providing MeVisLab. Duygu Sarikaya and Liang Zhao acknowledge their Advisor Professor Jason Corso for his guidance. Duygu Sarikaya is supported by NIH 1 R21CA160825-01 and Liang Zhao is partially supported by the China Scholarship Council (CSC).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London

Mortality and disability-adjusted life years in North Africa and Middle East attributed to kidney dysfunction : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

The authors would like to thank the hard work of the staff of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) for providing the best possible epidemiologic estimation of diseases in almost all regions and countries of the world, trying to reduce and eliminate poverty of knowledge and information about the diseases globally. Also, the core team authors sincerely thank all the collaborators of the GBD 2019 study who contributed to this study by providing data or a precise review of the manuscript. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the ERA. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Peer reviewe

Towards modeling the retailer as a brand: A social construction of the grocery store from the customer standpoint

As a highly customer-sensitive business, retailing is one of the most socially active industries. Nevertheless, when addressing retailers as brands, the retailing literature has failed to account for their unique social orientation, exposing a gap in the literature. This paper utilizes the sociological view of brands to socially construct a conceptual retail brand model from the customer standpoint. An ethnographic study of grocery retailing revealed that the store has, metaphorically, a tree-shaped culture, which can organically model the interplay between building the retailer brand as a culture and the phases constituting the social-self concept