Happy Campers or Unhappy Prisoners: How Materialism Punishes Us in Lockdown Times

COVID-19 and the resulting lockdowns created an unprecedented upheaval in consumers’ daily lives and lifestyles. The purpose of this research was to understand the psychological experience of life under lockdowns and the role of individual difference variables in that experience. Using survey data from U.S. consumers, the research identified two opposite feelings, coexisting: happy camper feeling or unhappy prisoner feeling. Younger, lower income, and less educated consumers felt more like prisoners than campers. Ability to maintain life as usual, and positive pre-pandemic life conditions (health, social network, and job satisfaction) led to happy camper feelings. In contrast, pre-pandemic materialism led to a prisoner-like experience. As we enter the now reopening marketplaces, we should ask: How shall we, as consumers, live our post-COVID lives. The research findings also suggest some directions for future research

Dangerous to mix: culture and politics in a traditional circumcision in South Africa.

Background: Traditional circumcision (initiation) is an integral part of the Xhosa speaking communities. Circumcision is the first step towards manhood. It involves a number of cultural, religious, legal and ethical issues, which in terms of the constitution of the Republic of South Africa, are rights that must be protected.Objective: To highlight the problem of circumcision related death in South Africa.Case Report: This case report examines a 16- year boy who had died as result of botched circumcision by an unqualified traditional surgeon. He kept the boy in his custody despite his serious illness. He applied a tight bandage to control the bleeding, resulting in gangrene of the penis followed by septicemia. The histories, postmortem findings, cause of death and medico- legal and social aspects have been discussed in this manuscript.Conclusion: There are unacceptable deaths related with circumcision in South Africa. The right to life cannot be sacrificed at the altar of culture and politics.Keywords: Circumcision, initiation, religion, culture and politics

Consumer preference for status symbolism of clothing: the case of the Czech Republic

During the past three decades, consumer demand for luxury goods has been growing on a global scale. The luxury and status market base has expanded beyond the traditional affluent consumer segment to include an increasingly heterogeneous group of consumers. Despite the substantial size, greater reach, and significant growth of the luxury goods market, status consumption has been treated as an atypical and peripheral subject in consumer research. The authors develop a conceptual model of psychological determinants of status seeking through consumption. The model considers the effects of three general traits (namely, status concern, public self-consciousness, and self-esteem) and one consumption-related consumer trait (namely, susceptibility to normative social influence) on preference for status meaning, which in turn influences consumer interest in the product. The conceptual model is tested with data from a survey of 1,000+ respondents drawn from the Czech Republic, a country where the recent market liberalization has unleashed an inflow of luxury goods from marketers from the West. Face-to-face home-based structured interviews were conducted by an international market research agency. The hypothesized causal relationships are all supported. The effects of status concern, public self-consciousness, and self-esteem on susceptibility to normative social influence (SNSI) and preference for status meaning (PSM) are significant and in the expected direction. Additionally, SNSI is found to exert a significant positive influence on PSM, and these two constructs, in turn, have significant positive effects on consumer interest in clothing. The conceptual model and empirical evidence enhance the existing knowledge of the antecedents and outcomes of status consumption. The study advances a better understanding of the psychology of consumer adoption of status consumption; equally important, it also highlights the value of extending consumer theories from established to emerging market economies and back again from still-evolving to long-standing marketplaces

Topological invariance of integral Pontrjagin classes mod p

AbstractIt is proved that integral Pontrjagin classes Pk mod p are topological invariant if p is odd, k < n(p) and they are not topological invariant if k ⩾ n(p), where n(p) is the smallest value of k for which p divides ek and ek is the smallest positive integer such that ekpk is topological invariant. For example, pk mod p is topological invariant for p = 3, 5, 11 etc. for every k ⩾ 1 but not topological invariant for p = 7 and k ⩾ 2

Online Dispute Resolution

The contemporary world belongs to communication where lot of interactions, trading, and business dealings are happening between people, organizations, and business partners. This has led to the sharp rise in disputes and conflicts, and they have become an unavoidable part of our ecosystem. Disputes and conflicts are not only related to online communication but also crops up during face-to-face or offline communication. The disputes/conflicts need to be handled, managed, and resolved timely and in a cost-effective manner. These days, online communication medium is used very effectively for such dispute resolutions. Online dispute resolution is mostly done through video conferencing, email exchanges, instant chat, and interaction through mobile phones. In order to understand the corporate perspective of India related to the online communication and online dispute resolution, interviews of 50 working professionals were conducted. Each of these professionals is at the leadership position and uses online communication more often in their day-to-day professional work. Their views were recorded and interpreted in order to understand practical issues related to online communication and online dispute resolution. In this chapter, we will be discussing the pertinent process of online dispute resolution for both online and offline disputes pertaining to the business environment

Air Pollution, Health and Perception

This chapter provides a general overview of the effects air pollution, pollutant sources in different regions and role of perception in assessment of pollution level and different health effects. The discussion in this chapter focuses basically on the different dimensions related to air pollution such as climatic and meteorological effects, anthropogenic and natural sources, ecosystem disturbances and their interrelationship in context of air quality. Basically, climate disturbances may be responsible for pollution episodes of certain regions. Discussions related to seasonal variations in air quality also included because seasonal meteorological elements exert different effects in different climatic regions. Air pollutants are emitted by a number of sources in the atmosphere such as urbanization, industrialization, transportation, and population growth, so these contributing factors and its effects of climatic events like temperature, wind speed and seasonal disturbances are relatively described in this chapter

The theory of reincarnation and the journey of the soul : a comparison between ancient Greek and Indian belief.

M.A. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2015.The objective of this dissertation is to demonstrate that, although contemporary Hinduism and ancient Greek philosophy are far removed from each other by time and geography, the ancient Greeks and Indians nevertheless shared similar ideas with regard to the soul and reincarnation. To place this research within a scholarly context, the dissertation begins with some general observations about the concept of reincarnation in human beliefs across the world. It then continues with an overview of research into the idea of the soul and reincarnation in these two cultures to find a connection between them. It then proceeds to trace the evolution and origins of the idea of the soul and its possible reincarnation in ancient Greek literature. This will be done by an examination of selected ancient Greek sources to establish a chronological timeline of the development of these ideas/theories. For the Indian part of this dissertation the idea of the soul and reincarnation will be determined through an in-depth analysis of Hindu scriptures written in Sanskrit, as well as by investigating other scholars’ analysis of the Hindu scriptures. A comparison between the two cultures and their roles within their respective cultural and religious systems will then be undertaken in order to deduce if there was a pre-Hellenistic (Indo-European period) exchange between the cultures. This dissertation seeks to expand on and deepen existing comparative studies in respect of the ancient Greek and Indian cultures

An erroneous opinion on a cause of death in a forensic autopsy: a case report.

Background: The quality of autopsies is always questioned in courts, especially in developing countries. Wrong decisions or misjudgments are undesirable in medicine, but they are very dangerous in forensic medicine. If a wrong opinion is given, either a culprit can be acquitted or an innocent person can be sentenced. Therefore, an expert opinion is always required before the announcement of a judgment.Objective: To highlight the problem of accuracy in determining the cause of death in forensic autopsy.Case history: A 19- year old young adult male (Mr E), who had a history of alcohol abuse, was brought to a hospital casualty department by police, on an allegation of theft. He was unconscious and died within two hours of arrival. A post-mortem report was requested by a private attorney for an expert opinion. A post-mortem examination was conducted and multiple superficial injuries were recorded on his body. Head injury was given as a cause of death. The author seeks to critically analyze the post-mortem findings in relation to the cause and manner of death.Conclusion: An erroneous opinion was reached regarding cause and manner of death in this autopsy report.Keywords: Erroneous opinion, forensic autopsy

A case report on near manual strangulation and glasgow coma scale.

Background: Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is considered as a gold standard in estimating the prognosis of the comatose patient. The management of the patient relies heavily on this scale. The mechanism of injury must also be included in scoring of the GCS. Survival from strangulation is uncommon, and if it occurs, it is often associated with various complications such as neurological consequences. Objective: To highlight a poor correlation with low GCS and ultimate outcome in cases of manual strangulation. Case report: This is a case report of young female adult who was raped and manually strangulated by a colleague during a training course for traditional healers. She was admitted with very low (3/15) Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) and presumed to have a poor prognosis. She was rigorously ventilated in Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and was discharged from hospital after a week without any complications. The neck and genital injuries are described. This report discusses. Conclusion: A low Glasgow Coma Scale is not a predictive of poor prognosis in cases of manual strangulation