IMPACT OF CHANGING CONSUMER PREFERENCES ON WILLINGNESS-TO-PAY FOR BEEF STEAKS IN ALTERNATIVE RETAIL PACKAGING

The purpose of this study was to identify how consumer perceptions of selected attributes of beef steaks, individual consumer demographics and perceived changes in purchases of substitute meats affect willingness-to-pay for beef rib-eye steaks in the traditional overwrapped styrofoam tray and vacuum skin packages. A laboratory auction was used to obtain willingness-to-pay data. The results suggest that health related factors, particularly the concern regarding cholesterol, reduced the willingness-to-pay for beef rib-eye steaks, regardless of package type. For the vacuum skin package to be successful, information about the package is necessary, along with providing a consistent and quality product, particularly with respect to trim.Consumer/Household Economics,

An Empirical Application of Laboratory Experimental Auctions in Marketing Research

A laboratory experimental auction was used to determine factors influencing the relative value consumers place on alternative retail beef packaging. Results indicate information is very important for the successful introduction and marketing of the vacuum skin package. Physical appearance of the beef plays a major role in purchasing decisions by consumers, with fat and shape significantly decreasing the value of beef in the vacuum skin package relative to beef in the overwrapped styrofoam tray package. Experimental economics procedures, when combined with traditional marketing research techniques, can provide useful information for marketing decisions and economic analyses

Production of biopharmaceuticals in an intensified perfusion process of HEK 293 cells

CHO cells are the workhorses of the biopharmaceutical field with many success stories. However human cell-based systems might bring important advantages. These can provide production systems resulting in proteins with more human-like posttranslational modifications and potentially alleviate the production of difficult-to-produce molecules. HEK 293 cells are well known and used today for the production of two biopharmaceuticals and for viral vectors. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the potential of this system for its ability to produce biopharmaceuticals, benchmarking against CHO cells. We are currently exploring the possibility to secrete human proteins in CHO cells by systematically addressing all the human proteins naturally secreted in the human body. So far, we have covered around half of the human secretome (N = 3000) with an overall success rate around 65%. To address the need for a host capable of expressing difficult-to-produce proteins, different HEK 293 strains have been investigated for the production of 30 selected proteins in comparison with CHO cells, revealing a higher success rate in HEK 293 system. This expression has been studied in flask system and includes comparative transcriptomics analyses. To evaluate the potential of HEK 293 cells for the production of biopharmaceuticals, a high cell density perfusion process using Alternating Tangential Flow filtration has been developed for the production of EPO. In this process, the cells are stably maintained at a density of 80 to 100 x 106 cells/mL while the EPO cell specific productivity is comparable to low cell density (e.g. 20 x106 cells/ml) in perfusion mode. The cell metabolism is slowed down by lowering the temperature, allowing a reduction of the perfusion rate down to 1 reactor volume per day at this high cell concentration. This process has been developed in our new scale-down perfusion bioreactor of 200 mL working volume. In this system, the effect of shear stress on the HEK 293 cells resulting from their passage in the hollow fibre filter has been characterised by transcriptomics analysis helping to decipher why HEK 293 cells are more sensitive than CHO cells and a systematic feeding strategy for perfusion has been developed. The ability to express difficult-to-produce proteins and to achieve very high cell densities with productivity comparable to low density processes make HEK 293 cells an attractive system for the production of biopharmaceuticals which are challenging for CHO cells

Development and application of screening scale bioreactor systems for very high cell density perfusion of mammalian cells

The development of cultivation processes can be significantly more efficient and cost effective when performed in parallel screening systems operated at small scale. Although perfusion systems at screening scale have been proposed, none of them enables a real mimic of very high cell density perfusion bioreactors. The latter is however important to maximize the performance of processes at 80, 100 x 106 cells/mL, or higher cell densities, in particular to optimize the nutrient supply and feeding regime. The purpose of the present work was to develop such a system and to apply it to perfusion optimization. Chinese Hamster Ovary cells (CHO) and Human Embryonic Kidney cells, HEK293, both producing biopharmaceuticals (monoclonal antibody and non-antibody), were used for this development. Although CHO cells are the established workhorses of the biopharmaceutical industry, human HEK293 cells can be advantageous compared to rodent cells for the secretion of some biopharmaceuticals. However, HEK293 cells are more sensitive than CHO cells to the culture conditions and their culture at high cell density is more challenging. We evaluated two different stirred tank bioreactors of ≤ 250 mL with cell separation carried out either by Alternating Flow Filtration (ATF) or classical Tangential Flow Filtration (TFF). With this equipment, we developed perfusion processes for HEK293 cells and for CHO cells, stably achieving ≈ 80 to 100 x 106 cells/mL with very high viability. These systems were used to minimize the cell specific perfusion rate and the feeding of glucose and glutamine by a specific approach, reducing the generation of the by-products. The influence of the feeding regimes on the glycosylation patterns of the recombinant proteins was investigated. The effect of shear stress generated by the ATF and by the TFF was studied from a theoretical point of view indicating that ATF generates a lower shear stress, independently from the effect of the pump used for the recirculation in the TFF loop. In the experimental study supporting this theoretical result, the effect of shear stress on the cells was investigated by transcriptomics analysis

Functionalized micro-capillary film for the rapid at-line analysis of IgG aggregates in a cell culture bioreactor.

A micro-capillary film has been developed that offers the potential for an at-line analytical tool for rapid aggregate analysis during biopharmaceutical antibody production. A non-porous walled micro-capillary film (NMCF) with cation exchange functionality was demonstrated to act as a chromatography medium that could be operated with high linear fluid velocities and was highly resistant to blockage by entrained particulates, including cells. The NMCF containing 19 parallel microcapillaries was prepared using a melt extrusion process from poly(ethylene-vinyl alcohol) copolymer (EVOH). The NMCF-EVOH was modified to have cation-exchange functionality (NMCF-EVOH-SP) and shown to differentially bind monomer and aggregated species of IgG antibody directly from a bioreactor. The use of NMCF-EVOH-SP to quantify aggregate concentrations in monoclonal antibody preparations in less than 20 minutes was demonstrated.The authors would like to thank the EPSRC for the provision of a CASE Award. This study was sponsored by MedImmune, the global biologics R&D arm of AstraZeneca.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Taylor & Francis via http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19420862.2015.106536

Enhancing the Functionality of a Microscale Bioreactor System as an Industrial Process Development Tool for Mammalian Perfusion Culture

Without a scale-down model for perfusion, high resource demand makes cell line screening or process development challenging; therefore potentially successful cell lines or perfusion processes are unrealised and their ability untapped. We present here the re-functioning of a high capacity microscale system that is typically employed in fed-batch process development to allow perfusion operation utilising in situ gravity settling and automated sampling. In this low resource setting, which involved routine perturbations in mixing, pH and dissolved oxygen concentrations, the specific productivity and the maximum cell concentration were higher than 3.0x106 mg/cell/day and 7x107 cells/ml, respectively, across replicate microscale perfusion runs conducted at one vessel volume exchange per day. A comparative analysis was conducted at bench scale with vessels operated in perfusion mode utilising a cell retention device. Neither specific productivity nor product quality indicated by product aggregation [6%] was significantly different across scales 19 days post inoculation, thus demonstrating this setup to be a suitable and reliable platform for evaluating the performance of cell lines and the effect of process parameters relevant to perfusion mode of culturing

Testing the Impact of Group Offending on Behavioural Similarity in Serial Robbery

Behavioural case linkage assumes that offenders behave in a similar way across their crimes. However, group offending could impact on behavioural similarity. This study uses robbery data from two police forces to test this by comparing the behavioural similarity of pairs of lone offences (LL), pairs of group offences (GG) and pairs of offences where one crime was committed alone and the other in a group (GL). Behavioural similarity was measured using Jaccard’s coefficients. Kruskal–Wallis tests were used to examine differences between the three categories within the linked samples. No statistically significant differences were found for linked GG compared to linked LL pairs. However, differences emerged between GL and the other categories for some behaviours (especially control) suggesting caution should be applied when linking group and lone offences committed by the same perpetrator. Differences between linked and unlinked pairs were assessed using receiver operating characteristic. The results suggest it is possible to distinguish between linked and unlinked pairs based on behaviour especially within the GG and LL categories. There were, however, fewer significant findings for the GL sample, suggesting there may be issues linking crimes where the offender commits one crime as part of a group and the other alone

Going to the exclusive show : exhibition strategies and moviegoing memories of Disneys animated feature films in Ghent (1937-1982)

This is a case study of the exploitation and experience of Disney's animated feature films from the 1930s to the 1980s in Ghent (Belgium). It is a historical study of programming practices and financial strategies which constructed childhood memories on watching Disney. The study is a contribution to a historical understanding of the implications of global distribution of film as cultural products and the counter pull of localism. Using a multi-method approach, the argument is made that the scarce screenings were strategically programmed to uplift the moviegoing experience into something out of the ordinary in everyday life. Programming and revenue data characterize the screenings as exclusive and generating high intakes. Consequently, the remembered screenings did not exhale an easy accessible social status nor an image of pervasiveness of popular childhood film, contradictory to conventional accounts of Disney's ubiquity in popular culture

The enhanced cognitive interview: expressions of uncertainty, motivation and its relation with report accuracy

The Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI) is one of the most widely studied and used methods to interview witnesses. However, ECI research has mainly focused on increasing report size and somewhat overlooked how to improve and evaluate report accuracy. No study evaluated if witnesses’ spontaneous expressions of uncertainty are accurate metacognitive judgments, nor if witnesses’ motivation during the interview affects report accuracy. This study examined how witnesses’ judgments of recall ‘uncertainty’ and their motivation perception could relate to report accuracy. Forty-four psychology students watched a mock robbery video recording and were interviewed 48 hours later with either the Portuguese version of the ECI or a Structured Interview (SI). Afterward, participants’ motivation was assessed and items of information were classified as ‘certainties’ or ‘uncertainties’. Results suggest that our ECI protocol was effective, since participants interviewed with the ECI produced more information without compromising accuracy. ‘Uncertainties’ were less accurate than ‘certainties’, and their exclusion raised overall, ECI, and SI, accuracy. More motivated participants had better recall accuracy. Accounting for witnesses’ motivation and spontaneous verbal expressions of uncertainty may be effective and time-saving procedures to increase accuracy. These are key points that professionals and researchers should consider