Financial Knowledge of the Low-income Population: Effects of a Financial Education Program

This study examines the effects of one large financial management training program for low-income people. The data are from tests of pre- and posttraining financial knowledge of 163 participants. The test was designed to measure basic knowledge of participants in five content areas: predatory lending practices, public and work-related benefits, banking practices, savings and investing strategies, and credit use and interest rates. The findings demonstrate that substantial pre-training knowledge deficiencies existed on basic financial management issues, especially on public and work-related benefits and savings and investing. Results also indicate that the program was effective in improving the financial knowledge of participants in each of the five content areas. Further analyses suggest that pre-training knowledge and levels varied according to participant characteristics. In addition, participants\u27 education, English proficiency, race / ethnicity, and marital status were associated with their knowledge gains from the program. Policy and practice implications for developing effective financial management training for the low-income population are discussed

Reduced transmission of IHHNV to Penaeus monodon from shrimp pond wastewater filtered through a polychaete-assisted sand filter (PASF) system

A polychaete-assisted sand filter (PASF) can aid water recirculation systems for shrimp culture ponds by removing large amounts of nutrients and suspended solids and chemically treating wastewater. By ingesting and degrading organic matter, Perinereis helleri polychaetes reared in a PASF can accumulate and potentially remove infectious hypodermal and haemopoietic necrosis virus (IHHNV) present in wastewater from ponds rearing virus-infected Penaeus monodon shrimp. Reported here are data showing that filtering pond wastewater through a PASF reduces its potential to transmit IHHNV. The trial employed 3 groups of 4 tanks each containing 20 P. monodon randomly selected from a pond in which IHHNV was evident at moderate prevalence and low loads (IHHNV low-load Pond 2). Over a 2 week period, each tank group was supplied with wastewater from either the same pond (Pond 2) or Pond 1 in which IHHNV was 100% prevalent at ~104-fold higher infection loads, either directly or after being filtered through a PASF. IHHNV real-time qPCR data on total nucleic acid (TNA) extracted from pleopods of 35 P. monodon selected at random from each group identified an elevated IHHNV infection prevalence (91%) in shrimp tested from tanks supplied directly with wastewater from Pond 1. In comparison, IHHNV was detected at a much reduced prevalence and lower loads among shrimp from tanks supplied with wastewater from Pond 2 (33%) or from Pond 1 after it had been filtered through a PASF (31%). The IHHNV prevalence and load data indicate that a PASF can play a useful role in reducing the potential for shrimp pond wastewater to transmit IHHNV infection to naïve P. monodon

Thermal-Mechanical Properties of Polyurethane-Clay Shape Memory Polymer Nanocomposites

Shape memory nanocomposites of polyurethane (PU)-clay were fabricated by melt mixing of PU and nano-clay. Based on nano-indentation and microhardness tests, the strength of the nanocomposites increased dramatically as a function of clay content, which is attributed to the enhanced nanoclay–polymer interactions. Thermal mechanical experiments demonstrated good mechanical and shape memory effects of the nanocomposites. Full shape memory recovery was displayed by both the pure PU and PU-clay nanocomposites.

The Informavore Shopper: Analysis of Information Foraging, System Design, and Purchasing Behavior in Online Retail Stores

Global online retail sales are on the rise and are predicted to experience a double digit growth annually over the next three years. Given little marginal cost involved in adding new products and brands to their catalogues, online retailers tend to increase product and brand offerings to increase sales by selling products that could not have been sold due to space constraints in physical stores. Frank Urbanowski, Director of MIT Press, attributed the 12% increase in sales of backlist titles directly to increased accessibility to these titles through the Internet. For consumers, the ability to buy products that they would not have otherwise bought increases their consumer surplus. Despite preferring a large assortment of products in online retail stores due to product variety and diversity in brand choices, this poses a problem to consumers as the number of alternatives and attributes reduces their confidence in the selection of a product to purchase; product comparison and evaluation also becomes a difficult task. Thus, an online retail store that does not facilitate easy product information search, comparison, and evaluation would cause consumers to make poor purchase decisions. In this thesis, I investigate how the design parameters of online stores such as the presentation of product information, product comparisons, consumer reviews, and recommendations influence consumers' information seeking and decision making process. Specifically, the objectives of this thesis are to learn the individual and joint effects of such design parameters on the effort that consumers expend in the shopping process, quality of their purchase decisions, and their satisfaction with the shopping experience. A controlled experiment was conducted online using six variants of an online retail store to understand the effects of such design features. While the result was modest, the study found that presentation of information that allows consumers to have a preview of the subsequent page after clicking on a link has moderate effect on consumer's physical and cognitive effort in seeking product information, the purchase decision they made, and their satisfaction with an online store

The Effect of IT, Geographical Coverage, Services, and Managerial Competence on 3PL Service Providers’ Performance in China

The resource-based view (RBV) indicates that firm performance is determined by the availability of rare and heterogeneous resources. It is important for third party logistics (3PL) firms to identify the core resources that will enable them to develop and maintain core competencies. In this study based on RBV theory, our objective is to test the effects of information technology (IT) infrastructure, IT capability, geographical coverage, range of services, and managerial competence on logistics service quality and financial performance among Chinese 3PL firms. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and other tests were used to demonstrate the reliability and validity of our model constructs. Furthermore, the LISREL structural equation model estimation results illustrated that geographical coverage, range of services, and managerial competence have positive effects on financial performance; that information technology capability and managerial competence have positive effects on logistics service quality, and that geographical coverage and range of services have negative effects on logistics service qualit