Identifying low-carb dieter\u27s characteristics and their diet practices during business travels

The low carbohydrate diet phenomenon has recently evolved to such an extent that there is now extensive consumer demand for carbohydrate conscious dining options. The power of the recent movement is impacting all facets of the hospitality industry including restaurants, hotels, airlines and conventions. The purpose of this study is to identify business travelers\u27 low carbohydrate diet practices and to understand their experiences with low-carbohydrate menus during business trips; This research identified low-carb dieters\u27 characteristics and their diet practices during business trips. Results indicated that, compared to other dieters, low-carb dieters are older, more likely to be overweight or obese, more concerned with weight loss as a reason for dieting, and more likely to follow their diets and seek high quality low-carb foods when traveling. In addition, the findings indicate that the respondents\u27 experiences with low-carb foods during their business trips are influential in predicting their behavior regarding following a diet in the future. This study suggests that the food, restaurant, and hotel industry should understand business travelers\u27 diet practices and food preferences at meetings. The findings imply that all facets of the hospitality industry interfacing with business travelers need to continue development of low-carb menu offerings if they are to meet business travelers\u27 needs

The perceived benefits of healthcare information technology adoption: construct and survey development

This paper is a part of a large study, which examines healthcare professionals’ attitudes regarding the adoption, use and perceived benefits of healthcare information technology (HIT). To date, literature on HIT has shown many important benefits related to quality and efficiency as well as limitations related to generalization and to a lack of empirical data on benefits. The aim of this paper is to develop a survey instrument focused the perceived benefits of HIT adoption. We exhaustively reviewed the construct of perceived benefits in various research areas to identify established approaches to predicting individual’s intentions to adopt technology. The items of perceived benefits taken from previous studies were developed and modified, and three benefit dimensions (direct, indirect and strategic benefits) were described. The questionnaire addressed the following issues: demographic information, perceived benefits of computerized physician/provider order entry (CPOE), and intent to adopt CPOE. We present a survey instrument containing the perceived benefits construct targeting healthcare executives. This is developed and validated by the translational validity test that attempts to assess the degree to which we accurately translated our construct into the operationalization. The Importance of the instrument for perceived benefits of HIT adoption as well as its limitations is also presented

The moderating roles of consumer-company identification and perceived fit between corporate associations and crisis type in the effectiveness of crisis communication strategies

Many of today’s corporations face crisis events. A few well-known examples include Tylenol’s poisoned capsules, Odwalla’s contaminated juice, Mattel’s defective toys, Toyota’s product-recalls, and more recently, BP’s Gulf oil spill. Whether or not it is at fault, a corporation must sometimes overcome negative public sentiment resulting from a crisis and taking a proper action, especially an appropriate response strategy, is necessary for the company to overcome such a predicament. This study, therefore, seeks to systematically investigate how two critical constructs – consumer-company identification and corporate association-crisis type congruence – in a corporate crisis context conjointly determine the effectiveness of crisis communication strategies by the corporation. More specifically, this study examines how varying degrees of consumer identification with a company affect the effectiveness of one of the common crisis response strategies, excuse. It also seeks to discover how the consumer-company identification moderates the effectiveness of different types of crisis communication strategies (compensation vs. apology). In addition, the study attempts to determine how perceived fit between corporate associations and crisis type moderates the effects of crisis communication strategies (excuse vs. apology). The study’s results show that the excuse strategy is more effective for consumers strongly identified with a company than for those weakly identified with it. However, the level of consumer-company identification is not found to moderate the effectiveness of the compensation and apology strategies. The study also found a significant moderating role of perceived fit between corporate associations and crisis type in determining the effectiveness of the excuse and apology strategies. The findings suggest that when a company faces a crisis that violates its core corporate associations, the apology strategy is more effective; a company involved in a crisis irrelevant to its corporate associations is better served by the excuse strategy.Advertisin

Special Apparel Needs of Consumers with Visual Impairments

The purpose of this study is to understand apparel consumers with visual impairments in terms of their apparel selection and shopping needs. The apparel needs of disabled consumers, specifically consumers with visual impairments, have not been thoroughly investigated (Chang et al., 2014). It is not known to what extent they differ, if at all, from consumers who are not visually impaired. Thus, this research provides insight into their apparel needs so that apparel manufacturers and retailers can better meet the needs of these disabled consumers

Full Length Research Paper Lack of correlation between H2O2 production and in vitro anti-staphyloccocal activity of vaginal Lactobacillus spp.

Lactobacilli are considered to play important roles in human health as they are known to secrete inhibitory substances to prevent infection by pathogenic organisms. Previously we have isolated 77 strains of Lactobacillus spp. from human vaginas. In this study, using the plate diffusion method, strains showing in vitro antagonistic activity against pathogenic Staphylococcus aureus were screened. Because Lactobacillus spp. are known to produce hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as an antimicrobialsubstance, we attempted to determine if there is a consistent link between in vitro anti-staphylococcal activity and H2O2 production by Lactobacillus spp. A simple quantitative analysis of H2O2 produced by Lactobacillus spp. was performed by a modified spectrophotometric method. A statistically significant correlation was not found between in vitro anti-staphylococcal activity and H2O2 production

When to rebuild or when to adjust scorecards

Data-based scorecards, such as those used in credit scoring, age with time and need to be rebuilt or readjusted. Unlike the huge literature on modelling the replacement and maintenance of equipment there have been hardly any models that deal with this problem for scorecards. This paper identifies an effective way of describing the predictive ability of the scorecard and from this describes a simple model for how its predictive ability will develop. Using a dynamic programming approach one is then able to find when it is optimal to rebuild and when to readjust a scorecard. Failing to readjust or rebuild a scorecard when they aged was one of the defects in credit scoring identified in the investigations into the sub-prime mortgage crisis

Innovation and Internationalization of Korean SMEs in the Textile and Footwear Industries

Innovation has been recognized as one of the factors that enhances firm internationalization, a vital route for the growth and survival of small and medium enterprises. Thus, it is important to identify antecedents of firm innovation and their impacts on SME internationalization for their long-term success. Accordingly, the present study examined a model of SME internationalization in which the causal relationships among entrepreneurial orientation, absorptive capacity, innovation (product, process, and marketing innovation), and internationalization were proposed. Analyses of 156 survey data collected from Korean SMEs exporting textiles, apparel, and footwear revealed that entrepreneurial orientation and absorptive capacity appeared to function as significant antecedents of product and process innovation. Among three dimensions of innovation, only process and marketing innovation positively affected internationalization. The study provides practical implications by asserting the importance of process and marketing innovation to increase firm internationalization

Improved docking, screening and selectivity prediction for small molecule nuclear receptor modulators using conformational ensembles

Nuclear receptors (NRs) are ligand dependent transcriptional factors and play a key role in reproduction, development, and homeostasis of organism. NRs are potential targets for treatment of cancer and other diseases such as inflammatory diseases, and diabetes. In this study, we present a comprehensive library of pocket conformational ensembles of thirteen human nuclear receptors (NRs), and test the ability of these ensembles to recognize their ligands in virtual screening, as well as predict their binding geometry, functional type, and relative binding affinity. 157 known NR modulators and 66 structures were used as a benchmark. Our pocket ensemble library correctly predicted the ligand binding poses in 94% of the cases. The models were also highly selective for the active ligands in virtual screening, with the areas under the ROC curves ranging from 82 to a remarkable 99%. Using the computationally determined receptor-specific binding energy offsets, we showed that the ensembles can be used for predicting selectivity profiles of NR ligands. Our results evaluate and demonstrate the advantages of using receptor ensembles for compound docking, screening, and profiling

Novel Tandem Reaction to Synthesize Substituted Benzaldehydes

Undergraduate Basi

BUTERLI D3.14 Report

Final actuator hardware producing a spanwise row of wall-normal jet