The Effects of Trivial Attributes on Choice of Food Products

Trivial or irrelevant attributes are defined as attributes that do not create a meaningful difference in a brand’s performance. The objective of this paper is to determine if and how trivial attributes affect consumers in their choice of variety/brands of food products including frozen green beans, orange juice, canola oil, and frosted strawberry toaster pastries. Sixty subjects participated in the experiment. Subjects understood that trivial attributes are less important than substantive attributes. Substantive (important) quality attributes and economic variables affecting choice were all perceived equal across brands by the subjects in the experiment. Two critical driving forces in determining the presence and direction of the effect of a trivial attribute on the consumer choice are the size of the choice set and the type of trivial attribute, i.e., product versus promotional attribute.consumer choice, food products, product attributes, promotional attributes, choice set size, trivial attributes, Agribusiness,

ESC Joint Working Groups on Cardiovascular Surgery and the Cellular Biology of the Heart Position Paper: Perioperative myocardial injury and infarction in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery

International audienc

Determining and Evaluating Cost-Effective Food Safety Risk Reduction Strategies at Retail Meat Facilities

In spite of the documented success of Pathogen Reduction and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (PR/HACCP) at the processing level, farm-level and retail-level application is optional. Several factors impact the gap of food safety regulations from farm to fork. This thesis focuses on the retail level. At the retail level, pathogen survival and the associated ability to cause further disease to humans even after being subjected to certain processing and packaging conditions have varying implications on the probability of sickness or death. This issue also arises over the fact that, sometimes, appropriate handling and processing instructions are not properly followed by consumers. The primary goals of the project are to develop an optimal food safety intervention strategy that incorporates risk, cost, and the value of pathogen reduction with alternative control mechanism. We wish to evaluate incentives for PR/HACCP-like planning and adherence to best management practices that promote safe food production. These incentives will be evaluated for the retail level. In addition, we will develop optimal intervention strategies for ready-to-eat meats and poultry products that incorporate risk assessment, cost of intervention, and the value of risk reduction of alternative strategies for the farm-to-table continuum. The model adopted in this study is an expansion of the stochastic optimization model developed by Nganje, Kaitibie, and Sorin (2005) to include the optimal intervention strategy at the retail ( consumer) level. These components are simulated with firm-level microbial data at the processing and retail level using stochastic optimizer software. Stochastic dominance was also used to compare across the optimal strategies and determine if there is one clear choice that is preferred. This allowed us incorporate risk preferences of firms. The scenario method was used to determine what factors would likely affect the adoption of PR/HACCP at the retail level. Finally, this thesis provides firms and policymakers a direction for future options concerning risk mitigation strategies

The Effects of Trivial Attributes on Choice of Food Products

Trivial or irrelevant attributes are defined as attributes that do not create a meaningful difference in a brand’s performance. The objective of this paper is to determine if and how trivial attributes affect consumers in their choice of variety/brands of food products including frozen green beans, orange juice, canola oil, and frosted strawberry toaster pastries. Sixty subjects participated in the experiment. Subjects understood that trivial attributes are less important than substantive attributes. Substantive (important) quality attributes and economic variables affecting choice were all perceived equal across brands by the subjects in the experiment. Two critical driving forces in determining the presence and direction of the effect of a trivial attribute on the consumer choice are the size of the choice set and the type of trivial attribute, i.e., product versus promotional attribute

Heart failure and diabetes : metabolic alterations and therapeutic interventions: a state-of-the-art review from the Translational Research Committee of the Heart Failure Association-European Society of Cardiology

Altres ajuts: C.M. is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; SFB 894, TRR-219, and Ma 2528/7-1), the German Federal Ministry of Education and Science (BMBF; 01EO1504) and the Corona foundation. J.B. is supported by the DFG (SFB 1118) and the DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research) and by the BMBF. M.L. is supported by the DFG (SFB TRR 219M-03). R.B. is supported by the Netherlands Heart Foundation (CVON DOSIS 2014-40, CVON SHE-PREDICTS-HF 2017-21, and CVON RED-CVD 2017-11); and the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme program of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO VIDI, grant 917.13.350). N.M. is supported by the DFG (SFB TRR 219M-03, M-05). H.T. is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health of the US Public Health Service (HL-RO1 061483 and HL-RO1 073162). A.B.G. was supported by grants from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia , Fundació La MARATÓ de TV3 (201502, 201516), CIBER Cardiovascular (CB16/11/00403), and AdvanceCat 2014-2020. H.B. is supported by the DFG (Bu2126/3-1). A.D.C. was supported by 'FIL' funds for research from University of Parma. A.G. was supported by grants from the European Union Commission's FP7 programme (HOMAGE and FIBROTARGETS) and ERA-CVD Joint Transnational Call 2016 LYMIT-DIS. G.R. acknowledges recent funding from The Cunningham Trust, MRC (MR/K012924/1) and the Diabetes UK RW and JM Collins studentship. S.H. received funding from the European Union Commission's Seventh Framework programme (2007-2013) under grant agreement N° 305507 (HOMAGE), N° 602904 (FIBROTARGETS) and N° 602156 (HECATOS). S.H. acknowledges the support from the Netherlands Cardiovascular Research Initiative: an initiative with support of the Dutch Heart Foundation, CVON-ARENA-PRIME, CVON-EARLY HFPEF, and SHE-PREDICTS. This research is co-financed as a PPP-allowance Research and Innovation by the Ministry of Economic Affairs within Top Sector Life sciences & Health

Heart failure and diabetes: metabolic alterations and therapeutic interventions: a state-of-the-art review from the Translational Research Committee of the Heart Failure Association-European Society of Cardiology

Heart failure (HF) is growing to a modern epidemic and despite advances in therapy, it still carries an ominous prognosis and a significant socioeconomic burden. Many novel agents that emerged as promising HF drugs failed to improve residual morbidity and mortality.2,3 Since developing and testing new agents has become increasingly costly,4 the concept of repurposing existing drugs for new indications has gained considerable importance. Conceptually, comorbidities such as type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), obesity or chronic kidney disease, all highly prevalent in HF populations, have shifted from being innocent bystanders to drivers of HF. This applies especially to HF with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), a phenotype that accounts for more than 50% of HF patients and for which no effective therapy exists thus far.5,6 In particular, the prevalence of T2DM, thereby its combination with HF is rapidly increasing, mainly due to the obesity epidemic. Cardiovascular (CV) outcomes are addressed by an increasing number of clinical studies in T2DM, mainly as safety endpoints for anti-diabetic agents. Some of those drugs have beneficial CV effects independent of their glucose-lowering action. Consequently, antidiabetic agents have gained interest for their potential repurposing in HF treatment. In this context, the Translational Research Committee of the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) organized a workshop on HF and T2DM, focusing on the pathophysiological and therapeutic aspects of this relationship. Here, we summarize the main points raised during this workshop, providing an overview of current evidence and open issues

Heart failure and diabetes: metabolic alterations and therapeutic interventions: a state-of-the-art review from the Translational Research Committee of the Heart Failure Association-European Society of Cardiology

Heart failure (HF) is growing to a modern epidemic and despite advances in therapy, it still carries an ominous prognosis and a significant socioeconomic burden. Many novel agents that emerged as promising HF drugs failed to improve residual morbidity and mortality.2,3 Since developing and testing new agents has become increasingly costly,4 the concept of repurposing existing drugs for new indications has gained considerable importance. Conceptually, comorbidities such as type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), obesity or chronic kidney disease, all highly prevalent in HF populations, have shifted from being innocent bystanders to drivers of HF. This applies especially to HF with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), a phenotype that accounts for more than 50% of HF patients and for which no effective therapy exists thus far.5,6 In particular, the prevalence of T2DM, thereby its combination with HF is rapidly increasing, mainly due to the obesity epidemic. Cardiovascular (CV) outcomes are addressed by an increasing number of clinical studies in T2DM, mainly as safety endpoints for anti-diabetic agents. Some of those drugs have beneficial CV effects independent of their glucose-lowering action. Consequently, antidiabetic agents have gained interest for their potential repurposing in HF treatment. In this context, the Translational Research Committee of the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) organized a workshop on HF and T2DM, focusing on the pathophysiological and therapeutic aspects of this relationship. Here, we summarize the main points raised during this workshop, providing an overview of current evidence and open issues

Effects of once-weekly exenatide on cardiovascular outcomes in type 2 diabetes

BACKGROUND: The cardiovascular effects of adding once-weekly treatment with exenatide to usual care in patients with type 2 diabetes are unknown. METHODS: We randomly assigned patients with type 2 diabetes, with or without previous cardiovascular disease, to receive subcutaneous injections of extended-release exenatide at a dose of 2 mg or matching placebo once weekly. The primary composite outcome was the first occurrence of death from cardiovascular causes, nonfatal myocardial infarction, or nonfatal stroke. The coprimary hypotheses were that exenatide, administered once weekly, would be noninferior to placebo with respect to safety and superior to placebo with respect to efficacy. RESULTS: In all, 14,752 patients (of whom 10,782 [73.1%] had previous cardiovascular disease) were followed for a median of 3.2 years (interquartile range, 2.2 to 4.4). A primary composite outcome event occurred in 839 of 7356 patients (11.4%; 3.7 events per 100 person-years) in the exenatide group and in 905 of 7396 patients (12.2%; 4.0 events per 100 person-years) in the placebo group (hazard ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.83 to 1.00), with the intention-to-treat analysis indicating that exenatide, administered once weekly, was noninferior to placebo with respect to safety (P<0.001 for noninferiority) but was not superior to placebo with respect to efficacy (P=0.06 for superiority). The rates of death from cardiovascular causes, fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarction, fatal or nonfatal stroke, hospitalization for heart failure, and hospitalization for acute coronary syndrome, and the incidence of acute pancreatitis, pancreatic cancer, medullary thyroid carcinoma, and serious adverse events did not differ significantly between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with type 2 diabetes with or without previous cardiovascular disease, the incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events did not differ significantly between patients who received exenatide and those who received placebo