The Impact of Electronic Customer Relationship Management (e-CRM) on the Business Performance of Small Company

Small company has a relatively simple e-CRM to improve their customer relationships and information gathering management to create competitive advantage.The use of e-CRM for small company is in a different context as compared to that for the large company. The technology acceptance model was used to investigate the relationship of perceived usage of e-CRM with business performance of all the identified seventy-one (71) small companies that sell cars at Batu Pahat town. Relationship marketing principles have seldom been applied to the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME). Mean test and multiple regression were used to examine internet CRM and business performance

Standard Cosmology Delayed

The introduction of a delay in the Friedmann equation of cosmological evolution is shown to result in the very early universe undergoing the necessary accelerated expansion in the usual radiation (or matter) dominated phase. Occurring even without a violation of the strong energy condition, this expansion slows down naturally to go over to the decelerated phase, namely the standard Hubble expansion. This may obviate the need for a scalar field driven inflationary epoch.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, Revised with more elaborate discussions. Accepted for publication in JCA

Can patterns of everyday consumption indicate lifestyles? A secondary analysis of expenditures for fast moving goods and their social contexts

Ausgangspunkt der vorliegenden Studie bildet die Frage, ob sich Einkaufsformen beim täglichen Verbrauch als grundlegende Indikatoren von Lebensstilen erweisen. Datengrundlage bildet eine Sekundäranalyse von Panel-Daten zum Konsum schnelllebiger Waren, die vom weltweiten Marktforschungsunternehmen GfK im Jahr 1995 erhoben worden sind. Es wird zunächst eine Reihe von Hypothesen aufgestellt und die zugrunde gelegten Daten und die Stichprobe erläutert. Im Hauptteil der Studie werden 15 vollständige Cluster des Kaufverhaltens von Waren aus den Bereichen Nahrungsmittel, Getränke und Hygiene-Artikel untersucht und mit ausgewählten sozialen Indikatoren, wie z.B. sozialer Status, Mentalität und Umweltbewusstsein in Beziehung gesetzt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass selbst der Kauf von schnelllebigen Konsumgütern in breitere Lebensstile eingebettet ist und auch im Zeitverlauf relativ konstant bleibt. (ICI

Metabolomic analysis of low and high biofilm-forming Helicobacter pylori strains

The biofilm-forming-capability of Helicobacter pylori has been suggested to be among factors influencing treatment outcome. However, H. pylori exhibit strain-to-strain differences in biofilm-forming-capability. Metabolomics enables the inference of spatial and temporal changes of metabolic activities during biofilm formation. Our study seeks to examine the differences in metabolome of low and high biofilm-formers using the metabolomic approach. Eight H. pylori clinical strains with different biofilm-forming-capability were chosen for metabolomic analysis. Bacterial metabolites were extracted using Bligh and Dyer method and analyzed by Liquid Chromatography/Quadrupole Time-of-Flight mass spectrometry. The data was processed and analyzed using the MassHunter Qualitative Analysis and the Mass Profiler Professional programs. Based on global metabolomic profiles, low and high biofilm-formers presented as two distinctly different groups. Interestingly, low-biofilm-formers produced more metabolites than high-biofilm-formers. Further analysis was performed to identify metabolites that differed significantly (p-value < 0.005) between low and high biofilm-formers. These metabolites include major categories of lipids and metabolites involve in prostaglandin and folate metabolism. Our findings suggest that biofilm formation in H. pylori is complex and probably driven by the bacterium' endogenous metabolism. Understanding the underlying metabolic differences between low and high biofilm-formers may enhance our current understanding of pathogenesis, extragastric survival and transmission of H. pylori infections

Long term effect of cryopreservation on primary human skin cells

Cryopreservation is essential for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. This study was carried out to assess the effect of cryopreservation on skin cells and evaluate the performance of cells after 12 months of cryopreservation. Redundant skin tissue samples were obtained from surgery with consent from patients. The tissue was cleaned, processed and cultured until passage 3. Upon confluency, cells were trypsinised and total cell yield and viability were determined before and after being cryopreserved. Sterility and immunocytochemistry analysis for collagen type I (Col-1) and cytokeratin 14 (CK14) antibodies were also performed on cells cryopreserved for one, three, six and twelve months. There is no significant difference in growth rates for cryopreserved cells for 1 to 12 months, except for fibroblasts at 6 months. Cell viability for both keratinocytes and fibroblasts decreased with time (65%± 3.5% - 89%± 4.5%). Sterility testing showed no contamination after 12 months of cryopreservation. Immunocytochemistry analysis showed positive expression for CK14 (keratinocytes) and Col -1 (fibroblasts) after 12 months of cryopreservation. Morphologically, keratinocytes and fibroblasts were able to retain its phenotype. The loss in viability is consistent in all samples and possibly due to thermal-cycling effect. Immunocytochemistry and consistent cell growth analysis showed that keratinocytes and fibroblasts were able to retain their characteristics in cryopreservation condition. These preliminary findings show that primary skin cells can be stored via cryopreservation and still retain their characteristics. However, further investigations using longer periods of cryopreservation (24 months, 48 months) should be conducted

Tea drinking and cognitive function in oldest-old Chinese

10.1007/s12603-012-0077-1The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging169754-75

SPACA3gene variants in a New Zealand cohort of infertile and fertile couples

SPRASA (also referred to as SLLP1) is a protein identified in the acrosome of human sperm and encoded by the gene SPACA3. SPRASA is associated with sperm-oocyte recognition and binding, and may play a role in fertility. In order to determine whether variants in the SPACA3 gene are associated with human infertility, we undertook a genetic analysis of 102 infertile and 104 fertile couples. Three gene variants were identified using PCR-based DNA sequencing; 1) an insertion of TGC within a quadruple tri-nucleotide (TGC) repeat region in the 5’ untranslated region (UTR) (g.–22TGC(4_5), 2) a guanine to adenosine transition at position 239 (c.239G> A) resulting in a non-synonymous amino acid substitution from cysteine to tyrosine (p.C80Y) at position 80 in the putative transmembrane region, and 3) a novel nucleotide variant (c.691G> C) located in the 3’UTR. A functional effect of the g.–22TGC (4_5) was confirmed by a luciferase expression assay, while the effects of the variants c.239G> A and c.691G> C were predicted using in silico analysis. Although the frequencies of these variants were not significantly different between the infertile and fertile populations, we present evidence that the variants could affect the expression levels or function of SPRASA, thereby affecting a couple's fertility. Larger populations, especially individuals/couples with unexplained infertility, need to be screened for these variants to validate a relationship with fertility

Machine Learning in Automated Text Categorization

The automated categorization (or classification) of texts into predefined categories has witnessed a booming interest in the last ten years, due to the increased availability of documents in digital form and the ensuing need to organize them. In the research community the dominant approach to this problem is based on machine learning techniques: a general inductive process automatically builds a classifier by learning, from a set of preclassified documents, the characteristics of the categories. The advantages of this approach over the knowledge engineering approach (consisting in the manual definition of a classifier by domain experts) are a very good effectiveness, considerable savings in terms of expert manpower, and straightforward portability to different domains. This survey discusses the main approaches to text categorization that fall within the machine learning paradigm. We will discuss in detail issues pertaining to three different problems, namely document representation, classifier construction, and classifier evaluation.Comment: Accepted for publication on ACM Computing Survey

Pulsar-wind nebulae and magnetar outflows: observations at radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray wavelengths

We review observations of several classes of neutron-star-powered outflows: pulsar-wind nebulae (PWNe) inside shell supernova remnants (SNRs), PWNe interacting directly with interstellar medium (ISM), and magnetar-powered outflows. We describe radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray observations of PWNe, focusing first on integrated spectral-energy distributions (SEDs) and global spectral properties. High-resolution X-ray imaging of PWNe shows a bewildering array of morphologies, with jets, trails, and other structures. Several of the 23 so far identified magnetars show evidence for continuous or sporadic emission of material, sometimes associated with giant flares, and a few possible "magnetar-wind nebulae" have been recently identified.Comment: 61 pages, 44 figures (reduced in quality for size reasons). Published in Space Science Reviews, "Jets and Winds in Pulsar Wind Nebulae, Gamma-ray Bursts and Blazars: Physics of Extreme Energy Release