Country branding emerging from citizens’ emotions and the perceptions of competitive advantage: the case of Malaysia

This article aims to examine the elements of country branding from the perspectives of a country’s citizens. In this exploration, the study constructs their views toward the country using both emotion (affect) and perceptions of competitive advantage and subsequently conceptualizes and tests a framework of internal country-branding elements. Using a survey approach, the study generated a total sample of 445 respondents across Malaysia. Structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the data and to test the hypotheses. Findings indicate that Malaysia can be portrayed favorably through export, human capital, culture and heritage, and political efforts. While some elements (human capital, culture and heritage, and politics) are important to foster positive emotions among its citizens, others (export, human capital, and politics) are considered as key tools to build competitive advantage. Implications exist for tourism marketers and policy makers, as the study highlights the importance of branding toward a country’s citizens and revealing the specific preferences affecting the citizens’ emotions and perceptions toward competitive advantage

Differentiating services: A study of hotel’s brand image

The current study examines the service brand images of hotels in Malaysia. The attraction and popularity of Malaysia as destination for tourism has created a competitive pressure among servicing sectors particularly the hotel industry to attract and maintain tourist’s loyalty to their hotels. These hotels have, and, are developing competitive marketing strategies to augment their brand images as well as to be seen as the best service provider in the country. However, little is known to understand how these hotels position their service brand images in order to be seen as such. Moreover, with regards to the service sectors, research shows that very few brands have managed to differentiate themselves from their competitors, (McDonald, de Chernatony & Harris, 2001) particularly in hotel industry. Thus, the current study examines the service brand images of hotels in Malaysia

Negative employee corporate brand identification: A case study of a prominent Malaysian University corporate brand

The purpose of this paper is to investigate negative employee corporate brand identification towards a business school in Malaysia. The research marshals the nascent literature of corporate brand identification (Balmer and Liao 2007; Balmer, Liao and Wang 2008) which marked new ground by drawing on social identity theory in corporate branding contexts. Corporate brand identification is relatively new concept but has been recognized as very important facet of corporate marketing (Balmer and Liao 2007). Additionally, issues of corporate brand identification have been identified in the previous works to affect not only the consumers (Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003) but also other stakeholders with the corporate brand such as student corporate brand identification (Balmer and Liao 2007; Balmer et al., 2008) and employees or member organisation or institution identification (Dutton, Dukerich and Harquail, 1994). However, limited past research was found to examine corporate brand identification from employee’s perspective. Although some research have attempt looking into organizational or institutional employee/member identification (Mael and Ashforth’ 1992; Dutton et al., 1994; Bhattacharya, Rao and Glynn, 1995), most of these studies however report on the positive attachment of the members have with the organisations or institutions and furthermore, they are only focusing on institutional or organisation, which is somewhat different from corporate brand identification. Corporate brand identification emphasizes the degree to which customers, and other stakeholders have feel there is an affinity with their own identity and that of a corporate brands whereas organisation and institutional identification typically focusses on organisational members affinity with their own identity and that of an organization per se. Understandably, the former takes and explicit corporate marketing approach whereas the latter is underpinned by an organisational behaviour perspective. Identification relates to social identity theory. Social identity theory refers to how individual define themselves in their social environment. The identification relates to the concept of singleness with or belongingness to the group that could affect the level of satisfaction and effectiveness. In this study, employees’ identification to the business school is investigated to gauge their level of belongingness, attachment and their perception about the school particularly after changes in policy took place within the university which affect the business school. Strong and positive corporate brand identification will help to understand how employees respond to organization’s action, increase corporate brand performance and subsequently, corporate reputation. Balmer and Liao (2007) explain that corporation should recognise the strength and strategic importance of their corporate brand and the importance of employees, customers, stakeholder (corporate brand identification). This is due to all personnel are seen as corporate brand spokesperson (Balmer et al., 2008) and corporate brand image begins from within the organisation, i.e. corporate brand identity which is reflected by the personality of the employees (Keller and Richey, 2006). Moreover, members’ attachments to an organisation are not only based on economic transactions alone rather, heavily depends on: (a) Images they have about what the organisation means to them and (b) What they mean to others. A continuity of positive image evaluation will result in strengthen their attachment through organisational identification (Dutton et al., 1994). Furthermore, lessons should be learnt from organisation that possibly overlooks these issues (Balmer and Liao 2007). This is especially the case of higher education where stakeholder identification appears to be highly emotional (from the study of student corporate brand identification, Balmer and Liao 2007) and possibly the employees as arguably both of these stakeholders belong to life-long organisational member of corporate brand community (Balmer and Liao 2007). We focus on a single case – a business school in Malaysia. Malaysia universities place high importance on ranking. As a result, in order to be competitive and sore high up in the ranking (e.g. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings), the university has done some changes to the present systems, structure as well as internal culture within the university. Dutton et al. (1994) explains that these changes could have significant psychological effects such as declining on organizational performance, weakening organisational identification and creating less cooperation with the school among the members/employees. We uses a theory-building case study within the phenomenology/qualitative research tradition (Balmer and Liao, 2007; Balmer et al., 2008). We investigate three groups of employees within the business schools (academic, administrative and top management). 25 in-depth interviews and one focus group discussion were conducted among the academics, administrative and top management of the business school. Content analyses were used to analyses the results and preliminary insights reveal the importance of considering negative identification in corporate branding contexts: this area is underexplored. The present study enhances previous works on corporate brand identification by focusing on employee and, in particular, the negative aspects of this in a business school context

Polarization due to rotational distortion in the bright star Regulus

This is the full published article (retrieved from the 6 months post-publication posting on arXiv) including the Methods and Supplementary Information sections: 33 pages, 10 figures, 8 tablesPolarization in stars was first predicted by Chandrasekhar [1] who calculated a substantial linear polarization at the stellar limb for a pure electron-scattering atmosphere. This polarization will average to zero when integrated over a spherical star but could be detected if the symmetry is broken, for example by the eclipse of a binary companion. Nearly 50 years ago, Harrington and Collins [2] modeled another way of breaking the symmetry and producing net polarization - the distortion of a rapidly rotating hot star. Here we report the first detection of this effect. Observations of the linear polarization of Regulus, with two different high-precision polarimeters, range from +42 parts-per-million (ppm) at a wavelength of 741 nm to -22 ppm at 395 nm. The reversal from red to blue is a distinctive feature of rotation-induced polarization. Using a new set of models for the polarization of rapidly rotating stars we find that Regulus is rotating at 96.5(+0.6/-0.8)% of its critical angular velocity for breakup, and has an inclination greater than 76.5 degrees. The rotation axis of the star is at a position angle of 79.5+/-0.7 degrees. The conclusions are independent of, but in good agreement with, the results of previously published interferometric observations of Regulus [3]. The accurate measurement of rotation in early-type stars is important for understanding their stellar environments [4], and course of their evolution [5].Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Polymorphic Allele of Human IRGM1 Is Associated with Susceptibility to Tuberculosis in African Americans

An ancestral polymorphic allele of the human autophagy-related gene IRGM1 is associated with altered gene expression and a genetic risk for Crohn's Disease (CD). We used the single nucleotide polymorphism rs10065172C/T as a marker of this polymorphic allele and genotyped 370 African American and 177 Caucasian tuberculosis (TB) cases and 180 African American and 110 Caucasian controls. Among African Americans, the TB cases were more likely to carry the CD-related T allele of rs10065172 (odds ratio of 1.54; 95% confidence interval, 1.17–2.02; P<0.01) compared to controls. Our finding suggests that this CD-related IRGM1 polymorphic allele is also associated with human susceptibility to TB disease among African Americans

Regulation of cAMP and GSK3 signaling pathways contributes to the neuronal conversion of glioma

Glioma is the most malignant type of primary central nervous system tumors, and has an extremely poor prognosis. One potential therapeutic approach is to induce the terminal differentiation of glioma through the forced expression of pro-neural factors. Our goal is to show the proof of concept of the neuronal conversion of C6 glioma through the combined action of small molecules. We investigated the various changes in gene expression, cell-specific marker expression, signaling pathways, physiological characteristics, and morphology in glioma after combination treatment with two small molecules (CHIR99021, a glycogen synthase kinase 3 [GSK3] inhibitor and forskolin, a cyclic adenosine monophosphate [cAMP] activator). Here, we show that the combined action of CHIR99021 and forskolin converted malignant glioma into fully differentiated neurons with no malignant characteristics; inhibited the proliferation of malignant glioma; and significantly down-regulated gene ontology and gene expression profiles related to cell division, gliogenesis, and angiogenesis in small molecule-induced neurons. In vivo, the combined action of CHIR99021 and forskolin markedly delayed neurological deficits and significantly reduced the tumor volume. We suggest that reprogramming technology may be a potential treatment strategy replacing the therapeutic paradigm of traditional treatment of malignant glioma, and a combination molecule comprising a GSK3 inhibitor and a cAMP inducer could be the next generation of anticancer drugs

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Proteomic Analysis of Fractionated Toxoplasma Oocysts Reveals Clues to Their Environmental Resistance

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite that is unique in its ability to infect a broad range of birds and mammals, including humans, leading to an extremely high worldwide prevalence and distribution. This work focuses on the environmentally resistant oocyst, which is the product of sexual replication in felids and an important source of human infection. Due to the difficulty in producing and working with oocysts, relatively little is known about how this stage is able to resist extreme environmental stresses and how they initiate a new infection, once ingested. To fill this gap, the proteome of the wall and sporocyst/sporozoite fractions of mature, sporulated oocysts were characterized using one-dimensional gel electrophoresis followed by LC-MS/MS on trypsin-digested peptides. A combined total of 1021 non-redundant T. gondii proteins were identified in the sporocyst/sporozoite fraction and 226 were identified in the oocyst wall fraction. Significantly, 172 of the identified proteins have not previously been identified in Toxoplasma proteomic studies. Among these are several of interest for their likely role in conferring environmental resistance including a family of small, tyrosine-rich proteins present in the oocyst wall fractions and late embryogenesis abundant domain-containing (LEA) proteins in the cytosolic fractions. The latter are known from other systems to be key to enabling survival against desiccation

The role of place branding and image in the development of sectoral clusters: the case of Dubai

This paper contextualizes how place branding and image influence the development of Dubai’s key sectoral clusters, including the key determinants of growth and success under the impression of Porter’s cluster theory. The approach is exploratory and of a qualitative inductive nature. Data was collected through conducting 21 semi-structured interviews with Dubai’s marketing/communication managers and stakeholders. Findings suggest that Dubai’s traditional clusters, namely, trading, tourism and logistics that have strong place branding and image show strong signs of success owing to Dubai’s geographical location (i.e., physical conditions). Among the new clusters, the financial sector is also benefitting from place branding. The results suggest that the success of traditional clusters have a positive spill over effect on the new clusters, in particular on construction and real estate. For policy makers it is worth to note that the recent success of the financial services cluster in Dubai will have positive impact on both, the traditional as well new clusters. The marketing and brand communication managers must consider the correlation and interplay of strength of activities amongst trading, tourism and logistics clusters and its implication while undertaking place branding for clients in their sector

Static Magnetic Field Exposure Reproduces Cellular Effects of the Parkinson's Disease Drug Candidate ZM241385

This study was inspired by coalescing evidence that magnetic therapy may be a viable treatment option for certain diseases. This premise is based on the ability of moderate strength fields (i.e., 0.1 to 1 Tesla) to alter the biophysical properties of lipid bilayers and in turn modulate cellular signaling pathways. In particular, previous results from our laboratory (Wang et al., BMC Genomics, 10, 356 (2009)) established that moderate strength static magnetic field (SMF) exposure altered cellular endpoints associated with neuronal function and differentiation. Building on this background, the current paper investigated SMF by focusing on the adenosine A(2A) receptor (A(2A)R) in the PC12 rat adrenal pheochromocytoma cell line that displays metabolic features of Parkinson's disease (PD).SMF reproduced several responses elicited by ZM241385, a selective A(2A)R antagonist, in PC12 cells including altered calcium flux, increased ATP levels, reduced cAMP levels, reduced nitric oxide production, reduced p44/42 MAPK phosphorylation, inhibited proliferation, and reduced iron uptake. SMF also counteracted several PD-relevant endpoints exacerbated by A(2A)R agonist CGS21680 in a manner similar to ZM241385; these include reduction of increased expression of A(2A)R, reversal of altered calcium efflux, dampening of increased adenosine production, reduction of enhanced proliferation and associated p44/42 MAPK phosphorylation, and inhibition of neurite outgrowth.When measured against multiple endpoints, SMF elicited qualitatively similar responses as ZM241385, a PD drug candidate. Provided that the in vitro results presented in this paper apply in vivo, SMF holds promise as an intriguing non-invasive approach to treat PD and potentially other neurological disorders