Evaluating Attitudes and Purchase Drivers of Luxury Brands and Counterfeits in China and the United States

The purpose of this article is to explore the relationships between four dimensions, power distance, collectivism, masculinity, and price quality association to determine consumer attitudes and purchase intensions towards counterfeited luxury branded items in China and the United States. A self-administered questionnaire was devised to include established scale measures and demographic characteristics. High levels of social inequality, independence, and masculinity correlate to increased consumer complicity on the individual level. At the national level, American and Chinese consumers were found to have no difference in their complicity to purchase counterfeits

Pluralistic Sense-Making: A World of Becoming, by William E

Since its origins in the European spirit of the Renaissance, modern philosophy has oscillated between its metaphysical desire for pure knowledge and its acknowledgment of what Connolly calls the 'urgency of today' (p. 41), the everyday demands for action which cannot afford to wait for pure knowledge. For many, this division is heuristic more than it is real, and therefore, it is a chronological problem of foundations and consequences before it is a conflict of priorities. It is therefore natural that our post-modern disillusionment with the optimism of modernity translates into the acute awareness that in the grand improvisation of history and of the history of thought, placing one priority after the other in time almost fatally amounts to choosing the first and giving up on the second: the promise of a time where knowledge can offer practical guidance has been broken. As a result most practical philosophy and ethics have turned out to spring out of metaphysics itself, while ethical research has receded into the abstract domain once attributed to the search for knowledge. Of course, there is something artificial in this schematic division between pre-modernity, modernity, and postmodernity, and even Descartes was aware of the problem described here as postmodern: for him already, the problem of deferring the application of some ethical imperative to an abstract later, that is to say, to the time when ethical imperatives were appropriately discovered, could not be construed as a morally neutral act. Instead, it had direct consequences on our present behavior. His response, which he called his 'provisional morals,' was an ironic poke at the highmindedness of those among his colleagues who engaged in endless disputes about moral principles: Descartes pointed out that such concern for principles relied on the hypocritical assumption that it was for the epistemologist to keep the hous

Concurrent schedules of reinforcement : the effects of an upper limit of reinforcement availability on changeover behavior

Pigeons partition total response output and time between both schedules of a concurrent variable-interval pair. A large amount of data has been reported which suggests that responses and time are partitioned so that they are proportional to the relative rates of reinforcement provided by concurrent variable-interval schedules. In order to obtain all programmed reinforcers, subjects must emit responses (changeover responses) which bring them into contact with each of the alternative schedules. The temporal distribution of the changeover response in the presence of each schedule has been implicated as an important factor in the matching relationship. The present study examined the relationship between changeover behavior and the occurrence of reinforcers in order to elucidate the variables affecting the temporal distribution of changeover behavior. The results demonstrated that changeover behavior occurred most frequently immediately following the point in time at which the highest frequency of reinforcement was obtained. The results are discussed in terms of the discriminative control of changeover behavior and the role of changeover behavior in concurrent schedules of reinforcement

Food Habits and Choices, Physical Activity, and Breastfeeding Among Overweight and Obese Postpartum Women.

Weight gain during pregnancy and weight retention 6 months postpartum are critical markers in predicting risk for life-long overweight in childbearing women. Pre-pregnancy weight, age, race, marital status, income, and parity are related to weight retention among postpartum women. Health behaviors, such as dietary intake, physical activity, and breastfeeding have also been associated with weight loss during the postpartum period. The purpose of this study was to 1.) describe food group servings, nutrient intake and quality, and meal and snack intake of exclusively breastfeeding (EB), mixed feeding (MF), or formula feeding (FF) women and 2.) determine how breastfeeding, food choices, and physical activity impact weight change by 6 months postpartum. In this sample of 450 women, the FF group consumed fewer calories and servings of grains, refined grains, and desserts. FF women were more likely to report dieting and not consume a multivitamin. All groups were at risk for vitamins A, E and C, calcium, folate and fiber inadequacies. MF women were also at risk for vitamins D, B-6, and zinc inadequacies, while FF women were also at risk for vitamin D inadequacy. Among 188 women, breastfeeding duration was related to weight loss (r = 0.23, P These findings suggest encouraging fruit, vegetable, dairy, grain, meat and beans, and healthy fat consumption may increase nutrients at risk for inadequacy in the diet. The behavioral factors significantly associated with weight gain were daily servings of soda, sweetened beverages, French fries, chips, desserts and sweets, and weekly fast food consumption. Decreasing these dietary behaviors may help promote weight loss during the postpartum period

Agency and the feminist debate on the abolition, legalization, or decriminalization of sex work: voices from the advocates

Although sex work is considered the oldest profession it is possibly more controversial today than any other time in history. Divisions exist in feminists’ philosophy regarding sex work, particularly around the issue of personal agency. Feminists, typically, embrace one of three positions – abolition, legalization with regulations, or decriminalization. Most academic literature fails to include the perspective of sex workers when debating the legality and practicality of sex work. The purpose of this research is to gain insight into the reasons individuals become involved in sex work, including agency, through stories shared with third-party professionals and advocates; inquire whether sex workers would remain in or leave the industry if other opportunities were available; and explore the consequences of sex work laws