Consumer Ethnocentrism in Estonian Skin Care Products Market

AbstractCurrent research purpose is to measure the effect of ethnocentrism on Estonian consumers buying behavior in the skin care products category. Consumer ethnocentrism is measured by CETSCALE. Questionnaire is carried out with a sample 304 respondents. Consumers tend to buy foreign skin care products in Estonia. Consumers do not consider purchasing locally manufactured products important and buying foreign goods is not wrong or irresponsible. Consumers with a high level of ethnocentrism (level 5.00 or higher) prefer to buy skin care products from domestic origin. Current survey provides several suggestions how to market skin care products in Estonia

Trilinear embedding for divergence-form operators with complex coefficients

We prove a dimension-free $L^p(\Omega)\times L^q(\Omega)\times L^r(\Omega)\rightarrow L^1(\Omega\times (0,\infty))$ embedding for triples of elliptic operators in divergence form with complex coefficients and subject to mixed boundary conditions on $\Omega$, and for triples of exponents $p,q,r\in(1,\infty)$ mutually related by the identity $1/p+1/q+1/r=1$. Here $\Omega$ is allowed to be an arbitrary open subset of $\mathbb{R}^d$. Our assumptions involving the exponents and coefficient matrices are expressed in terms of a condition known as $p$-ellipticity. The proof utilizes the method of Bellman functions and heat flows. As a corollary, we give applications to (i) paraproducts and (ii) square functions associated with the corresponding operator semigroups, moreover, we prove (iii) inequalities of Kato--Ponce type for elliptic operators with complex coefficients. All the above results are the first of their kind for elliptic divergence-form operators with complex coefficients on arbitrary open sets. Furthermore, the approach to (ii),(iii) through trilinear embeddings seems to be new.Comment: This is a preliminary version; added a section on Kato-Ponce-type inequalities; 52 page

Social and Economic Activity of the Elder Generation in Tomsk Region

Social and economic activity of the Russian elder generation has a contradictory nature. On the one hand, Russian pensioners often continue working beyond the existing comparatively low retirement age, on the other hand, in terms of involvement in volunteering, political activities, and even in care for children and grandchildren they lag significantly behind the average European level. Explaining it only by the lack of time does not seem plausible, since in many European countries, the employment rates, involvement in unpaid work and caring for other family members are all higher than in Russia. In our study we attempt to identify reasons for lower social and economic activity of older adults in Russia as compared with European countries. We use data of Tomsk regional survey (2015, N=400) for accessing older adults' social activity. Data analysis on Tomsk region suggests that employment (as an activity) and education (as a prerequisite) contribute to higher involvement in social interactions in later life

Equation of State of Gallium Oxide to 70 Gpa: Comparison of Quasihydrostatic and Nonhydrostatic Compression

Synchrotron x-ray diffraction and diamond-anvil cell techniques were used to characterize pressure induced structural modifications in gallium oxide. Gallium oxide was studied on compression up to 70 GPa and on the following decompression. The effect of the pressure-transmitting medium on the structural transformations was investigated in two sets of compression and decompression runs, one with nitrogen as a quasihydrostatic pressure-transmitting medium and the other in nonhydrostatic pressure conditions. The x-ray diffraction data showed gradual phase transition from a low-density, monoclinic β-Ga2O3 to a high-density, rhombohedral α-Ga2O3. With the use of nitrogen as a pressure transmitting medium, the β- to α-Ga2O3 transition begins at about 6.5–7 GPa and extends up to ∼40 GPa, confirming recent theoretical calculations. This pressure-driven transition is irreversible and the material decompressed from 70 GPa to ambient conditions was composed, in both sets of experimental runs, of α-Ga2O3 only. A Birch-Murnaghan fit of the unit cell volume as a function of pressure yielded a zero pressure bulk modulus K0=199(6) GPa, and its pressure derivative K0′=3.1(4) for theβ-Ga2O3 phase, and K0=220(9) GPa and K0′=5.9(6) for the α-Ga2O3 phase for the experiments performed in quasihydrostatic compression conditions. When for the same experiment K0′ is held at 4, then the bulk modulus values are 184(3) and 252(14) GPa for β-Ga2O3 and the α-Ga2O3, respectively. We compare the results of this work with our previous studies on the high-pressure behavior of nanocrystalline gallium oxid

A cross-sectional survey of internet use among university students

The last 2~decades have seen an increase in the number of reports of excessive internet use. Therefore, this study aimed to examine internet use among university students to gain more insight into the novel phenomenon of addictive internet use (AIU). Data were collected by the means of an online questionnaire sent to 4391 students. Approximately 10% of the 4391 students could be included in the statistical analysis. Of those 483 students, almost all (99.2%) used the internet, and a quarter (24.8%) showed AIU. The students used the internet mostly for information searches, random browsing, social networking, and online shopping; however, AIU was seen most often in the areas of social networking, random browsing, information searches, gaming, and pornography. One in four of the respondents showed addictive behavior in at least one area of internet use. Students with AIU in the area of random browsing were significantly less far advanced in their studies than those without AIU, and well-being was significantly poorer across AIU groups than in those who did not show AIU. The study confirms the importance of AIU, as reflected in the high prevalence of AIU among the students and the significantly lower level of well-being in those with AIU. Undifferentiated consideration of AIU does not do justice to its various facets, and future research should consider all areas of internet use, with the aim to increase understanding of the underlying mechanisms of AIU and develop more differentiated treatment approaches