MEASURING BRAND EQUITY OF COSMECEUTICALS – A CASE USING CONSUMER BASED BRAND EQUITY MODEL

Objective: This study intends to operationalize brand equity and form a standard measure of it that could be used across cosmeceutical products to measure brand equity. It attempts to provide an indication of a set of items that can contribute to brand equity.Methods: A survey instrument containing the said brand equity concept was administered to a sample pool of 200 select beauticians and consumers of a leading Indian Cosmeceutical brand identified using stratified random sampling method, from among the universe of the users of the product in Tiruchirappalli district, Tamil Nadu.Results: The results obtained confirm that the dimensions, viz., brand awareness, perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand association, and brand image were found to significantly contribute to brand equity in cosmeceutical products. The regression confirms that perceived quality and brand associations are not causal drivers but are only indirect drivers of brand equity. Further, the dimension perceived quality was very strongly related with both brand loyalty and brand image, and brand loyalty was very strongly related with brand association among the beauticians segment of the sample. In the case of the brand equity dimensions among consumers, the brand association was very strongly related with brand awareness, perceived quality, and perceived quality was very strongly associated with the brand image.Conclusion: The outcomes of the study confirm that cognitive components of perceived quality and brand association were less contributing to brand equity and the affective component of brand loyalty had stronger underpinning on brand equity construction and hence play an important role in brand management. The brand equity structure gives a very good clarification of brand equity drivers and also their relationships, to formulate a cause and effect model. The model can form a basis for more action-based tactical and operational marketing strategies

Recent advances in oligonucleotide synthesis and their applications

377-391Short synthetic oligonucleotides are finding wide variety of applications in area of genomics and medicinal chemistry. Since the isolation of nucleic acids to the mapping of human genome, chemical synthesis of nucleic acids has undergone tremendous advancements. Further improvements in this area such as, introduction of high throughput synthesizers, better coupling reagents, improved polymer supports, newer sets of protecting groups for exocyclic amino groups of nucleic bases and introduction of universal polymer supports have completely revolutionized the entire field of nucleic acids chemistry. Most of these developments have been targeted to assemble these molecules more efficiently in a cost-effective manner and rapidly. Preparation of oligonucleotide conjugates has further helped in identifying the newer areas of their applications. A number of conjugates with biological and abiological ligands have been discussed in this article along with their possible wide spectrum of applications. Recently developed microarray technology, which refers to attachment of short oligonucleotides on a solid/polymeric surface, has proved to be useful for screening of genetic mutations, study of polymorphism, as diagnostics, etc. The major developments in these areas are presented in the review

Gross photography of ophthalmic pathology specimens.

Removal of the entire eyeball or a portion of it is required in many ophthalmic conditions. The gross features of such specimens provide valuable information. Gross photography of an intraocular tumour, ruptured eyeball or other pathological specimens including lid lesions, orbital tumors, intraocular lens implants, intraocular and extraocular parasites, retinal pathology such as haemorrhages and peripheral degenerations, establishes a permanent documentation. We herein describe the technique of gross photography of such valuable specimens, using a dissecting microscope with a special arrangement. This technique is currently used by us with gratifying results

High Yielding vs. Low Yielding Testers to Identify Advanced Breeding Lines for General Combining Ability in Dolichos Bean (<i>Lablab purpureus</i>)

<p>Plant breeders are often confronted with the task of selecting suitable parents for making crosses to maximize the probability of isolating desirable pure-lines in predominantly self-fertilizing species, such as dolichos bean. General combining ability (GCA) is one of the widely accepted measures for choosing parents for crosses. However, the choice of suitable testers to discriminate among breeding lines for GCA has been a debatable issue in crop breeding. Comparative ability of high yielding testers (HYT) and low yielding testers (LYT) to discriminate among advanced breeding lines for GCA in dolichos bean was investigated using two criteria: (1) range of GCA and (2) contribution of lines towards total variance of test-cross progenies. The range of estimated GCA effects of lines was wider when tested against LYT than when tested against HYT. The greater contribution of lines to the variance of crosses derived from LYT than those derived from HYT suggested better ability of LYT than HYT to discriminate among lines for GCA. Based on GCA effects, significant differences existed in the ability of HYT and LYT to discriminate among lines for their GCA effects and favored the use of LYT for studies designed to evaluate the breeding lines for their GCA effects in dolichos bean.</p