The Impact of COVID-19 on Sustainability and Changing Consumer Behavior in the Textile Industry. Is it Significant?

Understanding consumer behavior and clearly predicting its subsequent direction is a complex process. We can often see significant differences between how a consumer behaves in a given market and what his attitudes, needs, or expectations are. It is very important to place much more emphasis on the area of consumer behavior than on the individual, to meet his needs and wishes as much as possible. In the following article, we conducted a survey in the form of a questionnaire on an online platform with a sample of 500 respondents from the Slovak Republic. The foundation of our study was to examine whether the COVID-19 pandemic, which is still a topical issue and it is a significant impact on daily life, has changed the shopping behavior in the clothing industry with which they consciously purchase. We were also interested in the dependence between income and frequency of purchase. The methods used in the paper were based on a theoretical elaboration of the issue of consumer behavior and the clothing industry as the second-largest polluter of the environment after the oil industry, subsequent analysis and synthesis. Another statistical method that we used in the paper was the analysis of qualitative data from the questionnaire survey through the creation of contingency tables and determining the dependence, respectively, independence between individual variables. We consider this article to be a good basis for further research

Influence of hypokinesis on physiological functions in fowl

The effects of hypokinesis and postincubation stress (which are characteristic for modern techniques of poultry cage keeping) on the endocrine functions, metabolic reactions, body weight growth and proteosynthesis in the muscle of cocks was investigated. The stress due to hypokinesis was observed in growing cocks housed in metallic cages in which they could hardly turn around. The findings obtained indicate that a 35-day hypokinesis did not exert any more significant influence both on physiological functions and body weight growth as well as on proteosynthesis in the muscle of cocks under study; however, it speeded up the protein metabolism in the muscle. The postincubation stress modified significantly the hypokinesis effect. Findings recorded in birds differed considerably from findings obtained in laboratory mammals, in which the hypokinesis induced significant changes in endocrine functions, body weight decrease and proteosynthesis disorders. A good tolerance of hypokinesis by fowl can be interpreted not only by the phylogenetic remoteness of the compared species but also by the domestication

Coherent control of magnetization precession in ferromagnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As

We report single-color, time resolved magneto-optical measurements in ferromagnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As. We demonstrate coherent optical control of the magnetization precession by applying two successive ultrashort laser pulses. The magnetic field and temperature dependent experiments reveal the collective Mn-moment nature of the oscillatory part of the time-dependent Kerr rotation, as well as contributions to the magneto-optical signal that are not connected with the magnetization dynamics.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted in Applied Physics Letter

How Shopping was Transformed from Offline to Online Space - A Case Study within the Slovak Republic

The prognosis and determination of consumer behavior is not an easy process. As part of the development of consumer behavior as the last member of the B2C market in the distribution channel, one can observe the gradual decline of brick-and-mortar stores and the rise of online shopping for several decades, especially the enormous growth of online shopping over the last two years caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it should be noted that many retailers offer their products simultaneously in brick-and-mortar stores and also through the e-shop. The main purpose of the article is to determine the dependence of spent funds on the basis of individual criteria. The primary data were obtained by conducting a questionnaire survey, in which we determined the amount of spent funds for traditional and online retail shopping. Data were analyzed using the Shapiro-Wilk normality test, followed by an analysis of the dependencies of the variables using the Kruskal-Wallis’s test and one-way ANOVA. The results show that, apart from gender, the other factors examined do not affect the amount of spent money. Due to the absence of published academic literature and empirical findings concerning the behavior of retail trade format selection in the Slovak market, this study may serve as a starting point for future studies in this area of interest. The survey is also relevant for retailers in terms of format development and reorientation of marketing strategies

THE INFLUENCE OF BODY HEIGHT ON THE SERVE IN TENNIS

A theoretical model expressing the relationship between the dimensions of the tennis court and the height at which the ball is stroked when served is the starting point for a study of the influence of the body height of a player on the serve in tennis. A model of the flight of the ball expressed as a straight line has provided us with the theoretical information we need at the beginning regarding the angle of the serve and the active distance of the impact of the ball as dependent on the height at which the ball is stroked. The characteristics of the model were confronted with the real values acquired in a kinematic analysis of the first and second serves of two top world-class players. An increase in the height of a player appears to be a dominant factor which positively influences the direction of the flight of the ball and the speed of the serve

Breast cancer in the elderly—Should it be treated differently?

Breast cancer risk increases with age and about a third of female breast cancers are diagnosed in patients aged older than 70. Breast cancer in the elderly has, however, poorer outcome with lower survival rate compared to younger subjects. This may be partly explained by the delay in diagnosis and the ‘under-treatment’ of elderly breast cancer patients. In this review I try to provide recommendations for screening, surgery, radiotherapy, (neo)adjuvant hormone treatment and chemotherapy, and also the treatment of metastatic disease. Since large randomised trials usually exclude elderly patients with breast cancer, there is still an insufficient evidence for the treatment of such patients

VERIFICATION OF TEST OF ANTAGONISTIC MUSCLE GROUPS COOPERATION

Manipulation activities pertain to movement manifestations of the upper limbs into target position within a given range. The preciseness of quality of the performed movement depends on the level of cooperation extended by antagonistic muscle groups under control of the central nervous system. A number of studies have been published on the field of motor control dealing with analysis of movement in one joint with one degree of freedom (Zelaznik, 1996; Jaric et al., 2000). The aim of this study is to verify reliability of the test of cooperation of antagonistic muscle groups in a simple forearm movement