Being as becoming: Play as a core concept in consumer-marketing studies

Purpose: Rejecting a stimulus-response approach to research on young persons as consumers subjected to marketing, this paper draws on phenomenology’s practices perspective. Embodied, equipped understanding is always already in use - in minimally monitored (tacit) play-like projecting, a participatory production of meaning. The paper investigates mall and media immersion as young people’s understanding-in-use: in discussion, they present visiting a massive shopping place as engaging with ludic location or a ‘second home’. Methodology: The paper reflects on Chinese Malaysian student narratives of consumer activity. Research commences from the ‘hypothesis’ of hermeneutics - or the philosophy of understanding-in-practice(s) as play-like - tested in a focus group. Visiting shopping mall or social media involves ‘ready-to-hand’ (little reflected on) ‘projecting’ and producing intelligibility, an integrating narrative, (dis)enabling ‘being-with-others’ (Heidegger). Talk in discussion enables theory to be empirically extended, grounding philosophical horizons of understanding. Findings: Our discussants’ consuming is structurally ludic, a play-like establishing of meaning from their ‘horizons of expectation’ (Jauss), equipped, and enabling. Visiting shopping malls manages goal-oriented or teleological meaning in embodied projecting and processing generic understanding of ‘entity’ (Heidegger) as equipment: people gain a purchase epistemologically in material acquisitions. ‘Ludicity’ is a core concept in consumer marketing interpretation, central to the practices perspective in business, media and sociological study. Implications: Managerial implications lie in enhancing marketing address to consumers, recognizing ludicity. The authors are now exploring understanding in visitor mall practices through the latter’s constructing cellphone images

Plant diversity of Southeast Asia-II

The special issue of plant diversity in Southeast Asia will focus on the documentation of new discoveries in SE Asia. There are four global biodiversity hotspots in Southeast Asia. Although there are many plans to protect this rich biodiversity, however, the rich biodiversity in SE Asia is under threat due to economic development and population growth. There is a huge gap between our knowledge and biodiversity in SE Asia. During the last six investigations, many new taxa, including new species, new genera, have been discovered. This special issue will bring the rich but little known biodiversity to the public and protect them

1-(4-Methyl­benzo­yl)-3-[5-(4-pyrid­yl)-1,3,4-thia­diazol-2-yl]urea

In the title compound, C16H13N5O2S, the five non-H atoms of the urea linkage adopt a planar configuration owing to the presence of an intra­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bond. The maximum deviation from planarity is 0.022 (2) Å. The thia­diazole and pyridine heterocyclic rings are close to being coplanar, with a dihedral angle of 6.7 (2)° between their mean planes. Inter­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds link two neighbouring mol­ecules into centrosymmetric R 2 2(8) dimers. Four C atoms and the attached H atoms of the benzene ring are disordered over two positions of equal occupancy

Clausenain B, a phenylalanine-rich cyclic octapeptide from Clausena anisum-olens

A new cyclic octapeptide, named clausenain B, was isolated by a multi-step chromatography procedure from Clausena anisum-olens. Its structure was established as cyclo(-Phe¹-Ser-Leu¹-Phe²-Phe4-Gly-Leu²-Phe³-) (1) based on extensive spectroscopic studies and chemical evidence. Clausenain B (1) is a phenylalanine-rich cyclic octapeptide

Application potential of grain and oil processing by-products in research of microbial-oriented food

Hundreds of millions of bacteria adhere to human intestinal epithelium,which are the participants of human health and physiological functions,and also an important target covered by the concept of comprehensive health.So far,the supplementation of prebiotics remainsare still one of the effective means to regulate intestinal microbiota and promote the growth of beneficial microbes.The by-productsof grain and oil processing are abundant in variety and yield,and many of them can be utilized by human intestinal microbiota,which are one of the sources of high-quality prebiotics,and also the important material basis and raw material source in the development of “microbial-oriented food”

Bis[4-amino-N-(pyrimidin-2-yl)benzene­sulfonamidato](2,2′-bipyridine)manganese(II)

The title compound, [Mn(C10H9N4O2S)2(C10H8N2)], contains a distorted octa­hedral [Mn(sdz)2(bpy)] (sdz is the sulfadiazine anion and bpy is 2,2′-bipyridine) complex mol­ecule. A three-dimensional network is generated by N—H⋯N, N—H⋯O and C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds from the sulfadiazine ligands

Comparative analyses of eight complete plastid genomes of two hemiparasitic Cassytha vines in the family Lauraceae

Cassytha is the sole genus of hemiparasitic vines (ca. 20 spp.) belonging to the Cassytheae tribe of the Lauraceae family. It is extensively distributed in tropical and subtropical regions. In this study, we determined the complete plastid genome sequences of C. filiformis and C. larsenii, which do not possess the typical quadripartite structure. The length of C. filiformis plastomes ranged from 114,215 to 114,618 bp, whereas that of C. larsenii plastomes ranged from 114,900 to 114,988 bp. Comparative genomic analysis revealed 1,013 mutation sites, four large intragenomic deletions, and five highly variable regions in the eight plastome sequences. Phylogenetic analyses based on 61 complete plastomes of Laurales species, 19 ITS sequences, and trnK barcodes from 91 individuals of Cassytha spp. confirmed a non-basal group comprising individuals of C. filiformis, C. larsenii, and C. pubescens in the family Lauraceae and proposed a sister relationship between C. filiformis and C. larsenii. Further morphological comparisons indicated that the presence or absence of hairs on the haustoria and the shape or size of fruits were useful traits for differentiating C. filiformis and C. larsenii