The Effects of Celebrity-Brand Congruence and Publicity on Consumer Attitudes, Buying Intention, and Loyalty

Celebrities have been used for decades as a marketing tool to endorse brands or products. However, once a direct link has been formed from a celebrity to a brand, the negative information about the celebrity may reflect back on to the endorsed brand. Applying the balance theory, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of celebrity-brand congruence and publicity on consumers\u27 attitudes toward the celebrity and brand as well as their buying intention and loyalty. A survey with 2(congruence vs. incongruence)×2(positive vs. negative publicity) experimental design was conducted and a total of 105 usable data from generation Y female consumers were collected. The study revealed that consumers tend to like and be loyal to the brand/product when there is a celebrity-brand congruence and positive publicity. Interestingly, the congruence was found to be more important influencer to motivate consumers to purchase a brand than publicity

Using Virtual Reality to Assess Reading Fluency in Children

Here we provide a proof-of-concept for the use of virtual reality (VR) goggles to assess reading behavior in beginning readers. Children performed a VR version of a lexical decision task that allowed us to record eye-movements. External validity was assessed by comparing the VR measures (lexical decision RT and accuracy, gaze durations and refixation probabilities) to a gold standard reading fluency test—the One-Minute Reading test. We found that the VR measures correlated strongly with the classic fluency measure. We argue that VR-based techniques provide a valid and child-friendly way to study reading behavior in a school environment. Importantly, they enable not only the collection of a richer dataset than standard behavioral assessments but also the possibility to tightly control the environment

A Cross-National Comparison of School Students' Perceptions Regarding High Performing Peers

This cross-national scenario based study exam-ined fourth-grade students’ perceptions of high-performing classmates in terms of their ex-pected intellectual abilities, positive social qual-ities and popularity among their peers across seven countries. The overall results show that high academic achievements predominantly lead to positive expectations within the peer group. However, pronounced differences were found between the countries. The results indi-cated that students from Spanish-speaking countries viewed their potential high-perform-ing peers most favorably, followed by students from Australia, the United Kingdom and Ger-many. The least favorable expectations, but by no means negative attitude, were exhibited by students from the two East-Asian countries Ko-rea and Vietnam. In contrast, the respondents’ gender and the gender of the hypothetical suc-cessful classmates had less influence on student perceptions of high-performers. These findings have implications for the educational provision of high performing students in different cross-national contexts

Genomeâ Wide Study of Subcutaneous and Visceral Adipose Tissue Reveals Novel Sexâ Specific Adiposity Loci in Mexican Americans

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141319/1/oby22074.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141319/2/oby22074_am.pd

Monocytes regulate the mechanism of T-cell death by inducing Fas-mediated apoptosis during bacterial infection.

Monocytes and T-cells are critical to the host response to acute bacterial infection but monocytes are primarily viewed as amplifying the inflammatory signal. The mechanisms of cell death regulating T-cell numbers at sites of infection are incompletely characterized. T-cell death in cultures of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) showed 'classic' features of apoptosis following exposure to pneumococci. Conversely, purified CD3(+) T-cells cultured with pneumococci demonstrated necrosis with membrane permeabilization. The death of purified CD3(+) T-cells was not inhibited by necrostatin, but required the bacterial toxin pneumolysin. Apoptosis of CD3(+) T-cells in PBMC cultures required 'classical' CD14(+) monocytes, which enhanced T-cell activation. CD3(+) T-cell death was enhanced in HIV-seropositive individuals. Monocyte-mediated CD3(+) T-cell apoptotic death was Fas-dependent both in vitro and in vivo. In the early stages of the T-cell dependent host response to pneumococci reduced Fas ligand mediated T-cell apoptosis was associated with decreased bacterial clearance in the lung and increased bacteremia. In summary monocytes converted pathogen-associated necrosis into Fas-dependent apoptosis and regulated levels of activated T-cells at sites of acute bacterial infection. These changes were associated with enhanced bacterial clearance in the lung and reduced levels of invasive pneumococcal disease

Admixture Mapping of African–American Women in the AMBER Consortium Identifies New Loci for Breast Cancer and Estrogen-Receptor Subtypes

Recent genetic admixture coupled with striking differences in incidence of estrogen receptor (ER) breast cancer subtypes, as well as severity, between women of African and European ancestry, provides an excellent rationale for performing admixture mapping in African American women with breast cancer risk. We performed the largest breast cancer admixture mapping study with in African American women to identify novel genomic regions associated with the disease. We conducted a genome-wide admixture scan using 2,624 autosomal ancestry informative markers (AIMs) in 3,629 breast cancer cases (including 1,968 ER-positive, 1093 ER-negative, and 601 triple-negative) and 4,658 controls from the African American Breast Cancer Epidemiology and Risk (AMBER) Consortium, a collaborative study of four large geographically different epidemiological studies of breast cancer in African American women. We used an independent case-control study to test for SNP association in regions with genome-wide significant admixture signals. We found two novel genome-wide significant regions of excess African ancestry, 4p16.1 and 17q25.1, associated with ER-positive breast cancer. Two regions known to harbor breast cancer variants, 10q26 and 11q13, were also identified with excess of African ancestry. Fine-mapping of the identified genome-wide significant regions suggests the presence of significant genetic associations with ER-positive breast cancer in 4p16.1 and 11q13. In summary, we identified three novel genomic regions associated with breast cancer risk by ER status, suggesting that additional previously unidentified variants may contribute to the racial differences in breast cancer risk in the African American population

Insights into the cultured bacterial fraction of corals

Bacteria associated with coral hosts are diverse and abundant, with recent studies suggesting involvement of these symbionts in host resilience to anthropogenic stress. Despite their putative importance, the work dedicated to culturing coral-associated bacteria has received little attention. Combining published and unpublished data, here we report a comprehensive overview of the diversity and function of culturable bacteria isolated from corals originating from tropical, temperate, and cold-water habitats. A total of 3,055 isolates from 52 studies were considered by our metasurvey. Of these, 1,045 had full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences, spanning 138 formally described and 12 putatively novel bacterial genera across the Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria phyla. We performed comparative genomic analysis using the available genomes of 74 strains and identified potential signatures of beneficial bacterium-coral symbioses among the strains. Our analysis revealed \u3e 400 biosynthetic gene clusters that underlie the biosynthesis of antioxidant, antimicrobial, cytotoxic, and other secondary metabolites. Moreover, we uncovered genomic features-not previously described for coral-bacterium symbioses-potentially involved in host colonization and host-symbiont recognition, antiviral defense mechanisms, and/or integrated metabolic interactions, which we suggest as novel targets for the screening of coral probiotics. Our results highlight the importance of bacterial cultures to elucidate coral holobiont functioning and guide the selection of probiotic candidates to promote coral resilience and improve holistic and customized reef restoration and rehabilitation efforts