The Relationship Between Customer Equity & Its Drivers, Purchase Intentions and Switching Cost. A Study on Traveling Industry in Pakistan

The key purpose of current research is to investigate the relationship between customer equity, purchase intentions by moderation effect of switching cost. Furthermore this research investigated the relationship between Value Equity, Brand Equity and Relationship Equity toward the customer equity and customers purchase intentions. The data were collected from air passenger at international airport Multan via self administrative questionnaire. The Reliability, KMO, Correlation and Regression analysis used to measure the data. The results indicate that, there is significant relationship between customer equity and purchase intentions, and impact of Value, Brand and Relationship Equity on customer equity and purchase intentions found positive relationship. While Switching Cost also affect the relationship between customer equity and purchase intentions. The present research focuses on services industry there is need to test the model in manufacturing industries for more appropriate results. A study on Traveling Industry in Pakistan relationship between Customer Equity & its drivers, purchase Intentions and Switching Cost has been not conducted before. In Pakistan traveling industry facing switching cost barrier and current research conducted to fills this gap. Keywords: Customer equity, Value equity, Brand equity, Relationship equity, Purchase intentions Switching cost. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/11-4-0

Laryngotracheal trauma: its management and sequelae

OBJECTIVE: Laryngotracheal trauma is a rare but clinically important injury. Complications are frequent. Early recognition, accurate evaluation and proper treatment is vital. In order to learn from our past experience and refine our management, we reviewed our cases. METHODS: Fifteen patients with external laryngotracheal injuries were analyzed retrospectively. The outcome was assessed both in terms of voice and airway, on short term and long term basis. RESULTS: Commonest cause of injury was cut throat injuries followed by road traffic accidents. The main presenting symptoms and signs were hoarseness, haemoptysis, odynophagia and stridor. Major laryngeal injuries (10 cases) outnumbered minor injuries (5 cases). A good association exists between the symptoms of haemoptysis and stridor at presentation and severity of the injury. Sites of laryngeal injury included; thyroid cartilage, mixed soft tissue and cartilaginous injuries, thyrohyoid membrane, aryepiglottic fold and cricothyroid membrane. Ten patients presented within 24 hours of the injury. Out come (airway and voice) was good in 12 patients whereas it was poor in 3 patients. Poor results were seen in patients who had delayed surgical intervention. CONCLUSION: The presence of stridor and haemoptysis are suggestive of major injury. Early surgical intervention is recommended for all major injuries to ensure a good outcome

Reviewers\u27 responses to medical research articles

Objective: To document the reviewers\u27 responses in terms of reviewers\u27 demographic and professional characteristics, promptness of reply, and duration of reply to the request to review medical research articles for a general biomedical research journal.Study design: Cross-sectional, observational study.Place and duration of study: Department of Publications, College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP), from October to December 2015.Methodology: Peer reviewed articles edited by a single staff editor were included. Editorials and correspondence were excluded. Manuscript category, discipline, and the total number of reviewers per manuscript were noted. Responses were divided into no response, regrets, and responded, i.e. provided with the review comments; and further sub-divided into timely response, i.e. within 21 days, or later. Total duration of response was counted in days from the date of dispatch to the date of receiving. Among those who provided a review, reviewers\u27 characteristics were noted as designation, institute affiliation, qualification, and gender. Number and percentages of the studied variables were determined. Chi-square test of proportions was used for comparing the proportions with significance at p\u3c0.05.Results: Reviewers for 50 articles including 28 original articles, 15 case reports, three letters to the editor, two short communications, and two new techniques, were evaluated. A total of 598 reviewers were contacted for those 50 articles; forming an average of 11.96 reviewers contacted and 2.2 responded per manuscript. Four hundred and seventy (78.59%) did not reply at all, 18 (3.01%) regretted, and 110 (18.39%) responded (79/110=71.81% timely, and 31/110=28.18% late). Earliest reply was received in one day and the delayed reply in 87 days. Maximum number of reviewers was 24 for a single original article (internal medicine) and 22 for a case report (cardiology). Significantly, more fellows, professors and females (p=0.004, p=0.002, and p=0.017, respectively) provided timely response.Conclusion: An overwhelming majority of the reviewers did not reply at all despite the incentives of CME credits and honorarium, adversely affecting the processing time. Majority of those who replied, were on time. Reasons for those who did not reply need to be explored

Streptococcus pneumoniae hyaluronate lyase contains two non-cooperative independent folding/unfolding structural domains

Hyaluronate lyase contributes directly to bacterial invasion by degrading hyaluronan, the major component of host extracellular matrix of connective tissues. Streptococcus pneumoniae hyaluronate lyase (SpnHL) is built from two structural domains that interact through interface residues, in addition to being connected by a peptide linker. For the first time we demonstrate that the N- and C-terminal domains of SpnHL fold/unfold independent of each other suggesting the absence of any significant cooperative interactions between them. The C-terminal domain of SpnHL is less stable than the N-terminal domain against thermal and guanidine hydrochloride denaturation. The intact n-terminal domain was purified after limited proteolysis of SpnHL under conditions where only the C-terminal domain was unfolded. Isolated N-terminal domain of SpnHL had similar thermal stability as when present in the native enzyme and was found to be enzymatically active demonstrating that it is capable of carrying out enzymatic reaction on its own. Functional studies demonstrated that guanidine hydrochloride, guanidine isothiocyanate, l-arginine methyl ester, and l-arginine inhibit the enzymatic activity of SpnHL at very low concentrations. This provides a lead for new chemical entities that can be exploited for designing effective inhibitors of SpnHL

Historical Study of the Socio-Religious Condition of Irani Civilization under Zoroasteranianism and the Impact of Islam

In the Middle East, the current Islamic Republic of Iran, bordering the Persian Gulf, is one of the few important countries whose people are considered to be the custodians of an ancient cultural and political heritage. Historically, Iran is one of the oldest countries in the world. Historically and culturally, the Iranian civilization is also considered a contemporary of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization. Apart from the social and cultural background, the Iranian Empire also has a prominent position in the region politically. The idea of ​​its beginning is that it was formed by Caesar the Great and its rise came in the time of Darius-I. When, the battle of Qadisiya in 16 AH decided the fate of Iran. The conquest of Medina was a declaration of the end of Yazd-e-Jard's rule. Politically, Iran was considered more developed than contemporary states. This dissertation describes the ancient Iranian political culture that culminated in the defeat of the Sasanids dynasty at the hands of the Muslims.&nbsp

Numerical analysis of pipeline uplift resistance in a frozen clay soil subjected to temperature changes

Frozen clay soils comprise a large portion of permafrost in Canada. Long-term records indicate an on-going global warming has resulted in the thawing of portions of the permafrost area, which leads to extensive settlement of the ground surface and causing damage to infrastructures such as pipelines. The design of buried pipelines in permafrost region or artificially frozen grounds requires knowledge of the uplift resistance. The uplift resistance of a frozen soil is dependent on soil mechanical properties such as tensile strength, shear strength, and deformation modulus, and those properties are critical for characterizing the plastic yielding zones in the frozen soil around the pipe. Due to the existence of a large amount of unfrozen water, frozen clay soil displays complex mechanical properties which vary with temperatures. Previously, extensive experimental and simulation work has been done on the soil pipe interactions at normal temperatures, but less attention is given to the frozen soil pipe interactions. There are limited researches on frozen clay pipe interactions with the consideration of temperature changes. In this study, the finite element analysis is conducted to investigate frozen clay soil-pipe interactions at varying temperatures, where a pipe is simulated as being subjected to vertical load-controlled or vertical displacement-controlled stress path conditions. The temperature-dependent mechanical properties of frozen clay soil are obtained from the literature. Both tensile yielding and shear yielding behavior are included in the modeling and the temperature-dependent yielding surfaces are included in an explicit way. Modeled stress paths in several soil monitoring points are collected and analyzed. A comparison of results from the Mohr-Coulomb model with tensile cut off and the hyperbolic Drucker-Prager model is presented. The results indicate that hyperbolic Drucker-Prager model is an effective model for analyzing the plastic zones. Under a plane strain condition, the applied hyperbolic Drucker-Prager model gives more conservative uplift resistance-displacement relation when compared with the result from the Mohr-Coulomb model