Faktor Sosial, Pribadi, dan Psikologis Pengaruhnya terhadap Keputusan Pembelian Blackberry Gemini pada PT. Megamitra Makmur Sejahtera

Kebutuhan masyarakat biasanya disertai keinginan memiliki alat komunikasi teknologi terbaru yang mengikuti trend merupakan peluang yang harus dipenuhi. Gemini merupakan tipe Blackberry yang populer di masyarakat dan banyak penggunanya, selain harganya terjangkau dikalangan menengah ke bawah juga memudahkan masyarakat untuk mengakses internet. Salah satu ukuran agar pangsa pasar tetap dapat dipertahankan yaitu dengan diperhatikannya berbagai perilaku konsumen yaitu faktor sosial, pribadi, dan psikologis yang mendorong keputusan konsumen untuk membeli Blackberry Gemini. Sosial mempengaruhi perilaku konsumen atau pembeli barang-barang konsumsi terdiri dari kelompok yang mempengaruhi keluarga, dan status sosial. Kepribadian didefiniskan sebagai pola sifat individu dapat menentukan tanggapan untuk bertingkah-laku. Psikologis di pengaruhi oleh motivasi, presepsi, proses pembelajaran, kepercayaan dan sikap dari konsumen. Keputusan pembelian adalah proses merumuskan berbagai alternatif guna menjatuhkan pilihan untuk melakukan pembelian. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui pengaruh secara simultan dan parsial faktor sosial, pribadi dan psikologis terhadap keputusan pembelian konsumen. Penelitian menggunakan survey, dengan metode penelitian asosiatif. Tehnik analisis menggunakan regresi linear berganda. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan secara simultan dan parsial faktor sosial, dan psikologis, berpengaruh positif dan signifikan, sedangkan pribadi berpengaruh positif dan tidak signifikan terhadap keputusan pembelian konsumen. Manajemen Perusahaan sebaiknya memperhatikan faktor sosial, pribadi dan psikologis konsumennya, mengingat koefisien regresi masih rendah atau masih dibawah satu. Kata kunci : sosial, pribadi, psikologis, keputusan pembelian.

Metagenomic assessment of nitrate-contaminated mine wastewaters and optimization of complete denitrification by indigenous enriched bacteria

Nitrate contamination in water remains to be on the rise globally due to continuous anthropogenic activities, such as mining and farming, which utilize high amounts of ammonium nitrate explosives and chemical-NPK-fertilizers, respectively. This study presents insights into the development of a bioremediation strategy to remove nitrates (NO3−) using consortia enriched from wastewater collected from a diamond mine in Lesotho and a platinum mine in South Africa. A biogeochemical analysis was conducted on the water samples which aided in comparing and elucidating their unique physicochemical parameters. The chemical analysis uncovered that both wastewater samples contained over 120 mg/L of NO3− and over 250 mg/L of sulfates (SO42-), which were both beyond the acceptable limit of the environmental surface water standards of South Africa. The samples were atypical of mine wastewaters as they had low concentrations of dissolved heavy metals and a pH of over 5. A metagenomic analysis applied to study microbial diversities revealed that both samples were dominated by the phyla Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes, which accounted for over 40% and 15%, respectively. Three consortia were enriched to target denitrifying bacteria using selective media and then subjected to complete denitrification experiments. Denitrification dynamics and denitrifying capacities of the consortia were determined by monitoring dissolved and gaseous nitrogen species over time. Denitrification optimization was carried out by changing environmental conditions, including supplementing the cultures with metal enzyme co-factors (iron and copper) that were observed to promote different stages of denitrification. Copper supplemented at 50 mg/L was observed to be promoting complete denitrification of over 500 mg/L of NO3−, evidenced by the emission of nitrogen gas (N2) that was more than nitrous oxide gas (N2O) emitted as the terminal by-product. Modification and manipulation of growth conditions based on the microbial diversity enriched proved that it is possible to optimize a bioremediation system that can reduce high concentrations of NO3−, while emitting an environmentally-friendly N2 instead of N2O, that is, a greenhouse gas. Data collected and discussed in this research study can be used to model an upscale NO3− bioremediation system aimed to remove nitrogenous and other contaminants without secondary contamination

Mechanobiological Modulation of Cytoskeleton and Calcium Influx in Osteoblastic Cells by Short-Term Focused Acoustic Radiation Force

Mechanotransduction has demonstrated potential for regulating tissue adaptation in vivo and cellular activities in vitro. It is well documented that ultrasound can produce a wide variety of biological effects in biological systems. For example, pulsed ultrasound can be used to noninvasively accelerate the rate of bone fracture healing. Although a wide range of studies has been performed, mechanism for this therapeutic effect on bone healing is currently unknown. To elucidate the mechanism of cellular response to mechanical stimuli induced by pulsed ultrasound radiation, we developed a method to apply focused acoustic radiation force (ARF) (duration, one minute) on osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 cells and observed cellular responses to ARF using a spinning disk confocal microscope. This study demonstrates that the focused ARF induced F-actin cytoskeletal rearrangement in MC3T3-E1 cells. In addition, these cells showed an increase in intracellular calcium concentration following the application of focused ARF. Furthermore, passive bending movement was noted in primary cilium that were treated with focused ARF. Cell viability was not affected. Application of pulsed ultrasound radiation generated only a minimal temperature rise of 0.1°C, and induced a streaming resulting fluid shear stress of 0.186 dyne/cm2, suggesting that hyperthermia and acoustic streaming might not be the main causes of the observed cell responses. In conclusion, these data provide more insight in the interactions between acoustic mechanical stress and osteoblastic cells. This experimental system could serve as basis for further exploration of the mechanosensing mechanism of osteoblasts triggered by ultrasound

Two-dimensional shear wave speed and crawling wave speed recoveries from in vitro prostate data

The crawling wave experiment was developed to capture a shear wave induced moving interference pattern that is created by two harmonic vibration sources oscillating at different but almost the same frequencies. Using the vibration sonoelastography technique, the spectral variance image reveals a moving interference pattern. It has been shown that the speed of the moving interference pattern, i.e., the crawling wave speed, is proportional to the shear wave speed with a nonlinear factor. This factor can generate high-speed artifacts in the crawling wave speed images that do not actually correspond to increased stiffness. In this paper, an inverse algorithm is developed to reconstruct both the crawling wave speed and the shear wave speed using the phases of the crawling wave and the shear wave. The feature for the data is the application to in vitro prostate data, while the features for the algorithm include the following: (1) A directional filter is implemented to obtain a wave moving in only one direction; and (2) an L1 minimization technique with physics inspired constraints is employed to calculate the phase of the crawling wave and to eliminate jump discontinuities from the phase of the shear wave. The algorithm is tested on in vitro prostate data measured at the Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound and University of Rochester. Each aspect of the algorithm is shown to yield image improvement. The results demonstrate that the shear wave speed images can have less artifacts than the crawling wave images. Examples are presented where the shear wave speed recoveries have excellent agreement with histology results on the size, shape, and location of cancerous tissues in the glands