Virtual Social Identity Development for Customer Electronic Word-of-Mouth Participation

Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) plays a persuasive role in influencing consumers’ attitudes and purchase decision. There are many efforts to identify the effect of eWOM on the customers’ purchase decision. However, few studies on the intrinsic motivation of eWOM participation in online shopping malls have been published to date. The main goal of this study is to identify the factors that motivate customers to participate in eWOM and to suggest relevant strategies for leading customers’ eWOM participations. To accomplish this goal, we propose a structural model mainly based on social identity theory. In addition, customer citizenship behavior (CCB) which has been extended from organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is considered. And the effect of perceived extrinsic incentives such as; e-money or e-point on eWOM participation in the online shopping mall is contrasted with the effect of intrinsic motivation

Taste Visualization Technique for Online Food Shopping Malls: Development and Application

The main goal of this study is to visualize tastes of foods and agro-products to reduce the uncertainty of purchasing of them in online shopping malls. To accomplish the goal, we select two Korean traditional foods; Kimchi and Gochujang, develop the criteria for visualization of their tastes, choose about ten products for each food that are on sale in the online shopping malls, make visualization tables and apply them to the real shopping mall. And then, we contrast the customer satisfaction, purchasing pattern, and sales of both before and after applying the taste visualization tables

Chronicle of a Soil Bacterium: Paenibacillus polymyxa E681 as a Tiny Guardian of Plant and Human Health

The Gram-positive rhizosphere bacterium Paenibacillus polymyxa promotes plant growth and produces various antibiotics. Herein, we review research on this species over the past two and a half decades, and focus on the mechanisms of P. polymyxa strain E681, isolated from barley roots in the South Korea in 1995. Strain E681 has outstanding growth-promoting effects on barley, cucumber, pepper, sesame, and Arabidopsis thaliana and produces antimicrobial compounds that protect plants against pathogenic fungi, oomycetes, and bacteria. Induced systemic resistance elicited by treating seeds or roots with strain E681 is a possible mechanism for protecting systemic plant tissues from biotic and other environmental stresses. Genome sequencing has broadened our horizons for antibiotic development and other industrial applications beyond agricultural use. At least six gene clusters for the biosynthesis of antibiotics have been discovered, including polymyxin (pmx), which was recently re-instated as an antibiotic of last resort against Gram-negative drug-resistant bacteria. Three groups of antibiotic synthetases include the gene clusters that encode one for the non-ribosomal peptide polymyxin, fusaricidin, and tridecaptin, another for the lantibiotic paenilan, and the third for a polyketide. We successfully introduced the pmx gene cluster into the surrogate host Bacillus subtilis and created polymyxin derivatives by domain swapping. Furthermore, various E681 derivatives, including a high fusaricidin producer and strains lacking multi-antibiotics production, have been constructed by random mutagenesis and genome engineering. Thus, E681 is an important bacterium that contributes to both plant and human health

Antimicrobial Activity of Thinned Strawberry Fruits at Different Maturation Stages

Among the phenolic compounds that is generally present in strawberry fruits, five simple phenolics, three flavonoids, and a stilbene were tested for their antimicrobial activity against seven fungi and one oomycete. trans-Cinnamic acid showed strong antimicrobial activity, and the antimicrobial effect of the simple phenolics decreased with an increase in the number of hydroxyl groups. Phytophthora capsici was the most susceptible to the phenolic compounds tested in this study. trans-Cinnamic acid, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, and kaempferol were mainly detected in 'Seolhyang' strawberry fruits, and the total phenolic contents of the fruits decreased during their development. Extracts of the green #1-10% red color# and red #above 90% red color# strawberry fruits reduced the mycelial growth and zoospore germination rate of P. capsici, and the extract of red strawberry fruit showed strong antimicrobial activity against the zoospore germination of P. capsici. These results indicate that strawberry fruits contain antimicrobial phenolic compounds and that strawberry fruit extract can be used as a natural fungistat.OAIID:oai:osos.snu.ac.kr:snu2012-01/102/0000027607/6SEQ:6PERF_CD:SNU2012-01EVAL_ITEM_CD:102USER_ID:0000027607ADJUST_YN:YEMP_ID:A075898DEPT_CD:517CITE_RATE:.237FILENAME:2012-12-kjhst-딸기미식용과-항균활성-김동섭.pdfDEPT_NM:식물생산과학부EMAIL:[email protected]_YN:NCONFIRM:

Changes in Fruit Physicochemical Characteristics by Fruit Clusters in June-bearing Strawberry Cultivars

Three Korean-bred strawberry cultivars 'Maehyang', 'Seolhyang', and 'Keumhyang', and a Japanese cultivar 'Tochiotome' were grown in a greenhouse and their physicochemical characteristics were investigated. Fruit weight of 'Seolhyang' and 'Keumhyang' in the first and second fruit clusters were greater than those of other cultivars and that of 'Tochiotome' was the greatest in the fifth fruit cluster. Fruit firmness generally decreased at later fruit clusters, and was the lowest in 'Seolhyang'. The sugars/organic acids ratios in the first and third fruit clusters of 'Maehyang' were 4.9 and 8.0, respectively, representing the highest values among all cultivars. The ascorbic acid content was the greatest in the second fruit cluster for 'Seolhyang', 'Keumhyang', and 'Tochiotome' cultivars and that of 'Maehyang' was the greatest at the third fruit cluster. The anthocyanin content was higher in later fruit clusters and was the highest in 'Keumhyang' overall. Results indicate that Korean cultivars bred for the plastic protected culture, which are intended for very early harvest, showed more desirable physical characteristics in the first and second fruit clusters, while the content of anthocyanin was greater in the fruits from later fruit clusters.This work was carried out with the support of Cooperative Research Program for Agriculture Science & Technology Development (Project No.907002082012) Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea.OAIID:oai:osos.snu.ac.kr:snu2012-01/102/0000027607/5SEQ:5PERF_CD:SNU2012-01EVAL_ITEM_CD:102USER_ID:0000027607ADJUST_YN:YEMP_ID:A075898DEPT_CD:517CITE_RATE:.237FILENAME:2012-8-kjhst-딸기과방별물리확학적특징-김성겸.pdfDEPT_NM:식물생산과학부EMAIL:[email protected]_YN:NCONFIRM:

Integrative genome-scale metabolic analysis of Vibrio vulnificus for drug targeting and discovery

Chromosome 1 of Vibrio vulnificus tends to contain larger portion of essential or housekeeping genes on the basis of the genomic analysis and gene knockout experiments performed in this study, while its chromosome 2 seems to have originated and evolved from a plasmid.The genome-scale metabolic network model of V. vulnificus was reconstructed based on databases and literature, and was used to identify 193 essential metabolites.Five essential metabolites finally selected after the filtering process are 2-amino-4-hydroxy-6-hydroxymethyl-7,8-dihydropteridine (AHHMP), D-glutamate (DGLU), 2,3-dihydrodipicolinate (DHDP), 1-deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate (DX5P), and 4-aminobenzoate (PABA), which were predicted to be essential in V. vulnificus, absent in human, and are consumed by multiple reactions.Chemical analogs of the five essential metabolites were screened and a hit compound showing the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 2 μg/ml and the minimal bactericidal concentration (MBC) of 4 μg/ml against V. vulnificus was identified

Deciphering the conserved genetic loci implicated in plant disease control through comparative genomics of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens subsp. plantarum

To understand the growth-promoting and disease-inhibiting activities of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) strains, the genomes of 12 Bacillus subtilis group strains with PGPR activity were sequenced and analyzed. These B. subtilis strains exhibited high genomic diversity, whereas the genomes of B. amyloliquefaciens strains (a member of the B. subtilis group) are highly conserved. A pairwise BLASTp matrix revealed that gene family similarity among Bacillus genomes ranges from 32- 90%, with 2,839 genes within the core genome of B. amyloliquefaciens subsp. plantarum. Comparative genomic analyses of B. amyloliquefaciens strains identified genes that are linked with biological control and colonization of roots and/or leaves, including 73 genes uniquely associated with subsp. plantarum strains that have predicted functions related to signaling, transportation, secondary metabolite production, and carbon source utilization. Although B. amyloliquefaciens subsp. plantarum strains contain gene clusters that encode many different secondary metabolites, only polyketide biosynthetic clusters that encode difficidin and macrolactin are conserved within this subspecies. To evaluate their role in plant pathogen biocontrol, genes involved in secondary metabolite biosynthesis were deleted in B. amyloliquefaciens subsp. plantarum strain, revealing that difficidin expression is critical in reducing the severity of disease, caused by Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. vesicatoria in tomato plants. This study defines genomic features of PGPR strains and links them with biocontrol activity and with host colonization

The genome sequence of E. coli W (ATCC 9637): comparative genome analysis and an improved genome-scale reconstruction of E. coli

Background: Escherichia coli is a model prokaryote, an important pathogen, and a key organism for industrial biotechnology. E. coli W (ATCC 9637), one of four strains designated as safe for laboratory purposes, has not been sequenced. E. coli W is a fast-growing strain and is the only safe strain that can utilize sucrose as a carbon source. Lifecycle analysis has demonstrated that sucrose from sugarcane is a preferred carbon source for industrial bioprocesses