CONSUMERS\u27 PERCEIVED PRICE FAIRNESS AND UNFAIRNESS TOWARD PRICE INCREASES DURING HEDONIC VS. UTILITARIAN SITUATIONS

This dissertation consists of three essays on the topic of consumers’ response to hotel room rates increases due to external events (hedonic and utilitarian situations). External events such as sporting games, local festivals, or weather-related events (e.g., floods, snowstorms) frame consumers’ motivation to stay in a hotel room (hedonic vs. utilitarian motivations), increasing hotel room demand and resulting in higher room rates. The dynamic changes of hotel room rates during the high demand periods may cause consumers to perceive high room rates as unfair, restricting their intentions or enhancing their desires to book a hotel room before room rates increase even higher. Thus, it is vital to understand the impact of external event characteristics as well as the level of involvement on consumers’ responses to hotel room rate increases. These three papers examine the contextual impact of external events and individual level of involvement on the relationship among price increases, consumers’ perceived fairness and unfairness and their booking intentions

The Impact of Sensory Environments on Customer Emotion and Behavior in Spas

The research objective is to identify and verify the relationships among environmental sensory components (i.e., sight, sound, smell, and touch), consumer emotions, and consumer behavioral intentions in a spa context by applying the Mehrabian-Russell’s Stimuli-Organism-Response model. The results showed the acceptable level of model fit (χ2/df =2.144, P\u3c0.001, RSMEA = 0.06, CFI = .94, and NNFI = .93) for the proposed model. Sight and touch had significant impacts on pleasure of emotion, and sound had a direct impact on customer behavioral intention. Pleasure had a significant influence on customer behavioral intentions; however, arousal did not. This study results have important implications for the spa industry in understanding how to create and manage their sensory environmental resources to affect customer’s emotion and behavioral intentions

Reaching an Underserved Wine Customer: Connecting with the African American Wine Consumer.

Marketing strategies addressing underserved African American wine customers’ needs that also positively impact producers’ and retailers’ clientele was the impetus for this exploratory, qualitative paper. African Americans demonstrate a thirst to elevate their education about and be more involved in the wine industry as evidenced by the proliferation of African American wine-tasting groups designed to help educate and expose their membership to a variety of wines. Moreover, compared to the average adult, African-American wine drinkers are 241% more likely to have spent $20 or more on a bottle of store bought wine (Arbitron, 2005). Despite African Americans’ representation as one of the fastest growing ethnic minority segments in the U.S., wine industry strategies don\u27t appear to connect with this market segment. Like Alice in Wonderland, we characterize this phenomenon by suggesting this market segment is ‘peering through the looking glass’. Three focus groups were conducted to specify possible targeted media strategies as well as to identify attitudes and opinions that influence this segment\u27s wine purchasing and consumption behaviors. Industry strategies were suggested that would appear to benefit producers, retailers, and this customer segment. The results of the research will be used to inform a quantitative instrument in order to generalize findings beyond the context of the exploratory setting

Gating of memory encoding of time-delayed cross-frequency MEG networks revealed by graph filtration based on persistent homology

To explain gating of memory encoding, magnetoencephalography (MEG) was analyzed over multi-regional network of negative correlations between alpha band power during cue (cue-alpha) and gamma band power during item presentation (item-gamma) in Remember (R) and No-remember (NR) condition. Persistent homology with graph filtration on alpha-gamma correlation disclosed topological invariants to explain memory gating. Instruction compliance (R-hits minus NR-hits) was significantly related to negative coupling between the left superior occipital (cue-alpha) and the left dorsolateral superior frontal gyri (item-gamma) on permutation test, where the coupling was stronger in R than NR. In good memory performers (R-hits minus false alarm), the coupling was stronger in R than NR between the right posterior cingulate (cue-alpha) and the left fusiform gyri (item-gamma). Gating of memory encoding was dictated by inter-regional negative alpha-gamma coupling. Our graph filtration over MEG network revealed these inter-regional time-delayed cross-frequency connectivity serve gating of memory encoding

Internet Game Overuse Is Associated With an Alteration of Fronto-Striatal Functional Connectivity During Reward Feedback Processing

Internet gaming disorder is associated with abnormal reward processing in the reward circuit, which is known to interact with other brain regions during feedback learning. Kim et al. (1) observed that individuals with internet game overuse (IGO) exhibit altered behavior and neural activity for non-monetary reward, but not for monetary reward. Here, we extend our analysis of IGO to the functional connectivity of the reward network. Functional MRI data were obtained during a stimulus-response association learning task from 18 young males with IGO and 20 age-matched controls, where either monetary or non-monetary rewards were given as positive feedback for a correct response. Group differences in task-dependent functional connectivity were examined for the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and ventral striatum (VS), which are known for reward evaluation and hedonic response processing, respectively, using a generalized form of the psychophysiological interaction approach. For non-monetary reward processing, no differences in functional connectivity were found. In contrast, for monetary reward, connectivity of the vmPFC with the left caudate nucleus was weaker for the IGO group relative to controls, while vmPFC connectivity with the right nucleus accumbens (NAcc) was elevated. The strength of vmPFC-NAcc functional connectivity appeared to be behaviorally relevant, because individuals with stronger vmPFC-NAcc connectivity showed lower learning rates for monetary reward. In addition, the IGO group showed weaker ventral striatum functional connectivity with various brain regions, including the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate regions, and left pallidum. Thus, for monetary reward, the IGO group exhibited stronger functional connectivity within the brain regions involved in motivational salience, whereas they showed reduced functional connectivity the widely distributed brain areas involved in learning or attention. These differences in functional connectivity of reward networks, along with related behavioral impairments of reward learning, suggest that internet gaming disorder is associated with the increased incentive salience or “wanting” of addiction disorders, and may serve as the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the impaired goal-directed behavior

Vibration Testing for Detecting Internal Corrosion

The vibration behavior of structures can be characterized in terms of resonance frequencies and mode shapes which describe properties of the tested object in a global way but do not in general provide information about structural details. We develop a simple method to address the inverse problem of identifying an internal corrosive part of small Hausdorff measure in a pipeline by vibration analysis. The viability of our reconstruction method is documented by a variety of numerical results from synthetic, noiseless and noisy data

Formation of visual memories controlled by gamma power phase-locked to alpha oscillations

Neuronal oscillations provide a window for understanding the brain dynamics that organize the flow of information from sensory to memory areas. While it has been suggested that gamma power reflects feedforward processing and alpha oscillations feedback control, it remains unknown how these oscillations dynamically interact. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) data was acquired from healthy subjects who were cued to either remember or not remember presented pictures. Our analysis revealed that in anticipation of a picture to be remembered, alpha power decreased while the cross-frequency coupling between gamma power and alpha phase increased. A measure of directionality between alpha phase and gamma power predicted individual ability to encode memory: stronger control of alpha phase over gamma power was associated with better memory. These findings demonstrate that encoding of visual information is reflected by a state determined by the interaction between alpha and gamma activity

Platform- and label-free detection of lead ions in environmental and laboratory samples using G-quadraplex probes by circular dichroism spectroscopy

Guanine-rich quadruplex (G-QD) are formed by conversion of nucleotides with specific sequences by stabilization of positively charged K+ or Na+. These G-QD structures differentially absorb two-directional (right- and left-handed) circularly polarized light, which can discriminate the parallel or anti-parallel structures of G-QDs. In this study, G-QDs stabilized by Pb2+ were analyzed by a circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy to determine Pb2+ concentration in water samples. Thrombin aptamer (TBA), PS2.M, human telomeric DNA (HTG), AGRO 100, and telomeric related sequence (T2) were studied to verify their applicability as probes for platform- and label-free detection of Pb2+ in environmental as well as laboratory samples. Among these nucleotides, TBA and PS2.M exhibited higher binding constants for Pb2+, 1.20–2.04 × 106/M at and 4.58 × 104–1.09 × 105/M at 100 micromolar and 100 mM K+ concentration, respectively. They also exhibited excellent selectivity for Pb2+ than for Al3+, Cu2+, Ni2+, Fe3+, Co2+, and Cr2+. When Pb2+ was spiked into an effluent sample from a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), its existence was detected by CD spectroscopy following a simple addition of TBA or PS2.M. By the addition of TBA and PS2.M, the Pb2+ signals were observed in effluent samples over 0.5 micromolar (100 ppb) concentration. Furthermore, PS2.M caused a Pb2+-specific absorption band in the effluent sample without spiking of Pb2+, and could be induced to G-QD structure by the background Pb2+ concentration in the effluent, 0.159 micromolar concentration (3.30 ppb). Taken together, we propose that TBA and PS2.M are applicable as platform- and label-free detection probes for monitoring Pb2+ in environmental samples such as discharged effluent from local WWTPs, using CD spectroscopy. © 2020, The Author(s).1

Grain Boundary Induced Bias Instability in Soluble Acene-Based Thin-Film Transistors

Since the grain boundaries (GBs) within the semiconductor layer of organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) have a strong influence on device performance, a substantial number of studies have been devoted to controlling the crystallization characteristics of organic semiconductors. We studied the intrinsic effects of GBs within 5,11-bis(triethylsilylethynyl) anthradithiophene (TES-ADT) thin films on the electrical properties of OFETs. The GB density was easily changed by controlling nulceation event in TES-ADT thin films. When the mixing time was increased, the number of aggregates in as-spun TES-ADT thin films were increased and subsequent exposure of the films to 1,2-dichloroethane vapor led to a significant increase in the number of nuleation sites, thereby increasing the GB density of TES-ADT spherulites. The density of GBs strongly influences the angular spread and crystallographic orientation of TES-ADT spherulites. Accordingly, the FETs with higher GB densities showed much poorer electrical characteristics than devices with lower GB density. Especially, GBs provide charge trapping sites which are responsible for bias-stress driven electrical instability. Dielectric surface treatment with a polystyrene brush layer clarified the GB-induced charge trapping by reducing charge trapping at the semiconductor-dielectric interface. Our study provides an understanding on GB induced bias instability for the development of high performance OFETs