Comorbidity of compulsive buying and brand addiction: An examination of two types of addictive consumption

While compulsive buying and brand addiction are both addictive consumption, little is known about how they jointly impact on consumers. This research demonstrates that compulsive buying and brand addiction are distinct phenomena and may co-occur. Data from this research demonstrates that while compulsive buying has negative impacts, brand addiction does not result in debt and has positive impacts on self-esteem and life happiness. Compulsive buying is positively related to brand addiction, and brand addiction positively mediates the relationships between compulsive buying and debt avoidance, self-esteem and life happiness. This research introduces a new perspective on theorizing comorbid addiction of compulsive buying and brand addiction by providing evidence that brand addiction may not be pathological, and compulsive buying's negative effects may be weakened or eliminated in the presence of brand addiction. It opens avenues for further research to create broader and more parsimonious theoretical models for responsive marketing approaches to addictive consumption

The alpine summer pastures in the Veneto Region: management systems

The aim of this study was to identify the management systems of the alpine summer pastures of the Veneto region and their geographical distribution, by means of detailed questionnaires on 417 holdings. A non-hierarchical cluster analysis identified 5 different management systems: 1: milk and cheese production, 2: milk and cheese with agritourism, 3: milk without cheese, 4: disadvantaged holdings with prevalence of sheep and goats; 5: holdings with dry and replacement cows. The different groups showed also a clear tendency to concentrate spatially in different portions of the study area. Regional policies should consider this variability to better sustain the alpine summer pasture management systems

Brand addiction in the contexts of luxury and fast-fashion brands

Although research on consumer-brand relationship has gained increasing interest among scholars, little is known to date about its most intense form – brand addiction. This research explores the main motives and outcomes of this phenomenon in the two brand categories: luxury and fast-fashion brands. The authors conducted 21 in-depth interviews in the U.S. to tap into the respondents’ addictive experiences with luxury and fast-fashion brands. Different themes emerged regarding the motivations for luxury and fast-fashion brand addiction. Self-expressiveness, status consumption and perceived quality are motivators for luxury fashion brand addiction while continuous update of fashion-led items, perceived value, and product assortments are motivators for fast-fashion brand addiction. As for the consequences, interpersonal relationships and financial issues emerged as common themes for addiction to certain luxury and fast-fashion brands while selectivity of style and motivation to work harder surfaced as themes for addiction to particular luxury brands. The results also show that brand addiction may cause both positive and negative effects on consumers’ well-being. This research provides important implications for consumer-brand relationships and ethical considerations for brand managers

Efficient Large-scale Trace Checking Using MapReduce

The problem of checking a logged event trace against a temporal logic specification arises in many practical cases. Unfortunately, known algorithms for an expressive logic like MTL (Metric Temporal Logic) do not scale with respect to two crucial dimensions: the length of the trace and the size of the time interval for which logged events must be buffered to check satisfaction of the specification. The former issue can be addressed by distributed and parallel trace checking algorithms that can take advantage of modern cloud computing and programming frameworks like MapReduce. Still, the latter issue remains open with current state-of-the-art approaches. In this paper we address this memory scalability issue by proposing a new semantics for MTL, called lazy semantics. This semantics can evaluate temporal formulae and boolean combinations of temporal-only formulae at any arbitrary time instant. We prove that lazy semantics is more expressive than standard point-based semantics and that it can be used as a basis for a correct parametric decomposition of any MTL formula into an equivalent one with smaller, bounded time intervals. We use lazy semantics to extend our previous distributed trace checking algorithm for MTL. We evaluate the proposed algorithm in terms of memory scalability and time/memory tradeoffs.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure

Trace checking of Metric Temporal Logic with Aggregating Modalities using MapReduce

Modern complex software systems produce a large amount of execution data, often stored in logs. These logs can be analyzed using trace checking techniques to check whether the system complies with its requirements specifications. Often these specifications express quantitative properties of the system, which include timing constraints as well as higher-level constraints on the occurrences of significant events, expressed using aggregate operators. In this paper we present an algorithm that exploits the MapReduce programming model to check specifications expressed in a metric temporal logic with aggregating modalities, over large execution traces. The algorithm exploits the structure of the formula to parallelize the evaluation, with a significant gain in time. We report on the assessment of the implementation - based on the Hadoop framework - of the proposed algorithm and comment on its scalability.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, Extended version of the SEFM 2014 pape

Thermophysical study of the binary mixtures of N, N-dimethylacetamide with 1-propanol and 1-butanol

Several thermophysical properties such as densities, p, speeds of sound, u, refractive indices, nD, and kinematic viscosities, v, have been measured for the binary mixtures of N, N-Dimethylacetamide with 1-propanol and 1-butanol over the entire range of composition, at the temperatures (283.15, 298.15 and 313.15) K and at atmospheric pressure p = 0.1 MPa. From these experimental data, excess molar volumes, VE, excess isentropic compressibilities, ?S E , refractive index deviations, ?nD, and viscosity deviations, ??, were calculated. Then, correlated with the Redlich-Kister equation and the corresponding parameters were drived. The results obtained, were discussed in terms of structural effects and specific molecular interactions, and the influence of the alkanol chain length was also considered

Controlling the Frequency-Temperature Sensitivity of a Cryogenic Sapphire Maser Frequency Standard by Manipulating Fe3+ Spins in the Sapphire Lattice

To create a stable signal from a cryogenic sapphire maser frequency standard, the frequency-temperature dependence of the supporting Whispering Gallery mode must be annulled. We report the ability to control this dependence by manipulating the paramagnetic susceptibility of Fe3+ ions in the sapphire lattice. We show that the maser signal depends on other Whispering Gallery modes tuned to the pump signal near 31 GHz, and the annulment point can be controlled to exist between 5 to 10 K depending on the Fe3+ ion concentration and the frequency of the pump. This level of control has not been achieved previously, and will allow improvements in the stability of such devices.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figure

Fibrosarcome du larynx - A propos d'un cas

Le fibrosarcome du larynx est une entité histologique rare, qui représente moins de 10% de tous les sarcomes des tissus mous, moins de 2 % des cancers laryngés. Cette localisation pose des problèmes diagnostique, thérapeutique et pronostique. Nous présentons un cas de fibrosarcome laryngé chez un patient de 54 ans. La confirmation histologique etimmunohistologique a été faite sur la pièce d’exérèse chirurgicale et surtout sur une confrontation anatomoclinique. La prise en charge thérapeutique est multidisciplinaire, associant la chirurgie qui doit être la plus complète sans curage ganglionnaire et la radiothérapie. Le pronostic est généralement sévère, dépend essentiellement de degré de différenciation histologique.Mots clés : fibrosarcome ; larynx ; chirurgie ; radiothérapie

Translation in Arabic, adaptation and validation of the SF-36 Health Survey for use in Tunisia

AbstractObjectiveTo translate into Arabic and validate the SF-36 quality of life index in a Tunisian Arabic population.BackgroundNo validated Arabic quality of life index is published.DesignArabic translation of the SF-36 scale was obtained by the “forward/backward translation” method. Adaptations were made after a pilot study involving 22 subjects from general population. Inter-rater reliability was assessed by use of intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and Bland and Altman method. Construct validity was assessed by Spearman rank correlation coefficient (convergent and divergent validity), and factor analysis with Varimax rotation. Internal consistency was assessed by Cronbach alpha coefficient.ResultsWe note that 130 Tunisian subjects were included in the validation study. No items were excluded. Inter-rater reliability was excellent (ICC=0.98). Cronbach alpha coefficient was 0.94 conferring to translated index a good internal consistency. Expected divergent and convergent validity results suggested good construct validity. Two main factors were extracted by factor analysis and explained 62.3% of the cumulative variance: the first factor represented mental component, the second physical component. The Cronbach alpha coefficient was 0.88 and 0.91 respectively for factor 1 and factor 2.ConclusionWe translated into Arabic language and adapted the SF-36 scale for use in Tunisian population. The Arabic version is reliable and valid. Although the scale was validated in a Tunisian population, we expect that it is suitable for other Arab populations, especially North Africans. Further studies are needed to confirm such a hypothesis