Life Style Segmentation in a Service Industry: The Case of Fitness Spas

The number of fitness spas has increased greatly in the past decade, reflecting the development of a new market in America. This study uses life style as a means of segmenting the market for this relatively new service institution and draws implications for marketing managers. It characterizes spa members in terms of their attitudes and opinions, participation in both active and passive leisure pursuits, and their demographics. Spa marketers can act on the findings that members are younger persons who are open to influence from others, concerned about their appearance, confident in their own state of conditioning, and involved in a number of both active and passive pursuits

Final Scientific Report (FSR)

The Flambeau River Papers âÂÂManufacturing Conversion for Energy Efficiencyâ Project has identified the following goals and objectives: 1. A low pressure accumulator tank will be installed to capture low pressure gases for reuse. The estimated cost is $2.1 million with an energy savings of$500,000 annually or enough natural gas savings to heat 590 average Wisconsin homes. 2. Replace the steam turbine and upgrade Paper Machine #3, the largest of Flambeau River Papers machines, at a cost of $6.265 million. The result will save enough natural gas to heat 141 average homes, or about$1.2-million each year. 3. Install a new cyclonic and cell fracturing technology dryer to reduce moisture in both sludge and biomass wastes. The estimated cost of this task is $1.5-million with an annual energy savings of$700,000. It will also eliminate all coal burning at Flambeau River Papers (7,200 tons of coal annually)

HIGHGLY EFFICIENT ACTIVATION AND EXPANSION OF NATURAL KILLER CELLS FOR CLINICAL USE IN CANCER IMMUNOTHERAPY

Natural killer (NK) cells can detect and kill tumor cells and infusion of NK cells to cancer patients may be a promising option to treat cancer. In this context, ex vivo expansion is used to produce large quantities of activated NK cells, because sufficient numbers of these effector cells are essential for successful NK cell based adoptive cancer immunotherapy. The development of efficient NK cell expansion protocols and the transfer of these protocols to clinically applicable methods represent a major challenge. To overcome this issue, the aim of my project was to develop a clinically applicable method that yields large numbers of highly functional NK cells. First, a fully automated technical process was developed to activate and expand NK cells with (interleukin) IL-2 and irradiated clinical-grade feeder cells (EBV-LCL). In comparison to the manual procedure, the automated process yielded similar NK cells in terms of cell numbers, surface marker profile, gene expression and in vitro effector functions. Upon expansion, NK cells up-regulated functional surface molecules, such as TRAIL, FasL, NKG2D and DNAM-1, they increased the production of interferon (IFN)-g and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-a and they became more cytotoxic against tumor cell lines. Next, because in the used protocol NK cell expansion was restricted to a period of 2-4 weeks, a more efficient protocol for long-term expansion was developed. Manual NK cell expansion with EBV-LCL and IL-2 induced a 22– fold mean NK cell expansion after one week that was significantly increased to 53–fold by addition of IL-21. Furthermore, repeated stimulation with irradiated EBV-LCL and IL-2 and addition of IL-21 at the initiation of the culture allowed sustained NK cell proliferation with 1011–fold NK cell expansion after six weeks, which is an unprecedented high expansion rate not achieved by any other method so far. Most importantly, adoptive transfer of NK cells expanded with this optimized protocol led to significant inhibition of tumor growth in a melanoma xenograft mouse model, proofing the therapeutic efficacy of the ex vivo generated NK cells. This anti-tumor efficacy was superior over that from conventionally IL-2 activated NK cells, demonstrating that the improved NK cell expansion method enhanced not only the quantity but also the therapeutic quality of NK cells. In conclusion, the outcome of this project is a fully automated process for ex vivo production of NK cells and an optimized protocol for NK cell expansion with unparalleled efficacy. The expanded NK cells possess potent anti-tumor features and showed therapeutic efficacy in a preclinical melanoma xenograft model. Thereby, the project serves clinical needs and makes it possible to generate high cell doses of functional NK cells for the use in cancer immunotherapy

Structural and Functional Characterisation of TesA - A Novel Lysophospholipase A from Pseudomonas aeruginosa

TesA from Pseudomonas aeruginosa belongs to the GDSL hydrolase family of serine esterases and lipases that possess a broad substrate- and regiospecificity. It shows high sequence homology to TAP, a multifunctional enzyme from Escherichia coli exhibiting thioesterase, lysophospholipase A, protease and arylesterase activities. Recently, we demonstrated high arylesterase activity for TesA, but only minor thioesterase and no protease activity. Here, we present a comparative analysis of TesA and TAP at the structural, biochemical and physiological levels. The crystal structure of TesA was determined at 1.9 Å and structural differences were identified, providing a possible explanation for the differences in substrate specificities. The comparison of TesA with other GDSL-hydrolase structures revealed that the flexibility of active-site loops significantly affects their substrate specificity. This assumption was tested using a rational approach: we have engineered the putative coenzyme A thioester binding site of E. coli TAP into TesA of P. aeruginosa by introducing mutations D17S and L162R. This TesA variant showed increased thioesterase activity comparable to that of TAP. TesA is the first lysophospholipase A described for the opportunistic human pathogen P. aeruginosa. The enzyme is localized in the periplasm and may exert important functions in the homeostasis of phospholipids or detoxification of lysophospholipids

[[alternative]]台灣消費者自備環保購物袋意願之研究：從道德觀點和計畫行為理論

[[abstract]]Following Chan and coworkers’ (2008) research, the current study integrated Hunt and Vitell’s (1986) ethics perspective and Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to present a model that explains consumers’ intention to “Bring Your Own Shopping Bags” (BYOB) with grocery shopping. The proposed model is empirically validated in Taiwan. Based on a survey of 601 respondents, the findings suggest that consumers’ deontological evaluation is positively related to their attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control, while teleological evaluation is positively related to perceived behavioral control only. In addition, the results also indicate that consumers’ attitude and perceived behavioral control has a positive relationship with BYOB intention, while subjective norm does not have a signification relationship with BYOB intention. In sum, this study contributes to the literature by providing insights for applying general ethics and theory of planned behavior to explain consumers’ BYOB behavior. The results also provide policy makers guidelines regarding BYOB. Managerial implications and research limitations are discussed at the end of this paper.[[notice]]補正完

A membrane-bound esterase PA2949 from Pseudomonas aeruginosa is expressed and purified from Escherichia coli

Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain 1001 produces an esterase (EstA) that can hydrolyse the racemic methyl ester of b-acetylthioisobutyrate to produce the (D)-enantiomer, which serves as a precursor of captopril, a drug used for treatment of hypertension. We show here that PA2949 from P. aeruginosa PA01, a homologue of EstA, can efficiently be expressed in an enzymatically active form in E. coli. The enzyme is membrane-associated as demonstrated by cell fractionation studies. PA2949 was purified to homogeneity after solubilisation with the nonionic detergent, Triton X-100, and was shown to possess a conserved esterase catalytic triad consisting of Ser137–His258–Asp286. Our results should allow the development of an expression and purification strategy to produce this biotechnologically relevant esterase in a pure form with a high yield

A scoping review of observational studies examining relationships between environmental behaviors and health behaviors

Individual lifestyles are key drivers of both environmental change and chronic disease. We undertook a scoping review of peer-reviewed studies which examined associations between environmental and health behaviors of individuals in high-income countries. We searched EconLit, Medline, BIOSIS and the Social Science Citation Index. A total of 136 studies were included. The majority were USA-based cross-sectional studies using self-reported measures. Most of the evidence related to travel behavior, particularly active travel (walking and cycling) and physical activity (92 studies) or sedentary behaviors (19 studies). Associations of public transport use with physical activity were examined in 18 studies, and with sedentary behavior in one study. Four studies examined associations between car use and physical activity. A small number included other environmental behaviors (food-related behaviors (n = 14), including organic food, locally-sourced food and plate waste) and other health behaviors ((n = 20) smoking, dietary intake, alcohol). These results suggest that research on individual environmental and health behaviors consists largely of studies examining associations between travel mode and levels of physical activity. There appears to be less research on associations between other behaviors with environmental and health impacts, and very few longitudinal studies in any domain

How Visitors and Locals at a Sport Event Differ in Motives and Identity

Although the literature on events differentiates between locals, casual attendees, and those who have travelled specifically to attend the event, little is known about how the types of attendee differ. This study compared the fan motivation, leisure motivation, and identification with the subculture of athletics reported by a sample (N = 777) of attendees at the 2005 Pan American Junior Athletics Championships. Age, gender, and income were also included. Regression analyses were used to determine the structure of relations among the variables, and to ascertain whether the levels of motivation or identity varied among the three types of attendee. Tests for linear restrictions were used to determine whether the structure of relations among the variables differed by type of attendee. The structure of relations among the variables did not differ among the three types of attendee, but attendees who had travelled specifically to attend the event reported substantially higher identification with the subculture of athletics, and slightly higher fan motivation. Identification with the subculture of athletics mediated much of the effect. Females reported higher fan motivation and higher leisure motivation than did males. Age had a small but significant relationship with fan motivation, and income had a small but significant relationship with leisure motivation. Findings are generally consistent with predictions derived from theories of motivation, subculture, and gender roles. It is suggested that marketing communications directed out-of-town should highlight opportunities to strengthen, parade, and celebrate, while those in the local trading radius should underscore the entertainment, aesthetics, and vicarious achievement featured at the event

Survival of newly formed particles in haze conditions

Intense new particle formation events are regularly observed under highly polluted conditions, despite the high loss rates of nucleated clusters. Higher than expected cluster survival probability implies either ineffective scavenging by pre-existing particles or missing growth mechanisms. Here we present experiments performed in the CLOUD chamber at CERN showing particle formation from a mixture of anthropogenic vapours, under condensation sinks typical of haze conditions, up to 0.1 s(-1). We find that new particle formation rates substantially decrease at higher concentrations of pre-existing particles, demonstrating experimentally for the first time that molecular clusters are efficiently scavenged by larger sized particles. Additionally, we demonstrate that in the presence of supersaturated gas-phase nitric acid (HNO3) and ammonia (NH3), freshly nucleated particles can grow extremely rapidly, maintaining a high particle number concentration, even in the presence of a high condensation sink. Such high growth rates may explain the high survival probability of freshly formed particles under haze conditions. We identify under what typical urban conditions HNO3 and NH3 can be expected to contribute to particle survival during haze.Peer reviewe