The effect of product involvement on socially responsible consumer behavior

A Thesis Submitted to Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science.Thesis supervisor: Dr. Jung Ha-Brookshire.Consumers show dissimilar behaviors towards products at their purchase intention considering companies' socially responsible practices, but, this may not be the same for both low and high involvement products while purchasing. Literature review suggests that consumers in the U.S expect companies to be socially responsible in both environmental and social dimensions. This is more critical in apparel industry due to several violations regarding these both dimensions. On the other hand, socially responsible consumers pay more attention to these practices compared to other clusters of consumers including browns. This study sought to investigate the relation between information related to socially responsibility (SRI), consumers' profile (PRFL), and product involvement (INV) on consumers purchase intention. For this study, SRI was considered to have 2 dimensions: present and absent. The PRFL also had two categories, socially responsible and brown. Similarly, INV had two levels of involvement, high and low. A 2X2X2 matrix was designed and each participant was exposed to two of profiles in a random order. The study supports that consumers have concern about clothing products and companies' practices affect their purchase intention. Also, the effect of information related to SRI is associated with consumers' profile. In addition, products' level of involvement is associated with SRI and consumers' profile on their purchase intention. Moreover, this study compliments the former studies by suggesting that not all groups of consumers want to be good citizens by purchasing higher involvement products with SRI. Implications, limitations and scope of further research are also discussed.Includes bibliographical references (pages 63-67)

Quality of life among patients with beta-thalassemia major in Shahrekord city, Iran

Background and aims: Nowadays introduction of regular blood transfusion therapy has obviously improved the life expectancy of patients with thalassemia. However, these patients face with newer challenges which influence their quality of life (QoL). In this study, the aim of this study was to measure QoL among patients with β-thalassemia major (β-TM). Methods: A cross-sectional study was done at the thalassemia centre of Shahrekord University of Medical Sciences. All the forty patients with β-thalassemia which were more than 12 years old referred to blood transfusion and participated in this study. Then, they were asked to fill out the Short Form Health Status Survey (SF-36) questionnaire. The questionnaire evaluates 8 health areas including physical functioning (PF), rolephysical (RP), bodily pain (BP), general health (GH), vitality (VT), social functioning (SF), role-emotional (RE) and mental health (MH). The scores of each participant were calculated and data were analyzed using SPSS. Results: There were 18 men and 22 women, and the mean age was 21.69±5.74 years (range 12-38). No significant difference was seen in QoL between men and women (68.72±19.79 versus 67.47±18.80, P=0.84). The mean±SD score of PF, RP, BP, GH, VT, SF, MH was 80.5±16, 83.75±29.17, 71.94±24.22, 57.48±23.93, 54.36±22.51, 68.94±23.37, 66.33±36.04 and 58.51±23.68, respectivly. No significant differences were detected in all mentioned scores between men and women (P>0.05). Conclusion: Although most of the participants had suitable physical functioning, thalassemia had a negative effect on emotional role, social functioning and mental health of patients. It shows the importance of psychosocial supports for these patients

Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer Array with Pencil Beam Shape and Wide Range Beam Steering

AbstractA capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) array is designed as an alternative to conventional piezoelectric transducers. A thin silicon nitride membrane is suspended over a bottom electrode on a silicon wafer. In the immersion mode, the transducer cell shape and dimensions are optimized for an operating frequency of 10MHz. We show that the proposed imager array can generate a pencil shape beam with a ∼1.5° half beam width, enhancing the detector resolution. A phased array technique is employed to excite multiple cells using time-delayed signals to steer the acoustic beam toward the object. This eliminates the need to mechanically move the detector, simplifying the transducer driving system. Moreover, unlike conventional transducers, the pencil beam can be effectively steered over a wide range of angles without producing grating lobes, which minimizes power loss in undesired directions. This can also improve the signal to noise ratio of the imager CMUT array

Comparison evaluation of Curcumin(Curcuma longa extract)with the application of expressed breast milk in the treatment of nipple cracks in lactating primiparous women: A randomized clinical trial

زمینه و هدف: شقاق پستان مشکل شایعی در زنان شیرده می باشد که می تواند باعث قطع زودهنگام شیردهی گردد. زردچوبه یکی از قدیمی ترین گیاهان دارویی است که به دلیل دارا بودن کورکومین، اثر ترمیم کننده روی زخم ها دارد. این مطالعه با هدف تعیین تأثیر عصاره آبی الکلی کورکومین و مقایسه آن با باقی گذاردن قطره شیر مادر در درمان شقاق پستان انجام گردید. روش بررسی: پژوهش حاضر به صورت کارآزمایی بالینی تصادفی در سال 1392 بر روی زنان نخست زای مراجعه کننده به مراکز بهداشتی غرب اهواز انجام گردید. 88 مادر شیرده مبتلا به شقاق پستان، به شکل تصادفی به دو گروه مساوی درمان با کورکومین و گروه باقی گذاردن قطره شیر مادر تقسیم شدند. به منظور بررسی روند بهبود زخم و عوارض جانبی کورکومین، قبل ازدرمان، روز سوم و روز هفتم پس از شروع درمان، مقیاس استور توسط پژوهشگر تکمیل گردید. یافته ها: قبل از مطالعه و همچنین در روز هفتم تفاوت معنی دار بین میانگین نمره شقاق پستان در دو گروه مشاهده نشد؛ اما در روز سوم میانگین نمره شقاق در گروه کورکومین (267/0±761/)0 در مقایسه با گروه باقی گذاردن قطره شیر مادر (426/0±23/1) به طور معنی داری کمتر بود. همچنین اختلاف میانگین نمره شقاق قبل از درمان با روز سوم و همچنین با روز هفتم پس از شروع درمان، در هر دو گروه، معنی دار بود. نتیجه گیری: کورکومین و شیر مادر هر دو در درمان شقاق پستان موثر هستند؛ ولی باتوجه به عوارض جانبی محدود، فعالیت ضد میکروبی و اثر بیشتر کورکومین در کوتاه مدت، پیشنهاد می گردد از این دارو برای درمان شقاق پستان استفاده شود

Effects of Chlorella vulgaris on blood and immunological parameters of Caspian Sea salmon (Salmo trutta caspius) fry exposed to Viral Nervous Necrosis (VNN) virus

In the present study, the effects of Chlorella vulgaris on blood and immunological parameters of Caspian salmon (Salmo trutta caspius) before and after exposure to Viral Nervous Necrosis (VNN) virus were examined. In this regard, four treatments in triplicate were chosen. Groups included one control and 3 treatments (T1, T2 and T3). Fish in control group, T1, T2 and T3 were fed diets supplemented with 0, 1×10^8, 2×10^7 and 3×10^6 chlorella/450 g of food respectively, for sixty days. In addition, a virus supernatant was prepared from infected wild golden grey mullet (Liza auratus) and used for virus challenge of S. trutta caspius. Virus was injected intraperitoneally and blood samples were collected before and 14 days after the challenge. Immunological (IgM, C3, C4, total protein, respiratory burst, albumin and lysozyme) and changes in blood parameters (RBC, WBC, Htc, Hb, MCH, MCHC and MCV) were also measured. Results showed that C. vulgaris could act as a natural immunestimulant. Also, the alteration trend in hematological and immunological parameters showed that experimental fish could be considered to be resistant to VNN virus after exposure and fish treated with C. vulgaris were more resistant in comparison to those in the control group. The dose used in T1 (1×10^8 chlorella/450 g food) was the most effective approach with significant differences

Curcumin reduces α-synuclein induced cytotoxicity in Parkinson's disease cell model

abstract: Background Overexpression and abnormal accumulation of aggregated α-synuclein (αS) have been linked to Parkinson's disease (PD) and other synucleinopathies. αS can misfold and adopt a variety of morphologies but recent studies implicate oligomeric forms as the most cytotoxic species. Both genetic mutations and chronic exposure to neurotoxins increase αS aggregation and intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), leading to mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative damage in PD cell models. Results Here we show that curcumin can alleviate αS-induced toxicity, reduce ROS levels and protect cells against apoptosis. We also show that both intracellular overexpression of αS and extracellular addition of oligomeric αS increase ROS which induces apoptosis, suggesting that aggregated αS may induce similar toxic effects whether it is generated intra- or extracellulary. Conclusions Since curcumin is a natural food pigment that can cross the blood brain barrier and has widespread medicinal uses, it has potential therapeutic value for treating PD and other neurodegenerative disorders.The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://bmcneurosci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2202-11-5

Development of a framework to evaluate service-oriented architecture governance using COBIT approach

Nowadays organizations require an effective governance framework for their service-oriented architecture (SOA) in order to enable them to use a framework to evaluate their current state governance and determine the governance requirements, and then to offer a suitable model for their governance. Various frameworks have been developed to evaluate the SOA governance. In this paper, a brief introduction to the internal control framework COBIT is described, and it is used to show how to develop a framework to evaluate the SOA governance within an organization. The SOA and information technology expert surveys are carried out to evaluate the proposed framework. The results of this survey verify the proposed framework

Semantic Constraint and QoS-Aware Large-Scale Web Service Composition

Service-oriented architecture facilitates the running time of interactions by using business integration on the networks. Currently, web services are considered as the best option to provide Internet services. Due to an increasing number of Web users and the complexity of users’ queries, simple and atomic services are not able to meet the needs of users; and to provide complex services, it requires service composition. Web service composition as an effective approach to the integration of business institutions’ plans has taken significant acceleration. Nowadays, web services are created and updated in a moment. Therefore, in the real world, there are many services which may not have composability according to the conditions and constraints of the user's preferred choice. In the proposed method for automatic service composition, the main requirements of users including available inputs, expected outputs, quality of service, and the priority are initially and explicitly specified by the user and service composition is done with this information. In the proposed approach, due to a large number of services with the same functionality, at first, the candidate services are reduced by the quality of service-based Skyline method, and moreover, by using an algorithm based on graph search, all possible solutions will be produced. Finally, the user’s semantic constraints are applied on service composition, and the best composition is offered according to user’s requests. The result of this study shows that the proposed method is more scalable and efficient, and it offers a better solution by considering the user’s semantic constraints