A predominantly positive view is shown in engagement literature in terms of positive actor engagement (PNE) expressions and outcomes. However, business practices indicate that the understanding of actors being negatively engaged is important. Yet a few studies in marketing, which attempt to conceptualise negative actor engagement (NAE), do not have a consensus as for whether NE and PE are reciprocal or NE is a distinct construct with a different nomological network and process. The purpose of this study is to conceptualise and operationalise NAE. Built on Li et al.’s (2018) conceptualisation of actor engagement valence, this paper follows Churchill’s (1979) methods of scale development and operationalises the construct of NAE. By developing and validating a NAE scale in specific online learning servcie platforms, we address this identified literature gap. Specifically, this study derives four NAE dimensions, including annoyance, anxiety, futitlity and failed expectation, which we proceed to validate within a nomological net of conceptual relationships in relation to the engagement behaviours (learning, sharing and endorsing). We conclude with an overview of key managerial and scholarly implications arising from this research. This marks the first study in the marketing discipline to operationalise NAE.

Measuring consumers’ emotion with self-report methods has remained a challenge in luxury marketing. In comparison to self-report measure, psychophysiological methods promise to provide a scientific, objective and sensitive measure of the neurophysiological basis of emotional processes. The objective of this paper is to: (1) examine the feasibility of using psychophysiological methods in luxury marketing; (2) compare the capability of psychophysiological methods to capture emotion beyond those measured by self-report methods; and (3) better under luxury consumers’ emotion processes. In this study, brain wave analysis, heart rate, skin conductance, and facial expression were used to investigate consumers’ emotional response toward luxury marketing stimuli. The psychophysiological findings identified anger, interest and arousal as key emotional processes that affect consumers’ reaction to luxury branding. These findings show that psychophysiological methods are not only feasible in informing luxury branding practices but also provide insights into luxury consumers’ emotional experience beyond those captured by self-report methods.

This study assesses the interactive effect of shelf-based scarcity and shelf organisation on luxury purchases. Previous studies have addressed multiple factors surrounding shelf based scarcity (e.g. Parker and Lehmann 2011; Van Herpen et al 2014) however none has considered perceived luxuriousness as a potential explanation for the effects of shelf-based scarcity; nor have many studies used a luxury context. This study therefore examined whether product luxuriousness, product popularity, product supply and/or product quality serve as underlying mechanism of shelf-based sacristy effects. The study recruited 125 consumers and the experiment followed a mixed factorial design. The luxuriousness of the brand and the organisation of the shelf display were manipulated between subjects, whereas stock level was manipulated within subjects. Data collated consisted of both self-report and psycho-physiological methods (brainwave and facial expression) Low stock level was perceived to more tidy than medium and high stock level when the shelf display was disorganised; a significant interactive effect (Mlow = 4.06, Mmedium = 3.71 4.77, Mhigh = 2.86, ps = .025, p < .001). Significantly higher perceived product quality was reported for low stock product than high stock product (Mlow = 5.34, Mhigh = 4.79, p < .001), as participants’ perceived high stock to be restocked more frequently. Results of bootstrapping indicated that perceived luxuriousness was found to be the only significant partial mediator for the effect of stock level on approach motivation, further supported by brainwave and facial expression analysis (Indirect = .066, 95%CI = [.0043, .1362], p < .001).The direct effect of stock level remained significant after accounting for the indirect effect (Direct = .11, 95%CI = [.0117, .2091], p < .001). This study is the first to use psychophysiological methods to validate self-report findings and to examine perceived luxuriousness as a plausible explanation of the shelf-based sacristy effect.

The main purpose of this research is to explore the effects of usage frequency on the intention to reuse membership service while having perceived value play a role as a mediator. Usage frequency of membership services can affect consumers' fairness judgment. The more opportunities consumers have to perceive the fairness of a service, the more likely it is that they will choose to receive the identical service from the same provider in the future, since they form a positive attitude toward the service. In addition, the perceived value of the consumer can lead to the reuse of the service because it gives satisfaction to the consumer. Another objective of this research is to examine the moderating effect of regret and guilt on the relationship between perceived value and the intention to reuse membership service. Consistent with regret literature, if consumers perceive a consumption value that is smaller than the initially expected consumption value when using a membership service, they will regret the use of the service. Further, negative emotion such as regret often lead to negative attitudes and behaviors of consumers. Thus, as consumers feel regret, their willingness to use the membership service will continue to decrease. On the other hand, consumers experience guilt when they benefit from an unfair process (Krehbiel and Cropanzano, 2000). Similarly, when consumers judge that they have exceeded the usage frequency of membership service based on social norms or ethical principles of individuals, they will perceive unfairness. Consumers may try to offset their negative emotion by continuing to use identical membership services even after the end of the contract period as compensation for their guilty feelings. Thus, as consumers feel guilt, their willingness to use the membership service will continue to increase. This study proposes practical implications that a firm operating a membership service program can encourage a positive response of consumers in their service process by theoretically identifying the intrinsic process related to consumers' intention to reuse the service.

Similar to traditional advertising, product placement plays important roles in consumer purchasing behaviors through the AIDA model (e.g., Ghirvu，2013) of which attention is the very first stage. While there is an established literature on brand recall and recognition as methods of product placement evaluation, the role of attention, which is an important topic in traditional advertising research, has been sparsely studied in the context of product placement. This paper proposes that attention is a psychological state which affects information selection and processing. Captured attention reflects audience’s selective attention to editorial content including placements, while sustained attention (or processing) requires allocated attentional capacity to process information captured from the placement. When available attentional capacity is insufficient, product placements cannot be adequately processed to form accurate memory (Lee & Faber, 2007). Accordingly, this paper aims to investigate the pathway of ‘placement characteristics –audience attention – audience memory’ in order to reinterpret the relationship between placement characteristics and audience memory through the lens of attention. We do this by answering two pertinent questions: 1) how placement characteristics (e.g., exposure duration, frequency, location and size) influence captured attention; and, 2) how captured attention and sustained attention affect audience memory. To do so, we draw on psychology literature, especially the feature integration theory (Treisman & Gelade, 1980), in establishing the theoretical connections between placement features, captured attention, sustained attention and memory. By a theatre methodology, we found sustained attention mediated between captured attention and audience memory, while more prominent placement characteristics had stronger relationships with captured attention. Furthermore, audience’s levels of involvement in the media content and familiarity with the placed brand moderated the relationship between sustained attention and audience memory.

The demand for cosmetic products is generally declining globally, but growing among female Generation Y (Gen Y). Gen Y (18-34 years) are large in size and disposable income and are high users of various social media platforms. Thus, cosmetic companies are competing to capture this market segment. However, the type of social media platforms, which can best attract and induce cosmetic products interest among this fickle and notoriously disloyal market segment is unknown. This study therefore employed the AIDA model to examine the effectiveness of YouTube, Instagram and Facebook in igniting female Gen Y South Africans‟ interest in cosmetic products. Data was collected from 220 respondents. Structural equation modeling results revealed that the cosmetic products interest is ignited by YouTube and Instagram ads and not Facebook ads. Implications are provided.

In the past, scholars and policy makers have tried to educate as well as incentivize practices like recycling to avoid reduce landfill stocks and create new objects from past used materials. Such products have been commercialized more and more by big brands (i.e. Adidas and Levi’s) and by famous fashion designers (i.e. Stella McCartney). While more academic literature has focused on drivers for consumers’ motivations to engage in recycling activities, there has been little research investigating consumers’ underlying psychological factors to favour recycled products over standard ones. In this study we address this issue by experimentally testing consumer evaluation and intention to adopt recycled products through an implicit theory – or mind-sets-framework on. In a set of three studies we demonstrate how consumers holding and incremental mind-set – who believe that trait like intelligence, morality or personality are malleable and transformable over time – are more keen top adopt products made of recycled materials. In contrasts, individuals with an entity mind-set – who instead believe human traits are fixed and non-mutable- are more sceptical to embrace such products. In Experiment 1 we demonstrated that the chronic incremental mind set of individuals influences their intention to acquire a recycled – over a non-recycled – coffee mug. In Experiment 2, we demonstrate through a laboratory experiment that this preference for products made out of recycled materials is stable in individual with an incremental min-set – over their entity min-set counterpart – even below the liminal attention threshold. Finally, in Experiment 3 we demonstrate that by attributing the merit of the transformation in a different object to qualities that are embedded in the materials used (rather than to the process to transform them) can make recycled products more appealing also to individuals with an entity mind-set. The results of these studies contribute to the literature on implicit theory by investigating another area in consumer psychology (intention to adopt recycled products) so far unexplored. On a managerial point of view, this study suggests how highlighting the effort spent by a company in creating the product can attract consumer (especially incremental theorists) to intend to buy the product, while highlighting the qualities of the material used can attract more entity theorists.

Despite its undoubted academic relevance, country-of-origin (COO) research continuous to be criticized for its lack of practical relevance (Usunier 2006). However, extant research has mainly focused on consumers as potential users of COO information, whereas relatively little is known with respect to whether and when companies actively use COO as part of their marketing mix. This study looks at the usage of COO information in advertising by conducting a content analysis of all print ads published in three major magazines in France over the period of one year. A set of hypotheses is subsequently developed and tested that looks at differences with respect to a) COO usage versus non-usage, b) frequency of COO cues used, and c) product- or brand type differences in the usage of COO information. Results shows that roughly one third of all ads analyzed feature COO information in it. In contrast to some scholars (e.g., Samiee 2010; Usunier 2006), our results provide further evidence on the relevance of COO cues from a supply side perspective. An in-depth analysis of the frequency and usage of COO information in advertising largely confirms extant literature with respect to the importance of the construct for domestic brands, and products with a high ethnicity (Usunier and Cestre 2007), low involvement (Bloemer, Brijs, and Kasper 2009), and hedonic nature. At the same time, we do not find evidence that COO only matters in these situations, as was highlighted by some scholars in the field. Finally, with respect to the debate on which type of country is actually associated with COO, we confirm extant propositions that the majority of products on the market associate themselves with the country-of-brand (Magnusson, Westjohn, and Zdravkovic 2011). Overall, more than 80% of all brands emphasized the country of brand, sometimes in combination with a different country-ofmanufacture.

Effect of product message type (novelty and meaningfulness) on new product evaluation with spendthrift and tightwad consumers New product development is one of key strategies that firms can use for survival and growth alike. Well-developed new products can generally provide much needed values for consumers, which in turn provide reasons and bases for firm’s growth and sustainable competitive advantages. Given this importance of new product development and launch, the understanding of what factors influence consumer’s new product purchase behavior is extremely critical for firms' success and just as important as the new product development itself. Previous research shows that many factors - such as perceived risk of new products (Ross 1975; Stone and Gronhaug 1993), consumer innovativeness as a personality (Midgley and Dowling, 1978; Steenkamp et al., 1999), and type of new products, e.g., discontinuous new product (Veryzer 1998) - influence the evaluation of new products. The current study contends that firm’s communication efforts for new products, in particular, the contents and types of message for new products, are as important as any other factors (often, even more critical than others). A consumer’s awareness of new product in the form of actual product launch or preannouncement of new product (Eliashberg and Robertson 1988) is important. Then, a naturally rising questions will be: (1) how should firm develop the contents of messages to consumers to spread the words? (2) who should be the target audience? In other words, depending on consumers and their individual differences, the message development for new product should be accordingly changed or modified to maximally generate consumer’s purchase behaviors. The goal of the message content is how to frame new products so that consumers seek to purchase the products. Two main approaches to frame advantages, strengths, or unique selling propositions of a new product would be (1) novelty and (2) meaningfulness (Im and Workman 2004). However, the framing message should be different depending on consumer’s individual differences. Given the complexity of modern consumers, firms need to understand not only the effect of situational factors such as product involvement (De Wulf, Odekerken-Schröder and Iacobucci, 2001), but also the influence of consumer’s different orientations in personality such as need of cognition (Cacioppo and Petty 1982) and need for uniqueness (Tian, Bearden, and Hunter 2001). Formally, in this study, not only message type, but also spending orientation of individual consumers will be explicitly examined to identify possible interactions effects on the new product purchase. In sum, the purpose of the current study is to examine the effect of message types and consumer’s spending orientation on the new product purchase decision. Specifically, the current study aims to suggest a significant interaction effect of message types of new product introduction (novelty or meaningfulness) as well as the format in which information is provided and individual consumers with opposite spending orientations. Theoretical background The development of the spendthrift-tightwad scale was created by Rick, Cryder, and Loewenstein (2008). In their scale, the authors define tightwads as individuals that have difficulty spending money whereas spendthrifts are individuals who have difficulty controlling their spending. Tightwads and spendthrifts do differ in levels of self-regulation (Tangney et al 2004). Tightwads are unable to free themselves from self-control even though their situation would become more favorable by spending money and spendthrifts have issues with exerting self-control even though it is in their best interest to limit their spending. Based on Rick et al (2008), spendthrifts are three times more likely than tightwads to carry debt as well as more amount of debt. Spendthrifts carry more debt and save less than tightwads. Spendthrifts are significantly more likely than tightwads to carry credit card debt at each income level. With respect to consumption purchase, spendthrifts are nine percent more likely than tightwads to buy a utilitarian massage and 26 percent more likely to buy the hedonic massage Rick et al (2008). Tightwads are significantly less likely to buy a massage in general. In sum, there will be a clear distinction between spendthrifts and tightwads in terms of utilitarian and hedonic purpose of consumptions. Thus we predict that, H1: Spendthrifts are more likely to have a higher purchase intention score than tightwads Meaningfulness and novelty are the two dimensions of new product creativity(Amabile 1983). Novelty is defined as the degree to which a new product is perceived as new and uniquely different to competitors, while meaningfulness is defined as the extent to which a new product is perceived as appropriate and useful. Consumers value novelty or meaningfulness depending on their level of product involvement and knowledge Rubera, Ordanini, and Mazursky (2010). However, products must have a wow or coolness factor to be accepted. Consumers do not appreciate a new product's creativity for its own sake but try to relate a product's meaningfulness and novelty to its utilitarian and hedonic value respectively(Im, Bhat, and Lee 2015). Therefore, we expect that H2 (a): Spendthrifts have higher intentions to purchase a product if presented as a message with a novelty message than meaningful message. H2 (b): Tightwads have higher intentions to purchase a product if presented as a message with meaningfulness than novelty. Study design The purpose of study is to see whether or not the manipulation of the message type describing a new product will lead to a higher purchasing intention. Framing the message with novelty shows that the product is new and unique, while framing the message with meaningfulness emphasizes a product's usefulness and ability to fulfill needs. We predict that the message type significantly influences the intentions a new product changes based on their tendencies of money use. The pretest is designed to check to see if the perceived value from both meaningfulness and novelty framing are be similar as well as the strength of attributes. Participants had been randomly assigned to one of two groups: a flyer with a meaningful message, a flyer with a novelty message. Participants were asked on a single item (7-point scale) of how much value the new product provides them. A second question asked the participants to rate on a 7 point scale asking how strong or convincing the message was given the provided attributes. A total 158 undergraduate students from a Midwestern land-grant university participated in this experiment, all provided with extra credits for class. Participants were randomly assigned to a group based on a 2 (Message type: Meaningfulness vs. Novelty) x 2 (individual difference: tightwad vs. spendthrift) x 2 (advertisement only vs. advertisement + customer review) between-subjects experiment. The dependent variables are attitude toward new product and purchase intentions. Participants were classified either as spendthrifts or tightwads. The spendthrift-tightwad scale provided by Rick, Cryder, and Loewenstein in (2008) came out to be reliable with a Cronbach alpha of .75 as stated in their development and validation section. With this reliability check, it will be safe to use their scale to differentiate participants as either spendthrifts or tightwads. This scale is used to measure an important individual trait of spending behavior which we believe is to interact with the message type. We also tested the effect of message vehicle (either advertisement or customer’s review), given the importance of source credibility. In the meaningfulness message type, participants are provided an advertisement flyer about a new product. There are six attributes about a new product (3 meaningful attributes and 3 novel attributes) and a message in the bottom half of the flyer describing the how this product will satisfy the customer's needs, useful, and or life changing. In the novelty message type, participants receive a similar flyer with the same product attributes as in the meaningfulness condition. The difference is in the message provided in the bottom half of the flyer. The message for novelty include phrases that indicate how new, unique, or revolutionary the product is. After the participants look over the flyer, they were asked if they would buy this new product. Then participants answered a follow-up question for the manipulation check. Participants in their respective message types were asked if how meaningful they think the product is they if they are in the meaningful condition and how novel they think they product is if they are within the novelty condition. For the customer review condition, a similar manipulation was used and the difference is that participants read customer reviews (emphasizing either meaningfulness or novelty of new product) Measures Advertisement novelty and meaningfulness are composite scales from six items respectively, with Cronbach alpha of 0.874 and 0.923. Product attitude are measured using four items (outstanding quality, reliable, consistent, and dependable) (Cronbach alpha = 0.919). Purchase intention measure is based on two items (how likely, how probable to purchase this product) using 7-point scales (Cronbach alpha = 0.827).Individual difference of spendthrift and tightwad measure is adopted from Rick, Cryder, and Loewenstein (2007). They used four items and simply summed scale responses (range from 4 to 26), and then divide respondents into three equally sized groups of sums (tightwad, unconflicted, and spendthrift). In our analysis, we followed the same approach, and used two groups (tightwad and spendthrift). The reliability (Cronbach alpha) was 0.756. However, for the manipulation check neither the novelty nor meaningfulness variable was significant. In the novelty condition, the participants did not experience a higher level of novelty in the message (t=.46, p=.65) while in the meaningfulness condition, participants did not experience a more meaningful focused message (t=-.485, p=.63). We must redesign the stimuli so that survey participants are properly manipulated to their allotted conditions. Initial results Attitude and purchase intention were higher for the advertisement plus customer review condition, compared to only advertisement groups. Also, there is a significant interaction effect among the message type and spending orientations influencing purchase intention. The spendthrifts to have higher intentions to purchase the product than tightwads similar to Rick, Cryder, and Loewenstein (2008) study with utilitarian and hedonic variables. There should be a significant effect of message type. The ANOVA results showed that overall model was significant (F =2.23, p=.048). ST-TW trait showed a significant effect on purchase decision (F= 7.454, p=.009). Thus, spendthrift respondents are more likely to purchase new products than tightwad ones, which is a consistent result to the existing literature. Implications and conclusions Message strategy for new product will be of critical criterion, because a convincing and creative advertising campaign will capture the attention of consumers. It will be important for firms to incorporate customer reviews in juxtaposition with the advertisement message, as it is much more likely for a consumer to purchase a product when a review is present based on the results above. Essentially, providing customer information becomes important, when you develop a message in advertisement that also provides a complimentary consumer review. However, depending on consumer’s characteristics regarding spendthrift-tightwad orientation, the choice of either advertising or specific promotion, encouraging encourage consumer to purchase. In sum, the results strongly suggest that using both advertisement and customer review information provision would increase purchase decision, but complementary focus of information provision will be the most effective way to deliver message to audience. In addition, individual different in spending orientation can be an important moderator, which suggest a series of further research.

This study tries to focus on the psychological influence by social media on user and tries to find a relationship between psychological influence and consumption patterns. Therefore, we contend that social media are platforms of interaction in that they can generate social empowerment—users feeling that they have an impact on others which gives them high self-worth (Sara Hanson, 2017) and temporarily rise self-worth can lead low self-control. Khan and Dhar (2006) find that a prior virtuous act can momentarily increase one’s self-concept, which leads to more self-indulgence in unrelated decisions. In this paper, we also investigated the two types of social media users by their presentation focus (self vs. other). In social media, there are two types of users: player & watcher. Players are users who have many followers, post lots of information about themselves and need love and attention from other users. Thus, a player which is called self-presentation focus (Wilcox, 2013) is defined as a user who focuses on information they are presenting to people in social media. In contrast, watchers are users who don’t post information on social media as actively as players but love to observe and like or dislike other users’ posts. Thus, a watcher which is called other-presentation focus (Wilcox, 2013) is defined as a user who focuses on information people present to them in social media and this is called other-presentation focus. In general, players could feel more social empowerment because posting information can be one of the activities involving interacting with other users. However, we contend that watchers will feel rather more social empowerment because having an impact, or having the feeling of social empowerment, involves the perception that one’s actions are beneficial to others, which is giving a like or comment to other user in social media (Grant and Campbell 2007). This research will have several theoretical and managerial implications. First, this study will show the influence of social media on users’ behavior and mentality, and which are related to self-control and social-empowerment. Second, this study will discover which type of social media user can be affected effectively by firms’ social media efforts.

Customers’ opinions on social network platforms are known to influence peer behaviour (Bai, 2011; Eirinaki, Pisal, & Singh, 2012). Customers are also known to be more engaged in sharing their experiences by writing online reviews and recommendations that may be useful to others (Cantallops & Salvi, 2014; Tang & Guo, 2015; Xu & Li, 2016). Actually, user-generated content (UGC) on social network platforms has emerged as an important source for understanding and managing consumers’ expectations, particularly using automated and semi-automated knowledge extraction techniques from text such as text mining and sentiment analysis (Zhang, Zeng, Li, Wang, & Zuo, 2009). This research analyses dimensions of online customer engagement and associated concepts in customers’ reviews through (i) a global sentiment analysis using positive, neutral and negative sentiments and (ii) a topic-sentiment analysis to capture latent topics in online reviews. Furthermore, it examines what influences customers to contribute their online reviews, beyond the features of each focal company or brand. The research methodology is based on a text mining approach, using the MeaningCloud tool. The study focuses on Yelp.com reviews and includes a random sample of 15,000 unique reviews of restaurants, hotels and nightlife entertainment in eleven cities in the USA. An innovative customer engagement dictionary is created, based on previously validated scales using known dimensions of engagement, experience, emotions and brand advocacy, and extended using WordNet 2.1 lexical database. The research findings reveal a high impact of the engagement cognitive processing dimension and hedonic experience on customers’ review endeavour. The study results further indicate that customers seem to be more engaged in positively advocating a company/brand than the contrary. The findings will help social network managers to reinforce their platforms.

In fashion marketing, celebrity endorsement is a widely-used strategy to gain attention and produce positive brand knowledge (Carroll, 2009). Luxury brands use their social media accounts to post pictures of celebrity endorsers using their products. This is an effective strategy because celebrity endorsement posts could encourage fans of the celebrity to repost, like or comment on this post. This is beneficial for the brand because this results in more brand exposures. The question is how luxury brands can use celebrity endorsements successfully in the digital age. For example, should luxury brands localize the celebrity endorsement in social media? The dilemma of standardization and localization becomes very significant when luxury brands are facing a culturally different market (Liu et al., 2016). This paper examines the effectiveness of localized celebrity endorsements for luxury brands in Chinese social media based on an analysis of online big data and two experiments. First, a multi-level analysis of the posts of 33 luxury brands suggests that localized (Chinese) celebrity endorsers trigger more social media interactions than standardized (Western) celebrity endorsers. Next, the following experimental studies reveal that local endorsers do not enhance perceived brand luxury and individuals’ level of patriotism moderates the effect of localized (vs. standardized) celebrity endorsements on perceived brand luxury. For people with lower level of patriotism, localized celebrity endorsements reduce the perceived brand luxury. In contrast, for people with higher level of patriotism, localized celebrity endorsements lead to higher perceived brand luxury.

This work aims to deepen how to cope with marketing challenges of XXI century, characterized by turbulent and dynamic environments. Specifically, it explores the theoretical underpinnings to develop an Agile Marketing Capability’s framework and propositions. This study performs an in-depth literature review on IT and Dynamic Marketing Capabilities to provide the features, components, functions and types of an Agile Marketing Capability. Given the extreme innovativeness of this topic in marketing realm, it represents a first attempt to understanding the Agile Marketing Capability, which requires further theoretical and empirical contributions and refinements. The framework and propositions of this research may be useful for managers and decision makers to figure out the advantages of the Agile Marketing Capabilities’ employment in current marketplaces.

New media has been an important component of modern life with recent development of immersed media-rich environments (Lim & Nekmat, 2008). Jenkins and his colleagues (2006) refer such environments and their dynamics as participatory culture, in which meaning making and consumption processes are influenced by other new media users. These processes are especially attracting youth, who are open to experimentations with online identities. Such experimentation does not necessarily have to be related with entertainment. Rather it can also be related to learning and education. The primary aim of the current study is to understand the relationship between new media literacy and imaginativeness among undergraduate communication majors. The main assumption of the study is that communication undergraduates heavily use new media products and services. And such practices inevitably impact on their creative, social and practical imaginativeness. Findings aim to shed light on how interactions with the new media technologies impact on imaginative processes and practices of aspiring communication professionals.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the immediate effects of negative pressure soft tissue therapy on muscle tone, muscle stiffness and balance in patients with stroke. In total, 20 patients with stroke and assigned to the negative pressure soft tissue therapy group (NPST, n=10) or, placebo-negative pressure soft tissue therapy group(Placebo-NPST, n=10). Both groups underwent NPST or placebo-NPST once a day during the experimental period. MyotonPRO was used to assess the parameters for muscle tone and stiffness. Biorescue was used to assess the parameters for balance. Each group showed improvements in muscle tone, muscle stiffness, and balance ability (p<.05). Especially, Muscle tone, muscle stiffness, and anterior length in the limit of stability were the significant improvement on NPST group (p<.05). The results of the study suggest that the NPST is effective in improving muscle tone, muscle stiffness, and balance ability in patients with stroke.

In Korea, the daily waste production in 2015(excluding specified waste) was 404,812 tons, of which household waste accounted for 12.7%(51,247 tons/day). Total household food and vegetable waste amounted to 1,120 tons/day; of this, 70% of was ultimately used as feed or fertilizer and 30% was buried. In this study, a drying unit was developed to enable the production of solid refuse fuel using high-moisture food waste, and its performance was examined through an experiment. Thus, a laboratory pyrolysis system with a drying capacity of 500 kg/hr was manufactured. Food wastes were collected from a company cafeteria and from Changwon City and used for experiment. The drying characteristics of the food waste were examined depending on the input temperature of the drying air. The results of the food waste drying experiment showed that the total required drying time was approximately 20 hours, and the drying speed was approximately 2.90 %/hr. The drying time was five hours longer than the research target value(15 hours per batch). However, the time was approximately 16 hours when the preheating and cooling times required for the input and output were excluded, which was close to the research target value. The drying time did not show a large difference depending on the temperature of the input drying air. Drying time was 21 hours at 155℃, and thus drying operation would be possible without the use of high-temperature air(more than 200℃) when waste heat is utilized in the future. It is thought that rather than the temperature of the input air, it is the contact area between the input air and the food waste that has a significant effect on reducing the drying time.

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the most common type of oral malignancy. Numerous therapies have been proposed for its cure. Research is continually being conducted to develop new forms of treatment as current therapies are associated with numerous side-effects. Luteolin, a common dietary flavonoid, has been demonstrated to possess strong anti-cancer activity against various human cancer cell lines. Nevertheless, research into luteolin-based anticancer activity against oral cancer remains scarce. Thus, the objective of this study was to assess the effect of luteolin as an anti-cancer agent. After treatment with luteolin, Ca9-22 and CAL-27 oral cancer cells showed condensed nuclei and enhanced apoptotic rate with evidence of mitochondria-mediated apoptosis. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is closely related to tumor migration and invasion. Luteolin suppressed cancer cell invasion and migration in the current study. Elevated expression of E-cadherin, an adherens junction protein, was evident in both cell lines after luteolin treatment. Luteolin also significantly inhibited transcription factors (i.e., N-cadherin, Slug, Snail, Twist, and ZEB-1) that regulated expression of tumor suppressors such as E-cadherin based on Western blot analysis and quantitative PCR. Thus, luteolin could induce mitochondrial apoptosis and inhibit cancer cell invasion and migration by suppressing EMT-induced transcription factors.

The purpose of this study is to analyze outsourcing ship management function at Turkish shipowning companies and Turkish shipowners’ attitudes towards third party ship management companies. A survey method was used for the study. Based on the factors collected both from literature review and interviews, a questionnaire was conducted through Turkish shipowners. The results of the study have revealed that big portion of Turkish shipowners are not willing to give the management of their vessels to third party ship management companies. This study will help researchers and ship managers to understand Turkish shipowners’ attitudes towards ship management companies and the root of shipowners’ behaviors about ship management companies. This study makes contributions to the limited literature on ship management and third party ship management by analyzing shipowners’ attitudes towards third party ship management companies in Turkey.