The Covid-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented crises to societies and economies around the world and has brought drastic changes in the way consumers behave. Fashion business is one of the industries that has been significantly affected by Covid-19 as many consumers reduced their discretionary spending during the pandemic. While the world is entering the post-pandemic era and recovering from the pandemic, it is important to uncover and reflect on the reasons behind varying patterns of consumers’ coping behaviors associated with fashion shopping. However, current research on consumer fashion behavior during the pandemic primarily focuses on a particular type of shopping behavior, without addressing varying patterns of fashion consumption behaviors. In addition, most of these studies attributed such changes in behaviors to motivations toward protection against health-adverse threats based on the Protection Motivation Theory, which mostly focuses on protective behaviors and has limited power in understanding varying internal reasons toward various coping behaviors. Considering the varying adaptive and maladaptive patterns of fashion consumption behaviors observed in the market, it is important to address the psychological mechanism behind varying adaptive and maladaptive patterns of fashion consumption behaviors. Thus, drawing from the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework, this study aims to investigate how cognitive appraisal of threats affects the affective/emotional state of consumers and consequently their intention to engage in various coping behaviors in the context of fashion shopping. Specifically, this study aims to investigate how individuals’ cognitive appraisals on risks and uncertainty induce varying emotional feelings (i.e., fear, anxiety, and hope), which further leads to their decisions to engage in problem vs. emotion-focused coping through fashion shopping during the pandemic.

Extant studies assessing determinants of peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation prices have mainly focused on individual listing-level analysis, with a less attention to inter-regional dynamics between cooperation and competition. While Airbnb has announced how to set a pricing strategy tool called “smart pricing” to help hosts gauge rental rates, many hosts find that its suggesting prices are too low, failing to offer a robust picture of their destination market (Jiang et al., 2022). This calls for a research on how P2P accommodation hosts can benefit from coopetitive pricing strategy – a hybrid behavior of cooperation and competition that occurs among hosts or regions (Chim-Miki & Batista-Canino, 2018).

In most mammals, metaphase II (MII) oocytes having high maturation promoting factor (MPF) activity have been considered as good oocytes and then used for assisted reproductive technologies including somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Caffeine increases MPF activity in mammalian oocytes by inhibiting p34cdc2 phosphorylation. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of caffeine treatment during in Vitro maturation (IVM) on oocyte maturation and embryonic development after SCNT in pigs. To this end, morphologically good (MGCOCs) and poor oocytes (MPCOCs) based on the thickness of cumulus cell layer were untreated or treated with 2.5 mM caffeine during 22-42, 34-42, or 38-42 h of IVM according to the experimental design. Caffeine treatment for 20 h during 22-42 h of IVM significantly inhibited nuclear maturation compared to no treatment. Blastocyst formation of SCNT embryos was not influenced by the caffeine treatment during 38-42 h of IVM in MGCOCs (41.1-42.1%) but was significantly improved in MPCOCs compared to no treatment (43.4 vs. 30.1%, P<0.05). No significant effects of caffeine treatment was observed in embryo cleavage (78.7-88.0%) and mean cell number in blastocyst (38.7-43.5 cells). The MPF activity of MII oocytes in terms of p34cdc2 kinase activity was not influenced by the caffeine treatment in MGCOCs (160.4 vs. 194.3 pg/ml) but significantly increased in MPCOCs (133.9 vs. 204.8 pg/ml). Our results demonstrate that caffeine treatment during 38-42 h of IVM improves developmental competence of SCNT embryos derived from MPCOCs by influencing cytoplasmic maturation including increased MPF activity in IVM oocytes in pigs.

Oocytes from small antral follicles (< 3 mm in diameter; SAFO) show lower developmental competence compared to those from medium antral follicles (3-8 mm in diameter; MAFO) in pigs. This study was designed to evaluate the effect of various macromolecules such as fetal bovine serum (FBS), porcine follicular fluid (PFF), bovine serum albumin (BSA) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) in in vitro growth (IVG) medium on oocyte growth, maturation, and embryonic development after parthenogenesis (PA). The base medium for IVG was α-MEM supplemented with dibutyryl cyclic AMP, pyruvate, kanamycin, hormone. This medium was further supplemented with 10% FBS, 10% PFF, 0.4% BSA, or 0.1% PVA. The in vitro maturation (IVM) medium was medium-199 supplemented with 10% PFF, cysteine, pyruvate, epidermal growth factor, kanamycin, insulin, and hormones. SAFO were cultured for 2 days for IVG and then cultured for 44 h for IVM. After IVG, the mean diameter of SAFO treated with FBS, PVA, and no IVG-MAFO (114.1, 113.0, and 114.8 μm, respectively) was significantly larger (P<0.01) than that of no IVG-SAF (111.8 μm). Oocyte diameter after IVM was greater (P<0.01) in SAFO treated with FBS, BSA and PVA (112.8, 112.9 and 112.6 μm, respectively) than other groups (110.4, 109.6, and 109.8 μm for no IVG-MAFO, no IVG-SAFO and PFF, respectively). Intraoocyte GSH content was not influenced by the macromolecules in IVG medium (0.92, 0.93, 1.05, and 1.12 pixels/oocyte for FBS, PFF, BSA and PVA, respectively). The proportion of oocytes reached the metaphase II stage was higher in PFF (73.6%) than in BSA (43.5%) and PVA (53.7%) but not different from that of FBS treatment (61.5%). The cumulus expansion score of oocytes after IVG was significantly influenced (P<0.01) by the macromolecules (2.94, 2.24, 1.84, and 1.38 for PFF, FBS, PVA, and BSA treatments, respectively). Blastocyst formation of PA oocytes that were treated with FBS (51.8%), PFF (50.4%), and PVA (45.2%) during IVG was higher (P<0.05) than that of BSA-treated oocytes (20.6%) but was not significantly different from that (54.8%) of no IVG-MAFO oocytes. Our results demonstrated that growth, maturation, and embryonic development of SAFO are greatly influenced by macromolecules in IVG medium and that PFF or FBS can be replaced with a chemically defined synthetic macromolecule PVA.

This study was designed to evaluate the effect of bovine serum albumin (BSA) in a maturation medium on oocyte maturation and embryonic development in pigs. Immature pig oocytes were matured for 44 h in a medium supplemented with 0.4% (w/v) BSA, 0.1% (w/v) polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), or 10% (v/v) pig follicular fluid (PFF). After IVM, oocytes reached metaphase II stage were activated for parthenogenesis (PA) or used as cytoplasts for somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). Nuclear maturation (89.5%, 90.7% and 91.3% for BSA, PVA and PFF, respectively) and intraoocyte glutathione contents (1.20, 1.16 and 1.00 pixels/oocyte for BSA, PVA and PFF, respectively) were not altered by the macromolecules added to maturation medium. IVM of oocytes in a medium containing BSA (21.4%) and PVA (20.7%) showed significantly lower blastocyst formation after PA than culture in medium with PFF (39.2%). After SCNT, oocytes matured in medium with BSA showed decreased embryonic development to the blastocyst stage (9.2%) compared to those matured in medium with PFF (28.9%), while 23.6% of SCNT oocytes matured in medium with PVA developed to the blastocyst stage. When the effect of BSA in a maturation medium during the first 22 h and the second 22 h of IVM in combination with PFF or PVA was examined, PVA-BSA showed a higher nuclear maturation (94.1%) than BSA-PFF (84.5%). However, there was no significant difference in the blastocyst formation among tested combinations (47.3, 52.2, 50.0, 44.4 and 49.0% for PFF-PFF, PFF-BSA, PVA-BSA, BSA-PVA and BSA-PFF, respectively). Our results demonstrate that BSA and PVA added to maturation medium can support oocyte maturation comparable to PFF-supplemented medium. However, maturation of oocytes in a BSA-containing medium decreases embryonic development after PA and SCNT when compared with the medium supplemented with PFF.

Plodia interpunctella, Indianmeal moth, is world-widely distributed pest in stored and manufactured agricultural products. Practically, this species seriously damaged by the infestation of most stored and manufactured agricultural products. It is necessary to find useful techniques for the control of stored-product pests insects including P. interpunctella. Recently, heating at 55℃ for 48 h can be practically used to disinfest stored-product insects in the filed of manufactures. To improve efficiency of this technique we conducted combination treatments with heat and diatomaceous earth. At room temperature, wandering larvae, which is most tolerant developmental stage to heat, were not dead regardless of diatomaceous earth (4 mg/L) treatment within 24 h. However, incubation at 40℃, all the larvae were dead with diatomaceous earth treatment while its mortality was 28% without diatomaceous earth treatment. Thus, heating effects was significantly improved by the combined treatments of diatomaceous earth. This effect was increased when temperature was higher and the exposed time is longer. Our results clearly showed that the combined treatments of both heat and diatomaceous earth showed synergistic effects for the control of P. interpunctella.

본 연구에서는 DSM을 이용하여 단백질 추출이나 정제 없이 식품에 적용 가능성이 있는 가식성 필름을 개발하였다. HPH 처리는 표면이 매끄럽고 균일한 형태의 필름을 형성시켰고, 필름의 WVP값을 감소시켜 수분 방벽 효과를 높였다. 필름 내 글리세롤 농도 증가는 WVP값을 전반적으로 높였다. 농산물 가공 부산물인 DSM으로 제작된 가식성 필름은 새로운 식품 소재로서 상업적 적용 가능성을 보여주었다.