This paper explores the relationships of various cognitive, attitudinal, and behavioural responses of e-discount sales promotion technique preferences consumers have when making purchases through online food delivery services (OFDS). This paper highlights new findings towards expanding e-discount and sales promotion literature and thus provide relevant implications.

Compared to the prevalence of advertising targeted at teens, our understanding of their vulnerability to advertising has been limited due to the cognitive/developmental view adopted by most previous research. However, cognitive development is not the most significant aspect that differentiates adolescents from adults. Adolescence is when teenagers start to take on more responsibility in defining themselves and become more skilled at using consumption to construct and signal their identity. On one hand, teens have a growing desire to express their unique identity as autonomous and distinctive individuals, separate from their family and differentiated from others. On the other hand, they are nearly obsessed with what others think about them, striving to belong to a group and feeling devastated by signs of disapproval from peers. This conflict between the need for assimilation and the need for differentiation is especially pronounced during adolescence when teenagers increasingly seek the approval of their peers while expressing their uniqueness. As a result, their sense of self is in a constant state of flux. This "shaky" self-identity has been shown in previous research to coincide with low self-esteem, which is associated with a high level of materialism.

In the new digital age, the emergence of user-generated content enables consumers to enjoy greater freedom and control over their behavior on the internet and assume more active roles in sharing brand-related information with others. This research examines the role of brand engagement on consumer psychological ownership, purchase intention, electronic word of mouth (eWOM), and consumers’ willingness to defend the brand on social media. The findings provide evidence of consumer psychological process to demonstrate that companies can use social media to engage with consumers, so consumers are likely to spread positive WOM and be protective of the brand. It is important for marketing managers to assess the level of brand engagement on social media sites and develop tools and techniques to increase consumers’ participation such as using subliminal priming on brand image, with an aim to create a close consumer brand relationship.

Despite the recent promising findings on the influence of social media engagement on brand performance outcomes (e.g., De Vries & Carlson, 2014), researchers suggest that consumer engagement in social media sites requires a deeper understanding (Islam & Rahman, 2016). To respond to this call, we conducted this research to examine an important, yet under-researched, question on the underlying mechanism by which consumer engagement on social media drive improved brand performance. In this research, we develop and empirically test a conceptual model to investigate the relationships among consumer engagement, psychological brand ownership, brand loyalty, brand performance, and consumer’s word of mouth (WOM) in the context of social media. The findings suggest that consumer engagement influences brand outcomes through its indirect impact on consumers’ psychological ownership of the brand. When consumers engage themselves with the brand at social media sites, they tend to form bonds with the brand and develop a sense of community, of which they feel they are a part. Feelings of ownership motivate consumers to care for and nurture the growth of the brand, which manifests itself in terms of brand loyalty, positive word of mouth, and improved brand performance. The focus of consumer engagement in social media communities provides convincing evidence to support the benefits of using social media to connect with consumers. This research offers promising insights on how relationship with a brand can help create sense of community and feelings of ownership among consumers, which in turn drives better brand performance.

In this research, we explore the role of interpersonal personalization in brand offerings in engendering the representations of ‘which dimension’ of brand personality (Aaker, 1997) and the subsequent effect on consumer attitude toward and connection with the brand (Fournier, 1998). Experiment 1 reveals that interpersonal personalization is different from customization with unique benefit in developing sincerity in brand personality. It demonstrates the positive effect of personalization on brand attitude through formulation of a sincere brand. Experiment 2 provides empirical evidence that personalization encouraging consumer’s involvement in the product design process allows consumer’s greater engagement with and investment towards the brand, which then manifests favorable brand attitude. The findings of this research offer insights on how brands can take advantage of personalization practice in their product or service offerings to engage consumers, and subsequently develop a close relationship with them. This research makes an important contribution to the brand personality literature through identifying a specific marketing approach (i.e., interpersonal personalization) as an effective strategy in developing a specific type of brand personality (i.e., sincerity). In sum, this research offers new view on how to manage close relationship with consumers, which is a significant practical implication for marketing managers.

On June 27, 2013, the World Intellectual Property Organization adopted the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or otherwise Print Disabled in its efforts to resolve the global book famine of visually impaired persons by providing a series of copyright exceptions that facilitate access of the visually impaired to copyright works. As a member country of the WIPO, China signed but has not ratified the Marrakesh Treaty. However, it is important that China implement the treaty provisions into its copyright law before submitting ratification to the WIPO. Chinese lawmakers are thus advised to incorporate provisions of the Marrakesh Treaty into the national copyright legislations. This article analyzes the reasons for the global book famine of the visually impaired, examines the key provisions in the Marrakesh Treaty, and provides recommendations to incorporate the provisions of the Marrakesh Treaty into the Chinese copyright laws and regulations.

Logistics project scheduling problem in indeterminate environment is gaining more and more attention in recent years. One effective way to cope with indeterminacy is to develop robust baseline schedule. There exist many related researches on building robust schedule in stochastic environment, where historical data is sufficient to learn probability distributions. However, when historical data is not enough, precise estimation on variables may be impossible. This kind of indeterminate environment can be described by uncertainty according to uncertainty theory. Related researches in uncertain environment are sparse. In this paper, our aim is to solve robust project scheduling in uncertain environment. The specific problem is to develop robust schedule with uncertain activity durations for logistics project. To solve the problem, an uncertain model is built and an intelligent algorithm based on simulated annealing is designed. Moreover, we consider a logistics project as a numerical example and illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed model and algorithm.

We adopt the PASTEL catalog combined with SIMBAD radial velocities as a testing standard to validate the stellar parameters (effective temperature Teff , surface gravity log g, metallicity [Fe=H] and radial velocity Vr) from the first data release (DR1) of The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) survey. After applying data reduction and temperature constraints to the sample obtained by cross-identification, we compare the stellar parameters from DR1 and PASTEL. The results show that the DR1 results are reliable under certain conditions. We derive a dispersion of 110 K, 0.19 dex, 0.11 dex and 4.91 kms-1 in specified effective temperature ranges, for Teff , log g, [Fe=H] and Vr respectively. Systematic errors are negligible except for those of Vr. In addition, for stars with PASTEL [Fe=H] < —1.5, the metallicities in DR1 are systematically higher than those in PASTEL.

Hot water soluble extract was prepared from Hericium erinaceus and its neuritogenic activity on PC12h cells was analyzed, which is a clone originating from a rat pheochromocytomon. The moisture content of freeze dried hot water extract was 12.08%. The extract was mainly composed of carbohydrate (51.24%) followed by crude protein (24.04%), crude fat (0.26%), dietary fiber (5.09), and ash (12.18%). Fatty acids, glucan and inorganic constituents were found as minor components. The neuritogenic activity of hot water extract was evaluated under microscopic observation of neurite outgrowth in PC12h cells and by measuring the neurite length of induvidual cell. The extract exhibited strong effect of neurite outgrowth in a dose-dependent manner from 0.01 mg/mL to 1 mg/mL, in which longer neurite outgrowth was observed as the treatment dose increased.

Microthermal fluctuations are introduced by atmospheric turbulence very near the ground. In order to detect microthermal fluctuations at Fuxian Solar Observatory (FSO), a microthermal instrument has been developed. The microthermal instrument consists of a microthermal sensor, which is based on a Wheatstone bridge circuit and uses fine tungsten filaments as resistance temperature detectors, an associated signal processing unit, and a data collection, & communication subsystem. In this paper, after a brief introduction to surface layer seeing, we discuss the instrumentation behind the microthermal detector we have developed and then present the results obtained. The results of the evaluation indicate that the effect of the turbulent surface boundary layer to astronomical seeing would become sufficiently small when installing a telescope at a height of 16m or higher from the ground at FSO.

Two different types of graphite, such as flake graphite (FG) and spherical graphite (SG), were used as anode materials for a lithium-ion secondary battery in order to investigate their electrochemical performance. The FG particles were prepared by pulverizing natural graphite with a planetary mill. The SG particles were treated by immersing them in acid solutions or mixing them with various carbon additives. With a longer milling time, the particle size of the FG decreased. Since smaller particles allow more exposure of the edge planes toward the electrolyte, it could be possible for the FG anodes with longer milling time to deliver high reversible capacity; however, their initial efficiency was found to have decreased. The initial efficiency of SG anodes with acid treatments was about 90%, showing an over 20% higher value than that of FG anodes. With acid treatment, the discharge rate capability and the initial efficiency improved slightly. The electrochemical properties of the SG anodes improved slightly with carbon additives such as acetylene black (AB), Super P, Ketjen black, and carbon nanotubes. Furthermore, the cyclability was much improved due to the effect of the conductive bridge made by carbon additives such as AB and Super P.

The antioxidant activities of the methanol extract from Naematoloma sublateritium ,and its subfractions were assessed: ABTS+-radical-cation scavenging, 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH)-radical scavenging, ferric reducing- and nitrite scavenging activity. The chloroform subfraction exhibited the strongest antioxidant activity except nitrite scavenging activity in which water subfraction showed the highest activity (50% scavenging at 48 mg/ml). The trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) of the chloroform subfraction was 649.40 μ mol/g of sample. This fraction also scavenged DPPH radical by 50% at 406.59 μg/ml. The highest ferric reducing activity was found in same subfraction (299.24 μmol FeSO4• 7H2O/g). Chloroform and ethylacetate fractions exhibited the highest contents of total phenolic compounds, with ferulic acid equivalents of 31.66 and 48.57 mg/g, respectively. The amount of flavonoid was at maximum in chloroform subfraction (18.66mg/g). The level of phenolic compounds may be correlated with the antioxidant activities of the subfractions. Therefore, the phenolic compounds in the subfractions were further identified by mass spectrometry using LC-MS/MS.

Antimicrobial stability of grape seed extract (ActiVinTM), pine bark extract (Pycnogenol®), and oleoresin rosemary (Herbalox®) on the growth of Aeromonas hydrophila was investigated in cooked ground beef. When compared to the control, the populations of A. hydrophila were most effectively reduced by 4.06 log CFU/g for 1% Pycnogenol® added after cooking at 10 days of refrigerated storage, followed by 3.06 log CFU/g for 1% Pycnogenol® added before cooking and 1.36 log CFU/g for ActiVinTM. Bacteriostatic and bactericidal activities were observed for Pycnogenol® added before and after cooking, respectively. Pycnogenol® consists of heat-labile and heat-stable compounds. ActiVinTM and Pycnogenol® could be considered for use as multifunctional preservatives in meat and meat products.

This paper concerned with SPS (spark plasma sintering), hot pressing of sinter nanometer WC-Co powder and discussed the density, hardness, microstructures and grain sizes of the alloys sintered. The results showed that the two sintered techniques could produce high density alloys and play well on the grain growth, but SPS could lower the sintering temperature and shorten sintering time. Besides, the hardness of the sintered cemented alloys that was dependent on the grain size and densification could also be improved.

The surface treatment of C-type isotropic pitch-based carbon fiber was carried out by anodic oxidation in 5 wt% NH4NO3 electrolyte. The changes of fiber surface and carbon fiber/ABS resin composites were characterized by SEM, XPS and mechanical properties test. The oxygen functional groups on the surface, such as hydroxyl (-C-OH), carboxyl (-COOH) groups etc., increased after oxidation. Tensile strength, flexural strength and modulus of carbon fiber/ABS composites were also enhanced. However, the impact strength decreased with the improvement of the surface adhesion between CF and matrix.

Seaweeds are received high attending as one of new and renewable energy sources. In this study, the effects of organic loading rate (OLR) and hydraulic retention time (HRT) on anaerobic digestion with Laminaria japonica were investigated using labrotory-scale semi-continuous stirred type reactors. The results demonstrated that anaerobic digestion of Laminaria japonica performed stably with OLRs in the range of 1.00 ~ 1.50 g-VS/L⋅d and HRTs in the range of 27 ~ 40 days. The maximum methane production obtained was 251.33 mL-CH4/L⋅d, which was achieved for an OLR of 1.50 g-VS/L⋅d and a HRT of 27 days. However, an OLR of 1.75 g-VS/L⋅d and a HRT of 23 days brought about a decrease in the pH and volatile fatty acids (VFAs) accumulation, causing the destabilization of the reactor and process failure. The reactors operated at a constant influent substrate concentration, i.e., 40 g-VS/L, thus OLR and HRT could not be treated separately and independently. According to the limited results of this study, it seems that the suitable OLR of anaerobic digestion of Laminaria japonica was lower than 1.50 g-VS/L⋅d and suitable HRT was higher than 27 days.