The Chinese toxic milk scandal raised tremendous global concerns about food safety in China. To repair the tarnished reputation of domestic food production, Chinese authorities focused on compulsory food safety liability insurance. Unfortunately, the introduction of compulsory food safety liability insurance in the Food Safety Law of the PRC has been delayed by the disagreements of Chinese legal scholars. Chinese legal scholars have examined the legitimacy of compulsory food safety liability insurance in China mainly from the standpoint of domestic laws. The valuable insight of international laws has been ignored by them. This article attempts to fill this research gap by scrutinizing the Chinese endeavor of launching compulsory food safety liability insurance through the joint perspective of public and private international law. It further demonstrates that the ideology of human rights of public international law has already penetrated into the body of broadly-interpreted private international law.

The quality of customer service has been one of the most representative determinants of retailers’ sustainable competitiveness. Since Parasuraman et al. (1988) introduced the service quality instrument, called SERVQUAL, many studies have used SERVQUAL to measure service quality in various domains. However, since SERVQUAL was originally developed to measure general service quality, it didn’t fully consider the underlying characteristics of a specific industry such as retailing. Recently, as retail industry is becoming more competitive, there is a general agreement that the most important retailing strategy for creating competitive advantage is the delivery of high service quality. From the retail manager’s perspective, the level of service quality is highly correlated with the level of customer loyalty and the customer’s favorable word-of-mouth behavior. In this sense, most retail managers would be very interested in the question of how to increase their customer loyalty rate and, therefore, to elaborate this question in more detail, service quality study in a retail setting would be very important. Current measures of service quality, including SERVQUAL, do not adequately capture customers’ perceptions of service quality for retail stores such as department stores or general discount stores. The main objective of this study is to investigate the usefulness and applicability of the different methods, including SERVQUAL, in measuring the service quality of retail environment and their relationships to customer loyalty and word-of-mouth behavior. By exploring the suitability of each different measurement method for retail service quality, this study enhances the understanding of the major dimensions of retail service quality and the analysis of the effect of service quality on customer loyalty and word-of-mouth behavior.

Brand communities have been increasingly used by marketers to build brands. A brand community can be defined as a “…group of consumers with a shared enthusiasm for the brand and a well-developed social identity, whose members engage jointly in group actions to accomplish collective goals and/or express mutual sentiments and commitments” (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006, p. 45). Recent research on brand communities has begun to identify the importance of consumers’ psychological processes in regard to developing successful brand communities. Based on the flow theory from positive psychology, we propose that flow could be generated by brand community characteristics and plays an important role in influencing brand community members’ attitudes toward the brand. Specifically, we propose a model that identifies brand community characteristics (i.e., community cohesiveness and information quality) that produce flow experience and how the flow experience impacts brand identification and brand loyalty. Members from 31 automobile brand communities participated in this survey study, and 580 validated questionnaires were returned. Structural Equation Model was used to test the research hypotheses. The results show that community cohesiveness and information quality positively directly influence brand identification and also indirectly influence brand identification via flow. Flow also positively influences members’ brand identification and, subsequently, impacts brand loyalty. The results from our research contribute to the branding, brand community, and flow theory literature.

Consumers use their five senses to experience and evaluate products, especially visual sense. According to the previous psychological studies, they purpose that there are two opposite effects when consumer encounters a serial trail process. The two order effects are primacy effect and recency effect. When consumers are selecting items and considering which one is more favorable, they are starting to recall what experiences they just gone through. If they clearly recall what they firstly experienced than the following ones, the effect is primacy. Conversely, recency effect, which has the opposite direction, comes out when the data in the memories are decaying over the time. Despite of product presenting order, consumers rely on other cues before evaluating products. This study purposed that country of origin or so-called brand of origin is a critical determinant of making choice. Experiments were developed to test country of origin effect when participants sampled the item in a sequence. Other possible variables which affect choice were controlled in this study. The study examined order effects and the moderating effect of country of origin of sampling a sequence of products with similar visual cue and dissimilar visual cue on preference. The study used crystal glasses and let participants see them sequentially. The study aimed (a) to investigate the primacy effect and recency effect in the (dis)similar visual cue scenario, and (b) to investigate COO effect moderates the route between order effects and consumer preference. The study conducted four experimental studies. The data were collected from Taiwanese aged 22 in average. In the pretest, the study adopted one-way ANOVA to choose the experimental items and country of origin. The study also adopted one-sample T-test to examine participants’ preference orientation in the main test. The result showed that: 1. the appearance of the product did not affect preference, but order effects did have an impact on preference;2. primacy effect would be strengthened or weakened according to different country of origin labeling on the products. Participants mostly preferred the product from a relatively high image country no matter the item is presented firstly or secondly. Findings contribute to marketers to develop positive impression on certain products by the appropriate product display under the influence of country of origin effect.

neighbors separated by a narrow strip of water, China and Japan have periodic rises and falls in their diplomatic relationship, but there are many things the two countries share in common. China experienced great social upheaval and Japan went through World War II, but despite these different historical traumas, both resolved to assign priority to economic development. Yet how will the dramatic social changes and the fading away of tradition affect the Chinese and Japanese people, especially the thought and values of their young people. Amid dramatic social changes and turbulence in values, what are the characteristics of their young people’s attitudes and behavior? Focusing on such problems, the author of this paper spent four years carrying out indepth investigations and research on college students’ understanding of nature, ecological and environmental issues, etc. The college students in this study came from nearly 20 universities in Japan and 20 universities in China. This paper will undertake a detailed comparative analysis of the ideological and value orientations of young people in China and Japan.

Carbon source, an essential nutrient for plant growth, mainly includes exogenous sugar and CO2 of the environment in vitro. Therefore, the exogenous sugar and CO2 of the environment make the important roles in tissue culture. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of different sugar concentrations (0, 10, 15 and 30 g·L-1) on the growth of colored Zantedeschia in vitro under certain CO2 concentration and explore the optimal sugar concentration. The plantlets in vitro of colored Zantedeschia had the largest root number, root weight, and root vigor under 0 g·L-1 (sugar-free culture) treatment. And they had the largest plant height, leaf length and leaf chlorophyll content, but p oor r oot v igor under 3 0 g·L-1 sugar. This study indicated that the optimal condition for proliferation and seedling culture of colored Zantedeschia plantlets in vitro was MS medium with 30 g·L-1 sugar, and the suitable medium for rooting culture and transplanting of colored Zantedeschia was MS medium with sugar-free culture under CO2 enrichment condition.

Browning is one of the key factors that influenced the callus subculture of tree peony (Paeonia suffruticosa Andr.). Effects of medium composition and exogenous hormones: macro elements of Murashige and Skoog (MS salts) and iron salt (Fe2+), pH, agar and 6-benzylaminopurine (6-BA), 1-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) and kinetin (KT) on the callus browning of P. suffruticosa ‘Shan Hu Tai’ in vitro were studied in this paper. Results showed that the browning of P. suffruticosa callus were more sensitive to KT than 6-BA in different concentrations of 6-BA and KT separately with different concentrations of NAA, and reduced to the lowest (13.3%) under 0.5 mg·L-1 NAA plus 0.3 mg·L-1 KT. 1/4 × MS plus 1/4 × Fe2+ was the best basic medium in which the browning rate was only 18.2%. The browning rate of the callus was the lowest of 4.0% under pH 6.5 and the callus grew better in 7.0 g·L-1 agar than others. This study indicated that the best medium preventing P. suffruticosa callus in vitro from browning was: 1/4 × MS medium supplemented with 6.95 mg·L-1Fe2+, 0.3 mg·L-1 KT, 0.5 mg·L-1 NAA, 6.0 g·L-1 agar and 30 g·L-1 sucrose in pH 6.5.

In the present study, the plantlets in vitro of Paeonia suffruticosa ‘Wu Long Peng Sheng’ were used as laboratory materials. The proteome during adventitious root induction process was investigated to sift the related proteins by two-dimensional electrophoresis and mass spectrometry. The results indicated that the protein spots were concentrated in the acidity gel region (pH 4 - 7) and the spots number had a dynamic change ranged from 373 to 462 at the process of root induction (0 – 7 d). 8 spots significantly changed were analyzed with a mass spectrometer and identified using associated software and databases. The peptide information of the 8 spots was similar to the ATP synthase β-subunit of P. suffruticosa (Spots 1 - 4 and 8), P. tenuifolia (Spots 5), P. californica (Spot 6) and P. brownie ( Spots 7) r espectiv ely. T he expression levels of protein spots 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7 was dramatically downregulated, and that of protein spots 2 and 3 had a slightly opposite tendency on the 3rd day. The obviously decreased period is particularly interesting as it was consistent with the induction period of adventitious root primordial of tree peony plantlet in vitro. The ATP synthase β-subunit could be consumed for assembling the ATP synthase in order to supply energy to the rooting process. Therefore, we speculated that the ATP synthase β-subunit was involved in adventitious root initiation of tree peony plantlets in vitro and we expect that further studies should be carried out in order to export its action mechanism.

4U 1323-62, a low mass X-ray binary with an orbital period of 2.94 hr, exhibits periodic X-ray dips, which are due to absorption by the bulge of the outer accretion disk. The purpose of this study is to search for orbital period changes using archived X-ray data over a time span of 20 years. We present our preliminary results from analyzing light curves observed by RXTE, BeppoSAX, XMM-Newton and Suzaku. We used the method proposed by Hu et al. (2008) to estimate dip center time and adopted the Observed - Calculated method to measure changes in period. We obtained an orbital period of 2.941917(36) hr and a period derivative of _Porb=Porb = (-9.9 ± 3.5) X 10-7yr-1. The F-test result shows that the quadratic ephemeris is describes the evolution of the dip phases better than the linear ephemeris at a greater than 95% confidence level. More X-ray data collected from the early 80s will be included to further rfine the orbital ephemeris.

After the catastrophic financial crisis in of 2008, a significant portion of the legal academia in the globe has started to concentrate on the interrelationship between law, financial stability and economic development. Through reviewing the voluminous literature in this field, it is figured out that the scope of law has been largely confined to strengthening regulation of the pre-crisis unbundled derivative transactions and enhancing cooperation among sovereign States by making formal sources of international law. Few discussions have been made to scrutinize the existing regulatory structures for the domestic financial markets of sovereign countries and demonstrate the potential possessed by informal international law in reinforcing the efficacy of these regulatory structures. By comparing the financial regulatory structures in Hong Kong, Mainland China, the UK and the US and the core principles of the BIS, the IOSCO and the IAIS, this article attempts to fill in the above research gap to some extent.

Introduction Driven by the rapidly evolving media landscape, firms extensively use social media to engage with their customers (Avery et al., 2010). Today, social media is an integral part of an individual’s daily life, which makes a vital venue through which companies connect with customers (Men & Tsai, 2011; Utz, 2009). Given the increased use of social media, recent studies have investigated how social media cultivates customer relationships with celebrities and/or media personalities (e.g., Smith, 2010). In light of the effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool, it is noteworthy to analyze the source power of celebrities and social relationships and consider how to take advantage of the power. The parasocial relationship is founded upon the communication process, which is an important factor in understanding the relationship between media and users. Parasocial relationships differ according to the motives for using social network service (SNS), while connection and attachment to celebrities, such as having empathy for a particular celebrity, is affected by celebrity source credibility. (Ohanian, 1990). The purpose of this study is to clarify the relation between parasocial relationships and customer equity in the social media context. The study investigates effects of motivations to use SNS and source credibility on parasocial relationships, as well as the effects of parasocial relationships on attitude and customer equity, and customer lifetime value. Theoretical Frameworks In this study, parasocial relationship refers to a virtual intimacy between a media personality and the media users, in other words, it is a psychological, interpersonal relationship unilaterally formed by users based on proximity, similarity, and attraction to the media personalities (Rubin & Step, 2000). When a parasocial relationship is formed, the media consumer appreciates the values and motives of the media character, often viewing him or her as a counselor, comforter, and model (Horton & Wohl, 1956). When using an SNS, users’ communication habits and their selection of social network services vary according to their motives, which in turn affect the parasocial relationships with celebrities via SNS. Motives for using SNS, specifically, information seeking, entertainment, and social connection may have a positive relationship with parasocial relationships. Source credibility, the positive characteristics of a communicator that affect the receiver’s acceptance of a message, positively influences parasocial relationships (Ohanian, 1990; McCracken, 1989) based on expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness of the media celebrities. In the social media context, a parasocial relationship has positive influence on attitude toward using an SNS. Social media users engage in finding people with whom they have an offline connection (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007). Social media enables individuals to connect with others all around the world easily, it is not surprising that parasocial relationships influence users’ attitude toward using social media, offering environments to enhance connections (Byod & Ellison, 2008). Further, it is worthwhile to note that parasocial relationships may have a positive influence on customer equity. The key to customer equity lies in understanding the customer lifetime value concept, which refers to the net present value of a customer’s profit stream (Rust, Lemon, & Zeithaml, 2004). Parasocial relationships positively influence brand, value and relationship equity, with the emergence of brands as one of the key organizational assets (Gummesson, 2004). Parasocial relationships explain relationships between individuals and brands, product, symbols, objects, and corporate identities. Such relationships allow individuals to have bonds with brands, trademarks and other symbols, politicians, sportsmen or even actors (Gummesson, 2004). Thus, they positively influence customer equity including brand equity, value equity, and relationship equity. Focused on effects of motivations to use SNS and source credibility on parasocial relationship as well as the effects of parasocial relationship on attitude, customer equity, and customer lifetime value, this study tests the following hypotheses: H1: Motivations to use SNS will have a positive influence on parasocial relationship. H2: Source credibility will have a positive influence on parasocial relationship. H3: Parasocial relationship will have a positive influence on attitude toward using SNS. H4: Attitude toward using SNS will have a positive influence on customer equity. H5: Parasocial relationship will have a positive influence on customer equity. Methods This study used a survey to investigate key questions about the associations between parasocial relationships and customer equity. A total of 350 social media users recruited from Hong Kong and Macau in China participated in the survey. Of the 350 participants, 129 were men (36.9%) and 221 were women (63.1%), with ages ranging from 21 and 35 years old (mean = 25.6 years). This study measured motivations for using SNS on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 7 = strongly agree), which was adapted from an existing motivation scale (Leung, 2009; Leung & Wei, 1998; Sheldon 2008). To measure source credibility, this study used a five-point Likert scale, which was also adapted from an existing source credibility scale (Eisend & Langner, 2010; Priester & Petty 2003). Parasocial relationships were measured on the basis of user responses to 17 items on an existing five-point scale that assessed parasocial relationships (Koeppel et al., 1993). This study measured attitude toward using SNS through an existing scale (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003). Customer equity was measured using an existing five-point scale (Keller, 2003; Rust et al., 2004) that elicited user responses to 13 items. Customer lifetime value (CLV) was calculated only for the customers in the sample, and CLVs were calculated separately before the average was taken by using the equation below: The CLVij of customer i to brand j, is given as: Tij= Frequency of purchases by customer i for a specific period of time dj= The rate of discount offered by company j fi= Annual average frequency of purchases by customer i for a certain period of time Vijt= The amount of purchase of brand j by customer i for a period of time t πijt= Expected profits by purchase unit of brand j by customer i for a period of time t Bijt= Probability that customer i buys brand j in purchase t Results The overall goodness-of-fit for this measurement model was acceptable (Chi-square = 8.218, df = 5, p = 0.145, GFI = 0.992, CFI = 0.991, RMR = 0.095, RMSEA = 0.043). The reliability coefficients of all 20 motivation measures were 0.885, and they were based on three factors of information seeking, entertainment, and building relationships. The reliability coefficients of all 16 source credibility measures were 0.924 with three factors of attractiveness, expertise, and trustworthiness. The reliability coefficients of all 17 parasocial relationship measures were 0.866 with three factors: proximity, similarity, and attachments. The reliability coefficients of all 13 customer equity measures were 0.838 with three factors of value equity, brand equity, and relationship equity. Cronbach’s alpha for attitude was 0.792. The coefficients indicate the acceptable reliability of the measures. Motivations to use SNS showed statistically positive effects on parasocial relationship (β = 0.151, p < 0.001). Specifically, entertainment (β = 0.148, p < 0.01) and building relationships (β = 0.093, p < 0.05) motivations showed significant positive effects on parasocial relationships while information seeking motivation did not show significant effects on parasocial relationships (β = 0.074). Source credibility showed statistically positive effects on parasocial relationship (β = 0.316, p < 0.001). Thus, the results supported H1 and H2. Parasocial relationships showed statistically positive effects on attitude (β = 0.295, p < 0.001) and customer equity (β = 0.272, p < 0.001). Attitude showed statistically positive effects on customer equity (β = 0.172, p < 0.001). Thus, the results supported H3 and H4. Customer equity showed statistically positive effects on customer lifetime value (β = 3.452, p < 0.001). Thus, the results supported H5 (see Table 1, Figure 1). Discussion This study contributes to clarifying parasocial relationships in the social media context and determining the relationships between parasocial relationship and customer equity. This study contributes to the theoretical foundation and implications of parasocial relationships and customer equity. Specifically, motivations to use SNS and source credibility positively influence parasocial relationship. Parasocial relationships have positive effects on attitude and customer equity. Customer equity, in turn, has positive effects on customer lifetime value. The study is the first of its kind on the effects of parasocial relationships on customer equity in the social media context. The study finds that motivations and source credibility are important antecedents of consumers’ parasocial relationships formed via social media. Parasocial relationships have a positive effect on attitude and customer equity, and customer equity leads to increased customer lifetime value. This study suggests that parasocial relationship is one of the strong influential variables on customer equity as it improves customer lifetime value. Thus, marketers should definitely consider parasocial relationship management in the social media context while tailoring their brand communications to their most profitable customers and enhance their customer lifetime value.

This study researched the relationship between the element of "Favorable and Friendly" emotion on product design and the consumer's reaction to it. The emotional elements used here were proposed in the existing study. The research method was divided into 1st test and 2nd test. In the 1st test result, Favorable was related to "want to own, simple, new product and high-class", and also connected with "digital product, gaming product and computers". The products related to Friendly had association with the items about "interesting, cute, familiar, warmth and soft", and also connected with "simple product (toylike, household items, etc), low-price product, product which likes a friend, soft product, kitchen product and beauty treatments product, and so on". In the 2nd test, the preference of emotional product was high than general product, and it was known from the evaluation about design preference and design elements. If the preference was high following the order as: "Formativeness> Trend> Aesthetics> Color", the difference among the scores were small. And then the result about the relationship of emotional design factor "Favorable & Friendly" and evaluation of design preference & design elements was extraction.

본 논문에서는 현재 대만이 추진하고 있는 핵심 교육정책에 대해 다루고 있으며, 그 정책은 (1) 12년 의무교육, (2) 기술·직업 교육 개혁 방안, (3) 통합 유치원, 유아원 정책, (4) 대학 설립 및 폐교 기준 (5) 대학들의 국제적 명성 획득 전략 등으로 대표 된다. 이러한 교육 정책 실행 후 기대되는 효과로는 (1) 사회적 혜택을 받지 못하는 학생들을 위한 보조금 지급, (2) 출생률 저하에 따른 재능 교육 책정, (3) 고등교육의 국제화, (4) 교육-직업 간의 부조화 격차 감소가 있다. 또한 대만 정부는 APEC회원들과의 민간 및 공공 부문의 협조를 통하여 교육정책 효과 를 극대화하고자 하는 목표를 가지고 있다. 그리고 ‘지역 경제 통합’과 ‘녹색 성장’이라는 주제로 APEC에 국가 간 교육적 협력을 강화하기 위하여 다양한 제안을 성명하고 있다.

The objective of this experiment was to evaluate growth performance in dairy goats (Saanen) fed total mixed ration (TMR) of different nutrition levels. Twenty four growing female goats of 8 months of age were randomly assigned to one of four TMRs; low energy-low crude protein (CP) TMR (control), high energy-low CP TMR (T1), low energy-high CP TMR (T3) and high energy-high CP TMR (T4). The content of total digestible nutrients (TDN) and CP in the control diet were 64% and 12%. The TDN content of the high energy TMR was 72% and the CP content of the high CP TMR was 14%. Feed intakes were 1,194g, 1,060g and 1,124g for T1, T2 and T3, respectively, being higher than control (1,039g). Average daily gain was also numerically higher for T1 (170.2g), T2 (114.5g) and T3 (154.9g) than for control (109.0g). The difference of average daily gain between T1 and control was statistically significant (P＜0.05). Although there were no significant differences in feed intake (% of body weight) between treatments, feed conversion ratios showed different responses; T1 (7.01) and T3 (7.26) being higher than T2 (9.26) and control (9.53). The increases of heart girth were 11.8㎝, 10.0㎝ and 11.4㎝ for T1, T2 and T3, respectively, being higher than control (8.1㎝).

The photosynthetic characteristics and water use of WL323MF at 3 irrigation treatments (60㎜, 40㎜ and 20㎜ water were applied at the regeneration period and after mowing, respectively) were studied in Beijing's farmland. The results showed t㏊t there are the diurnal change with "M" shape in the Pn, Tr and Gs of WL323MF and there are the positive corresponding relationship between the ㏊y yield and the water consumption, the WUE. About 60㎜ of irrigation could get about 532.74㎜ of the water consumption and 17925.28㎏/㏊ of alfalfa hay, about 20㎜ only could get about 389.60㎜ of the water consumption and 10450.75㎏/㏊ of alfalfa hay.

The situation, problems and models of forage production and industrialization in Beijing were analyzed, and the strategies were pointed out including: (1) The suitable planting areas for alfalfa, silage com and rye etc should be defined systemically, and the rational harvest time and dry skills should be set up in Beijing plain areas. (2) The perennial forage crops with higher drought resistance should be planted in the waste slope land and barren land. (3) The interplant forage crops in the woodland and orchard should be generalized.