Search results for " business."
showing 10 items of 5380 documents
Role of MUC4 in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
2019
Background: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic, progressive and irreversible form of fibrotic intersticial lung disease, characterized by uncontrolled fibroblast proliferative processes and alveolar type II epithelial dysfunction. MUC4, a multi-domain transmembrane glycoprotein, is often overexpressed in epithelial cancers, with consequences for the biological properties, involved in cellular processes related to IPF. However, the role of MUC4 in IPF has not beet studied yet. Objective: To analyze the implication of MUC4 in IPF Methods: Lung tissue from 14 healthy and 14 IPF patients was obtained. MUC4 expression was analyzed by western blot, RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry. T…
Consumers' willingness to pay for natural food: Evidence from an artefactual field experiment
2018
Abstract Among foods with credence attributes, food with “natural” components have received in the last years particular attention by consumers. This study applies the BDM incentive compatible mechanism to explore young (18–35 years old) consumers’ interest and willingness to pay for chewing gums having the natural attribute. Our analysis shows that over 68% of consumers are interested in the natural attribute and are willing to pay a price premium. We also find that consumers’ higher age and interest in the environment have significant impacts on consumers’ preferences for the natural attribute.
Are children more paternalistic than their mothers when choosing snacks?
2016
International audience; This paper focuses on an experiment in which mothers and their child separately chose between relatively healthy foods (flasks of stewed apples) and relatively unhealthy foods (candy bars). Each participant first filled up a first bag for her/himself, and then, a second one for the other person of the dyad. A simple nutritional message on vitamins and sugar contents of foods was then provided, and subsequently each participant filled up a third bag for her/himself and a fourth one for the other person of the dyad. The results show that before revealing the nutritional message, mothers are, on average, "indulgent", which means that they choose a lower number of relati…
Predictive shelf life model based on RF technology for improving the management of food supply chain: A case study
2016
The aim of this paper was the development of a Smart Logistic Unit (SLU) based on RF technology to support the management of the food supply chain, in order to guarantee the shelf life of products in agreement with logistic efficiency and system sustainability. For this purpose, the main parameters that influence the quality of perishable products were determined and a shelf life equation based on Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) was modelled. The levels of VOCs were gathered by the sensors allocated inside the SLU, which configures as the remote element of a system for identification and data transmission. The proposed model was then validated through an experimental test, simulating the …
Health/Nutrition food claims and low-fat food purchase: Projected personality influence in young consumers
2017
Abstract Health/nutrition food claims are increasingly used in the food industry but firms still require deeper research to develop a better understanding of consumers in the low-fat food market. In pursuit of this goal, this paper analyses the influence of projected consumer personality on healthy claim credibility, Perceived product health, physical appearance and its repercussion on attitudes (overall attitude to the product) and behaviours (purchase intention). With a sample of 300 young consumers (15–25 years old) and through PLS techniques, our results show that project personality influences the credibility of claims about healthiness and physical appearance. Both concepts play a sig…
Designing food packaging for the Spanish market: Do motivations differ between involved and non-involved adolescents?
2018
Abstract This paper investigates the relationships among food choice motivations and the relevance of packaging elements (visual and informative elements) in the adolescent market. In addition, these relationships are re-tested in two different frameworks: high-involved consumers and low-involved consumers. 590 young consumers between 13 and 17 years were interviewed at the door of their public or private schools. Structural Modelling was used to test our hypotheses. The first analysis was done considering the global sample. The second one split off the sample into two groups: 351 high-involved adolescents and 239 low-involved adolescents. Our results showed, on one side, that weight contro…
Coupling News Sentiment with Web Browsing Data Improves Prediction of Intra-Day Price Dynamics
2015
The new digital revolution of big data is deeply changing our capability of understanding society and forecasting the outcome of many social and economic systems. Unfortunately, information can be very heterogeneous in the importance, relevance, and surprise it conveys, affecting severely the predictive power of semantic and statistical methods. Here we show that the aggregation of web users' behavior can be elicited to overcome this problem in a hard to predict complex system, namely the financial market. Specifically, our in-sample analysis shows that the combined use of sentiment analysis of news and browsing activity of users of Yahoo! Finance greatly helps forecasting intra-day and dai…
Sweet taste of prosocial status signaling: When eating organic foods makes you happy and hopeful.
2018
As the current research suggests that there are links between prosocial acts and status signaling (including sustainable consumer choices), we empirically study (with three experiments) whether food consumers go green to be seen. First, we examine how activating a motive for status influences prosocial organic food preferences. Then, we examine how the social visibility of the choice (private vs. public) affects these preferences. We found that when consumers' desire for status was elicited, they preferred organic food products significantly over their nonorganic counterparts; making the choice situation visible created the same effect. Finally, we go beyond consumers' evaluative and behavi…
Portion size selection in children: Effect of sensory imagery for snacks varying in energy density
2020
Food sensory imagery - creating a vivid mental image of the sensory experience of eating - can lead to the selection of smaller portions because it serves as a reminder that eating enjoyment does not necessarily increase with portion size. The evidence is mostly limited to adults and to energy-dense foods for which it is particularly difficult to predict the satiating effects of consumption quantity. The objective was to study how food sensory imagery influences portion size selection of foods varying in energy density (brownie and applesauce) by 7- to 11-year-old children. During after-school time, 171 children were randomized into two conditions. Children in the food sensory imagery condi…
Consumer attitudes in the election of functional foods
2017
In recent years, the rise of functional foods has played a key role in healthy habits, due to growing consumer concern about health and the perception that diet directly affects healthiness. The objective of this work is to study how consumer attitudes influence the choice and consumption of functional foods in Spain. For this purpose, a proposed model is adapted to the field of study, integrating different models and theories. These theories have achieved broad support in the literature. With a sample of 333 consumers, we can conclude that consumer attitudes towards functional foods have a direct influence on the willingness to consume them. A healthy lifestyle has no effect on these attit…