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Herding Behavior on Cultural Goods Consumptions: An Examination of Informational and Normative Herding on Anime Goods
No full textAnime was primarily a source of entertainment, a Japanese animation with colorful characters and unique plots. Previous studies present evidence that consuming anime has given consumers a platform to express their identity, culture, and preferences. The limited capacity of consumers to process high volumes of information causes them to rely on the available information and other people’s actions. Such behavior is termed herding. To analyze the influence of herding behavior on anime consumption, primary data was collected from the 129 sample students. Using the Probit regression, the factors that explain the intention to purchase and the likelihood that individuals will consume anime goods were analyzed. Then, Tobit regression was used to determine how herding behavior significantly influences anime consumption. Results showed that individuals who are watching anime and exposure to its related content are more likely to increase their level of intention to purchase and the probability of purchasing anime goods. Drawn outcomes also established the significant influence of herding behavior on anime consumption. Both informational and normative herding behavior affect consumers in their consumption of anime goods. Furthermore, exposure to anime and its related content as well as the symbols attached to the goods purchased plays an important role in anime goods consumption
Willingness to Pay for Electric Jeepneys in Tagaytay City
No full textVehicle ownership in the Philippines is increasing every year. This enables the people to move faster from one place to another. However, it also increases the air pollution in the country. To solve this, the Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act (EVIDA) promotes a more sustainable mode of transportation. Key informant interview (KII) were conducted to ensure and clarify the plans of the Local Government Unit in the city about a more sustainable mode of transportation. It was found that the LGU of the city plans to have electric jeepneys in the long run. Using a Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), this paper determines the valuation of the commuters in Tagaytay City for electric jeepneys. The study was conducted in the four traditional jeepney terminals in the city. A total of 143 responses were used in this study. Using a logistic regression analysis, only bid amount was found to be significantly affecting the respondents’ WTP. It was found that bid amount affects theWTP negatively.
Moreover, using the Turnbull estimator, the mean WTP of the respondents is Php 4.57. This amount will be added to the Php 13 minimum fare of the traditional jeepneys. For comparison, the mean WTP was also computed using Hanneman’s Approach and mean WTP using the untreated data which resulted in Php 5.72 and Php 6.06, respectively. Both of these are greater than the mean WTP of the treated data
The Barriers to Adopt Circular Production in Construction Industry and its Impacts on Achieving selected SDGS: An Extended Literature Review
No full textEconomic development is often accompanied by environmental issues, primarily due to the linear economy. The construction industry (CI) is one of the sectors that operates under a linear economy. While significantly contributing to economic growth, the industry is responsible for approximately 25% of solid waste generation and 30% of resource extraction. Hence, it is recommended for the industry to shift to a circular economy (CE). CE aims to maximize resource efficiency while reducing environmental impacts. The main objective of this study is to analyze the barriers that hinder producer participation in circular production, specifically in the construction industry, and its impacts on achieving SDGs 7, 12, and 15 using an extended literature review. Thirty interrelated barriers were found to hinder the adoption of CE in CI. These barriers were categorized into six dimensions: Regulatory and Policy, Economic and Financial, Cultural and Behavioral, Knowledge and Awareness, Technical and Infrastructure, and Operational and Strategic related barrier. Among the six dimensions, the regulatory and policy-related barriers are suggested to be prioritized as they will help to solve other existing barriers. Moreover, a wide gap between theoretical studies and practical application of circular construction is found, thus resulting in difficulty in identifying the impacts of the barriers in achieving selected SDGs. Relating this to the Philippines, the country must shift towards CE, given its growing construction markets. However, the country faces various barriers, such as the lack of data, studies, and government support. This study would be helpful for governments and the construction industry as it provides preliminary information regarding adopting a circular economy in the construction industry, which could help to achieve a sustainable future
Digital Ukaynomics: Analysis on the Market for Secondhand Clothing Sold through Online Channels
No full textThe emergence of e-commerce in the Philippines has paved way for the well- known ukay industry to also prevail online despite having the fact that the importation of secondhand clothes is illegal in the country. In this study, the socio-demographic profiles as well as the factors in purchasing secondhand clothes online were identified. A Google Forms questionnaire was disseminated through different Facebook groups which then had a turnover of 248 respondents who buy secondhand clothes online. From the gathered responses, 200 are female and 48 are male, and majority of the respondents are either employed or studying. It was observed that Facebook was mainly used by these respondents and that they buy secondhand clothes for its cheap price. In the aspect of their law awareness of R.A. 4653, Using the ordinary least squares regression model, it was found that age, sex, income, willingness to pay for brand-new and secondhand clothes, delivery fee, experience, and browsing time affect the consumer‘s demand for secondhand clothes that are sold online. Identifying the elasticity, a logarithmic regression was performed and showed that secondhand clothes sold online are normal goods and have an inelastic demand
Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of Organic Farmers towards Participatory Guarantee System Certification in Laguna
No full textIn 2010, Republic Act 10068 or also known as “Organic Agriculture Act of 2010” sought to promote and develop the growth of the organic agriculture industry in the Philippines. In its implementation, organic producers were required to have certification from 3rd party certifying bodies in order to market their produce as “organic” but this brought challenges to small-scale organic farmers since this certification process is costly and arduous. To address this, the law was amended in 2020 through Republic Act 11511 which introduced the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) to provide a cheaper certification alternative as well as to help capacitate small-scale farmers in organic production and marketing. In Laguna province, one of the pioneering PGS-Organic Certifying Bodies in the country was established in 2023 which paved the way for the beginning of PGS certification in the province. With relatively little literature looking into intrinsic factors affecting farmer decision regarding PGS certification, this study aims to determine what is known, believed, and practiced by organic farmers regarding PGS certification. To achieve this, the main objective of this study is to assess the level of knowledge, attitudes, and practices of organic farmers towards PGS certification in Laguna with the specific aim to: (1) Describe the socio-demographic characteristics of organic farmers in Laguna; (2) Assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of organic farmers towards PGS; (3) Analyze the relationship between the socio-demographic characteristics of organic farmers and their knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards PGS certification; (4) Evaluate the opportunities and challenges of PGS certification in Laguna; and (5) Formulate recommendations for the improvement of the Participatory Guarantee System in Laguna.
A total of 38 organic farmers from six municipalities in Laguna were selected through purposive and snowball sampling. The data collected for this study were qualitative information on the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of organic farmers towards PGS. This was done through the administration of a survey-interviews in which the socio-demographic information of the organic farmers were gathered as well as their knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding PGS. This data was analyzed using the Spearman Rank Correlation Test to determine if there is a significant relationship between the socio-demographic characteristics and KAP with supplementation of thematic analysis to provide deeper insight on their KAP.
Based on the survey, the majority of the organic farmers were aged between 31 and 40 which comprised 34.21% of the respondents. For educational attainment, more than half or 52.63% of the respondents were college graduates while for family size, they were mostly considered medium-size with 4 to 6 members living together in one household which comprised 50.00% of the respondents. With regards to organic farming experience, a significant proportion of respondents at 31.21% only have been involved in organic farming for about 1 to 5 years while for conventional farming experience, the majority of them at 42.11% have never been involved in such practice. In terms of farm size, most of the organic farms are considered micro-scale as the majority of them at 44.74% of the respondents have farm lands that are less than 1 hectare. For their monthly income, the majority of the respondents or 47.37% of them earn less than PHP 10,000.00 per month from their organic farm which is why almost half of them or 44.74% of the respondents have at least one other source of income apart from organic farming. It was also found that 52.63% of the respondents are members of organizations and associations related to agriculture. Almost half of the respondents were also recipients of material, financial, and technical assistance from government agencies and non-government organizations with 46.43% of them claiming to have received 3 to 4 items from those entities. The majority of respondents or 39.47% of them also reported that they participated in 3 to 4 different agricultural training sessions.
In addition, the levels of knowledge of organic farmers about PGS were found to be high with more than half or 57.89% of the respondents attaining a high score of 6 to 8 but with a mean of 4.37. For the levels of attitude, it can be inferred that they possess a favorable attitude towards PGS certification since a significant proportion of respondents at 89.47% garnered a high score of 41 to 60 and this is backed up by a high mean score of 47.37. From their level of practice, it can be said that they have a medium level of practice since 56.76% of the respondents acquired a score somewhere between 26 and 45 out of 70 but with a relatively high mean of 47.26. The thematic analysis revealed that knowledge on PGS is focused on its features, requirements, and objectives while for attitude, it highlighted the aspirations of organic farmers as to why they want to acquire PGS certification and their fears that hinder them from pursuing the certification which was reinforced by their beliefs that PGS certification is a complicated process and difficult to attain.
For the analysis of these data, Spearman Rank Correlation Test was utilized which yielded results on the relationship between the socio-demographic characteristics and KAP of the organic farmers regarding PGS certification. For knowledge, only educational attainment, other income sources, and agricultural training were the socio-demographic variables that were found to have significant positive relationship with knowledge. Knowledge-educational attainment and knowledge-agricultural training were the relationships with moderate correlation strength while knowledge-other income sources have weak correlation. With regards to attitude, only family size with weak positive correlation and agricultural training with moderate positive correlation have significant statistical relationship with attitude. Finally, practice has a significant positive relationship with educational attainment, agricultural training, monthly farm income, and other income sources with the first 2 variables having moderate correlation with practice while the other 2 variables only have weak correlation.
From these findings, it was concluded that recommendations and intervention proposals for local government units like FAES-OPAG and MAO should be focused on information dissemination to address knowledge gaps and subsidization programs to address the fears on certification costs while for the PGS-OCB in Laguna, their efforts should be geared towards reducing certification costs and making adjustments in their internal standards to address the apprehension of organic farmers that prevents them from fully adopting PGS certification
A P-graph Approach for Planning Sustainable Rice Straw Management Networks
Get PDFThe Philippines produces up to 15.2 Mt of rice straw waste annually. Unmanaged rice straw waste disposal can lead to pollution from open field burning. On the other hand, rice straw agricultural waste can be used sustainably to produce valuable products such as mushrooms, fodder, pellets, or bioenergy, in a rice straw management system. Such systems can be optimized using Process Integration tools so that the raw materials are used efficiently at the maximum profit and with a minimal carbon footprint. The P-graph framework is an efficient Process Integration tool that solves Process Network Synthesis problems. A P-graph finds the optimal and suboptimal solutions for further analysis, which is useful in decision-making. This work developed a P-graph model for a rice straw management network considering the straw collection and storage steps and the production of both bioenergy and non-bioenergy products. The model can generate optimal and sub-optimal solutions (based on profit) and can simulate raw material disruption scenarios. The model is demonstrated through a case study on three rice straw fields with a maximum total rice straw yield of 96.84 t/yr. The case study considered the operating and raw material costs but did not consider the fixed and investment costs in the calculation of the profit. The results show that mushroom production using rice straw as substrate is the optimal solution with a potential profit of US 12 627.90/yr. Disruption scenarios at reduced diesel, manual labor, and rice straw show that mushroom production is still the optimum solution, showing the robustness of the solution. This basic model shows that P-graphs can be applied to rice straw management networks to aid with decision-making for sustainability. Caution must be exercised as the results are context- and location- specific
Rainbows for children: preschoolers’ gender concepts through art-based approaches
No full textGender is a social concept of characteristics associated with girls and boys. At three to four years old, children identify themselves as boys or girls; and at five to six years old, children begin to recognize gender stereotypes. Through an art-based approach, this study sought to understand children’s gender concepts; assessed through pre- and post-intervention evaluations. It explored preschoolers’ gender concepts in terms of materials, appearance, behavior, and socialization roles; with a song and book on gender as the art-based intervention. Upon analysis of the study, pre-test results showed that the preschoolers conformed to gender binary responses: majority (43.65%) answered “boys” in materials, nearly half (48.41%) answered “girls” in appearance, majority (44.44%) answered “boys” in behavior, and majority (41.27%) answered “girls” in socialization roles. Once the art-based intervention was interjected, post-test results showed that the majority of the children responded with “any/both”: materials (57.94%), appearance (40.48%), behavior (57.14%), and socialization roles (57.94%). This study demonstrated that the children were open to acknowledging the diversity of gender through messages from the song and book such as “we all can do all the things we like” and “being ourselves makes the world beautiful”
Phylomolecular and Gross Pathological Characterization of Avian Influenza Virus from Poultry Farms in Pampanga, Philippines
No full textBackground: Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus has been spreading rapidly across the globe, and with the neighboring countries of the Philippines already infected this brings a threat to the poultry industry of the country. Stringent surveillance and appropriate diagnosis of possible cases of AIV must be implemented. Unusual cases of high mortality in a short period of time, must be tested for the said virus. Methods: FTA cards containing cloacal and oropharyngeal swabs of a flock with a history of high mortality in a short period of time were tested for HPAI using RT-PCR. The virus isolated was then put to nucleotide sequencing and phylogenetic analysis to identify the possible origin and relatedness to other strains of HPAI viruses. Gross lesions and histopathological examination were also done on morbid chickens belonging to the said flock. Results: RT-PCR revealed that the viruses were of the H5N1 subtype. Nucleotide sequencing and phylogenetic analysis indicated that these viruses, namely A/quail/Pampanga/SanLuis/2022 (H5N1) and A/chicken/Pampanga/SanLuis/2022 (HSN1), were of distinct identities. These virus isolates were closely related to the circulating clade 2.3.4.4b H5N1 circulating in Korea, Japan, Europe, and USA. Gross and histopathologic lesions mainly concerned the vascular system with congestion and hemorrhage as the most prevalent abnormalities. Conclusion: The highly pathogenic virus has now been introduced to the Philippines, and given its molecular epidemiological characteristics, there is high likelihood that it has spread throughout the country. National and regional surveillance must be enhanced to control the spread of the isolated virus
Evaluation of the AquaCrop Model for Simulating Cotton Yield Under a Semi-Arid Environment and Different Field Management Practices
Get PDFCotton plays an important role in increasing productivity in the agricultural sector and related industries in the province of Golestan, Iran. However, the cultivation areas decreased considerably in the last couple of decades due to the high costs of production, water scarcity, and climate change. To encourage sustainable increase in production, crop simulation models are parameterized for each region using observed field data. In this study, the AquaCrop model was calibrated and validated for cotton under different field management scenarios using data from a 3-yr field experiment, which was conducted at the research farm of the National Cotton Research Institute, Golestan, Iran. The field experiment comprised six irrigation treatments (W1: rainfed/no irrigation, W2: irrigation at 33% of water requirement [WR], W3: irrigation at 66% WR, W4: irrigation at 88% WR, W5: irrigation at 100% WR/full irrigation, and W6: irrigation at 125% WR/over-irrigation) and four rates based on the recommended dose of nitrogen (RDN) (N1: 0 or no N, N2: 33% RDN, N3: 66% RDN, and N4: 100% recommended RDN). The model was calibrated using data from the 1st experimental yr and validated with data from the 2nd and 3rd yr. Simulated and observed data of cotton yield and above ground biomass yield were compared, and the resulting prediction error statistics were 0.85 \u3c E \u3c 0.93, 0.27 \u3c RMSE \u3c 0.58 t ha-1, and 8.08 \u3c MAE \u3c 14.6%. Moreover, validation results for yield and biomass amounting to 0.85 \u3c E \u3c 0.92 and 0.27 \u3c RMSE \u3c 0.58 t/ha were calculated for 2013 and 2014. Overall, the AquaCrop model estimated cotton yield and biomass with reasonable accuracy under varying field conditions
Pagbabalik-tanaw sa maagang malay ni Jose Rizal sa kakanyahang malay at pagsipat sa kinahinatnang pananangkapan at retorikang politikal dito noong dantaon 20
No full textBatay sa isinusulong na mandato ng General Education (GE) Courses Program ng University of the Philippines (UP), kinakailangang maisingkaw sa pag-aaral at/o pagtuturo ng PI 10 (Philippine Institutions: The Life, Works, and Writings of Jose Rizal) ang panlipunang saysay (social utility) ni Jose Rizal tungo sa pagiging makatao at makabayan ng mga Pilipino. Kaakibat ng preskripsiyong ito ang integratibong paghuhugpong sa kaniyang kaisipan sa iba’t ibang disiplina at paksa. Layunin ng pag-aaral na ito ang integratibong pagsasalok sa katuturan ni Rizal sa iba pang kurso ng kasaysayan katulad ng HIST 1 (Philippine History) o KAS 1 (Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas) bilang GE Course at HIST 110 (Philippine Presidency) bilang Higher History Course. Mula sa mga nasabing kurso, partikular na sa kaso ng UP Los Baños, exploratoryong tatahiin ang pagbabalik-tanaw sa buhay ni Rizal na ang tuon ay may kinalaman sa Kakanyahang Malayo o Pan-Malayan Identity na kagyat iuugnay sa Kasaysayang Pampangulohan ng Pilipinas. Hindi gaanong natatalakay sa ilang pagkakataon ang bahagi ng buhay na ito ni Rizal at kaugnayan nito sa Kasaysayang Pampolitika. Kaya’t mula sa inaambagang kurso (PI 10), muling sisiyasatin sa diwa ni Rizal ang kalinangang Pan-Malayo na nakapaloob sa mas malawak na mundong Austronesyano bilang pagpapahalaga sa HIST 1/KAS 1 sa unang banda at kagyat na ipapalaot ang katuturan nito sa pananangkapan at retorikang politikal noong dantaon 20 bilang ambag naman sa HIST 110 sa kabilang dako. Higit na babalikan ang estado ng Kakanyahang Malayo sa administrasyon nina Manuel Quezon (1935-1944), Elpidio Quirino (1948-1953), at Diosdado Macapagal (1961-1965)