185 research outputs found
Impact of need for uniqueness on price sensitivity and status consumption among customers: case of butters natural cosmetics
No full textZa podjetja sta zadovoljstvo in navdušenje njihovih odjemalcev, ki jim na dolgi rok omogočajo poslovanje in preživetje v kriznih razmerah, ključna koncepta. V ta namen se morajo v podjetjih usmerjati v ugotavljanje in raziskovanje nakupnega vedenja odjemalcev in ugotovitvam prilagoditi celoten marketinški splet in poslovni proces. Temu konceptu smo sledili tudi mi in se prvič od obstoja blagovne znamke Butters naravna kozmetika lotili proučevanja nakupnega vedenja odjemalcev.
Raziskovanje nakupnega vedenja odjemalcev, njihovih potreb in pričakovanj je lahko zelo splošno ali pa podrobno. Naše raziskovanje je šlo v smeri ugotavljanja, kako je med spletnimi odjemalci izdelkov Butters izražena potreba po edinstvenosti, kako so cenovno občutljivi in kakšna je njihova potreba po statusu. Osnovni namen je bil ugotoviti, kako so med odjemalci izraženi posamezni konstrukti ter kako potreba po edinstvenosti vpliva na cenovno občutljivost in statusno potrošnjo. Kot uvod v empirični del raziskavi pa smo proučili številne tuje znanstvene članke s področja obravnavane tematike.
Butters naravna kozmetika je blagovna znamka v lasti razvojno-proizvodnega podjetja Kinezika, d. o. o., ki predstavlja paleto drugačnih, bolj ustvarjalnih in nekonvencionalnih izdelkov za osebno nego in temelji na organsko pridobljenih naravnih maščobah. Že splošen opis blagovne znamke daje slutiti, da ne gre za »še eno« kozmetiko, zato smo predvidevali, da je potreba po edinstvenosti med odjemalci dobro izražena. Na vzorcu 413 spletnih odjemalcev smo ugotovili, da je temu res tako, a še bolj je izražena cenovna občutljivost. Ugotovili smo, da potreba po edinstvenosti pozitivno vpliva tako na cenovno občutljivost kakor tudi na statusno potrošnjo. Nadalje naše ugotovitve kažejo, da ne obstajajo statistično značilne razlike v izraženosti potrebe po edinstvenosti in cenovne občutljivosti glede na starost odjemalcev ali njihov mesečni prihodek, drugače pa je s statusno potrošnjo. Ugotovitve kažejo, da obstajajo statistično značilne razlike v izraženosti statusne potrošnje glede na starost, mesečni prihodek in najvišjo doseženo formalno izobrazbo odjemalcev.
Na podlagi omenjenih dognanj smo nekatere zastavljene hipoteze potrdili in podali predloge za razvoj blagovne znamke Butters naravna kozmetika.Customers satisfaction and creating their enthusiasm is essential for long term companies’ business and enables to survive in the crisis. Considering this fact, companies should focus on exploring the of customers purchasing behavior, adapt the entire marketing mix and business process. We had been following this concept l and for the first time we conducted research of customer purchase behavior for brand Butters natural cosmetics.
Exploring customer purchase behavior, their needs and expectations could be very general or detailed. Our research was in the light of exploring how the need for uniqueness is expressed among Butters customers, how price sensitive they are and what is their need for status like. The main propose of the research was to find out how the constructs are expressed among the customers and how the need for uniqueness influences price sensitivity and status consumption. As the introduction into empirical part of the research we had studied many related academic articles.
Butters natural cosmetics is a trademark owned by the development and production company Kinezika d.o.o., which represents a range of different, creative in unconventional personal care products, based on organic natural fats. Already short general description gives a hunch Butters is not only »another one« cosmetics, so we assumed the need for a uniqueness is well expressed among customers. Based on a sample of 413 online customers, findings are consistent with this idea but the price sensitivity is expressed among the customers even more. The findings indicate that the need for uniqueness positively influences price sensitivity and status consumption. What is more, this study reveals that there are not statistically significant differences among customers in need for uniqueness nor price sensitivity regarding age, monthly income or education level of the customers, what does not apply to status consumption. The results reveal that there are statistically significant differences among customers in status consumption regarding their age, monthly income and education level.
Based on these findings, we confirmed some of the hypotheses and gave the suggestions for further development of brand Butters natural cosmetics
The equity premium in 100 textbooks
No full textI review 100 finance and valuation textbooks published between 1979 and 2008 by authors such as Brealey and Myers, Copeland, Damodaran, Merton, Ross, Bruner, Bodie, Penman, Weston, Brigham and Arzac and find that their recommendations regarding the equity premium range from 3% to 10%. I also find that several books use different equity premia on different pages. Some of the confusion arises from not distinguishing among the four concepts that the term equity premium designates: historical equity premium, expected equity premium, required equity premium and implied equity premium. Finance textbooks should clarify the equity premium by providing distinguishing definitions of these four concepts and conveying a clearer message about their sensible magnitudes.equity premium; equity premium puzzle; required market risk premium; historical market risk premium; expected market risk premium; risk premium; market risk premium; market premium;
Illuminating the Goal: rDzogs chen and Doxography in 14th-century Tibet
No full textThis study explores the philosophical, canonical and doxographical
contributions of one of Tibet’s greatest thinkers, Klong chen rab
’byams pa (1308–1363), or Longchenpa, particularly as presented in his
detailed overview of Buddhist tenet-systems, the Grub mtha’ mdzod (The
Precious Treasury of Spiritual Systems). While the bulk of the previous
scholarship on this scholar has focused almost exclusively on his
writings on the tantric modality of Atiyoga (or rDzogs chen), this study
addresses Klong chen pa’s endeavors to integrate that school of thought
with the other Buddhist vehicles (Sūtrayāna and Mantrayāna) by means of
parallel techniques and a polysemic hermeneutic. Furthermore, it
questions a number of critiques brought against rDzogs chen.
Furthermore, by locating Klong chen pa biographically and textually in
relation to the other seminal figures of 14th-century central Tibet
(e.g., Bu ston, O rgyan gling pa, Dol po pa), this study shows the
precise nature of his wide-ranging contributions to canonical
construction within the rNying ma tradition of Tibet and the
particularities involved with his interpretation of Buddhism’s
two-reality theory (relative and ultimate) in relation to the
Svātantrika and Prāsaṅgika schools of Madhyamaka philosophy. In the
process, it provides context for understanding Klong chen pa as a
complex figure, with both scholarly and practical soteriological
concerns, and his engagement with the most critical debates of his time.</p
The zero-condition: a simplifying assumption in QALY measurement and multiattribute utility.
No full textPUblications Metadata Augmentation (PUMA) pipeline
No full text\ua9 2021 Butters OW et al.Cohort studies collect, generate and distribute data over long periods of time - often over the lifecourse of their participants. It is common for these studies to host a list of publications (which can number many thousands) on their website to demonstrate the impact of the study and facilitate the search of existing research to which the study data has contributed. The ability to search and explore these publication lists varies greatly between studies. We believe a lack of rich search and exploration functionality of study publications is a barrier to entry for new or prospective users of a study\u27s data, since it may be difficult to find and evaluate previous work in a given area. These lists of publications are also typically manually curated, resulting in a lack of rich metadata to analyse, making bibliometric analysis difficult. We present here a software pipeline that aggregates metadata from a variety of third-party providers to power a web based search and exploration tool for lists of publications. Alongside core publication metadata (i.e. author lists, keywords etc.), we include geocoding of first authors and citation counts in our pipeline. This allows a characterisation of a study as a whole based on common locations of authors, frequency of keywords, citation profile etc. This enriched publications metadata can be useful for generating study impact metrics and web-based graphics for public dissemination. In addition, the pipeline produces a research data set for bibliometric analysis or social studies of science. We use a previously published list of publications from a cohort study as an exemplar input data set to show the output and utility of the pipeline here
Stability of cannabidiol and other cannabinoids in vegetable oils and butters
No full textKonoplja (Cannabis sativa L.) je rastlina, ki je vse bolj zanimiva za farmacevtsko, prehransko in kozmetično industrijo, saj vsebuje različne sekundarne metabolite, med katerimi so najpomembnejši kanabinoidi, ki blagodejno vplivajo na različne fiziološke procese pri ljudeh in živalih. Ker v literaturi obstaja zelo malo podatkov o stabilnosti kanabinoidov, smo se v tej magistrski nalogi odločili, da preverimo, kakšna je njihova stabilnost v različnih rastlinskih oljih in maslih.
Preverili smo stabilnost štirih različnih virov kanabinoidov, in sicer čistemu, izoliranemu kanabidiolu (CBD), izopropanolnemu ekstraktu konoplje, CO2 ekstraktu konoplje in konopljinim trihomom. Pri tem smo uporabili 4 različne lipofilne medije in sicer konopljino olje (z ali brez terpenov), olje s srednjeverižnimi maščobnimi kislinami, kokosovo olje in kakavovo maslo. Pri izopropanolnem ekstraktu in trihomih pa smo preverili stabilnost kanabinoidov tudi brez dodanega medija. Tako smo pripravili 14 različnih vzorcev v 2 paralelkah, ki smo jih postavili v improvizirano stabilnostno komoro (sušilnik za steklovino) na 40 °C. S HPLC analizno metodo smo nato določali vsebnost kanabinoidov ob pripravi vzorcev, po 34 dneh in po 99 dneh na temperaturi 40 °C.
Pri tem smo preverjali spreminjanje koncentracije kanabinoidov CBD, CBDA, ?9-THC, CBN, CBG in CBC. Ugotovili smo, da se koncentracija kanabinoidov CBD, CBG in CBC le rahlo spreminjala iz česar lahko sklepamo, da so ti kanabinoidi stabilni. CBDA se je tekom staranja spreminjal v CBD, ?9-THC pa se je izkazal za najmanj stabilen kanabinoid, saj se je njegova koncentracija v večini vzorcev zmanjšala skoraj za polovico, posledično pa se je povečala koncentracija CBN vendar je pri tem nastal materialni primanjkljaj, s čimer smo dokazali, da pri razpadu ?9-THC ne nastane samo CBN temveč tudi drugi produkti.Cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.) is a plant, which is becoming more enticing to the pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetic industry, because it contains numerous secondary metabolites, the most important of which are cannabinoids that have soothing effects on the physiological processes of humans and animals. Because there is very little existing literature on the stability of cannabinoids, we decided, to test their stability in different plant oils and butters.
We tested the stability of four different sources of cannabinoids. Namely, the pure, isolated cannabinoid (CBD), isopropanolic cannabis extract, CO2 cannabis extract and cannabis trichomes. Here, we used 4 different lipophilic mediums: cannabis oil (with or without terpenes) MTC oil, coconut oil and cocoa butter. With the isopropanol extract and trichomes we also tested the stability of cannabinoids without the added medium. In this way, we prepared 14 different samples in 2 parallels, which we placed in an improvised stability chamber (glassware dryer) on 40 °C. We then determined the cannabinoid content in samples kept at 40 °C after 34 days, and after 99 days using HPLC analysis.
In doing so, we tested the changes in the concentration of cannabinoids CBD, CBDA, Δ9-THC, CBN, CBG, and CBC. We came to the conclusion, that the concentration of the cannabinoids CBD, CBG and CBC, only slight changes, from which we can conclude that these cannabinoids are stable. With the passage of time CBDA was changing into the CBD, Δ9-THC, however, proved to be the least stable cannabinoid, as its concentration decreased by almost half in most samples. As a result, the CBN concentration increased, but a material deficit was created, with which we proved that not only CBN but also other intermediates are formed during Δ9-THC decay
Sustainable Living and Urban Density: The Choices are Wide Open
No full textAbstractRapid urbanization, especially in developing countries, means that the worldwide tradition of living in low-rise housing is giving way to life in urban apartments. This implies huge environmental and sociocultural changes. For sustainability, dense cities offer some advantages, including efficient land use and transport systems. But there are also many possible negatives of such urbanization, and particularly for lower income groups.A widespread model is high-rise urban “superblocks”. The reasoning is often said to be the need to house many people in very compact cities. This argument is not strictly true. Equally high population densities can be achieved in several ways, including quite low-rise, with equal energy efficiency as well as environmental and social qualities. We explore these choices and assess options for sustainable living in future urban residential areas.Life cycle analysis is often applied to individual buildings but less often to urban development seen as a whole. We suggest some important “new” considerations need to be taken into account in deciding which urban forms to choose. In particular, high-rise as compared to low-dense options have implications as regards embodied energy, recurrent costs, flexibility and post use, which have to date been little discussed in the research literature
Authoring Technical Documents for Effective Retrieval
No full textAbstract. In this paper we outline the design considerations and application of a methodology to author technical documents in order to improve retrieval. Our approach is firmly aimed at large organizations where variations in terminology at personal, national and international scales often impede retrieval of relevant knowledge. We first present the difficulties in performing entity extraction in technical domains and the role variation in terminology has in the information extraction task before outlining and evaluating a methodology that allows for effective retrieval
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