bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The mediation effects of sticker shock
Authors: Zhuang Weiling , Alford Bruce 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– This study aims to extend prior studies by examining the mediation effects of sticker shock on the relationship between price discount and buying intention. Sticker shock refers to the discrepancy between a brand’s sale price (SP) and an individual’s internal reference price (IRP) (Winer 1985).

Design/methodology/approach
– Prior marketing research on sticker shock is primarily model-based. The authors employed a between-subject experimental design, and hypotheses were tested using a series of regression functions (Baron and Kenny 1986).

Findings
– The results suggest the effect of price discount on buying intention is partially mediated by sticker shock.

Practical implications
– The research results suggest that consumers take into account price messages from different sources, such as advertised reference price, SP and IRP. IRP is a key reference point that consumers use to develop the “gain” or “loss” perception. Firms may apply different strategies to influence consumers’ internal reference point and, in turn, influence the perception of the attractiveness of the sale product.

Originality/value
– This study contributes to the literature by first testing the mediation effects of sticker shock on the relationship between price discount and buying intention.
Chinese young consumers’ brand loyalty toward sportswear products: a perspective of self-congruity
Authors: Lu Jinzhao , Xu Yingjiao 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– This study aims to investigate Chinese young consumers’ brand loyalty toward sportswear products from a self-congruity perspective. With different performance observed between global and domestic sportswear brands in the Chinese market, this study also aims to examine the impact of country of origin on Chinese young consumers’ behavior toward sportswear brands.

Design/methodology/approach
– A survey with street intercept method was conducted in Shanghai to collect data for this study. Multiple independent t-tests and structural equation modeling (SEM) with bootstrap method were used to test the hypotheses.

Findings
– The SEM results indicate a significant influence of brand self-congruity on consumers’ brand association and perceived quality, which, in turn, influenced consumers’ brand loyalty. The multiple t-test results suggest a significant difference between Chinese and global sportswear brands in terms of consumers’ brand association and attitudinal brand loyalty. No significant difference was found in terms of consumers’ behavioral brand loyalty.

Research limitations/implications
– The main limitation of this study comes from the convenience student sample.

Practical implications
– First, brands need to strategically design the brand image to represent the largest segment of the target market. Second, while global brands could focus on their pricing strategies, domestic brands need to focus more on maintaining a positive brand association in consumers’ mind.

Originality/value
– This study contributes to the growing research on the self-congruity perspective of brand loyalty by empirically confirming the indirect effect of brand self-congruity on brand loyalty via the mediation effects of brand association and perceived quality in the context of the ever-growing Chinese sportswear market.
Product involvement, price perceptions, and brand loyalty
Authors: Ferreira Alcina G. , Coelho Filipe J. 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– This paper aims to contribute to the literature on brand loyalty by illustrating the mechanisms through which product involvement influences brand loyalty. In doing so, the study is original in considering the mediating role of the multidimensional price perceptions’ construct.

Design/methodology/approach
– Two thousand questionnaires were distributed in two shopping malls, yielding a sample of 535 consumers, covering eight different grocery products. To test the hypothesized model, the authors relied on structural equation modelling.

Findings
– Product involvement influences on brand loyalty are partially mediated by price perceptions. This is a novel finding. Moreover, product involvement relates positively to six price perceptions, and this is also original. As expected, value consciousness and sale proneness are detrimental to brand loyalty, whereas price – quality schema contributes to it. Unexpectedly, however, price consciousness, sale proneness and price mavenism are positively related to loyalty.

Practical implications
– Managers can improve brand loyalty by increasing consumers’ product involvement, by reducing the reliance on a value-for-money orientation and on non-coupon promotions and by focusing on lower or higher prices and on coupon promotions and emphasizing a price – quality association.

Originality/value
– The product involvement/brand loyalty relationship has been characterized by mixed findings. This paper contributes to this debate by clarifying the mechanisms through which involvement relates to loyalty. In doing this, this paper also innovates by investigating the relationship between involvement and the multidimensional price perceptions’ construct. In this process, this paper also inquires how seven price perceptions relate to brand loyalty, with novel findings emerging.
The Nobel Prize: the identity of a corporate heritage brand
Authors: Urde Mats , Greyser Stephen A 
Published: July 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to understand the identity of the Nobel Prize as a corporate heritage brand and its management challenges.Design/methodology/approach– An in-depth case study analysed within a heritage brand model and a corporate brand identity framework.Findings– The Nobel Prize is a corporate heritage brand – one whose value proposition is based on heritage – in this case “achievements for the benefit of mankind” (derived directly from Alfred Nobel’s will). It is also defined as a “networked brand”, one where four independent collaborating organisations around the (Nobel) hub create and sustain the Nobel Prize’s identity and reputation, acting as a “federated republic”.Research limitations/implications– The new and combined application of the Heritage Quotient framework and the Corporate Brand Identity Matrix in the Heritage Brand Identity Process (HBIP) offers a structured approach to integrate the identity of a corporate heritage brand. In a networked situation, understanding the role of stewardship in collaborating organisations is essential: The network entities maintain their own identities and goals, but share common values of the network hub.Practical implications– The integrated frameworks (HBIP) provides a platform for managing a corporate heritage brand.Originality/value– This is the first field-based study of the Nobel Prize from a strategic brand management perspective.
Understanding social enterprise country models: Spain
Authors: Fisac Ramon , Moreno-Romero Ana 
Published: July 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to describe the historical institutional context of Spain in the past 40 years and to analyze the influence of institutional factors in the current model of social enterprise existing in the country.

Design/methodology/approach
– This study draws on the theory of historical institutionalism, national-level empirical data and Kerlin conceptual framework (2013) that informs models of social enterprise.

Findings
– This paper describe some traits of Spain’s social enterprise that can be explained by the evolution of its institutional context in the past 40 years. It helps to validate, from a historical institutionalistic perspective, aspects of the Kerlin framework for social enterprise models. It also begins to show that the analysis of regional differences in the context should be taken into consideration when examining a country’s social enterprise space.

Research limitations/implications
– This discussion paper encourages academics to analyze regional differences in the emergence of social enterprise within a country. The main limitation of the paper is the lack of an “official” definition of social enterprise in Spain.

Originality/value
– This paper applies a valuable framework to a country with a unique political and economic history in the past 40 years. It contributes to enrich the research on the emergence and development of social enterprises in a variety of contexts and advances understanding of how regional differences inside a country influence the development of social enterprises.
Nitrogenous compounds stimulate glucose‐derived acid production by oral Streptococcus and Actinomyces
Authors: Norimatsu Yuka , Kawashima Junko , Takano‐Yamamoto Teruko , Takahashi Nobuhiro 
Published: July 2015

ABSTRACTBoth Streptococcus and Actinomyces can produce acids from dietary sugars and are frequently found in caries lesions. In the oral cavity, nitrogenous compounds, such as peptides and amino acids, are provided continuously by saliva and crevicular gingival fluid. Given that these bacteria can also utilize nitrogen compounds for their growth, it was hypothesized that nitrogenous compounds may influence their acid production; however, no previous studies have examined this topic. Therefore, the present study aimed to assess the effects of nitrogenous compounds (tryptone and glutamate) on glucose‐derived acid production by Streptococcus and Actinomyces. Acid production was evaluated using a pH‐stat method under anaerobic conditions, whereas the amounts of metabolic end‐products were quantified using high performance liquid chromatography. Tryptone enhanced glucose‐derived acid production by up to 2.68‐fold, whereas glutamate enhanced Streptococcus species only. However, neither tryptone nor glutamate altered the end‐product profiles, indicating that the nitrogenous compounds stimulate the whole metabolic pathways involving in acid production from glucose, but are not actively metabolized, nor do they alter metabolic pathways. These results suggest that nitrogenous compounds in the oral cavity promote acid production by Streptococcus and Actinomyces in vivo.
Small but active – pool size does not matter for carbon incorporation in below‐ground food webs
Authors: Pausch Johanna , Kramer Susanne , Scharroba Anika , Scheunemann Nicole , Butenschoen Olaf , Kandeler Ellen , Marhan Sven , Riederer Michael , Scheu Stefan , Kuzyakov Yakov , Ruess Liliane 
Published: July 2015

SummaryThe complexity of soil food webs and the cryptic habitat hamper the analyses of pools, fluxes and turnover rates of carbon (C) in organisms and the insight into their interactions. Stable isotope analysis has been increasingly used to disentangle soil food web structure, yet it has not been applied to quantitatively characterize C dynamics at the level of the entire soil food web.The present study employed13CO2pulse labelling to investigate the incorporation of maize root‐derived C into major soil compartments and food web players in an arable field for 25 days. Bulk tissue and compound‐specific (lipids) C isotope ratios were used to quantify pool sizes and13C incorporation in bacteria and fungi as primary decomposers, nematodes as key drivers of the microfood web and decomposers and predators among the meso‐ and macrofauna.About 20% of the C assimilated by maize was transferred to below‐ground pools.13C was predominantly incorporated into rhizosphere micro‐organisms rather than in those of the bulk soil.13C in phospholipid fatty acid biomarkers revealed that root‐derived C was incorporated into the soil food web mainly via saprotrophic fungi rather than via bacteria. Only small amounts of13C were transferred to higher trophic levels, predominantly into fungal‐feeding nematodes and macrofauna decomposers.Most importantly, C pool size and13C incorporation did not match closely. Although the fungal C stock was less than half that of bacteria, C transfers from fungi into higher trophic levels of the fungal energy pathway, that is fungal‐feeding nematodes and meso‐ and macrofauna decomposers, by far exceed that of bacterial C. This challenges previous views on the dominance of bacteria in root C dynamics and suggests saprotrophic fungi to function as major agents channelling recent photoassimilates into the soil food web.
Nonlinear responses of ecosystem carbon fluxes and water‐use efficiency to nitrogen addition in Inner Mongolia grassland
Authors: Tian Dashuan , Niu Shuli , Pan Qingmin , Ren Tingting , Chen Shiping , Bai Yongfei , Han Xingguo 
Published: July 2015

Summary

Nitrogen (N) deposition is a continuous process and likely to affect ecosystem carbon (C) and water fluxes in a nonlinear way. However, experimental evidence is still lacking because most previous studies on these impacts usually used two discrete levels of N treatment.

By a 12‐year, 6‐level N addition experiment in Inner Mongolia grassland, we found that the responses of C fluxes, including net ecosystem carbon exchange (NEE), gross ecosystem productivity (GEP), ecosystem respiration (ER), all exhibited nonlinear patterns with increasing N addition rate while that of evapotranspiration did not significantly change. As a result, the response of ecosystem water‐use efficiency (EWUE) followed a similar pattern with NEE.

These N‐induced changes in C fluxes were greatly affected by the distribution of precipitation among different stages of growing seasons and mainly driven by the alterations in biomass production rather than soil temperature and soil moisture.

This study highlights the importance of the nonlinearity of N addition impacts on ecosystem C fluxes, which should be incorporated into the global‐C‐cycling models for better predicting future C balance. Our results also have implications for the use of fertilization in restoring the degraded grasslands given that N addition can promote biomass production and ecosystem C uptake without additional water evapotranspiration but also change ecosystem composition.
Raccoon contact networks predict seasonal susceptibility to rabies outbreaks and limitations of vaccination
Authors: Reynolds Jennifer J. H. , Hirsch Ben T. , Gehrt Stanley D. , Craft Meggan E. 
Published: July 2015

SummaryInfectious disease transmission often depends on the contact structure of host populations. Although it is often challenging to capture the contact structure in wild animals, new technology has enabled biologists to obtain detailed temporal information on wildlife social contacts. In this study, we investigated the effects of raccoon contact patterns on rabies spread using network modelling.Raccoons (Procyon lotor) play an important role in the maintenance of rabies in theUnitedStates. It is crucial to understand how contact patterns influence the spread of rabies in raccoon populations in order to design effective control measures and to prevent transmission to human populations and other animals.We constructed a dynamic system of contact networks based on empirical data from proximity logging collars on a wild suburban raccoon population and then simulated rabies spread across these networks. Our contact networks incorporated the number and duration of raccoon interactions. We included differences in contacts according to sex and season, and both short‐term acquaintances and long‐term associations. Raccoons may display different behaviours when infectious, including aggression (furious behaviour) and impaired mobility (dumb behaviour); the network model was used to assess the impact of potential behavioural changes in rabid raccoons. We also tested the effectiveness of different vaccination coverage levels.Our results demonstrate that when rabies enters a suburban raccoon population, the likelihood of a disease outbreak affecting the majority of the population is high. Both the magnitude of rabies outbreaks and the speed of rabies spread depend strongly on the time of year that rabies is introduced into the population. When there is a combination of dumb and furious behaviours in the rabid raccoon population, there are similar outbreak sizes and speed of spread to when there are no behavioural changes due to rabies infection.By incorporating detailed data describing the variation in raccoon contact rates into a network modelling approach, we were able to show that suburban raccoon populations are highly susceptible to rabies outbreaks, that the risk of large outbreaks varies seasonally and that current vaccination target levels may be inadequate to prevent the spread of rabies within these populations. Our findings provide new insights into rabies dynamics in raccoon populations and have important implications for disease control.
REVIEW: Translocation tactics: a framework to support the IUCN Guidelines for wildlife translocations and improve the quality of applied methods
Authors: Batson William G. , Gordon Iain J. , Fletcher Donald B. , Manning Adrian D. 
Published: July 2015

Summary

Translocation is a popular conservation tool, but the outcomes are variable. Many tactics can be used to improve the probability of success, but a comprehensive summary of these does not exist. This increases the risk that valuable tactics will be overlooked, and inhibits effective communication.

We assess the diversity of ‘translocation tactics’ used in mammal and bird translocations, by reviewing the IUCN/SSC Guidelines for Reintroduction and other Conservation Translocations, 195 peer‐reviewed articles and 73 case studies from the IUCN/SSC Global Reintroduction Perspectives Series.

We recorded descriptions of every technique used to influence the post‐release performance of translocated wildlife. We developed the Translocation Tactics Classification System (TTCS) which defines a collection of 30 tactics and organize them into an ecologically relevant framework. We also assess the occurrence of tactics within the Guidelines, the primary literature and the case studies to evaluate how tactics are communicated within these mediums.

Our results indicate that the Guidelines are a valuable resource, but do not exhaustively cover tactics, and that detailed methodological accounts are rarely made publicly accessible. This highlights the need to develop context‐specific resources to support the Guidelines, and to develop and exploit mediums that facilitate recording of methodological detail, the tactical rationale behind the design and evaluations of effectiveness. Although some forms of grey literature address this issue, the general lack of information limits the ability to investigate the relationship between tactics and translocation success.

Synthesis and applications. The Translocation Tactics Classification System (TTCS) provides a checklist which ensures that the full diversity of tactics is considered when developing translocation processes. Standardizing the communication of tactics, and encouraging detailed accounts of applied methodologies to be recorded, along with the tactical reasoning behind the design, will provide operational models and the data required to conduct broad‐scale meta‐analyses.
Minocycline inhibits neurogenic inflammation by blocking the effects of tumor necrosis factor‐α
Authors: Gong Kerui , Zou Xiaoju , Fuchs Perry N , Lin Qing 
Published: July 2015

SummaryIt has been well established that neurogenic inflammation is one of the major pathological processes underlying inflammatory pain, but there are few effective anti‐inflammatory drugs to alleviate such pain. The present study shows that minocycline, a widely used glial activation inhibitor, is effective in reducing neurogenic inflammation. Patch‐clamp recordings showed that small sized dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons were dramatically excited following intradermal capsaicin injection in the rat hind paw, evidenced by decreased rheobase and membrane threshold. Pretreatment with minocycline (30 mg/kg for 1 day, intraperitoneal injection) blocked the increased neuronal excitability. Western blot and immunostaining of DRG revealed the activation of satellite glial cells (SGCs) following capsaicin injection. The up‐regulation of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) was significantly inhibited by minocycline pre‐administration. Measurement of tumor necrosis factor α (TNF‐α) and its receptor, TNF‐α receptor 1 (TNFR1), showed that minocycline mainly blocked the up‐regulation of TNF‐α in SGCs and TNFR1s in neurons following capsaicin injection. The pivotal role of TNF‐α in neurogenic inflammation was further supported by the findings that incubation DRG with TNF‐α mimicked the increased excitability of DRG neurons induced by capsaicin injection, and that TNF‐α application enhanced cutaneous vasodilation in the hind paws induced by antidromic electrical stimulation of dorsal roots. Based on these results, we propose that minocycline is a potential therapeutic drug that can reduce neuronal excitability and neurogenic inflammation by working on SGCs to inhibit the expression of TNF‐α.
Silymarin attenuates paraquat‐induced lung injury via Nrf2‐mediated pathway in vivo and in vitro
Authors: Zhao Feng , Shi Danyang , Li Tiegang , Li Lizhuo , Zhao Min 
Published: July 2015

SummaryThe present study aims to investigate the impacts and mechanisms of silymarin on paraquat (PQ)‐induced lung injury in vivo and in vitro. In in vivo experiments, a total of 32 male Sprague‐Dawley (SD) rats were randomly divided into four groups. The rats were killed on day 3. Histopathological changes in lung tissue were examined using HE and Masson's trichrome staining. Biomarkers of neutrophil activation, pulmonary oedema, pulmonary fibrosis, lung permeability and oxidative stress were detected. Several proinflammatory mediators and antioxidant related proteins were measured. In in vitro experiments, A549 cells were transfected with Nrf2 special siRNA to investigate the roles of Nrf2. The results show that silymarin administration abated PQ‐induced lung histopathologic changes, decreased inflammatory cell infiltration and lung wet weight/dry weight (W/D) ratio, suppressed myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity and nitric oxide (NO)/inducible nitric oxide synthases (iNOS) expression, downregulated hydroxyproline (HYP) levels, reduced total protein concentration and proinflammatory mediator release, and improved oxidative stress (malondialdehyde, MDA; superoxide dismutase, SOD; catalase, CAT; and glutathione peroxidase, GSH‐Px) in lung tissue and serum. Meanwhile, treatment with silymarin upregulated the levels of nuclear factor‐erythroid‐2‐related factor 2 (Nrf2), heme oxygenase‐1 (HO‐1) and NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase‐1(NQO1). However, the addition of Nrf2 siRNA reduced the expression of Nrf2‐mediated antioxidant protein HO‐1 and thus reversed the protective effects of silymarin against oxidative stress and inflammatory response. These results suggest that silymarin may exert protective effects against PQ‐induced lung injury. Its mechanisms were associated with the Nrf2‐mediated pathway. Therefore, silymarin may be a potential therapeutic drug for lung injury.