Ultimate Consumption Research Articles

A Social Cognitive Career Theory Study of Agricultural Mechanical Trade Workers

Attracting and retaining skilled workers in agriculture is a global problem. Shortages of essential workers disrupt supplies of goods and services from the point of production on farms through manufacturing, transport, to ultimate consumption. The global pandemic’s effect on food supply was a salutary lesson in the effects of a diminished agricultural workforce. Agricultural mechanics are vital to productivity. The present research used the social cognitive career theory to explore agricultural mechanics’ careers. An exploratory qualitative study deployed interviews to collect data from N = 19 mechanical trade workers. Interviews were centered on participants’ descriptions of their work regarding theoretical constructs including self-efficacy, outcome expectations, satisfaction, dispositional traits, and contextual affordances. Reflective thematic analysis of the data produced concordance with key constructs of the social cognitive career theory sufficient to justify its utility for research with this specific agricultural occupation. This research makes an important contribution to the literature of vocational psychology which can and should contribute to solving the complex problem of supporting a workforce needed for agriculture’s ongoing challenge of feeding and clothing the world’s growing population.

Towards The Intangible Cultural Heritage Marketing: Factors Affecting Consumption Intention Of Ramie-Fabric Products

In the context of sustainable consumption and the preservation of intangible cultural heritage (ICH), this study provides a nuanced exploration of consumer intentions towards ramie fabric products, a symbol of traditional Chinese craftsmanship. This study aims to elucidate the complex factors that influence consumer engagement with ramie fabric, highlighting its environmental and cultural importance. Adopting a rigorous quantitative approach, this study analyzes 638 valid responses from an initial distribution of 800 questionnaires. A multi-faceted analysis approach is utilized, encompassing descriptive statistics, Exploratory Factor Analysis, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) coupled with path analysis. Key findings reveal that functional value, social value, emotional value, epistemic value, conditional value, social identity, and attitude significantly sway consumer intentions. Crucially, this study reveals the mediating role of attitude and social identity, illustrating how these constructs bridge the gap between the intrinsic values associated with ramie fabric and the ultimate consumption intentions. Theoretically, this study enriches the discourse on ICH and sustainable consumer behavior, offering nuanced insights into the consumer dynamics surrounding ramie fabric products. Practically, it underscores the imperative of embedding cultural and environmental considerations in marketing strategies to enhance consumer engagement. Furthermore, by advocating for a synergistic approach among consumers, cultural inheritors, and the marketplace, this study delineates actionable pathways for leveraging ramie fabric's unique allure in championing sustainability and cultural heritage conservation.

Determinants of Customers’ Trust in Ayurvedic Products – A Review

Purpose: This study focuses on the process from initial curiosity to ultimate consumption in order to examine the elements influencing customer behaviour in the purchase of Ayurvedic products. Due to its holistic approach, perceived value, personal conventions, and customer intimacy goals of the manufacturing firms, the traditional medical system known as Ayurveda has become more popular in contemporary culture. The goal of the study is to comprehend how these elements affect consumer trust, which in turn affects buy intent and ultimate customer behaviour. In essence, it looks at the entire process of how customers interact with and choose Ayurvedic products, emphasising the crucial role that trust plays in this situation. Design/Methodology/Approach: Secondary sources are used in the current study to obtain information. These sources cover a wide spectrum of published works, including books, journals, magazines, books, papers, and exploratory articles. The study made use of well-known academic databases including Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and ScienceDirect to get access to this data. In essence, the research uses scholarly sources and current information to influence its goals and conclusions. Results/ Findings: Manufacturers of Ayurvedic products must take into account the intricacy of the factors that influence customer purchase behaviour. Businesses can modify their product offers by carefully examining the many factors that affect consumers' decisions when it comes to herbal items. This analysis enables marketers to effectively customise their strategies and more successfully advertise their products. Originality/Value: Drawing on the body of existing information, this review analyses the various elements that influence customers who use Ayurvedic products in their purchasing decisions. Its goal is to give producers and marketers insightful information that will assist them better understand the elements that affect consumers in this sector. Armed with this information, companies may create focused marketing plans to effectively advertise Ayurvedic products, ultimately resulting in higher sales and profitability in this market sector. Type of Paper: Review of Literature.

A computational linguistic analysis of the anatomy of production, consumption, and diffusion of misinformation and authentic information in social media: The case of the COVID-19 pandemic

Social media has become a powerful conduit for misinformation during major public events. As a result, an extant body of research has emerged on misinformation and its diffusion. However, the research is fragmented and has mainly focused on understanding the content of misinformation messages. Little attention is paid to the production and consumption of misinformation. This study presents the results of a detailed comparative analysis of the production, consumption, and diffusion of misinformation with authentic information. Our findings, based on extensive use of computational linguistic analyses of COVID-19 pandemic-related messages on the Twitter platform, revealed that misinformation and authentic information exhibit very different characteristics in terms of their contents, production, diffusion, and their ultimate consumption. To support our study, we carefully selected a sample of 500 widely propagated messages confirmed by fact-checking websites as misinformation or authentic information about pandemic-related topics from the Twitter platform. Detailed computational linguistic analyses were performed on these messages and their replies ( N = 198,750). Additionally, we analyzed approximately 1.2 million Twitter user accounts responsible for producing, forwarding, or replying to these messages. Our extensive and detailed findings were used to develop and propose a theoretical framework for understanding the diffusion of misinformation on social media. Our study offers insights for social media platforms, researchers, policymakers, and online information consumers about how misinformation spreads over social media platforms.

Energy, exergy and environmental impacts analyses of Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS) and Hydrogen (H2) energy storage processes

The objective of the present research is to compare the energy and exergy efficiency, together with the environmental effects of energy storage methods, taking into account the options with the highest potential for widespread implementation in the Brazilian power grid, which are PHS (Pumped Hydro Storage) and H2 (Hydrogen). For both storage technologies, energy pathways were envisioned, starting with electricity production from renewable sources (mostly intermittent ones), delivering more power than required during low-demand periods, and using the excess power, respectively, to pump water from the bottom to the top of hydroeletric powerplant lakes or to create gaseous H2 through water electrolysis. One and the other processes proceed with the energy recovery (re-electrification) stage, either utilizing traditional hydroelectricity technology or by combustion of H2 using latest gas turbines, when necessary, for ultimate consumption. The resources and emissions associated with both energetic pathways were investigated using the LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) approach, together with the latest established exergy-environmental methodologies and available data. It was considered that the identical quantity of stored power is re-electrified in the Pumped Hydro Storage situation. For an accurate comparison, it was also hypothesized that the same amount of energy a PHS could pump is electrically available for the Hydrogen storage case. With regard to energy and exergy efficiency, exergy costs of non-renewable, renewable, and total resources, in addition to the emissions cost of CO2 of both researched energy storage alternatives, numerical and comparative data were produced and presented. A sizable advantage for PHS is seen in the energy and exergy efficiency findings (more than 23 percentual points). The environmental exergy calculations for this scenario's findings show that PHS has benefits over H2 in that it uses only 84 % of the Hydrogen alternative's total resource exergy costs and emits 23 % less CO2.

Asymmetric Effects of Cereal Crops on Agriculture Economic Growth: Case Study of Pakistan

Agricultural marketing includes all activities which add value to agricultural products as they move from areas of agricultural production to ultimate consumption points. An effective and efficient marketing system is required in order to ensure fair returns to stakeholders but unfortunately little attention was paid to this sector in Pakistan. This resulted in welfare risk to stakeholders as price variation and values are common phenomena in the country. Public and private sectors jointly run agricultural marketing system in the country, as public sector is responsible for framing and implementing rules and regulation whereas private sector operates the system. Agricultural markets are governed under the Agricultural Produce Markets Ordinance 1978 which needs to be updated Due to poor post-harvest management practices, almost 25-40% produce is wasted which caused considerable value losses. In this chapter, an effort has been made to describe theoretical foundation of agricultural marketing along with highlighting the marketing system of major and minor agricultural commodities in Pakistan and the role of various institutions and regulations. Marketing efficiency is often understood in terms of marketing margins, physical losses and state of market competition. These indicators are also discussed in this chapter. Further, a section is devoted to identify major agricultural marketing problems with their possible solutions

Quality Control and Quality Assurance

Abstract: This brief review presents the international approaches to assessment of the content of geotaxis impurities (residual solvents and various inorganic and organic impurities) in pharmaceuticals. Nowadays, it has become necessary to provide not only purity profile but also impurity profile of a particular pharmaceutical product because of national and international regulations. The supply of essential medicines of good quality has been identified as one ofthe pre-requisites for the delivery of health care system of any country as poor quality medicines can harm or even kill consumers. The presence of unwanted chemicals in a particular medicine, even in extremely small quantities, may influence its efficiency and safety. Unlike in other industries, a medicine is a dynamic product whose color, consistency, weight, and even chemical identity can change between manufacture and ultimate consumption. Impurities in pharmaceutical products are of great concern not only due to the inherent toxicity of certain contaminants, but also due to the adverse effect that contaminants may have on drug stability and shelf-life. In pharmaceutical and drug products, impurities are the unwanted chemicals (organic, inorganic and residualsolvents) that remain with the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), or develop/added during formulation, or upon aging.

Does Ultimate Consumption Risk Rescue the CCAPM? A Replication of Parker and Julliard (2005)

Does Ultimate Consumption Risk Rescue the CCAPM? A Replication of Parker and Julliard (2005)

Risk of HACCP Plan Implementation for Food Safety in Fruit Combining Start up Business PT Redceri Indonesia

HACCP is a tool to assess hazards and establish control systems focused on preventative measures rather than relying mainly on end product testing over seven basic principles underline the concept. These principles include an assessment of the inherent risk that may be present from harvest through ultimate consumption. Six hazard characteristics and a ranking schematic are used to identify those points throughout the food production and distribution system whereby control must be exercised in order to reduce or eliminate potential risks. A guide for HACCP plan development and critical control point (CCP) identification. Furthermore, the document points out the additional areas that are to be included in the HACCP plan: the need to establish critical limits that must be met at each CCP, appropriate monitoring procedures, corrective action proceed ures to takes if a deviation is encountered, record keeping, and verification activities.

Russia's position in the economic relations of the USA and China

Subject. The article discusses the international economic relations. Objectives. I determine Russia's position in the economic relations of the USA and China. Methods. The study is based on the systems approach and the method of statistical, neural network and cluster analysis. Results. I discovered the persisting dominance of the USA over the world economy due to a growth in broad money supply, which makes it the leader in food exports, trade balance and industrial exports. The same reasons helps the USA constrain some material aspects of economic growth in Russia and China, such as inflation, direct foreign investment, ultimate consumption spending, real interest rate, the ratio of broad money supply to total reserves, total value of traded stocks, export of food, goods and services. Trends in SPX, SHCOMP, RTSI и DXY, USDRUB, USDCNY, USDBRO shows that China strives to reach the U.S. economic level given the stable exchange rate. Raising USDRUB, Russia approaches DXY. In case of low USDBRO, RTSI growth will be significantly curbed. Considering commodities within foreign trade between Russia, the USA and China, I should point out resource exports, while importing technology from the USA and equipment from China. Conclusions and Relevance. Studying Russia's position in the U.S.–Chinese economic relations, I found that the Russian government should revise foreign trade priorities to end the political and economic independence on the above relations. The findings contribute to the knowledge and competence of the Russian government members for making complementary administrative decision on sources of foreign trade and seizing opportunities for encouraging it.

Analyzing households' consumption in Russia through cyclicality

Subject. The economic position of households is determined by expenditures out of public income. The standard of living of people correlates with phases of the cyclical development of economy. Objectives. We examine the consumption in Russia, considering the nominal and real income of the Russian people, expenditures incurred for the ultimate consumption. We also trace how standards of living change, as well as trends in the consumer demand in Russia during the economic crisis. Methods. Studying households' consumption in Russia given the economic cyclicality, we applied methods of logic and statistical analysis. Results. As the crisis aggravated in Russia during the coronavirus pandemic in 2019–2020, Russia's GDP insignificantly decreased by 3.1 percent, however households' consumption dropped by 8.6 percent. The consumer demand was found to distort in Russia, as people consumer less non-food products and tend to decline expensive food products. Such consumption trends stems from a decrease in income and, consequently, expenditures as people working as employees have their salaries cut and jobs become more scarce during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions and Relevance. It is vital to bring the economy to its recovery and raise the standard of living by developing the middle class, which considerably shrank during the pandemic. Negative trends in people's wellbeing somewhat preserved macroeconomic indicators of the Russian economic development, since net export increased, currency remained within the countries because people mainly spend less on food and traveling. However, the Russian policy for economic development should pursue interests of the people, whose standard of living should be a priority.

The Impact of Early Digital Movie Releases on Box Office Revenue: Evidence from the Korean Market

Our research considers how the introduction of a new digital channel impacts physical sales for movies. While many studies in the Information Systems literature have explored the consequences of digital channel introduction, they have typically done so in contexts where channel choice is relatively independent from the consumers’ ultimate consumption experience. However, in several important industries, including motion pictures, health care, and higher education, important distinctions exist that raise unique questions for the choice of whether and when to introduce a digital channel. First, in these industries purchase via physical versus digital channels may have stark implications for the quality of the consumption experience. Second, physical distribution, often depends upon third-party stakeholders (e.g., movie-theater chains, health care networks, or faculty), who may be resistant to a new digital channel. Bearing these distinctions in mind, in this work, we seek to extend the literature on digital channel introduction by considering the following questions: First, to what extent do digital in-home releases during the theatrical window impact box-office revenue? Second, to what extent do any such effects vary with the extent to which a particular movie is crafted with a theatrical experience in mind? Third, to what extent do theater owners seek to shift supply in the physical channel, in response to a digital release? We address these questions using data from South Korea, where, for a number of years, studios have pursued an early digital release of many movies via an offering known as Super Premium (SP) Video-on-Demand (VOD). SPVOD was introduced in South Korea in 2012 and was adopted by every major movie studio in Korea by the end of 2018. Whereas traditional (non-SP) digital releases typically occur 90 days after the initial theatrical release, SP releases occur as early as four weeks after a theatrical premiere—while the movie is still being shown in theaters. We employ a difference-in-differences design, contrasting SP versus non-SP Korean movies across the box-office window, before versus after SP release. We find a statistically and economically insignificant decline in average theatrical revenue following SP release. That said, the average effects mask heterogeneity, as we observe significantly differing effects depending on the nature of film production, with significantly small theatrical losses among films that include features that enhance the theatrical experience (i.e., advanced sound technologies). We also provide evidence that, given sufficient lead time, theater owners respond to a looming digital channel introduction by cutting supply in the physical channel in anticipation of lost demand. Finally, we provide evidence that the early digital release leads to a statistically significant rise in the volume of high quality piracy sources, implying a negative externality for movie demand in other geographies. This last aspect highlights another novel consideration of digital channel introduction that arises with information goods. We discuss the implications of our various findings for the literature on digital channels, as well as the literature on digital movie sales.

Modelling the Formation of Gas Hydrate in the Pipelines

Water and hydrocarbon are generally found beside each other in nature i.e., hydrocarbons are formed in aqueous environment. Natural gas and crude oil of storage reservoirs and transferring pipes from petroleum wells to industrial processes of oil and gas are in contact with water and they are in equilibrium with each other. Generally, water is considered as an intruder in oil and gas industry from primary production to ultimate consumption. It causes corrosion in pipelines and reduces the heating value of the fuel. High pressure and low temperature could also cause water condensation and liquid water considerably reduces pipelines efficiency. Low temperatures in winter or an adiabatic pressure drop could ultimately lead to hydrate formation in pipelines. Therefore, hydrate formation causes various problems and costs. In order to prevent hydrate formation, there should be comprehensive information about hydrate formation conditions. The available data on hydrate are outdated and might not have enough accuracy. The data are also specified for a single gas component while mixtures of gases are generally observed in pipelines. The current work tries to increase modeling accuracy of hydrate formation condition in pipelines with different compositions. In this research, a program was coded in MATLAB which specifies hydrate formation condition. In this program, the most accurate equations were used to predict the most efficient condition. Results of the program were compared with real data as well as results of PVTsim simulator. The comparisons indicated that this program could predict hydrate formation condition more accurately.

Trends in global dependency on the Indonesian palm oil and resultant environmental impacts

Rapid growth in the international demand for palm oil has triggered considerable global concern because oil palm plantations deteriorate the environment where they are developed, resulting in complex environmental impacts in the producer nations. Here, we illustrate the historical trends in the structure of Indonesian palm oil supply chains and how these have been affected by the final demand of other nations since 2000 by using the most recent dataset of global material flows of palm oil and a global input–output database. In addition, the combination of spatial land-use change with palm oil consumption along the supply chains illustrates the linkages between ultimate consumption and land-use changes due to the palm oil plantations. As a result, the major contributors to palm oil production in Indonesia were mostly stable, being India, China, Western Europe, the United States, and Japan. However, the contribution of Indonesia declined by 6% during 2000–2013, illustrating a possible shift towards palm oil being used for non-food demands, such as apparel and medicines. Building on consumption-based accounting schemes as demonstrated by this study are considered necessary to protect local ecosystems and society.

Optimized cluster head selection using krill herd algorithm for wireless sensor network

ABSTRACT Wireless Sensor Network (WSNs) can perform transmission within themselves and examination is performed based on their range of frequency. It is quite difficult to recharge devises under adverse conditions. The main limitations are area of coverage, network’s lifetime and aggregating and scheduling. If the lifetime of a network should be prolonged, then it can become a success along with reliability of the data transferred, conservation of sensor and scalability. Through many research works, this challenge can be overcome which are being proposed and the network’s lifespan improved which can preserve the sensor’s energy. By schemes of clustering, a low overhead is provided and the resources are efficiently allocated thus increasing the ultimate consumption of energy and reducing interfaces within the sensor nodes. Challenges such as node deployment and energy-aware clustering can be considered as issues of optimization with regards to WSNs, along with data collection. An optimal solution can be gotten through evolutionary and SI algorithm, pertaining to Non-deterministic Polynomial (NP)-complete along with a number of techniques. In this work, Krill Herd Algorithm based clustering is proposed.

Ultimate consumption risk and investment-based stock returns

Motivated by recent works documenting that the returns formed on real investment predict aggregate economic activities, we study whether the ultimate consumption model proposed by Parker and Julliard (2005) explains the cross-section of investment-based stock returns. We find that the ultimate consumption model with horizons from 3 to 4years outperforms the contemporaneous consumption model. The linearized model’s performance is better than that of the Fama-French three-factor model and comparable to that of the Chen-Roll-Ross model. The explanatory power of the ultimate consumption model arises from the close business-cycle relationship between the ultimate consumption growth and the investment-based returns.

Анализ факторов, влияющих в Российской Федерации на уровень конечного потребления домашних хозяйств

Анализ факторов, влияющих в Российской Федерации на уровень конечного потребления домашних хозяйств

Growth in Consumer Lending as a Temporary Source of Well-Being

Recovery of consumer lending has facilitated growth in expenditures on ultimate consumption and brought about stability of households’ savings amid the ongoing decline of real incomes. However, in the long-term prospect this situation will put at risk both the fi nancial stability of households and the resource base of the banking sector.

Mitigating disruptions in a multi-echelon supply chain using adaptive ordering

Supply chains often experience significant economic losses from disruptions such as facility breakdowns, transportation mishaps, natural calamities, and intentional attacks. To help respond and recover from a disruption, we investigate adjustments in order activity across four echelons including assembly. Simulation experiments reveal that the impact of a disruption depends on its location, with costlier and longer lasting impacts occurring from disruptions at echelons close to ultimate consumption. Cost functions based on system inventory and service can be quite ill-behaved in these complex problem settings. Expediting, an adaptive ordering approach often used to mitigate disruptions, can trigger unintended bullwhip effects, and hurt rather than help overall performance. As an alternative to expediting interventions, dynamic order-up-to policies show promise as an adaptive mitigation tool. We also find benefits in the dynamic policies from incorporating a metaheuristic parameter search over multiple echelons, yielding significantly better solution quality than embedded unimodal search.

The Effects of Treatment with Ethylene-Producing Tablets on the Quality and Storability of Banana (Musa sp.)

This study was conducted to assess the effect of ethylene producing tablet (patent no.10-1574011) and treatment period on quality and storability of banana (AAA - Cavendish group) fruit imported into Korea from the Philippines. Three and five days of treatment periods, and different concentrations of ethylene tablet (50 ppmv, 100 ppmv) and control (standard ethylene gas treatment at a concentration of 100 ppmv) were used for the study. Slightly higher respiration rate was observed in banana fruits treated with 50 ppmv in both 3 and 5 days after treatments as compared to the control. Better storability was observed with banana fruits treated with 50 ppmv and 100 ppmv as compared to the control. All the treatments were shown a decrease in firmness as the storage days proceeded. The highest firmness was recorded from 50 ppmv on the initial day of storage while the lowest was recorded from 100 ppmv on 9 day storage. It was observed that banana fruits could be stored for up to 12 days without losing their color quality in all treatments except for the control. However, the quality of fruits at the control rapidly decreased (lost marketability) after 9 days of storage. Banana fruits treated with ethylene tablet with 100 ppmv for 5 days recorded the highest soluble solids content (SSC) at the beginning of storage period which was similar with the control. However, banana fruits treated with ethylene tablet with 100 ppmv for 3 days showed better storability than the control. On the other hand, ethylene tablet with 50 ppmv for 5 days of treatment has extended banana shelf life without affecting peel color, firmness and SSC content. Hence, these results indicate that banana fruits treated with ethylene tablet with 100 ppmv for 3 days or /and 50 ppmv for 5 days are an optimum for ripening of banana to be used for market and ultimate consumption.