Agricultural Marketing Service

The attainment of quality in products and services has become a pivotal concern of the 1980s. While quality in tangible goods has been described and measured by marketers, quality in services is largely undefined and unresearched. The authors attempt to rectify this situation by reporting the insights obtained in an extensive exploratory investigation of quality in four service businesses and by developing a model of service quality. Propositions and recommendations to stimulate future research about service quality are offered.

The attainment of quality in products and services has become a pivotal concern of the 1980s. While quality in tangible goods has been described and measured by marketers, quality in services is largely undefined and unresearched. The authors attempt to rectify this situation by reporting the insights obtained in an extensive exploratory investigation of quality in four service businesses and by developing a model of service quality. Propositions and recommendations to stimulate future research about service quality are offered.

New organization forms, including strategic partnerships and networks, are replacing simple market-based transactions and traditional bureaucratic hierarchical organizations. The historical marketing management function, based on the microeconomic maximization paradigm, must be critically examined for its relevance to marketing theory and practice in the 1990s. A new conception of marketing will focus on managing strategic partnerships and positioning the firm between vendors and customers in the value chain with the aim of delivering superior value to customers. Customer relationships will be seen as the key strategic resource of the business.

THE success of chronic hemodialysis in terminal renal failure depends on repeated access to blood vessels that will provide a continuous flow of up to 250 to 300 ml. per minute.A technic was developed for the permanent implantation of cannulas into an artery and vein of the forearm. Between dialyses, patency of these blood vessels depends on maintaining circulation between artery and vein by means of a Teflon-Silastic loop, creating an external arteriovenous fistula. The surgical technic required for the successful implantation of these catheters has been described.1 , 2 This prosthesis is now used by virtually all centers engaged in . . .

BACKGROUND: Recent declines in honey bees for crop pollination threaten fruit, nut, vegetable and seed production in the United States. A broad survey of pesticide residues was conducted on samples from migratory and other beekeepers across 23 states, one Canadian province and several agricultural cropping systems during the 2007-08 growing seasons. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We have used LC/MS-MS and GC/MS to analyze bees and hive matrices for pesticide residues utilizing a modified QuEChERS method. We have found 121 different pesticides and metabolites within 887 wax, pollen, bee and associated hive samples. Almost 60% of the 259 wax and 350 pollen samples contained at least one systemic pesticide, and over 47% had both in-hive acaricides fluvalinate and coumaphos, and chlorothalonil, a widely-used fungicide. In bee pollen were found chlorothalonil at levels up to 99 ppm and the insecticides aldicarb, carbaryl, chlorpyrifos and imidacloprid, fungicides boscalid, captan and myclobutanil, and herbicide pendimethalin at 1 ppm levels. Almost all comb and foundation wax samples (98%) were contaminated with up to 204 and 94 ppm, respectively, of fluvalinate and coumaphos, and lower amounts of amitraz degradates and chlorothalonil, with an average of 6 pesticide detections per sample and a high of 39. There were fewer pesticides found in adults and brood except for those linked with bee kills by permethrin (20 ppm) and fipronil (3.1 ppm). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The 98 pesticides and metabolites detected in mixtures up to 214 ppm in bee pollen alone represents a remarkably high level for toxicants in the brood and adult food of this primary pollinator. This represents over half of the maximum individual pesticide incidences ever reported for apiaries. While exposure to many of these neurotoxicants elicits acute and sublethal reductions in honey bee fitness, the effects of these materials in combinations and their direct association with CCD or declining bee health remains to be determined.

Purpose Knowledge sharing is the corner‐stone of many organisations’ knowledge‐management (KM) strategy. Despite the growing significance of knowledge sharing's practices for organisations’ competitiveness and market performance, several barriers make it difficult for KM to achieve the goals and deliver a positive return on investment. This paper provides a detailed review of current KM and related literatures on a large number of possible knowledge‐sharing barriers with the purpose of offering a more comprehensive and structured starting‐point for senior managers when auditing their organisation's current knowledge base and knowledge‐sharing requirements. Design/methodology/approach This article reviews and discusses over three dozen potential knowledge‐sharing barriers, categorising them into three main domains of recently published works: individual/personal, organisational, and technological barriers. Findings The extensive list of knowledge sharing barriers provides a helpful starting point and guideline for senior managers auditing their existing practices with a view to identifying any bottle‐necks and improving on the overall effectiveness of knowledge‐sharing activities. Practical implications Managers need to realise, however, that a particular knowledge sharing strategy or specific managerial actions will not suit all companies and that there are differences to be expected between MNCs and SMEs, private, public sector, and not‐for‐profit organisations. As such, the implementation of knowledge‐sharing goals and strategies into an organisation's strategic planning and thinking will vary greatly. Originality/value The main discussion of this paper brings together a large range of knowledge‐ sharing barriers in an attempt to indicate the complexity of knowledge sharing as a value‐creating organisational activity.

Tribolium castaneum is a member of the most species-rich eukaryotic order, a powerful model organism for the study of generalized insect development, and an important pest of stored agricultural products. We describe its genome sequence here. This omnivorous beetle has evolved the ability to interact with a diverse chemical environment, as shown by large expansions in odorant and gustatory receptors, as well as P450 and other detoxification enzymes. Development in Tribolium is more representative of other insects than is Drosophila, a fact reflected in gene content and function. For example, Tribolium has retained more ancestral genes involved in cell–cell communication than Drosophila, some being expressed in the growth zone crucial for axial elongation in short-germ development. Systemic RNA interference in T. castaneum functions differently from that in Caenorhabditis elegans, but nevertheless offers similar power for the elucidation of gene function and identification of targets for selective insect control. The red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum is a common pest: a type of 'bran bug', it targets cereal products, including grain, flour and rice bran. It is also a commonly used laboratory model, combining the ease of systematic RNA interference experiments such as those used with the nematode worm C. elegans with a biology that is more representative of most insects than even Drosophila. This weeks sees the publication by the Tribolium Genome Sequencing Consortium of the genomic sequence of T. castaneum. This is the first beetle genome to be published, and it will be a valuable resource for insect development studies and pest biology. The beetle Tribolium castaneum is a commonly used laboratory model, combining the ease of systematic RNAi experiments like those in Caenorhabditis elegans, with biology that is more representative of most insects than Drosophila melanogaster. A large consortium has sequenced and analysed the genome of the red flour beetle, creating a resource for biologists everywhere.

Some peculiar characteristics of service firms, such as low capital intensity and the inseparability of production and consumption, have necessitated the modification of the traditional transaction-cost framework used to study entry-mode choice. By relaxing some unduly restrictive assumptions of the conventional transaction-cost analysis (TCA) model, the paper argues that firms prefer to start with full-control modes. It postulates that substantial variation in entry-mode choice occurs when firms that are characterized by low asset specificity relinquish control in response to the rising costs of integration or the diminishing ability to integrate. Several hypotheses on the propensity of service firms to employ shared-control entry modes are developed and tested. The results not only provide insights into entry-mode choice by service firms but also indicate how the transaction-cost framework can be broadened to develop a more comprehensive model for understanding entry-mode choice.

New organization forms, including strategic partnerships and networks, are replacing simple market-based transactions and traditional bureaucratic hierarchical organizations. The historical marketing management function, based on the microeconomic maximization paradigm, must be critically examined for its relevance to marketing theory and practice in the 1990s. A new conception of marketing will focus on managing strategic partnerships and positioning the firm between vendors and customers in the value chain with the aim of delivering superior value to customers. Customer relationships will be seen as the key strategic resource of the business.

The last decade has seen the emergence of the sharing economy as well as the rise of a diverse array of research on this topic both inside and outside the marketing discipline. However, the sharing economy’s implications for marketing thought and practice remain unclear. This article defines the sharing economy as a technologically enabled socioeconomic system with five key characteristics (i.e., temporary access, transfer of economic value, platform mediation, expanded consumer role, and crowdsourced supply). It also examines the sharing economy’s impact on marketing’s traditional beliefs and practices in terms of how it challenges three key foundations of marketing: institutions (e.g., consumers, firms and channels, regulators), processes (e.g., innovation, branding, customer experience, value appropriation), and value creation (e.g., value for consumers, value for firms, value for society) and offers future research directions designed to push the boundaries of marketing thought. The article concludes with a set of forward-looking guideposts that highlight the implications of the sharing economy’s paradoxes, maturation, and technological development for marketing research. Collectively, this article aims to help marketing scholars not only keep pace with the sharing economy but also shape its future direction.

I. Introduction, 227. — II. Akerman's argument, 229. — III. Reformulation in terms of adaptive expectations, 230. — IV. An alternative but equivalent formulation, 233. — V. Some empirical results, 236. — VI. More complicated models, 238. — VII. Conclusions, 240.

Reviews literature highlighting a number of problems associated with entrepreneurship education and training programmes. The major problem relates to balance: too much of an emphasis on knowledge and not enough on competence; too much emphasis on information transfer learning methods and not enough on individual small group learning methods such as project teams, peer exchange, individual counselling and workshops. There is very little evaluation of the effectiveness of such programmes. There is a lack of evidence on how learning strategies influence the development of entrepreneurial competences and how these competences transfer into new project/venture formation. There is also a lack of comparative research to identify commonalities, and differences in terms of design and structure.

A clinical trial was undertaken to improve the therapeutic index of cis-platinum diammine dichloride with a concomitantly administered mannitol induced diuresis. Sixty patients, heavily pretreated, were entered; fifty-one are evaluable. The technique of concomitant osmotic diuresis and CPDD administration is described in detail. Doses ranged from 3 mg/kg to 5 mg/kg. At 5 mg/kg, dose-limiting renal, marrow and ototoxicity were seen, and resulted in one drug death. Marrow toxicity was moderate. Renal toxicity was limited to transient elevations in serum creatinine levels, except in some patients who had renal impairment prior to CPDD treatment. These patients had moderate renal toxicity. Serial treatments as frequently as once every 3 weeks were used to maintain responses. Serial high dose CPDD produced only mild renal dysfunction. Ototoxicity, usually subclinical, was quantitated audiometrically, and found to be dose related, but not clinically prohibitive at 4 mg/kg or less. The overall response rate (PR/MR) was 42%. Clinically significant responses in epidermoid carcinoma of the head and neck, adenocarcinoma of the ovary, and germ cell tumors of the testis were seen. All six responding patients with germ cell tumor of the testis, had been resistant to low dose (1mg/kg) CPDD. Two responding patients with ovarian adenocarcinoma had been resistant to alkylating agents.

Vascular dysfunction is a major complication of metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity. The current studies were undertaken to determine whether inflammatory responses are activated in the vasculature of mice with diet-induced obesity, and if so, whether Toll-Like Receptor-4 (TLR4), a key mediator of innate immunity, contributes to these responses. Mice lacking TLR4 (TLR4(-/-)) and wild-type (WT) controls were fed either a low fat (LF) control diet or a diet high in saturated fat (HF) for 8 weeks. In response to HF feeding, both genotypes displayed similar increases of body weight, body fat content, and serum insulin and free fatty acid (FFA) levels compared with mice on a LF diet. In lysates of thoracic aorta from WT mice maintained on a HF diet, markers of vascular inflammation both upstream (IKKbeta activity) and downstream of the transcriptional regulator, NF-kappaB (ICAM protein and IL-6 mRNA expression), were increased and this effect was associated with cellular insulin resistance and impaired insulin stimulation of eNOS. In contrast, vascular inflammation and impaired insulin responsiveness were not evident in aortic samples taken from TLR4(-/-) mice fed the same HF diet, despite comparable increases of body fat mass. Incubation of either aortic explants from WT mice or cultured human microvascular endothelial cells with the saturated FFA, palmitate (100 micromol/L), similarly activated IKKbeta, inhibited insulin signal transduction and blocked insulin-stimulated NO production. Each of these effects was subsequently shown to be dependent on both TLR4 and NF-kappaB activation. These findings identify the TLR4 signaling pathway as a key mediator of the deleterious effects of palmitate on endothelial NO signaling, and are the first to document a key role for TLR4 in the mechanism whereby diet-induced obesity induces vascular inflammation and insulin resistance.

ABSTRACT Trading systems differ in their degree of transparency, here defined as the extent to which market makers can observe the size and direction of the current order flow. We investigate whether greater transparency enhances market liquidity by reducing the opportunities for taking advantage of uninformed participants. We compare the price formation process in several stylized trading systems with different degrees of transparency: various types of auction markets and a stylized dealer market. We find that greater transparency generates lower trading costs for uninformed traders on average, although not necessarily for every size of trade.

An issue debated frequently in the international marketing literature centers on whether a business should pursue a strategy that is standardized across national markets or adapted to individual national markets. Of the two aspects relating to standardization of marketing strategy across national markets—(1) standardization of the pattern of resource allocation across marketing mix variables integral to a business's marketing strategy and (2) standardization of the strategy content with respect to individual marketing mix variables—the latter has been the subject of numerous conceptual articles. However, there is a relative dearth of empirical studies on both issues. To partially fill this void, this study addresses empirically the question of the standardization of the pattern of resource allocation among marketing mix variables across national markets. The question is addressed by examining whether competitive strategy and industry structure variables affect market share and business profits similarly or dissimilarly across Western markets, that is, the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Western Europe. The results reveal that with few exceptions, the effects of competitive strategy and market structure variables generalize across these markets. The study findings provide insights into both the merits of standardizing the strategic resource mix across Western markets and the competitive strategy and market structure variables that are major explanators of business performance across Western markets.

When people's deeply ingrained need for social connection is thwarted by social exclusion, profound psychological consequences ensue. Despite the fact that social connections and consumption are central facets of daily life, little empirical attention has been devoted to understanding how belongingness threats affect consumer behavior. In four experiments, we tested the hypothesis that social exclusion causes people to spend and consume strategically in the service of affiliation. Relative to controls, excluded participants were more likely to buy a product symbolic of group membership (but not practical or self-gift items), tailor their spending preferences to the preferences of an interaction partner, spend money on an unappealing food item favored by a peer, and report being willing to try an illegal drug, but only when doing so boosted their chances of commencing social connections. Overall, results suggest that socially excluded people sacrifice personal and financial well-being for the sake of social well-being.

In the 1980's sports fans became accustomed to player free agency while in the 1990's these same fans have had to come to terms with franchise free agency. While some cities lose their professional sport franchises, others enjoy sell-outs, and lucrative television contracts. Why were Cleveland Browns fans so vehement in their protests and lawsuits in their attempt to retain the Browns, while in Houston the fans were apathetic in their response to the possibility (and subsequent reality) of losing the Oilers? The authors describe this personal commitment and emotional involvement of fans in pro sport franchises as fan identification. In this article the authors develop a conceptual framework of fan identification and the levels, motivations and benefits of such identification. In analyzing these factors, we suggest strategies for increasing fan identification and identify possible managerial outcomes resulting from increased fan identification.

In the present study, we used experience sampling to measure desires and desire regulation in everyday life. Our analysis included data from 205 adults, who furnished a total of 7,827 reports of their desires over the course of a week. Across various desire domains, results revealed substantial differences in desire frequency and strength, the degree of conflict between desires and other goals, and the likelihood of resisting desire and the success of this resistance. Desires for sleep and sex were experienced most intensively, whereas desires for tobacco and alcohol had the lowest average strength, despite the fact that these substances are thought of as addictive. Desires for leisure and sleep conflicted the most with other goals, and desires for media use and work brought about the most self-control failure. In addition, we observed support for a limited-resource model of self-control employing a novel operationalization of cumulative resource depletion: The frequency and recency of engaging in prior self-control negatively predicted people's success at resisting subsequent desires on the same day.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans the biological, physical, and social sciences.