The main purpose of the study is to explore how certain socio-economic determinants shape the way consumers behave in the consumption of wedding goods and services. These socio-economic determinants include: price, education, family tradition, social constraints and self-expression. A set of questions related to the main research question was raised in order to better illustrate the relationship between these determinants and the consumption action, as well as to discover, reveal and comprehend the complexity of the Chinese wedding industry. Both a self-completion web-administered online survey and electronic interviews were carried out to collect primary data in order to get a confirmatory set of results. The results from both of the survey and the interviews have shown that these socio-economic factors are related to the individual behaviour in the consumption of wedding goods and services. But the impact is not as strong and obvious as expected. Respondents’ perceived satisfaction differ from each other but not necessarily link to their consumption tendency according to the survey. It also revealed the fact that social convention and family tradition can help shaping the decision-making process to a certain extent. However, interviewees showed their enthusiasm to the concept of self-expression and autonomy. They found the self concept more important than tradition and convention when making choices, despite that they admitted that it would be impossible to completely discard the traditions.

Skincare products were deemed as socially undesirable for men in the past days. Images of men were expected to be tough, independent, hard-boiled, whereas skincare products were too feminine for men. However, due to the metro-sexual fashion trend which advocating men to dress up themselves, men nowadays are starting to care about their outfits, appearances and facial skin condition to which women are paying attention. The market of skincare products for men in Taiwan now is rapidly growing and do not confine to only a small amount of men users. It is a widely received conscious that men need skincare products. Hence, from only a few early adopters to wide spread adopters in men population as whole, the purpose of this study is to investigate the correlations between demographic, media usages, personal characteristics, impulsive consumption behaviors and adopting stages. By using survey method, this study wants to explore whether there are any significance in demographic, media usages, personal characteristics affecting men to adopt skincare products. However, Diffusion of Innovation theory is under the premise of social learning theory, which presupposes that it is a rational decision making process for consumer when adopting innovation. The presupposition as such disregards the possibility of impulsive consumption. In addition to demographic, media usages, personal characteristics, this study takes impulsive consumption into consider as a independent variable affecting adoption. The study results is that when compared with no taking impulsive consumption into consideration, there are significances in demographic, media usages, personal characteristics affecting men to adopt skincare products after controlling impulsive consumption as a independent variable. The study results show that impulsive consumption is an indispensable variable when researching diffusion of innovations.

Factors such as parental/caregiver influences and socioeconomic status have been shown to impact food-related attitudes and behaviors. Consequently, these attitudes and behaviors affect health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to assess, using the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), attitudes toward milk fat type and milk consumption among Texas WIC participants. Few studies, using this theoretical framework, have examined milk intake specifically among this population. Four hypotheses were proposed according to the theoretical model. The inclusionary criteria used for this study yielded a subset sample of 2,115; all cases included were Texas WIC participants. The results of this study show that caregivers' attitudes toward drinking and offering milk fat type are related. Caregivers' attitudes toward drinking milk fat type and the type of milk they drank were proven to be statistically significant. Similarly, caregivers' attitudes toward offering milk fat type and the milk fat type their children drank were proven to be significant. Caregivers' milk intakes were positively associated with children's milk intakes. It is evident that parental/caregiver modeling influences children's dietary habits. Parental/caregiver behaviors are important influences to consider when implementing nutrition education programs or intervention efforts, especially for participants of WIC. Improving caregivers' attitudes toward low-fat or fat-free milk intake can also contribute to healthier food-related choices.

In the following C-Level Thesis, the geographically isolated consumer society that has evolved in the developed world is examined through discourse analysis. This research frames the issue of material consumption in a historical context and then interrogates the modern task of sustainability. Through review and analysis of current discourse in the sociopolitical field of sustainable consumption, this paper critically analyzes the development of modern consumer culture. The concept of ecological citizenship is presented and inspected as an effective strategy for the realization of sustainability and is viewed as a unifier of the many conflicting discourses on sustainable consumption. The dominant institutional discourse of ecological modernization is presented through a review of UK policy documents, and the opinions as well as alternative solutions touted by critics is noted. This paper finds that ideal of ecological citizenship has not yet been reached, but positive steps have been taken to achieve the goal of sustainability through curbing consumptive habits. In this presentation of sustainable consumption discourse it is important to recognize that there may be no absolute answer or right way to live on this planet, but rather, many ways which can, together, bring about a sustainable society.

Problem: What type of messages can be used to make ‘saving the environment’ more appealing to individuals, in order to encourage them to act environmentally friendly? Purpose: Our focus is the challenge of convincing consumers to save electricity in the Netherlands. Using two different types of messages, environmental and financial, our aim is to identify which characteristics of marketing messages are more effective when trying to encourage individuals to act environmentally friendly. Method: Interviews with relevant organizations are held in order to see what professionals say about the environment and marketing. Questionnaires are distributed to see what the general opinion is and finally a case study is conducted to investigate the effectiveness of several messages on people’s electricity consumption. Conceptual Framework: The theory of social marketing is being used, derived from nonprofit marketing. A communication model is applied to the findings, just as the concept of mental accounting. Conclusion: Our research showed a clear preference for rational based messages that provide benefit claims, that are one sided messages, which are positively framed, focusing on the personal benefits resulting from the change in behavior and finally people should be able to draw conclusions on their own, but they should be given enough directions in the message to draw their conclusion.

Energy economy in mobile devices is becoming an increasinglyimportant factor as the devices become more advancedand rich in features. A large part of the energy footprint of amobile device comes from the wireless communication module,and even more so as the amount of trac increases.In this paper we study the energy footprint of a mobilebroadband hardware module, and how it is aected by software,by performing systematic power consumption measurements.We show that there are several cases where thesoftware does not properly take into account the eect thatdata communication has on the power consumption. Thisopens up for potential energy savings by creating better applicationsthat are aware of the energy characteristics of thecommunication layer.

The thesis project explores the use of an optimization methodology for selecting the lowest monetary cost combinations of technologies to meet a set operational energy efficiency targets for buildings. The optimization approach, which is operated on a normative energy model, is compared with existing prescriptive methodologies for selecting technology combinations and a metric is developed for ranking their effectiveness; the E/C Ratio. The energy savings/ cost ratio is also the objective function that the optimization algorithm is set to maximize. The optimization routine is coded in to a custom MATLAB script and is used in two case studies to optimize a proto-typical Korean apartment and office building. The optimization methodology finds technology combinations that are much more cost effective than the prescriptive methodology at meeting an energy savings target and can generically be applied to other buildings given a palette of technology alternatives and the corresponding cost data.

Hospital is of interest when consider its especial function. Because of the obviously different between the normal residential buildings, the requirement of hospitals’ indoor climate strictly differs from other buildings. The author starts this report by briefly stating the building construction currently. Surrounded the topic of thermal comfort and energy consumption, many suggestion and options came out in this report to develop a better condition. Firstly, the introduction of the hospital buildings requires the background of the hospital object and the purpose to this report will be stated. Secondly, the simulation tool and how to use this tool simulate our real case are introduced. Then, the summer case is investigated by this tool after the model is proved to be validated. Finally, the improvement of establishing a better indoor environment is raised and the results of improvement and conclusion can be found. The final result will show the optimal solution that discovered by this study after compared different alternatives carefully.

The effect of temperature on predator and herbivore consumption is an important factor for predicting the effects of climate warming on ecosystems. The Metabolic Theory of Ecology (MTE) describes the temperature dependence of biological and ecological rates and states that metabolism is the fundamental biological mechanism that governs most observed patterns in ecology. This statement has been criticized empirically for a number of organismal traits and systematic deviations have been found. Here, a meta-analysis is performed on published temperature responses of ectotherm consumption. The mean effect of temperature on consumption was higher than the mean value predicted by proponents of the MTE and was highly variable. Some of this variation is explained by habitat type, where the consumption rates of marine organisms displayed stronger temperature dependence than for terrestrial and freshwater organisms. The frequency distribution of temperature dependencies is right skewed for consumption. Here, this skewness is explained by a methodological artefact as values close to “no effect” are more unlikely to be sampled than others when fitting the Arrhenius equation. In conclusion, the assumptions of the MTE do not hold for rates of consumption and marine organisms display a stronger temperature dependence compared to terrestrial and freshwater organisms.

In each country, the concept of housing exists in relationship between the ways people live, the local climate, the social and political factors that affect the evolution of architecture and the actual structure of the house. The economic developments of the countries and the political situations and regulations have all affected the rise of the residential market. In Greece, where the majority of the residential buildings were constructed between 1960 and 1990, residential buildings represent an important sector in the energy consumption and economic growth of the country. Global warming and changes in the climate system has an important impact in building stock. The European Union is concerned about the scale of the consequences and has encouraged energy efficiency in buildings by mandating the Energy Performance Building Directive for all European countries [1]. In my opinion, it is the responsibility of the architect to address the impact of existing residential buildings by retrofitting solutions with the aim of reducing the energy consumption and eventually improving the quality of life. Architects, in collaboration with energy experts, can work properly to provide effective solutions. With the guidance of the new directive, along with their personal knowledge and experience in energy efficiency they can help bring about increased energy building performance. In order to demonstrate how architects can implement such an energy retrofit plan, this thesis presents a short description of residential buildings constructed between 60's - 80'by presenting a typical building representing the current state of the Greek building stock, and by studying its energy consumption. An energy performance simulation of the building with different energy simulation software considers different scenarios and describes a way to reduce energy demand and increase comfort in these buildings. The primary software tools used in the study was TEE KENAK, developed by the Greek chamber in accordance with the European energy rating tools for the implementation of the Energy Performance Building Directive. Additional software tools, including ECOtect, and the "Energy Performance Calculator", developed by the department of High Performance Buildings at the Georgia Institute of Technology in order to verify the information provided by the actual energy bills and the TEE KENAK. The results presented in this study estimate the building retrofit and energy saving, making appropriate decisions in terms of energy conservation and improvement in the existing residential building considering energy cost savings, payback from retrofit investments, along with architectural design considerations.