<p><strong> ABSTRACT</strong></p><p>The recent years mark the appearance of many Eco-label schemes in the attempt ofhelping consumer to recognize the products with less harm to the environment, forexample: Euro flower, Nordic swan, Blue Angle, Krav. These labels belong to the thirdparties, which get supports from government with object of achieving sustainabledevelopment. However there is still lacking a clear understanding about theeffectiveness of Eco-label in consumer consumption activities due to the lack ofresearch working on that field. We take this challenge as an opportunity to do the studyof investigating about the role of Eco-label in the process of leading consumers topurchase Eco-products. The research focuses on Swedish university students‘ choice onecological food.</p><p>A number of Swedish students in Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden are selected as thegroup of respondents for this study. In order to understand the effectiveness of Eco-labelin students‘ food products choice, four key factors are taken into account to invest igate:students‘ awareness on Eco-label, students‘ knowledge on Eco-label & ecological food,students‘ environment motivation, and the availability of ecological food & Eco-labelinformation. The demographic characters including gender and education backgroundsare known as the influence factors among these four factors.</p><p>The results proved the effectiveness of Eco-label as the guiding instrument for students‘product choice towards ecological food. It provided the evidence that three of these fourfactors above (accept the only one external factors: availability) can encourage students‘attention to Eco-label. In additional, student‘s attention to Eco-label can actually leadtheir purchase behavior on ecological food. With findings and recommendations, thestudy is expected to contribute to the field of ecological consumer behavior marketingresearch. However, the representative of the results is risky because of the limitedcontext and sample of the study.</p>

Induction of classifiers from sets of preclassified training examples is one of the most popular machine learning tasks. This dissertation focuses on the techniques needed in the field of automated text categorization. Here, each document can be labeled with more than one class, sometimes with many classes. Moreover, the classes are hierarchically organized, the mutual relations being typically expressed in terms of a generalization tree. Both aspects (multi-label classification and hierarchically organized classes) have so far received inadequate attention. Existing literature work largely assumes that it is enough to induce a separate binary classifier for each class, and the question of class hierarchy is rarely addressed. This, however, ignores some serious problems. For one thing, induction of thousands of classifiers from hundreds of thousands of examples described by tens of thousands of features (a common case in automated text categorization) incurs prohibitive computational costs---even a single binary classifier in domains of this kind often takes hours, even days, to induce. For another, the circumstance that the classes are hierarchically organized affects the way we view the classification performance of the induced classifiers. The presented work proposes a technique referred to by the acronym "H-kNN-plus." The technique combines support vector machines and nearest neighbor classifiers with the intention to capitalize on the strengths of both. As for performance evaluation, a variety of measures have been used to evaluate hierarchical classifiers, including the standard non-hierarchical criteria that assign the same weight to different types of error. The author proposes a performance measure that overcomes some of their weaknesses. The dissertation begins with a study of (non-hierarchical) multi-label classification. One of the reasons for the poor performance of earlier techniques is the class-imbalance problem---a small number of positive examples being outnumbered by a great many negative examples. Another difficulty is that each of the classes tends to be characterized by a different set of characteristic features. This means that most of the binary classifiers are induced from examples described by predominantly irrelevant features. Addressing these weaknesses by majority-class undersampling and feature selection, the proposed technique significantly improves the overall classification performance. Even more challenging is the issue of hierarchical classification. Here, the dissertation introduces a new induction mechanism, H-kNN-plus, and subjects it to extensive experiments with two real-world datasets. The results indicate its superiority, in these domains, over earlier work in terms of prediction performance as well as computational costs.

Voluntary environmental labeling or certification programs provide information about the environmental characteristics of one or more aspects of a product’s life cycle to consumers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy were among the first governmental agencies in the world to adopt environmental information programs. This study examines two U.S. programs – Energy Star, an energy efficiency labeling program, and Green Power Partnership (GPP), a green energy purchasing program, and estimates how much consumers are willing to pay for refrigerators that have been awarded these labels and what factors motivate that willingness to pay. The data were obtained from a survey conducted in March and April of 2009 via an online research panel, which was constructed to be representative of the U.S. population. Analysis of the data was conducted using conditional logit regression models with fixed parameters and mixed logit regression models with random parameters. Results revealed that consumers, on average, have a willingness to pay ranging from $237.81 to $350.54 for the Energy Star label and a willingness to pay ranging from $48.52 to $70.95 for the GPP label. The results also indicate that consumer demographics and attitudes influence WTP. In particular, individuals with greater levels of stated concern for the environment or individuals exhibiting strong perceptions on the effectiveness of consumers to affect product design and the ambient environment had a greater likelihood of choosing a labeled alternative, and thus, a greater WTP for both the Energy Star and GPP label. To manufacturers and government regulators, these results suggest that energy labels can play a significant role in a consumer’s decision making process when selecting a new appliance.

ABSTRACT The recent years mark the appearance of many Eco-label schemes in the attempt ofhelping consumer to recognize the products with less harm to the environment, forexample: Euro flower, Nordic swan, Blue Angle, Krav. These labels belong to the thirdparties, which get supports from government with object of achieving sustainabledevelopment. However there is still lacking a clear understanding about theeffectiveness of Eco-label in consumer consumption activities due to the lack ofresearch working on that field. We take this challenge as an opportunity to do the studyof investigating about the role of Eco-label in the process of leading consumers topurchase Eco-products. The research focuses on Swedish university students‘ choice onecological food. A number of Swedish students in Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden are selected as thegroup of respondents for this study. In order to understand the effectiveness of Eco-labelin students‘ food products choice, four key factors are taken into account to invest igate:students‘ awareness on Eco-label, students‘ knowledge on Eco-label &amp; ecological food,students‘ environment motivation, and the availability of ecological food &amp; Eco-labelinformation. The demographic characters including gender and education backgroundsare known as the influence factors among these four factors. The results proved the effectiveness of Eco-label as the guiding instrument for students‘product choice towards ecological food. It provided the evidence that three of these fourfactors above (accept the only one external factors: availability) can encourage students‘attention to Eco-label. In additional, student‘s attention to Eco-label can actually leadtheir purchase behavior on ecological food. With findings and recommendations, thestudy is expected to contribute to the field of ecological consumer behavior marketingresearch. However, the representative of the results is risky because of the limitedcontext and sample of the study.

Ecological issues are current topics which consumers face in every-day life. The growing awareness by the consumers that they can have an impact on protection of the environment, animals and their own health is the reason of the growing market of ecological products (Kinnear, Talor and Ahmed, 1974; Polonsky, 1994). According to the Swedish consumer agency the agricultural sector had increased highly since the 1990s. Hence the companies had increased its market activities significant under the last decade (Konsumentverket, 2007). It appears more and more that the most important aspect for competitive positioning of companies providing ecological food is to understand the factors which drive consumers to purchase ecological food products. The KRAV label appears as an essential part of market ecological food. In this context it is very interesting to identify in which degree the consumer is affected by the third-party label KRAV. The purpose of the paper is to identify information about the ecological consumer as well as the factors that influence consumers to buy ecological food products and in this context examine the awareness and importance of ecological labels, in Jönköping County. The thesis is limited in its geographical area because the consumer survey is done in several cities in Jönköping County. The thesis considers general the ecological food industry and does not include other ecological industries such as clothes or furniture. By studying former surveys and conducting a previous study a survey questionnaire was developed. 102 respondents from Jönköpings County were asked to fill in this questionnaire. The collected data were evaluated with the statistical program SPSS. Analysis of variance, correlation analysis and descriptive analysis were used. The authors have got the impression that the ecological consumer in Jönköping County is mostly female and higher educated. The most important factors that influence the consumer positively to choose the ecological products are healthiness, environmental friendliness and better taste. If products do not include pesticides and are produced “animal friendly” it also influence the consumer positive. Negative factors that influence consumers are still a too high price, unavailability and bad/no information.

Sweden has experienced a surge in retail labels within the food industry the last decade and this increase has meant great changes within the meat industry. Producer brands have been faced with issues of strategy formulation and changing power structures that has affected small-and medium sized companies more than others. The purpose of this thesis is to, from a small- and medium sized producer perspective; investigate the impact the increase in retail label products have on selected producer brand producing companies in the Swedish meat industry and if they constitute a major threat to the producer brands. Furthermore, the thesis addresses issues such as the present structure of the industry and future views of the meat industry. Method A qualitative research method was used in order to investigate the impact of the increase in retail labels. Interviews were conducted with three cured meat producers operating in the region of Småland. Furthermore, a market leading producer and representatives from the market leading retailer was also included in the study to gain a deeper understanding of market conditions. Results The results of the interviews shows an industry that is mature and experiencing slow and sometimes even declining growth where companies are pretty much set in their ways. The fiercest competition, over shelf space, is between producers with similar strategies instead of between producers and retailers. The increase in retail labels has meant a drastically reduced shelf space for producers to compete over. However, the three producers have taken steps in order to secure that the threat from retail labels is kept at a minimum. Nevertheless, new retail labels that will be closer to producer brands in terms of quality and price are coming. These are seen as a greater threat than the existing labels.

DNA-metal ion interactions are critical for stabilizing conformations of double stranded (ds) DNA and through specific binding sites will influence the interaction of DNA with other molecules. It has been shown that different metal ions bind to different sites within nucleic acids. Work in this thesis exploits the interactions of Zn2+ with nucleic acids that are linked to surfaces. Zn2+ can interact with the phosphodiester backbone and engage in interactions with the purine nucleobases. Electrochemical studies of ds-DNA films have demonstrated that in the presence of Zn2+ films containing a single nucleotide mismatch give rise to a specific electrochemical signature. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) allows the discrimination of mismatched DNA films from those that are fully matched by monitoring differences in the resistance of charge transfer. Scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) allows multiplexing of the data acquisition and monitoring of the current response I, which is attenuated as a function of mismatch. In this thesis, various potential factors were explored in detail that may impact the discrimination of nucleotide mismatches in ds-DNA films by EIS and SECM. These factors include the position of the mismatch, its type, the number of mismatches, the length of the DNA duplex, and the length of target sequences. In particular, when the two strands are of unequal length, the resulting nucleotide overhang may mask the mismatch signature. Such overhangs are expected in real biosensor applications, in which the DNA is isolated from cellular targets. Results presented here clearly demonstrate that mismatches are readily distinguished from fully matched strands even in overhang systems, suggesting that this approach has promise for realistic sensor applications.

KCN-1 is known to reduce tumor growth 6-fold in mice implanted with LN229 glioma cells. Although this inhibitor is effective, the mechanism of action for KCN-1 is not well understood. Based on preliminary studies, KCN-1 reduces tumor growth by disrupting the HIF 1 (hypoxia-induced factor-1) pathway. The binding target of KCN-1 needs to be investigated in order to develop KCN-1 or its analogs for therapeutic applications. In this research, a molecule was designed and synthesized for the identification of the binding target of KCN-1. Specifically, this molecule contains the inhibitor (KCN-1), a photocleavable linker, beads, and the affinity label (L DOPA). When UV light shines on the linker, the trans-alkene isomerizes to cis-alkene and undergoes intramolecular ring-closing reaction, which helps cleave the immobilized bead from the linker. The immobilized bead is used to separate the binding fragment attached to the photocleavable linker from the solution after enzyme digestion. The affinity label (L-DOPA) reacts with a nucleophile from the binding target and creates a covalent bond. If the design is successful, this method is able to analyze the mass of the peptide sequence and determine the binding target of KCN-1.

Medication errors are one of the most common causes of patient injuries in healthcare systems. Poor labelling has been identified as a contributing factor of medication errors, particularly for those involving injectable drugs. Colour coding and colour differentiation are two major techniques being used on labels to aid drug identification. However, neither approach has been scientifically proven to minimize the occurrence of or harm from medication errors. This thesis investigates potential effects of different approaches for using colour on standardized labels on the task of identifying a specific drug from a storage area via a controlled experiment involving human users. Three different ways of using colour were compared: labels where only black, white and grey are used; labels where a unique colour scheme adopted from an existing manufacturer’s label is applied to each drug; colour coded labels based on the product’s strength level within the product line. The results show that people might be vulnerable to confusion from drugs that have look-alike labels and also have look-alike, sound-alike drug names. In particular, when each drug label had a fairly unique colour scheme, participants were more prone to misperceive the look-alike, sound-alike drug name as the correct drug name than when no colour was used or when colour was used on the labels with no apparent one-to-one association between the label colour and the drug identity. This result could suggest a perceptual bias to perceive stimuli as the expected stimuli especially when the task involved is familiar and the stimuli look similar to the expected stimuli. Moreover, the results suggest a potential problem that may arise from standardizing existing labels if careful consideration is not given to the effects of reduced visual variations among the labels of different products on how the colours of the labels are perceived and used for drug identification. The thesis concludes with recommendations for improving the existing standard for labelling of injectable drug containers and for avoiding medication errors due to labelling and packaging in general.

Sustainable consumption has become a crucial factor to consider for both consumers and manufacturing firms. Green marketing practices, or marketing activities aimed at decreasing the impact on the environment, have been incorporated into many business plans to combat old habits of wastefulness and pollution. One very popular method that has come to prominence over the recent years is eco-labeling of products and services. Eco-labels are logos that represent that a product or service has met standardized criteria set by a certifying organization and that it is deemed a sustainable option in its product category. The focus of this study will center-on well-known and established eco-labels in the Swedish market, namely the Swan, Bra Miljöval, KRAV, EU-Ecolabel and the Marine Stewardship Council eco-labels. Eco-labels are tools for communication which can be used to facilitate the practice of sustainable consumption. However, there are many factors that influence the consumer’s ability to understand the message of the eco-label which in turn can affect their capacity to adopt the sustainable behavior. The purpose of this study is to determine if Swedish consumers understand the eco-label’s message and if this message affects their green purchasing. These results were related to message quality as defined by the International Standards Organization 14063 standard for environmental communication (2004 cited in Strömdahl, 2005, p. 15; Von Ahn &amp; Wikström, 2005, p. 33-34) and other notable factors found from a literature review. The following research questions were answered: • Do consumers understand the message of an eco-label?      o What are the factors related to understanding the eco-label? • Do awareness and understanding affect purchase behavior of and eco-label?      o What are the factors related to the purchase of eco-labeled products? A quantitative approach has been used in this research project and a survey has been administered at supermarkets in the Umeå area. To confirm the message of the eco-labels, a semi-structured interview was conducted with the issuing organizations prior to designing the questionnaire. A total of 152 responses were collected from the survey and analyzed with frequency distributions, independent sample t-tests and contingency tables where a significance level of chi-square of .05 or lower was required. The results of the study indicate that customer understanding and purchase behavior varied by each eco-label. Message quality can have a significant impact on understanding of the eco-label. Also, other personal factors were related to understanding and purchase behavior with nationality giving evidence of the strongest relationship.