Obesity represents a serious threat to health which can be reduced by volitional control of eating and physical activity behaviour. Social cognition theories propose that such behaviour is influenced by cognitions regarding its desirability. The role of obesity outcome expectancies in predicting weight control behaviour has not been established and there are no psychometrically sound measures of these constructs. This thesis aimed to investigate the relationship between knowledge and beliefs regarding obesity's consequences and weight control Intentions in obese patients. The Obesity Risk Knowledge Scale (ORKS-10) was developed using item analysis and rigorously evaluated in a large population (n=965). The ORKS-10 scale proved to be a short, reliable and valid measure of knowledge regarding the health risks associated with obesity. In addition, thematic analysis of data from focus groups and structured interviews was used to identify 41 salient items for a scale to measure obesity outcome expectancy beliefs. Factor and item analysis were then used to develop the Obesity Outcome Expectancy Beliefs Scale (ObEx-15). The ObEx-15 comprises three reliable and unidimensional subscales; the Health Benefits of Weight Control (HBen), Social and Aesthetic Benefits of Weight Control (SABen) and Costs of and Barriers to Weight Control (Cost). Obese adults were recruited from weight management clinics (n=110, response rate=54.19%). Multiple regression analysis indicated that weight control intentions were most strongly associated with endorsement of the social and aesthetic consequences of obesity (B=0.117, t104=2.314, p<0.05) and rejection of the costs and barriers of weight control (B=0.088, t104=2.273, p<0.05). Participants had low levels of knowledge about obesity's health risks and neither ORKS-10 scores nor HBen scores were associated with intentions. Health promotion might, therefore, benefit from focusing upon obesity's non-health impacts and the costs and barriers of weight control. Future obesity outcome expectancies research will also profit from the availability of psychometrically sound measures.

Spatial interaction models represent a class of models that are used for modeling origin destination flow data. The interest in such models is motivated by the need to understand and explain the flows of tangible entities such as persons or commodities or intangible ones such as capital, information or knowledge between regions. The focus here is on the log-normal version of the model. In this context, we consider spatial econometric specifications that can be used to accommodate two types of dependence scenarios, one involving endogenous interaction and the other exogenous interaction. These model specifications replace the conventional assumption of independence between origin-destination-flows with formal approaches that allow for two different types of spatial dependence in flow magnitudes. (authors' abstract) / Series: Working Papers in Regional Science

This dissertation study examined the effect of country-of-origin (COO) fit on consumer brand attitude in cross-border strategic brand alliance (SBA). Also, this study investigated the effects of consumer product knowledge by dividing it into subjective and objective knowledge dimensions. It was found that cross-border SBA can be a viable market entry strategy for host and partner brands. Specifically, cross-border SBA creates positive synergistic effects when the COO fit is high. In addition, in a low COO fit situation, the partner brand suffering from less favorable country image would be able to benefit from the established brand equity of the host brand and thus gain favorable consumer product evaluation. Also, consumers with low and high product knowledge are more likely to be affected by COO fit information than those with moderate product knowledge. It was found that subjective knowledge is more related to consumer heuristics and decision making processes than objective knowledge. Implications and suggestions for future research in this area are provided. / text

The present study examined the effect of family of origin characteristics on current marital satisfaction, within a sample of newlywed couples, using dyadic and mixed methods approaches to conceptualization, data collection, and data analysis.The data used to investigate this process--sometimes called intergenerational transmission--was collected in two phases. First, quantitative data in the form of close-ended questions was collected separately from each member of 190 newlywed couples via hard-copy questionnaires. These questionnaires included measures of family of origin characteristics (e.g., interparental conflict), current marital processes (e.g., conflict resolution style), and marital outcomes (e.g., marital satisfaction). Second, in-depth and open-ended questions were asked of 18 couples in semi-structured couple interviews. The 18 couples who were interviewed in phase two of the data collection represent a purposive sub-sample of the original 190 couples from phase one of data collection.Results of structural equation modeling of a conceptual model based on the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM; Cook & Kenny, 2005) indicated that the family or origin characteristics measured predicted a decrease in marital satisfaction, especially for wives. In addition, mixed evidence was found for the potential meditational role of conflict resolution style. Results of thematic coding of the interview data revealed that: a) families of origin serve as marriage role models in complex and multifaceted ways; b) there are other important models of marriage, aside from families of origin, that influence marital outcomes; c) it is likely that couples use a combination of different marriage role models to form their ideas of marriage (and therefore their marital outcomes); and d) it is possible that in some cases families of origin do not provide a marriage role model at all.Finally, results of a configural comparative analysis utilizing both the quantitative and qualitative data revealed that couples negotiate the pathway from their families of origin to their own marriages in diverse ways. Three distinct pathways were identified, including a "modeling" pathway, a "modified modeling" pathway, and a "compensation" pathway. Interpretations and implications of these findings are discussed. In addition, future directions for research in this area are suggested.

Remiantis lietuvių etnologų Jono Balio, Pranės Dundulienės, Liberto Klimkos, Juozo Kudirkos, Jono Trinkūno veikalais, darbe etnolingvistiniu aspektu yra apžvelgiami lietuvių kalendorinių švenčių ir etninių papročių pavadinimai. Aptariama jų kilmė, daryba, sinonimika, analizuojami kalendorinių švenčių ryšiai su liaudies papročiais ir tradicijomis, apibrėžiami santykiai su kitų tautų analogiškais etnolingvistiniais reiškiniais. Pavadinimų apžvalgą papildo kalendorinių švenčių ir etninių papročių žodynėlis. / According to Lithuanian ethnologists Jonas Balys, Pranė Dundulienė, Libertas Klimka, Jonas Trinkūnas production, their work in ethnolinguistic aspect provides an overview of lithuanian calendar holidays and customs of ethnic titles. It discusses the origin, composition, synonymy, analyses calendar holiday connections with folk customs and traditions, defines relathions with other nathions similar ethnolinguistics phenomena. Review of titles complements the glossary of calendar holidays and customs.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the country of origin effect on consumers’ perception regarding consumer products from India. Indian consumer products are not well known in Europe and other Western countries. Therefore this research is focusing on the expectations consumers have about a certain product from a certain country and not on the experience. In order to understand those expectations, four interviews were conducted on potential Western European consumers. Those interviews were analysed using a framework which consists of a combination between a country of origin effect model and the brand equity model. The combination of the two models helped to understand the expectations which Western consumers can have regarding foreign products, in the case of this study, consumer products from India. It can be seen that three country of origin mechanisms were existent but not very strongly developed. As an example the cognitive country of origin mechanism had almost no direct influence on the brand awareness, as the interviewees were not able to recall or recognize any Indian brand logo which was shown during the interview. This means that the consumers interviewed in this paper are not extremely negatively nor positively influenced by the country of origin effect of India.

Structural changes, including moving, renaming, merging and splitting are important design change decisions made by programmers. However, during the process of software evolution, this information often gets lost. Recovering instances of structural changes in the past, as well as understanding them, are essential for us to achieve a better understanding of how and why software changes. In this thesis, we propose an approach that helps to recover and understand the lost information of structural changes.

Classical coeliac disease (CD) is a well-defined syndrome of small bowel villous atrophy associated with abdominal pain, malabsorption, and weight loss as a result of gluten-sensitivity, reversed rapidly by gluten exclusion diet. Disease associations include dermatitis herpetiformis (DH), Addison’s disease, type 1 diabetes mellitus, autoimmune thyroid disease and a variety of neurological disorders. This thesis aims to investigate the hypothesis of the existence of a gluten sensitive neurological disease CD with coexistent neurological dysfunction is only rarely reported in a neurological setting. 23 cases were reported from the British Neurological Surveillance Unit (BNSU) over 24 months and 13 locally over 31 months. 18 sets of notes (50%) were reviewed. These patients comprise a heterogeneous group of neurological disorders including epilepsy, myelopathy, axonal neuropathy and migraine. Neurological disorders in patients with confirmed gluten sensitivity may occur simply by chance. In a cohort of 801 CD patients, 54 neurological disorders were identified in 177 patients including stroke (2.9%), migraine (2.7%), epilepsy (2.6%) and carpal tunnel syndrome (2.0%). More detailed investigation of 35 patients with DH and 53 patients with CD, confirmed a low prevalence of idiopathic neurological abnormalities (DH 11%; CD 25%). Analysis of sera from these patients did not identify the presence of anti-neuronal antibodies. A novel anti-spinal antibody was identified in over 50% of the subjects with DH but this requires further characterisation. It has been postulated that patients with idiopathic neurological disease and anti-gliadin antibody (AGA) seropositivity are gluten sensitive. However, AGA lacks disease specificity being found in 10% of healthy blood donors. Screening of 49 unselected multiple sclerosis cases found IgG AGA in 12% of patients and 13% of blood donors confirming that AGA (especially IgG isotype) can be a non-specific finding. AGA, other food antibodies and tissue transglutaminase antibody (TTG) were measured in patients with idiopathic ataxia (20), hereditary ataxia (7) and idiopathic peripheral neuropathy (32). None of the cases was positive for IgA TTG making occult CD unlikely. Cerebellar ataxia with positive AGA (so-called ‘gluten ataxia’) was rare (4 cases in 2 years from a population of 2 million). All food antibodies tested (AGA, hen’s egg albumen, and cow’s milk lactoglobulin), particularly IgG, were a common finding in both ataxia and peripheral neuropathy groups. This study found no evidence for gluten neurotoxicity. Serological tests, particularly AGA, need to be interpreted with caution. Further study is required regarding the nature of the association between neurological illness and gluten sensitivity.

The lower mean levels of total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, fibrinogen; the higher likelihood of being from more affluent social class; and the small but significant rise in HDL cholesterol and reduction in blood pressure amongst coeliacs presenting with gastrointestinal symptoms observed following treatment with a gluten-free diet suggests coeliacs have favourable vascular risk profile features in comparison to the general population. However, the higher likelihood of having abdominal truncal obesity amongst incident coeliacs that only worsens following treatment with a gluten-free diet together with the higher proportion of measured systolic hypertension amongst male coeliacs suggests that there are also potentially adverse vascular risk profile features associated with celiac disease. Though incident coeliacs with silent disease reported no change in their quality of life prior to diagnosis of coeliac disease, silent coeliacs were as likely to have villous atrophy and physiological derangement to those coeliacs presenting with symptoms or with classic features of coeliac disease. The quality of life reported by coeliacs presenting with silent disease, classic disease and with gastrointestinal symptoms was worse than that observed in the general population. A year's treatment with a gluten-free diet resulted in coeliacs having similar or in some components better quality of life than that observed in the general population. The rate of change of quality of life was similar amongst those coeliacs with silent, classic or symptomatic disease. The breast cancer risk profile suggests both protective and adverse associations of coeliac disease. The higher proportion of women being parous, having their first full-term pregnancy before 30 years and breastfeeding in addition to the younger mean age at menopause suggests women with coeliac disease have favourable breast cancer risk profile features in comparison to the general population. However, the higher likelihood of being Caucasian and of affluent social class together with higher proportion having early menarche and irregular menstrual cycles suggests there are also potentially adverse breast cancer risk profile features associated with celiac disease. Conclusions Persons with mild enteropathy disease have few physiological derangements at diagnosis of coeliac disease and show no important biochemical change following treatment with a gluten-free diet in comparison to those with severe enteropathy coeliac disease. The prevalence of hypertransaminasaemia is lower than previously reported which may be reflective of differences in study design or contemporary coeliac disease involves a milder spectrum of disease. The observed vascular and breast cancer risk profile suggests both protective and adverse associations of celiac disease and on treatment with a gluten-free diet results in an attenuation or indeed reversal of the vascular risk profile in some co-variates. Silent coeliac disease is associated with a reduction with quality in life which improves like in symptomatic and classic disease with treatment with a gluten-free diet. Incident coeliac disease is associated with more affluent social class.

The evidence for genetic contributions to the development of asthma and atopy has been well established. Refining the major genetic factors underlying these contributions will lead to a greater understanding of the pathophysiology of these conditions and potentially identify novel therapeutic targets. This thesis describes a series of studies designed primarily using genome-wide association (GWA) approaches to examine common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) contributing to these phenotypes in the Caucasian population. Susceptibility to atopy was assessed using both non-parametric association tests of SNPs across the genome and focused analysis of two regions on chromosomes 3p22.1-q22.1 and 17p12-q24.3 previously identified through a meta-analysis of genome-wide linkage studies (GSMA). The discovery cohort consisted of 1,083 cases and 2,770 controls, replication analyses were undertaken in four independent population cohorts. A GWA study of severe asthma was carried out in 933 cases and 3,346 controls with replication in a further 231 cases and 1,345 controls. The contribution of SNPs within all previously reported asthma susceptibility loci identified using a comprehensive literature search was also evaluated. Overall, there is evidence for a large number of loci influencing both atopy and severe asthma, each harbouring modest effects. A number of potentially novel loci meeting nominal significance in both GWA studies have been identified requiring further work. Strong evidence was found to support the IL1RL1-IL33 signalling pathway in asthma pathogenesis. Molecular characterisation of the 5’ untranslated regions of IL1RL1 and IL33 suggest a complex regulatory role of identified common variants involving multiple promoters for IL1RL1. A number of asthma specific variants within the chromosome 2q12 and 9p24.1 regions were detected using next generation re-sequencing in homogenised pools of cases and controls warranting further analyses. This work has identified a potentially important pathway in which to focus the development of effective asthma therapies. Future directions will include functional analysis of replicated variants and tests of interactions between the multiple genetic and environmental factors likely to be involved in disease.