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Background The concept of celebrity endorsement is a constantly growing marketing communication tool. A recent example of when the usage of celebrities within advertising has been successful is the case of Zlatan Ibrahimovic endorsing Volvo. Because of the expansive usage of celebrities in advertising as well as the ongoing increase of competition, the development for further efficiency in celebrity endorsement is essential for creating efficient advertisements. The foundation of this thesis relies upon the meaning transfer model (McCracken, 1989) as well as the source effects model (Ohanian, 1990). Purpose This thesis intends to investigate how the different source effects within celebrity endorsement are appealing to the various consumers based on their age and gender. To be able to further investigate into the nature of the differences between genders, we will observe how gender stereotypical- and gender neutral products are perceived by the consumers and the role that the gender of the endorser plays in celebrity endorsement. Method In order to fulfill the purpose of this thesis, an abductive study was conducted by the usage of both quantitative and qualitative data. The data was collected through a questionnaire, both among the members of Bryngfjorden GK and students at Jönköping International Business School, and focus groups with participants representing the overall population of Sweden. Conclusion We have identified numerous of different characteristics of the consumers that will influence their perception of celebrity endorsers in advertisements, thus depending on age and gender. Mainly we have found is that younger consumers put a large emphasis on the attractiveness effect of the celebrity endorser compared to older people who rather emphasize on the credibility effects of the endorser. Further we have found explanations for how different product types are dependent on the gender of the consumer, as well as the gender of the endorser, for creating an effective advertising message.

The study reported here examined 367 adolescent 4-H participants in terms of demographic, psychological, behavioral, and relational characteristics, as well as their perceptions and experiences in 4-H. Overall, participants scored high on all outcome variables except having a diverse population in their club. Older participants were more optimistic, participated in more deviant behaviors, and were more satisfied with their 4-H experiences in comparison to younger participants. In comparison to boys, girls appeared to be healthier in regards to psychological characteristics, positive behaviors, and relationships with peers and other adults and were more satisfied with their 4-H experiences.

Yes / Age and gender classification are two important problems that recently gained popularity in the research community, due to their wide range of applications. Research has shown that both age and gender information are encoded in the face shape and texture, hence the active appearance model (AAM), a statistical model that captures shape and texture variations, has been one of the most widely used feature extraction techniques for the aforementioned problems. However, AAM suffers from some drawbacks, especially when used for classification. This is primarily because principal component analysis (PCA), which is at the core of the model, works in an unsupervised manner, i.e., PCA dimensionality reduction does not take into account how the predictor variables relate to the response (class labels). Rather, it explores only the underlying structure of the predictor variables, thus, it is no surprise if PCA discards valuable parts of the data that represent discriminatory features. Toward this end, we propose a supervised appearance model (sAM) that improves on AAM by replacing PCA with partial least-squares regression. This feature extraction technique is then used for the problems of age and gender classification. Our experiments show that sAM has better predictive power than the conventional AAM.

Magistro baigiamojo darbo tikslas - ištirti kaip darbinio streso raišką veikia tokie sociodemografiniai rodikliai kaip amžius ir lytis. Darbo konceptualioje dalyje atskleidžiami darbinio streso raiškos ypatumai bei darbinio streso sąryšiai su amžiumi ir lytiškumu. Išanalizavus tyrimo duomenis nustatyta, kad lytiškumo aspektu darbinio streso raiškos skirtumai labiausiai pasireiškia per menką profesinę savivertę; blogą sveikatą; psichosomatinius simptomus bei diskomfortą dėl menko profesijos prestižo. Amžiaus aspektu darbinio streso raiškos skirtumai labiausiai pasireiškia per netinkamą darbo aplinką ir darbinės aplinkos aprūpinimą; sudėtingą, nemalonų atvykimą į darbą; blogą sveikatą bei menką profesinę savivertę. / The aim of this master work is to explore how job stress expression is affected by sociodemographic characteristics such as age and gender. In the conceptual part of the work are the expression of job stress and correlation between job stress and age and gender relationship revealed. Analysis of survey data shows that the gender aspects of job stress expression occur in low professional self-esteem; poor health; psychosomatic symptoms and discomfort due to the low prestige of the profession. The age aspects of job stress expression occur in inappropriate working environment and working environment provision, difficult, unpleasant arrival to work, poor health and low professional self-esteem.

In the evaluation of special populations, such as neonates, infants and malingerers, audiologist often have to rely heavily on objective measurements to assess hearing ability. Current objective audiological procedures such as tympanometry, the acoustic reflex, auditory brainstem response and transient evoked otoacoustic emissions, however, have certain limitations, contributing to the need of an objective, non¬invasive, rapid, economic test of hearing that evaluate hearing ability in a wide range of frequencies. The purpose of this study was to investigate distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) as an objective test of hearing. The main aim was to attempt to predict hearing ability at 500 Hz, 1000 Hz, 2000 Hz and 4000 Hz with DPOAEs and artificial neural networks (ANNs) in normal and hearing-impaired ears. Other studies that attempted to predict hearing ability with DPOAEs and conventional statistical methods were only able to distinguish between normal and impaired hearing. Back propagation neural networks were trained with the pattern of all present and absent DPOAE responses of 11 DPOAE frequencies of eight DP Grams and pure tone thresholds at 500 Hz, 1000 Hz, 2000 Hz and 4000 Hz. The neural network used the learned correlation between these two data sets to predict hearing ability at 500 Hz, 1000 Hz, 2000 Hz and 4000 Hz. Hearing ability was not predicted as a decibel value, but into one of several categories spanning 10-15dB. Results indicated that prediction accuracy of normal hearing was 92% at 500 Hz, 87% at 1000 Hz, 84% at 2000 Hz and 91% at 4000 Hz. The prediction of hearing-impaired categories was less satisfactory, due to insufficient data for the ANNs to train on. The variables age and gender were included in some of the neural network runs to determine their effect on the distortion product. Gender had only a minor positive effect on prediction accuracy, but age affected prediction accuracy considerably in a positive way. The effect of the amount of data that the neural network had to train on was also investigated. A prediction versus ear count correlation strongly suggested that the inaccurate predictions of hearing-impaired categories is not a result of an inability of DPOAEs to predict pure tone thresholds in hearing impaired ears, but a result of insufficient data for the neural network to train on. This research concluded that DPOAEs and ANNs can be used to accurately predict hearing ability within 10dB in normal and hearing-impaired ears from 500 Hz to 4000 Hz for hearing losses of up to 65dB HL. / Dissertation (MCommunication Pathology)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / unrestricted

The prevalence of hypertension in African Americans is the highest of any population in the United States, and this population also demonstrates lower rates of adherence to mediation. Social support and patient-provider communication have been considered as reinforcing factors to help hypertensive patients achieve optimal blood pressure control. The purpose of this study was to examine the association of social support and patient-provider communication and medication adherence for hypertensive African American men and women. The study was guided by the theory of reasoned action. This study was conducted to determine whether social support and patient-provider communication was associated with medication adherence by self-report, age, and gender. A quantitative cross-sectional design with secondary data analyses was used. The sample included 566 hypertensive African American men and women between the ages of 21and 65 years who participated in a survey administered in the Counseling African Americans to Control Hypertension clinical trial collected between 2004 and 2011. The independent variables were social support and patient-provider communication; the dependent variable was medication adherence. Descriptive, 2-way analysis of variance and hierarchical logistic regression model analyses indicated a significant association between patient-provider communication and medication adherence. There was no significant difference in the relationship between social support, patient-provider communication, and age and gender and medication adherence. The implications of this study for social change include improvement in policies and development programs to support the critical role of providers in ensuring medication adherence in hypertensive African American patients.

Une régression des principales modalités sensorielles (vision, audition, goût et odorat) est bien rapportée à l'âge. La perception tactile est influencée par différents paramètres. Un grand nombre de ces paramètres ont été bien étudiés dans la littérature tels que le système nerveux central, la densité des mécanorécepteurs dans la peau et les seuils de détection vibro-tactile. Ces paramètres ont été étudiés pour comprendre l'affaiblissement de la perception tactile au fil du temps et les différences naturelles entre les hommes et les femmes. Le doigt humain est toujours utilisé pour qualifier la qualité et les propriétés d'une surface. Par conséquent, un panel de différent âge et sexe est toujours utilisé par différents secteurs industriels afin de comprendre les besoins des consommateurs. Cependant, cette méthode est très coûteuse, longue et subjective. L’objectif de ce travail était de développer une méthodologie qui permette d'avoir une objectivation tactile semblable au panel, cela signifie qu'on doit prendre en compte les effets de l'âge et du sexe. Cette thèse a fourni des mesures in vivo pour 40 doigts humains. Nos développements proposent un doigt artificiel capable de mimer le doigt humain, en tenant l’effet de l'âge et du sexe. Pour atteindre notre objectif, nous avons développé plusieurs approches qui combinent à la fois, la topographie multi-échelle du doigt humain, ces propriétés mécaniques anisotropes, les propriétés tribologiques et l’effet de l’aire réelle de contact et la direction du toucher sur la force de frottement et les vibrations générées. Le développement d’un algorithme de traitement du signal, a permis d’identifier des coefficients représentatifs de la qualité de la surface touchée. L’ingénierie de l'émotion a été un autre axe de recherche dans de ces travaux. L’instrumentation du doigt humain avec un dispositif laser-doppler, a permis d’évaluer la qualité tactile des échantillons en fonction de l'émotion générée pendant le processus du toucher. Cette émotion est étudiée par la variation fréquentielle du débit sanguin. Le mise au point d’un doigt artificiel bio-inspiré qui possède des propriétés biophysiques proches du doigt humain, a permis de réaliser un démonstrateur de toucher qui peut intégrer l’âge et le sexe d’un panel. Ce dispositif répond au cahier des charges défini dans le projet ANR «plasticTouchDevice», et permet aux industriels de la plasturgie de mener des expertises de leurs innovations en ayant recours à un dispositif qui permet d’intégrer l’effet de l’âge et du sexe dans la métrologie de la qualité du toucher des matériaux plastiques. / A decline in the main sensory modalities (vision, hearing, taste, and smell) is well reported to occur with advancing age, it is expected a similar change to occur with touch sensation and perception. The tactile perception is influenced by different parameters. Many of those parameters have been well studied in the literature such as central nervous system, the density of mechanoreceptors in the skin and the vibro-tactile detection thresholds. These parameters have been studied in order to understand the weakens of tactile perception over time and the natural differences between men and women. The human finger is always used to qualify the quality and the properties of a surface. Therefore, a panel of different age and gender always used by companies in order to understand the customers’ needs. However, this method is very expensive, time-consuming and subjective. The objective of this work is to give a solution that avoid the limits of the actual method, but in the same time it should keep their advantages (age and gender). This thesis provided in vivo measurements for 40 human fingers. Our developments propose an artificial finger capable of mimicking the human finger, taking into account the effects of age and gender. To achieve our goal, we have developed several approaches that combine the multi-scale topography of the human finger, the anisotropic mechanical properties, the tribological properties, the effect of the real contact area, the direction of touch on the friction force and the vibrations generated by the human finger. The development of a new signal processing algorithm has made it possible to identify coefficients representative of the quality of the affected surface. The engineering of emotion has been another area of research in this work. Instrumentation of the human finger with a laser Doppler device, allowed to evaluate the tactile quality of the samples according to the emotion generated during the process of the touch. This emotion is studied by the frequency variation of the blood flow. The development of a bio-inspired artificial finger that has biophysical properties close to the human finger, has made it possible to realize a haptic touch demonstrator that can integrate the age and gender of a panel. This device meets the specifications defined in the ANR project "PlasticTouchDevice", and allows plastics industry to conduct expertise of their innovations by using a device that allows the integration of the effects of age and of gender in the metrology of the quality of the touch of plastic materials.