The pursuit of beauty in today's society is growing day by day. According to ITIS report about cosmetic industry development trend in 2010, the global cosmetics market in 2009 reached 3,474 billion U.S. dollars, twice as much as nine years ago. Cosmetic industry in Taiwan began to flourish since 1960s. Taiwan cosmetic industry is filled with United States, European and Japanese brands until 1990s. Promoted by government policy, many domestic brands emerge in 2000s. At this point, the Korean cosmetic brands entered Taiwan, making Taiwan cosmetic market more diverse and more competitive. The Korean cosmetic brands became more popular among the youth, and opened lots of stores. This study chose top 3 Korean cosmetic brands: The Face Shop, Skin Food, Etude House to understand what values the Korean cosmetic stores provide, and how the Korean cosmetic stores can survive and grow. So, this study has four major objectives: 1. To understand the correlation between service quality, customer value and customer satisfaction in Korean cosmetic stores. 2. To explore the impact of consumption emotions on customer satisfaction. 3. To understand the effect of country of origin on customer satisfaction. 4. To analyze the influence of different levels of consumer innovativeness on customer satisfaction. This study uses personal interview and online questionnaire to investigate the consumers of The Face Shop¡BSkin Food¡BEtude House.The results include: 1. Customer value is a mediator between service quality and customer satisfaction. 2. Different utilitarian values have no significant influence on customer satisfaction; different hedonic values have significant difference on customer satisfaction. 3. The main effects of country of origin, consumer innovativeness and consumption emotions have significant influence on customer satisfaction.

Increased knowledge of stock mixing and migration patterns of Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) is required to appropriately manage and conserve declining populations. The nursery origin of giant bluefin tuna present in the Gulf of St. Lawrence was identified using stable carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) isotopes in sagittal otoliths. Anthropogenic and natural processes are capable of impacting atmospheric and oceanic concentrations of δ13C and δ18O, affecting otolith concentrations. Therefore, inter-decadal variation of δ13C and δ18O in the otolith cores (corresponding to the first year of life) of bluefin tuna was examined prior to stock predictions and temporal variability was detected in both isotope ratios. Significant changes in both δ13C and δ18O were recorded in the otolith cores of individuals with birthdates between 1947 and 2003. Both δ13C and δ18O varied significantly as a function of year of birth, with δ13C decreasing and δ18O increasing over the time period investigated (-2.39×10-2 and 5.78×10-3 per year, respectively). The rate of change in otolith δ13C was nearly identical to the reported rates of atmospheric δ13C depletion, recently attributed to the burning of fossil fuels (referred to as the Suess effect). Observed shifts in otolith δ18O were less pronounced and likely linked to changing physicochemical conditions (i.e. salinity) in oceanic reservoirs over the time period investigated. The results show that otolith cores of bluefin tuna effectively track inter-decadal trends and record past oceanic δ13C and δ18O levels. After adjusting for inter-decadal trends, the isotopic composition of milled otolith cores of giants from three decades (1970s, 1980s, 2000s) and three regions were compared to otolith δ13C and δ18O values of yearling bluefin tuna collected from eastern and western nurseries. Maximum likelihood estimates indicated that 99% of bluefin tuna caught in the Gulf of St. Lawrence fishery originated from the western nursery, with no significant differences among the decades and regions examined. Results suggest that little to no mixing of eastern and western populations of adult bluefin tuna occurs in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, making it important for the management and conservation of the declining western population.

The final implementation of Mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling has caused some U.S. packing plants and finishing operations to discontinue using Canadian live hogs and feeder pigs in their operations thereby reducing trade. Using a system of simultaneous equations representing U.S. import demand and U.S. price, this thesis estimates the reduction in trade and any possible price effects in both live hogs and feeder pigs associated with the implementation of the final rule of Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling in the United States. It was found that the implementation of Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling reduced the trade of live hogs between the United States and Canada by 37.8 percent. The reduction in feeder pigs was 24.1 percent. It was also found that the implementation of Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling had no effect on the price of both live hogs and feeder pigs in the U.S. market.

Pimple mounds are circular to elliptical domes with basal diameters ranging from 3 to more than 30 m, and heights of 30 cm to more than 2 m above intermound levels. For almost two centuries, the origin of these features has been speculated upon by scientists without general consensus as to one of over 30 different mechanisms suggested for their origin. These soil microfeatures can be observed throughout portions of East Texas as well as Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. Pimple mounds have been extensively mapped throughout East Texas as complexes covering over 1.0 million ha in 47 soil survey areas. About 600,000 ha are on Pleistocene-age geological formations. This study focused on 5,500 ha in Leon County, Texas, mapped as Rader-Derly complex and Derly-Rader complex. Rader (Aquic Paleustalfs) is on mounds and Derly (Typic Glossaqualfs) in the low intermounds. These soils are mapped primarily on terraces of the Trinity River system within the survey area. Using elevation levels published for the various fluviatile terrace deposits of the Trinity River, six groups (five terrace level groups and an upland group) were identified for analysis of mounds within the study area. Processes and factors of soil formation during the life of these features were considered using two methods ? remotely sensed elevation data and sampling data collected in the field. Size, shape, and relief of mounds were analyzed using airborne-based, remotely sensed LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) elevation data. Particle size distributions and pedon descriptions of mounds formed on materials of various ages were compared across the study area with special emphasis given to spatial trends. Analyses indicate a fluvial origin with pimple mound orientation corresponding to surrounding ridge and swale features of the paleoriver. Pimple mounds within the study area formed in the presence of sandy to loamy alluvial sediments and require the presence of accretionary ridge microtopography over point bar deposits. This alluvial parent material and topography were further developed by fluctuations in climate and vegetation over time. The erosional influence of bioturbation by animals and the intense rainfall and flood events which frequent the study area provided an environment in which these soil microfeatures have developed and over time exhibit increased levels of pedogenesis.

Modern people pursue skin beauty no longer stays at the stage of basic skin maintenance. Some of them turn to the assist of cosmetic surgery, but some choose to use low-risk and good-effect cosmeceuticals. Recently, the fast growth of beauty care market scale has attracted lots of leading cosmetics brands going to the segmentation of market. Especially, as consumers face many products to choose from, whether country-of-origin and consumers¡¦ product knowledge affect their purchase intention becomes the main point of this study. Furthermore, the study also seeks to explore the customer¡¦s satisfaction toward different Country-of-Origin(COO) and the effect of COO on customer¡¦s satisfaction through using demographics variables and channel types as mediating variables. On the other hand, the relationship between demographics variables and channel types is also worthwhile to examine. This study selects the consumers who have ever used cosmeceuticals from America, France, or Taiwan as the study objects. The results show as the following. First, this study discovers that self-selective and online shopping are the channels which consumers often have access to. Second, the finding also supports that both of COO and consumer¡¦s product knowledge have positive effect on consumer¡¦s purchase intention. Third, consumers using French products are more satisfied than ones using Taiwan¡¦s products. Last, the influence of COO on purchase intention for neither demographics variable nor channel types are not significant.

The human cytomegalovirus (CMV) is one of the viruses which extensively infect in the world. In order to grow and reproduce, the CMV invades designated cellular lives and influences their behavior. The origin of replication (also called the replication origin) is a particular sequence in the CMV DNA genome at which replication is initiated. In this study, we develop some statistical tests of complementary palindromes, which can be applied to narrow the search for replication origin of the CMV DNA sequence. Let X_(2k) be the number of complementary palindromes with length 2k and Y_(2k) be the number of non-covered complementary palindromes with length 2k inside a given DNA sequence. Consider the null hypothesis that the marginal probabilities of the four nucleotides remain the same (1/4) over the given sequence versus the alternative hypothesis that the marginal probabilities are different. The likelihood ratio test based on the joint distributions of Y_(18) and Y_(2k) | (Y_(2(k+1)), ...,Y_(18)), where k=1, ..., 8, under the null and the alternative hypotheses are derived. The null distribution of the test statistic is approximated by a scaled chi-squared distribution. The scale parameter and the degree of freedom are estimated by the method of moments. The Pearson's chi-squared test based on the marginal distributions of X_(2k), where k=1, ..., 9. The null distribution of the test statistic is also approximated by a scaled chi-squared distribution. There is an another focus about ratios statistics X_(2k)/X_(2(k+1)) and Y_(2k)/Y_(2(k+1)), which approximate a specific value under the null hypotheses. Simulation studies are performed to confirm the theoretical findings.

This thesis was concerned with the branch of Consumer Marketing known as Consumer Perception Reasoning, and focused on the reasoning behind the Country-of-Origin Effect and image framing on product selling and promotion effectiveness. The well-established research comprising Country-of-Origin was reviewed to establish a rapport for further research exploring reasons that shape existing consumer attitude. With regard to reasoning, different social, political and cultural variables were explored. It was hypothesized that that the majority of Canadians, separated by ethnic origin, are partial to the same reasoning motivating their appeal toward East Asian country-of-origin effects, and therefore, can be categorized into different ethnocentric buying groups. The primary rationale citied was consumer ethnocentrism between the participants and the images; country-of-origin was the basis of this research. An experimental design was performed, making use of real world political and economical issues present in mass media to form a post exposure questionnaire. Overall, the two-way interaction between perception reasoning and cultural values was upheld, albeit with interesting and notable secondary results. Although Western values did shape the majority of consumer opinion, there was a significant lack in country-of-origin knowledge and experience that caused inaccurate perception motivation. This lack created a greater dislike toward the Taiwanese COO tag resulting from image transferability from the Chinese tag. As well, consumer gender played a significant part in shaping perception motivation toward each of the real-time variables. This was the first study to explicitly the Country-of-Origin Effect to a cross-variable framework, thereby offering significant theoretical contributions to the consumer marketing literature.

Here, for the first time, the formation of adenine, hypoxanthine, and guanine from formamide solutions with heating only to 130 degrees C and UV-irradiation in the absence of minerals or inorganic salts is shown using LC-MS/MS as the analysis technique. The thesis goes on to demonstrate that the product distributions change drastically when the temperature is increased to 160 degrees C from 130 degrees C, specifically that the amount of hypoxanthine increases with the addition of UV light, and the amount of adenine increases with an increase in temperature. Along with showing the formation of purines in these reactions, the identification of pyrimidines was also achieved by GCxGC-MS. GCxGC-MS was also used to study additional samples, specifically bio-oils, where the type of compounds in the samples were easily identifiable, which allowed for a direct comparison between different types of bio-oils (e.g. Douglas-fir bark, Southern pine bark, and a Southern pine bark-wood mixture).

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-117).