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This paper examines different constructs that influence purchase intention of refurbished video game consoles to assess its multi-factorial association with brand love. The data was collected from video game console cafes in the cities of Bangalore and Pune, India. The findings demonstrate that adoption determinants and social influence have a positive influence on brand love, while notably, environmental involvement has a positive influence on an individual's purchase intention. Brand love would not singularly influence positive purchase intention in the context of refurbished video game consoles. The paper clarifies that brand love alone cannot influence the purchasing decision of an individual in the context of refurbished video game consoles, the companies selling or remanufacturing these products can benefit by advertising these products as being environmentally involved. This is the first paper that examines the effects of brand love and purchase intentions in the context of refurbished video game consoles.

Established on the technology acceptance model, this paper puts forward a model to understand the borrowers' motivation to use (MU) peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms. Data from 362 Indian users were employed to test the research model by applying structural equation modelling. The results show that perceived intention, ease of use, and usefulness have significant relation in motivating borrowers to use P2P lending platforms. However, borrowers' perceptions of trust had an insignificant impact on MU the P2P lending platform. When compared to the individual technology acceptance model, the integrated model provides further explanation regarding the motivation of borrowers to use P2P lending platforms. The study contributes to the theoretical area by identifying the factors that motivate borrowers to use P2P lending platforms for their short-term financial requirements, from a unified perspective. In addition, this research provides insights about borrowers' MU P2P lending platforms in India.

The water retention curve (WRC) of arable soils from the southeastern United States at different levels of compaction (no compaction, and 10 and 20% increases in soil bulk density) was estimated using the van Genuchten–Mualem (VG) model. The VG water retention parameters of the noncompacted soils were obtained first by fitting measured soil hydraulic data. To construct the WRC of the compacted soils, gravimetric values of the permanent wilting point (θgw, 1,500 kPa) and the residual (θgr) water content were assumed to remain unchanged with compaction. The VG parameter α and exponent η after compaction were estimated using two approaches. In Approach 1, α and η were estimated from saturation, the permanent wilting point, and the residual water content. In Approach 2, the value of η was assumed to remain unchanged with compaction, which allowed α to be estimated immediately from the VG equation. Approach 2 was found to give slightly better agreement with measured data than Approach 1. The effect of compaction on the saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) was predicted using semitheoretical approaches and the VG‐WRC function. HYDRUS‐1D was further used to simulate vertical infiltration into a single‐layered soil profile to determine the impact of compaction on the infiltration characteristics of the soils used in our analyses. Results showed that a 10–20% increase in soil bulk density, due to compaction, reduced cumulative infiltration (Ic) at time T= Tfinal(steady‐state) by 55–82%, and the available water storage capacity by 3–49%, depending upon soil type. We developed novel models for the water retention curve of compacted soils.Measured and predicted soil water retention data were in good agreement.The proposed models may be applied to a wide range of soil types.A 10–20% increase in soil bulk density reduced the soil water storage capacity by 3–49%.A 10–20% increase in soil bulk density reduced cumulative infiltration by 55–82%.

Promiscuity being casual and unrestrained towards any kind of service, the purpose of this article is to contribute to service literature by investigating the influence of customer citizenship behaviour and service promiscuity in the decision-making process in the context of public house services. This paper empirically draws a historic sum-up on the roots of service promiscuity towards the decision-making process. A questionnaire was administered to 1,509 pub customers using retrospective experience sampling technique. The proposed hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling. Results from this research yielded novel insights into the dual antecedents extending to customer decision making process through customer citizenship behaviour and service promiscuity. The findings have implications for the ongoing argumentation on the practicality of customer promiscuity, thereby broadening the theoretical understanding of 'why customers' decision-making process establishes such an efficacious effect in the service environment? Further, these new and interesting results enlighten the insights of consumer behaviour and more importantly contribute substantially to the existing knowledge of service marketing literature. The results provide managers with specific decision-making process variables and substantial service strategies.

Bixin and crocin are natural apocarotenoids utilized as food colorants and additives in food industries worldwide. For safety assessment, it is necessary to understand the biological interaction of food colorants. In our present study, we report the interaction of two apocarotenoids with bovine serum albumin (BSA) at physiological pH using spectroscopic techniques and in silicotools. The binding constant and the mode of binding sites have been studied. The enthalpic and entropic contribution to the intermolecular binding event was analyzed and it was found that the contribution of hydrogen bonding and hydrophobic interactions was dominant. The adverse temperature dependence in the unusual static quenching is found to be a reasonable consequence of the large activation energy requirement in the binding process, which is required to overcome the fundamental block and is a direct result of the unique microstructure of the binding sites. To confirm the experimental analysis, we investigated the binding patterns using different in silicotools. A combination of molecular docking, molecular dynamics, and toxicity analysis was performed, and the obtained results revealed that both the apocarotenoids had high binding affinity with a binding energy of −5.44 and −5.93 kcal/mol for bixin and crocin, respectively, with no toxic effects and are in accordance with our experimental analysis. The results directly revealed the flexibility of the protein toward bixin and crocin which has a great impact on the interaction. Thus bixin and crocin can guardedly be used as food colorants in food industries.

Grassland silage management is generally ad hocresulting in soil compaction damage. Literature suggests grass yield reductions of 5 to 74% through compaction (UK mean 13%), while a 2015 study, reported here, comparing grass dry matter (DM) yield between controlled traffic farming (CTF) and normal management (N), found a 13.5% (0.80 t ha−1) increase for CTF. Commercially available grass forage equipment with widths of 3 to 12 m set up for CTF reduced trafficked areas from 80%–90% for N to 40%–13%. Economic analysis based on 13% increase in DM for 2 and 3 cut systems, gave an increased grass value between £38 ha−1and £98 ha−1. CTF for multi-cut grass silage effectively increases yields by reducing compaction and sward damage.

Abstract.Previous work showed that prior experience with discriminations requiring configural solutions (e.g., biconditional discrimination) confers an advantage for the learning of new configural discriminations (e.g., negative patterning) in comparison to prior experience with elemental discriminations. This effect is well established but its mechanism is not well understood. In the studies described below we assessed whether the saliences of configural and element cues were affected by prior training. We observed positive transfer to a new configural discrimination after configural pre-training but we were unable to find evidence for changes in cue salience using a signal-detection task. Our results confirm previous work by demonstrating experience-dependent flexibility in cue processing but they also suggest that this flexibility occurs at a point in the stimulus processing pipeline later than 1–2 s after the presentation of stimulus inputs. (138 words)

The recent vehicle management systems have been developing to improve the quality of the combustion process and transmission systems. In thermodynamic approach, the water molecule can exists in different phases like ice, water, wet steam, dry steam, and superheated steam. The phase change occurs in the steam formation process can be compared to the various stages of any vehicle dynamic system such starting, idling, normal speed, high speed and very high speed. There may be an identical value in the increment of energy level in both steam formation process and any vehicle dynamic system. Thermodynamic approach always deals with system, surroundings, boundary and energy transformation across boundaries. Entropy is a very good property which is used to find the energy degradation in a particular system, and this property existence in the vehicle dynamics of automobiles will be used to improve the efficiency of the control module of a vehicle management system. This paper initiates a new angle research in the field of vehicle dynamics to study and investigate the kinetic energy transformation and distance moved by the vehicle thermodynamically. From this paper, Entropy is found as a very good property for increasing the mileage of the vehicle. In the vehicle health monitoring, there should be an entropy measurement to reduce the unavailability of energy as it is the measure of the distance travelled by the vehicle per unit energy supplied to the same vehicle at various operating speeds. In manual transmission method, it has been found that driver is not able to press the accelerator pedal continuously due to body strain. Driver has to run the vehicle at constant speed by pressing the accelerator pedal continuously. In automatic transmission, the data required for the ECU module is given by the thermodynamic relations such as enthalpy, entropy and internal energy. This paper aims thermodynamically to describe the speed, acceleration, fuel consumption, kinetic energy and various resistances offered to the vehicles. Generally, Thermodynamic system deals with heat and mass transfer, likewise vehicle dynamics deals with work and vehicle’s motion.

The article features the importance of mastering the fundamentals of marksmanship (FOM) techniques to the success of the Marine Corps Shooting Team in the U.S. who competed in the Royal Marine Skill at Arms Meeting in England. According to the author, the FOM training helped the team dominate the combat-style match of the competition.

To determine the involvement of central imidazoline receptors in the cardiovascular actions of the chronically administered antihypertensive agents moxonidine, rilmenidine and clonidine.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has caused an increase in mental ill health compared with prepandemic levels. Longer-term trajectories of depression in adults during the pandemic remain unclear.ObjectiveWe used latent growth curve modelling to examine individual trajectories of depression symptoms, and their predictors, beyond the early stage of the pandemic.MethodsData were collected in three waves in May 2020, September/October 2020 and February/March 2021 in four UK cohorts (Millennium Cohort Study, Next Steps cohort, British Cohort and National Child Development Study). We included n=16 978 participants (mean age at baseline: 20, 30, 50 and 62, respectively). Self-reported depressive symptoms were the study outcome.FindingsSymptoms of depression were higher in younger compared with older age groups (d=0.7) across all waves. While depressive symptoms remained stable from May 2020 to Autumn 2020 overall (standardized mean difference (SMD)=0.03, 95% CI 0.02 to 0.04), they increased in all age groups from May 2020 to Spring 2021 (SMD=0.12, 95% CI 0.11 to 0.13). Feelings of loneliness were the strongest predictor and concurrent correlate of increasing depressive symptoms across all cohorts, prepandemic mental health problems and having a long-term illness were also significantly associated with an increase in depression symptoms across all ages. By contrast, compliance with social distancing measures did not predict an increase in depression symptoms.ConclusionsFeeling lonely and isolated had a large effect on depression trajectories across all generations, while social distancing measures did not.Clinical implicationsThese findings highlight the importance of fostering the feeling of connectedness during COVID-19-related distancing measures.

Prediction equations are developed and evaluated to estimate the maximum sustainable pull and the form of penetration of landd anchors. The theories for estimating the pattern of penetration and maximum sustainable anchor force compare well with the measured results in five contrasting soil conditions. The maximum and mean error between the predicted and measured maximum anchor force were 13% and 8%, respectively, representing an over-prediction of force in both cases. The correlation coefficient between the maximum anchor force and the mean values of soil shear strength, obtained using the cone index and shear vane were 0·86 and 0·85 respectively indicating that both the cone penetrometer and shear vane are valuable for in-field prediction of maximum anchor forces in both dry frictional and plastic clay soils.