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When people complain, government agencies often respond. When regulations are threatened, businesses often offer reassurances that the problems can be handled with a self-regulation code. However, past analyses of the power of self-regulation find that while companies' voluntary adherence to self-defined guidelines may effect some change in the activities of some companies, the inherent limitations of self-regulation in the United States may restrict its ability to actually halt or control the undesired practices of others. The recent response by major food manufacturers and marketers to criticism of online games is all example of this mix. ********** Parents and child advocates find threats to children lurking in almost any medium: crazed murderers and bloody severed heads in comic books, a "wardrobe malfunction" during a widely viewed Super Bowl broadcast, television advertising indistinguishable from entertainment, leprechauns collecting candy marshmallows in online games. In the interest of protecting children, they call on government to regulate the practices deemed offensive. The perceived offenders often respond with promises that the problems can be effectively addressed by self-regulation. The proponents of self-regulation argue that free market forces and industry social responsibility are superior to government regulation in addressing a number of issues. Conversely, children's advocates are skeptical about industry's ability to change its practices. In this article, self-regulation of media messages delivered to children is examined, identifying the characteristics that distinguish it from government regulation and addressing the underlying question: Can self-regulation effectively provide consumer protection, and specifically is it sufficient in addressing concerns regarding children and their exposure to food marketing, particularly marketing messages delivered through online games? Self-regulation has been invoked to address concerns about a variety of perceived dangers that threaten to undermine parental authority or cause negative outcomes in children's socialization, health or education. In the 1950s, the contribution of comic books to juvenile delinquency drew the nation's attention. Up to and throughout the 1990s, violence and sexual depictions on television were at the center of controversy. Repeatedly, advertising targeted to children has been criticized for a variety of reasons, including dental health risks and unfair or deceptive practices, in each of the aforementioned cases, vulnerable businesses that were under attack banded together to proffer voluntary limits to objectionable behavior as an alternative to potentially more restrictive government regulation, emphasizing their ability and willingness to tie their own hands. Most recently, and again in response to calls for government intervention, a public concern about childhood obesity and the contribution of advertising to the childhood obesity epidemic has spurred many in the US food industry to adopt self-regulatory guidelines. The Institutes of Medicine has characterized food marketing to children as "out of balance with healthful diets and contribut[ing] to an environment that puts their health at risk" (Institute of Medicine of the National Academies 2006, p.10); organizations such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest called for bans on online food marketing to children as early as 2003 (Teinowitz 2003); parents, pediatricians, psychologists and child advocates have criticized advergames and Internet marketing of foods high in sugar, salt and/or fat (Hellmich 2006). Proponents of industry self-regulation believe that it can be effective in identifying problems while efficiently and flexibly resolving them. Self-regulation of advertising is claimed to be more successful than government regulation by its encouragement of voluntary adherence to the spirit, rather than simply the letter, of the law. …

What is the impact of ad parodies on the brands they spoof? This question arises from the recent confluence of heightening comedic interest in parodying advertising and the growing trend of amateurs creating their own ad parodies in social media. This article reports on a multi-phase study investigating the key dimensions of ad parodies and how they influence brand attitudes, attitudes towards the parodies, and intention to pass along the parodies. Four primary dimensions of ad parodies were discovered: humour, truth, mockery and offensiveness. Humour and truth were positively related to attitudes towards the parodies and intention to pass them along, while offensiveness was negatively related to attitudes towards the parodies. However, the dimensions of ad parodies had no impact on brand attitudes. The results demonstrate that, although advertisers should be aware of this trend, they can take comfort in consumers’ ability to distinguish between brand messages and entertainment.

Serious games are emerging as a new medium for social change. This study investigated the influence of presentation mode afforded by different media on willingness to help in the context of humanitarianaid. Two online experiments were conducted. Thefirst experiment demonstrated that playing the Darfur is Dying game elicited greater role-taking and resulted in greater willingness to help the Darfurian people than reading a text conveying thesameinformation.Thesecondexperimentdeconstructedthevariablepresentationmode in more detail by adding a game watching condition. Similar results were found such that game playing resulted in greater role-taking and willingness to help than game watching and text reading. Implications for researchers and game developers are also discussed.

Two studies were conducted to examine the influence of valence and extremity of consumer product reviews on attitude toward the brand and attitude toward the website. Each experiment was a one factor (valence/extremity: extremely negative, moderately negative, extremely positive) between-subjects design with a control group. Results in both studies showed that although extremely positive reviews increased attitude toward the brand, even a moderate amount of negativity negated this effect. Moreover, extremely negative reviews had a stronger influence on attitude toward the brand than either moderately negative reviews or extremely positive product reviews, thus supporting both negativity and extremity effect. Findings also show that varying degrees of brand review valence and extremity influenced attitude toward the website depending on website type (i.e., retailer vs. brand).

This study examines how food marketers use advergames, custom-built and branded online games, to promote food products to children and provides the nutritional content of the food products featured in the advergames. The results reveal that food marketers use advergames heavily, with candy and gum or food products high in sugar most frequently appearing in the analyzed games. Children are often invited to "play with" the foods integrated as active game components. Finally, despite the educational benefits of interactive games, fewer than 3% of the games analyzed in this study appear to educate children about nutritional and health issues. ********** I am deeply concerned about the current unhealthy trend toward poor nutrition and childhood obesity, which the Institute of Medicine has linked to the prevalence of television advertisements for fast food, junk food, sugared cereals, and other foods wholly lacking in nutritional value. If this trend continues, our children could be the first in generations to enjoy shorter life expectancies than their parents (U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey 2007). The food, beverage, and restaurant industries spend $1.6 billion annually to promote their products to children and adolescents, with overall marketing expenditures for those brands of nearly $10 billion (FFC 2008b; Institute of Medicine of the National Academies 2006). Concurrently, over the past two decades, the United States has experienced a dramatic increase in childhood obesity. According to the 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 17% of U.S. children and adolescents aged two to nineteen years are overweight (National Center for Health Statistics 2007). Overweight children have an 80% likelihood of remaining overweight into adulthood, with a higher rate of morbidity and mortality (American Obesity Association n.d.). Researchers and policy makers are currently debating the role of food advertising in the childhood obesity epidemic (Hastings et al. 2003; Institute of Medicine of the National Academies 2006). Accompanying the rise in childhood obesity and the proliferation of food marketing activities targeted at children are public concerns about the effects of such marketing on children's health. Food marketers have answered these concerns with several efforts. Kellogg Company, for example, decided not to advertise low-nutrient foods on television and other media aimed at children younger than age twelve (Teinowitz 2007). In a statement released in response to the Kellogg decision (see above), Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), the chair of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, gave public voice to concerns about the potential influence of children's advertising on childhood obesity (Markey 2007). The concerns about the relationship between food advertising and childhood obesity are based on the assumption that children, unlike adults, are unable to comprehend the concept and persuasive intent of advertising. Researchers have found that children learn to distinguish programming (e.g., cartoons) from advertisements on television at around age four or five (John 1999; Wilcox et al. 2004), but it is not until age twelve or later when children are said to develop the capability to defend themselves against advertisers' claims (John 1999). Given this vulnerability to advertising, frequent exposure to television ads for nutritionally poor food products has the potential to influence children's poor eating habits. Children are now exposed to food advertising through new online techniques. Among the most interactive of these new tactics aimed specifically at children is the advergame, a custom-built online game designed to promote a company's brand (Chester and Montgomery 2007; Mallinckrodt and Mizerski 2007; Moore and Rideout 2007; Weber, Story, and Harnack 2006). According to the 2007 American Kids Study conducted by Mediamark Research & Intelligence (2007), a majority (78. …

This study explores whether and how different online platforms to which electronic word of mouth (eWOM) communication is posted influence consumers’ judgements of reviewed products. Additionally, this study examines the moderating role of the valence of eWOM on the platforms–consumer product judgement relationship. Our findings indicated that, other things being equal, participants exposed to the review posted on the personal blog were more likely to attribute the review to circumstances and less likely to recommend the product to friends than those who were exposed to the review either on the independent review website or the brand’s website. The effect of the eWOM platforms on consumer willingness to recommend the product to friends was found only when the review was positive. When the review was negative, however, there were detrimental effects on consumer willingness to recommend the product to friends regardless of the eWOM platform. Practical and theoretical implications of the findings were discussed.

By analyzing the 294 advergames integrated in the Web sites of the top 100 leading national advertisers ranked by total advertising expenditures, the current study provides a descriptive study of the actual use of advergames on the leading advertisers' Web sites. Although there were still many advertisers that had not yet adopted advergames, those that had implemented advergames were using them a great deal on their Web sites. The most prominent of such companies were in the food industry. The findings showed that branded products were often embedded as a major component of advergames that fit well with the products in terms of lifestyle and image fit. Regarding the strategic features of advergames, this study demonstrates that many advertisers did not use such features to their fullest potential. Implications of the findings for practitioners and future research were discussed.

This study explores the conditions under which product placement in an on-line game will get noticed and be remembered from a perspective of the limited-capacity model of attention. Results show that the location of brand messages in the game (referred to here as proximity), game involvement, and prior game-playing experience interact to influence brand memory. Although experienced players in the moderate-involvement condition recognize focal brands better than the peripheral brands, the recognition superiority of the focal brands over the peripheral brands disappears when experienced players' involvement is high. The interaction between proximity and game involvement does not emerge for inexperienced players, however. Findings also demonstrate that the degree of congruity between the product category of a brand and game content influences brand memory such that highly incongruent brands are better recalled than either moderately incongruent brands or highly congruent brands. Implications for researchers ...

Introduction: Recently, a large number of studies reported an increase in the incidence or prevalence of depression among the aged population in the world. Several studies have also reported that t...

The Internet has apparently become an important source of information for consumers and partly because of this trend, the Internet now presents a huge opportunity for advertisers who seek effective communication with their target markets. The purpose of this article is to provide an understanding of the qualities and potentials of the Internet as an advertising medium. First, an overview of the various forms of Internet advertising is provided, as well as a review of existing literature regarding the effectiveness of each form. The article next compares the Internet with traditional mass media from the perspective of the consumer information environment and shows how unique characteristics of the Internet may alter consumer experience and decision making. The article concludes with a discussion of the needs and challenges facing the field.

This study compares people who play games on the Internet, people who use the Internet but not for gaming, and people who do not use the Internet. In terms of demography, there is no gender difference among the three groups. On-line gamers are the youngest group and have above-average education and income, but non-gaming Internet users enjoy the highest socioeconomic status. In terms of motivation, on-line gamers are more impulsive and more open to the Internet than either other group. On-line gamers are also highest in novelty seeking, risk-taking, and word-of-mouth communication. In terms of attitude, both online gamers and non-gaming Internet users are more liberal toward socially sensitive issues than non-Internet users, and more tolerant of advertising that contains sex or violence. Practical implications and the need for additional research are discussed.

Introduction Food marketing has emerged as an environmental factor that shapes children’s dietary behaviors. “Advergames,” or free online games designed to promote branded products, are an example of evolving food marketing tactics aimed at children. Our primary objective was to classify foods marketed to children (aged 2–11 y) in advergames as those meeting or not meeting nutrition recommendations of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food & Drug Administration (FDA), Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), and the Institute of Medicine (IOM). We document the consistency of classification of those foods across agency guidelines and offer policy recommendations. Methods We used comScore Media Builder Metrix to identify 143 websites that marketed foods (n = 439) to children aged 2 to 11 years through advergames. Foods were classified on the basis of each of the 4 agency criteria. Food nutrient labels provided information on serving size, calories, micronutrients, and macronutrients. Results The websites advertised 254 meals, 101 snacks, and 84 beverages. Proportions of meals and snacks meeting USDA and FDA recommendations were similarly low, with the exception of saturated fat in meals and sodium content in snacks. Inconsistency in recommendations was evidenced by only a small proportion of meals and fewer snacks meeting the recommendations of all the agencies per their guidelines. Beverage recommendations were also inconsistent across the 3 agencies that provide recommendations (USDA, IOM, and CSPI). Most (65%–95%) beverages advertised in advergames did not meet some of these recommendations. Conclusion Our findings indicate that a large number of foods with low nutritional value are being marketed to children via advergames. A standardized system of food marketing guidance is needed to better inform the public about healthfulness of foods advertised to children.

This study explores motivations for playing games on social network sites as well as attitudinal and behavioral outcomes of those motivations. A total of 324 college students in the United States participated in an online survey. Found were the six motivations for playing social network games (SNG): social interaction, self-presentation, fantasy/role playing, passing time/escapism, entertainment, and challenge/competition. Further, the findings demonstrated that different types of motivations influenced attitudes toward playing SNG and intentions to engage in different social network gaming activities differentially.

This study examines the factors influencing consumer intention to watch online video ads, by applying the theory of reasoned action. The attitude toward watching online video ads, the subjective norm, and prior frequency of watching online video ads positively influence the intention to watch online video ads. Further, beliefs held about entertainment and information outcomes from watching online video ads and subjective norm influence attitude toward watching these ads.

Given a simple rectilinear polygon P in the xy-plane, a roof over P is a terrain over P whose faces are supported by planes through edges of P that make a dihedral angle π/4 with the xy-plane. In this paper, we introduce realistic roofs by imposing a few additional constraints. We investigate the geometric and combinatorial properties of realistic roofs, and show a connection with the straight skeleton of P. We show that the maximum possible number of distinct realistic roofs over P is $(n-4)/2 \choose \lfloor(n-4)/4\rfloor$ when P has n vertices. We present an algorithm that enumerates a combinatorial representation of each such roof in O(1) time per roof without repetition, after O(n4) preprocessing time. We also present an O(n5)-time algorithm for computing a realistic roof with minimum height or volume.

The aim of this study was to identify the barriers to and facilitators of self-management adherence in Korean older adults with type 2 diabetes.Qualitative data collected from 24 participants in three focus groups who had previously taken part in a diabetes self-management education programme in a community setting were analyzed using an interpretive method.The barriers to adherence to self-management included ageing-related physical and psychological changes, restrictions related to specific cultural factors, lack of self-discipline and poor understanding of self-management. Facilitators of self-management were knowing the benefits of and having a system to reinforce self-management, being the master of oneself by reshaping historical life habits and family support. The perceived barriers and facilitators differed with gender as a result of the characteristics of Korean culture.This study identified the major barriers to and facilitators of self-management adherence specific to Korean older adults with diabetes, which can be used to develop better diabetes self-management education programmes for this population.Korean nurses working with Korean older adults with diabetes can utilize the findings of this study to structure better tailored and culturally appropriate self-management programmes specific to older adults.

Nano-comminution has successfully brought nanoparticle formulations of poorly soluble drugs to our daily life. The key for the successful nano-comminution of a drug is the choice of a proper polymeric steric stabilizer. To systematically elucidate the rationale of stabilizer selection, two types of helical amino acid copolymers, relatively hydrophilic and hydrophobic copolymers, were used in nano-comminution. The hydrophilic copolymers had lysine as their major component. The addition of relatively hydrophobic leucine and phenylalanine to them could not make significant changes in particle size. However, when a small amount of hydrophilic glutamic acid or lysine was added into elastin-like hydrophobic copolymers of valine, glycine, and proline, significant composition dependence was found. Therefore, specific interactions between the functional groups of polymers and drug surfaces seem to be important for successful nano-comminution. The stimuli responsive behavior of the hydrophobic copolymer induced the temperature dependence of particle size.

International audience; Given a family of k disjoint connected polygonal sites in general position and of total complexity n, we consider the farthest-site Voronoi diagram of these sites, where the distance to a site is the distance to a closest point on it. We show that the complexity of this diagram is O(n), and give an O(n log^3 n) time algorithm to compute it. We also prove a number of structural properties of this diagram. In particular, a Voronoi region may consist of k-1 connected components, but if one component is bounded, then it is equal to the entire region.

In a geometric network G = (S, E), the graph distance between two vertices u, v in S is the length of the shortest path in G connecting u to v. The dilation of G is the maximum factor by which the graph distance of a pair of vertices differs from their Euclidean distance. We show that given a set S of n points with integer coordinates in the plane and a rational dilation delta > 1, it is NP-hard to determine whether a spanning tree of S with dilation at most delta exists.

International audience; We answer a question raised by P. Brass on the number of maximally repeated sub-patterns in a set of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^d$. We show that this number, which was conjectured to be polynomial, is in fact $\Theta(2^{n/2})$ in the worst case, regardless of the dimension $d$.

The purpose of this descriptive study was to identify the characteristics of the grieving process of Korean spouses who lost their partner to cancer. Five women and five men were recruited by convenience sampling from surviving spouses attending a follow up program at a hospice center in Seoul, Korea. In-depth interviews, observation, and instruments on grief stage and grief responses were used to collect data. Interviews were tape recorded, transcribed, and analyzed line by line to discover recurrent patterns and themes. Gender differences were noted for grief responses (physical, cognitive, emotional, social and spiritual) and factors influencing grief.

Background: The DNA methylation change is known to play a crucial role in early gastric carcinogenesis. However, its association with the histologic subtypes of EGCs has not been fully elucidated. In this study, we aim to know whether the subtypes of early gastric carcinomas (EGCs) are related to the differences of DNA methylation or not using genome wide methylation assay. Materials and Method: The comprehensive methylation analysis was performed by Illumina Infinium methylation assay (IIMA, 450K BeadChip kit) covering 450,000 sites on 12 tumors and 12 matched non-tumor mucosa from 12 patients with EGC. Hisytologically, the EGCs were devided into intestinal type (group A, n=6) and non-intestinal type (group B, diffuse=4 and mixed=2). The CpG sites in 450K microarray chip are classified into CpG islands, shores (2kb), shelves (2kb∼4kb) and open sea (>4kb) by CpG content and neighborhood context. According to the functional genomic distribution they are classified into promoter, body, 3′UTR and intergenic. To determine DMRs, average β-values were computed with β-values in signal intensity of over 3000. The Δβ-value was a result substracted average β-value of one from the other. When Δβ is over 0.2 or below -0.2, it was considered to be meaningful and refered to differentially methylated regions (DMRs) . Results: There were 484 DMRs in group A tumor and 208 DMRs in group B. The pattern of DMRs were different between two groups. In group A tumor, most of DMRs (97.73%) were hypermethylated and 75.26% were in CpG island. On the other hand, the group B tumors showed that 63.94% of DMRs were hypermethylated and only less than half of them (48.87%) were in CpG island. In terms of functional genomic distribution of DMRs, promoter (38.66%) was the most common site in group A while body (54.14%) was in group B. On Hierarchical clustering analysis, the clear grouping was made by 208 DMRs in three cases, two of them being mixed-type, by both correlation and Euclidean methods. However, no distinct grouping was found with DMRs in group A. Hierarchical clustering analysis of non-tumor mucosa showed a distinct separation between group A and B. Conclusions: DNA methylation pattern was distinctively different between the histologic subtype of EGCs. In the intestinal type of EGCs, the DNA methylation seems to be started in non-tumor mucosa. Citation Format: Khalilullah Mia-Jan, Hoon Ryu, Mi-Ra Lee, Sun-Young Ji, Mee-Yon Cho. Differences of DNA methylation patterns according to histologic subtypes of early gastric carcinomas. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 421. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-421

Background: The cancer stem cell (CSC) theory which postulates a small subset of tumor cells have the capacity in tumor initiation, progression and importantly resistance to chemotherapy. CD133 is a transmembrane glycoprotein that serves as a putative cancer stem cell (CSC) marker in colon cancer and its relationship with the chemoresistance has been on debate. In our previous clinical study, we found the patients with CD133+ colon cancer have better prognosis after 5 fluorouracil (5-FU) chemotherapy compared to CD133- tumors. Purpose: To understand the role of CSC marker expression in relation to chemoresistance in colon cancer, we evaluated the effect of CD133 inhibition in colorectal cancer (CRC) cell line on the genes expression which are related to chemoresistance or cell survival. Materials & Methods: CD133 siRNA transfection was performed on CD133+ colon cancer cell line (Caco-2). The proliferation assay used to detect the cytotoxic effect of 5-FU chemotherapy. The change in expression of chemoresistance related genes (AKT1, ABCG2 and MDR1) and cell survival related genes (survivin and beta-catenin) were evaluated by qRT-PCR and western blotting at 48hrs and 72hrs after CD133 siRNA transfection. Results: The proliferation assay demonstrated the increased chemoresistance of colon cancer cells after inhibition of CD133 expression when 5µM 5-FU was treated (p=0.0014). The mRNA expression of chemoresistance related genes (AKT1, ABCG2, MDR1) and cell survival related genes (survivin and β-catenin) were all significantly increased after transfection (p Citation Format: Mi-Ra Lee, Sun-Young Ji, Khalilullah Mia-Jan, Mee-Yon Cho. Inhibition of CD133 expression induce the chemoresistance to 5-fluorouracil in the colon cancer cell line. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 219. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-219

Indonesia is a mega-biodiversity country having at least one trillion US Dollars value of biological resources per year over the next 20 years. Indonesia is home to 11 percent of the world’s flowering plant species and 12 percent of all mammals. Many of Indonesia’s species and more than half of the archipelago’s endemic plant species are found nowhere else on the Earth. This information is just a small portion of all higher plants and animals being found in Indonesia. Former studies described that total number of species in Indonesia is estimated more than 1,000,000 and most of them remain unknown scientifically. Most of lower plants and animals have not been studied yet, so that greatest portion of Indonesia’s biological resources has never been assessed with respect to its economic value or conservation status. Many developed countries are building cooperation with Indonesia on resources, mainly in the fields of grant aid, socio-economic services, R & D, researcher exchange, technology transfer, infrastructure, education/training, finance, etc. Indonesia will obtain greater benefits and management of its biological richness via ncreasing its international capacity to add value and information to its biological diversity. These goals can be achieved by close international collaboration on search of important biological resources and other bioactive products that have potential economic values. Development of biological resource-based technology stands as the industry of the 21 century and, therefore, Indonesia has a unique opportunity to lead the process in the world.

Drawing from the perspective of consumers' risk perception, this study examines the determinants and consequences of online security concerns and assessed the interrelationships among these constructs with a path analysis. Using the secondary survey data from a representative sample of the US adult population, this study finds that consumer characteristics such as psychographic, behavioural and demographic factors serve as determinants in explaining online security concerns which, in turn, affect e-transactional activities. This study also highlights that online security concerns play a mediating role on the effects of various consumer characteristics on e-transactions. In addition, the implications for public policy-makers and e-marketers are discussed.

To identify osteoporosis and examine the relationship between health behavior and the self-efficacy of middle-aged women, a descriptive survey was conducted. The subjects were 465 healthy female residents of Kyunggido, Korea, who underwent ultrasound measurement and a health examination at the Kangmeung-Ci Health Center between July and August 2000. They were 40 to 60 years old, with a mean age of 46.7 years. The subjects completed a self-reported questionnaire that consisted of seven items concerning health behavior and twelve items concerning self-efficacy related to osteoporosis. Bone density was evaluated from ultrasound measurements of the right heel. All the data were analyzed using the program SAS-PC. The study found that the mean T score related to bone density was -1.30, and ranged from -3.52 to 3.06. Based on the T score, 74.8% of the subjects were normal, 12.9% had osteopenia, and 12.3% had osteoporosis. The mean osteoporosis self-efficacy score was 41.17 and ranged from 12 to 60. Osteoporosis self-efficacy differed significantly with health behavior related to health supplementary food (t=5.63, p=.018), exercise (t=6.65, p=.010), alcohol drinking(t=10.80, p=.001), and smoking (t=10.23, p=.001). A community-based health promotion program should be developed to prevent osteoporosis in middle-aged women.