The recent COVID-19 pandemic has seen an explosion of coronavirus-related information. In many cases, this information was supported by images representing the SARS-CoV-2. To evaluate how attributes ...of images representing the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that were used in the initial phase of the coronavirus crisis in 2020 influenced the public's perceptions. We have carried out an in-depth survey using 46 coronavirus images, asking individuals how beautiful, scientific, realistic, infectious, scary and didactic they appeared to be. We collected 91,908 responses, obtaining 15,315 associations for each category. While the reference image of SARS-CoV-2 used in the media is a three-dimensional, colour, illustration, we found that illustrations of the coronavirus were perceived as beautiful but not very realistic, scientific or didactic. By contrast, black and white coronavirus images are thought to be the opposite. The beauty of coronavirus images was negatively correlated with the perception of scientific realism and didactic value. Given these effects and the consequences on the individual's perception, it is important to evaluate the influence that different images of SARS-CoV-2 may have on the population.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Influences of gender and product type on online purchasing Pascual-Miguel, Félix J.; Agudo-Peregrina, Ángel F.; Chaparro-Peláez, Julián
Journal of business research,
July 2015, 2015-07-00, 20150701, Letnik:
68, Številka:
7
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This study examines gender differences in the online purchasing behavior of consumers who purchase digital and non-digital goods. The research model builds upon the extended unified theory of ...acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2), adding two key e-commerce variables: perceived risk and trust. Empirical analysis uses data from 817 Spanish consumers' responses to an online questionnaire. Gender differences—not considering product type effect—are significant in relationships between effort expectancy and purchase intention and between social influence and purchase intention. Product type affects the relationship between perceived risk and purchase intention in digital goods, where the influence is significantly higher for women. Significant gender differences don't appear for purchase intention in non-digital goods. Product type significantly influences the relationship between performance expectancy and purchase intention, and between facilitating conditions and purchase intention. Product type significantly influences the relationship between perceived risk and purchase intention for women but not for men.
This article explores whether there are differences in visual perception of narrative between theatrical performances and screens, and whether media professionalization affects visual perception. We ...created a live theatrical stimulus and three audio-visual stimuli (each one with a different video editing style) having the same narrative, and displayed them randomly to participants (20 media professionals and 20 non-media professionals). For media professionals, watching movies on screens evoked a significantly lower spontaneous blink rate (SBR) than looking at theatrical performances. Media professionals presented a substantially lower SBR than non-media professionals when watching screens, and more surprisingly, also when seeing reality. According to our results, media professionals pay higher attention to both screens and the real world than do non-media professionals.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The current study presents an assessment of the impact of climate change on water yield, one of the main hydrological ecosystem services, in northern Patagonia. The outputs of regional climate models ...from the CORDEX Project for South America were used to drive the InVEST water yield model. CORDEX regional climate models project for the far future (2071–2100) an increase in temperature higher than 1.5 °C and a precipitation decrease ranging from − 10 to − 30% for the study area. The projected warmer and dryer climate emerges as a robust signal based on model agreement and on consistent physical drivers of these changes. Moreover, both the projected increase in evapotranspiration and the decrease in precipitation contribute to a strong decrease in water yield of around − 20 to − 40% in the headwaters of northern Patagonian watersheds. Comparison of the results in the two basins reveals that the land cover may be considered a buffer of water yield changes and highlights the key role of protected areas in reducing the vulnerability of water resources to climate change.
•A TAM3-based e-learning acceptance model is validated in two educational settings.•Links between behavioral intention and actual system usage are also analyzed.•No strong relation was found between ...BI and self-reported frequency of use.•Results suggest a trade-off effect between habit and behavioral intention.•Two components of perceived usefulness are identified: performance and flexibility.
Widespread implementation of e-learning systems – learning management systems, virtual learning environments – across higher education institutions has aroused great interest on the study of e-learning acceptance. Acceptance studies focus on the predictors of system adoption and use, with behavioral intention to use the system as a proxy for actual use. This study proposes a TAM3-based model – with the inclusion of two additional variables: personal innovativeness in the domain of information technology and perceived interaction – to study the factors influencing the acceptance of e-learning systems. Attention is also brought towards the role of behavioral intention, especially in its relation with use behavior. In order to do so, two different settings were considered: higher education and lifelong learning; data was gathered from a survey administrated to Spanish graduate and lifelong learning students, and partial least squares analysis was used to test the research model. Results supported TAM relations, except for the intention-behavior linkage, and unveiled a dual nature of perceived usefulness – with one component related to efficiency and performance, and another component related to flexibility. The adequacy of applying TAM3-based models in educational contexts and suitability of actual system usage measures are also discussed.
The first real images of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, were obtained between January 24 and March 5, 2020 using various electron microscopy techniques. However, since March 2020, ...it has been most common to see drawn, designed, or interpreted images in three dimensions, sometimes even representing different or directly invented viruses. This analysis studies a sample of images supposedly of SARS-CoV-2 that appeared at the beginning of this pandemic on the internet. Fake images or imaginary illustrations of the Covid-19 coronavirus predominate in all sources of information examined, except for those documented in encyclopedias or scientific articles. Rather than real images, the media have used more fake images of the coronavirus, often from repositories or paid stocks, usually freely available. When presenting SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus content, the use of fake, unrealistic, esthetically retouched illustrations is more common than actual or scientific photographs of the virus. The reference image used in the media and other information sources of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 is a retouched three-dimensional, color design image for illustration rather than an actual image. The original, real images of the coronavirus did not have the expected informative presence in an emergency situation. The use of unrealistic images of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus seems to be a manifestation of a low-intensity infodemic. However, information professionals must use rigorous images to support their information, also in the case of the Covid-19.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Since the emergence of electronic commerce, the study of motivations as good predictors of consumers' purchasing behavior collects much of the attention of the literature. However, most studies rely ...on regression analyses, which have relevant limitations. This study uses fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze the influence of motivations and barriers on online-shopping behavior from a compilation of 33 motivational and 12 disheartening items of e-commerce as conditions, and purchase behavior as outcome. The empirical analysis uses responses of 817 Internet users to an online questionnaire. The method includes a previous principal component analysis that reduces the number of conditions to 7 motivations (hedonic, product variety, product customization, convenience, price, lack of sociality, and Internet exclusive availability) and 3 barriers (in-person, risk, and delivery). fsQCA offers insight into the knowledge of online shopping drivers and inhibitors, with relevant implications for theory and practitioners.
Seabirds are often studied at individual colonies, but the confounding effects of emigration and mortality processes in open populations may lead to inappropriate conclusions on the mechanisms ...underlying population changes. Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) colonies of variable population sizes are distributed along the Argentine coastline. In recent decades, several population and distributional changes have occurred, with some colonies declining and others newly established or increasing. We integrated data of eight colonies scattered along ∼600 km in Northern Patagonia (from 41°26´S, 65°01´W to 45°11´S, 66°30´W, Rio Negro and Chubut provinces) and conducted analysis in terms of their growth rates, production of young and of the dependence of those vital rates on colony age, size, and location. We contrasted population trends estimated from abundance data with those derived from population modeling to understand if observed growth rates were attainable under closed population scenarios. Population trends were inversely related to colony size, suggesting a density dependent growth pattern. All colonies located in the north--which were established during the last decades--increased at high rates, with the smallest, recently established colonies growing at the fastest rate. In central-southern Chubut, where colonies are the oldest, the largest breeding aggregations declined, but smaller colonies remained relatively stable. Results provided strong evidence that dispersal played a major role in driving local trends. Breeding success was higher in northern colonies, likely mediated by favorable oceanographic conditions. However, mean foraging distance and body condition of chicks at fledging were influenced by colony size. Recruitment of penguins in the northern area may have been triggered by a combination of density dependence, likely exacerbated by less favorable oceanographic conditions in the southern sector. Our results reaffirm the idea that individual colony trends do not provide confident indicators of population health, highlighting the need to redefine the scale for the study of population changes.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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•Avelino Corma's group at the Instituto de Catálisis y Peroleoquímica, the seed of the Instituto de Tecnología Química (ITQ).•The beginnings of ITQ in Valencia, creating a way of ...doing science.•From the laboratory to the industry, some ITQ success stories.•Basic science applied to solve real industrial problems, one of the founding pillars of ITQ.•The ITQ, a multidisciplinary approach to research in the field of zeolites.
Abstract GO/noGO tasks enable assessing decision-making processes and the ability to suppress a specific action according to the context. Here, rats had to discriminate between 2 visual stimuli (GO ...or noGO) shown on an iPad screen. The execution (for GO) or nonexecution (for noGO) of the selected action (to touch or not the visual display) were reinforced with food. The main goal was to record and to analyze local field potentials collected from cortical and subcortical structures when the visual stimuli were shown on the touch screen and during the subsequent activities. Rats were implanted with recording electrodes in the prelimbic cortex, primary motor cortex, nucleus accumbens septi, basolateral amygdala, dorsolateral and dorsomedial striatum, hippocampal CA1, and mediodorsal thalamic nucleus. Spectral analyses of the collected data demonstrate that the prelimbic cortex was selectively involved in the cognitive and motivational processing of the learning task but not in the execution of reward-directed behaviors. In addition, the other recorded structures presented specific tendencies to be involved in these 2 types of brain activity in response to the presentation of GO or noGO stimuli. Spectral analyses, spectrograms, and coherence between the recorded brain areas indicate their specific involvement in GO vs. noGO tasks.
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