• International Journal of Costume and Fashion
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• 제9권2호
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• pp.79-96
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to identify the impact of acculturation level and individualism/collectivism on shopping behaviors such as' informational influences, shopping orientations, and store patronage of Asian ethnic groups residing in the United States. A total of 129 Asian adults residing in North Carolina State of the U.S. completed questionnaires. Results showed statistically significant differences in responses to an informational influence (i.e., media source) and two shopping orientation subscales (i.e., shopping confusion in the Us. and personalized shopping) between low- and high-acculturated groups. A significant difference was found between the individualistic group and the collectivistic group on three shopping orientation subscales. Due to the potential importance of considering both acculturation and individualism/collectivism when looking at shopping behaviors, four groups were created by categorizing respondents on the basis of their acculturation level and individualism/collectivism scores. Comparison on shopping orientations and informational influences by four groups revealed statistically significant differences in response to two shopping orientation subscales and two patronage behavior subscales.

• 식품과학과 산업
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• 제53권1호
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• pp.92-100
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• 2020

Recently, a lot of consumers in the United States are trying to find out the diverse Asian foods due to the raw material used,sauce,flavor,taste, and cooking philosophy. Asian fare has boomed up in the past decades at restaurants and retail food markets. These phenomena are considered to continue since many Americans become more cautious for health since they believe the traditional Asian foods are better for health than European, Latin, and traditional American diets. The increase of Asian population in America also induce the increased consumption of Asian foods, and those who traveled and tasted Asian foods during their journey want to take Asian foods after back home. Several sauces including gochujang, ramen, and seaweed snack are examples of Asian foods consumed in a large quantity. Many Asian food and material suppliers are trying to pioneer and penetrate American food market with exotic multifaceted Asian cuisine.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제31권7호
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• pp.1036-1042
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• 2018

Meat quality is a very difficult term to define because it means different things to different people. When purchasing beef, consumers in the United States are likely to consider color, price, marbling level, subcutaneous fat trim, or cut thickness when determining the quality of beef. Once consumers have consumed the product, meat quality becomes exponentially more difficult to define due to the subjective nature of this term. Traditionally, tenderness, juiciness, and flavor have been considered the three most important factors that determine the palatability of beef. Therefore, American meat science beef research and industry focus has turned to measuring and quantifying these 3 attributes objectively and subjectively, and to determining what influences them. In reviewing the scientific literature, attempting to meaningfully summarize the findings of the thousands of studies on beef meat quality is impossible due to the inherent differences in the objective and methodology of studies. Fortunately, the United States beef industry and their national trade association, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA), have conducted numerous surveys and audits to characterize the quality of the products being produced and marketed by their cattlemen and the palatability perceptions of their consumers. The data produced by these studies is quite large and impossible to summarize in entirety in this review. Therefore, this review concentrates on the most important attributes that determine the value of a beef carcass and objectively measured and consumer-assessed palatability characteristics of fresh meat from these carcasses from 1987 through 2010.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• 제12권4호
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• pp.13-24
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• 2022

Purpose: Motivated by an expedited growth and distribution of Online Food-Delivery (OFD) services, especially during the recent Covid-19 pandemic, this research aims to explore 1) how consumers' sustainability considerations are associated with satisfaction with the services via opt-out cutlery options and 2) the role of the pandemic in the relationships between sustainability considerations, attitudes toward opt-out cutlery options, and satisfaction with the OFD services. Data and Methodology: An analysis of survey data using 434 consumers in the United States recruited from Amazon M-Turk was conducted using structural equation modeling. Results: Findings suggest that consumers' environmental, health, and ethical considerations are positively related to their attitudes toward opt-out cutlery options. Furthermore, attitudes toward opt-out cutlery options are positively related to satisfaction with the OFD services only when they feel connected with the environment, driven by perceived threats of an infectious disease (i.e. Covid-19). Conclusion: The study findings provide new insights to managers in the OFD service industry on how to promote sustainable consumption during the pandemic.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• 제5권3호
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• pp.51-63
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• 2018

The study aims to articulate a definition of luxury brands, to propose a framework for consumer luxury brand relationships and to provide empirical evidence of the proposed model. The study conducted two surveys in Portugal and the United States in 2009 and 2013 for selected luxury brands. The study employs factor analysis and structural equation modelling techniques to test the hypotheses. The study finds a link between luxury products and consumer's psychological association represents in a hierarchical order of: cognitive attributes at its base level, extrinsic attributes on a secondary level and intrinsic attributes at the advance level. The findings suggest a concept for luxury brands from three dimensions of: luxury product characteristics, consumer's psychological characteristics, and consumer's psychological association with the luxury product. The research was conducted in Portugal and the United States so that there is always a potential criticism concerning the ability to generalize research results to a broader international population. The findings provide a holistic perspective in the understanding of luxury brand constructs and a definition of luxury brands in the way why consumers involve symbolic consumption. The successful application of the findings in a brand setting would be of particular interest to marketers and brand strategists.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제32권8_spc호
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• pp.1244-1255
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• 2019

Dairy goat production continues to be a socially, economically and culturally important part of the livestock industry in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean islands. Goat milk, cheese and other dairy products offer consumers food products with nutritional, health and environmental benefits. In North America, Mexico produces the greatest volume of goat milk, but most is for family or local consumption that is typical of a mixed farming system adopted by subsistence farmers in dry areas. The United States is not yet a large global goat milk producer, but the sector has expanded rapidly, with dairy goat numbers doubling between 1997 and 2012. The number of dairy goats has also increased dramatically in Canada. Commercial farms are increasingly important, driven by rising demand for good quality and locally sourced goat cheese. In South America, Brazil has the most developed dairy goat industry that includes government assistance to small-scale producers and low-income households. As of 2017, FAO identified Haiti, Peru, Jamaica, and Bolivia as having important goat milk production in the Western Hemisphere. For subsistence goat producers in the Americas on marginal land without prior history of chemical usage, organic dairy goat production can be a viable alternative for income generation, with sufficient transportation, sanitation and marketing initiatives. Production efficiency, greenhouse gas emission, waste disposal, and animal welfare are important challenges for dairy goat producers in the Americas.

• 한국의류학회지
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• 제34권12호
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• pp.2022-2038
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• 2010

Our study was designed to provide some insights on positive country image and the mechanisms of influence that Asian fashion industries can draw upon for future benefit. We focused on a country image and fashion products with Asian ethnic influence. Asian traditional costume elements reflected in contemporary fashion products may be important representative tools for national cultural identity. This study qualitatively investigated how and to what extent country image and additional information influence the evaluation of fashion products influenced by Chinese, Japanese, and Korean traditional dress. We conducted four focus-group interviews (FGI) with 30 students from a fashion program at a university in the United States. We analyzed the evaluation of fashion products influenced by Chinese, Japanese, and Korean traditional dress, and their associations with country image. Our qualitative analysis offered more developed empirical evidence for the various paths through which country image affects the evaluation of fashion products influenced by the ethnic dress of Asians. The results of our study showed that the more direct the source of prior knowledge, the larger the influence on product evaluation. This study showed that certain cues in the evaluation of fashion products with Asian ethnic influence induce changes in the affective state (that stem from the psychological and social nature of fashion products) and illustrate the necessity of considering the affective processes involved in the appropriate use of the country image. In the fashion industry, extrinsic properties such as the country image significantly influence the attitude and purchasing decisions of consumers. The significance of this study lies in its verification of the relationship between the country image and additional information. Modular and situational-contextual influences are also revealed as important factors that deserve more attention, as well as considerations regarding the dimensions of the country image described in attitude theory.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제30권9호
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• pp.1207-1214
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• 2017

Since the industrialization of swine production in the late 1900s, swine farms in the United States, as well as in Europe, have largely become consolidated. Pig farms became larger in size but fewer in number, with 91% of market pigs being produced by large operations with 5,000 or more pigs on-site in the US, and only 3% of the total utilized agricultural land representing organic farming. Such change in the market made it difficult for small farmers to stay competitive, forcing them to find alternative ways to reduce the cost of production and increase profit using the outdoor production system. In contrast to the indoor confinement system, outdoor production system uses pasture-based units and/or deep-bedded hoop structures that promote animal welfare and environmental sustainability with a lower capital investment. In accord with the growing concern for animal and environmental welfare and food safety by the consumers, small farmers practicing an outdoor production system are seeing increased opportunities for marketing their products in the pork niche market. Unlike the general belief that the reproductive and growth performance measures of the outdoor sows and piglets are poorer in comparison with the animals reared indoors, studies showed that there was no significant difference in the performance measures, and some traits were even better in outdoor animals. Improved reproductive and production traits can increase the sustainability of outdoor farming. Present study reviewed the recent studies comparing the performance measures, meat quality and health of indoor and outdoor animals, as well as the efforts to improve the outdoor production system through changes in management such as hut types and breed of animals.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제31권7호
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• pp.1007-1016
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• 2018

USA beef production is characterized by a diversity of climates, environmental conditions, animal phenotypes, management systems, and a multiplicity of nutritional inputs. The USA beef herd consists of more than 80 breeds of cattle and crosses thereof, and the industry is divided into distinct, but ofttimes overlapping sectors, including seedstock production, cow-calf production, stocker/backgrounding, and feedlot. Exception for male dairy calves, production is predominantly pastoral-based, with young stock spending relatively brief portions of their life in feedlots. The beef industry is very technology driven, utilizing reproductive management strategies, genetic improvement technologies, exogenous growth promoting compounds, vaccines, antibiotics, and feed processing strategies, focusing on improvements in efficiency and cost of production. Young steers and heifers are grain-based diets fed for an average of 5 months, mostly in feedlots of 1,000 head capacity or more, and typically are slaughtered at 15 to 28 months of age to produce tender, well-marbled beef. Per capita beef consumption is nearly 26 kg annually, over half of which is consumed in the form of ground products. Beef exports, which are increasingly important, consist primarily of high value cuts and variety meats, depending on destination. In recent years, adverse climatic conditions (i.e., draught), a shrinking agricultural workforce, emergence of food-borne pathogens, concerns over development of antimicrobial resistance, animal welfare/well-being, environmental impact, consumer perceptions of healthfulness of beef, consumer perceptions of food animal production practices, and alternative uses of traditional feed grains have become increasingly important with respect to their impact on both beef production and demand for beef products. Similarly, changing consumer demographics and globalization of beef markets have dictated changes in the types of products demanded by consumers of USA beef, both domestically and abroad. The industry is highly adaptive, however, and responds quickly to evolving economic signals.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제31권7호
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• pp.933-950
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• 2018

In Japan, Wagyu cattle include four Japanese breeds; Black, Brown, Shorthorn, and Polled. Today, the renowned brand name Wagyu includes not only cattle produced in Japan, but also cattle produced in countries such as Australia and the United States. In recent years, the intramuscular fat percentage in beef (longissimus muscle) from Japanese Black cattle has increased to be greater than 30%. The Japanese Black breed is genetically predisposed to producing carcass lipids containing higher concentrations of monounsaturated fatty acids than other breeds. However, there are numerous problems with the management of this breed including high production costs, disposal of untreated excrement, the requirement for imported feed, and food security risks resulting from various viral diseases introduced by imported feed. The feeding system needs to shift to one that is more efficient, and improves management for farmers, food security for consumers, and the health environment for residents of Japan. Currently, we are developing a metabolic programming and an information and communications technology (ICT, or Interne of Things) management system for Wagyu beef production as future systems. If successful, we will produce safe, high-quality Wagyu beef using domestic pasture resources while solving the problems of how to utilize increasing areas of abandoned agricultural land and to make use of the plant-based feed resources in Japan's mountainous areas.