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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze how store loyalty forms corporate reputation and store image conditional on prior knowledge and involvement in retailing services. Design/methodology/approach A convenient sampling technique was employed, in which student interviewers approached customers as they exited the Carrefour stores with a skip interval of 3. The final survey sample comprised 220 respondents. Findings Empirical results confirm that corporate reputation influences store image and corporate reputation and store image affect store loyalty. In addition, shopper characteristics (i.e. involvement and knowledge) positively moderate the relationships between corporate reputation and store image and store loyalty. Originality/value This study goes beyond store loyalty to demonstrate that the cross-over effects between corporate reputation and store image and the moderators of prior knowledge and involvement significantly influence the relationships between corporate reputation and store image and store loyalty.

We investigated 2 acute cases and 1 previous case of Seoul hantavirus infection in workers in a feeder rodent breeding farm in Taiwan. Prevalence of hantavirus IgG among the tested feeder rats was 37.5%. Appropriate prevention measures, including using disinfection protocols and personal protective equipment, are crucial to lowering risk.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how customers derive value and switching costs from their own participation conditional on their perceived efficacy of themselves (self-efficacy) and their advisers (adviser-efficacy) in financial services. Design/methodology/approach Student interviewers approached customers exiting banks with a skip interval of two. The respondents received the questionnaire items translated into Chinese. The final survey sample consists of 220 respondents. Findings Empirical results confirm that customer participation influences switching costs through customer value. The synergistic effect of self-efficacy and adviser-efficacy moderates the relationships among customer participation, customer value and switching costs. The incongruent levels of self-efficacy and adviser-efficacy can increase customer value and switching costs. Originality/value This study looks beyond self-efficacy to demonstrate that the synergistic roles of self-efficacy and adviser-efficacy significantly influence the relationships among customer participation, customer value and switching costs.

Some individuals do not return to baseline health following SARS-CoV-2 infection, leading to a condition known as long COVID. The underlying pathophysiology of long COVID remains unknown. Given that autoantibodies have been found to play a role in severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection and certain other post-COVID sequelae, their potential role in long COVID is important to investigate. Here, we apply a well-established, unbiased, proteome-wide autoantibody detection technology (T7 phage-display assay with immunoprecipitation and next-generation sequencing, PhIP-Seq) to a robustly phenotyped cohort of 121 individuals with long COVID, 64 individuals with prior COVID-19 who reported full recovery, and 57 pre-COVID controls. While a distinct autoreactive signature was detected that separated individuals with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection from those never exposed to SARS-CoV-2, we did not detect patterns of autoreactivity that separated individuals with long COVID from individuals fully recovered from COVID-19. These data suggest that there are robust alterations in autoreactive antibody profiles due to infection; however, no association of autoreactive antibodies and long COVID was apparent by this assay.

Given the global surge in autoimmune diseases, it is critical to evaluate emerging therapeutic interventions. Despite numerous new targeted immunomodulatory therapies, comprehensive approaches to apply and evaluate the effects of these treatments longitudinally are lacking. Here, we leveraged advances in programmable-phage immunoprecipitation methodology to explore the modulation, or lack thereof, of autoantibody profiles, proteome-wide, in both health and disease. Using a custom set of over 730,000 human-derived peptides, we demonstrated that each individual, regardless of disease state, possesses a distinct and complex constellation of autoreactive antibodies. For each individual, the set of resulting autoreactivites constituted a unique immunological fingerprint, or \"autoreactome,\" that was remarkably stable over years. Using the autoreactome as a primary output, we evaluated the relative effectiveness of various immunomodulatory therapies in altering autoantibody repertoires. We found that therapies targeting B cell maturation antigen (BCMA) profoundly altered an individual's autoreactome, while anti-CD19 and anti-CD20 therapies had minimal effects. These data both confirm that the autoreactome comprises autoantibodies secreted by plasma cells and strongly suggest that BCMA or other plasma cell-targeting therapies may be highly effective in treating currently refractory autoantibody-mediated diseases.

PurposeValue has been conceptualized as the result of co-creation involving service firms and customers. Currently, however, little is known about why and how customers engage in value co-creation with a service firm. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore the role of co-production in value co-creation in the context of banking services from the customers’ viewpoint. The literature has consistently examined the linear effects of trust and decision-making uncertainty on co-production. The study extends this research stream by considering the negative quadratic effects of trust and decision-making uncertainty on co-production. Therefore, this study not only examines the linear and negative quadratic effects of trust and decision-making uncertainty on co-production within a single, simultaneous model but also tests the effect of co-production on value co-creation. Moreover, this study includes and explores the moderating effects of service innovativeness and service effort on co-production in determining value co-creation.Design/methodology/approachThe hierarchical moderated regression was used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe findings support the positive linear effects and negative quadratic effects among trust, decision-making uncertainty and co-production. Meanwhile, the results indicate that co-production positively affect value co-creation. Service innovativeness and service effort enhance the effect of co-production on value co-creation.Originality/valueThis study shows the presence of the opportunity of trust and decision-making uncertainty, which confirms the existing literature, and the challenge of trust and decision-making uncertainty, which extends the literature. This study is the first one to shed light on the negative quadratic effects of trust and decision-making uncertainty on co-production. This study also offers insights into value co-creation and thus enhances the current understanding of value phenomena. Academics and practitioners would greatly benefit from a comprehensive understanding of co-production and the associated value co-creation for the parties involved.

COVID-19 oral treatments require initiation within 5 days of symptom onset. Although antigen tests are less sensitive than RT-PCR, rapid results could facilitate entry to treatment. We collected anterior nasal swabs for BinaxNOW and RT-PCR testing and clinical data at a walk-up, community site in San Francisco, California between January and June 2022. SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences were generated from positive samples and classified according to subtype and variant. Monte Carlo simulations were conducted to estimate the expected proportion of SARS-CoV-2 infected persons who would have been diagnosed within 5 days of symptom onset using RT-PCR versus BinaxNOW testing. Among 25,309 persons tested with BinaxNOW, 2,799 had concomitant RT-PCR. 1137/2799 (40.6%) were SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR positive. We identified waves of predominant omicron BA.1, BA.2, BA.2.12, BA.4, and BA.5 among 720 sequenced samples. Among 1,137 RT-PCR positive samples, 788/1137 (69%) were detected by BinaxNOW; 94% (669/711) of those with Ct value <30 were detected by BinaxNOW. BinaxNOW detection was consistent over lineages. In analyses to evaluate entry to treatment, BinaxNOW detected 81.7% (361/442, 95% CI: 77–85%) of persons with COVID-19 within 5 days of symptom onset. In comparison, RT-PCR (24-hour turnaround) detected 84.2% (372/442, 95% CI: 80–87%) and RT-PCR (48-hour turnaround) detected 67.0% (296/442, 95% CI: 62–71%) of persons with COVID-19 within 5 days of symptom onset. BinaxNOW detected high viral load from anterior nasal swabs consistently across omicron sublineages emerging between January and June of 2022. Simulations support BinaxNOW as an entry point for COVID-19 treatment in a community field setting.

Importance Characterizing the clinical symptoms and evolution of community-based SARS-CoV-2 infections may inform health practitioners and public health officials in a rapidly changing landscape of population immunity and viral variants. Objectives To compare COVID-19 symptoms among people testing positive with a rapid antigen test (RAT) during the Omicron BA.1 variant period (December 1, 2021, to January 30, 2022) with the pre-Delta (January 10 to May 31, 2021) and Delta (June 1 to November 30, 2021) variant periods and to assess the duration of RAT positivity during the Omicron BA.1 surge. Design, Setting, and Participants This cross-sectional study was conducted from January 10, 2021, to January 31, 2022, at a walk-up community COVID-19 testing site in San Francisco, California. Participants included children and adults seeking COVID-19 testing with an RAT, regardless of age, vaccine status, or symptoms. Main Outcomes and Measures Fisher exact tests or χ2tests were used to compare COVID-19 symptoms during the Omicron BA.1 period with the pre-Delta and Delta periods for vaccination status and age group. Among people returning for repeated testing during the Omicron period, the proportion with a positive RAT between 4 and 14 days from symptom onset or since first positive test if asymptomatic was estimated. Results Among 63 277 persons tested (median [IQR] age, 32 [21-44] years, with 12.0% younger than 12 years; 52.0% women; and 68.5% Latinx), a total of 18 301 people (28.9%) reported symptoms, of whom 4565 (24.9%) tested positive for COVID-19. During the Omicron BA.1 period, 3032 of 7283 symptomatic participants (41.6%) tested positive, and the numbers of these reporting cough and sore throat were higher than during pre-Delta and Delta periods (cough: 2044 [67.4%] vs 546 [51.3%] of 1065 participants,P < .001 for pre-Delta, and 281 [60.0%] of 468 participants,P = .002, for Delta; sore throat: 1316 [43.4%] vs 315 [29.6%] of 1065 participants,P < .001 for pre-Delta, and 136 [29.1%] of 468 participants,P < .001, for Delta). Compared with the 1065 patients with positive test results in the pre-Delta period, congestion among the 3032 with positive results during the Omicron BA.1 period was more common (1177 [38.8%] vs 294 [27.6%] participants,P < .001), and loss of taste or smell (160 [5.3%] vs 183 [17.2%] participants,P < .001) and fever (921 [30.4%] vs 369 [34.7%] participants,P = .01) were less common. In addition, during the Omicron BA.1 period, fever was less common among the people with positive test results who had received a vaccine booster compared with those with positive test results who were unvaccinated (97 [22.5%] of 432 vs 42 [36.2%] of 116 participants,P = .003), and fever and myalgia were less common among participants who had received a booster compared with those with positive results who had received only a primary series (fever: 97 [22.5%] of 432 vs 559 [32.8%] of 1705 participants,P < .001; myalgia: 115 [26.6%] of 432 vs 580 [34.0%] of 1705 participants,P = .003). During the Omicron BA.1 period, 5 days after symptom onset, 507 of 1613 people (31.1%) with COVID-19 stated that their symptoms were similar, and 95 people (5.9%) reported worsening symptoms. Among people testing positive, 80.2% of participants who were symptomatic and retested remained positive 5 days after symptom onset. Conclusions and Relevance In this cross-sectional study, COVID-19 upper respiratory tract symptoms were more commonly reported during the Omicron BA.1 period than during the pre-Delta and Delta periods, with differences by vaccination status. Rapid antigen test positivity remained high 5 days after symptom onset, supporting guidelines requiring a negative test to inform the length of the isolation period.

PurposeThis study aims to examine how customers derive satisfaction and affective commitment from their participation in financial services, which is conditional on their relationship length.Design/methodology/approachStudent interviewers approached customers who were exiting banks at two skip intervals in Taiwan. The final survey sample consists of 227 respondents.FindingsEmpirical results confirm that optimal customer participation (CP) influences affective commitment through increased customer satisfaction. The optimal level of CP with customer satisfaction and affective commitment is high if the relationship length is long.Originality/valueThis article shows that the marginal benefits of CP on customer satisfaction and affective commitment become negative after an optimum level. Furthermore, relationship length moderates the aforementioned relationships.

Purpose Online shopping has continued to grow in popularity, and the advance of internet technology has enhanced customers’ experiences. One technology online retailers have been using to increase sales is virtual try-on (VTO). The purpose of this paper is to investigate how such technology affects online consumers’ purchase decision process towards purchase intention, especially from an integration of utilitarian, hedonic and risk perspectives, by using advanced partial least square (PLS) approaches. Design/methodology/approach This study applied a web-based survey approach for data collection from online apparel retailing websites. The survey instrument was developed by adapting previously validated measurement items. The valid data collected were analysed using PLS with multi-group analyses. Advanced PLS techniques such as examination of discriminant validity using heterotrait-monotrait ratio, tests of out-of-sample prediction performance, and measurement invariance of composite models were applied. Findings The results of examining the proposed model reveal that customers’ attitude towards VTO technology can affect their intention to purchase a garment online, which is affected by perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and perceived privacy risk. Perceived ease of use is found to affect perceived usefulness and perceived helpfulness. The results also show no significant differences among age groups and genders in terms of the role of VTO technology in the full decision process towards online purchase intention. Originality/value This study enhances the understanding of the roles that VTO technology plays in consumers’ online purchase intention by providing an integrative view of its utilitarian value, hedonic value and risk. This study demonstrates the feasibility of applying advanced PLS techniques to investigate online consumer behaviour, particularly in the field of VTO application in online retailing. Implications for online retailers and designers of VTO technology are also derived from the findings.