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Although ethics instruction has become an accepted part of the business school curriculum at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, some scholars have questioned its effectiveness, and research results have been mixed. However, studies yield interesting results regarding certain factors that influence the ethicality of business students and may impact the effectiveness of business ethics instruction. One of these factors is gender. Using personal and business ethics scenarios, we examine the main and interactive effects of gender and business ethics education on moral judgment. We then analyze the relationships between gender and business ethics education on personal ethical perspectives. Our results indicate that women are generally more inclined to act ethically than men, but paradoxically women who have had business ethics instruction are less likely to respond ethically to business situations. In addition, men may be more responsive to business ethics education than women. Finally, women's personal ethical orientations may become more relativistic after taking a business ethics class.

Avatars are lifelike characters created by technology. Research suggests that avatars can increase the persuasiveness of online sales channels. The authors investigate how the social cues inherent in avatars influence consumers' affect and shopping value. In Study 1, social cues induce perceptions of Web site socialness, leading to increased pleasure and arousal, both of which positively influence flow, hedonic and utilitarian value, and patronage intentions. Study 2 finds that social cue-induced arousal leads to increased pleasure only for consumers who are involved with the product category. Moreover, the influence of arousal on hedonic value is stronger for women, flow does not lead to pleasure for older consumers, and utilitarian value is less important for this group than for their younger counterparts. The findings suggest that there is a competitive advantage for online retailers that use social cues that provide consumers with enhanced perceptions of human connection and the formation of emotional bonds.

Website designers are beginning to incorporate social cues, such as helpfulness and familiarity, into e-commerce sites to facilitate the exchange relationship. Website socialness elicits a social response from users of the site and this response produces enjoyment. Users patronize websites that are exciting, entertaining and stimulating. The purpose of our study is to explore the effects of website socialness perceptions on the formation of users' beliefs, attitudes and subsequent behavioral intentions. We manipulate website socialness perceptions across two different online shopping contexts, one for functional products and the other for pleasure-oriented products, and draw from the responses of 300 Internet users. Our findings show that website socialness perceptions lead to enjoyment, have a strong influence on user intentions and these effects are invariant across shopping contexts.

Although educators suggest integrating Kolb’s four stages of experiential learning cycle in service-learning (SL) pedagogy, no higher education research has demonstrated how to create experiential activities for each stage. Little is known about the impacts of student volunteer motivation and individual learning strategies. This research examines the effects of undergraduates’ perceptions of experiential learning and volunteer motivation in a business SL course on student learning outcomes. Two field studies were conducted. Volunteer motivation and experiential learning perception influence student learning outcomes. To capitalize on the benefits of SL pedagogy, a high-level experiential learning course is a must.

Purpose - A person's optimum stimulation level (OSL) reflects one's desired level of environmental stimulation and predisposition to act in the presence of environments. The purpose of this paper is to propose a comprehensive model, which illustrates that consumers with different levels of OSL have differing evaluations of retail store elements, shopping value and subsequent shopping behaviours.Design methodology approach - To examine the relationship between OSL and consumer perceptions and behaviours, interviews were conducted with retail shoppers in Taiwan (n=147).Findings - Taiwanese shoppers with a high OSL were found to have more favourable evaluations of a store's ambient, design, layout and density elements than did consumers with a low OSL. Additionally, the high OSL shoppers reported higher hedonic and utilitarian values from their shopping. Most importantly, the shoppers with a high OSL spent more time and money in stores.Practical implications - With this research, hopefully retailers will pay even more attention to the ambient, design and layout elements of their stores. In doing so, they might be able to attract more consumers with a high OSL and entice them to spend more money.Originality value - The paper contributes to the growing body of international retailing research by examining the effects of shoppers' optimum stimulation levels on their perceptions toward store elements, perceived shopping value, and purchase behaviours. Moreover, a comprehensive framework is put forth to assist future research.

Study abroad programs (SAPs) are in international education industry. According to OECD's report, in 2012, more than 4.5 million students were studying abroad and the average annual growth rate was 7%. Many universities and educational institutions from different countries have been promoting SAPs to their college students. To effectively promote SAPs, education practitioners need to find the right target segments and to make SAPs attractive to the target consumers. International marketing scholars suggest consumer ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism as important segmentation variables to better understand consumer behaviors toward local and foreign products in different countries (Cleveland, Papadopoulos, and Laroche 2011). By the same token, both two constructs may be important segmentation variables for SAPs (domestic/foreign education service), but have not been explored yet. To fill this void, this study examines the impacts of consumer ethnocentrism and cosmopolitanism on college students' study abroad attitudes and behavioral intention. According to Social Identity Theory and the existing literature, this paper suggests three research hypotheses. Furthermore, two empirical studies with online surveys were conducted in the US and in Taiwan to test the research hypotheses. The first study included 209 students at an AACSB-accredited public university in the U.S while the second study had 104 respondents from a private university in Taiwan. The study results highlight the importance of cosmopolitanism trait on college students' SAPs decision, but did not find the negative effects of ethnocentrism. This research offers insights to marketing practitioner in education to promote SAPs.

In principle, designing and synthesizing almost any class of colloidal crystal is possible. Nonetheless, the deliberate and rational formation of colloidal quasicrystals has been difficult to achieve. Here we describe the assembly of colloidal quasicrystals by exploiting the geometry of nanoscale decahedra and the programmable bonding characteristics of DNA immobilized on their facets. This process is enthalpy-driven, works over a range of particle sizes and DNA lengths, and is made possible by the energetic preference of the system to maximize DNA duplex formation and favour facet alignment, generating local five- and six-coordinated motifs. This class of axial structures is defined by a square–triangle tiling with rhombus defects and successive on-average quasiperiodic layers exhibiting stacking disorder which provides the entropy necessary for thermodynamic stability. Taken together, these results establish an engineering milestone in the deliberate design of programmable matter. The rational design and assembly of colloidal quasicrystals is achieved by exploring the hybridization of nanoscale decahedra nanoparticles functionalized with DNA linkers.

Classical nonhomologous DNA end-joining (C-NHEJ), which is a major DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair pathway in mammalian cells, plays a dominant role in joining DSBs during Ig heavy chain (IgH) class switch recombination (CSR) in activated B lymphocytes. However, in B cells deficient for one or more requisite C-NHEJ factors, such as DNA ligase 4 (Lig4) or XRCC4, end-joining during CSR occurs by a distinct alternative end-joining (A-EJ) pathway. A-EJ also has been implicated in joining DSBs found in oncogenic chromosomal translocations. DNA ligase 3 (Lig3) and its cofactor XRCC1 are widely considered to be requisite A-EJ factors, based on biochemical studies or extrachromosomal substrate end-joining studies. However, potential roles for these factors in A-EJ of endogenous chromosomal DSBs have not been tested. Here, we report that Xrcc1 inactivation via conditional gene-targeted deletion in WT or XRCC4-deficient primary B cells does not have an impact on either CSR or IgH/c-myc translocations in activated B lymphocytes. Indeed, homozygous deletion of Xrcc1 does not impair A-EJ of I-SceI–induced DSBs in XRCC4-deficient pro–B-cell lines. Correspondingly, substantial depletion of Lig3 in Lig4-deficient primary B cells or B-cell lines does not impair A-EJ of CSR-mediated DSBs or formation of IgH/c-myc translocations. Our findings firmly demonstrate that XRCC1 is not a requisite factor for A-EJ of chromosomal DSBs and raise the possibility that DNA ligase 1 (Lig1) may contribute more to A-EJ than previously considered.

The eco-evolutionary interactions among members of the vertebrate gut microbiota that ultimately result in host-specific communities are poorly understood. Here we show that Lactobacillus reuteri coexists with species that belong to the Lactobacillus johnsonii cluster (L. johnsonii, L. gasseri, and L taiwanensis) in a taxonomically wide range of rodents, suggesting cohabitation over evolutionary times. The two dominant Lactobacillus species found in wild mice establish a commensalistic relationship in gastric biofilms when introduced together into germ-free mice in which L. reuteri facilitates colonization of L. taiwanensis. Genomic analysis revealed allopatric diversification in strains of both species that originated from geographically separated locations (Scotland and France). Allopatry of the strains resulted in reduced formation of mixed biofilms in vitro, indicating that interspecies interactions in gastric Lactobacillus-biofilms are the result of an adaptive evolutionary process that occurred in a biogeographical context. In summary, these findings suggest that members within the vertebrate gut microbiota can evolve inter-dependencies through ecological facilitation, which could represent one mechanism by which host-specific bacterial communities assemble across vertebrate species and an explanation for their spatial and biogeographic patterns.

Heliozelidae are a group of small monotrysian moths with a near world-wide distribution. While the Heliozelidae fauna of the Palaearctic and Nearctic is relatively well known, few studies have examined Heliozelidae in other regions of the world. If known, described species are leaf miners as larvae; however, the early biology of species outside of the Northern Hemisphere is poorly understood. Here, we describe a group of heliozelid moths that are specialised pollinators of the iconic plant genus Boronia Sm. (Rutaceae) from the south of Western Australia. Females of this group are characterised by the presence of a pollen-collecting structure on the dorsal side of the abdomen that is unique among known Lepidoptera. We propose that these moths are involved in a brood pollination mutualism with their species-specific host plant, where females lay eggs into and pollinate Boronia flowers, and larvae consume developing seeds. Molecular phylogenetic analyses using seven mitochondrial protein coding genes recovered a monophyletic group of pollinator species that belong to a larger group of Rutaceae-associated Australian Heliozelidae. The remainder of this group lack this pollen-collecting structure, providing insights into the evolution of pollination relationships. We resurrect the genus name Prophylactis Meyrick, 1897 stat. rev. and describe 15 new species based on a combination of morphological and molecular characters and host plant information: Prophylactis albiflorallax Hilton, Young & Kallies sp. nov. , P. binbin Hilton, Young & Kallies sp. nov. , P. clavatallax Hilton, Young & Kallies sp. nov. , P. crassifoliallax Hilton, Young & Kallies sp. nov. , P. crenulatallax Hilton, Young & Kallies sp. nov. , P. gracilipax Hilton, Young & Kallies sp. nov. , P. heterophyllax Hilton, Young & Kallies sp. nov. , P jasperae Hilton, Young, Milla & Kallies sp. nov. , P. megastigmallax Hilton, Young, Halsey, Milla & Kallies sp. nov. , P. molloyax Hilton, Young & Kallies sp. nov. , P. octandrallax Hilton, Young, Milla & Kallies sp. nov. , P. pulchellax Hilton, Young & Kallies sp. nov. , P. purdieanallax Hilton, Young & Kallies sp. nov. , P. strictallax Hilton, Young, Halsey & Kallies sp. nov. , and P. tetrandrallax Hilton, Young, Milla & Kallies sp. nov.