A Multidimensional Analysis of the Disability Digital Divide: Some Evidence for Internet Use

Over the last few years, information and communication technologies have become an essential part of daily life, affecting education, employment, and leisure, among other activities. Nonetheless, many individuals still reap few or no benefits from these technologies, and there are resilient gaps in their use. Within this larger context, the authors examine the Internet digital divide between people with and without disabilities from a multidimensional approach. Rather than analyzing the gap in terms of “haves” and “have-nots,” a range of Internet-related dimensions—affordability, motivation and attitudes, skills, usage, and others—is taken into account.     

The relationships among consumers’ ethical ideology,risk aversion and ethically-based distrust of online retailers and the moderating role of consumers’ need for personal interaction

Consumer distrust is only recently beginning to be perceived as an important e-commerce issue and, unlike online trust, the nature and role of distrust is much less established. This study examines the influence of two important consumer characteristics (ethical ideology and risk aversion) on consumer’s ethically-based distrust of online retailers. Also, the moderating role of consumer’s need for personal contact with sales staff is tested. Results from 409 online consumers confirm that both relativist-based ethical ideology and risk aversion are strongly and positively related to consumers’ distrust. Interestingly, our findings show that positive effects of relativism and risk aversion on consumer’s distrust are moderated by consumers’ need for personal interaction, which is more pronounced for those consumers with a high need for personal interaction with retail salespeople.     

Green intellectual capital and environmental product innovation: the mediating role of green social capital

Although the importance of intellectual capital has already been highlighted in the management literature, few articles have focused on the importance of its green counterpart, green intellectual capital. Nowadays, when environmental concerns cannot be ignored by firms, it is therefore time to explore the role of green intellectual capital in environmental improvement. For that reason, our research aims to explore the relationships between green intellectual capital components and the environmental performance of the firms. In particular, we try to show the importance of green organizational and social capital in the development of environmental product innovations, which are vital to the development and implementation of environmental strategies since, as scholars have pointed out, they generate some of the greatest environmental impacts. The empirical results show that green organizational capital has an indirect impact on environmental product innovation through green social capital, meaning that the latter is a significant mediator of that relationship, and at the same time emphasizing that informal relationships play a key role in the improvement of the environmental performance of the firm and, more specifically, in the development of environmental product innovations.     

Microfluidic chip for fast bioassays��evaluation of binding parameters

A seven channel polystyrene (PS) microchip has been constructed using a micromilling machine and a high-temperature assembling. Protein A (PA) has been immobilized by a passive sorption on the microchannel walls. Two bioaffinity assays with human immunoglobulin G (hIgG) as a ligand have been carried out. (i) PA as the receptor and fluorescently labeled hIgG (FITC-hIgG) as the ligand, (ii) PA as the receptor with hIgG as the quantified ligand and fluorescently labeled goat anti-human IgG (FITC-gIgG) as the secondary ligand. One incubation step of the assays took only 5 min instead of hours typical for enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay applications. Calibration curves of the dependence of a fluorescence signal on the hIgG concentration in a sample have been obtained in one step due to a parallel arrangement of microchannels. A mathematical model of the PA-FITC-hIgG complex formation in the chip has been developed. The values of the kinetic constant of the PA-FITC-hIgG binding (k_on=5.5 m³ mol⁻¹ s⁻¹) and the equilibrium dissociation constant of the formed complex (K_d≤3×10⁻⁶ mol m⁻³) have been obtained by fitting to experimental data. The proposed microchip enables fast evaluation of kinetic and equilibrium constants of ligand-receptor bioaffinity pairs and the ligand quantification. As the use of microfluidic chips for immunoassays is often limited by price, we used procedures and chemicals that allow for an inexpensive construction and operation of the microdevice, e.g., temperature assembling as a fabrication technique, detection via an ordinary digital camera, nonspecific polystyrene as a substrate, passive sorption of biomolecules as an immobilization technique, etc.     

THE GENETIC ASPECTS OF HIGH INTELLIGENCE

A cohort of 71 pairs of twins was studied in a project which started within the decade 1965 to 1975. The total level of intelligence (global IQ) and the level of particular intellectual components have been examined annually since the twins were two years of age. The data were analysed by comparing monozygotic and dizygotic twins. The results revealed that high intelligence is influenced much more by hereditary than exogenous factors. Furthermore, there is an irregularity in the development of intellectual level from childhood to adulthood. Consequently, decision making about children cannot be carried out on the basis of a single IQ evaluation. A cluster analysis demonstrated the importance of hereditary factors not only on intellectual level, but also on the pattern of intellectual development.     

Various ways to determine rational number size: an exploration across primary and secondary education

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Understanding rational numbers is a complex task for primary and secondary school students. Previous research has shown that a possible reason is...