Many changes taking place at a macro-level in Indian society along with the popularity of services that are native to India, such as Yoga and Ayurveda, have generated significant interest in wellness services. To assist wellness centers in gaining loyal clients, the goal of this study was to understand the influence of customer lifestyle factors on wellness center loyalty. The activities, interests, and opinions model was used to understand the lifestyles of wellness center clients. Data were collected from clients of five wellness centers. Regression results indicate that overworked individuals and those seeking a balance between work and family life would be the most loyal to wellness centers. Managerial implications of results are discussed.
Increasing death rates due to antibiotic resistance deteriorate the existing treatment measures. Antimicrobial peptides have turned into the emerging cure for multidrug resistance. However, the stability and functionality determine an antimicrobial peptide as a drug. Analyses of the homodimeric β‐helical peptide, gramicidin have suggested the significant role of gramicidin‐A, gramicidin‐B, and gramicidin‐C as antimicrobial compounds, but the structural basis for understanding the stability and functionality is insufficient to resolve multidrug resistance. To identify the best template among gramicidin types as a therapeutic product, we combined a detailed comparative static analysis and dynamic analysis along with conformational free energy and secondary structure prediction. We observed that the high intramolecular interactions and the geometrical features favored gramicidin‐A among other types of gramicidin. Our analyses further revealed that the secondary structure of gramicidin‐A showed β sheets with coils along the conformations without any disruption, thereby enhanced its membrane interactions in terms of binding free energy. In conclusion, gramicidin‐A has definitely showed enhanced structural stability and functionality; this could be considered the best template for a potential therapeutic product.
PurposeLike other developing countries, Rwandan rural credit market is repressed, shallow, segmented, inefficient and dual structured where both formal and informal financial systems operate side by side. While the later has been playing a predominant role, cooperative societies have emerged as an apt method of increasing the delivery of formal rural credit and savings facilities on sustainable and non‐exploitative terms albeit of financial imprudence stemming from poor credit repayment records. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the factors contributing to credit repayment behaviour among the members of savings and credit cooperative societies in rural Rwanda.Design/methodology/approachBoth exploratory and descriptive designs are used for primary data collection on variables contributing to the repayment behaviour in savings and cooperative societies. Thereafter, a binary logistic regression empirical model is employed to estimate the contribution of each variable to credit repayment rate.FindingsThe results from the tested empirical model show that age, gender and size of the household, purpose for credit, interest rate charges and number of official visits to the credit societies, have a strong effect on loan repayment performance (statistically significant at p<0.05) whereas size of credit disbursed, credit processing and disbursing time, borrowers' market place and income transfer from relatives and friends are more or less statistically significant at p<0.20 level. The remaining factors have logical and explainable sings but are not statistically significant.Research limitations/implicationsThe primary limitation of this study is the scope and size of its sample as well as absence of income factor as one of important variable influencing repayment behaviour. These limitations may have an effect on the lending policy of the cooperative banks.Originality/valueAn understanding of the socio‐economic factors affecting repayment behaviour of rural clients is essential for the outreach and sustainability of the mushrooming cooperative societies in the country. Hence, this paper contributes to the empirical literature on the provision of rural financial services in African countries south of Sahara and Rwanda in particular.
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