This chapter reviews the general procedures and methodologies used for validating growth and yield models. More specifically, it addresses: (i) the optimism principle and model validation; (ii) model validation procedures, problems and potential areas of needed research; (iii) data considerations and data-splitting schemes in model validation; and (iv) operational thresholds for accepting or rejecting a model. The roles of visual or graphical validation, dynamic validation, as well as statistical and biological validations are discussed in more detail. The emphasis in this chapter is placed on the understanding of the validation process rather than the validation of a specific model. The limitations and the pitfalls of model validation procedures, as well as some of the frequent misuses of these procedures are discussed. Several technical and practical recommendations concerning the validation of growth and yield model are made.

Awe is a self-transcendent emotion that can diminish one's focus on the self and serves as an important motivator of commitment to social collectives. However, the influence of awe on ecological behavior is not clear. This study examines the relationships between people's feeling of awe, their connectedness to nature, and ecological behavior. Three experiments tested the effect of awe on ecological behaviors including mediation tests. Compared with participants in the control condition, participants in the awe condition were more inclined to behave ecologically (Study 1 and 2) and reported a higher feeling of connectedness to nature (Study 2). Moreover, the relationship between awe and ecological behavior was mediated by connectedness to nature (Study 3). These findings indicate that awe helps broaden the self-concept by including nature and increase connectedness to nature, which in turn lead to ecological behavior. They also highlight the significance of connectedness in explaining why awe increases ecological behavior.

Although studies of nonrational consumer behaviour in the fields of psychology and marketing are widespread, few scholars have discussed this issue from the integrated perspective of individual characteristics and consumer welfare. Extant research has introduced the concept of consumer vulnerability to deepen the study of nonrational behaviour. The present research defines consumer vulnerability as an individual characteristic, that is, a tendency to be influenced by an external stimulation or temptation that leads to decisions harmful to the person's own welfare. To operationalize this concept, this study develops a consumer vulnerability scale. Results from exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis reveal the following seven dimensions of consumer vulnerability: product knowledge, product promotion, marketing and emotional stress, social pressure, purchasing power, refunds policy and discrimination ability. After verifying the scale's reliability and validity, this study confirms that it can be applied to measure the degree to which consumer welfare has been harmed and predict nonrational decision-making behaviour.Limitations and future research directions also are discussed. K E Y W O R D S consumer vulnerability, consumer welfare, disadvantaged consumer, nonrational consumer behaviour, scale development

In this study we examine the impact of customer experience (CE) on customer-based brand equity (CBBE) for tourism destinations. Breaking down CE into the constituents of service performance, word-of-mouth(WOM), and advertising, we use a structural equation model to test survey data gathered from Mainland Chinese outbound tourists. We found that destination service performance (DSP) has the most significant impact on destination brand equity, followed by WOM. Advertising does not show a significant effect. This study also confirms the structure of destination brand equity. Based on results, this study offers some managerial insights into the effective building of destination brand equity.

With more and more destinations relying on repeat travelers, the inclination of tourists to revisit some destinations has become a significant topic of study. Therefore, the reasons for travelers’ revisits have been addressed in many research studies. These studies have determined several factors of the revisit inclination, such as satisfaction, destination image, and perceived quality. However, in most of the previous studies about the relationships among the destination image and tourists’ satisfaction, as well as their behavioral intentions to the destination, the moderating variables were not considered. Consequently, we analyzed the moderator effects of certain characteristics of different travel arrangements on the theoretical relationship among the destination image, tourists’ satisfaction, and their behavioral intentions to the destination. This article first identifies the similarities and differences among these two types of Chinese outbound travelers in terms of their demographic and trip characteristics. It then confirms that these two types of travelers differ in terms of the relationships among perceived destination images, satisfaction level, and future behavioral intentions using an invariance test of structural model. According to the multiple group cause-and-effect analysis, the results show that travel arrangement can largely affect either the relations between destination image and tourists’ satisfaction or their behavioral intentions. Moreover, the relationship between either destination image and tourists’ satisfaction or their behavioral intentions is generally stronger for independent visitors. Finally, the influences are discussed from both theoretical and practical perspective.

The expression pattern of sNHE suggested that this protein may be involved in the regulation of sperm motility, and aberration of its expression in sperm may contribute to the pathogenesis of asthenozoospermia.

Male infertility is considered a common health problem, and non-obstructive azoospermia with unclear pathogenesis is one of the most challenging tasks for clinicians. The objective of this study was to investigate the differential serum metabolic pattern in non-obstructive azoospermic men and to determine potential biomarkers related to spermatogenic dysfunction. Serum samples from patients with non-obstructive azoospermia (n = 22) and healthy controls (n = 31) were examined using high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS). Serum metabolomic profiling could differentiate non-obstructive azoospermic patients from healthy control subjects. A total of 24 metabolites were screened and identified as potential markers, many of which are involved in energy production, oxidative stress and cell apoptosis in spermatogenesis. Moreover, the results showed that various metabolic pathways, including d-glutamine and d-glutamate metabolism, taurine and hypotaurine metabolism, pyruvate metabolism, the citrate cycle and alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, were disrupted in patients with non-obstructive azoospermia. Our results indicated that the serum metabolic disorders may contribute to the etiology of non-obstructive azoospermia. This study suggested that serum metabolomics could identify unique metabolic patterns of non-obstructive azoospermia and provide novel insights into the pathogenesis underlying male infertility.

Awe represents a self‐transcendent, sacred experience that is closely related to spirituality. In this study, we suggest that spirituality buffers the effect of awe on materialistic consumption. Across three studies (N = 896), we test the hypothesis that awe can prompt participants’ spirituality, which in turn decreases the inclination of conspicuous consumption. In a survey, dispositional awe is found to be negatively related to the inclination of conspicuous consumption (Study 1). In follow‐up experiments, the induction of awe (relative to other control states) decreases conspicuous consumption behavior (Studies 2 and 3). In addition, a mediation analysis demonstrates that the impacts of awe on conspicuous consumption behavior are explained partly by spirituality. These findings indicate that awe may impede an individual’s materialistic need by enhancing self‐transcendent value.