Association of CFU-Mk with total colony-forming units in thawed cord blood units.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Cord blood unit (CBU) total colony-forming unit (CFU) count both pre-cryo and post-thaw has been shown to be associated with platelet (PLT) engraftment. Pre-cryo CBUs show good growth of megakaryocytic CFUs (CFU-Mk); however, CFU-Mk have rarely been studied in post-thaw CBUs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Nucleated cells (NCs) from post-thaw CB were cultured in a collagen-based assay designed to support growth of CFU-Mk. To ensure accurate counting two independent investigators evaluated four culture chambers per sample for CFU-Mk growth. Post-thaw CFU and other cellular characteristics of the CBUs were enumerated independently and compared to CFU-Mk. RESULTS: The post-thaw CBU total CFU count varied from 0·47 to 4·20×10(6) colonies (median, 0·99×10(6)) and total CFU-Mk count from 0·11 to 0·70×10(6) colonies (median, 0·21×10(6)). Total CFU-Mk count was closely associated with total CFU count (Spearman's Rho=0·86, P=0·0072), haemoglobinized CFU (Rho=0·86, P=0·0072) and CFU-granulocyte/macrophage (CFU-GM; Rho=0·81; P=0·0154). Total CFU-Mk count also correlated with the post-thaw total CD34+ cell count (median, 2·55×10(6); range, 1·40-12·5×10(6); Rho=0·83; P=0·0154). CONCLUSION: CFU-Mk growth was associated with total CFU, haemoglobinized CFU, CFU-GM and CD34+ cells in thawed CBUs. This study confirms the preservation of CFU-Mk potential after CB cryopreservation.

Predicting intentions to purchase organic food: the role of affective and moral attitudes in the Theory of Planned Behaviour.

This study examined the usefulness of integrating measures of affective and moral attitudes into the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB)-model in predicting purchase intentions of organic foods. Moral attitude was operationalised as positive self-rewarding feelings of doing the right thing. Questionnaire data were gathered in three countries: Italy (N=202), Finland (N=270) and UK (N=200) in March 2004. Questions focussed on intentions to purchase organic apples and organic ready-to-cook pizza instead of their conventional alternatives. Data were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling by simultaneous multi-group analysis of the three countries. Along with attitudes, moral attitude and subjective norms explained considerable shares of variances in intentions. The relative influences of these variables varied between the countries, such that in the UK and Italy moral attitude rather than subjective norms had stronger explanatory power. In Finland it was other way around. Inclusion of moral attitude improved the model fit and predictive ability of the model, although only marginally in Finland. Thus the results partially support the usefulness of incorporating moral measures as well as affective items for attitude into the framework of TPB.

Comparison of elicitation methods for moral and affective beliefs in the theory of planned behaviour.

Although the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) has been applied successfully in the area of food choice, it has been criticized for its pure utilitarian approach to the factors determining behaviour. Despite the increase in predictive power of the model with added components such as affective attitude and moral and ethical concerns, in most studies the elicitation process still only addresses people's utilitarian beliefs about the behaviour with little attention paid to other aspects. This study compares the traditional method of elicitation of advantages and disadvantages with two other methods (word association and open-ended) in the elicitations of beliefs, attitudes and moral concerns in relation to the consumption of organic foods. Results show the traditional method to be best for eliciting cognitive beliefs, open-ended emotion task for eliciting emotional beliefs and open-ended beliefs task best for moral concerns. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed.

Predicting the intent to purchase unfamiliar and familiar cheeses: the effects of attitudes, expected liking and food neophobia.

The attitude model of the theory of reasoned action (TRA) has been applied mainly to predicting the choice of familiar foods; however, the choice of unfamiliar foods may be governed by distinct factors. In the present study, 92 females rated their attitudes and subjective norms about the purchase intentions of two familiar and two unfamiliar cheeses, and the expected and actual pleasantness of them. They also completed the food neophobia scale, which measures the tendency to avoid novel foods. Neophobic persons rated the attitudes and expected and actual taste pleasantness lower than neophilics for all cheeses, except for the most familiar, mild cheese. This suggests that food neophobia also indicates the tendency not only to avoid, but also to dislike novel foods. Before tasting, attitudes and subjective norms together predicted the intent to purchase familiar cheeses better (R2=0.54 and 0.58) than for novel cheeses (R2=0.24 and 0.35); thus, the basic TRA model was not as useful in predicting intent to purchase unfamiliar as familiar cheeses. The predictions especially for the novel cheeses were clearly improved by including expected pleasantness ratings in the model. The usefulness of the food neophobia score as an additional predictor was not clearly supported. Attitudes and subjective norms measured before tasting were poor predictors of purchase intents after tasting, which implies the importance of taste and direct product experience in food choice.