The potential emission of personal care products derived plastic microbeads: a case study of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Plastic microbeads are commonly used in many personal care products and can cause adverse impacts to the environment and ecosystem. The toxicological problem with these pollutants are due to their non-biodegradable materials, which washed down the drain; end up accumulating in the aquatic system causing increased frequency and quantity of items ingested by biota. Several polymers (e.g. Polyethylene) especially those found in plastic microbeads have been reported to be in tandem with other toxic contaminants serving as a vector for their transports in the environment. Thus, the legislative ban for plastic microbeads is used in some developed countries, but many countries including Vietnam do not take any legal action. This present study aimed at potential microbead’s existence in the cosmetic market of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). The list and ingredients of microbeads containing personal care products (toothpaste, facial cleanser/scrubs and body wash/scrubs) have been checked. The microbeads containing PCPs are common for all explored categories, especially in toothpaste. Data from the online questionnaire survey have shown that 98% of respondents have frequently used at least one microbead containing product. Four polymers (Polyethylene, Acrylates Copolymer Styrene/Acrylates Copolymer and Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer) have been observed in the product package of several facial cleansers and body scrubs. Thus, the potential negative impacts of this contaminant should not be ignored.

Zobo Tea Package Design Prototype Allied with Product Onomastics

The purpose of this design is to create a Zobo tea package design prototype allied with African indigenous onomastics. African indigenous products are effective in terms of functionality; however, industrialized products gained more attention because of aesthetics, safety, hygiene, and other advanced technology put into consideration during production. This seems to boost the inferiority of indigenous products. Hence, the present study focuses on indigenous Zobo tea in terms of creating a conceptual package design prototype enhanced with product onomastics. Twenty-two names are derived for indigenous Zobo tea by making use of linguistics techniques. These names are used as label for designing a conceptual package prototype for indigenous Zobo tea. A Delphi technique is adopted for the evaluation of this creative process. The findings show that homonym as an onomastics will enhance the branding and development of indigenous Zobo tea even in the international market. This will remodel the inferiority of the aesthetics of Zobo indigenous products. Hence, research on the choice of an appropriate name for a particular product should be a contemporary research area to improve the present situation of our indigenous product branding and graphic design. It is believed that the outcome of this research could provide guidelines for effective naming in product package design for indigenous product development; as creative designers must not only understand the vocabulary of graphic design but be aware of extraneous constraints that could affect their designs.

The Impact of Responsible Food Packaging Perceptions on Naturalness and Healthiness Inferences, and Consumer Buying Intentions

The research presented in this article examines the relationship between consumer perceptions that a food package is responsible (sustainable) and consumers’ intention to purchase the product that it contains. On the basis of the relevant literature, a conceptual model is proposed where this relationship is hypothesized to be mediated by two variables: the product’s perceived naturalness and healthiness. A first study was conducted with the objective of developing a scale with good psychometric properties to measure the perceived naturalness of a food product. The objective of the second study was to test the validity of the two-mediator conceptual model. The results show that the extent to which a food product package is seen as responsible (i.e., recyclable, reusable, compostable) has a positive and statistically significant impact on consumers’ intention to buy it, and that it is through the sequential mediation of the product’s perceived naturalness and healthiness that this relationship unfolds.

Prediksi Pola Tata Letak Produk untuk Strategi Penjualan Menggunakan Algoritma Apriori

Data mining is a term used to describe the discovery of knowledge in databases. Data mining is a process that uses statistical techniques, mathematics, artificial intelligence, and maching learning to extract and identify useful information and related knowledge from large databases. One of the data mining methods is the association rule by analyzing a sales transaction at the 212 mart latsitarda Kisaran store. Sales transaction analysis aims to design a sales strategy. To design an effective sales or marketing strategy. In addition, the use of this analytical technique can also find changing patterns of products that are often purchased together or products that tend to appear together in a transaction from transaction data which are generally large in size. Store 212 mart latsitarda Kisaran can then use this pattern to place frequently purchased products into a contiguous area. Designing product displays in catalogs, designing product package sales, and so on using data mining concepts (a priori algorithm approach) so that they can analyze buyer behavior. Keywords: Data Mining; Product Layout Pattern; Apriori Algorithm Abstrak: Data Mining adalah suatu istilah yang digunakan untuk memguraikan penemuan pengetahuan didalam database. Data Mining adalah proses yang menggunakan teknik statistik, matematika, kecerdasan buatan, dan maching learning untuk mengestraksi dan mengindentifikasi informasi yang bermanfaat dan pengetahuan yang terkait dari berbagai database besar. Salah satu metode data mining adalah aturan asosiasi dengan melakukan analisis suatu transaksi penjualan pada toko 212 mart latsitarda Kisaran. Analisis transaksi penjualan bertujuan untuk merancang strategi penjualan. Untuk merancang strategi penjualan atau pemasaran yang efektif. Selain itu, penggunaaan teknik analisis ini juga dapat menemukan pola berubah produk-produk yang sering dibeli bersamaan atau produk yang cenderung muncul bersaama dalam sebuah transaksi dari data transaksi yang pada umumnya berukuran besar. Toko 212 mart latsitarda Kisaran lalu dapat menggunakan pola ini untuk menempatkan produk yang sering dibeli kedalam sebuah area yang berdekatan. Merancang tampilan produk di katalok, merancang penjualan paket produk, dan sebagainya dengan menggunakan konsep data mining (pendekatan algoritma apriori) sehingga dapat menganalisis prilaku pembeli. Kata kunci: Data Mining; Pola Tata Letak Produk; Algoritma Apriori

Role of Open Source Software in Modern Development of Enterprise Information Systems

At the moment there are many open source software products and packages, and their number is increasing every day. So it can be concluded that publishing source code is becoming more and more popular in the world of software development. When publishing the source code of a software solution or software package for use in the developer community, special attention should be given to the license type – this affects which scenarios will be available for use of the published package or software solution. It is also necessary to draw up full and detailed documentation and decide on the ways to promote the published package among developers. The purpose of the study was to justify the feasibility and necessity of publishing software products, packages and libraries for their use by other developers to build their own systems and services. The author meant to describe the major open source licenses, identify their features and differences, and those situations for which this or that type of license is suitable, as well as to demonstrate the need of writing documentation and describe ways to promote and popularize published software products, packages, and libraries in the developer community. Materials and methods. The paper considers official license documents describing conditions of use, reproduction, and distribution. The author analyzes the main ways and means to promote open source software products. Results. The article substantiates the relevance of publishing and using the source code of a software product, package or library. The author describes the main provisions of the most common licenses and gives advice on choosing the type of license when publishing source code for free use. The necessity of writing documentation for the published software product is substantiated. The article also describes some of the ways to promote published packages, such as the choice of name, speaking at conferences, and publishing articles with case studies.

An Anti-Counterfeiting Architecture for Traceability System Based on Modified Two-Level Quick Response Codes

Traceability is considered a promising solution for product safety. However, the data in the traceability system is only a claim rather than a fact. Therefore, the quality and safety of the product cannot be guaranteed since we cannot ensure the authenticity of products (aka counterfeit detection) in the real world. In this paper, we focus on counterfeit detection for the traceability system. The risk of counterfeiting throughout a typical product life cycle in the supply chain is analyzed, and the corresponding requirements for the tags, packages, and traceability system are given to eliminate these risks. Based on the analysis, an anti-counterfeiting architecture for traceability system based on two-level quick response codes (2LQR codes) is proposed, where the problem of counterfeit detection for a product is transformed into the problem of copy detection for the 2LQR code tag. According to the characteristics of the traceability system, the generation progress of the 2LQR code is modified, and there is a corresponding improved algorithm to estimate the actual location of patterns in the scanned image of the modified 2LQR code tag to improve the performance of copy detection. A prototype system based on the proposed architecture is implemented, where the consumers can perform traceability information queries by scanning the 2LQR code on the product package with any QR code reader. They can also scan the 2LQR code with a home-scanner or office-scanner, and send the scanned image to the system to perform counterfeit detection. Compared with other anti-counterfeiting solutions, the proposed architecture has advantages of low cost, generality, and good performance. Therefore, it is a promising solution to replace the existing anti-counterfeiting system.

Graphic design and scientific research – the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) experience

One of the primary activities of the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology; INGV) is the production of resources concerning educational and outreach projects in geophysics and natural hazard topics. This activity is aimed at transferring, periodically, results at the forefront of ongoing research to the public through an intense and comprehensive plan for scientific dissemination. Over the past 15 years, graphic and visual communication have become essential tools for supporting institutional and research activities. In this paper, we describe successful INGV team experiences resulting from a close relationship and collaborative work between graphic designers and research scientists. The main goal of the projects devoted to the general public, through the creation of a museum exhibition or the production of descriptive brochures, is to support scientists in conveying their message and making concepts fruitful, easier to understand but also fully enjoyable thanks to the emotional involvement that images may generate. Through a careful composition of signs and images, and through the use of different visual tools (colours, form and lettering) on different media (print, video and web), the graphics and editorial products together create a strong INGV-style identity, making it easily recognizable in any educational and outreach project. A full project product package might include a logo or other artwork, organized text and pure design elements such as shapes and colours, which serve the purpose of unifying the whole set. Colour is used not only to help the project logo to stand out from the international overview but, in our case, also to generate a unifying return across all INGV sections. A recent and highly stimulating experience concerned the creation of edu-games, specifically designed for scientific dissemination, through a close collaboration between INGV graphic designers and their reference scientific community. The edu-games were designed as an effective combination of educational content and playful communicative aspects, leading the young players to learn while having fun.