Consumer Responses to Recent BSE Events

Recent bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, a.k.a. mad cow disease) discoveries in Canadian and U.S. beef cattle have garnered significant media attention, which may have changed consumers’ meat-purchasing behavior. Consumer response is hypothesized and tested within a meat demand system in which response is measured using single-period dummy variables, longer-term dummy variables, and media indices that count positive and negative meat-industry articles. Parameters are estimated using retail scanner data, and cross-species price elasticities are calculated. Results suggest that the BSE events negatively impacted ground beef and chuck roasts, while positively impacting center-cut pork chop demand. Dummy variables explained the variation in meat-budget shares better than did media indices.Consumer/Household Economics,

Recent events in Competitive Intelligence

In a context of progress and development in a common area and environment, the elements that participate in the dynamic interaction of this environment (individuals, groups or associations, organizations, companies, societies, etc.) correlate unfailingly in terms of competition. The survival and vital expansion of these actors depends in good part on the skilful treatment that they do with information about the factors that influence their relationship with the environment: information on resources, trends, risks, advantages, etc. Ultimately, the global process of every activity converges fundamentally on the urgency of a strategy

Banking and currency crisis and systemic risk: lessons from recent events

Banking and currency crises have done severe economic damage in many countries in recent years. This article examines the causes and characteristics of these crises and the public policies intended to prevent them or mitigate their adverse consequences.Financial crises ; Bank failures ; Money ; Public policy

The GZK Bound and Strong Neutrino-Nucleon Interactions above 10^19eV: a Progress Report

Cosmic ray events above 10^19 eV have posed a fundamental problem for more than thirty years. Recent measurements indicate that these events do not show the features predicted by the GZK bound. The events may, in addition, display angular correlations with point sources. If these observations are confirmed for point sources further than 50 - 100 Mpc, then strong interactions for the neutrino are indicated. Recent work on extra spatial dimensions provides a context for massive spin-2 exchanges capable of generating cross sections in the 1 - 100 mb range, as indicated by data. Applications of extra-dimension physics are controversial, and we comment on several contentious issues.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; talk by JPR at 7th Conference on the Intersections of Particle and Nuclear Physics, Quebec City, May, 200

Grey and white matter correlates of recent and remote autobiographical memory retrieval:Insights from the dementias

The capacity to remember self-referential past events relies on the integrity of a distributed neural network. Controversy exists, however, regarding the involvement of specific brain structures for the retrieval of recently experienced versus more distant events. Here, we explored how characteristic patterns of atrophy in neurodegenerative disorders differentially disrupt remote versus recent autobiographical memory. Eleven behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia, 10 semantic dementia, 15 Alzheimer's disease patients and 14 healthy older Controls completed the Autobiographical Interview. All patient groups displayed significant remote memory impairments relative to Controls. Similarly, recent period retrieval was significantly compromised in behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease, yet semantic dementia patients scored in line with Controls. Voxel-based morphometry and diffusion tensor imaging analyses, for all participants combined, were conducted to investigate grey and white matter correlates of remote and recent autobiographical memory retrieval. Neural correlates common to both recent and remote time periods were identified, including the hippocampus, medial prefrontal, and frontopolar cortices, and the forceps minor and left hippocampal portion of the cingulum bundle. Regions exclusively implicated in each time period were also identified. The integrity of the anterior temporal cortices was related to the retrieval of remote memories, whereas the posterior cingulate cortex emerged as a structure significantly associated with recent autobiographical memory retrieval. This study represents the first investigation of the grey and white matter correlates of remote and recent autobiographical memory retrieval in neurodegenerative disorders. Our findings demonstrate the importance of core brain structures, including the medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, irrespective of time period, and point towards the contribution of discrete regions in mediating successful retrieval of distant versus recently experienced events

Community Preparatory School: 2013-2014 Public Relations Plan

Community Prep sends out seasonal newsletters during fall, winter, spring, and summer of each year that promote recent activities in school, discuss recent events, profile important donors, and give updates on alumni’s successes. These newsletters are sent out in the mail, and are also accessible on Community Prep’s website. Each newsletter comes in one color, with black and white photographs, and has a readable and attractive layout. Email updates have similar information, but sometimes have embedded videos, and provide links to a site where donations can be made or tickets can be bought for future events