The development of auditory figure/ground segregation in young infants.

PsychologyDoctor of Philosophy (PhD

The Undiscovered Truths of Collaborative Value Creation in UK Grocery Retail Category Management Relationships

Extended Abstract Category management is a collaborative approach to product selection and management between manufacturers and retailers, to enable the effective management of product categories rather than individual brands (Gooner et al., 2011; Hubner, 2011, Neilsen et al., 2006). This paper reports the emerging findings from qualitative research that explores the undiscovered truths of collaborative value creation in UK grocery retail category management relationships. Previous research in this field is mainly quantitative and does not always reflect the true nature of UK grocery retail practice. These past studies focus on the consumer alone being the creator of value. However, category management literature highlights the ‘triple win’ (value for retailers, manufacturers and consumers) in the collaborative ideal. The UK grocery market has gone through unprecedented change over recent years due to economic recession, environmental impacts and a shift in consumer habits and demands (IGD, 2019; Kantar, 2019; Shopper Intelligence, 2019). The research seeks to explore ways to assist the UK food industry practitioners to address these issues. After reviewing the literature gaps emerged, including the reality of value creation within category management relationships from an industry perspective. To gain a deeper understanding of the practitioner’s perspective a qualitative research study was undertaken in the form of semi-structured interviews. This method was chosen to bridge the gap between academia and practice and facilitate a basis for future category management strategies. Senior managers from UK food manufacturers and retailers were interviewed in response to the recommendations made by Lindbolm and Olkkonen (2008) to provide privileged data. The interviews generated written transcripts which were analysed and coded using a thematic analysis, to determine common themes. The themes that emerged were firstly, the changing role of the category captain to create more value in a disruptive UK grocery market. Secondly, the reality of value creation is that despite the notion it being a harmonious relationship it does not always result in value co-creation. Indeed, it emerged that there is value no-creation, and even value co-destruction within the category management relationship. Finally, it became apparent that due to the nature of the market and the rise in private label penetration within the UK grocery retail market that smaller niche and private label only suppliers can acquire the category partner/leader role within the category management relationship. The findings from the supplier and retailer interviews included a variety of questions surrounding their roles related to category management, but also commercial and marketing. The common view from the food industry practitioners was that the future of the category captain function is uncertain. Suppliers claim that it is moving away from a category management perspective to category leadership, whereas the retailers believe that it is still an effective management model due to the exponential growth of the food discounters. This demonstrates that the true beliefs of the supplier and the retailer are in fact different, and co-destruction as well as co-creation exists. Retailer strategies are predominantly focused on driving private label whereas the bigger branded suppliers want to expand their own ranges. Co-destruction occurs due to the mis-alignment of the strategies between the supplier and retailer. Private label creates an open and trusted relationship between the supplier and the retailer. This allows an opportunity for overall category growth and inclusion of all category suppliers regardless of size and resource contribution, and in line with competition legislation. This study has contributed to category management literature and practice which has implications for both academia and food industry practice. From an academic standpoint the key contribution was the fact that the category captain role is either currently non-existent or being phased out by the practitioners. The literature however still believes it exists in the traditional function. Practitioners however agree the role has changed and it should now be a leadership function rather than a traditional management task. It is therefore important that the gap between knowledge and practice is reduced to ensure the literature reflects what really happens. In conclusion, the study has aimed to bridge the gap between academia and practice by focusing on the three themes. The research has found that category management literature and practice are quite different, and this study is the first of its type to link the two together. Further research within category management should include more practitioner insight through qualitative studies to focus on the often-unclear belief of the suppliers and retailers. This establishes the benchmark for wider quantitative research and attract a broader range of suppliers including private label and smaller niche brands. This should also include a wider range of categories than those of this study and include categories such as chilled convenience

Portfolio Vol. V N 2

Koons, Marilynn. America Is . Poem. 4. Rucker, J.G. Nothing but the Beat . Prose. 5. Wyman, John. Pringle . Prose. 6. Tolan, Marace. Hands at Midnight . Poem. 7. Wright, Edward A. All in a Day\u27s Work . Prose. 8. Benson, Virginia. Now is the Time . Prose. 9. Moll, Wilhelm. The Dead Lover . Prose. 12. Flammt, Marga. Escape . Poem. 14. Rolph, Alice. Fancy\u27s Flight . Poem. 14. Vercoe, Mary. Future . Poem. 14. Klammt,Marga. Parting . Poem. 14. Anonymous. Denisoniana . Picture. 10. Benson, Virginia. Marquand-H.M. Pulham. Esquire . Prose. 15. Benson, Virginia. Junior Miss . Prose. 15. Reynolds, Virginia. Stubs of the Jungle . Prose. 16. Masquers. Thespiana . Prose. 17. Anonymous. How to Knit a Sweater, or, Eighteen Holes . Prose. 20

Influence of Soil Fertility Management on Nitrogen Mineralization, Urease Activity and Maize Yield

For studying the effect of soil fertility management practices on N mineralization, urease activity and maize yield, replicated field trials were established in 2015 at Misamfu and Msekera agricultural research stations (ARS) representing two geo-climatic regions of Zambia. The soil at Msekera ARS is a sandy clay loam (SCL) from a Paleustult, while that at Misamfu is a loamy sand (LS) from a Kandiustult. The field trials had three categories of treatments namely legumes, traditional and conventional. The legumes group consisted of researcher-recommended legume-cereal intercrop systems of maize with Cajanus cajan, Crotalaria juncea and Tephrosia vogelii in combination with compound D (10% N, 20% P2O5, 10% K2O) and urea (46% N) at the recommended rate (200 kg ha-1) and half of the recommended rate (100 kg ha-1). Composted cattle manure and Fundikila, a special plant biomass management technique, were the inputs under the traditional category. The conventional category consisted of a treatment to which only chemical fertilizer was applied. Urease activity was determined in surface soil samples (0-20 cm) collected from the field trials after 3 years. For N mineralization, a laboratory incubation study was conducted over 13 weeks. For the laboratory incubation, an additional treatment to which no input was applied was included as control. Application of organic inputs significantly increased the potentially mineralizable N (No) by 127% to 256% on the LS and by 51% to 131% on the SCL in comparison to the control. Similarly, the cumulative N mineralized (Ncum) was twice or thrice higher where organic inputs had been applied in comparison to the control. The No followed the order traditional > legumes > conventional > control, while the mineralization rate constant (k) followed the order legumes > conventional > traditional > control on both soils. The rate of N mineralization was significantly higher on the LS than the SCL. Higher rates of chemical fertilizer resulted in high Ncum and higher maize yield. Maize yield was significantly and positively correlated to Ncum, but inversely correlated to the amount of applied N that was mineralized (%Nmin). Urease activity was stimulated by application of organic inputs and suppressed by higher rates of chemical fertilizers. The type of organic inputs; the rate of chemical fertilizers; and soil texture are factors influencing N mineralization and maize yield. Urease activity was largely influenced by the rate of chemical fertilizer, but not the type of organic inputs or soil texture

Galaxy formation as a cosmological tool - I. The galaxy merger history as a measure of cosmological parameters

As galaxy formation and evolution over long cosmic time-scales depends to a large degree on the structure of the universe, the assembly history of galaxies is potentially a powerful approach for learning about the universe itself. In this paper we examine the merger history of dark matter halos based on the Extended Press-Schechter formalism as a function of cosmological parameters, redshift and halo mass. We calculate how major halo mergers are influenced by changes in the cosmological values of $\Omega_{\rm m}$, $\Omega_{\Lambda}$, $\sigma_{8}$, the dark matter particle temperature (warm vs. cold dark matter), and the value of a constant and evolving equation of state parameter $w(z)$. We find that the merger fraction at a given halo mass varies by up to a factor of three for halos forming under the assumption of Cold Dark Matter, within different underling cosmological parameters. We find that the current measurements of the merger history, as measured through observed galaxy pairs as well as through structure, are in agreement with the concordance cosmology with the current best fit giving $1 - \Omega_{\rm m} = \Omega_{\rm \Lambda} = 0.84^{+0.16}_{-0.17}$. To obtain a more accurate constraint competitive with recently measured cosmological parameters from Planck and WMAP requires a measured merger accuracy of $\delta f_{\rm m} \sim 0.01$, implying surveys with an accurately measured merger history over 2 - 20 deg$^{2}$, which will be feasible with the next generation of imaging and spectroscopic surveys such as Euclid and LSST.Comment: MNRAS, accepted for publication, 22 page

The Feasibility and Impact of Delivering a Mind-Body Intervention in a Virtual World

Introduction: Mind-body medical approaches may ameliorate chronic disease. Stress reduction is particularly helpful, but face-to-face delivery systems cannot reach all those who might benefit. An online, 3-dimensional virtual world may be able to support the rich interpersonal interactions required of this approach. In this pilot study, we explore the feasibility of translating a face-to-face stress reduction program into an online virtual setting and estimate the effect size of the intervention. Methods and Findings: Domain experts in virtual world technology joined with mind body practitioners to translate an existing 8 week relaxation response-based resiliency program into an 8-week virtual world-based program in Second Life™ (SL). Twenty-four healthy volunteers with at least one month's experience in SL completed the program. Each subject filled out the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and the Symptom Checklist 90- Revised (SCL-90-R) before and after taking part. Participants took part in one of 3 groups of about 10 subjects. The participants found the program to be helpful and enjoyable. Many reported that the virtual environment was an excellent substitute for the preferred face-to-face approach. On quantitative measures, there was a general trend toward decreased perceived stress, (15.7 to 15.0), symptoms of depression, (57.6 to 57.0) and anxiety (56.8 to 54.8). There was a significant decrease of 2.8 points on the SCL-90-R Global Severity Index (p<0.05). Conclusions: This pilot project showed that it is feasible to deliver a typical mind-body medical intervention through a virtual environment and that it is well received. Moreover, the small reduction in psychological distress suggests further research is warranted. Based on the data collected for this project, a randomized trial with less than 50 subjects would be appropriately powered if perceived stress is the primary outcome

The comprehensive microbial resource

The Comprehensive Microbial Resource or CMR (http://cmr.jcvi.org) provides a web-based central resource for the display, search and analysis of the sequence and annotation for complete and publicly available bacterial and archaeal genomes. In addition to displaying the original annotation from GenBank, the CMR makes available secondary automated structural and functional annotation across all genomes to provide consistent data types necessary for effective mining of genomic data. Precomputed homology searches are stored to allow meaningful genome comparisons. The CMR supplies users with over 50 different tools to utilize the sequence and annotation data across one or more of the 571 currently available genomes. At the gene level users can view the gene annotation and underlying evidence. Genome level information includes whole genome graphical displays, biochemical pathway maps and genome summary data. Comparative tools display analysis between genomes with homology and genome alignment tools, and searches across the accessions, annotation, and evidence assigned to all genes/genomes are available. The data and tools on the CMR aid genomic research and analysis, and the CMR is included in over 200 scientific publications. The code underlying the CMR website and the CMR database are freely available for download with no license restrictions

The Astropy Problem

The Astropy Project (http://astropy.org) is, in its own words, "a community effort to develop a single core package for Astronomy in Python and foster interoperability between Python astronomy packages." For five years this project has been managed, written, and operated as a grassroots, self-organized, almost entirely volunteer effort while the software is used by the majority of the astronomical community. Despite this, the project has always been and remains to this day effectively unfunded. Further, contributors receive little or no formal recognition for creating and supporting what is now critical software. This paper explores the problem in detail, outlines possible solutions to correct this, and presents a few suggestions on how to address the sustainability of general purpose astronomical software