Sectorial convergence of U-statistics

In this note we show that almost sure convergence to zero of symmetrized U-statistics indexed by a linear sector in Z^d_+ is equivalent to convergence along the diagonal of Z^d_+, as it is considered in Lata\la and Zinn [Ann. Probab. 28 (2000) 1908-1924]. Comparisons with similar results for sums of multi-indexed i.i.d. random variables are also made.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/009117904000001080 in the Annals of Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Radiation balance components of maize hybrids grown at various plant densities.

Components of the energy and heat balances were examined in two maize hybrids grown at three different plant densities (40, 70 and 100 thousand plants per hectare). One of the hybrids was drought tolerant, while the other was bred for cultivation under irrigated conditions. An increase in plant density influenced not only the size of the leaf area, but also the distribution of the leaves at various plant heights. The extinction coefficient, which provides a quantification of radiation penetration, was higher in the irrigated treatments. By contrast to the other two treatments, the plant canopy in the thinly sown stands remained open throughout the vegetation period, and thus behaved quite differently to the closed stands, making it impossible to compare them. Smaller albedo values were recorded for the hybrid bred for irrigation and in thinly sown stands. The low plant density allowed more energy to reach the soil, from which it was reflected, making a considerable contribution to the final temperature in the stand. The latent heat, in keeping with the quantity of water transpired, was the greatest in the densely sown stands. There was little difference between the latent heat values of the normal and dense stands in either hybrid, indicating that they both had a similar sensitivity to increased stand density. If sufficient water is available it would appear that the stand density could be increased even for the drought-tolerant hybrid

INTEGRATING CRM SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS

Scientists, end users of CRM applications and producers of CRM software, all come to an agreement when talking about the idea of CRM, the CRM strategy or the term CRM. The main aspect is that CRM can be analyzed from two different points of view: CRM – the marketing strategy and CRM – the software. The first term refers to establishing some personalized relationships with the customers that can be afterwards easily managed. This way, it can determine at any time the past client relations, the products (or services) that the customers bought, the products’ range, the products’ price, the type of delivery, all this information being used in anticipation of the future sales. All these things can be physically achieved through a CRM software application whose main function is to properly manage the information relating to customers and to enable personalized communication with them (via e-mail, phone, fax, mail).CRM, customer, marketing

Evaluative Language and Its Solidarity-Building Role on TED.com: An Appraisal and Corpus Analysis

Language is a key resource in the formation of online communities, which are in turn central to an understanding of contemporary social relations. This study looks at TED.com, an educational video-hosting platform with few in-built community-building functionalities, to explore the potential for users to affiliate through their language choices. Grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics, the study uses the Appraisal framework, extended using corpus linguistic methods, in order to analyse users’ reactions to TED videos. The study shows that online participants use evaluative language to align with certain ideas and, based on these affinities, form affiliations characterized by sociability and solidarity. These affiliations raise important questions about the conception of ‘community’ in twenty-first century society