Interdisciplinary (retail) research: The business of geography and the geography of business

NoAt the 2005 British Academy of Management conference several well-known economic geographers, including Neil Wrigley, Gordon Clark, and Susan Christopherson, called for management researchers to engage with economic geographers on interrelated geographical and managerial issues in the study of (retail) firms. In this commentary we reflect upon the present geography -management interface.We begin by considering the term `interdisciplinary research' and its relationship to any management - geography interface. This is followed by a context-specific discussion of international retailing and the role of research on the retail transnational corporation (TNC) in developing an interdisciplinary agenda. This commentary represents an initial more business and management focused response to the call from geography academics for more/better interdisciplinary research at the geography - management interface

Direction finding with partly calibrated uniform linear arrays

A new method for direction finding with partly calibrated uniform linear arrays (ULAs) is presented. It is based on the conventional estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance techniques (ESPRIT) by modeling the imperfections of the ULAs as gain and phase uncertainties. For a fully calibrated array, it reduces to the conventional ESPRIT algorithm. Moreover, the direction-of-arrivals (DOAs), unknown gains, and phases of the uncalibrated sensors can be estimated in closed form without performing a spectral search. Hence, it is computationally very attractive. The Cramér-Rao bounds (CRBs) of the partly calibrated ULAs are also given. Simulation results show that the root mean squared error (RMSE) performance of the proposed algorithm is better than the conventional methods when the number of uncalibrated sensors is large. It also achieves satisfactory performance even at low signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). © 2011 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

An improved eigendecomposition-based algorithm for frequencies estimation of two sinusoids

published_or_final_versio

Adaptive beamforming for uniform linear arrays with unknown mutual coupling

This letter proposes a new adaptive beamforming algorithm for uniform linear arrays (ULAs) with unknown mutual coupling. It is based on the fact that the mutual coupling matrix (MCM) of a ULA can be approximated as a banded symmetric Toeplitz matrix as the mutual coupling between two sensor elements is inversely related to their separation, and hence it is negligible when they are separated by a few wavelengths. Taking advantage of this specific structure of the MCM, a new approach to calibrate the signal steering vector is proposed. By incorporating this improved steering vector estimate with a diagonally loaded robust beamformer, a new adaptive beamformer for ULA with unknown mutual coupling is obtained. Simulation results show that the proposed steering vector estimate considerably improves the robustness of the beamformer in the presence of unknown mutual coupling. Moreover, with appropriate diagonal loading, it is found that the proposed beamformer can achieve nearly optimal performance at all signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) levels. © 2002-2011 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Body odor quality predicts behavioral attractiveness in humans

Growing effort is being made to understand how different attractive physical traits co-vary within individuals, partly because this might indicate an underlying index of genetic quality. In humans, attention has focused on potential markers of quality such as facial attractiveness, axillary odor quality, the second-to-fourth digit (2D:4D) ratio and body mass index (BMI). Here we extend this approach to include visually-assessed kinesic cues (nonverbal behavior linked to movement) which are statistically independent of structural physical traits. The utility of such kinesic cues in mate assessment is controversial, particularly during everyday conversational contexts, as they could be unreliable and susceptible to deception. However, we show here that the attractiveness of nonverbal behavior, in 20 male participants, is predicted by perceived quality of their axillary body odor. This finding indicates covariation between two desirable traits in different sensory modalities. Depending on two different rating contexts (either a simple attractiveness rating or a rating for long-term partners by 10 female raters not using hormonal contraception), we also found significant relationships between perceived attractiveness of nonverbal behavior and BMI, and between axillary odor ratings and 2D:4D ratio. Axillary odor pleasantness was the single attribute that consistently predicted attractiveness of nonverbal behavior. Our results demonstrate that nonverbal kinesic cues could reliably reveal mate quality, at least in males, and could corroborate and contribute to mate assessment based on other physical traits

Giardia Colonizes and Encysts in High-Density Foci in the Murine Small Intestine.

Giardia lamblia is a highly prevalent yet understudied protistan parasite causing significant diarrheal disease worldwide. Hosts ingest Giardia cysts from contaminated sources. In the gastrointestinal tract, cysts excyst to become motile trophozoites, colonizing and attaching to the gut epithelium. Trophozoites later differentiate into infectious cysts that are excreted and contaminate the environment. Due to the limited accessibility of the gut, the temporospatial dynamics of giardiasis in the host are largely inferred from laboratory culture and thus may not mirror Giardia physiology in the host. Here, we have developed bioluminescent imaging (BLI) to directly interrogate and quantify the in vivo temporospatial dynamics of Giardia infection, thereby providing an improved murine model to evaluate anti-Giardia drugs. Using BLI, we determined that parasites primarily colonize the proximal small intestine nonuniformly in high-density foci. By imaging encystation-specific bioreporters, we show that encystation initiates shortly after inoculation and continues throughout the duration of infection. Encystation also initiates in high-density foci in the proximal small intestine, and high density contributes to the initiation of encystation in laboratory culture. We suggest that these high-density in vivo foci of colonizing and encysting Giardia likely result in localized disruption to the epithelium. This more accurate visualization of giardiasis redefines the dynamics of the in vivo Giardia life cycle, paving the way for future mechanistic studies of density-dependent parasitic processes in the host. IMPORTANCEGiardia is a single-celled parasite causing significant diarrheal disease in several hundred million people worldwide. Due to limited access to the site of infection in the gastrointestinal tract, our understanding of the dynamics of Giardia infections in the host has remained limited and largely inferred from laboratory culture. To better understand Giardia physiology and colonization in the host, we developed imaging methods to quantify Giardia expressing bioluminescent physiological reporters in two relevant animal models. We discovered that parasites primarily colonize and encyst in the proximal small intestine in discrete, high-density foci. We also show that high parasite density contributes to encystation initiation

TENEBRIONIDAE FROM KRAKATAU

abstract not availabl