Entrepreneurship as Boundary Object: Toward Reintegration of Colombia’s Ex-Militants into Civil Society

War and other violent conflicts greatly degrade a country’s economic, social, and marketing systems. In the aftermath of conflict, national and international organizations develop different strategies, such as business development, aimed at the reconstruction of these systems. This article draws on boundary theory to frame the way in which entrepreneurship can help ex-militants to discard war-activities and to reintegrate peacefully and productively into a peace-time economy. An interpretive study examining the life-narratives of former militants of illegal groups involved in Colombia’s armed conflict – the world’s longest, lasting 52 years – regarding their business start-ups was designed and administered. Findings extend current Macromarketing and Entrepreneurship literature by showing how policies and entrepreneurial business practices in recovering marketing systems can help ex-militants to overcome discrimination, to transform their identities and to reintegrate peacefully into civil society, which in turn may portend a more inclusive and equitable marketing system and robust national economy

The FIFA World Cup: Analyses and Interpretations of the World’s Biggest Sporting Spectacle

This special session assembles scholars from various countries with keen interests in the marketing and societal dynamics of the world’s most popular sporting spectacle, the FIFA World Cup. It builds on a stream of research in, for example, ethology (e.g., Morris 1981) economics (e.g., Kuper and Szymanski 2014) consumer behavior (e.g., Shultz 1998; Tavassoli, Shultz and Fitzimons 1995), marketing (e.g., Shultz et al. 2010) and macromarketing (Shultz and Burgess 2011) that explores the systemic complexities of this enormous, global extravaganza and the extent to which it benefits and/or harms myriad players, fans, local and global consumers, companies, governments, societies and the environment

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

'Your Life When You’ve Got Everything is Different’: Forced Transformations and Consumption Practices

Purpose – By analysing the experience of homelessness, this chapter aims to understand how individuals experience involuntary life changes in uncertain contexts and analyses the role of consumption, in terms of possessions and practices, along the process. Methodology/approach – This study adopts a phenomenological approach, focusing on the homelessness experience. It involves an 18 month quasi-ethnography study in a charity that supports the homeless individuals, where interviews about their retrospective biographical accounts were performed. The data was analysed using existential phenomenological procedures. Findings – Informants’ pathways to homelessness reveal a four-stage process of forced self-transformation (initial self, forced negotiation, transition, transformed self) which takes place across two stressful situational contexts: the triggering events for transformation (i.e. that led informants to lose their home) and the persisting state of uncertainty (i.e. further survival living in the streets). Social implications – In the current postmodern times there is greater uncertainty surrounding individuals’ life changes. The consequences of the current economic crisis have threatened individuals to lose their homes. By having a better understanding of the way individuals experience this type of loss, the study brings new information about how to support them. Originality/value of chapter – This study highlights contexts where Van Gennep's transformational routine may not be suitable in the current postmodern times, and provides an alternative transformational routine that takes into account the uncertainty that accompanies involuntary transformations

Culture and communication for a wellbeing-oriented food marketing strategy

Altering current food consumption patterns is one of the greatest society challenges in the quest for countervail individual (e.g. obesity; Witkowski, 2007) or societal (e.g., environmental degradation; Sitarz, 1994) problems. Most marketing studies concerning this topic have either focused on individual consumers decision making (Lee et al., 2010), or on the macro-structural level factor that could shape such decision-making process (Thøgersen, 2010), separately. This study aims to link these two levels by analyzing how individuals’ macro-cultural factors can affect a consumer’s individual micro-hedonic and sensory ones, and thus, the intention to consume a particular product. To better understand how culture and marketing framing can influence consumers’ hedonic and sensory food perceptions, we started by hypothesizing that a cultural traditional food product can be perceived differently between local vs foreign consumers, and this is based on their cultural differences and/or knowledge on the local product/culture itself (H1. Local consumers hold hedonic and sensory aspects of a local/traditional snack in higher regard, when compared to foreigners). In this study, we also asked ourselves how marketing communication can frame a consumers’ hedonic and sensory perception on traditional food product, according to individual's cultural value system (H2. A well-informed local consumer hold the same local/traditional product in higher regard, when compared to a not so well-informed – but similar type of – local consumer). In summary, we believe that both hypotheses combined prove that, a generally well-informed consumer will have a more guided, less uncertain and, therefore, a better food experience

Highly-parallelized simulation of a pixelated LArTPC on a GPU

The rapid development of general-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) is allowing the implementation of highly-parallelized Monte Carlo simulation chains for particle physics experiments. This technique is particularly suitable for the simulation of a pixelated charge readout for time projection chambers, given the large number of channels that this technology employs. Here we present the first implementation of a full microphysical simulator of a liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) equipped with light readout and pixelated charge readout, developed for the DUNE Near Detector. The software is implemented with an end-to-end set of GPU-optimized algorithms. The algorithms have been written in Python and translated into CUDA kernels using Numba, a just-in-time compiler for a subset of Python and NumPy instructions. The GPU implementation achieves a speed up of four orders of magnitude compared with the equivalent CPU version. The simulation of the current induced on $10^3$ pixels takes around 1 ms on the GPU, compared with approximately 10 s on the CPU. The results of the simulation are compared against data from a pixel-readout LArTPC prototype

DUNE Offline Computing Conceptual Design Report

This document describes Offline Software and Computing for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) experiment, in particular, the conceptual design of the offline computing needed to accomplish its physics goals. Our emphasis in this document is the development of the computing infrastructure needed to acquire, catalog, reconstruct, simulate and analyze the data from the DUNE experiment and its prototypes. In this effort, we concentrate on developing the tools and systems thatfacilitate the development and deployment of advanced algorithms. Rather than prescribing particular algorithms, our goal is to provide resources that are flexible and accessible enough to support creative software solutions as HEP computing evolves and to provide computing that achieves the physics goals of the DUNE experiment

DUNE Offline Computing Conceptual Design Report

International audienceThis document describes Offline Software and Computing for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) experiment, in particular, the conceptual design of the offline computing needed to accomplish its physics goals. Our emphasis in this document is the development of the computing infrastructure needed to acquire, catalog, reconstruct, simulate and analyze the data from the DUNE experiment and its prototypes. In this effort, we concentrate on developing the tools and systems thatfacilitate the development and deployment of advanced algorithms. Rather than prescribing particular algorithms, our goal is to provide resources that are flexible and accessible enough to support creative software solutions as HEP computing evolves and to provide computing that achieves the physics goals of the DUNE experiment

DUNE Offline Computing Conceptual Design Report

This document describes Offline Software and Computing for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) experiment, in particular, the conceptual design of the offline computing needed to accomplish its physics goals. Our emphasis in this document is the development of the computing infrastructure needed to acquire, catalog, reconstruct, simulate and analyze the data from the DUNE experiment and its prototypes. In this effort, we concentrate on developing the tools and systems thatfacilitate the development and deployment of advanced algorithms. Rather than prescribing particular algorithms, our goal is to provide resources that are flexible and accessible enough to support creative software solutions as HEP computing evolves and to provide computing that achieves the physics goals of the DUNE experiment