Social power of preadolescent children on influence in their mothers’ purchasing behavior: initial study in Peruvian toy stores

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the relationship between legitimate and expert social power types of preadolescent children on the influence perception in their mothers’ purchasing behavior in Peruvian toy stores. The literature review takes into consideration the concepts of social power and the influence on family behavior to then focus on social power within family behavior with the purpose of mainly developing four hypotheses regarding purchasing behavior. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology followed a non-experimental transversal correlational-causal design. A pilot sample size of 67 cases was used. The sample was based on an objective population of Peruvian mothers of families that live in northern Lima and that go to purchase toys to major shopping centers with their children aged 8-11 years. Findings: The results show that the expert social power, as well as the legitimate social power, has a strong relationship. In addition, both social powers have an impact on the influence perception in purchasing child-mother, but not on the influence perception in purchasing mother-child. Moreover, the test of moderation of the expenditure level on toy purchases did not have an effect on the context that was studied. Originality/value: The contribution shows that important changes are happening in the consumption behavior on the aspect of children influencing mothers, and that for Latin American contexts, the level of expenditure still does not crucially affect the causality demonstrated.Objetivo: Este trabajo tiene como objetivo investigar la relación entre tipos de poder social legítimo y experto de niños preadolescentes sobre la percepción de influencia en el comportamiento de compra de sus madres en las jugueterías peruanas. La revisión de la literatura toma en consideración los conceptos de poder social y la influencia en el comportamiento familiar para luego enfocarse en el poder social dentro del comportamiento familiar con el propósito de desarrollar principalmente cuatro hipótesis sobre el comportamiento adquisitivo. Diseño / metodología / enfoque: La metodología siguió un diseño correlacional-causal transversal no experimental. Se utilizó un tamaño de muestra piloto de 67 casos. La muestra se basó en una población objetiva de madres peruanas de familias que viven en el norte de Lima y que acuden a comprar juguetes a los principales centros comerciales con sus hijos de 8 a 11 años. Recomendaciones: Los resultados muestran que el poder social experto, así como el poder social legítimo, tienen una fuerte relación. Además, ambos poderes sociales inciden en la percepción de influencia en la compra hijo-madre, pero no en la percepción de influencia en la compra madre-hijo. Además, la prueba de moderación del nivel de gasto en compra de juguetes no tuvo efecto en el contexto estudiado. Originalidad / valor: El aporte muestra que se están produciendo cambios importantes en el comportamiento de consumo en el aspecto de los niños que influyen en las madres, y que para los contextos latinoamericanos, el nivel de gasto aún no afecta de manera crucial la causalidad demostrada

Mortalidad materna en Colombia: reflexiones en torno a la situación y la política pública durante la última década

En este artículo se realiza un diagnóstico crítico respecto a la situación de la mortalidad materna en Colombia, teniendo en cuenta algunos de los indicadores más actualizados del fenómeno y las medidas de política pública implementadas en la última década para reducir su prevalencia. La tesis que aquí se presenta es que los altos índices de mortalidad materna en Colombia están relacionados con la no garantía por parte del Estado del derecho a la salud de las colombianas. En este sentido, la política de salud sexual y reproductiva no ha reflejado en su estructura y asignación de recursos las necesidades de la población, especialmente adolescente, quedando marginada del sistema de seguridad social en salud.In this article we make a critical analysis about the situation of maternal mortality in Colombia, considering some of the most current rates of this problem and the public policy rules adopted in the last years to decrease its prevalence. We think that the rate of maternal mortality in Colombia is too hight because the State does not guarantee the right health care to Colombian women. In this way, the structure and resources distribution established by the policies on sexual and reproductive health have not reflected the population necessities, specially in the case of young mothers left aside by the social security system

The Mean Field Ensemble Kalman Filter: Near-Gaussian Setting

The ensemble Kalman filter is widely used in applications because, for high dimensional filtering problems, it has a robustness that is not shared for example by the particle filter; in particular it does not suffer from weight collapse. However, there is no theory which quantifies its accuracy as an approximation of the true filtering distribution, except in the Gaussian setting. To address this issue we provide the first analysis of the accuracy of the ensemble Kalman filter beyond the Gaussian setting. Our analysis is developed for the mean field ensemble Kalman filter. We rewrite the update equations for this filter, and for the true filtering distribution, in terms of maps on probability measures. We introduce a weighted total variation metric to estimate the distance between the two filters and we prove various stability estimates for the maps defining the evolution of the two filters, in this metric. Using these stability estimates we demonstrate that if the true filtering distribution is close to Gaussian in the joint space of state and data, in the weighted total variation metric, then the true-filter is well approximated by the ensemble Kalman filter, in the same metric. Finally, we provide a generalization of these results to the Gaussian projected filter, which can be viewed as a mean field description of the unscented Kalman filter

Passing to the Limit in a Wasserstein Gradient Flow: From Diffusion to Reaction

We study a singular-limit problem arising in the modelling of chemical reactions. At finite {\epsilon} > 0, the system is described by a Fokker-Planck convection-diffusion equation with a double-well convection potential. This potential is scaled by 1/{\epsilon}, and in the limit {\epsilon} -> 0, the solution concentrates onto the two wells, resulting into a limiting system that is a pair of ordinary differential equations for the density at the two wells. This convergence has been proved in Peletier, Savar\'e, and Veneroni, SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis, 42(4):1805-1825, 2010, using the linear structure of the equation. In this paper we re-prove the result by using solely the Wasserstein gradient-flow structure of the system. In particular we make no use of the linearity, nor of the fact that it is a second-order system. The first key step in this approach is a reformulation of the equation as the minimization of an action functional that captures the property of being a curve of maximal slope in an integrated form. The second important step is a rescaling of space. Using only the Wasserstein gradient-flow structure, we prove that the sequence of rescaled solutions is pre-compact in an appropriate topology. We then prove a Gamma-convergence result for the functional in this topology, and we identify the limiting functional and the differential equation that it represents. A consequence of these results is that solutions of the {\epsilon}-problem converge to a solution of the limiting problem.Comment: Added two sections, corrected minor typos, updated reference

Experimental and computational analyses reveal that environmental restrictions shape HIV-1 spread in 3D cultures

Here, using an integrative experimental and computational approach, Imle et al. show how cell motility and density affect HIV cell-associated transmission in a three-dimensional tissue-like culture system of CD4+ T cells and collagen, and how different collagen matrices restrict infection by cell-free virions

Vanishing magnetization relaxation in the high field quantum limit in YBa_2Cu_3O_(7-δ)

We have investigated the magnetic response of untwinned single crystals of YBa_2Cu_3O_(7-δ) at millikelvin temperatures using a Bi thin film magnetometer of micron dimensions. Below T=0.8 K, the magnetization relaxation rate S crosses over from thermally activated to quantum behavior. Above a sharply defined and strongly temperature-dependent threshold field, S disappears altogether. In concert with the vanishing magnetization relaxation, discrete steps appear in the magnetic hysteresis B(H), each of which corresponds to the `'stick-slip'' motion of 10^3 vortices under the magnetometer

Which is the temperature of granular systems? A mean field model of free cooling inelastic mixtures

We consider a mean field model describing the free cooling process of a two component granular mixture, a generalization of so called Maxwell model. The cooling is viewed as an ordering process and the scaling behavior is attributed to the presence of an attractive fixed point at $v=0$ for the dynamics. By means of asymptotic analysis of the Boltzmann equation and of numerical simulations we get the following results: 1)we establish the existence of two different partial granular temperatures, one for each component, which violates the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics; 2) we obtain the scaling form of the two distribution functions; 3) we prove the existence of a continuous spectrum of exponents characterizing the inverse-power law decay of the tails of the velocity, which generalizes the previously reported value 4 for the pure model; 4) we find that the exponents depend on the composition, masses and restitution coefficients of the mixture; 5) we also remark that the reported distributions represent a dynamical realization of those predicted by the Non Extensive Statistical Mechanics, in spite of the fact that ours stem from a purely dynamical approach.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures. submitted for publicatio

CMS endcap RPC gas gap production for upgrade

The CMS experiment will install a RE4 layer of 144 new Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) on the existing york YE3 at both endcap regions to trigger high momentum muons from the proton-proton interaction. In this paper, we present the detailed procedures used in the production of new RPC gas gaps adopted in the CMS upgrade. Quality assurance is enforced as ways to maintain the same quality of RPC gas gaps as the existing 432 endcap RPC chambers that have been operational since the beginning of the LHC operation

Algas fitoplanctónicas de ambientes lénticos y lóticos de la cuenca del Río Salado: tolerancia a factores físicos

The objective of this paper was to evaluate relationships between phytoplankton algae density and physical factors such as conductivity and temperature in lentic and lotic environments of Salado River basin. The information was obtained from 352 samples taken in San Miguel del Monte shallow lake, in the seepage Lacombe and in the Salado River (main channel and tributaries). Species with density higher than 4.000 individuals ml-1 were selected: eight cyanobacteria, four chlorophytes, three diatoms and one cryptomonadal. Temperature and conductivity optima and tolerance of species temperature were calculated. The chlorophytes showed highest optima temperature average (18,84 ºC) than the cyanobacteria (17,96 ºC) and diatoms (16,31 ºC). Optima temperature of Cryptomonas pusilla was high (19,86ºC). Diatoms and cryptomonadales showed conductivity optima average (5514 and 5599 μS cm-1) higher than chlorophytes and cyanobacteria (4506 and 3508 μS cm-1). Aphanocapsa delicatissima showed markedly low conductivity optima in the lakes (2002 μS cm-1) respect to the obtained in the Salado River (8989 μS cm-1). It must be emphasized that ranges observed in lotic environments were wider than those in lentic environments. The species optima may be useful for future interpretations of the phytoplankton ecology and also as biological indicator for waterquality assessment in the studied environments.Instituto de Limnología "Raúl A. Ringuelet