Trust in the US-EU fruit and vegetable chain: Do US exporters understand EU importers?

Research on organizational and inter organizational trust has become an important field in management and marketing literature, as it is perceived as a pivotal aspect of business transactions. However, clarifications are still needed on the issue of whom we trust; is the person whom we are trading with trusted, or the organization, or just the product‐quality? Not only has this question not been answered within this field of research, neither have cultural differences have been described to any great extent. Additionally, if the perceived factors important to establish trusting relationships may or may not be the same on the buyers and the sellers side in international business transaction in food chains. The primary objective of this research study therefore is to identify how well US exporters understand the elements of trust that establish strong relationships with EU importers. The Analytical Hierarchy Process was used to evaluate the importance of different trust elements in interviews conducted with US exporters and EU importers of fruits and vegetables. Results are compared, providing both a picture of the important facets of trust, as well as whether the partners understand the perspectives of the other partner

Evolutionary Approaches to Optimization Problems in Chimera Topologies

Chimera graphs define the topology of one of the first commercially available quantum computers. A variety of optimization problems have been mapped to this topology to evaluate the behavior of quantum enhanced optimization heuristics in relation to other optimizers, being able to efficiently solve problems classically to use them as benchmarks for quantum machines. In this paper we investigate for the first time the use of Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) on Ising spin glass instances defined on the Chimera topology. Three genetic algorithms (GAs) and three estimation of distribution algorithms (EDAs) are evaluated over $1000$ hard instances of the Ising spin glass constructed from Sidon sets. We focus on determining whether the information about the topology of the graph can be used to improve the results of EAs and on identifying the characteristics of the Ising instances that influence the success rate of GAs and EDAs.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 3 table

Hydrogen atom in phase space. The Kirkwood-Rihaczek representation

We present a phase-space representation of the hydrogen atom using the Kirkwood-Rikaczek distribution function. This distribution allows us to obtain analytical results, which is quite unique because an exact analytical form of the Wigner functions corresponding to the atom states is not known. We show how the Kirkwood-Rihaczek distribution reflects properties of the hydrogen atom wave functions in position and momentum representations.Comment: 5 pages (and 5 figures

Differential gaze behavior towards sexually preferred and non-preferred human figures

The gaze pattern associated with image exploration is a sensitive index of our attention, motivation and preference. To examine whether an individual’s gaze behavior can reflect his/her sexual interest, we compared gaze patterns of young heterosexual men and women (M = 19.94 years, SD = 1.05) while viewing photos of plain-clothed male and female figures aged from birth to sixty years old. Our analysis revealed a clear gender difference in viewing sexually preferred figure images. Men displayed a distinctive gaze pattern only when viewing twenty-year-old female images, with more fixations and longer viewing time dedicated to the upper body and waist-hip region. Women also directed more attention at the upper body on female images in comparison to male images, but this difference was not age-specific. Analysis of local image salience revealed that observers’ eye-scanning strategies could not be accounted for by low-level processes, such as analyzing local image contrast and structure, but were associated with attractiveness judgments. The results suggest that the difference in cognitive processing of sexually preferred and non-preferred figures can be manifested in gaze patterns associated with figure viewing. Thus, eye-tracking holds promise as a potential sensitive measure for sexual preference, particularly in men

Determination of electromagnetic medium from the Fresnel surface

We study Maxwell's equations on a 4-manifold where the electromagnetic medium is described by an antisymmetric $2\choose 2$-tensor $\kappa$. In this setting, the Tamm-Rubilar tensor density determines a polynomial surface of fourth order in each cotangent space. This surface is called the Fresnel surface and acts as a generalisation of the light-cone determined by a Lorentz metric; the Fresnel surface parameterises electromagnetic wave-speed as a function of direction. Favaro and Bergamin have recently proven that if $\kappa$ has only a principal part and if the Fresnel surface of $\kappa$ coincides with the light cone for a Lorentz metric $g$, then $\kappa$ is proportional to the Hodge star operator of $g$. That is, under additional assumptions, the Fresnel surface of $\kappa$ determines the conformal class of $\kappa$. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we provide a new proof of this result using Gr\"obner bases. Second, we describe a number of cases where the Fresnel surface does not determine the conformal class of the original $2\choose 2$-tensor $\kappa$. For example, if $\kappa$ is invertible we show that $\kappa$ and $\kappa^{-1}$ have the same Fresnel surfaces.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figur

Consumer concern with 1966 food prices

1 online resource (PDF, 2 pages)This archival publication may not reflect current scientific knowledge or recommendations. Current information available from the University of Minnesota Extension: https://www.extension.umn.edu

U.S. lamb consumption patterns

1 online resource (PDF, 2 pages)This archival publication may not reflect current scientific knowledge or recommendations. Current information available from the University of Minnesota Extension: https://www.extension.umn.edu

Minnesota lamb consumption patterns

1 online resource (PDF, 2 pages)This archival publication may not reflect current scientific knowledge or recommendations. Current information available from the University of Minnesota Extension: https://www.extension.umn.edu