SHOPPING FOR MEAT: EMPIRICAL DEMAND ESTIMATION FOR NATURAL BEEF ACROSS STORE CHOICES

Conventional supermarkets concentrate on capturing the largest pool of consumers to generate profits from the industry's low margins. Selling to the largest pool of customers means that marketing, promotion, stocking and service decisions are based on the tastes and preferences of an average consumer. Innovators in the grocery industry, recognizing a shift in consumer tastes and preferences, are changing the industry to attract smaller segments of consumers. The theory presented here demonstrates a method to understand the value of product diversification and a model of the gains from providing products that may not have broad appeal to the average customer base. The increase in retail returns through this approach of developing in-store niches lies not in increased single-item purchases of any one consumer, but through the increased number of items purchased (a larger bundle) by an individual on a single shopping trip.Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

A systematic review to explore patients’ MS knowledge and MS risk knowledge

Living with a chronic illness poses particular challenges, including maintaining current disease knowledge to optimiseself-management and interaction with health professionals. People with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) are increasingly encouragedto participate in shared decision making. Making informed decisions is likely to rely on adequate knowledge aboutthe condition and its associated risks. The aim of this systematic review is to explore patients’ existing MS knowledge andMS risk knowledge, and how these relate to demographic and disease variables. A literature search was conducted usingPsycINFO, PubMed and Cochrane Library. Eligible studies were published peer-reviewed reporting quantitative measuresof MS knowledge and MS risk knowledge in adult MS patients. Eighteen studies met inclusion criteria comprising a totalsample of 4,420 patients. A narrative synthesis was undertaken because studies employed various measures. Suboptimallevels of MS knowledge and MS risk knowledge were generally identified across studies. Greater self-reported adherence anda willingness to take medication were related to higher MS knowledge, while educational level was a significant predictorof both MS knowledge and MS risk knowledge. Associations with other demographic and disease-related variables weremixed for both knowledge domains. Direct comparison of results across studies were limited by methodological, samplingand contextual heterogeneity. The review’s findings and implications for future research and clinical practice are consideredfrom this perspective

To Look Into the Abyss Unafraid: Being a tale of a newly hired Systems Librarian teaming up with a Library Director to purge the demons hiding in a very old web server

Upon being hired in May 2022 as a Systems and Technology librarian presenter Iglesias had the unenviable task of taking over management of Salve University Library\u27s web server. Although the Internet Archive lists its first snapshot of this url as being in 2000, there is evidence of an older, more chaotic past. From a Unix server of some sort to a Microsoft box that just had all of the files loaded on with no thought to directory structure leaving tantalizing clues everywhere from old directories to flash files now deprecated. Obviously there was a need to get rid of the old stuff and keep the new stuff but how exactly to do that. A compromise was reached and the co-presenters spent many weeks going one file at a time to determine what could be safely deleted and what might still be in use. From subject guides that had become libguides to maps that could no longer be displayed to announcements of events 10 years in the past there was much work to do. This presentation will present a synopsis of the efforts undertaken as well as some hints for others who may be in a similar position. Best tools will be covered but also best techniques for communicating with affected stakeholders in order to achieve progress

Antifreeze Proteins in the Primary Urine of Larvae of the Beetle \u3cem\u3eDendroides canadensis\u3c/em\u3e

To avoid freezing while overwintering beneath the bark of fallen trees, Dendroides canadensis (Coleoptera: Pyrochroidae) larvae produce a family of antifreeze proteins (DAFPs) that are transcribed in specific tissues and have specific compartmental fates. DAFPs and associated thermal hysteresis activity (THA) have been shown previously in hemolymph and midgut fluid, but the presence of DAFPs has not been explored in primary urine, a potentially important site that can contain endogenous ice-nucleating compounds that could induce freezing. A maximum mean THA of 2.65±0.33°C was observed in primary urine of winter-collected D. canadensis larvae. THA in primary urine increased significantly through autumn, peaked in the winter and decreased through spring to levels of 0.2–0.3°C in summer, in a pattern similar to that of hemolymph and midgut fluid. THA was also found in hindgut fluid and excreted rectal fluid, suggesting that these larvae not only concentrate AFPs in the hindgut, but also excrete AFPs from the rectal cavity. Based on dafp transcripts isolated from Malpighian tubule epithelia, cDNAs were cloned and sequenced, identifying the presence of transcripts encoding 24 DAFP isoforms. Six of these Malpighian tubule DAFPs were known previously, but 18 are new. We also provide functional evidence that DAFPs can inhibit ice nucleators present in insect primary urine. This is potentially critical because D. canadensis larvae die if frozen, and therefore ice formation in any body fluid, including the urine, would be lethal

AI-powered research tools and applications

A presentation of various tools that may be used by faculty and librarians to aid their research using Artificial Intelligence

Guidelines for normalising early modern English corpora:decisions and justifications

Corpora of Early Modern English have been collected and released for research for a number of years. With large scale digitisation activities gathering pace in the last decade, much more historical textual data is now available for research on numerous topics including historical linguistics and conceptual history. We summarise previous research which has shown that it is necessary to map historical spelling variants to modern equivalents in order to successfully apply natural language processing and corpus linguistics methods. Manual and semiautomatic methods have been devised to support this normalisation and standardisation process. We argue that it is important to develop a linguistically meaningful rationale to achieve good results from this process. In order to do so, we propose a number of guidelines for normalising corpora and show how these guidelines have been applied in the Corpus of English Dialogues

The Mass of the Black Hole in XTE J1118+480

We present contemporaneous, broadband, near-infrared spectroscopy (0.9-2.45 μm) and H-band photometry of the black hole X-ray binary, XTE J1118+480. We determined the fractional dilution of the NIR ellipsoidal light curves of the donor star from other emission sources in the system by comparing the absorption features in the spectrum with field stars of known spectral type. We constrained the donor star spectral type to K7 V-M1 V and determined that the donor star contributed 54% ± 27% of the H-band flux at the epoch of our observations. This result underscores the conclusion that the donor star cannot be assumed to be the only NIR emission source in quiescent X-ray binaries. The H-band light curve shows a double-humped asymmetric modulation with extra flux at orbital phase 0.75. The light curve was fitted with a donor star model light curve, taking into account a constant second flux component based on the dilution analysis. We also fitted models that included emission from the donor star, a constant component from the accretion disk, and a phase-variable component from the bright spot where the mass accretion stream impacts the disk. These simple models with reasonable estimates for the component physical parameters can fully account for the observed light curve, including the extra emission at phase 0.75. From our fits, we constrained the binary inclination to 68° ≤ i ≤ 79°. This leads to a black hole mass of 6.9 M_☉ ≤ M_(BH) ≤ 8.2 M_☉. Long-term variations in the NIR light curve shape in XTE J1118+480 are similar to those seen in other X-ray binaries and demonstrate the presence of continued activity and variability in these systems even when in full quiescence

Economic Assessment of 4 Approaches to the Diagnosis and Initial Treatment of Sleep Apnea

BACKGROUND: A dilemma faced by health-care administrators is that need greatly outstrips capacity for diagnosing and treating sleep apnea, with such decisions carrying significant economic consequences. Our objective was to develop an economic model to estimate the relative costs of 4 approaches for diagnosis and initial treatment of sleep apnea. METHODS: The analysis consisted of developing a mathematical model depicting possible diagnostic and treatment approaches to the care of patients with sleep apnea; developing 4 clinical scenarios to describe distinct approaches to the management of sleep apnea patients (in-laboratory, unattended, direct-to-autotitrating PAP [auto-PAP], and mixed); and identifying costs associated with each scenario. We created a hypothetical cohort of 1,000 patients with 85% prevalence of sleep apnea to generate cost estimates. RESULTS: The driver of per-patient costs was the total number of sleep studies, which varied widely across scenarios: from 425 for the direct-to-auto-PAP approach to 1,441 in the unattended approach. The scenarios also differed in per-patient costs: Per-patient costs excluding facility startup costs were $456 for direct-to-auto-PAP,$913 for in-laboratory, $991 for mixed, and$1,090 for unattended. CONCLUSIONS: Approaches to diagnosing and treating sleep apnea that emphasized early application of auto-PAP had lower per-patient costs

Multiscale Modeling for the Analysis for Grain-Scale Fracture Within Aluminum Microstructures

Multiscale modeling methods for the analysis of metallic microstructures are discussed. Both molecular dynamics and the finite element method are used to analyze crack propagation and stress distribution in a nanoscale aluminum bicrystal model subjected to hydrostatic loading. Quantitative similarity is observed between the results from the two very different analysis methods. A bilinear traction-displacement relationship that may be embedded into cohesive zone finite elements is extracted from the nanoscale molecular dynamics results