32 research outputs found
Identifying Cultural and Cognitive Proximity between Managers and Customers in Tornio and Haparanda Cross Border Region
Daily intercultural interactions in cross-border regions such as those between customers and managers can be a source of knowledge and ideas. However, such interactions can pose distinctive constraints and opportunities for learning and exchange of ideas. This study adopts a relatively fine–grained quantitative approach to study elements of cognitive and cultural proximity which have a major impact on these interactions. It is based on a survey of 91 managers of small service firms and 312 customers in the twin city of Tornio and Haparanda on the border between Finland and Sweden. Seven elements of proximity were identified and measured. Six elements of perceived cognitive and cultural proximity including values, conservative values towards new ideas, knowledge and use of technology, use of a foreign language, sufficiently focusing or providing specific details and ways of solving problems were found significant in terms of shaping perceptions of Swedish and Finnish managers and customers, which shape these interactions. The results enhance our understanding of how daily cross-border intercultural can be examined in the context of cross-border regional knowledge transfer
Exceptional preservation of palaeozoic steroids in a diagenetic continuum
The occurrence of intact sterols has been restricted to immature Cretaceous (~125 Ma) sediments with one report from the Late Jurassic (~165 Ma). Here we report the oldest occurrence of intact sterols in a Crustacean fossil preserved for ca. 380 Ma within a Devonian concretion. The exceptional preservation of the biomass is attributed to microbially induced carbonate encapsulation, preventing full decomposition and transformation thus extending sterol occurrences in the geosphere by 250 Ma. A suite of diagenetic transformation products of sterols was also identified in the concretion, demonstrating the remarkable coexistence of biomolecules and geomolecules in the same sample. Most importantly the original biolipids were found to be the most abundant steroids in the sample. We attribute the coexistence of steroids in a diagenetic continuum-ranging from stenols to triaromatic steroids-to microbially mediated eogenetic processes
Evolution in the Disks and Bulges of Group Galaxies since z=0.4
We present quantitative morphology measurements of a sample of optically
selected group galaxies at 0.3 < z < 0.55 using the Hubble Space Telescope
(HST) Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and the GIM2D surface
brightness--fitting software package. The group sample is derived from the
Canadian Network for Observational Cosmology Field Redshift survey (CNOC2) and
follow-up Magellan spectroscopy. We compare these measurements to a similarly
selected group sample from the Millennium Galaxy Catalogue (MGC) at 0.05 < z <
0.12. We find that, at both epochs, the group and field fractional bulge
luminosity (B/T) distributions differ significantly, with the dominant
difference being a deficit of disk--dominated (B/T < 0.2) galaxies in the group
samples. At fixed luminosity, z=0.4 groups have ~ 5.5 +/- 2 % fewer
disk--dominated galaxies than the field, while by z=0.1 this difference has
increased to ~ 19 +/- 6 %. Despite the morphological evolution we see no
evidence that the group environment is actively perturbing or otherwise
affecting the entire existing disk population. At both redshifts, the disks of
group galaxies have similar scaling relations and show similar median
asymmetries as the disks of field galaxies. We do find evidence that the
fraction of highly asymmetric, bulge--dominated galaxies is 6 +/- 3 % higher in
groups than in the field, suggesting there may be enhanced merging in group
environments. We replicate our group samples at z=0.4 and z=0 using the
semi-analytic galaxy catalogues of Bower et al (2006). This model accurately
reproduces the B/T distributions of the group and field at z=0.1. However, the
model does not reproduce our finding that the deficit of disks in groups has
increased significantly since z=0.4.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 20 pages, 17 figure
GEMS Imaging of Red Sequence Galaxies at z~0.7: Dusty or Old?
We have used the 30'x30' Hubble Space Telescope image mosaic from the Galaxy
Evolution from Morphology and SEDs (GEMS) project in conjunction with the
COMBO-17 deep photometric redshift survey to define a sample of nearly 1500
galaxies with 0.65 < z < 0.75. With this sample, we can study the distribution
of rest-frame V-band morphologies more than 6 Gyr ago, without differential
bandpass shifting and surface brightness dimming across this narrow redshift
slice. Focusing on red-sequence galaxies at z ~ 0.7, we find that 85% of their
combined rest-frame V-band luminosity density comes from visually-classified
E/S0/Sa galaxies (at V-band magnitudes brighter than -19.5). Similar results
are obtained if automated classifiers are used. This fraction is identical to
that found at the present day, and is biased by less than 10% by large scale
structure and the morphology-density relation. Under the assumption that
peculiar and edge-on disk galaxies are red by virtue of their dust content, we
find that less than 13% of the total rest-frame V-band luminosity of the z ~
0.7 red galaxy population is from dusty galaxies.Comment: ApJL, in press. For a version of this paper with a full-resolution
figure visit http://www.mpia-hd.mpg.de/homes/bell/res.html The GEMS
collaboration website is http://www.mpia-hd.mpg.de/GEMS/gems.htm Added
discussion of the implications of our results for hierarchical and monolithic
formation scenarios for early-type galaxie