Big Red, Ltd.

This case addresses two frequently heard questions in real-world business settings: “Why are sales going down?” and “What decisions must we make to reverse the sales decline?” These questions were directed to Dr. Felix Wilder, a professor of Marketing, by the senior management of Big Red, Ltd., headquartered in Waco, Texas, after sales reports indicated a significant decline in year-over-year sales in the Louisville, Kentucky, market region. This region represented one of Big Red’s most important market areas for soft drinks outside of its home base in Texas. Members of Big Red’s senior management team were unable to identify the specific factors that had contributed to the sales decline. As a result, they commissioned Dr. Wilder to conduct an extensive marketing research project to determine the factors contributing to the erosion in sales. Dr. Wilder proposed a multifaceted exploratory research project that involved an extensive review of industry and trade literature, in-depth interviews with grocery store and super center store managers, an in-store consumer survey of Big Red customers, and a consumer focus group. The research design focused on the marketing mix variables, environmental factors, the target market, and changing consumer purchase behavior and lifestyle issues as possible sources contributing to the sales erosion. The results of Dr. Wilder’s investigation conflicted with Big Red management’s preliminary hypotheses and revealed unexpected factors that may have contributed to the downward drift in sales.  Based on the research, Dr. Wilder presented management with various alternative courses of action to correct the sales decline.

Prehistoric reef-building coral occurrence in north Peru

Discovery of a late Pleistocene (∼13,300 cal BP) reef-building coral species (Pocillopora damicornis) at the prehistoric Huaca Prieta settlement in Peru raises the question of its origin. Did it arrive in northern Peru from tropical Ecuador via larval dispersal in south-flowing El Niño currents or over land by human trading? The Holocene distribution of Pocillopora in the eastern Pacific extends as far south as southern Ecuador and possibly northern Peru. The marine climate during the late Pleistocene was cooler and likely limited the occurrence of corals at today’s latitudinal range. This suggests that overland or onshore transport was the most likely means of a southerly introduction, thus supporting interpretative models of early human movement along the Pacific coast of South America

Major shifts in nutrient and phytoplankton dynamics in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre over the last 5000 years revealed by high-resolution proteinaceous deep-sea coral δ\u3csup\u3e15\u3c/sup\u3eN and δ\u3csup\u3e13\u3c/sup\u3eC records

The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG) is the largest continuous ecosystem on Earth and is a critical component of global oceanic biogeochemical cycling and carbon sequestration. We report here multi-millennial-scale, sub-decadal-resolution records of bulk stable nitrogen (δ15N) and carbon (δ13C) isotope records from proteinaceous deep-sea corals. Data from three Kulamanamana haumeaae specimens from the main Hawaiian Islands extend the coral-based time-series back ∼5000 yrs for the NPSG and bypass constraints of low resolution sediment cores in this oligotrophic ocean region. We interpret these records in terms of shifting biogeochemical cycles and plankton community structure, with a main goal of placing the extraordinarily rapid ecosystem biogeochemical changes documented by recent coral records during the Anthropocene in a context of broader Late-Holocene variability. During intervals where new data overlaps with previous records, there is strong correspondence in isotope values, indicating that this older data represents a direct extension of Anthropocene records. These results reveal multiple large isotopic shifts in both δ15N and δ13C values similar to or larger in magnitude to those reported in the last 150 yrs. This shows that large fluctuations in the isotopic composition of export production in this region are not unique to the recent past, but have occurred multiple times through the Mid- to Late-Holocene. However, these earlier isotopic shifts occurred over much longer time intervals (∼millennial vs. decadal timescales). Further, the δ15N data confirm that the extremely low present day δ15N values recorded by deep sea corals (∼8‰) are unprecedented for the NPSG, at least within the past five millennia. Together these records reveal centennial to millennial-scale oscillations in NPSG biogeochemical cycles. Further, these data also suggest a number of independent biogeochemical regimes during which δ15N and δ13C trends were synchronous (similar to recent coral records) or distinctly decoupled. We propose that phytoplankton species composition and nutrient source changes are the dominant mechanisms controlling the coupling and de-coupling of δ15N and δ13C values, likely primarily influenced by changing oceanographic conditions (e.g., stratification vs. entrainment). The decoupling observed in the past further suggests that oceanographic forcing and ecosystem responses controlling δ15N and δ13C values of export production have been substantially different earlier in the Holocene compared to mechanisms controlling the present day system

Calibrating amino acid δ\u3csup\u3e13\u3c/sup\u3eC and δ\u3csup\u3e15\u3c/sup\u3eN offsets between polyp and protein skeleton to develop proteinaceous deep-sea corals as paleoceanographic archives.

Compound-specific stable isotopes of amino acids (CSI-AA) from proteinaceous deep-sea coral skeletons have the potential to improve paleoreconstructions of plankton community composition, and our understanding of the trophic dynamics and biogeochemical cycling of sinking organic matter in the Ocean. However, the assumption that the molecular isotopic values preserved in protein skeletal material reflect those of the living coral polyps has never been directly investigated in proteinaceous deep-sea corals. We examined CSI-AA from three genera of proteinaceous deep-sea corals from three oceanographically distinct regions of the North Pacific: Primnoa from the Gulf of Alaska, Isidella from the Central California Margin, and Kulamanamana from the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. We found minimal offsets in the δ13C values of both essential and non-essential AAs, and in the δ15N values of source AAs, between paired samples of polyp tissue and protein skeleton. Using an essential AA δ13C fingerprinting approach, we show that estimates of the relative contribution of eukaryotic microalgae and prokaryotic cyanobacteria to the sinking organic matter supporting deep-sea corals are the same when calculated from polyp tissue or recently deposited skeletal tissue. The δ15N values of trophic AAs in skeletal tissue, on the other hand, were consistently 3–4‰ lower than polyp tissue for all three genera. We hypothesize that this offset reflects a partitioning of nitrogen flux through isotopic branch points in the synthesis of polyp (fast turnover tissue) and skeleton (slow, unidirectional incorporation). This offset indicates an underestimation, albeit correctable, of approximately half a trophic position from gorgonin protein-based deep-sea coral skeleton. Together, our observations open the door for applying many of the rapidly evolving CSI-AA based tools developed for metabolically active tissues in modern systems to archival coral tissues in a paleoceanographic context

Rotationally resolved energy-dispersive photoelectron spectroscopy of H_2O: Photoionization of the C̃(0,0,0) state at 355 nm

Measured and calculated rotationally resolved photoelectron spectra for photoionization of low rotational levels of the C̃^1B_1 Rydberg state of water are reported. This is the first example of rotationally resolved photoionization spectra beyond the special cases of H_2, high-J levels, and threshold spectra. These spectra reveal very nonatomiclike behavior and, surprisingly, the influence of multiple Cooper minima in the photoelectron matrix elements

The neural correlates of emotion regulation by implementation intentions

Several studies have investigated the neural basis of effortful emotion regulation (ER) but the neural basis of automatic ER has been less comprehensively explored. The present study investigated the neural basis of automatic ER supported by ‘implementation intentions’. 40 healthy participants underwent fMRI while viewing emotion-eliciting images and used either a previously-taught effortful ER strategy, in the form of a goal intention (e.g., try to take a detached perspective), or a more automatic ER strategy, in the form of an implementation intention (e.g., “If I see something disgusting, then I will think these are just pixels on the screen!”), to regulate their emotional response. Whereas goal intention ER strategies were associated with activation of brain areas previously reported to be involved in effortful ER (including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), ER strategies based on an implementation intention strategy were associated with activation of right inferior frontal gyrus and ventro-parietal cortex, which may reflect the attentional control processes automatically captured by the cue for action contained within the implementation intention. Goal intentions were also associated with less effective modulation of left amygdala, supporting the increased efficacy of ER under implementation intention instructions, which showed coupling of orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala. The findings support previous behavioural studies in suggesting that forming an implementation intention enables people to enact goal-directed responses with less effort and more efficiency

On Invariant Notions of Segre Varieties in Binary Projective Spaces

Invariant notions of a class of Segre varieties \Segrem(2) of PG(2^m - 1, 2) that are direct products of $m$ copies of PG(1, 2), $m$ being any positive integer, are established and studied. We first demonstrate that there exists a hyperbolic quadric that contains \Segrem(2) and is invariant under its projective stabiliser group \Stab{m}{2}. By embedding PG(2^m - 1, 2) into \PG(2^m - 1, 4), a basis of the latter space is constructed that is invariant under \Stab{m}{2} as well. Such a basis can be split into two subsets whose spans are either real or complex-conjugate subspaces according as $m$ is even or odd. In the latter case, these spans can, in addition, be viewed as indicator sets of a \Stab{m}{2}-invariant geometric spread of lines of PG(2^m - 1, 2). This spread is also related with a \Stab{m}{2}-invariant non-singular Hermitian variety. The case $m=3$ is examined in detail to illustrate the theory. Here, the lines of the invariant spread are found to fall into four distinct orbits under \Stab{3}{2}, while the points of PG(7, 2) form five orbits.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure; v2 - version accepted in Designs, Codes and Cryptograph

Stationary IPA Estimates for Non-Smooth G/G/1/∞\infty Functionals via Palm Inversion and Level-Crossing Analysis

We give stationary estimates for the derivative of the expectation of a non-smooth function of bounded variation f of the workload in a G/G/1/$\infty$ queue, with respect to a parameter influencing the distribu- tion of the input process. For this, we use an idea of Konstantopoulos and Zazanis based on the Palm inversion formula, however avoiding a limiting argument by performing the level-crossing analysis thereof globally, via Fubini's theorem. This method of proof allows to treat the case where the workload distribution has a mass at discontinuities of f and where the formula has to be modified. The case where the parameter is the speed of service or/and the time scale factor of the input process is also treated using the same approach

The effects of the spontaneous presence of a spouse/partner and others on cardiovascular reactions to an acute psychological challenge

The presence of supportive others has been associated with attenuated cardiovascular reactivity in the laboratory. The effects of the presence of a spouse and others in a more naturalistic setting have received little attention. Blood pressure and heart rate reactions to mental stress were recorded at home in 1028 married/partnered individuals. For 112 participants, their spouse/partner was present; for 78, at least one other person was present. Women tested with a spouse/partner present showed lower magnitude systolic blood pressure and heart rate reactivity than those tested without. Individuals tested with at least one nonspousal other present also displayed attenuated reactivity. This extends the results of laboratory studies and indicates that the spontaneous presence of others is associated with a reduction in cardiovascular reactivity in an everyday environment; spouse/partner presence would appear to be especially effective for women.\ud \u