Profiling the Frequent Clothing Shopper

Frequent shoppers are an important segment of consumers for the clothing industry because they account for a disproportionate amount of sales and profits and play an important role in the fashion diffusion process. The purpose of this study was to test hypothesized characteristics that distinguish frequent shoppers clothing from other buyers. We focused on characteristics that have been studied by previous researchers and characteristics that have received less study, but are no less interesting and potentially important to clothing marketing and management

Convergence in Water Use Efficiency Within Plant Functional Types across contrasting climates

Water use efficiency (WUE) provides a direct measure of the inextricable link between plant carbon uptake and water loss, and it can be used to study how ecosystem function varies with climate. We analysed WUE data from the ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS), leveraging the high spatial resolution of ECOSTRESS to study the distribution of WUE values both within and among regions with different plant functional types. Our results indicate that despite wide local variability of WUE estimates, WUE tended to converge to common global optima (peaked distributions with variance \u3c0.5 g C per kg H2O, kurtosis \u3e3.0) for five of nine plant functional types (grassland, permanent wetland, savannah, deciduous broadleaf and deciduous needleleaf forest), and this convergence occurred in functional types that spanned distinct geographic regions and climates

Seeing Light from a Different Angle: The Effects of Diffuse Light Environments on the Function, Structure, and Growth of Tomato Plants

While considerable attention has been paid to how plants respond to changes in the spectral distribution, less attention has been paid to how plants respond to changes in the angular qualities of light. Evidence from both leaf- and ecosystem-scale measurements indicate that plants vary in their response to diffuse compared to direct light growing environments. Because of the significant implications for agricultural production, we quantified how changes in the angular quality of light affect the structure, function, and growth of Roma tomatoes in a greenhouse experiment with direct and diffuse light treatments. Diffuse light conditions (ca. 50-60% diffuse) were created with a glass coating that scattered incoming light. We measured leaf physiology and structure, as well as whole plant physiology, morphology, and growth. Light-saturated photosynthetic rates were set by the growing light environment and were unchanged by short-term exposure to the opposite light environment. After two months, plants in the diffuse light treatment demonstrated lower photosynthesis and had thinner leaves with higher chlorophyll concentration. However, relative growth rates did not differ between treatments and plants grown in diffuse light had significantly higher biomass at the conclusion of the experiment. While there was no difference in leaf or whole-plant water-use efficiency, plants in the diffuse light treatment demonstrated significantly lower leaf temperatures, highlighting the potential for diffuse light coatings and/or materials to reduce energy use for cooling. Our results highlight the need to advance our understanding of the effects of diffuse light conditions on agricultural crops growing on a changing planet

Seeing Light from a Different Angle: The Effects of Diffuse Light Environments on the Function, Structure, and Growth of Tomato Plants

While considerable attention has been paid to how plants respond to changes in the spectral distribution, less attention has been paid to how plants respond to changes in the angular qualities of light. Evidence from both leaf- and ecosystem-scale measurements indicate that plants vary in their response to diffuse compared to direct light growing environments. Because of the significant implications for agricultural production, we quantified how changes in the angular quality of light affect the structure, function, and growth of Roma tomatoes in a greenhouse experiment with direct and diffuse light treatments. Diffuse light conditions (ca. 50-60% diffuse) were created with a glass coating that scattered incoming light. We measured leaf physiology and structure, as well as whole plant physiology, morphology, and growth. Light-saturated photosynthetic rates were set by the growing light environment and were unchanged by short-term exposure to the opposite light environment. After two months, plants in the diffuse light treatment demonstrated lower photosynthesis and had thinner leaves with higher chlorophyll concentration. However, relative growth rates did not differ between treatments and plants grown in diffuse light had significantly higher biomass at the conclusion of the experiment. While there was no difference in leaf or whole-plant water-use efficiency, plants in the diffuse light treatment demonstrated significantly lower leaf temperatures, highlighting the potential for diffuse light coatings and/or materials to reduce energy use for cooling. Our results highlight the need to advance our understanding of the effects of diffuse light conditions on agricultural crops growing on a changing planet

Massive Quiescent Cores in Orion. -- II. Core Mass Function

We have surveyed submillimeter continuum emission from relatively quiescent regions in the Orion molecular cloud to determine how the core mass function in a high mass star forming region compares to the stellar initial mass function. Such studies are important for understanding the evolution of cores to stars, and for comparison to formation processes in high and low mass star forming regions. We used the SHARC II camera on the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory telescope to obtain 350 \micron data having angular resolution of about 9 arcsec, which corresponds to 0.02 pc at the distance of Orion. Our analysis combining dust continuum and spectral line data defines a sample of 51 Orion molecular cores with masses ranging from 0.1 \Ms to 46 \Ms and a mean mass of 9.8 \Ms, which is one order of magnitude higher than the value found in typical low mass star forming regions, such as Taurus. The majority of these cores cannot be supported by thermal pressure or turbulence, and are probably supercritical.They are thus likely precursors of protostars. The core mass function for the Orion quiescent cores can be fitted by a power law with an index equal to -0.85$\pm$0.21. This is significantly flatter than the Salpeter initial mass function and is also flatter than the core mass function found in low and intermediate star forming regions. Thus, it is likely that environmental processes play a role in shaping the stellar IMF later in the evolution of dense cores and the formation of stars in such regions.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figures, accepted by Ap

Detection of interstellar hydrogen peroxide

The molecular species hydrogen peroxide, HOOH, is likely to be a key ingredient in the oxygen and water chemistry in the interstellar medium. Our aim with this investigation is to determine how abundant HOOH is in the cloud core {\rho} Oph A. By observing several transitions of HOOH in the (sub)millimeter regime we seek to identify the molecule and also to determine the excitation conditions through a multilevel excitation analysis. We have detected three spectral lines toward the SM1 position of {\rho} Oph A at velocity-corrected frequencies that coincide very closely with those measured from laboratory spectroscopy of HOOH. A fourth line was detected at the 4{\sigma} level. We also found through mapping observations that the HOOH emission extends (about 0.05 pc) over the densest part of the {\rho} Oph A cloud core. We derive an abundance of HOOH relative to that of H_2 in the SM1 core of about 1\times10^(-10). To our knowledge, this is the first reported detection of HOOH in the interstellar medium.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, new version corrects a typo in Table 1 (and consequently in Fig 4