Examining the mortality effects of the Irish National Smoking Ban.

Secondhand smoke causes disease and death in those exposed, with cardiovascular and respiratory problems as the most likely outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the mortality effects of the Irish national smoking ban of 2004

Meteorological satellite products support for project COHMEX

The first year effort focussed on real-time support and satellite data collection during the field phase of COHMEX. Work efforts following the field phase of COHMEX concentrated on post-processing of the real-time data sets, and generation of enhanced, research-quality satellite data sets for selected COHMEX core days. These satellite-derived data sets will augment the special COHMEX conventional data base with high horizontal and temporal resolution information. The data sets will be examined for their usefulness in delineating important elements in the meteorological environment leading to convective activity. In addition, a limited research effort was conducted using the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) 4-d data assimilation system in conjunction with evaluating VISSR Atmospheric Sounder (VAS) and His-resolution Interferometer Sounder (HIS) data. The need to address the characteristics of the data types, and the problems they introduce into 4-d assimilation procedures is evident. The HIS instrument was flown aboard an ER-2 aircraft on several occasions during COHMEX. One of the flights was chosen for further study. Processed VAS soundings and COHMEX radiosonde data were also collected for this day. The case study included an evaluation of the HIS and VAS data and an impact study of the data on the assimilation system analysis

Matrix De Rham complex and quantum A-infinity algebras

I establish the relation of the non-commutative BV-formalism with super-invariant matrix integration. In particular, the non-commutative BV-equation, defining the quantum A-infinity-algebras, introduced in "Modular operads and Batalin-Vilkovisky geometry" IMRN, Vol. 2007, doi: 10.1093/imrn/rnm075, is represented via de Rham differential acting on the matrix spaces related with Bernstein-Leites simple associative algebras with odd trace q(N), and with gl(N|N). I also show that the Lagrangians of the matrix integrals from "Noncommmutative Batalin-Vilkovisky geometry and Matrix integrals", Comptes Rendus Mathematique, vol 348 (2010), pp. 359-362, arXiv:0912.5484, are equivariantly closed differential forms.Comment: published versio

Radiobiological studies with monoenergetic neutrons

The Radiological Research Accelerator Facility (RARAF) has the capability of producing essentially monoenergetic neutron beams, ranging in energy from 16.4 MeV down to 220 keV. In addition, two lower energy neutron beams are available which consist of a wide spectrum of energies and are described as the 110 keV and 60 keV spectra. Seedlings of Vicia faba have been used to measure the oxygen enhancement ratio (OER) and the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of each of these neutron beams. The OER decreases as the neutron energy is reduced between 15.4 MeV and 220 keV, but does not appear to decrease further for lower energy neutrons. RBE increases as the neutron energy is reduced from 15.4 AleV to 440 keV; the curve then goes through a maximum at around 350 keV, and for lower energies the RBE falls again

Best-Worst Scaling: A simple method to determine drinks and wine style preferences

Wine marketers are continually involved with measuring consumer preferences usually by means of surveys or consumer purchase panel data. In this paper we provide initial results using a relatively new and very straightforward method for measuring consumer preferences. The best-worst scaling method (also called max-diffs) simply asks consumers to look at sets of products, attributes, or other factors to be compared and choose from each set the best/most favourable and the worst/least favourable. A simple count and manipulation results in a single preference scale, where the differences may be compared as distances rather than rank order. Managerial implications of the importance of wine attributes that influence consumer drinks purchasing and wine style selection are discussed as well as suggestions for future research. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the practical and a scholarly usefulness of this approach and present a call for replication in other markets in an ongoing manner.Steven Goodman, Larry Lockshin and Eli Cohe

Using the best-worst method to examine market segments and identify different influences of consumer choice

Wine marketers use market segmentation to target different products to different segments in order to increase sales, often with little evidence about what influences choice within or between segments. In this paper we provide initial results using a relatively new and very straightforward method for measuring consumer preferences. The best-worst scaling method (also called max-diffs) simply asks consumers to look at sets of products, attributes, or other factors to be compared and choose from each set the best/most favourable and the worst/least favourable. A simple count and manipulation results in a single preference scale, where the differences may be compared as distances rather than rank order. This paper shows how segmenting the consumers using factors such as gender, frequency of consumption, wine involvement and age produce segments with similar preferences for different varietal wines. Two country examples are used, Israel and Australia, to show the ability of the Best-Worst method to develop ‘maps’ of segments across markets based on patterns of choice. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the practical and a scholarly usefulness of this approach and to show the method for a larger cross-national study across major wine consuming markets.Steven Goodman, Larry Lockshin and Eli Cohenhttp://academyofwinebusiness.com/?page_id=33