Sustainability of Direct Sellers in Marketing

This paper examines the characteristics of people who are a good fit for a career in direct selling marketing as well as the characteristics of those who are not. It is also an examination of the motivations to join direct selling and the different levels of “success” that some may find in their careers as direct sellers. Some of the motivators for success came from emotional drives while some were situational. Analysis of the questionnaires given to each participant led to the discovery of three common determinants of what does make a successful direct seller and four determinants of characteristics that are not conducive with success in the direct selling market. The determinants in favor of success were determination, teach ability, and confidence. The characteristics not in favor of success were laziness, lack of motivation, unwillingness to dedicate time to the business, and lack of consistency. There were also three emotional motivators that drive direct sellers to become successful and two situational motivators. These findings will help provide current and future direct sellers with important knowledge about whether or not this is a type of business that they could excel in, a better understanding of what it takes to be successful in this field, and what they can expect within a career of direct selling

Cultural Appropriation and Fashion: A Line to Clarify the Line

In this creative project, the idea of cultural appropriation in fashion is explored and interpreted into mood boards and garment sketches inspired by different cultures. Cultural appropriation occurs when dominant groups take or “borrow” styles from marginalized groups, who face oppression or have been stigmatized for their cultural practices throughout history. In order to prevent appropriation from happening in fashion, it is important to educate and implement certain business styles in order to stay ethical. Understanding the history of cultural appropriation is important in moving forward and cutting down on the phenomenon in the fashion industry. By looking at examples in the upcoming pages, the difference between inspiration and appropriation will be explained, examples of correct and corrupt business moves will be laid out and ideas for change will be suggested. There will also be examples of mood boards with inspiration from 4 different cultures: Africa, India, Native American and East Asian

Charge separation instability in an unmagnetized disk plasma around a Kerr black hole

In almost all of plasma theories for astrophysical objects, we have assumed the charge quasi-neutrality of unmagnetized plasmas in global scales. This assumption has been justified because if there is a charged plasma, it induces electric field which attracts the opposite charge, and this opposite charge reduces the charge separation. Here, we report a newly discovered instability which causes a charge separation in a rotating plasma inside of an innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) around a black hole. The growth rate of the instability is smaller than that of the disk instability even in the unstable disk region and is forbidden in the stable disk region outside of the ISCO. However, this growth rate becomes comparable to that of the disk instability when the plasma density is much lower than a critical density inside of the ISCO. In such case, the charge separation instability would become apparent and cause the charged accretion into the black hole, thus charge the hole up.Comment: 15pages, 1 figur

The Lore of Low Methane Livestock:Co-Producing Technology and Animals for Reduced Climate Change Impact

Methane emissions from sheep and cattle production have gained increasing profile in the context of climate change. Policy and scientific research communities have suggested a number of technological approaches to mitigate these emissions. This paper uses the concept of co-production as an analytical framework to understand farmers’ evaluation of a 'good animal’. It examines how technology and sheep and beef cattle are co-produced in the context of concerns about the climate change impact of methane. Drawing on 42 semi-structured interviews, this paper demonstrates that methane emissions are viewed as a natural and integral part of sheep and beef cattle by farmers, rather than as a pollutant. Sheep and beef cattle farmers in the UK are found to be an extremely heterogeneous group that need to be understood in their specific social, environmental and consumer contexts. Some are more amenable to appropriating methane reducing measures than others, but largely because animals are already co-constructed from the natural and the technical for reasons of increased production efficiency

Magnetospheric Eclipses in the Binary Pulsar J0737-3039

(Abridged) In the binary radio pulsar system J0737-3039, the faster pulsar A is eclipsed once per orbit. We construct a simple geometric model which successfully reproduces the eclipse light curves, based on the idea that the radio pulses are attenuated by synchrotron absorption on the closed magnetic field lines of pulsar B. The model explains most of the properties of the eclipse: its asymmetric form, the nearly frequency-independent duration, and the modulation of the brightness of pulsar A at both once and twice the rotation frequency of pulsar B in different parts of the eclipse. This detailed agreement confirms the dipolar structure of the star's poloidal magnetic field. The model makes clear predictions for the degree of linear polarization of the transmitted radiation. The weak frequency dependence of the eclipse duration implies that the absorbing plasma is relativistic, with a density much larger than the corotation charge density. Such hot, dense plasma can be effectively stored in the outer magnetosphere, where cyclotron cooling is slow. The gradual loss of particles inward through the cooling radius is compensated by an upward flux driven by a fluctuating component of the current, and by the pumping of magnetic helicity on the closed field lines. The trapped particles are heated to relativistic energies by the damping of magnetospheric turbulence and, at a slower rate, by the absorption of the radio emission of the companion pulsar.Comment: 45 pages, 13 figures, submitted to ApJ; minor typo correcte

Mobility in the built environment: age-related changes in gait characteristics when walking on complex terrain

BACKGROUND: An understanding of how common features in the built environment influence how people walk is needed to maintain mobility for older people. METHODS: The study included 71 healthy subjects with an age range of 18 to 92 years. Using inertial measurement units, participants’ gaits were assessed while walking across a complex terrain created in a controlled laboratory environment. RESULTS: Participants found stair climbing and stepping on obstacles to be the most challenging activities, as judged by step time. These activities also showed the most significant age-related changes, with significant effects in both step time and shank angle at touch down being observed from around the age of 60 years. CONCLUSIONS: The changes observed in this study are consistent with decreasing muscle power causing limited ability to negotiate stairs

Understanding Experiences of Blind Individuals in Outdoor Nature

Research shows that exposure to nature has benefits for people's mental and physical health and that ubiquitous and mobile technologies encourage engagement with nature. However, existing research in this area is primarily focused on people without visual impairments and is not inclusive of blind and partially sighted individuals. To address this gap in research, we interviewed seven blind people (without remaining vision) about their experiences when exploring and experiencing the outdoor natural environment to gain an understanding of their needs and barriers and how these needs can be addressed by technology. In this paper, we present the three themes identified from the interview data; independence, knowledge of the environment, and sensory experiences

Effect of Environmental Factors on How Older Pedestrians Detect an Upcoming Step

The relationships between environmental features and older people’s ability to safely move around a complex pedestrian environment are, as yet, poorly understood. Specifically, the impact of light levels on trip hazard detection during walking has received relatively little attention. This study investigates the effect of illuminance on people’s ability to detect steps of different heights in a laboratory-based controlled environment. Sixteen young and 15 older participants walked along a 13.2 m walkway towards an either ascending or descending step at 200 lux or 4 lux light levels. Trial time, gaze behaviour and distance at which the step was first visually fixated (detection distance) were measured using an eye-tracker. It was found that both the trial time and detection distance of older participants were affected by light level whereas the fixation number and fixation duration of young participants were affected by step-height. Shorter detection distance, greater number of fixations and longer fixation duration were found among older participants as opposed to young participants. The results suggest that the processing efficiency for visual information on an upcoming step is slower among older people than among young people. This implies that the vulnerability of older pedestrians maybe be reduced if better lighting or a simplified visual environment is provided

A Theory of Rent Seeking with Informational Foundations

I develop a model of rent seeking with informational foundations and an arbitrary number of rent seekers, and I compare the results with Tullock’s (1980) classic model where the influence activities are “blackboxed.” Given the microfoundations, the welfare consequences of rent seeking can be studied. In particular, I show that competition among rent seekers can be socially beneficial, since the additional information that the decision maker gets access to makes the increase in rent-seeking expenditures worthwhile. However, the analysis also highlights a logic that, under natural parameter assumptions, makes the rent seekers spend more resources on rent seeking than is in society’s interest, which is consistent with the spirit of the rent-seeking literature