Why do you want a relationship, anyway? Consent to receive marketing communications and donors’ willingness to engage with nonprofits

Relationship marketing has been key to developing stronger relationships and promoting donor continuity in nonprofit organizations. However, it is not clear whether these efforts are effective for all individuals who choose to financially support an organization. Taking a relationship orientation approach, this study investigates the effect of consenting to direct marketing on occasional donors’ decisions to become members (i.e., contributing through membership programs), and analyzes the moderating role of past donation behavior (i.e., frequency and amount). The results reveal that occasional donors who consent to direct marketing are more likely to develop a long-term relationship as members. This effect is reinforced when donors have contributed greater amounts in the past. The findings also demonstrate that, through their membership, donors consenting to direct marketing provide greater financial support on an ongoing basis. This study offers novel insights into the relationship marketing literature and provides contributions to fundraising managers

Switching of Magnetic Moments of Nanoparticles by Surface Acoustic Waves

We report evidence of the magnetization reversal in nanoparticles by surface acoustic waves (SAWs). The experimental system consists of isolated magnetite nanoparticles dispersed on a piezoelectric substrate. Magnetic relaxation from a saturated state becomes significantly enhanced in the presence of the SAW at a constant temperature of the substrate. The dependence of the relaxation on SAW power and frequency has been investigated. The effect is explained by the effective ac magnetic field generated by the SAW in the nanoparticles.Comment: Accepted in Europhysics Letter

Implementing an on-line bond quality inspection system for cold roll bonded Al/Al-Sn/Al/steel strips using guided wave EMATs

A prototype on-line bond inspection system for Al/Al-Sn/Al/steel strips is introduced to detect bond defects that occur in the cold roll bonding (CRB) process of strips. The transmitting and receiving ElectroMagnetic Acoustic Transducer (EMAT) probes inspect 100% material volume whilst the strip is processed continuously. The inspection signals are processed in real-time and are stored for post-processing. Serial production strips with good bond as well as with defects along the bond line were inspected for rigorous testing of the prototype machine. The inspection results were statistically analysed to determine an alarm threshold for serial inspection. The most important results are that the guided waves are sensitive enough for practical non-destructive testing (NDT) to detect all bond defects with only 0.5% false alarm rate, which nowadays can only be detected with a destructive peel-off test. The detection of all kinds of bond defects would lead to unreasonable levels of scrap due to false alarms. The application of this prototype EMAT inspection system to an industrial strip processing line shows that on-line detection of significant defects in CRBed Al/AlSn/Al/steel strips in a harsh serial production environment is possible. Design improvements are proposed to address the issues that occurred during inspection trials to design a more robust mechanical machine for the industrialisation of an EMAT inspection system

Toward common mechanisms for risk factors in Alzheimer's syndrome

The global strategic goal of reducing health care cost, especially the prospects for massive increases due to expanding markets for health care services demanded by aging populations and/or people with a wide range of chronic disorders-disabilities, is a complex and formidable challenge with many facets. Current projection s predict marked increases in the demand for health driven by both the exponential climb in the prevalence of chronic disabilities and the increases in the absolute numbers of people in need of some form of health care. Thus, the looming predicament for the economics of health care systems worldwide mandates the formulation of a strategic goal to foster significant expansion of global R & D efforts to discover and develop wide-ranging interventions to delay and/or prevent the onset of chronic disabling conditions. The rationale for adopting such a tactical objective is based on the premise that the costs and prevalence of chronic disabling conditions will be reduced by half even if a modest delay of 5 years in the onset of disability is obtained by a highly focused multinational research initiative. Because of the recent history of many failures in drug trials, the central thesis of this paper is to argue for the exploration-adoption of novel mechanistic ideas, theories, and paradigms for developing wide range and/or types of interventions. Although the primary focus of our discussion has been on biological approaches to therapy, we recognize the importance of emerging knowledge on nonpharmacological interventions and their potential impact in reducing health care costs. Although we may not find a drug to cure or prevent dementia for a long time, research is starting to demonstrate the potential contributes of nonpharmacological interventions toward the economics of health care in terms of rehabilitation, promoting autonomy, and potential to delay institutionalization, thus promoting healthy aging and reductions in the cost of care

On the Usage of Linear Regression Models to Reconstruct Limb Kinematics from Low Frequency EEG Signals

Several works have reported on the reconstruction of 2D/3D limb kinematics from low-frequency EEG signals using linear regression models based on positive correlation values between the recorded and the reconstructed trajectories. This paper describes the mathematical properties of the linear model and the correlation evaluation metric that may lead to a misinterpretation of the results of this type of decoders. Firstly, the use of a linear regression model to adjust the two temporal signals (EEG and velocity profiles) implies that the relevant component of the signal used for decoding (EEG) has to be in the same frequency range as the signal to be decoded (velocity profiles). Secondly, the use of a correlation to evaluate the fitting of two trajectories could lead to overly-optimistic results as this metric is invariant to scale. Also, the correlation has a non-linear nature that leads to higher values for sinus/cosinus-like signals at low frequencies. Analysis of these properties on the reconstruction results was carried out through an experiment performed in line with previous studies, where healthy participants executed predefined reaching movements of the hand in 3D space. While the correlations of limb velocity profiles reconstructed from low-frequency EEG were comparable to studies in this domain, a systematic statistical analysis revealed that these results were not above the chance level. The empirical chance level was estimated using random assignments of recorded velocity profiles and EEG signals, as well as combinations of randomly generated synthetic EEG with recorded velocity profiles and recorded EEG with randomly generated synthetic velocity profiles. The analysis shows that the positive correlation results in this experiment cannot be used as an indicator of successful trajectory reconstruction based on a neural correlate. Several directions are herein discussed to address the misinterpretation of results as well as the implications on previous invasive and non-invasive works

Evolution of EEG motor rhythms after spinal cord injury: A longitudinal study

Spinal cord injury (SCI) does not only produce a lack of sensory and motor function caudal to the level of injury, but it also leads to a progressive brain reorganization. Chronic SCI patients attempting to move their affected limbs present a significant reduction of brain activation in the motor cortex, which has been linked to the deafferentation. The aim of this work is to study the evolution of the motor-related brain activity during the first months after SCI. Eighteen subacute SCI patients were recruited to participate in bi-weekly experimental sessions during at least two months. Their EEG was recorded to analyze the temporal evolution of the event-related desynchronization (ERD) over the motor cortex, both during motor attempt and motor imagery of their paralyzed hands. The results show that the a and ß ERD evolution after SCI is negatively correlated with the clinical progression of the patients during the first months after the injury. This work provides the first longitudinal study of the event-related desynchronization during the subacute phase of spinal cord injury. Furthermore, our findings reveal a strong association between the ERD changes and the clinical evolution of the patients. These results help to better understand the brain transformation after SCI, which is important to characterize the neuroplasticity mechanisms involved after this lesion and may lead to new strategies for rehabilitation and motor restoration of these patients