An Empirical Analysis of Community Center Rents

This article is the winner of the Retail Real Estate manuscript prize (sponsored by the International Council of Shopping Centers) presented at the 2001 American Real Estate Society Annual Meeting. This study empirically models the determinants of community center rent. It employs a two-stage model that estimates center vacancy in the first stage and then includes predicted vacancy in a second stage demand model investigating endogenous and exogenous determinants of community center rent. The data includes information on maximum and minimum square foot rent for 118 community centers in Atlanta, Georgia. Maximum community center rent is highly correlated with a center’s predicted vacancy rate and location within the Atlanta area. Additionally, rent at both maximum and minimum levels is influenced by trade area purchasing power, property age and to a lesser extent by proximity to a regional mall, center design and neighborhood factors.

Cultural evolution leads to vocal iconicity in an experimental iterated learning task

Experimental and cross-linguistic studies have shown that vocal iconicity is prevalent in words that carry meanings related to size and shape. Although these studies demonstrate the importance of vocal iconicity and reveal the cognitive biases underpinning it, there is less work demonstrating how these biases lead to the evolution of a sound symbolic lexicon in the first place. In this study, we show how words can be shaped by cognitive biases through cultural evolution. Using a simple experimental setup resembling the game telephone, we examined how a single word form changed as it was passed from one participant to the next by a process of immediate iterated learning. About 1,500 naïve participants were recruited online and divided into five condition groups. The participants in the control-group received no information about the meaning of the word they were about to hear, while the participants in the remaining four groups were informed that the word meant either big or small (with the meaning being presented in text), or round or pointy (with the meaning being presented as a picture). The first participant in a transmission chain was presented with a phonetically diverse word and asked to repeat it. Thereafter, the recording of the repeated word was played for the next participant in the same chain. The sounds of the audio recordings were then transcribed and categorized according to six binary sound parameters. By modelling the proportion of vowels or consonants for each sound parameter, the small-condition showed increases of front unrounded vowels and the pointy-condition increases of acute consonants. The results show that linguistic transmission is sufficient for vocal iconicity to emerge, which demonstrates the role non-arbitrary associations play in the evolution of language

The Evolving Role and Responsibilities of IS Managers in Logistics

This article provides a description of the evolving role of IS managers, their competencies, job requirements, and training needs. Key findings for developing effective training options and their implications are discussed. The data comes from an original research project funded by the Council of Logistics Management

The Growing Importance Of Operating Employees And Keys To Developing Effective Training Options

This study provides a description of the changing role of transportation operating employees, their competencies, job requirements, and training needs.  Four key findings for developing effective training options are discussed.  The data come from 43 logistics organizations in 20 states using the Common Metric Questionnaire, formal and informal interviews, and a descriptive newsletter

Determination of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients by Heteroatom Selective Detection Using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry with Ultrasonic Nebuilization and Membrane Desolvation Sample Introduction

The combination of ultrasonic nebulization with membrane desolvation (USN-MD) is utilized to determine active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) by heteroatom inductively coupled mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS) detection. Ultrasonic nebulization provides efficient sampling while use of the membrane desolvator acts to reduce solvent-based interferences. This approach reduces interferences sufficiently so that a standard argon ICPquadrupole MS can be utilized. Examined APIs and associated heteroatoms included: phosphomycin (P), amoxicillin (S), chlorpropamide (Cl), and ofloxacin (F). The optimum plasma r.f. powers for P, S, and Cl were in the 1000 to 1200 watts range. The high ionization energy of F required that the plasma be operated at 1500W. The 16O2 þ interference at mass 32 precluded determinations using the sulfur-32. The sulfur-34 (4.2% natural isotopic abundance), however, was relatively free of isobaric interferences. Interferences were relatively small at the mass 35 isotope of Cl, but increased with higher ICP r.f. powers. Overlaps were significant at the masses of monoisotopic species, fluorine-19 and phosphorus-31. Detection limits for P, S, Cl, and F of 2, 3, 90, and 3000 ng/mL, respectively, were generally lower than those produced with other quadrupole systems and comparable to or better than values published utilizing high-resolution instruments

Antibiotic and Antimalarial Quinones from Fungus-Growing Ant-Associated Pseudonocardia sp.

Three new members of the angucycline class of antibiotics, pseudonocardones A–C (1–3), along with the known antibiotics 6-deoxy-8-O-methylrabelomycin (4) and X-14881 E (5) have been isolated from the culture of a Pseudonocardia strain associated with the fungus-growing ant Apterostigma dentigerum. Compounds 4 and 5 showed antibiotic activity against Bacillus subtilis 3610 and liver-stage Plasmodium berghei, while 1–3 were inactive or only weakly active in a variety of biological assays. Compound 5 also showed moderate cytotoxicity against HepG2 cells