The Impacts of Retail Promotions on the Demand for Orange Juice: A Study of a Retail Chain

This study examined the impacts of retail promotions on the demand for five brands of orange juices for a retail chain (referred to as Retailer X) and its competitors using the Rotterdam model. Results show that the combination of feature ads and displays had the largest impacts on retail revenue among the four promotional tactics considered, while temporary price reductions had no additional advertising impacts other than price impacts on retail revenues. Results also show that when Retailer X promotes an OJ brand using any of the tactics studied, a larger portion of the increased demand for the promoted brand came from reduced demand for other brands of OJ in the same store and a smaller portion came from the decreased demand in competing stores in the same trading area.Demand and Price Analysis, Marketing,

Book Reviews

Counsel on Appeal Edited by Arthur A. Charpentier New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968. Pp. xi, 223. reviewer: Richard G. Singer =================================== Law Without Sanctions By Michael Barkun New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1968. Pp. 175. $6.50 reviewer: Alfred H. Knight, II

Photon polarisation entanglement from distant dipole sources

It is commonly believed that photon polarisation entanglement can only be obtained via pair creation within the same source or via postselective measurements on photons that overlapped within their coherence time inside a linear optics setup. In contrast to this, we show here that polarisation entanglement can also be produced by distant single photon sources in free space and without the photons ever having to meet, if the detection of a photon does not reveal its origin -- the which way information. In the case of two sources, the entanglement arises under the condition of two emissions in certain spatial directions and leaves the dipoles in a maximally entangled state.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, revised version, accepted for publication in J. Phys.

Cytometric analysis, genetic manipulation and antibiotic selection of the snail embryonic cell line Bge from Biomphalaria glabrata, the intermediate host of Schistosoma mansoni.

The invertebrate cell line, Bge, from embryos of the snail Biomphalaria glabrata, remains to date the only established cell line from any species of the Phylum Mollusca. Since its establishment in 1976 by Eder Hansen, few studies have focused on profiling its cytometrics, growth characteristics or sensitivity to xenobiotics. Bge cells are reputed to be challenging to propagate and maintain. Therefore, even though this cell line is a noteworthy resource, it has not been studied widely. With growing interest in functional genomics, including genetic transformation, to elucidate molecular aspects of the snail intermediate hosts responsible for transmission of schistosomiasis, and aiming to enhance the convenience of maintenance of this molluscan cell line, we deployed the xCELLigene real time approach to study Bge cells. Doubling times for three isolates of Bge, termed CB, SL and UK, were longer than for mammalian cell lines - longer than 40 h in complete Bge medium supplemented with 7% fetal bovine serum at 25 °C, ranging from ∼42 h to ∼157 h when 40,000 cells were seeded. To assess the potential of the cells for genetic transformation, antibiotic selection was explored. Bge cells were sensitive to the aminonucleoside antibiotic puromycin (from Streptomyces alboniger) from 5 μg/ml to 200 ng/ml, displaying a half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of ∼1.91 μg/ml. Sensitivity to puromycin, and a relatively quick kill time (<48 h in 5 μg/ml) facilitated use of this antibiotic, together with the cognate resistance gene (puromycin N-acetyl-transferase) for selection of Bge cells transformed with the PAC gene (puroR). Bge cells transfected with a plasmid encoding puroR were partially rescued when cultured in the presence of 5 μg/ml of puromycin. These findings pave the way for the development of functional genomic tools applied to the host-parasite interaction during schistosomiasis and neglected tropical trematodiases at large

Locating the source of projectile fluid droplets

The ill-posed projectile problem of finding the source height from spattered droplets of viscous fluid is a longstanding obstacle to accident reconstruction and crime scene analysis. It is widely known how to infer the impact angle of droplets on a surface from the elongation of their impact profiles. However, the lack of velocity information makes finding the height of the origin from the impact position and angle of individual drops not possible. From aggregate statistics of the spatter and basic equations of projectile motion, we introduce a reciprocal correlation plot that is effective when the polar launch angle is concentrated in a narrow range. The vertical coordinate depends on the orientation of the spattered surface, and equals the tangent of the impact angle for a level surface. When the horizontal plot coordinate is twice the reciprocal of the impact distance, we can infer the source height as the slope of the data points in the reciprocal correlation plot. If the distribution of launch angles is not narrow, failure of the method is evident in the lack of linear correlation. We perform a number of experimental trials, as well as numerical calculations and show that the height estimate is insensitive to aerodynamic drag. Besides its possible relevance for crime investigation, reciprocal-plot analysis of spatter may find application to volcanism and other topics and is most immediately applicable for undergraduate science and engineering students in the context of crime-scene analysis.Comment: To appear in the American Journal of Physics (ms 23338). Improved readability and organization in this versio

Magneto-elastic coupling and competing entropy changes in substituted CoMnSi metamagnets

We use neutron diffraction, magnetometry and low temperature heat capacity to probe giant magneto-elastic coupling in CoMnSi-based antiferromagnets and to establish the origin of the entropy change that occurs at the metamagnetic transition in such compounds. We find a large difference between the electronic density of states of the antiferromagnetic and high magnetisation states. The magnetic field-induced entropy change is composed of this contribution and a significant counteracting lattice component, deduced from the presence of negative magnetostriction. In calculating the electronic entropy change, we note the importance of using an accurate model of the electronic density of states, which here varies rapidly close to the Fermi energy.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures. Figures 4 and 6 were updated in v2 of this preprint. In v3, figures 1 and 2 have been updated, while Table II and the abstract have been extended. In v4, Table I has updated with relevant neutron diffraction dat

Optimal estimation of joint parameters in phase space

We address the joint estimation of the two defining parameters of a displacement operation in phase space. In a measurement scheme based on a Gaussian probe field and two homodyne detectors, it is shown that both conjugated parameters can be measured below the standard quantum limit when the probe field is entangled. We derive the most informative Cram\'er-Rao bound, providing the theoretical benchmark on the estimation and observe that our scheme is nearly optimal for a wide parameter range characterizing the probe field. We discuss the role of the entanglement as well as the relation between our measurement strategy and the generalized uncertainty relations.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; v2: references added and sections added to the supplemental material; v3: minor changes (published version

Slowly driven sandpile formation with granular mixtures

We introduce a one-dimensional sandpile model with $N$ different particle types and an infinitesimal driving rate. The parameters for the model are the N^2 critical slopes for one type of particle on top of another. The model is trivial when N=1, but for N=2 we observe four broad classes of sandpile structure in different regions of the parameter space. We describe and explain the behaviour of each of these classes, giving quantitative analysis wherever possible. The behaviour of sandpiles with N>2 essentially consists of combinations of these four classes. We investigate the model's robustness and highlight the key areas that any experiment designed to reproduce these results should focus on