Impact of Strategic Cross-Sector Brand Alliances on Consumer Behavior in a Recession

Like many organizations in an economic downturn, such as a recession, nonprofits have experienced a decrease in donations from individuals, corporations, and governmental funding sources. This loss of funding has resulted in a reduction of services offered and in some cases closure. Management at nonprofit organizations should study successful examples of cross sector marketing alliances and strategically replicate them with private sector organizations. This is achieved via cause-related marketing, a commercial partnership between a nonprofit organization and a private sector business. Seven fictional organizations were created for the current study to avoid preconceived notions. Comparisons were completed between private sector and nonprofit sector organizations. Additionally, comparisons were made between mixed strategic alliances of organizations with a positive image and those with a negative image which examine the impact of  strategic alliances between private and nonprofit organizations. The measurements were a respondent’s willingness to contribute to or purchase from the firms. Results indicate that a firm’s image influences the willingness of the respondents to support the organization through donations or purchases in both the individual firm and strategic alliance scenarios

Visual priming of two-step motion sequences.

Perception of an ambiguous apparent motion is influenced by the immediately preceding motion. In positive priming, when an observer is primed with a slow-pace (1-3 Hz) sequence of motion frames depicting unidirectional drift (e.g., Right-Right-Right-Right), subsequent sequences of ambiguous frames are often perceived to continue moving in the primed direction (illusory Right-Right …). Furthermore, priming an observer with a slow-pace sequence of rebounding apparent motion frames that alternate between opponently coded motion directions (e.g., Right-Left-Right-Left) leads to an illusory continuation of the two-step rebounding sequence in subsequent random frames. Here, we show that even more arbitrary two-step motion sequences can be primed; in particular, two-step motion sequences that alternate between non-opponently coded directions (e.g., Up-Right-Up-Right; staircase motion) can be primed to be illusorily perceived in subsequent random frames. We found that staircase sequences, but not drifting or rebounding sequences, were primed more effectively with four priming frames compared with two priming frames, suggesting the importance of repeating the sequence element for priming arbitrary two-step motion sequences. Moreover, we compared the effectiveness of motion primes to that of symbolic primes (arrows) and found that motion primes were significantly more effective at producing prime-consistent responses. Although it has been proposed that excitatory and rivalry-like mechanisms account for drifting and rebounding motion priming, current motion processing models cannot account for our observed priming of staircase motion. We argue that higher order processes involving the recruitment and interaction of both attention and visual working memory are required to account for the type of two-step motion priming reported here

Novel advanced solvent-based carbon capture pilot demonstration

ION Engineering’s advanced solvent is one of the leading second generation solvent systems currently under development for post-combustion carbon dioxide (CO2) capture. Throughout small scale pilot testing with coal and natural gas fired flue gas, bench scale pilot and laboratory testing, ION’s advanced solvent has consistently demonstrated 30+% reductions in regeneration energy requirements in comparison to traditional aqueous monoethanolamine (Aq-MEA). These results, in addition to CO2 solvent carrying capacities 35% higher than Aq-MEA and significantly less solvent degradation, demonstrate that ION’s CO2 capture technology has the potential to significantly reduce both capital and operating costs. ION Engineering has recently completed a 0.6 Megawatts electric (MWe) Slipstream Pilot demonstration, at the National Carbon Capture Center (NCCC) located at Southern Company’s Plant Gaston in Wilsonville, Alabama. The NCCC test facility utilizes a flue gas slipstream up to a maximum of 6,000 lb/hr from a commercially dispatched base-loaded 880-MW coal-fired boiler which supplies the NCCC test facilities. On-site work began in April 2015, with testing completed from mid-June to mid-August 2015. The overall objectives of this project are to advance ION’s solvent-based CO2 capture process at the equivalent of approximately 0.6 MWe scale pilot in order to meet the Department of Energy’s (DOE) goal for second generation solvents of ≥ 90% CO2 capture rate with 95% CO2 purity at a cost of \u3c $40/tonne CO2 captured by 2025. Additional objectives included: validation of ION’s solvent specific simulation capabilities, completion of 1,000 hours of continuous testing and an assessment of solvent lifetime. The NCCC results indicate that ION is making substantial progress towards DOE’s goals for second generation solvents. Total test hours for the program exceeded 1,100 hours. ION has also validated its solvent specific ProTreat® simulation models during parametric and steady state testing and the analyses of solvent samples for solvent lifetime studies are still in progress. Additionally, ION demonstrated that it can successfully operate its advanced solvent in a pilot unit designed for traditional Aq-MEA solvent with minimal pilot modifications. Throughout pilot testing at NCCC, ION confirmed its understanding of process improvements and analytics that will enable successful operation of its advanced solvent at significantly lower L/G circulation rates and regeneration energies. ION is currently working with national and international partners to further demonstrate its carbon capture technology in real process environments and multiple commercial settings. The data gathered from this test campaign conducted at NCCC continues to strengthen ION’s solvent technology and positive track record in executing off site test campaigns. ION anticipates that the recently completed pilot scale test at NCCC along with future projects will directly impact the state of the art of CO2 solvent technologies and facilitate advancement of CO2 capture towards commercialization and implementation of ION technology

Time-averaged order parameter restraints in molecular dynamics simulations

A method is described that allows experimental $$S^2$$ S 2 order parameters to be enforced as a time-averaged quantity in molecular dynamics simulations. The two parameters that characterize time-averaged restraining, the memory relaxation time and the weight of the restraining potential energy term in the potential energy function used in the simulation, are systematically investigated based on two model systems, a vector with one end restrained in space and a pentapeptide. For the latter it is shown that the backbone N-H order parameter of individual residues can be enforced such that the spatial fluctuations of quantities depending on atomic coordinates are not significantly perturbed. The applicability to realistic systems is illustrated for the B3 domain of protein G in aqueous solution

Smooth pursuit operates over perceived not physical positions of the double-drift stimulus

The double-drift illusion produces a large deviation in perceived direction that strongly dissociates physical position from perceived position. Surprisingly, saccades do not seem to be affected by the illusion (Lisi & Cavanagh, 2015). When targeting a double-drift stimulus, the saccade system is driven by retinal rather than perceived position. Here, using paired double-drift targets, we test whether the smooth pursuit system is driven by perceived or physical position. Participants (n = 7) smoothly pursued the inferred midpoint (Steinbach, 1976) between two horizontally aligned Gabor patches that were separated by 20° and moving on parallel, oblique paths. On the first half of each trial, the Gabors’ internal textures were static while both drifted obliquely downward. On the second half of each trial, while the envelope moved obliquely upward, the internal texture drifted orthogonally to the envelope's motion, producing a large perceived deviation from the downward path even though the upward and downward trajectories always followed the same physical path but in opposite directions. We find that smooth pursuit eye movements accurately followed the nonillusory downward path of the midpoint between the two Gabors, but then followed the illusory rather than the physical trajectory on the upward return. Thus, virtual targets for smooth pursuit are derived from perceived rather than retinal coordinates

Is the Combination of Sulfonylureas and Metformin Associated With an Increased Risk of Cardiovascular Disease or All-Cause Mortality?: A meta-analysis of observational studies

OBJECTIVE—Observational studies assessing the association of combination therapy of metformin and sulfonylurea on all-cause and/or cardiovascular mortality in type 2 diabetes have shown conflicting results. We therefore evaluated the effects of combination therapy of sulfonylureas and metformin on the risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease (CVD) among people with type 2 diabetes

"Death Itself Shall Be Deathless”: Transrationalism and Eternal Death in Don DeLillo’s Zero K

The status of human mortality in the face of rapid and overwhelming scientific and technological change is by no means a new topic in DeLillo’s fiction. For many critics, death fulfills a crucial function in the author’s work, its very possibility operating to maintain the boundaries of time and space that are otherwise under threat of disappearance in post war culture. Don DeLillo’s eighteenth novel, Zero K (2016), offers an augmented examination of this conjunction between death and technology, depicting an industrial and scientific landscape where fantasies of eternal life can be legitimately realized via radical advances in cryonic technologies. Yet rather than circumventing death and prolonging life as intended, this article argues that DeLillo instead presents cryonic freezing as a form of eternal death. Subsumed within the technological matrix, death’s ineluctability is disturbed and remodulated, meaning that temporal and spatial boundaries become violently unhinged and entirely immeasurable. This boundlessness becomes vividly mirrored in the architectural and temporal logic of the “Convergence” facility itself, a “transrational” space that unravels concepts such as time, space, language, and subjectivity