E-commerce and the retail sector : implications for 7-11, Taiwan

This report analyses models of e-commerce in terms primarily of B2C, but also B2B, B4B, C2C and C2B. The various models of e-business, such as pure e-tailing, click and mortar, pure play and exchange, are described. The business, technical, financial, and legal aspects of e-commerce are discussed in the report. A general overview of the industry details usage of the Internet and e-commerce on a global issue and specifically in Taiwan. Also, the current situation of the convenience store industry in Taiwan is described. PEST analysis and Five-Force Analysis are used to discuss the situation of convenience stores. Moreover, an overview of 7-11, organisational structure, delivery, and POS systems are described. The current stages of e-commerce implementation within 7-11 are presented. Also, the concerns held regarding the opportunities and threats of e-commerce for 7-11 are identified. The short term and long term plans of 7-11 are detailed and further recommendations are presented. Gladwell’s idea of a “tipping point” with regard to market growth is used to discuss 7-11’s need to move faster to the solution of trading on-line. Amazon.com is used as an example to argue that 7-11 can save more costs by moving the business on-line. The case study of 7-11 can be used as a reference for traditional retailers planning to move their business on-line.This report analyses models of e-commerce in terms primarily of B2C, but also B2B, B4B, C2C and C2B. The various models of e-business, such as pure e-tailing, click and mortar, pure play and exchange, are described. The business, technical, financial, and legal aspects of e-commerce are discussed in the report. A general overview of the industry details usage of the Internet and e-commerce on a global issue and specifically in Taiwan. Also, the current situation of the convenience store industry in Taiwan is described. PEST analysis and Five-Force Analysis are used to discuss the situation of convenience stores. Moreover, an overview of 7-11, organisational structure, delivery, and POS systems are described. The current stages of e-commerce implementation within 7-11 are presented. Also, the concerns held regarding the opportunities and threats of e-commerce for 7-11 are identified. The short term and long term plans of 7-11 are detailed and further recommendations are presented. Gladwell’s idea of a “tipping point” with regard to market growth is used to discuss 7-11’s need to move faster to the solution of trading on-line. Amazon.com is used as an example to argue that 7-11 can save more costs by moving the business on-line. The case study of 7-11 can be used as a reference for traditional retailers planning to move their business on-line

Introduction: Rethinking tourism in Asia

It is not often that an academic book is inspired by a pair of Speedos. Here is one. As countless postcards, travel shows and holiday brochures tell us, our ideal beach is tropical, sandy and washed over by clear, warm, turquoise-colored waters. Indeed, the scene of ‘paradise on earth’ is deserted, apart from the romantic couple walking arm in arm towards the sunset or the beautiful bikini-clad woman lying on the water’s edge soaking up the sun. Reclining alone, she seduces the viewer through passivity and possibility. She tells us the beach is a space of youthfulness, sexuality, independence, and time spent away from the chaos of everyday life. Crucial to this message is the all-over, carefully cultivated suntan. It is here we need to look closer, as it is in the suntan that we see the beach is not the space of brown skin, but the browning of skin, or, to be more exact, the browning of white skin. As a marker of sexuality, health and youthful vigor, the suntan is the desired coloring of pale, white skin. And so as the swimwear exposes this skin to the sun, it also reveals a series of broader, underlying values. Today’s postcards, brochures, websites and television programs not only carefully define where in the world the ideal beach is to be found, but also who are its actors, or imagined consumers. Tracing the genealogy of these images, and the ideals they convey, quickly reveals their European and North American roots. At the beginning of the twentieth century, social commentators on both continents would express shock and contempt for an emerging trend of exposed, tanned bodies. In the wake of World War I, however, much had changed as seaside resorts in California and Southern Europe established themselves as extremely popular places dedicated to the pursuit of leisure and fun. Recent years have seen a number of books trace this evolution of the beach as a space of leisure and recreation (Len-ek and Bosker 1998; Urbain 2003; Gray 2006). While their titles and introductions promise the definitive story, their accounts focus on beaches in California, the Mediterranean or the north of England. No mention is given to the cultural histories of beaches in Africa, the Middle East or Asia

Performance of the GLAS Space Lidar Receiver Through Its Seven-Year Space Mission

NASA s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) mission [1,2] carrying the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) Instrument, was launched on January 12, 2003. The three lasers on ICESat have made a total of 1.98 billion laser shot measurements of the Earth s surface and atmosphere during its 17 science data collection campaigns over its seven year operating lifetime. ICESat completed its science mission after the last laser stopped operating in October 2009. The spacecraft was de-orbited on August 30, 2010. The GLAS instrument carried 3 diode-pumped Q-switched Nd:YAG lasers, which emitted 6-nsec wide pulses at 1064 and 532 nm at a 40-Hz rate. There are three lidar receiver channels, a 1064 nm surface altimetry channel, a 1064 nm cloud backscattering lidar channel, and a 532 nm cloud and aerosol backscattering lidar channel. The altimetry and cloud backscatter channels used Si avalanche photodiode (APD) operated in analog mode as in the Mars Global Surveyor s Mars Orbital Laser Altimeter [3,4]. GLAS also utilized a number of new technologies and techniques for space lidar, including passively Q-switched diode-pumped Nd:YAG lasers, a 1-m diameter telescope, a temperature tuned etalon optical bandpass filter, Si APD single photon counting detectors, 1 Gsample/sec waveform digitizers, ultra stable clock oscillators, and digital signal processing and detection algorithms [5]. A global position system (GPS) receiver was used to provide the spacecraft position and epoch times. The ICESat mission provided a unique opportunity to monitor the lidar component performance in the space environment over a multi-year time period. We performed a number of engineering tests periodically to monitor the lidar receiver performance, including receiver sensitivity, timing precision, detector dark noise, etc. A series of engineering tests were also performed after the end of the science mission to evaluate the performance of the spare detector, oscillator, waveform digitizer, and GPS receiver. An experiment was conducted which pointed GLAS to Venus to test the receiver sensitivity to star light and to verify GLAS bore sight with respect to the spacecraft coordinate system. These tests provided unique data to assess the degradation and the rate of change of these key lidar components due to space radiation and aging. They also helped to validate new techniques to operate and calibrate future space lidars

Loop corrections for Kaluza-Klein AdS amplitudes

Recently we conjectured the four-point amplitude of graviton multiplets in ${\rm AdS}_5 \times {\rm S}^5$ at one loop by exploiting the operator product expansion of $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory. Here we give the first extension of those results to include Kaluza-Klein modes, obtaining the amplitude for two graviton multiplets and two states of the first KK mode. Our method again relies on resolving the large N degeneracy among a family of long double-trace operators, for which we obtain explicit formulas for the leading anomalous dimensions. Having constructed the one-loop amplitude we are able to obtain a formula for the one-loop corrections to the anomalous dimensions of all twist five double-trace operators.Comment: 37 pages. One ancillary file containing data on the correlator

Genome-Wide Analysis of KAP1 Binding Suggests Autoregulation of KRAB-ZNFs

We performed a genome-scale chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-chip comparison of two modifications (trimethylation of lysine 9 [H3me3K9] and trimethylation of lysine 27 [H3me3K27]) of histone H3 in Ntera2 testicular carcinoma cells and in three different anatomical sources of primary human fibroblasts. We found that in each of the cell types the two modifications were differentially enriched at the promoters of the two largest classes of transcription factors. Specifically, zinc finger (ZNF) genes were bound by H3me3K9 and homeobox genes were bound by H3me3K27. We have previously shown that the Polycomb repressive complex 2 is responsible for mediating trimethylation of lysine 27 of histone H3 in human cancer cells. In contrast, there is little overlap between H3me3K9 targets and components of the Polycomb repressive complex 2, suggesting that a different histone methyltransferase is responsible for the H3me3K9 modification. Previous studies have shown that SETDB1 can trimethylate H3 on lysine 9, using in vitro or artificial tethering assays. SETDB1 is thought to be recruited to chromatin by complexes containing the KAP1 corepressor. To determine if a KAP1-containing complex mediates trimethylation of the identified H3me3K9 targets, we performed ChIP-chip assays and identified KAP1 target genes using human 5-kb promoter arrays. We found that a large number of genes of ZNF transcription factors were bound by both KAP1 and H3me3K9 in normal and cancer cells. To expand our studies of KAP1, we next performed a complete genomic analysis of KAP1 binding using a 38-array tiling set, identifying ~7,000 KAP1 binding sites. The identified KAP1 targets were highly enriched for C2H2 ZNFs, especially those containing Krüppel-associated box (KRAB) domains. Interestingly, although most KAP1 binding sites were within core promoter regions, the binding sites near ZNF genes were greatly enriched within transcribed regions of the target genes. Because KAP1 is recruited to the DNA via interaction with KRAB-ZNF proteins, we suggest that expression of KRAB-ZNF genes may be controlled via an auto-regulatory mechanism involving KAP1

c-Fms-Mediated Differentiation and Priming of Monocyte Lineage Cells Play a Central Role in Autoimmune Arthritis

Introduction: Tyrosine kinases are key mediators of multiple signaling pathways implicated in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We previously demonstrated that imatinib mesylate--a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved, antineoplastic drug that potently inhibits the tyrosine kinases Abl, c-Kit, platelet-derived growth factor receptor (PDGFR), and c-Fms--ameliorates murine autoimmune arthritis. However, which of the imatinib-targeted kinases is the principal culprit in disease pathogenesis remains unknown. Here we examine the role of c-Fms in autoimmune arthritis. Methods: We tested the therapeutic efficacy of orally administered imatinib or GW2580, a small molecule that specifically inhibits c-Fms, in three mouse models of RA: collagen-induced arthritis (CIA), anti-collagen antibody-induced arthritis (CAIA), and K/BxN serum transfer-induced arthritis (K/BxN). Efficacy was evaluated by visual scoring of arthritis severity, paw thickness measurements, and histological analysis. We assessed the in vivo effects of imatinib and GW2580 on macrophage infiltration of synovial joints in CIA, and their in vitro effects on macrophage and osteoclast differentiation, and on osteoclast-mediated bone resorption. Further, we determined the effects of imatinib and GW2580 on the ability of macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF; the ligand for c-Fms) to prime bone marrow-derived macrophages to produce tumor necrosis factor (TNF) upon subsequent Fc receptor ligation. Finally, we measured M-CSF levels in synovial fluid from patients with RA, osteoarthritis (OA), or psoriatic arthritis (PsA), and levels of total and phosphorylated c-Fms in synovial tissue from patients with RA. Results: GW2580 was as efficacious as imatinib in reducing arthritis severity in CIA, CAIA, and K/BxN models of RA. Specific inhibition of c-Fms abrogated (i) infiltration of macrophages into synovial joints of arthritic mice; (ii) differentiation of monocytes into macrophages and osteoclasts; (iii) osteoclast-mediated bone resorption; and (iv) priming of macrophages to produce TNF upon Fc receptor stimulation, an important trigger of synovitis in RA. Expression and activation of c-Fms in RA synovium were high, and levels of M-CSF were higher in RA synovial fluid than in OA or PsA synovial fluid. Conclusions: These results suggest that c-Fms plays a central role in the pathogenesis of RA by mediating the differentiation and priming of monocyte lineage cells. Therapeutic targeting of c-Fms could provide benefit in RA

The Grizzly, April 7, 1989

History in Making: Middle States Arrive Sunday • APO Holds Local Fraternity Chapter Conference • Letters: Normal Pledging O.K.; Booby not Prize • DeLeon Woos Wismer • Hundreds to Storm Campus • Friday\u27s Fun, But Not Food Fantasy • Men\u27s Lacrosse Begins with a Bang! • Bowers Leads U.C. to Win • Driscoll, Ursinus Set High Goals • Tough Schedule to Benefit U.C. Lax • Two Week Pledging Proposed by Subcommittee on Greeks • Boston: Seats Going Fast • It\u27s Tenure Time Once Again! • U.S.G.A Update • Cinders to Rock U.C. • U.S.G.A. Needs You! • Rumors a Real Bomb • Take a Bite! • College Displays Crime Statshttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1234/thumbnail.jp

Inclusive Masculinity in a Fraternal Setting

This ethnographic research uses thirty-two in-depth interviews and two years of par-ticipant observation on a large chapter of a national fraternity to examine the construc-tion of masculinity among heterosexual men. Whereas previous studies of masculine construction maintain that most men in fraternities attempt to bolster their masculinity through the approximation of requisites of hegemonic masculinity, this research shows that there also exists a more inclusive form of masculinity institutionalized in the fra-ternal system: one based on social equality for gay men, respect for women, and racial parity and one in which fraternity men bond over emotional intimacy

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