Irresponsible contagions: Propagating harmful behavior through imitation

‘Monkey see, monkey do’ is an old saying referring to imitating another\u27s actions without necessarily understanding the underlying motivations or being concerned about consequences, such as propagating harmful behaviors. This study examines the likelihood of firms imitating and proliferating others’ unethical, irresponsible practices thereby exacerbating harmful effects among even more firms; in doing so, irresponsible contagions can rapidly spread more broadly, negatively affecting even more consumers. Building upon rivalry- and information-based imitation theories, we examine if harmful behaviors of others, in combination with misbehavior of referent firms, influences the likelihood of a firm to engage in irresponsible consumer-related practices. After examining 25,824 firm-year observations over 12 years, our findings suggest that imitation of harmful product-related behavior occurs; with size an important factor related to proliferation of harmful behaviors. Testing the model against a holdout sample finds 94% accuracy. Implications for scholars, managers, and policy makers are explored

Stratigraphic and sedimentologic analysis of the (Upper Mississippian) lower Newark Valley sequence, Diamond Range, Eureka and White Pine Counties, Nevada

Online access for this thesis was created in part with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) administered by the Nevada State Library, Archives and Public Records through the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA). To obtain a high quality image or document please contact the DeLaMare Library at https://unr.libanswers.com/ or call: 775-784-6945.The Newark Valley sequence is the upper of two Mississippian tectonostratigraphic units recognized within the Diamond Mountains of east- central Nevada. These rocks comprise part of the (Upper Mississippian) Diamond Peak Formation and (Pennsylvanian) Ely Limestone. Seven depositional facies are recognized from the lower siliciclastic portion of the Newark Valley sequence. These include the braided fluvial, meandering fluvial, delta plain, delta front, prodelta, shallow-marine carbonate and shallow-marine siliciclastic facies. Facies trends within a north-south cross- section of the lower Newark Valley sequence exhibit a thinning of alluvial deposits toward the south complemented by a decrease in thickness of shallow marine carbonate deposits toward the north. Paleocurrent trends indicate a dominant southeast flow direction accompanied by a subordinate northeast direction. Provenance studies reveal a marked shift in plagioclase content between the Newark Valley sequence and the underlying Diamond Range sequence. The evolution of this sequence is marked by six depositional stages including two siliclastic progradations and three carbonate transgressions. These stages indicate that Late Mississippian tectonism played a significant role in the formation of the basin in which the Newark Valley sequence was deposited

Discovery of biomarkers for glycaemic deterioration before and after the onset of type 2 diabetes: descriptive characteristics of the epidemiological studies within the IMI DIRECT Consortium

Aims/hypothesis: Here, we describe the characteristics of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) Diabetes Research on Patient Stratification (DIRECT) epidemiological cohorts at baseline and follow-up examinations (18, 36 and 48 months of follow-up). Methods: From a sampling frame of 24,682 adults of European ancestry enrolled in population-based cohorts across Europe, participants at varying risk of glycaemic deterioration were identified using a risk prediction algorithm (based on age, BMI, waist circumference, use of antihypertensive medication, smoking status and parental history of type 2 diabetes) and enrolled into a prospective cohort study (n = 2127) (cohort 1, prediabetes risk). We also recruited people from clinical registries with type 2 diabetes diagnosed 6-24 months previously (n = 789) into a second cohort study (cohort 2, diabetes). Follow-up examinations took place at ~18 months (both cohorts) and at ~48 months (cohort 1) or ~36 months (cohort 2) after baseline examinations. The cohorts were studied in parallel using matched protocols across seven clinical centres in northern Europe. Results: Using ADA 2011 glycaemic categories, 33% (n = 693) of cohort 1 (prediabetes risk) had normal glucose regulation and 67% (n = 1419) had impaired glucose regulation. Seventy-six per cent of participants in cohort 1 was male. Cohort 1 participants had the following characteristics (mean ± SD) at baseline: age 62 (6.2) years; BMI 27.9 (4.0) kg/m2; fasting glucose 5.7 (0.6) mmol/l; 2 h glucose 5.9 (1.6) mmol/l. At the final follow-up examination the participants' clinical characteristics were as follows: fasting glucose 6.0 (0.6) mmol/l; 2 h OGTT glucose 6.5 (2.0) mmol/l. In cohort 2 (diabetes), 66% (n = 517) were treated by lifestyle modification and 34% (n = 272) were treated with metformin plus lifestyle modification at enrolment. Fifty-eight per cent of participants in cohort 2 was male. Cohort 2 participants had the following characteristics at baseline: age 62 (8.1) years; BMI 30.5 (5.0) kg/m2; fasting glucose 7.2 (1.4) mmol/l; 2 h glucose 8.6 (2.8) mmol/l. At the final follow-up examination, the participants' clinical characteristics were as follows: fasting glucose 7.9 (2.0) mmol/l; 2 h mixed-meal tolerance test glucose 9.9 (3.4) mmol/l. Conclusions/interpretation: The IMI DIRECT cohorts are intensely characterised, with a wide-variety of metabolically relevant measures assessed prospectively. We anticipate that the cohorts, made available through managed access, will provide a powerful resource for biomarker discovery, multivariate aetiological analyses and reclassification of patients for the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes.This article is freely available via Open Access. Click on the Publisher URL to access it via the publisher's site.This work was supported by the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking under grant agreement no. 115317 (DIRECT), resources of which are composed of financial contribution from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) and EFPIA companies in kind contribution. RWK was funded by a STAR Award Novo Nordisk co-financed PhD fellowship. The work undertaken by PWF was supported in part by programme grants from the ERC-2015-CoG_NASCENT_681742 and the Swedish Research Council; strategic funding for Lund University Diabetes Centre, where some of the work described herein was performed, was provided by the Swedish Research Council, Strategic Research Area Exodiab, (Dnr 2009-1039), the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (IRC15-0067), the Swedish Research Council, Linnaeus grant (Dnr 349-2006-237). EP holds a Wellcome Trust Investigator award (grant reference 102820/Z/13/Z). Contributions to this work by SBru. were co-financed by the Novo Nordisk Foundation (grants NNF17OC0027594 and NNF14CC0001).published version, accepted version (12 month embargo), submitted versio

A new method for imaging nuclear threats using cosmic ray muons

Muon tomography is a technique that uses cosmic ray muons to generate three dimensional images of volumes using information contained in the Coulomb scattering of the muons. Advantages of this technique are the ability of cosmic rays to penetrate significant overburden and the absence of any additional dose delivered to subjects under study above the natural cosmic ray flux. Disadvantages include the relatively long exposure times and poor position resolution and complex algorithms needed for reconstruction. Here we demonstrate a new method for obtaining improved position resolution and statistical precision for objects with spherical symmetry