An empirical study of advertised retail meat prices in a metropolitan area

Includes vita.The major portion of all food items is ultimately sold through retail outlets, most of which are large supermarkets. Since market conduct in food retailing notably affects social welfare, it warrants empirical examination. Retail food pricing and advertising behavior is of perennial interest to consumers and economists. Several studies in the past have examined various aspects of advertising and pricing behavior of food retailers. This study differs from most of the previous studies in giving a very intensive coverage of the meat counter. The study included virtually all beef, pork, poultry and lunch meat items. It was, however, concentrated solely on advertised meat prices of all major retail chains and affiliates in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Weekly data for the advertised meat prices from different firms were obtained for a total of thirteen (1960-72) years by consulting the appropriate newspaper files in the Missouri Historical Society Library. The primary objectives of this study were to determine the nature of merchandising behavior in the retail meat business and to examine the various aspects of advertising and pricing patterns developed by stores over time, insofar as these are revealed by their newspaper advertising. Regression analysis and nonparametric tests were used as analytical techniques to test various hypothesis. Findings of this study indicated that, none of the stores had a fixed specie advertising pattern through 1960-72. In other words they have been changing their proportional advertising emphasis put on various species of meat from one sample period to another. Furthermore, neither these changes had any systematic pattern over time nor did they have any systematic response to the changes in proportional share of different species in per capita supply of meat. It was found that each store had a tendency to follow the advertising pattern practiced by it during the immediate past, whereas over the long run they tend to reshuffle the mix of items going into their ads. Furthermore, it was observed that national chains have been advertising a significantly greater number of items than affiliates. Similarly they seem to advertise those items more frequently than affiliates. On the other hand, local chains have been advertising the largest array of items, and almost as frequently as national chains. Most of national chains, affiliates and regional chains have been putting significantly greater advertising emphasis on high price elastic cuts of pork. On the other hand, local chains have been putting significantly more advertising emphasis on less price elastic cuts of pork. The among-store price variances were not homogeneous over time for any of the twenty items included in the analysis. Therefore, due to this heterogeneity of variance over time, it was not possible to make any forecast about the range of prices within which different items would be advertised by retailers in the future. Similarly, it was found that there were more variations among the store prices of high price items than among low price ones. It was found that the advertised prices of whole and cut-up fryers relative to their wholesale prices have not changed significantly over time. However, the advertised prices of beef and pork items in the sample relative to their respective wholesale prices have shown a significant increase over time. Finally, it was observed that, in a St. Louis metropolitan area, there has been a significant increase in the consumers' preference (as interpreted by retailers through their advertised prices) for first cut pork chops relative to pork steak, shank portion and butt portion hams.Includes bibliographical references

Utilization and Satisfaction of Library Services by the Users of Sikkim Manipal Institute of Medical Sciences (SMIMS), Gangtok, India: a study

Purpose: The purpose of this study was conducted to find out the realistic about the user’s utilization and satisfaction level of Central library of Sikkim Manipal Institute of Medical Sciences (SMIMS), Gangtok, Sikkim, India. The user’s satisfaction of a library totally depends upon the utilization of library resources and services. Methodology: For the required queries a questionnaire was prepared for the present study and it was distributed among 120 SMIMS students randomly. Findings: The study exposed that students use the library for browsing e-resources and borrow books as per their need. From the students responses it was clear that users give preferences on accessing e-resources than printed material. Research Limitations: The present study is limited only for the students of the particular medical institution. The students were selected from different disciplines i.e. medical science, nursing and physiotherapy. Though faculties also use the library along with the students of this institution yet the research survey was limited for the students only. Practical Implications: Users were satisfied by using the library services like e-resources accessing, printing & photocopying service, DDS service, SMS alert service etc. Above these services the respondents recommended for digitization of the central library for the better utilization of library services as new information and communication technology are developing day by day so it should be implemented for best practices. Originality: This is the original study as it is absolutely based on primary data from student’s survey. Some additional data are also collected personally from the library staff to know the better utilization of library services

Radiation pressure torque and computational attitude modelling of space debris

Human space activity in the past 50 years has led to a plethora of man-made space debris which pose an imminent threat to global space operations. The current models of space debris orbits are not sufficient for detailed orbit prediction or for accurate tracking. This uncertainty manifests itself in Conjunction Analysis (CA) with active spacecraft, which leads to excessive orbital manoeuvres which are both expensive and reduce the lifetime of satellites. Advances in orbit modelling will lead to better prediction of debris orbits and reduce the need for collision avoidance manoeuvres, as well as minimising the future pollution of the space environment through collisions. Most existing methods for analysing the orbits of space debris do not take into account the effects of tumbling, and the attitude-dependent nonconservative forces are generally neglected. This study models the torques and attitude motion of uncontrolled man-made objects in orbit about the Earth, which tumble due to a combination of natural influences of the near-Earth space environment and initial angular momentum acquired during debris formation. The modelling of space debris is a relatively new field and represents a huge new area of research. The two main branches of this thesis are (a) modelling the torques that induce spin for objects in orbit, and (b) modelling the effect of certain attitude-dependent non-conservative forces on spinning objects in orbit. The main torque modelled in this study is solar radiation pressure (SRP). Simulations of the radiation-induced torques are performed and the main mechanisms that lead to the tumbling of uncontrolled objects are analysed. A novel method of presenting attitude-dependent forces and torques on space objects, dubbed ”Torque Maps”, is presented. Radiation torques are caused by optical geometric asymmetry and can lead to oscillatory and secular changes in attitude. They are computed for one of the largest objects in orbit: Envisat, a defunct satellite with complex geometry. Further to these, simulations of objects spinning in orbit are used to calculate the effect of tumbling on orbital motion. The results show that the effects of nonconservative forces on tumbling objects lead to both periodic and secular variations in their orbital elements. This is contrary to previously popular assumption. Additionally, ideas for utilising modern developments in nanosatellite technology for validation of orbit prediction models are presented and calculations of the Lorentz force and its effect for uncontrolled objects are given

Physician’s perspective towards ICT application in the central library of NEIGRIHMS, Meghalaya, India: a study

The present study revealed about the physicians perspective towards ICT application in the central library of NEIGRIHMS, Meghalaya. Medical library has been developing day by day in this technological epoch. The present study was limited only for physicians both in clinical and non clinical sections. The study was conducted by simple random sampling and data were collected by using questionnaire method from the physicians. It was noticed that 85% respondents provided responses and the received responses were analyzed and tabulated in various sections. The findings showed that physicians purpose of library usages, their attitude, impact of ICT, techniques for searching e-resources, difficulties in using the library & satisfaction level etc. The role of medical librarian is very crucial for dissemination of advanced library services in this digital environment. Physicians retrieved the recent information relating biomedical science field with the help of emerging e-resources, medical library databases & consortium. The study will help to know the ICT impact in the library and its effectiveness among the medical fraternity of NEIGRIHMS in Meghalaya state

Prompting Audios Using Acoustic Properties For Emotion Representation

Emotions lie on a continuum, but current models treat emotions as a finite valued discrete variable. This representation does not capture the diversity in the expression of emotion. To better represent emotions we propose the use of natural language descriptions (or prompts). In this work, we address the challenge of automatically generating these prompts and training a model to better learn emotion representations from audio and prompt pairs. We use acoustic properties that are correlated to emotion like pitch, intensity, speech rate, and articulation rate to automatically generate prompts i.e. 'acoustic prompts'. We use a contrastive learning objective to map speech to their respective acoustic prompts. We evaluate our model on Emotion Audio Retrieval and Speech Emotion Recognition. Our results show that the acoustic prompts significantly improve the model's performance in EAR, in various Precision@K metrics. In SER, we observe a 3.8% relative accuracy improvement on the Ravdess dataset.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2211.0773

Evaluation of Efficacy and Safety of Fixed Dose Lovastatin and NiacinER Combination in Asian Indian Dyslipidemic Patients: A Multicentric Study

Asian Indian dyslipidemia is characterized by: borderline high low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and apolipoprotein (apo) B; high triglycerides, low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and apoA1; and high lipoprotein(a) (lp[a]). We performed a controlled multicentric trial in India to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a fixed dose combination of lovastatin and niacin extended release (niacinER) formulation in patients with moderate to severe dyslipidemia. Consecutive subjects that satisfied the selection criteria, agreed to an informed consent, and with no baseline presence of liver/renal disease or heart failure were enrolled in the study. After a 4-week run-in period there were 142 patients with LDL levels ≥130 mg/dL. Eleven patients were excluded because of uncontrolled hyperglycemia and 131 patients were recruited. After baseline evaluation of clinical and biochemical parameters all subjects were administered lovastatin (20 mg) and niacinER (500 mg) combination once daily. Dose escalation was done on basis of lipid parameters at 8 weeks and in 11 patients increased to lovastatin (20 mg) and niacinER (1000 mg). An intention-to-treat analysis was performed and data was analyzed using nonparametric Wilcoxon signed rank test. Thirteen patients (10%) were lost to follow-up and 4 (3%) withdrew because of dermatological adverse effects: flushing, pruritus, and rash. The mean values of various lipid parameters (mg/dL) at baseline, and at weeks 4, 12, and 24 respectively were: total cholesterol 233.9 ± 27, 206.3 ± 27, 189.8 ± 31, and 174.9 ± 27 mg/dL; LDL cholesterol 153.4 ± 22, 127.3 ± 21, 109.2 ± 27, and 95.1 ± 23 mg/dL; triglycerides 171.1 ± 72, 159.5 ± 75, 149.2 ± 45, and 135.2 ± 40 mg/dL; HDL cholesterol 45.6 ± 7, 48.9 ± 7, 51.6 ± 9, and 53.9 ± 10 mg/dL; lp(a) 48.5 ± 26, 40.1 ± 21, 35.4 ± 21, and 26.9 ± 19 mg/dL; and apoA1/apoB ratio 0.96 ± 0.7, 1.04 ± 0.4, 1.17 ± 0.5, and 1.45 ± 0.5 (p < 0.01). The percentage of decline in various lipids at 4, 12, and 24 weeks was: total cholesterol 11.8%, 18.8%, and 25.2%; LDL cholesterol 17.0%, 28.8%, and 38.0%; triglyceride 6.8%, 12.8%, and 21.0%; lp(a) 17.5%, 26.9%, and 44.5% respectively (p < 0.01). HDL cholesterol and apoA1/apoB increased by 7.2%, 13.1%, and 18.2%; and 7.9%, 21.9%, and 51.6% respectively (p < 0.01). Target LDL levels (<100 mg/dL in subjects with manifest coronary heart disease or diabetes; <130 mg/dL in subjects with >2 risk factors) were achieved in 92 (80.7%) patients. No significant changes were observed in systolic or diastolic blood pressure, blood creatinine, transaminases, or creatine kinase. A fixed dose combination of lovastatin and niacinER significantly improved cholesterol lipoprotein lipids as well as lp(a) and apoA1/apoB levels in Asian Indian dyslipidemic patients. Satisfactory safety and tolerability profile in this population was also demonstrated