Confirming a Taxonomy of Decision Constructs in Business-to-Consumer Commercial Transactions

One might assume information systems (IS) are developed so systems enhance the user experience and facilitate a satisfying, productive interaction. From prior research, the authors established this assumption was not safe and certain design features amongst some online retailers were atypical of ‘good’ design elsewhere. It was apparent the transactional process was being used to present consumers with optional extras (and other decisions) that not only slowed the process down, but also stressed and agitated users. The research identified some new and unusual decision constructs such as the ‘must-opt’. The objective of the research presented herein is two-fold: to make an incremental contribution in first theorizing and then identifying and categorizing into a taxonomy some new decision constructs alongside established ones encountered throughout on-line Business-to-Consumer (B2C) transactional processes followed by a preliminary study confirming their existence

A Comparison of Wine Purchasing Behaviors in Ireland and California When the Celtic Tiger Roared

In 2006 the Irish wine market was growing rapidly along with its Celtic Tiger economy (Euromonitor, 2008). Total wine sales in Ireland more than quadrupled in the seventeen-year span from 1990 to 2007 (Geraghty and Torres, 2009). While wine consumption in Ireland was growing at a rapid rate, US consumption was growing, but at a slower rate. (Euromonitor, 2010). According to Moran, Ireland’s increased consumption of wine was due primarily to improved accessibility, affordability, and branding of wine. Geraghty and Torres conducted research in Galway Ireland in 2006 among 307 wine consumers and identified three clusters of wine consumers in Ireland: the casual wine buyer, the value seeking wine buyer, and the wine traditionalist (Geraghty , 2009). These clusters provided insight into the consumers behind the increase in wine consumption. The recent recession however, has caused the wine sector in Ireland to plummet (Euromonitor, 2010)

Warrant Enforcement in Louisville Metro and the City of St. Louis from 2006 2019: A Cross-site Analysis

This report describes and compares bench and fugitive warrant arrests in Jefferson County, Kentucky (hereinafter Louisville Metro) and the City of St. Louis, Missouri during the period 2006 to 2019. The report is based on two site-specific reports that focus on the individual jurisdictions (see "Warrant Arrests in the City of St. Louis: 2002 –2019" and "Examining Warrant Arrests in Jefferson County, Kentucky: 2006 to 2019" for additional details). The goal is to shed light on the enforcement of warrants, which are a large part of policing practice. This comparative approach provides insight into variability in the levels and nature of warrant arrests in communities with differing legal contexts and government structures. This report is a starting point to understand trends in warrant enforcement across two jurisdictions with similar social and economic landscapes. It is our hope that the findings are useful for stakeholders as they consider ways to make the criminal legal system more efficient and equitable.

Influence of Social Isolation During Prolonged Simulated Weightlessness by Hindlimb Unloading

The hindlimb unloading (HU) model has been used extensively to simulate the cephalad fluid shift and musculoskeletal disuse observed in spaceflight with its application expanding to study immune, cardiovascular and central nervous system responses, among others. Most HU studies are performed with singly housed animals, although social isolation also can substantially impact behavior and physiology, and therefore may confound HU experimental results. Other HU variants that allow for paired housing have been developed although no systematic assessment has been made to understand the effects of social isolation on HU outcomes. Hence, we aimed to determine the contribution of social isolation to tissue responses to HU. To accomplish this, we developed a refinement to the traditional NASA Ames single housing HU system to accommodate social housing in pairs, retaining desirable features of the original design. We conducted a 30-day HU experiment with adult, female mice that were either singly or socially housed. HU animals in both single and social housing displayed expected musculoskeletal deficits versus housing matched, normally loaded (NL) controls. However, select immune and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis responses were differentially impacted by the HU social environment relative to matched NL controls. HU led to a reduction in % CD4+ T cells in singly housed, but not in socially housed mice. Unexpectedly, HU increased adrenal gland mass in socially housed but not singly housed mice, while social isolation increased adrenal gland mass in NL controls. HU also led to elevated plasma corticosterone levels at day 30 in both singly and socially housed mice. Thus, musculoskeletal responses to simulated weightlessness are similar regardless of social environment with a few differences in adrenal and immune responses. Our findings show that combined stressors can mask, not only exacerbate, select responses to HU. These findings further expand the utility of the HU model for studying possible combined effects of spaceflight stressors

Role of Mitochondrial Oxidative Stress in Spaceflight-Induced Tissue Degeneration

Microgravity and ionizing radiation in the spaceflight environment poses multiple challenges to homeostasis and may contribute to cellular stress. Effects may include increased generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), DNA damage and repair error, cell cycle arrest, cell senescence or death. Our central hypothesis is that prolonged exposure to the spaceflight environment leads to the excess production of ROS and oxidative damage, culminating in accelerated tissue degeneration. The main goal of this project is to determine the importance of cellular redox defense for physiological adaptations and tissue degeneration in the space environment

A Pilot Study Identifying Brain-Targeting Adaptive Immunity in Pediatric Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Patients with Acquired Brain Injury

OBJECTIVES: Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation provides short-term cardiopulmonary life support, but is associated with peripheral innate inflammation, disruptions in cerebral autoregulation, and acquired brain injury. We tested the hypothesis that extracorporeal membrane oxygenation also induces CNS-directed adaptive immune responses which may exacerbate extracorporeal membrane oxygenation-associated brain injury. DESIGN: A single center prospective observational study. SETTING: Pediatric and cardiac ICUs at a single tertiary care, academic center. PATIENTS: Twenty pediatric extracorporeal membrane oxygenation patients (0-14 yr; 13 females, 7 males) and five nonextracorporeal membrane oxygenation Pediatric Logistic Organ Dysfunction score matched patients. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Venous blood samples were collected from the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation circuit at day 1 (10-23 hr), day 3, and day 7 of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Flow cytometry quantified circulating innate and adaptive immune cells, and CNS-directed autoreactivity was detected using an in vitro recall response assay. Disruption of cerebral autoregulation was determined using continuous bedside near-infrared spectroscopy and acquired brain injury confirmed by MRI. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation patients with acquired brain injury (n = 9) presented with a 10-fold increase in interleukin-8 over extracorporeal membrane oxygenation patients without brain injury (p \u3c 0.01). Furthermore, brain injury within extracorporeal membrane oxygenation patients potentiated an inflammatory phenotype in adaptive immune cells and selective autoreactivity to brain peptides in circulating B cell and cytotoxic T cell populations. Correlation analysis revealed a significant relationship between adaptive immune responses of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation patients with acquired brain injury and loss of cerebral autoregulation. CONCLUSIONS: We show that pediatric extracorporeal membrane oxygenation patients with acquired brain injury exhibit an induction of pro-inflammatory cell signaling, a robust activation of adaptive immune cells, and CNS-targeting adaptive immune responses. As these patients experience developmental delays for years after extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, it is critical to identify and characterize adaptive immune cell mechanisms that target the developing CNS

The Bathypelagic Biome of the Atlantic Ocean: Character and Ecological Discreteness of the Fish Fauna

Recent global synthetic analyses have revealed that marine taxonomic inventories are far from complete, nowhere more so than in the deep-pelagic ocean. At over a billion km3, it is the largest biome on Earth, yet only a tiny fraction of the biogeographic records include the bathypelagic fauna. This data gap served as the impetus for recent deepwater surveys, many of which have altered our perceptions of pelagic ecosystems. Here we examine data from four deep-pelagic (0-5000+ m) sampling programs in the Atlantic (60°N-25°S) in order to assess the character of bathypelagic fish communities with respect to faunal distinctiveness and ecological connectivity. Regions studied include the Gulf of Mexico, Sargasso 702 Sea, eastern North/South Atlantic, and mid-North Atlantic. Quantitative analyses give contrasting pictures with respect to faunal composition and ecosystem operation. The discreteness of the bathypelagic zone is exhibited faunistically by the suite of ―holobathypelagic‖ species found only below 1000 m, most of which are highly modified morphologically. Geometric abundance class analyses reveal that the character of relative species abundance distributions between the meso- and bathypelagic zones is fundamentally dissimilar; the former exhibit a much higher proportion of common species, while the latter exhibit a much higher percentage of rarer species. From a community energetics perspective, however, the bathy- and mesopelagic zones are highly interconnected. Approximately 70% of fish species collected below 1000 m are also found in the mesopelagic zone, and in the far North Atlantic, are also found in the epipelagial. These species comprised 66 to \u3e90% of individuals collected below 1000 m in the regions sampled. In the mid-North Atlantic, these species contribute to the unexpected water-column biomass maximum observed between 1500-2300 m. Thus, the ―transient‖ taxa (primarily mesopelagic migrators and spanner taxa) add considerably to the ichthyofaunal diversity of the world ocean below 1000 m, and appear to be the vectors that support the diverse array of holobathypelagic fishes whose taxonomic composition is dominated by piscivores. Data from the four regions studied suggests that classic pelagic biogeographic boundaries do not apply to bathypelagic realm, as shared species are the rule rather than the exception. Last, cumulative species curves suggest we are far from understanding the true complexity of the bathypelagic zone

Look before you leap: Comparison and profiles of hotel price determinants in four European markets

Pricing in the hospitality industry moves between adapting to a global demand and the need to manage locally. This double-edged challenge requires a managerial response based on flexibility and variety but one which is constrained by resources and competitive conditions. Since the sensitivity of each determinant may be different across types of hotels and countries, how hotel managers reach their compromises between determinants and countries remains an unsettled issue. Based on cross-nation methodology, we carry out a comparative analysis of price determinants from hotels in four main international tourist countries. The set of hypotheses developed are tested by estimating a quantile hedonic regression model with data from hotels in four countries. Results indicate that outcomes of pricing decisions differ by the country-of-operation, yielding a managerial profile per country. Also, the study estimates the contribution of the country to hotel pricing

Visualization and Quantification of Post-Stroke Neural Connectivity and Neuroinflammation Using Serial Two-Photon Tomography in the Whole Mouse Brain

Whole-brain volumetric microscopy techniques such as serial two-photon tomography (STPT) can provide detailed information on the roles of neuroinflammation and neuroplasticity throughout the whole brain post-stroke. STPT automatically generates high-resolution images of coronal sections of the entire mouse brain that can be readily visualized in three dimensions. We developed a pipeline for whole brain image analysis that includes supervised machine learning (pixel-wise random forest models via the “ilastik” software package) followed by registration to a standardized 3-D atlas of the adult mouse brain (Common Coordinate Framework v3.0; Allen Institute for Brain Science). These procedures allow the detection of cellular fluorescent signals throughout the brain in an unbiased manner. To illustrate our imaging techniques and automated image quantification, we examined long-term post-stroke motor circuit connectivity in mice that received a motor cortex photothrombotic stroke. Two weeks post-stroke, mice received intramuscular injections of pseudorabies virus (PRV-152), a trans-synaptic retrograde herpes virus driving expression of green fluorescent protein (GFP), into the affected contralesional forelimb to label neurons in descending tracts to the forelimb musculature. Mice were sacrificed 3 weeks post-stroke. We also quantified sub-acute neuroinflammation in the post-stroke brain in a separate cohort of mice following a 60 min transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (tMCAo). Naive e450+-labeled splenic CD8+ cytotoxic T cells were intravenously injected at 7, 24, 48, and 72 h post-tMCAo. Mice were sacrificed 4 days after stroke. Detailed quantification of post-stroke neural connectivity and neuroinflammation indicates a role for remote brain regions in stroke pathology and recovery. The workflow described herein, incorporating STPT and automated quantification of fluorescently labeled features of interest, provides a framework by which one can objectively evaluate labeled neuronal or lymphocyte populations in healthy and injured brains. The results provide region-specific quantification of neural connectivity and neuroinflammation, which could be a critical tool for investigating mechanisms of not only stroke recovery, but also a wide variety of brain injuries or diseases

Her9/Hes4 Is Required for Retinal Photoreceptor Development, Maintenance, and Survival

The intrinsic and extrinsic factors that regulate vertebrate photoreceptor specification and differentiation are complex, and our understanding of all the players is far from complete. Her9, the zebrafish ortholog of human HES4, is a basic helix-loop-helix-orange transcriptional repressor that regulates neurogenesis in several developmental contexts. We have previously shown that her9 is upregulated during chronic rod photoreceptor degeneration and regeneration in adult zebrafish, but little is known about the role of her9 during retinal development. To better understand the function of Her9 in the retina, we generated zebrafish her9 CRISPR mutants. Her9 homozygous mutants displayed striking retinal phenotypes, including decreased numbers of rods and red/green cones, whereas blue and UV cones were relatively unaffected. The reduction in rods and red/green cones correlated with defects in photoreceptor subtype lineage specification. The remaining rods and double cones displayed abnormal outer segments, and elevated levels of apoptosis. In addition to the photoreceptor defects, her9 mutants also possessed a reduced proliferative ciliary marginal zone, and decreased and disorganized Müller glia. Mutation of her9 was larval lethal, with no mutants surviving past 13 days post fertilization. Our results reveal a previously undescribed role for Her9/Hes4 in photoreceptor differentiation, maintenance, and survival