The Anatomy of an International Fashion Retailer – The Giorgio Armani Group

Of all the international retailers, luxury fashion retailers are typically the most prolific as measured by the number and diversity of foreign markets in which they operate. Furthermore, for most, the contribution of foreign sales to total sales is equal to, if not greater than, that achieved by the most active international retailers (Moore & Fernie 2004). Yet, while the significance of the luxury fashion retailers’ foreign activities is now acknowledged in the international retailing literature, there have been calls for more in-depth, company specific appraisals of the strategies adopted by such firms (Doherty 2000; Moore, Birtwistle & Burt 2004). Doherty (2000) has argued in particular that further case study research in the area of fashion retailer internationalisation would provide much needed insights into the apparatus that supports their international success

Scientific reasoning abilities of non-science majors in physics-based courses

We have found that non-STEM majors taking either a conceptual physics or astronomy course at two regional comprehensive institutions score significantly lower pre-instruction on the Lawson's Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning (LCTSR) in comparison to national average STEM majors. The majority of non-STEM students can be classified as either concrete operational or transitional reasoners in Piaget's theory of cognitive development, whereas in the STEM population formal operational reasoners are far more prevalent. In particular, non-STEM students demonstrate significant difficulty with proportional and hypothetico-deductive reasoning. Pre-scores on the LCTSR are correlated with normalized learning gains on various concept inventories. The correlation is strongest for content that can be categorized as mostly theoretical, meaning a lack of directly observable exemplars, and weakest for content categorized as mostly descriptive, where directly observable exemplars are abundant. Although the implementation of research-verified, interactive engagement pedagogy can lead to gains in content knowledge, significant gains in theoretical content (such as force and energy) are more difficult with non-STEM students. We also observe no significant gains on the LCTSR without explicit instruction in scientific reasoning patterns. These results further demonstrate that differences in student populations are important when comparing normalized gains on concept inventories, and the achievement of significant gains in scientific reasoning requires a re-evaluation of the traditional approach to physics for non-STEM students.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, 3 table

The Symmetric Group Defies Strong Fourier Sampling

The dramatic exponential speedups of quantum algorithms over their best existing classical counterparts were ushered in by the technique of Fourier sampling, introduced by Bernstein and Vazirani and developed by Simon and Shor into an approach to the hidden subgroup problem. This approach has proved successful for abelian groups, leading to efficient algorithms for factoring, extracting discrete logarithms, and other number-theoretic problems. We show, however, that this method cannot resolve the hidden subgroup problem in the symmetric groups, even in the weakest, information-theoretic sense. In particular, we show that the Graph Isomorphism problem cannot be solved by this approach. Our work implies that any quantum approach based upon the measurement of coset states must depart from the original framework by using entangled measurements on multiple coset states

Are stellar-mass black-hole binaries too quiet for LISA?

The progenitors of the high-mass black-hole mergers observed by LIGO and Virgo are potential LISA sources and promising candidates for multiband GW observations. In this letter, we consider the minimum signal-to-noise ratio these sources must have to be detected by LISA. Our revised threshold of $\rho_{\rm thr}\sim 15$ is higher than previous estimates, which significantly reduces the expected number of events. We also point out the importance of the detector performance at high-frequencies and the duration of the LISA mission, which both influence the event rate substantially.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. Published in MNRAS letters. DOI 10.1093/mnrasl/slz10