Bring me my Meal on your Wheel - An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Food Delivery Platforms on Local Restaurant Employment

Food delivery platforms have become an established part of the urban dining culture, but their success is reliant upon gig workers. While prior research has uncovered substantial socioeconomic consequences associated with the platform economy, little is known about how delivery platforms affect local employment. Using a quasi-experimental research design, this paper explores the impact of the spatiotemporal market entry of Grubhub, Postmates, DoorDash, and UberEats on local restaurant employment. Expanding upon prior theoretical work, our analysis suggests that the entry of delivery platforms does not affect restaurants’ demand, as the number of food preparation-related workers remain unchanged. However, as those platforms fundamentally reduce the number of dine-in service workers, we find an overall negative impact on local restaurant employment, which is only partially compensated for by an increase in gig workers (i.e., delivery drivers). Our findings inform policy makers and the restaurant industry on the macroeconomic impact of such platforms

Heart over Heels? An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between Emotions and Review Helpfulness for Experience and Credence Goods

According to current scholarly and practitioner thinking, one way of enhancing the perceived helpfulness of reviews is by encouraging the use of emotional language. Yet, studies on review helpfulness have paid little attention to studying this effect as it applies to different product types, namely experience and credence goods. Using data from amazon.com, we conduct an empirical test using a natural language understanding algorithm. Our results suggest that for both experience and credence goods, fear, joy, and sadness are correlated with an increase in review helpfulness, whereas anger is negatively correlated with it. These emotions are perceived as more helpful for experience goods than for credence goods

Wirksamkeit von kognitiver Stimulationstheorie auf die Kognition bei Menschen mit Demenz: systematische Literaturübersicht

Die demographische Entwicklung zeigt einen deutlichen Anstieg des Anteils älterer Menschen. Mit steigendem Alter treten vermehrt Krankheiten auf. Die Prävalenz von Demenz beläuft sich weltweit auf 35,6 Millionen. Diese Zahl wird sich bis zum Jahr 2030 verdoppeln und im Jahr 2050 mehr als verdreifachen. Als erste Krankheitszeichen der Demenz lassen sich folgende beschreiben: Beeinträchtigung der Kognition, Aufmerksamkeitsstörungen, Unsicherheit, sozialer Rückzug oder depressive Verstimmtheit. Um den Betroffenen zu unterstützen, ist eine medikamentöse Therapie mit Antidementiva unerlässlich. Allerdings ist es schwer, das Medikament zu finden, welches zu der individuellen Demenzerkrankung passt. Dies gelingt nur in 10 - 20% aller Fälle. Komplementäre Therapien nehmen an Bedeutung zu. Diese können kosteneffizienter sein als medikamentöse Therapieansätze und signifikant zur Erhaltung der Kognition beitragen. Kognitive Stimulationstherapie (CST) stellt eine klinische und evidenzbasierte Intervention dar, welche in der Pflegepraxis praktiziert wird. Bis anhin existiert keine deutsche systematische Übersichtsarbeit zu der vorliegenden Thematik

Dear Guests, Please Pay for my License – Analyzing the Heterogenous Cost-Pass-Through of Commercial and Non-Commercial Rental Suppliers in Response to Regulatory Policies

Peer-to-peer rental markets have been shown to adversely impact the traditional hospitality industry and housing affordability, fueling the demand for regulation. While localities have implemented policies to address these issues, little is known about how rental suppliers respond to those regulations. Analyzing a policy implemented in New Orleans, which introduced annual bring-to-market costs while simultaneously banning listings from one city-center neighborhood, we reveal that hosts increase their prices as a result of the policy. We show that non-commercial hosts completely pass their additional costs onto their consumers. By contrast, commercial hosts with legalized listings located in the city center only partially pass on their costs to their guests, while decreasing prices in the rest of the city. Our results indicate that the policy falls short of reducing pressure on housing affordability in the city center, as peer-to-peer renting remains attractive when bring-to-market costs can easily be passed through to consumers

Gen- und Proteinexpressionsanalyse von 2D- und 3D-differenzierten alveolaren Epithelzellen aus humanen induzierten pluripotenten Stammzellen (hiPSCs)

Lungenerkrankungen sind die weltweit zweithäufigste Todesursache. Zur Entwicklung neuer Therapiemöglichkeiten werden aussagekräftige Testsysteme benötigt. Human-relevante, physio- logische In-vitro-Modelle für die Lunge können beispielsweise aus humanen induzierten pluripo- tenten Stammzellen (hiPSCs) generiert werden. Die Herstellung alveolarer Epithelzellen aus hiPSCs für den Einsatz in der präklinischen Medikamentenentwicklung erfordert die Entwicklung und Optimierung robuster und reproduzierbarer Differenzierungsstrategien, da die Zellen in einer industriell relevanten und reproduzierbaren Quantität und Qualität zur Verfügung stehen müssen. Aus diesem Grund war die Zielsetzung dieser Arbeit, eine geeignete Strategie zur Differenzierung alveolarer Epithelzellen aus hiPSCs für ihren Einsatz in der präklinischen Forschung zu identifi- zieren. Zur Erreichung des Ziels wurden die planare, statische 2D- und die dynamische Bioreaktor-basierte 3D-Differenzierung als potentielle Methoden ausgewählt und verglichen. Da die alveolare Differenzierung ein komplexer Prozess aus fünf aufeinanderfolgenden Stufen darstellt, wurden Gen- und Proteinexpressionsanalysen relevanter Marker in jeder Differenzierungsstufe ver- gleichend zwischen 2D und 3D durchgeführt, um die Eignung der Kulturbedingungen für die Simulation der embryonalen Lungenentwicklung in vitro zu prüfen. Dabei wurde sowohl auf gesunde, als auch genetisch veränderte hiPSC-Linien zurückgegriffen und anhand dieser die Robustheit und Übertragbarkeit der Methoden auch für Krankheitsmodelle (am Beispiel Cystische Fibrose) demonstiert. Mit dem in dieser Arbeit entwickelten, uniformen Differenzierungsprotokoll konnte gezeigt werden, dass sowohl die 2D-, als auch die 3D-Differenzierung geeignet ist, alveolare Epithelzellen aus hiPSC für die präklinische Forschung zu generieren. Es konnte zudem gezeigt werden, dass deutliche Unterschiede zwischen 2D und 3D in der Gen- und Protein- expression in den frühen Differenzierungsstufen auftreten, sich diese in fortschreitenden Entwicklungsstufen abschwächen und letztlich auf die Reife der resultierenden alveolaren Epithelzellen keinen Einfluss nehmen. Am aktuellen Krankheits- und Forschungsbeispiel COVID-19 konnte demonstriert werden, dass die aus beiden Differenzierungsstrategien stammenden alveolaren Epithelzellen für Infektionsstudien mit SARS-CoV-2 genutzt werden können. Zudem wurde in dieser Arbeit ein geeigneter Zeitpunkt zur Kryokonservierung von 2D-differenzierten Lungenvorläuferzellen identifiziert, um die zukünftige Aufbewahrung und Verkürzung der Differenzierung in alveolare Epithelzellen zu ermöglichen.Lung diseases rank the second place of the global leading causes of mortality. In order to tackle pulmonary diseases and to find new therapeutic options, it is necessary to focus on the development of physiological relevant in vitro lung models. Human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived alveolar epithelial cells (AECs) are promising tools for pharmaceutical in vitro screening. With regard to the required quality and quantities for industrial application, the development of reproducible and robust differentiation processes is demanded. For this reason, the overall goal of this work was the identification of suitable strategies for the differentiation of AECs for their application in preclinical research. To achieve this goal, the planar, static 2D- and the dynamic bioreacor-based 3D-differentiation have been pursued and compared as potential methods. Since the alveolar differentiation is a complex process consisting of five consecutive stages, comparative gene and protein expression analysis between 2D and 3D have been performed in order to test the suitability of the methods to simulate the embryonal lung development in vitro. Healthy as well as genetically modified hiPSC-lines have been used to prove the robustness and transferability of the methods even for disease models as for Cystic Fibrosis. With the uniform differentiation protocol, which has been developed within the scope of this work, it could be demonstrated, that the 2D- as well as 3D-differentiation method are suitable to generate AECs for preclinical research applications. It could be shown, that significant differences in the gene and protein expression between 2D and 3D occur at early differentiation stages and mitigate at later developmental stages, thus not influencing the quality of the resulting AECs in the end. By the current example of COVID-19, AECs generated within both methods were successfully demonstrated to recapitulate the infection with SARS-CoV-2 at a physiological manner. Moreover, an appropriate time point for the cryopreservation of 2D-differentiated lung progenitor cells has been identified to enable the storage and shorter differentiation time of AECs for preclinical applications in future

High-Resolution Replication Profiles Define the Stochastic Nature of Genome Replication Initiation and Termination

Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Efficient fluorescence of alkali metal carbazolides

The sterically demanding 1,8-bis(3,5-ditertbutylphenyl)-3,6-di-tert-butylcarbazole ($^{dtbp}$Cbz)–H is deprotonated with various metal bases to obtain a complete series of thermally robust alkali metal compounds of the type [($^{dtbp}$Cbz)M] (M = Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs). These carbazolides can either be solely coordinated by carbazole ligands (1a–5a) or bear additional toluene ligands (1b–5b). In the cases of [($^{dtbp}$Cbz)Li] (1a), [($^{dtbp}$Cbz)K] (3a) and [($^{dtbp}$Cbz)Rb] (4a), monomeric species were identified by single crystal XRD. Additionally, a carbazolide anion was incorporated into [NBu$_{4}$][$^{dtbp}$Cbz] (6). All compounds were strongly luminescent, so PL and PLE measurements were conducted, revealing emissions in the range of 460–580 nm. The excited states possess a lifetime of up to 21 ns, so fluorescence phenomena were observed. Quantum yields at ambient temperature were measured up to 29% in the solid state and up to 100% in solution. In the series of 1a–4a, the emission maxima shift to higher energy as the alkaline earth metal cation becomes heavier, and the lifetimes of the excited state decrease. The Cs compounds show low quantum yields and lifetimes of the excited state

Estimating the abundance of common dolphins on the southern coast of South Africa

Sightings made on an aerial survey in December 1982 and on a ship-based survey in January/February 1983 have been used to assess the size of the population of common dolphins (Delphinus capensis) occurring over the continental shelf south of South Africa. Thirteen sightings (12 primary) were made in 2,445.7 n. miles flown on the aerial survey and 10 sightings (6 primary) in 1,772.2 n. miles steamed on the ship-based survey. Sightings and effort in both surveys have been stratified by water depth (0-100 m, 100- 200 m) and geographical region (west coast, south coast). Because of difficulties in accurately estimating the size of schools in this highly gregarious species, numbers of individuals were counted in composite aerial photographs taken of the school. Radial distance and angle estimates to sightings from the ship were smeared to allow for estimation errors. Assuming g(0) = 1.0, both data sets resulted in roughly similar estimates of the number of schools (52-58 for aerial, 40-59 for ship-based across a range of sensitivity tests), but mean school size estimates differed significantly (454 SE 90 for aerial, 159 SE 27 for ship-based). As the aerial estimates were based on counts of animals in composite vertical photographs, they are considered more reliable than the ship-based estimates that were made from a lower vantage point and at a greater angle. Given the small number of primary sightings on each survey, it was considered preferable to produce a combined estimate using school density estimates from both surveys weighted by their inverse variances but applying the mean school size from the aircraft. The resultant population estimate of 49 schools (CV = 0.29) and 22200 individuals (CV = 0.35) is discussed in relation to known or estimated incidental mortalities in South African waters