Trust in the US-EU fruit and vegetable chain: Do US exporters understand EU importers?

Research on organizational and inter organizational trust has become an important field in management and marketing literature, as it is perceived as a pivotal aspect of business transactions. However, clarifications are still needed on the issue of whom we trust; is the person whom we are trading with trusted, or the organization, or just the product‐quality? Not only has this question not been answered within this field of research, neither have cultural differences have been described to any great extent. Additionally, if the perceived factors important to establish trusting relationships may or may not be the same on the buyers and the sellers side in international business transaction in food chains. The primary objective of this research study therefore is to identify how well US exporters understand the elements of trust that establish strong relationships with EU importers. The Analytical Hierarchy Process was used to evaluate the importance of different trust elements in interviews conducted with US exporters and EU importers of fruits and vegetables. Results are compared, providing both a picture of the important facets of trust, as well as whether the partners understand the perspectives of the other partner

Anisotropic Bose-Einstein condensates and completely integrable dynamical systems

A Gaussian ansatz for the wave function of two-dimensional harmonically trapped anisotropic Bose-Einstein condensates is shown to lead, via a variational procedure, to a coupled system of two second-order, nonlinear ordinary differential equations. This dynamical system is shown to be in the general class of Ermakov systems. Complete integrability of the resulting Ermakov system is proven. Using the exact solution, collapse of the condensate is analyzed in detail. Time-dependence of the trapping potential is allowed

High-Resolution Imaging of Molecular Gas and Dust in the Antennae (NGC 4038/39): Super Giant Molecular Complexes

We present new aperture synthesis CO maps of the Antennae (NGC 4038/39) obtained with the Caltech Millimeter Array. These sensitive images show molecular emission associated with the two nuclei and a partial ring of star formation to the west of NGC 4038, as well as revealing the large extent of the extra-nuclear region of star formation (the ``overlap region''), which dominates the CO emission from this system. The largest molecular complexes have masses of 3-6x10^8 M_sun, typically an order of magnitude larger than the largest structures seen to date in more quiescent galaxy disks. The extremely red luminous star clusters identified previously with HST are well-correlated with the CO emission, which supports the conclusion that they are highly embedded young objects rather than old globular clusters. There is an excellent correlation between the CO emission and the 15 micron emission seen with ISO, particularly for the brightest regions. The most massive complexes in the overlap region have similar [NeIII]/[NeII] ratios, which implies that all these regions are forming many massive stars. However, only the brightest mid-infrared peak shows strong, rising continuum emission longward of 10 microns, indicative of very small dust grains heated to high temperatures by their proximity to nearby luminous stars. Since these grains are expected to be removed rapidly from the immediate environment of the massive stars, it is possible that this region contains very young (< 1 Myr) sites of star formation. Alternatively, fresh dust grains could be driven into the sphere of influence of the massive stars, perhaps by the bulk motions of two giant molecular complexes. The kinematics and morphology of the CO emission in this region provide some support for this second scenario.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, 13 pages, 5 figures, higher quality color images available at http://www.astro.cornell.edu/staff/vassilis/papers/ngc4038_co.ps.g

Beam Orientation Optimization for Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy using Adaptive l1 Minimization

Beam orientation optimization (BOO) is a key component in the process of IMRT treatment planning. It determines to what degree one can achieve a good treatment plan quality in the subsequent plan optimization process. In this paper, we have developed a BOO algorithm via adaptive l_1 minimization. Specifically, we introduce a sparsity energy function term into our model which contains weighting factors for each beam angle adaptively adjusted during the optimization process. Such an energy term favors small number of beam angles. By optimizing a total energy function containing a dosimetric term and the sparsity term, we are able to identify the unimportant beam angles and gradually remove them without largely sacrificing the dosimetric objective. In one typical prostate case, the convergence property of our algorithm, as well as the how the beam angles are selected during the optimization process, is demonstrated. Fluence map optimization (FMO) is then performed based on the optimized beam angles. The resulted plan quality is presented and found to be better than that obtained from unoptimized (equiangular) beam orientations. We have further systematically validated our algorithm in the contexts of 5-9 coplanar beams for 5 prostate cases and 1 head and neck case. For each case, the final FMO objective function value is used to compare the optimized beam orientations and the equiangular ones. It is found that, our BOO algorithm can lead to beam configurations which attain lower FMO objective function values than corresponding equiangular cases, indicating the effectiveness of our BOO algorithm.Comment: 19 pages, 2 tables, and 5 figure

Interplay of size and Landau quantizations in the de Haas-van Alphen oscillations of metallic nanowires

We examine the interplay between size quantization and Landau quantization in the De Haas-Van Alphen oscillations of clean, metallic nanowires in a longitudinal magnetic field for `hard' boundary conditions, i.e. those of an infinite round well, as opposed to the `soft' parabolically confined boundary conditions previously treated in Alexandrov and Kabanov (Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 95}, 076601 (2005) (AK)). We find that there exist {\em two} fundamental frequencies as opposed to the one found in bulk systems and the three frequencies found by AK with soft boundary counditions. In addition, we find that the additional `magic resonances' of AK may be also observed in the infinite well case, though they are now damped. We also compare the numerically generated energy spectrum of the infinite well potential with that of our analytic approximation, and compare calculations of the oscillatory portions of the thermodynamic quantities for both models.Comment: Title changed, paper streamlined on suggestion of referrees, typos corrected, numerical error in figs 2 and 3 corrected and final result simplified -- two not three frequencies (as in the previous version) are observed. Abstract altered accordingly. Submitted to Physical Review

Anisotropic s-wave superconductivity in MgB_2

It has recently been observed that MgB_2 is a superconductor with a high transition temperature. Here we propose a model of anisotropic s-wave superconductivity which consistently describes the observed properties of this compound, including the thermodynamic and optical response in sintered MgB_2 wires. We also determine the shape of the quasiparticle density of states and the anisotropy of the upper critical field and the superfluid density which should be detectable once single-crystal samples become available.Comment: RevTex, 10 pages with 4 eps figure

Raising rivals' fixed costs

This paper analyses the strategic use of fixed costs to deter entry or monopolize a market in a standard Cournot framework. First of all a general case shows how the presence of fixed costs can affect the possible equilibria to the Cournot game. It is shown that the presence of a firm with a first-mover advantage can have important implications if fixed costs are raised. In addition the forward induction process becomes important in determining plausible equilibria. The use of firstly regulation and secondly ‘nuisance’ law-suits are considered as strategies to increase fixed costs