Exploration of the effect of smoking ban in catering places on wholesale sales for cigarettes, rolled tobacco and cigars in Norway

This Master thesis researches the relationship between implementation of the smoking ban in catering places and wholesale sales of tobacco products in Norway. It is assumed that along with the increase of taxes and price for tobacco, as well as rising population of snus, the ban should decrease sales of tobacco products significantly. The assumption has been tested by multiple and simple regression models. Regression models have been subdivided by the type of dependent variable and a span of one period. Dependent variables have been following: cigarette wholesales sales only; cigarette, rolled tobacco and cigar wholesale sales; and rolled tobacco and cigar wholesale sales. Span of one period has been one month in one type of models and six months (June-November, December-May) in another. Independent variables have been following: cigarette real CPI for the current, previous and following periods, tobacco real CPI for the current, previous and following periods, snus wholesale sales for the current period, and dummy variables for smoking ban in catering places and display ban for tobacco products. Results show significance of the ban in most simple regression models, but not in the multiple regression models. Thesis ends with the discussion of the results, other factors that may affect sales and consumption of tobacco, thesis limitations and suggestions for further researches

Court Review: Volume 43, Issue 4 – Mental Illness and the Courts: Some Reflections on Judges as Innovators

Issues raised by the influx of defendants with serious mental illnesses are some of the most important that criminal judges confront. Because of the volume of defendants with mental illnesses, the impact goes beyond that of the individual case and extends to jails, police and sheriff departments, the treatment system, and ultimately to the role of the judge. This article suggests some of the ways in which communities have attempted to respond to these issues, and highlights the fact that judges have become significant leaders as well as innovators in such efforts. Not every judge will decide to adopt one or more of these roles, but regardless, it is likely that the issues that mental illness creates for the criminal justice system will exist far into the future

The Adaptation of Management Consultant Profession from International Trends to Romanian Market Conditions

As a point of reference on the Romanian market for management consulting services, it can be stated that its evolution over the last years has suffered a positive impact, in principle, due to the relative overcoming of the period of economic recession. Of course, this does not mean that the situation of client companies is extremely favorable, because it is precisely this period of return and re-adjustment to market requirements that has led to cost cutting measures, including management consulting costs

On the flow of a thin liquid layer in an inclined channel of triangular transverse section driven by a surface tension gradient. Numerical and asymptotic analysis

In this paper we investigate the locally unidirectional flow of a thin liquid layer confined to an inclined channel driven simultaneously by a surface tension gradient

Calculation of the Wall Shear Stress in the case of an Internal Carotid Artery with stenoses of different sizes

In this paper we use a non-Newtonian mathematical model for the blood flow in large vessels – elaborated and presented already by us in a previous paper [1]. We calculate and than compare the values of the wall shear stress, which has a special importance in the possible ruptures of vascular vessels (in the case of a human internal carotid artery with stenosis) in four different cases. The numerical simulations are made using COMSOL Multiphysics 3.3, and the results are compared to some already existing in the literature

Experimental Evidence of Pitch Control of an All-Terrain AGV during a Ballistic Phase

International audienceIn some conditions, four-wheeled high speed mobile robots designed for open-field applications may take off and land badly. In order to avoid this dead-end situation, it is possible to use the mechanical principle of angular momentum conservation for correcting the pitch angle of the vehicle during the ballistic phases of actual jumps. In this study, the mechanical model of pitch control has been verified in laboratory experiments with a prototype of all-terrain AGV called "RobCat". Two series of trials have been realized on a specific test bench in which RobCat was hanged on a transversal axis passing through its CoM. In each series, RobCat was equipped either with its original hollow rubber tyres or with solid wheels having equivalent inertial parameters. The results of these experiments validated the mechanical model of angular momentum conservation of RobCat during an airborne phase and the feasibility of controlling RobCat's orientation around its pitch axis by accelerating or braking its wheels. The conclusions of this experimental study are highly encouraging for building agile mobile robots able to roll at high velocities on irregular grounds and that will combine the speed of aerial drones with the large autonomy and interaction capacity of terrestrial robots