When the reaper becomes a salesman: The influence of terror management on product preferences

The present research investigates how consumer choice is affected by Terror Management Theory’s proposition of Mortality Salience increasing one’s cultural worldview defense and self-esteem striving. The study builds empirically upon prior theorizing by Arndt, Solomon, Kasser and Sheldon (2004). During an experiment, we manipulated Mortality Salience and measured product preferences for conspicuousness and familiarity. Participants primed with death were more likely to choose conspicuous products, corroborating previous research of mortality salience raising materialistic tendencies. In addition, participants showed a tendency to prefer familiar brands. These results are in line with the Terror Management Theory framework

Bringing Back Color: Retouching Faded Furniture With Colored Light

In this article we summarize research conducted over the past 15 years aimed at understanding the original colors used in stained furniture. It is a synthesis of research, part of which is published, but this article also contains data from internal research reports. We present the results of chemical analysis and the outcome of reconstructions made based on historical recipes and degradation research. We used these findings to retouch furniture with colored light, using beamers controlled by computers, mapping software, and photogrammetry

Delaunay triangulations on the word RAM: towards a practical worst-case optimal algorithm

The Delaunay triangulation of n points in the plane can be constructed in o(n log n) time when the coordinates of the points are integers from a restricted range. However, algorithms that are known to achieve such running times had not been implemented so far. We explore ways to obtain a practical algorithm for Delaunay triangulations in the plane that runs in linear time for small integers. For this, we first implement and evaluate variants of an algorithm, BrioDC, that is known to achieve this bound. We find that our implementations of these algorithms are competitive with fast existing algorithms. Secondly, we implement and evaluate variants of an algorithm, BRIO, that runs fast in experiments. Our variants aim to avoid bad worst-case behavior and our squarified orders indeed provide faster point location

Characterization of a liquid-core waveguide cell for studying the chemistry of light-induced degradation

Many organic compounds undergo changes under the influence of light. This might be beneficial in, for example, water purification, but undesirable when cultural-heritage objects fade or when food ingredients (e.g., vitamins) degrade. It is often challenging to establish a strong link between photodegradation products and their parent molecules due to the complexity of the sample. To allow effective study of light-induced degradation (LID), a low-volume exposure cell was created in which solutes are efficiently illuminated (especially at low concentrations) while simultaneously analysed by absorbance spectroscopy. The new LID cell encompasses a gas-permeable liquid-core waveguide (LCW) connected to a spectrograph allowing collection of spectral data in real-time. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the overall performance of the LID cell by assessing its transmission characteristics, the absolute photon flux achieved in the LCW, and its capacity to study solute degradation in presence of oxygen. The potential of the LID set-up for light-exposure studies was successfully demonstrated by monitoring the degradation of the dyes eosin Y and crystal violet

Retroperitoneal fibrosis and β-blocking agents:Is there an association?

AIM: Retroperitoneal fibrosis (RPF) is a rare chronic fibro-inflammatory disorder which may be secondary to certain drugs, including beta-blocking agents (BBAs). However, their causative role is unclear. We aimed to investigate this association. METHODS: Disproportionality analysis was carried out on cases from 1985 to October 4, 2020 in VigiBase®, the WHO pharmacovigilance database. The Bayesian-based IC025 metric and reporting odds ratio were used in order to assess the adverse event signal. We also analysed all published case reports from the literature regarding BBA-associated RPF to assess the value of suggested supportive clinical evidence. RESULTS: 1.599 individual case safety reports (ICSRs) of RPF were reported to VigiBase®, of which 132 (32%) concerned 16 different single BBA. For 12 of these agents (75%), reporting of RPF was disproportionate, indicating a potential safety signal. Line listing analysis of ICSRs showed no consistent time interval from start of BBA to RPF diagnosis (range 0,7-264 mo). Dechallenge was negative or unknown in the majority of cases (74%). In 18 published cases from the literature, time from start of BBA to RPF diagnosis varied widely (range 3-156 mo). BBA were discontinued 6 mo before (n=1) or at the time of RPF diagnosis (n=17). Most patients (84%) also received RPF specific treatment. Follow-up (FU) duration was short (median 5 mo [range 1-24 mo]) and in most cases (83%) relevant FU data were lacking. CONCLUSION: Although disproportionality analysis indicated a potential safety signal for RPF associated with BBAs, clinical evidence did not support a cause and effect relationship