Market clusters for international franchising. ACES Working Papers, August 2009

While many studies of franchising have examined the organizational antecedents of internationalization, few have examined how differences among markets lead to this internationalization. Studies linking environmental factors to the companies' decision to internationalize showed that various political, social and economic factors either attract or repel international franchising investment. We build on these studies' selected variables to understand the similarities and differences among international franchising markets. Using these variables, our results show that countries divide into eight clusters with similar international franchising market characteristics. A discussion of each cluster follows with implications for franchising research.

Changing cultural clusters: A research note. ACES Working Papers, August 2009

The purpose of this research note is to investigate the changing cultural clusters that emerged between the studies of Hofstede (1970s) and GLOBE (1990s) using similar measures and overlapping countries. Our study analyzes the world's cultural clusters using two seminal and comparable cultural classifications: Hofstede and GLOBE. Four common cultural dimensions are empirically examined: individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity. We use two leading methods from cluster analysis and display data in both dandrograms and pie chart forms showing the grouping of countries. Our results suggest diverging cultural typologies that transcend geography, language, and religion. Countries are engaged in selective cultural borrowing that leads to new and changing global cultural structures.

Combining the power of online crowdsourcing with creative writing user interfaces

The goal of this work was to provide professional and amateur writers with a new way of enhancing their productivity and mental well-being, by helping them overcoming writers block and being able to achieve a state of optimal experience while writing. Our approach is based on bringing together different components to create what we call a creative moment. A creative moment is composed by an image, a text, a mood, a location and a color. The color presented in the creative moment varied according to the mood that was associated to the creative moment. With the creative moments we hoped that our users could have a way to easily trigger their creativity and have a kick start in their work. The prototyping of a web crowdsourcing platform, named CreativeWall, and a Microsoft Word Add-In, that was used on the user study performed, is described and their implementations are discussed. The user study reveals that our approach does have a positive influence in the productivity of the participants when compared with another existing approach. The study also revealed that our approach can ease the process of achieving a state of optimal experience by enhancing one of the dimensions presented on the Flow Theory. At the end we present what we consider would be some possible future developments for the concept created during the development of this work.

Using multiple landscape genetic approaches to test the validity of genetic clusters in a species characterized by an isolation-by-distance pattern

Bayesian clustering methods are typically used to identify barriers to gene flow, but they are prone to deduce artificial subdivisions in a study population characterized by an isolation-by-distance pattern (IbD). Here we analysed the landscape genetic structure of a population of wild boars (Sus scrofa) from south-western Germany. Two clustering methods inferred the presence of the same genetic discontinuity. However, the population in question was characterized by a strong IbD pattern. While landscape-resistance modelling failed to identify landscape features that influenced wild boar movement, partial Mantel tests and multiple regression of distance matrices (MRDMs) suggested that the empirically inferred clusters were separated by a genuine barrier. When simulating random lines bisecting the study area, 60% of the unique barriers represented, according to partial Mantel tests and MRDMs, significant obstacles to gene flow. By contrast, the random-lines simulation showed that the boundaries of the inferred empirical clusters corresponded to the most important genetic discontinuity in the study area. Given the degree of habitat fragmentation separating the two empirical partitions, it is likely that the clustering programs correctly identified a barrier to gene flow. The differing results between the work published here and other studies suggest that it will be very difficult to draw general conclusions about habitat permeability in wild boar from individual studies.

Self-tuning for cloud database clusters

Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Fakultät für Informatik, Dissertation, 2016

Absolute abundances of benthic foraminifers and stable isotopes from the Alvin dives 3709-3712

The presence of gas hydrates on the Blake Ridge diapir, northeastern Atlantic Ocean, offers an opportunity to study the impact of methane seepage on the ecology and geochemistry of benthic foraminifera in the late Holocene. Three push cores, covering a time span of ~ 1000 yrs, were retrieved from three distinct microhabitats at the top of the diapir at a water depth of ~ 2150 m: (i) sediments away from seepage (control core), (ii) sediments overlain by clusters of methanotrophic and thiotrophic bivalves, and (iii) chemoautotrophic microbial mats. The foraminiferal assemblages at the two seep sites are marked by a reduction in benthic foraminiferal species diversity, coupled with a near-absence of agglutinated species. However, an opportunistic population rise in CH4- or H2S-tolerant calcareous species (e.g., Globocassidulina subglobosa and Cassidulina laevigata) that utilize the abundant trophic resources at the seeps has led to an increase in the overall assemblage density there. The delta18O and delta13C values of three species of benthic foraminifera - Gyroidinoides laevigatus, Globocassidulina subglobosa, and Uvigerina peregrina - and the planktonic species Globorotalia menardii were acquired from all three cores. The benthic species from methane seeps yield delta13C values of 0.1 to - 4.2 (per mil VPDB), that are distinctly more 13C-depleted relative to the delta13C of 0.4 to - 1.0 (per mil VPDB) at the control (off seep) site. The species from a mussel-bed site exhibit more negative delta13C values than those from microbial mats, possibly reflecting different food sources and higher rate of anaerobic oxidation of methane. The positive delta13C values in the paired planktonic species suggest that authigenic carbonate precipitation did not overprint the observed 13C depletions. Hence the probable cause of negative delta13C of benthic foraminifera is primary calcification from Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (DIC) containing mixed carbon fractions from (a) highly 13C-depleted, microbially-oxidized methane and (b) a seawater source.

Raw-data to morphometric investigations about the Neogene planktonic foraminifer Globorotalia menardii and related forms from ODP Hole 154-925B (Céara Rise, western tropical Atlantic)

Evolutionary prospection is the study of morphological evolution and speciation in calcareous plankton from selected time-slices and key sites in the world oceans. In this context, the Neogene menardiform globorotalids serve as study objects for morphological speciation in planktic foraminifera. A downcore investigation of test morphology of the lineage of G. menardii-limbata-multicamerata during the past 8 million years was carried out in the western tropical Atlantic ODP Hole 925B. A total of 4669 specimens were measured and analyzed from 38 stratigraphic levels and compared to previous studies from DSDP Sites 502 and 503. Collection of digital images and morphometric measurements from digitized outlines were achieved using a microfossil orientation and imaging robot called AMOR and software, which was especially developed for this purpose. Most attention was given to the evolution of spiral height versus axial length of tests in keel view, but other parameters were investigated as well. The variability of morphological parameters in G. menardii, G. limbata, and G. multicamerata through time are visualized by volume density diagrams. At Hole 925B results show gradual test size increase in G. menardii until about 3.2 Ma. The combination of taxonomic determination in the light microscope with morphometric investigations shows strong morphological overlap and evolutionary continuity from ancestral to extant G. menardii (4-6 chambers in the final whorl) to the descendent but extinct G. limbata (seven chambers in the final whorl) and to G. multicamerata (>=8 chambers in the final whorl). In the morphospace defined by spiral height (dX) and axial length (dY) Globorotalia limbata and G. multicamerata strongly overlap with G. menardii. Distinction of G. limbata from G. menardii is only possible by slight differences in the number of chambers of the final whorl, nuances in spiral convexity, upper keel angles, radii of osculating circles, or by differences in reflectance of their tests. Globorotalia multicamerata can be distinguished from the other two forms by more than eight chambers in the final whorl. It appeared as two stratigraphically separate clusters during the Pliocene. Between 2.88 and 2.3 Ma G. menardii was severely restricted in size and abundance. Thereafter, it showed a rapid and prominent expansion of the upper test size extremes between 2.3 and 1.95 Ma persisting until present. The size-frequency distributions at Hole 925B are surprisingly similar to trends of menardiform globorotalids from Caribbean DSDP Site 502. There, the observations were explained as an adaptation to changes in the upper water column due to the emergence of the Isthmus of Panama. In light of more recent paleontological and geological investigations about the completion of the permanent land connection between North and South America since about 3 Ma the present study gives reason to suspect the sudden test size increase of G. menardii to reflect immigration of extra-large G. menardii from the Indian Ocean or the Pacific. It is hypothesized that during the Late Pliocene dispersal of large G. menardii into the southern to tropical Atlantic occurred during an intermittent episode of intense Agulhas Current leakage around the Cape of Good Hope and from there via warm eddy transport to the tropical Atlantic (Agulhas dispersal hypothesis).

Table 2.- Bryozoa collected during the LAMPOS expeditions between Punta Arenas and the northernmost tip of the Antarctic Peninsula

The 78 bryozoan species collected by the German R/V "Polarstern" during the LAMPOS cruise in April 2002, encompassing the Scotia Arc archipelagos between Tierra del Fuego and the Antarctic Peninsula, were studied to discern the biogeographical patterns of the Magellan region of South America, the Scotia Arc archipelagos and the Antarctic. The resulting dendrogram shows three clusters: an isolated one with the three easternmost archipelagos and the other two linking some of the northern and southern Scotia Arc archipelagos with Tierra del Fuego. A more comprehensive analysis using all the species previously recorded from the Scotia Arc archipelagos and adjacent areas (214 spp.) produced a clearer zoogeographical pattern without isolated clusters of localities. The Antarctic Peninsula plus the Scotia Arc archipelagos form a large cluster distinct from the Magellan-Falkland Subantarctic area. A third analysis making use of 78 genera present in the study area plus Australia and New Zealand reinforces this pattern, showing two clusters: one uniting South America and the Australian-New Zealand realm and the other linking the Scotia Arc archipelagos with the Antarctic Peninsula. These results indicate that the Scotia Arc archipelagos represent merely a very narrow bridge connecting two different bryozoan faunas with only a few bryozoan species in common between the study areas.

Archaeological sites in China during the Neolithic and Bronze Age

A total of 51,074 archaeological sites from the early Neolithic to the early Iron Age (c. 8000-500 BC), with a spatial extent covering most regions of China (c. 73-131°E and c. 20-53°N), were analysed over space and time in this study. Site maps of 25 Chinese provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, published in the series 'Atlas of Chinese Cultural Relics', were used to extract, digitalise and correlate its archaeological data. The data were, in turn, entered into a database using a self-developed mapping software that makes the data, in a dynamic way, analysable as a contribution to various scientific questions, such as population growth and migrations, spread of agriculture and changes in subsistence strategies. The results clearly show asynchronous patterns of changes between the northern and southern parts of China (i.e. north and south of the Yangtze River, respectively) but also within these macro-regions. In the northern part of China (i.e. along the Yellow River and its tributaries and in the Xiliao River basin), the first noticeable increase in the concentration of Neolithic sites occurred between c. 5000 and 4000 BC; however, highest site concentrations were reached between c. 2000 and 500 BC. Our analysis shows a radical north-eastern shift of high site-density clusters (over 50 sites per 100 * 100 km grid cell) from the Wei and middle/lower Yellow Rivers to the Liao River system sometime between 2350 BC and 1750 BC. This shift is hypothetically discussed in the context of the incorporation of West Asian domesticated animals and plants into the existing northern Chinese agricultural system. In the southern part of China, archaeological sites do not show a noticeable increase in the absolute number of sites until after c. 1500 BC, reaching a maximum around 1000 BC.

Commentary on interstellar matter associated with 18 open clusters /

"September 1989"--Cover.

Space for living; creative interior decoration and design

"First edition."

Creative universities /

Mode of access: Internet.

Modern man's conflicts, the creative challenge of a global society.

Mode of access: Internet.

Haydn : a creative life in music /

Includes index.

The creative unconscious; studies in the psychoanalysis of art.

Mode of access: Internet.