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The purpose of this paper is to propose a minimal dynamic two-dimensional map for the relation between citizens’ perception of quality of life (y) and their perception of the city Mayor management abilities (F).

The authors use data from the Ciudades cómo vamos? project and test a simple hypothesis: there is a linear positive correlation between y and F. Following the authors propose a two-dimensional map based on ideas from a statistical regression model and a non-linear dynamical map on the [0; 1] interval.

The authors give evidence that suggests that y and F are not linearly correlated. The authors show that the two-dimensional map, mentioned above, is able to reproduce non-trivial and unsynchronized relations between the variables, as well as the whole range of correlation coefficients.

There is a very limited amount of data to work with, therefore it was not possible to explore other possible relations thoroughly. Regarding the dynamical map, the authors are aware that there are still many venues for its study.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first reported attempt at modeling the dynamics between two variables obtained via survey on which perception is a key component of the questions.

The purpose of this paper was to examine the rheological characterisation of thickened water under different temperature and pH conditions and thickened milk with different fat contents.

Beverages thickened with powdered thickeners are used in the medical management of individuals who suffer swallowing difficulties (dysphagia). Each individual requires a specific level of thickness to best meet the needs of their dysphagia. Although the level of thickness is defined, obtaining the correct consistency of thickened fluids is difficult. This is due to fluctuations associated with temperature and type of fluids to be thickened. Rheological characterisation of commercially available xanthan gum-based thickener was performed under different conditions of temperature, pH and fat contents.

The viscosity and the yield stress of thickened water was found to be unaffected by pH. Similarly, temperature did not affect the viscosity at a high thickener concentration, although it did at lower concentration levels. Conversely, viscosity and yield stress increased as fat levels increased in thickened milk. Furthermore, thickened water took less than 2 minutes to reach equilibrium viscosity, while thickened milk required approximately 15 minutes to reach equilibrium viscosity.

These findings have implications for the standing time required for different beverages before they are thickened to a consistency that has been deemed safe for the patient’s physiological needs. Additionally, it highlights that different liquid base substances required different amounts of thickener to achieve the same level of thickness.

Findings from this study confirms and explores the variability of thickened fluids under different conditions of temperature, pH and fat content for the medical management of dysphagia.

This chapter introduces electroencephalography (EEG), a measure of neurophysiological activity, as a critical method for investigating individual and team decision-making and cognition. EEG is a useful tool for expanding the theoretical and research horizons in organizational cognitive neuroscience, with a lower financial cost and higher portability than other neuroimaging methods (e.g., functional magnetic resonance imaging). This chapter briefly reviews past work that has applied cognitive neuroscience methods to investigate cognitive processes and outcomes. The focus is on describing contemporary EEG measures that reflect individual cognition and compare them to complementary measures in the field of psychology and management. The authors discuss how neurobiological measures of cognition relate to and may predict both individual cognitive performance and team cognitive performance (decision-making). This chapter aims to assist scholars in the field of managerial and organizational cognition in understanding the complementarity between psychological and neurophysiological methods, and how they may be combined to develop new hypotheses in the intersection of these research fields.

The current pandemic is difficult to model – and thus difficult to control. In contrast to the previous epidemics, whose dynamics were smooth and well described by the existing models, the statistics of the current pandemic are highly oscillating. The purpose of this paper is to explain these oscillations and to see how this explanation can be used to fight the epidemic.

The authors use an analogy with economic systems.

The authors show that these oscillations can be explained if we take into account the disease’s long incubation period – as a result of which our control measures are determined by outdated data, showing number of infected people two weeks ago. To better control the pandemic, the authors propose to use the experience of economics, where also the effect of different measures can be observed only after some time. In the past, this led to wild oscillations of the economy, with rapid growth periods followed by devastating crises. In time, economists learned how to smooth the cycles and thus to drastically decrease the corresponding negative effects. The authors hope that this experience can help fight the pandemic.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first explanation of the highly oscillatory nature of this epidemic’s dynamics.

The purpose of this paper is to numerically study blood flow through a subject‐specific carotid artery with a moderately severe stenosis, also to thoroughly analyse the wall shear stress (WSS), oscillatory shear index (OSI) and WSS angular deviation (WSSAD). One of the important aspects of this study is the investigation on the influence of the extensions attached to the domain outlets.

The segmentation of the carotid artery is carried out using a deformable model based on a level set method. A geometric potential force (GPF) is employed to deform the level set to obtain the carotid artery geometry. The initial surface meshing is generated using an advanced marching cubes (MC) method, before improving the quality of the surface mesh via a number of mesh cosmetic steps. The volume mesh generation has two parts. In the first part, a quasi‐structured, boundary layer mesh is generated in the vicinity of the geometry walls. The second part of the meshing involves unstructured tetrahedral meshing of the inner part of the geometry. After the meshing stage, the flow boundary conditions are generated by numerically solving the Helmholtz equation in both space and time. Finally, the explicit characteristic‐based split (CBS) method is employed in a parallel environment to produce a detailed analysis of wall quantities.

In general, WSS is very high in the vicinity of the carotid artery apex and in the proximity of the stenosis. From the results obtained, it is clear that the influence of outlet domain extension is marginal. While the peak instantaneous WSS differs by a maximum of 5.7 per cent, the time‐averaged WSS difference due to extended domain is only 1.3 per cent. Two other derived parameters are also examined in the paper, the oscillating shear index and the WSSAD. Both these quantities also display minor or negligible differences due to domain extension.

It has been perceived that domain extension is essential to avoid wrong application of boundary conditions. The results obtained, however, conclusively show that the outlet domain extension has only a moderate influence on WSS. Thus, outlet extension to the domains may not be essential for arterial blood flows. It is also observed that the dramatic values of peak WSS obtained near the stenosis is the result of high resolution mesh along with boundary layers used in this study. Both the outcomes represent the originality of this paper.

This paper aims to discuss a nanoscale biosensor and its signal analysis algorithms.

In this work, five nanoscale biosensors are reviewed, namely, silicon nanowire field-effect-transistor biosensors, polysilicon nanogap capacitive biosensors, nanotube amperometric biosensors, gold nanoparticle-based electrochemical biosensors and quantum dot-based electrochemical biosensors.

Each biosensor produces a different output signal depending on its electrical characteristics. Five signal analysers are studied, with most of the existing signal analyser analyses based on the amplitude of the signal. Based on the analysis, auto-threshold peak detection is proposed for further work.

Suitability of the signal processing algorithm to be applied to nano-biosensors was reported.

In this study, for the first time, the efficacy of control rods for full suppression of vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) and galloping of an elastically supported rigid square cylinder that vibrates freely in the cross-flow direction is investigated.

To this aim, two small control rods are placed at constant angles of ± 45° relative to the horizontal axis and then the influence of diameter and spacing ratios on the oscillation and hydrodynamic response along with the vortex structure behind the cylinder is evaluated in the form of nine different cases in both VIV and galloping regions.

The performed simulations show that using the configuration presented in this study results in full VIV suppression for the spacing ratios G/D = 0.5, 1 and 1.5 at the diameter ratios d/D = 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 (D: diameter of square cylinder, G: distance between rods and cylinder, d: diameter of rods). On the contrary, a perfect attenuation of galloping is only achieved at the largest diameter (d/D = 0.3) and the smallest spacing ratio (G/D = 0.5). In general, for both VIV and galloping regions, with increasing diameter ratio and decreasing spacing ratio, the effect of the control rods wake in the vortex street of square cylinder gradually increases. This trend carries on to the point where the vortex shedding is completely suppressed and only the symmetric wake of control rods is observed.

So far, the effect of rod control on VIV of a square cylinder and its amplitude of oscillations has not been investigated.

The principal purpose of this study is to analyze the consumer emotions on virtual merchandising in the context of social consumption ecosystem driven by value and lifestyle across the big middle consumer segment.

The qualitative information has been collected from 114 respondents selected through snowballing technique within the metropolitan area of Mexico City. A semi-structured research instrument was used to conduct the in-depth interviews online.

The results of the study indicate that technology-led virtual merchandising stimulates arousal and merriment among consumers, which converges the self-image congruence and appearance similarity. The subjects of the study have endorsed that visual stimulus leading to self-image and body image congruence develop consistent arousal and merriment, which lead to positive purchase intentions and buying decisions and inculcate the perception as seeing is experiencing.

The samples drawn for this study may also limit the possibilities of generalization of the study results and map the consumer behavior in a predetermined pattern.

This study is founded on the theoretical maxims of theory of visual perceptions, cognitive theory of reasoning, theory of appearance and reality and Heider’s balance theory and contributes to these theories by explaining the relationship between the social self-concept and self-image congruence.

Firms retailing online fashion apparel should also be engaged in developing user-generated contents through communications on social media encouraging experiential videos, slogans and reviews.

This paper significantly contributes to theoretical and practical implications on virtual shopping, emotions and beliefs and consumption culture.