Introduction Of Stock Research Articles

Development of Idaea inquinata (Lepidoptera Geometridae) at different constant temperatures and relative humidities under controlled conditions

The rusty wave moth Idaea inquinata is an insect pest that infests dried herbs, above all when stored in warehouses. Infestations were historically localised, but the recent climatic change might increase the incidence of this pest in many areas of north Italy. The artificial regulation of the environmental conditions of warehouses is one of the most common techniques to control pests, often combined with thermal treatments just after the introduction of the stocks. The optimisation of the warehouse conditions, however, requires a deep knowledge on how the species react to variations in temperature and relative humidities. This information is to date missing for I. inquinata and this work aimed to fill this gap in knowledge. The life tables at 35% and 70% RH, and at different constant temperatures were obtained for the egg, larval, and pupal stages by combining datasets provided by 20 years of continuous rearing of this species. A second part of the study, instead, concerned the estimation of the parameters of the temperature-dependent development rate functions, laying the foundations for further formulations of mathematical models to be applied in decision support systems. Life tables showed that conditions of low relative humidities and low temperatures are a good compromise that slows down the development time of the preimaginal stages. The upper thermal limit for the development of this species, instead, is around 40 °C, a threshold that can be considered for further thermal treatments to disinfest warehouses before the introduction of pest-free stocks or as a controlling action in case of infestations.

Corporate Calling Cards: Advertising Trade Cards and Logos in the United States, 1876–1890

Winner of the William M. Jones Best Graduate Student Paper Award at the 2009 American Culture Association Conference On May 10, 1876, the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia opened its doors to an excited and enthusiastic public. The Exposition marked the explosion of large-scale corporate capitalism and consumerism after the Civil War and functioned as both a self-congratulatory political event and a showcase for industrial capitalist progress in the United States. Exhibit organizers designed the program to highlight American progress as part of the commemoration of the Revolution, dividing the displays into departments such as manufacturing, textiles, furniture, tools, motors/transportation, engineering, public works, and graphic arts, and intellectual, moral, and physical improvement. The fair introduced a host of new technologies and other developments that would have lasting impacts on the lives of Americans, including the telephone and various refrigeration processes. Exhibitors traveled from every corner of the country and abroad to present their information and products to fairgoers (Rydell 10-21). Many of them clamored for fairgoers' attention and trust, promoting unfamiliar brandname products such as Fleischmann's yeast and Libby's canned meats. These exhibitors distributed pocket-sized advertisements called trade - 3 x 5 in. lithographed with colorful images and descriptive text that authenticated the wares for sale with testimonials and expert advice. Visitors moved through the Exposition collecting these portable lithographs along with holiday greeting cards, calling (similar to today's business cards), and other printed materials from the fair. Indeed, the nation's centennial celebration marked the beginning of the widespread commercial use of trade and a popular cultural fascination with them as reflected in the art of scrapbooking. At his booth at the Philadelphia Exposition, lithographer Louis Prang distributed trade to the public along with his art prints, catalogs, and sample greeting cards. Traveling to the fair from Boston, Prang had learned the fundamental principles of color mixing, dyeing, printing, and engraving from his father, a Prussian textile printer. The young Prang opened his own lithographic firm in 1860 and began publishing chromolithographie art prints, calendars, and greeting before expanding his operation to produce advertising material in the early 1870s. Capitalizing on the growing popularity of trade in American culture, Prang developed the trade card (Figure 1), a blank card with a generic image and a space where a retailer could add his own information and location (McClinton 73-74). Many fairgoers saved these colorful alongside greeting and other printed ephemera as memorable souvenirs of the Exposition by pasting and preserving them in scrapbooks. Indeed, the 1876 fair marks a watershed in the popularity of scrapbooking as a leisure practice among middle-class consumers, women, and children as the moment when cards were introduced to the general public by Louis Prang. By the 1880s, trade were distributed by nearly every retailer across the United States and collected by countless Americans for scrapbook use (Jay 99). This study traces the use of stock and custom trade as advertisements from the introduction of stock at the 1876 Exposition to trade cards' decline as popular collectibles in the 1890s. The year 1876 marks a moment in the early formation and integration of the national market through newly formed transportation and communication networks, when mass production made possible competition between nationally marketed and locally produced goods, and when large-scale manufacturers realized that, in order to compete with local goods, they had to win the confidence of individual consumers. How did manufacturers authenticate their products to win over skeptical consumers? …

Chew Marks and Cut Marks on Animal Bones from the Kasteelberg B and Dune Field Midden Later Stone Age Sites, Western Cape Province, South Africa

The Later Stone Age sites at Kasteelberg B (KBB) and the Dune Field Midden (DFM), western Cape Province, South Africa, were occupied at least 300-700 years after domestic stock and pottery were first introduced to the region between 2000 and 1600 years ago. Fur seal bones abound at both sites, but bones of stock are common only at KBB. At both sites, predepositional damage to bones consists mostly of chew marks, probably produced mainly by dogs. Macroscopically visible cut marks are relatively rare, suggesting that, like stone age people elsewhere, the KBB and DFM butchers avoided prolonged contact with bone. At both sites, cut marks tend to occur near major limb joints, at acute angles to long bone shafts, implying that the marks were produced mainly by disarticulation or skinning as opposed to filleting. Differences in the frequency of cut marks on homologous bones of sheep and seal at KBB probably partly reflect differences in disarticulation patterns due to differences in anatomy, but other factors, including the removal of cut marks by dog-chewing (much more common on seal bones), differences in average distance between carcass and site, and differences in average carcass condition, probably also played a role. The rarity or absence of chew marks on seal bones from older sites may imply that dogs appeared or became abundant locally only after the introduction of stock. The abundance of chew marks at the DFM may mean that the occupants were fundamentally herders, even though they left few bones of stock at the site.

A complete system of dynamic demand functions

The purpose of this paper is to formulate a dynamic version of the theory of the consumer, based on the introduction of stocks into the utility function. A general demand function is developed and its properties (generalized Slutsky conditions) are analyzed. To arrive at an estimable model, a quadratic dynamic utility function is used. On that basis, a complete system of fourteen demand equations is estimated, using Swiss time series data (1948–1968).Consumer theory is undoubtedly one of the most solid components of economic theory. In the past fifty years, the efforts of economists have been mainly devoted to its axiomatization and simplification. 2 Considering a wider range of hypotheses, they have also attempted various generalizations.In the present paper, we shall offer a dynamic version, 3 by introducing a variable related to past behavior.In the first section, after a brief review of the principal results of the static theory, we discuss the suggested dynamization. Then, in the second section, we present a model that can be tested. The results for Switzerland are analyzed in the third section.