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If franchisors require their franchisees to contribute to capital expenditures on digital infrastructure, then profit-sharing from e-commerce activities may offer an acceptable solution.[80] In a shared e-commerce strategy, the franchisor controls the e-commerce component of the global sales strategy, and the franchisees contribute from pre-sales to local fulfilment and customer service. For those franchisors that compel franchisees to partner with third-party aggregators for delivery, franchisees pay third-party aggregators approximately twenty-five percent on each order, which means that many deliveries, particularly smaller ones, are not profitable.[48] Franchisees forced to provide free delivery-which consumers have come to expect-with their own vehicles and drivers fare no better. From the franchisor's perspective, the increased customer traffic to websites and mobile apps helps raise brand awareness and leads to more clicks and taps that generate revenue for both the franchisor and franchisees, including from increased in-store foot traffic from customers returning items bought online. Since most disputes between franchisors and franchisees are resolved in private arbitration, there is a dearth of caselaw discussing how deeply and broadly franchisors may extend their digital reach into franchisees' marketspace. [Extracted from the article]

The Ecliptic-poles Stellar Survey (EclipSS) collected far-ultraviolet (FUV: 1160–1420 Å) spectra of 49 nearby (d ≲ 100 pc) F3–K3 main-sequence stars, located at high ecliptic latitudes (north and south), using the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph of the Hubble Space Telescope. The ecliptic poles receive higher exposures from scanning missions like the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (high-precision optical photometry) and Extended Roentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array (X-ray monitoring), which can deliver crucial contextual information, not otherwise easily secured. The objective was to support theoretical studies of stellar hot outer atmospheres—chromospheres (∼104 K) and coronae (≳1 MK)—which, among other things, can adversely impact exoplanets via host-star "space weather." Flux–flux diagrams (e.g., C ii 1335 Å versus O i 1306 Å) were constructed for the EclipSS stars, solar Cycle 23/24 irradiances, and long-term FUV records of α Cen A (G2 V) and B (K1 V). The EclipSS cohort displays similar minimum ("basal") fluxes to the Sun and solar twin α Cen A, in chromospheric O i 1306 Å. In hotter C ii 1335 Å, a downward slump of the basal fluxes—noted in previous, less controlled surveys—can now be explained as an effect of subsolar abundances. The consistent basal minima in chromospheric and higher temperature species at solar metallicity favor the idea that stellar analogs of the solar supergranulation network provide a baseline of high-energy emissions. The magnetic network is replenished by a "local dynamo" independently of the stellar spin. It can operate even when the starspot-spawning internal dynamo has ceased cycling, as during the Sun's 17th century Maunder Minimum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar extreme-ultraviolet (EUV: 100–1100 Å) radiation rises in the 104 K upper chromosphere and hotter layers extending into the million-degree corona. Much of the EUV normally is not visible in other stars owing to interstellar H i absorption. The present study derived power-law scaling relations for EUV species based on irradiance spectra from the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory, over the rise and fall of recent sunspot Cycle 24. These relations not only can test solar models, but also allow "invisible" stellar EUV emissions to be reconstructed from more accessible ultraviolet (UV: 1100–3000 Å) proxies, with implications for heating, ionization, and erosion of exoplanet atmospheres by Sun-like hosts. Hot EUV coronal tracers like Si xii 520 Å (8 MK) show strongly curved power laws relative to chromospheric H i 1025 Å Lyβ, as was seen in Paper I for 0.2–2 keV soft X-rays versus Mg ii 2800 Å. The brightest EUV feature, He ii 303 Å, exhibits a nearly 1:1 correlation with Lyβ (and H i 1215 Lyα, but slightly steeper than 1:1 relative to Mg ii). The second brightest, C iii 977 Å, has a shallower power-law slope of ∼0.5. Correlations for low first ionization potential species, such as Mg, Si, and Fe, might be affected by cycle-dependent chemical fractionation. Parameterized flux–flux relations are presented for most of the strong EUV (and selected UV) features, together with fluxes of individual lines and broad EUV wavelength bands at the highs and lows of Cycle 24. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alpha Persei (HD 20902: F5 lab) is a luminous, nonvariable supergiant located at the blue edge of the Cepheid instability strip. It is one of the brightest coronal X-ray sources in the young open cluster bearing its name, yet warm supergiants as a class generally avoid conspicuous high-energy activity. The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope has recently uncovered additional oddities. The 1290-1430 Å far-ultraviolet (FUV) spectrum of a Per is dominated by photospheric continuum emission, with numerous superposed absorption features, mainly stellar. However, the normal proxies of coronal activity, such as the Si IV 1400 Å doublet (T ~ 8 x 104 K), are very weak, as are the chromospheric Cn 1335 A multiplet (T ~ 3 x 104 K) and O I 1305 Å triplet. In fact, the Si IV features of α Per are not only narrower than those of later, G-type supergiants of similar Lx/Lbol, but are also fainter (in LSi IV/Lbol) by two orders of magnitude. Further, a reanalysis of the ROSAT pointing on α Per finds the X-ray centroid offset from the stellar position by 9", at a moderate level of significance. The FUV and X-ray discrepancies raise the possibility that the coronal source might be unrelated to the supergiant, perhaps an accidentally close dwarf cluster member; heretofore unrecognized in the optical, lost in the glare of the bright star. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a far-ultraviolet spectrum of the K4 Ib-II supergiant λ Vel obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) as a part of the SNAPshot program “SNAPing coronal iron” (GO 11687). The observation covers a wavelength region (1326-1467 Å) not previously recorded for λ Vel at a spectral resolving power of R ∼ 20,000 and displays strong emission and absorption features, superposed on a bright chromospheric continuum. Fluorescent excitation is responsible for much of the observed emission, mainly powered by strong H I Lyα and the O I (UV 2) triplet emission near λ1304. The molecular CO and H2 fluorescences are weaker than in the early-K giant α Boo while the Fe II and Cr II lines, also pumped by H I Lyα, are stronger in λ Vel. This pattern of relative line strengths between the two stars is explained by the lower iron-group element abundance in α Boo, which weakens that star's Fe II and Cr II emission without reducing the molecular fluorescences. The λ Vel spectrum shows fluorescent Fe II, Cr II, and H2 emission similar to that observed in the M supergiant α Ori, but more numerous well-defined narrow emissions from CO. The additional CO emissions are visible in the spectrum of λ Vel since that star does not have the cool, opaque circumstellar shells that surround α Ori and produce broad circumstellar CO (A-X) band absorptions that hide those emissions in the cooler star. The presence of Si IV emission in λ Vel indicates a ∼8 × 104 K plasma that is mixed into the cooler chromosphere. Evidence of the stellar wind is seen in the C II λλ1334,1335 lines and in the blueshifted Fe II and Ni II wind absorption lines. Line modeling using Sobolev with Exact Integration for the C II lines indicates a larger terminal velocity (∼45 versus ∼30 km s–1) and turbulence (∼27 versus <21 km s–1) with a more quickly accelerating wind (β = 0.35 versus 0.7) at the time of this COS observation in 2010 than derived from Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph data obtained in 1994. The Fe II and Ni II absorptions are blueshifted by 7.6 km s–1 relative to the chromospheric emission, suggesting formation in lower levels of the accelerating wind and their widths indicate a higher turbulence in the λ Vel wind compared to α Ori. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent atomic physics calculations for Si II are employed within the CLOUDY modelling code to analyse Hubble Space Telescope (HST) STIS ultraviolet spectra of three cool stars, β Geminorum, α Centauri A and B, as well as previously published HST/GHRS observations of α Tau, plus solar quiet Sun data from the High Resolution Telescope and Spectrograph. Discrepancies found previously between theory and observation for line intensity ratios involving the 3s23p 2PJ-3s3p2 4PJ' intercombination multiplet of Si II at ~ 2335 Å are significantly reduced, as are those for ratios containing the 3s23p 2PJ-3s3p2 2DJ' transitions at ~1816 Å. This is primarily due to the effect of the new Si II transition probabilities. However, these atomic data are not only very different from previous calculations, but also show large disagreements with measurements, specifically those of Calamai et al. for the intercombination lines. New measurements of transition probabilities for Si II are hence urgently required to confirm (or otherwise) the accuracy of the recently calculated values. If the new calculations are confirmed, then a long-standing discrepancy between theory and observation will have finally been resolved. However, if the older measurements are found to be correct, then the agreement between theory and observation is simply a coincidence and the existing discrepancies remain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze high-resolution spectra obtained with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph onboard the Hubble Space Telescope toward 34 nearby stars (⩽100 pc) to record Mg II, Fe II, and Mn II absorption due to the local interstellar medium (LISM). Observations span the entire sky, probing previously unobserved regions of the LISM. The heavy ions studied in this survey produce narrow absorption features that facilitate the identification of multiple interstellar components. We detected one to six individual absorption components along any given sight line, and the number of absorbers roughly correlates with the pathlength. This high-resolution near-ultraviolet (NUV) spectroscopic survey was specifically designed for sight lines with existing far-UV (FUV) observations. The FUV spectra include many intrinsically broad absorption lines (i.e., of low atomic mass ions) and are often observed at medium resolution. The LISM NUV narrow-line absorption component structure presented here can be used to more accurately interpret the archival FUV observations. As an example of this synergy, we present a new analysis of the temperature and turbulence along the line of sight toward ε Ind. The new observations of LISM velocity structure are also critical in the interpretation of astrospheric absorption derived from fitting the saturated H I Lyα profile. As an example, we reanalyze the spectrum of λ And and find that this star likely does have an astrosphere. Two stars in the sample that have circumstellar disks (49 Cet and HD141569) show evidence for absorption due to disk gas. Finally, the substantially increased number of sight lines is used to test and refine the three-dimensional kinematic model of the LISM and search for previously unidentified clouds within the Local Bubble. We find that every prediction made by the Redfield & Linsky kinematic model of the LISM is confirmed by an observed component in the new lines of sight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]