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Advertising must be sales effective in the short term first to achieve long-term effectiveness. The half-life of advertising was also observed to be three to four weeks. Best practices in advertising are discussed further.

The impacts of clutter on the effectiveness of advertising, particularly on brand identification, are studied. Results indicate that less clutter does not improve brand identification while advertisements recalled in high clutter environments are more likeable and are of better quality in general. The effects of clutter are compared with those of the creative components of brand executions.

Our view of brand advertising is that it mostly serves to publicize the advertised brand. Advertising seldom seems to persuade. Advertising in a competitive market needs to maintain the brand's [...]

Although previously, it was thought that different brands appeal to different kinds of people, now it is widely accepted that similar brands appeal to similar people. The question is not who buys the product but how many buy the product.

Background and objectivesCharcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT) is the most common inherited neuropathy and often presents during childhood. Guidelines for the optimal management of common problems experienced by individuals with CMT do not exist, for either children or adults. We formed the Paediatric CMT Best Practice Guidelines Consortium to develop evidence and consensus-based recommendations for the clinical management of children and adolescents with CMT, with the primary objective of promoting optimal, standardised care globally.MethodsDevelopment of this clinical practice guideline involved a series of systematic reviews covering 10 clinical questions, modified Delphi methodology involving an international panel of clinicians to generate consensus where evidence did not exist, and application of the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach to evaluate the body of literature and formulate recommendations.ResultsThe final guideline includes three evidence-based and 31 consensus-based recommendations. They encompass the management of muscle weakness, balance and mobility impairment, sensory symptoms, muscle cramps, impaired upper limb function, respiratory impairment, maintenance of joint range of motion and non-surgical management of joint deformity. Consensus was not achieved in some management areas, reflecting differences in practice between clinicians and healthcare settings, and highlighting the need for further research.ConclusionsThis clinical practice guideline provides practical and implementable guidance on the management of common clinical problems experienced by children with CMT and advocates for improved access to multidisciplinary care. Successful dissemination and implementation of these recommendations will be critical in ensuring their application across multiple healthcare settings.

The convex response functions of brand advertising in consumer goods sector is studied. Results confirm that convex response functions are not universal but typical. The relationship between the marginal effect of advertising and the number of cumulative exposures is also investigated.

ObjectiveTo prospectively study falls in children and adolescents with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT).DesignProspective cohort study.SettingNeuromuscular outpatient clinic of a tertiary paediatric hospital.PatientsSixty children and adolescents (‘children’) aged 4–18 years, 30 with CMT and 30 typically developing (TD).Main outcome measuresFalls rate over 6 months and falls characteristics questionnaire.ResultsTwenty-two children with CMT reported falling at least once in 6 months compared with eight TD children (CMT 2819 (0–1915), TD 31 (0–6) total falls (range)). Detailed falls characteristics were collected from 242 individual falls (CMT 216, TD 26). Injurious falls were reported by 19 children with CMT (74 falls) compared with 2 TD children (3 falls), with cuts, grazes and bruising most common. No fractures were sustained and no child required hospitalisation. However, 12 injuries from falls in children with CMT required management by a healthcare provider, versus none in TD children. Tripping was the most common mechanism of falls in both groups. Age was the strongest predictor of falls (ρ=−0.53, p=0.006) with all children (CMT and TD) aged <7 years falling. Balance was the strongest impairment-related predictor of falls (ρ=−0.47, p=0.02). The conservative estimate of risk of falls in children and adolescents with CMT was 33 times higher than their TD peers (incidence rate ratio=32.8, 95% CI 10.2 to 106.0).ConclusionsChildren and adolescents with CMT fall more often than TD peers and sustain more injuries when they fall.

This article uses the case of the McLaren Collection at the University of Melbourne Baillieu Library Special Collections as a starting point to examine the issue of large-scale acquisitions in libraries. The McLaren Collection is a significant collection of 34,000 books, papers, pamphlets and journals of Australiana that was acquired by the Baillieu Library in 1976. Examining the issues surrounding the purchase and integration of the collection illustrates a number of considerations that libraries need to be aware of when making decisions about large-scale acquisitions. These include the possible motivations of the seller or donor, the terms of the contract negotiated, the cost of processing the collection once it has been acquired and the ongoing issues associated with managing the collection over time. It is not the goal of this article to offer definitive instruction on how libraries should approach the possibility of a large-scale acquisition, but rather to raise issues and considerations that will help librarians make informed decisions throughout this process. Information in this article was sourced from personal experience working with the collection, and from piecing together information from the available documentation. The story of the McLaren Collection provides a thought-provoking demonstration of the way that these factors played out in one example, and illustrates of some of the challenges presented by the acquisition of an established collection.

Background: Cyclophosphamide, an alkylating agent, is widely used for the treatment of many adult and pediatric malignancies. The stability of cyclophosphamide in aqueous- and methylcellulose-based oral suspending vehicles is currently unknown.Objective: To develop and validate a stability-indicating high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method to measure cyclophosphamide concentrations in simple syrup and Ora-Plus, and assess the 56-day chemical stability and physical appearance of cyclophosphamide in these suspensions at both room temperature (22 °C) and 4 °C.Methods: The intravenous formulation of cyclophosphamide was diluted to 20 mg/mL in NaCI 0.9%, compounded 1:1 with either suspending vehicle, and stored in the dark in 3-mL amber polypropylene oral syringes at 4 °C and 22 °C. Aliquots from each syringe were obtained on days 0.3, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, and 56 and assayed using the validated stability-indicating HPLC-UV method. A C18 analytical column was used to separate cyclophosphamide from the internal standard, ifosfamide, with a mobile phase of 21% acetonitrile in 79% sodium phosphate buffer. The suspension was examined for odor change, visually examined under normal fluorescent light for color change, and examined under a light microscope for evidence of microbial growth.Results: Samples of cyclophosphamide in both simple syrup and Ora-Plus were stable when kept at 4 °C for at least 56 days. At room temperature, cyclophosphamide in simple syrup and Ora-Plus had a shell life of 8 and 3 days, respectively. No changes in color or odor or evidence of microbial growth were observed.Conclusions: Cyclophosphamide can be extemporaneously prepared in simple syrup or Ora-Plus and stored for at least 2 months under refrigeration without significant degradation.

The author provides tips for horse riders on how to ride and jump on unlevel ground.

This article looks at sustainability in public gardens. Several definitions of sustainability is presented. One of which came from the famous 1987 "UN Brundtland Report," in which sustainability refers to the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. One factor affecting the decision making on public gardens is funding or financial considerations.

The article offers the author's insights on judging the U.S. Pony Finals horse show. The author relates her experience on judging the 2014 U.S. Pony Finals held at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky, in which she says that the judging process for the event was altered. She discusses the difference between judging a Pony Finals against a regular competition. She also explores the judging standards for the competition.

The poem "Letting Go," by Rachel Kennedy is presented. First Line: The balloon was a buoy, bounding against ceiling and window, Last Line: as it grew smaller, fading from my blurred sight.

With the coming data deluge from synoptic surveys, there is a need for frameworks that can quickly and automatically produce calibrated classification probabilities for newly observed variables based on small numbers of time-series measurements. In this paper, we introduce a methodology for variable-star classification, drawing from modern machine-learning techniques. We describe how to homogenize the information gleaned from light curves by selection and computation of real-numbered metrics (features), detail methods to robustly estimate periodic features, introduce tree-ensemble methods for accurate variable-star classification, and show how to rigorously evaluate a classifier using cross validation. On a 25-class data set of 1542 well-studied variable stars, we achieve a 22.8% error rate using the random forest (RF) classifier; this represents a 24% improvement over the best previous classifier on these data. This methodology is effective for identifying samples of specific science classes: for pulsational variables used in Milky Way tomography we obtain a discovery efficiency of 98.2% and for eclipsing systems we find an efficiency of 99.1%, both at 95% purity. The RF classifier is superior to other methods in terms of accuracy, speed, and relative immunity to irrelevant features; the RF can also be used to estimate the importance of each feature in classification. Additionally, we present the first astronomical use of hierarchical classification methods to incorporate a known class taxonomy in the classifier, which reduces the catastrophic error rate from 8% to 7.8%. Excluding low-amplitude sources, the overall error rate improves to 14%, with a catastrophic error rate of 3.5%.