Killer Collectibles

Machine assisted visual grading of rare collectibles over the Internet

Accurately identifying, grading and then determining the authenticity of rare collectible items such as coins, stamps, cards, comic books and artwork is a subjective non-automated process conducted by appraisers or graders. Appraisers and graders are usually human experts in their respective fields that draw on large established pools of domain knowledge, opinions of other experts in their fiel...

Electronic Retailing Strategies: A Case Study of Small Businesses in the Gifts and Collectibles Industry

The objective of this case study is to better our understanding of the strategic deliberations of managers and owners of small businesses as they pursue electronic retailing, since they face different barriers and constraints when dealing with electronic retailing issues than do their larger counterparts. Detailed phone interviews were conducted with four small businesses within the Gifts and C...

Increased Natural Killer Cells Activity in Schizophrenic Patients

Background: Schizophrenia has been associated with altered immunity. Different studies regarding natural killer cell activity (NKA) in schizophrenic patients have shown inconsistent results. Objectives: To evaluate NK cell activity in schizophrenic patients in comparison with healthy control individuals.   Methods: 30 medication-free schizophrenic patients and 41 healthy sex, age and smoking st...

Killer environment.

Killer splits

Although killer whales showed overall low levels of mitochondrial sequence variation, the researchers found three fixed differences between the open-sea type A whales compared with the two ice-inhabiting, other forms. " The genetic pattern suggests that, for females at least, there is no gene flow between them, " the authors write. But they do point out that the evidence for reproductive isolat...