Essays on Sales Force Career Incentives

This dissertation uses game theoretic models in a principal-agent framework to study how firms optimally manage long term career related incentives for their sales people. When sales people put sales effort they face incentives not only from short term incentives like commissions and bonuses but also from long term rewards associated with progression in their career. In particular, sales people are often motivated to get promoted and avoid being laid off, to get selected to managerial positions and to form stronger relationships with customers so that they can bargain for higher wages in the future, respectively. Three different essays examine each of these three career related incentives and how firms can optimally manage them. Essay 1 (Chapter 2) studies why and how firms use a type of promotion and layoff policy, called the Forced Ranking policy, to provide optimal long term career incentives to sales people. Findings from the essay suggests that when sales people are ambiguity averse and there is economic uncertainty regarding promotions and layoffs, firms are likely to commit to a promotion policy but may or may not commit to a layoff policy as part of Forced Ranking. Interestingly, it is shown that firms enjoying higher margins are more likely to commit to both promotion and layoffs, consistent with observations from industry practice. Results also suggest that in absence of costs from promoting and laying off employees, firms should use an up-or-out contract to motivate the sales force. Essay 2 (Chapter 3) investigates how career incentives associated with promotion of sales employees to sales management roles may interfere with selection of the right sales managers. The essay was motivated by the common observation that organizations often promote their best sales people to sales managerial roles but after promotion find that the sales people are not as good as they were expected to be in their new roles, a phenomenon called Peter Principle. An alternative explanation for this phenomenon of adverse selection is provided and possible solutions are analyzed as part of the essay. In essay 3 (Chapter 4) long term career incentives that sales reps face when they can form relationships with their customers are considered. Loyalty generated from customer-salesperson relationships is often owned by the sales person and it can be lost if the sales person moves to another firm. Therefore, firms compete for both customers as well as sales reps with the objective of poaching customers that are loyal to the sales reps. The essay analyzes how firms can deal with such a competition. Findings suggest that contrary to general beliefs, the presence of anti-employee poaching regulations like Non-Compete clauses, or tacit collusion to not poach each other\u27s employees may hurt firm profits under some conditions. Overall, the dissertation answers how firms can manage sales force career incentives to maximize profits

Presumed bilateral branch retinal vein occlusions secondary to antiepileptic agents

A 61-year-old man presented to the ophthalmology department having developed bilateral branch retinal vein occlusions. Baseline blood tests revealed no abnormality; however, subsequent investigations showed a raised plasma homocysteine (HC) level. The patient has been treated for refractory epilepsy for a number of years. Although antiepileptic medications have been shown to reduce folate levels and result in a raised HC level, this has not previously been shown to be to a level causing a retinal vascular event

Sowing the Wind, Reaping the Whirlwind: The Impact of Editing Language Models

In the rapidly advancing field of artificial intelligence, the concept of Red-Teaming or Jailbreaking large language models (LLMs) has emerged as a crucial area of study. This approach is especially significant in terms of assessing and enhancing the safety and robustness of these models. This paper investigates the intricate consequences of such modifications through model editing, uncovering a complex relationship between enhancing model accuracy and preserving its ethical integrity. Our in-depth analysis reveals a striking paradox: while injecting accurate information is crucial for model reliability, it can paradoxically destabilize the model's foundational framework, resulting in unpredictable and potentially unsafe behaviors. Additionally, we propose a benchmark dataset NicheHazardQA to investigate this unsafe behavior both within the same and cross topical domain. This aspect of our research sheds light on how the edits, impact the model's safety metrics and guardrails. Our findings show that model editing serves as a cost-effective tool for topical red-teaming by methodically applying targeted edits and evaluating the resultant model behavior.Comment: Accepted at ACL 202

Do Linguistic Features Help Deep Learning? The Case of Aggressiveness in Mexican Tweets

[EN] In the last years, the control of online user generated content is becoming a priority, because of the increase of online aggressiveness and hate speech legal cases. Considering the complexity and the importance of this issue, this paper presents an approach that combines the deep learning framework with linguistic features for the recognition of aggressiveness in Mexican tweets. This approach has been evaluated relying on a collection of tweets released by the organizers of the shared task about aggressiveness detection in the context of the Ibereval 2018 evaluation campaign. The use of a benchmark corpus allows to compare the results with those obtained by Ibereval 2018 participant systems. However, looking at the achieved results, linguistic features seem not to help the deep learning classification for this task.The work of Simona Frenda and Paolo Rosso was partially funded by the Spanish MINECO under the research project SomEMBED (TIN2015-71147-C2-1-P).Frenda, S.; Banerjee, S.; Rosso, P.; Patti, V. (2020). Do Linguistic Features Help Deep Learning? The Case of Aggressiveness in Mexican Tweets. Computación y Sistemas. 24(2):633-643. https://doi.org/10.13053/CyS-24-2-3398S63364324

A randomized controlled open label comparative clinical study of cephalexin versus doxycycline in patients with acne vulgaris in a hospital based population of South India

Background: Oral antibiotics are frequently used for acne vulgaris. Cephalexin has documented some success against acne vulgaris in earlier studies. Here the efficacy and safety of Cephalexin have been compared against the standard therapy of Doxycyline.Methods: From September 2010 to June 2011, 100 patients of moderate Acne vulgaris were randomized into two groups to receive oral Doxycyline (100mg once daily) or Cephalexin (500mg thrice daily) in an open label manner for eight weeks. All participants were allowed to use topical 5%Benzoyl peroxide gel twice daily. Efficacy was measured in terms of reduction in the number of facial comedones and inflammatory lesions from baseline after eight weeks.Results: 44 patients from Cephalexin group and48 patients from Doxycyline group completed the study. Both drugs have significantly decreased comedone count as well as the inflammatory lesion count after eight weeks. However, Doxycycline appeared better in terms of Comedone count (14.5±3.07 versus 12.9±4.31, p=0.045) as well as inflammatory lesion count (8.64.1±2.14 versus 7.67±2.46, p=0.047) at the end. The total adverse event was slightly more with Cephalexin (6.81% versus 6.25%, p= 0.912), where Diarrhoea remained the commonest adverse effect (4.54%).Conclusions: Although for the first time oral Cephalexin has displayed efficacy against moderate acne vulgaris in a prospective clinical study, it appeared inferior to Doxycycline over eight weeks. Therefore, it becomes an option only when other oral antibiotics are contraindicated or not tolerated

The (Mis)alignment between Customer Evaluations of Specific Service Dimensions and Their Overall Experience Ratings

In the highly competitive airline industry, customer satisfaction and loyalty are significantly influenced by the nuances of flight experiences. A crucial issue, largely overlooked by the literature, is the alignment—or misalignment—between customer evaluations of specific service dimensions and their overall experience ratings. This misalignment is commonly observed in consumer reviews, where high ratings for individual aspects (e.g., seat comfort or in-flight entertainment) may not always translate into equally high overall satisfaction scores, and vice versa. Understanding this alignment or misalignment is critical because it offers insights into the complex nature of customer satisfaction, revealing that it cannot be fully captured by assessing service dimensions in isolation. It highlights the importance of a holistic approach to evaluating customer feedback, underscoring how individual service elements interact to shape the overall flight experience and influence loyalty and advocacy behaviors. This study presents the Reliability Index Value (RIV), an innovative metric formulated, tested, and validated with airline customer review data, designed to measure the congruence between evaluations of specific service dimensions and overall experience ratings. Furthermore, the study investigates the relationship between the RIV and customer word-of-mouth (WOM) behavior, exploring not only the individual roles of brand equity and perceived value for money as potential moderating factors but also their joint condition as a combined moderator, offering a comprehensive view of their impact. Our results unveil that: (1) RIV serves as a robust predictor of consumer recommendation intentions; despite the inherent complexity of consumer behavior and the vast array of factors influencing recommendation intentions, our model demonstrates that the RIV alone accounts for approximately 4.0% of the variance in consumers recommendation intention. This finding, while seemingly modest, represents a significant step forward in our understanding of consumer recommendation behavior, particular when considering the RIV’s role as a singular metric. (2) The RIV\u27s impact on recommendation intentions is significantly stronger when either brand equity or perceived value for money is high. (3) Notably, an intriguing finding emerges when both factors are considered together: the RIV\u27s influence on recommendation intent is not solely enhanced by high brand equity but also in contexts of low brand equity coupled with high perceived value. This discovery highlights the crucial role of perceived value for money in amplifying the RIV\u27s effect on recommendation intentions across different levels of brand equity, challenging traditional views and offering new insights into consumer evaluation processes. Our study contributes significantly to the literature on consumer WOM, especially within service contexts, by shedding light on the complex interplay between RIV, brand equity, perceived value for money and recommendation intentions. From a managerial perspective, this research provides actionable insights for firms looking to improve service quality assessments and recommendation intentions through strategic emphasis on improving RIV and perceived value for money. Offering a bridge between academic research and practical application, this study paves the way for future research and strategic initiatives aimed at enhancing customer loyalty and service excellence in the airline industry

Intravitreal Ranibizumab in the Treatment of Butterfly-Shaped Pattern Dystrophy Associated with Choroidal Neovascularization: A Case Report

Purpose: To present and document the effectiveness of intravitreal ranibizumab in the treatment of patients with choroidal neovascularization due to butterfly-shaped pattern dystrophy (PD) of the macula. Methods: Three intravitreal ranibizumab injections of 0.5 mg/0.05 ml in monthly intervals were given to a patient with a previously diagnosed butterfly-shaped PD who subsequently developed subfoveal choroidal neovascularization on the right eye. The patient had previously received a combination of verteporfin/photodynamic therapy for a juxtafoveal choroidal neovascular membrane on the left eye. Results: At the end of the treatment course, there was significant improvement of the patient’s vision and the appearance of the macula on optic coherence tomography and fluorescein angiography. Best-corrected visual acuity improved from 6/12 to 6/6 and retinal thickness at the macula decreased from 323 to 247 µm. No subretinal fluid remained. The patient is clinically stable over a 12-month follow-up period. Conclusions: Intravitreal ranibizumab seems to be an effective and safe option for the treatment of subfoveal choroidal neovascularization in patients with butterfly-shaped PD