Application of artificial neural network in market segmentation: A review on recent trends

Despite the significance of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) algorithm to market segmentation, there is a need of a comprehensive literature review and a classification system for it towards identification of future trend of market segmentation research. The present work is the first identifiable academic literature review of the application of neural network based techniques to segmentation. Our study has provided an academic database of literature between the periods of 2000-2010 and proposed a classification scheme for the articles. One thousands (1000) articles have been identified, and around 100 relevant selected articles have been subsequently reviewed and classified based on the major focus of each paper. Findings of this study indicated that the research area of ANN based applications are receiving most research attention and self organizing map based applications are second in position to be used in segmentation. The commonly used models for market segmentation are data mining, intelligent system etc. Our analysis furnishes a roadmap to guide future research and aid knowledge accretion and establishment pertaining to the application of ANN based techniques in market segmentation. Thus the present work will significantly contribute to both the industry and academic research in business and marketing as a sustainable valuable knowledge source of market segmentation with the future trend of ANN application in segmentation.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures,3 Table

Warranty Data Analysis: A Review

Warranty claims and supplementary data contain useful information about product quality and reliability. Analysing such data can therefore be of benefit to manufacturers in identifying early warnings of abnormalities in their products, providing useful information about failure modes to aid design modification, estimating product reliability for deciding on warranty policy and forecasting future warranty claims needed for preparing fiscal plans. In the last two decades, considerable research has been conducted in warranty data analysis (WDA) from several different perspectives. This article attempts to summarise and review the research and developments in WDA with emphasis on models, methods and applications. It concludes with a brief discussion on current practices and possible future trends in WDA

Empirical Evidence on the Use of Credit Scoring for Predicting Insurance Losses with Psycho-social and Biochemical Explanations

An important development in personal lines of insurance in the United States is the use of credit history data for insurance risk classification to predict losses. This research presents the results of collaboration with industry conducted by a university at the request of its state legislature. The purpose was to see the viability and validity of the use of credit scoring to predict insurance losses given its controversial nature and criticism as redundant of other predictive variables currently used. Working with industry and government, this study analyzed more than 175,000 policyholders’ information for the relationship between credit score and claims. Credit scores were significantly related to incurred losses, evidencing both statistical and practical significance. We investigate whether the revealed relationship between credit score and incurred losses was explainable by overlap with existing underwriting variables or whether the credit score adds new information about losses not contained in existing underwriting variables. The results show that credit scores contain significant information not already incorporated into other traditional rating variables (e.g., age, sex, driving history). We discuss how sensation seeking and self-control theory provide a partial explanation of why credit scoring works (the psycho-social perspective). This article also presents an overview of biological and chemical correlates of risk taking that helps explain why knowing risk-taking behavior in one realm (e.g., risky financial behavior and poor credit history) transits to predicting risk-taking behavior in other realms (e.g., automobile insurance incurred losses). Additional research is needed to advance new nontraditional loss prediction variables from social media consumer information to using information provided by technological advances. The evolving and dynamic nature of the insurance marketplace makes it imperative that professionals continue to evolve predictive variables and for academics to assist with understanding the whys of the relationships through theory development.IC2 Institut

A framework for internal fraud risk reduction at it integrating business processes : the IFR² framework

Fraud is a million dollar business and it is increasing every year. Both internal and external fraud present a substantial cost to our economy worldwide. A review of the academic literature learns that the academic community only addresses external fraud and how to detect this type of fraud. Little or no effort to our knowledge has been put in investigating how to prevent ánd to detect internal fraud, which we call ‘internal fraud risk reduction’. Taking together the urge for research in internal fraud and the lack of it in academic literature, research to reduce internal fraud risk is pivotal. Only after having a framework in which to implement empirical research, this topic can further be investigated. In this paper we present the IFR² framework, deduced from both the academic literature and from current business practices, where the core of this framework suggests to use a data mining approach.El fraude es un negocio millonario y está aumentando cada año. Tanto el fraude interno como el externo presentan un coste considerable para nuestra economía en todo el mundo. Este artículo sobre la literatura académica enseña que la comunidad académica solo se dirige al fraude externo, y cómo se detecta este tipo de fraude. Que sepamos, se ha hecho poco o ningún esfuerzo en investigar cómo evitar y detectar el fraude interno, al que llamamos ‘reducción del riesgo de fraude interno’. Teniendo en cuenta la urgencia de investigar el fraude interno, y la ausencia de ello en la literatura académica, la investigación para reducir este tipo de fraude es esencial. Este tema puede ser aún investigado con mayor profundidad solo después de tener un marco, en el que implementar investigación empírica. En este artículo, presentamos el marco IFR, deducido tanto de la literatura académica como de las prácticas empresariales actuales, donde el foco del marco sugiere usar un enfoque de extracción de datos

The Department of Labor’s New Rules for Working Children and Youth: February 2005

CRS_April_2005_DOL_s_New_Rules_for_Working_Children.pdf: 672 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020