Examining Preference For Autonomous Vehicle (Av) Among Qatari Residents

Because of growing body of researches that predict the autonomous vehicles to be the future mode of transport. It is important to investigate the preference of Autonomous vehicles among Qatari citizens for fast developing country such as Qatar. Stated Preference survey is distributed to 315 individuals living across Qatar. Based on the participants characteristics, the drivers are exposed to different scenarios and asked to choose one of the presented four modes of transport (Normal car, Private own autonomous vehicles, Shared autonomous vehicles, Public transport).The characteristics of each respondent have an impact on the preferences and attitude toward autonomous vehicles AVs and this was quantified through multinomial logit model. Currently, the key observations were as following: ? There is substantial hesitation toward adoption of AVs in Qatar, with 52% of choice decision that supports normal cars. ? Comfortable scale is an important factor in Qatar because good comfortable scale will increase the utility to use such mode of transport. ? Public transport is considered the least preferred mode of transport in Qatar especially if the individual owns a private car. In other word, people in Qatar give less utility value for SAV and public transport. Educating the young generation about the benefits of using AVs and public transport will enhance their background regarding the advanced modes of transport and encourage them to use conventional car alternatives in the future

Virtual reality and artificial intelligence applied to consumer experience: a scenario-based approach

Emerging technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been receiving much attention in the Marketing context as a new way to attract customers and enrich their experiences with brands. This study aimed to research the current state of these technologies in Business and discuss the extent to which experiences using Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence may impact a customer experience in three different points of the customer journey: pre-purchase, purchase, and post- purchase stage. An online survey was constructed to measure the effectiveness of VR and AI on a scenario-based approach, along three consumer behaviours in the customer journey – brand associations (pre-purchase stage), purchase intention (purchase stage) and brand loyalty (post-purchase stage). From a sample of 302 respondents, the results suggest that these technologies represent valuable opportunities in Marketing. Overall, the results revealed that the type of experiences addressed in this paper are more prone to instil action (purchase stage) than to build brand associations (pre-purchase stage) or brand loyalty (post-purchase stage). An in-depth analysis of these results manifested interesting outcomes, suggesting several managerial on how to apply these technologies in an integrated marketing communication (IMC) plan.Realidade Virtual (RV) e Inteligência Artificial (IA) têm recebido bastante atenção nos últimos anos pelo facto de serem uma nova forma de atrair os consumidores e enriquecer as suas experiências com as marcas. O principal objetivo desta dissertação é oferecer uma visão do "state of the art" da aplicação destas tecnologias no marketing e investigar até que ponto as experiências com RV e IA podem contribuir para uma melhor experiência do consumidor, nomeadamente em três fases distintas da jornada do consumidor: antes da compra, no momento da compra, e após a compra. Um questionário online foi construído para medir a eficácia de 7 cenários usando RV e AI, em três dos mais representativos comportamentos de uma jornada do consumidor: associações à marca (antes da compra), intenção de comprar (momento da compra) e lealdade à marca (após a compra). Com base numa amostra de 302 participantes, os resultados sugerem que RV e IA contribuem para a criação de significantes oportunidades no marketing. Numa forma geral, os resultados indicam que as experiências que foram selecionadas para este estudo são mais eficientes a persuadir os potenciais consumidores a comprar (momento da compra) do que a contribuir para a criação de associações à marca (antes da compra) ou para construir lealdade à marca (depois da compra). Sendo que, numa análise mais profunda dos resultados, diversas recomendações em como aplicar estas tecnologias numa comunicação integrada de marketing foram retratadas neste estudo

The Evolving Brand-Consumer Relationship - The Impact of Business Cycles, Digital Platforms, and New Advertising Technologies

Unprecedented technological progress and pronounced business cycles were the defining factors of the past two decades and disrupted consumers’ everyday lives as well as brands’ established modus operandi. For example, the severe global financial crisis and the subsequent European debt crisis forced many consumers to tighten their belts and change what, where, and how they shop. As a consequence, long established relationships with brands were put to the test as consumers adopted and habituated new shopping behaviors that not only shaped their purchases during the recessions but even beyond (Lamey 2014; Lamey et al. 2007). On the technological side, digital platforms such as AirBnb and Uber unhinged entire industries (Eckhardt et al. 2019; Parker, Van Alstyne, and Choudary 2016). At the same time, digital platforms have allowed brands to be consumers’ constant companions in various areas of their life such as money management, personal health, exercising, nutrition, and more (Ramaswamy and Ozcan 2016, 2018). Technological progress has also produced ever more sophisticated advertising tools that allow brands to target consumers with pinpoint accuracy and allow any brand irrespective of its advertising budget to address their specific (niche) target consumers using highly engaging ad formats such as online video advertising (Anderson 2006; Bergemann and Bonatti 2011; Van Laer et al. 2014). Evidently, these fundamental forces—business cycles, digital platforms, and new advertising technologies—have substantially affected consumers, brands, and their relationship. In three essays, my co-authors and I show empirically, experimentally, and conceptually how brands and consumers have reacted and adjusted to these changes and how their relationship thus evolved. In the first essay, we find that while business cycles put established consumer-brand relationships to the test, brands remain important to consumers even in recessions. They adjust their shopping strategies to allow themselves to keep consuming branded products, for example by switching to cheaper outlets or buying on promotion. The second essay shows that digital platforms are a powerful tool that allows brands to create and orchestrate superior value for consumers and thus become increasingly influential in their daily lives. We discuss how this development profoundly elevates the brand-consumer relationship. The third essay, presents insights into skippable ads, an advertising format specific to digital channels. It transforms consumers’ traditional role in the advertising context from a captive audience to an empowered one that is granted the option to skip ads. My results show that, counter-intuitively, this is not only perceived positively by consumers but may disrupt their advertising viewing experience. Thus, I present strategies for advertisers that mitigate the adverse effects of skippable ads and improve branding

Social infrastructures for the post-Covid recovery in the UK

The central conflict facing policymakers, the voluntary sector, and communities during the Covid-19 pandemic has been keeping safe from a virus that is transmitted interpersonally while also providing vital support to those in need. The report presents the findings from 12 months of ethnographic, participatory, and quantitative research, which has revealed that people have fallen back on their families, neighbourhoods and communities in order to navigate new challenges and burden. We call these networks of kinship and care within and between families, friends, and communities “social infrastructures” and argue that economic life and pandemic recovery relies on the strength of these foundational relations. In the UK, local and rapid response initiatives saved lives as voluntary sector, religious organisations, and Community Champions built on these relations of care to encourage vaccine uptake. These innovative social projects also helped people to grieve and recover from losses of life and livelihoods. We argue that both short- and long-term investment in these integrated social infrastructures is crucial for the post-Covid recovery in the UK

Clustering and recommendation techniques for access control policy management

Managing access control policies can be a daunting process, given the frequent policy decisions that need to be made, and the potentially large number of policy rules involved. Policy management includes, but is not limited to: policy optimization, configuration, and analysis. Such tasks require a deep understanding of the policy and its building compo- nents, especially in scenarios where it frequently changes and needs to adapt to different environments. Assisting both administrators and users in performing these tasks is impor- tant in avoiding policy misconfigurations and ill-informed policy decisions. We investigate a number of clustering and recommendation techniques, and implement a set of tools that assist administrators and users in managing their policies. First, we propose and imple- ment an optimization technique, based on policy clustering and adaptable rule ranking, to achieve optimal request evaluation performance. Second, we implement a policy analysis framework that simplifies and visualizes analysis results, based on a hierarchical cluster- ing algorithm. The framework utilizes a similarity-based model that provides a basis of risk analysis on newly introduced policy rules. In addition to administrators, we focus on regular individuals whom nowadays manage their own access control polices on a regular basis. Users are making frequent policy decisions, especially with the increasing popular- ity of social network sites, such as Facebook and Twitter. For example, users are required to allow/deny access to their private data on social sites each time they install a 3rd party application. To make matters worse, 3rd party access requests are mostly uncustomizable by the user. We propose a framework that allows users to customize their policy decisions on social sites, and provides a set of recommendations that assist users in making well- informed decisions. Finally, as the browser has become the main medium for the users online presence, we investigate the access control models for 3rd party browser extensions. Even though, extensions enrich the browsing experience of users, they could potentially represent a threat to their privacy. We propose and implement a framework that 1) monitors 3rd party extension accesses, 2) provides fine-grained permission controls, and 3) Provides detailed permission information to users in effort to increase their privacy aware- ness. To evaluate the framework we conducted a within-subjects user study and found the framework to effectively increase user awareness of requested permissions

Respite care and short breaks for young adults aged 18–40 with complex health-care needs: mixed-methods systematic review and conceptual framework development

BackgroundThe number of young adults with complex health-care needs due to life-limiting conditions/complex physical disability has risen significantly over the last 15 years, as more children now survive into adulthood. The transition from children to adult services may disrupt provision of essential respite/short break care for this vulnerable population, but the impact on young adults, families and providers is unclear.AimTo review the evidence on respite care provision for young adults (aged 18–40 years) with complex health-care needs, provide an evidence gap analysis and develop a conceptual framework for respite care.DesignA two-stage mixed-methods systematic review, including a knowledge map of respite care and an evidence review of policy, effectiveness, cost-effectiveness and experience.Data sourcesElectronic databases and grey/unpublished literature were searched from 2002 to September 2019. The databases searched included Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, Health Management Information Consortium, PROSPERO, Turning Research into Practice, COnNECT+, British Nursing Index, Web of Science, Social Care Online, the National Institute for Health Research Journals Library, Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care specialist register, databases on The Cochrane Library and international clinical trials registers. Additional sources were searched using the CLUSTER (Citations, Lead authors, Unpublished materials, Scholar search, Theories, Early examples, Related projects) approach and an international ‘call for evidence’.Methods and analysisMultiple independent reviewers used the SPICE (Setting, Perspective, Intervention/phenomenon of interest, Comparison, Evaluation) framework to select and extract evidence for each stage, verified by a third reviewer. Study/source characteristics and outcomes were extracted. Study quality was assessed using relevant tools. Qualitative evidence was synthesised using a framework approach and UK policy was synthesised using documentary content analysis. GRADE-CERQual (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation-Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative Research) was used to assess confidence in the evidence. Logic models developed for each type of respite care constituted the conceptual framework.ResultsWe identified 69 sources (78 records) from 126,267 records. The knowledge map comprised the following types of respite care: residential, home based, day care, community, leisure/social provision, funded holidays and emergency. Seven policy intentions included early transition planning and prioritising respite care according to need. No evidence was found on effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. Qualitative evidence focused largely on residential respite care. Facilitators of accessible/acceptable services included trusted and valued relationships, independence and empowerment of young adults, peer social interaction, developmental/age-appropriate services and high standards of care. Barriers included transition to adult services, paperwork, referral/provision delay and travelling distance. Young adults from black, Asian and minority ethnic populations were under-represented. Poor transition, such as loss of or inappropriate services, was contrary to statutory expectations. Potential harms included stress and anxiety related to safe care, frustration and distress arising from unmet needs, parental exhaustion, and a lack of opportunities to socialise and develop independence.LimitationsNo quantitative or mixed-methods evidence was found on effectiveness or cost-effectiveness of respite care. There was limited evidence on planned and emergency respite care except residential.ConclusionsPolicy intentions are more comprehensively met for young people aged Future workResearch to quantify the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of respite care to support service development and commissioning. Development of a core set of outcomes measures to support future collation of evidence.Study registrationThis study is registered as PROSPERO CRD42018088780.FundingThis project was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Services and Delivery Research programme and will be published in full in Health Services and Delivery Research; Vol. 9, No. 6. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information

Commercial communication in the digital age : information or disinformation?

In today’s digital age, online and mobile advertising are of growing importance, with advertising no longer bound to the traditional media industry. Although the advertising industry still has broader access to the different measures and channels, users and consumers today have more possibilities topublish, get informed or communicate – to “co-create” –, and toreach a bigger audience. There is a good chance thus that users and consumers are better informed about the objectives and persuasive tricks of the advertising industry than ever before. At the same time, advertisers can inform about products and services without the limitations of time and place faced by traditional mass media. But will there really be a time when advertisers and consumers have equal power, or does tracking users online and offline lead to a situation where advertisers have more information about the consumers than ever before? The volume discusses these questionsand related issues