A Typology of Mass Services: The Role of Service Delivery and Consumption Purpose In Classifying Service Experiences

Purpose — The purpose of this paper is to provide services marketers with a deeper understanding of the elements that characterize mass services. The paper shows that many studies have been conducted within the context of professional and retail services, knowledge of mass service contexts is limited despite the growth of services within this context. Design/methodology/approach — This paper provides a conceptual overview of mass services and develops a typology for mass services based on an extensive review of the services literature. Specifically, the typology developed classifies mass services on the basis of service delivery and purpose. The typology forwarded, therefore, classifies mass services using a two-by-two framework with individual and collective mass services classified as either utilitarian or hedonic in nature. Findings — The typology found in this paper provides a practical insight into the characteristics of services falling into the classification of mass services. The value of the classification is that managers can better understand the unique aspects of mass services, thus, allowing for a better utilization of limited resources. Moreover, the paper provides insights into a service classification that has received limited research emphasis, yet, is attracting increasing industry attention. Originality/value — This paper provides academics and practitioners with a framework that has both tactical and strategic implications. These implications include enhancing the customer experience and thus customer retention, resource management, employee training and service management. Given that such a framework has not been forwarded in the literature, the typology presented in the current paper makes an original contribution to the literature

Morphological and molecular characterisation of a mixed Cryptosporidium muris/Cryptosporidium felis infection in a cat

To date Cryptosporidium muris has been identified by microscopy and genotyping in cats in two studies. We report morphological and genetic evidence of a mixed C. muris and C. felis infection in a cat and provide the first histological, immunohistochemical, in situ hybridisation and genetic confirmation of a C. muris infection in the stomach of a cat. The cat suffered persistent diarrhoea after the initial consultation, which remained unresolved, despite several medical interventions. Further studies are required to determine the range, prevalence and clinical impact of Cryptosporidium species infecting cats

Holographic Foam, Dark Energy and Infinite Statistics

Quantum fluctuations of spacetime give rise to quantum foam, and black hole physics dictates that the foam is of holographic type. Applied to cosmology, the holographic model requires the existence of dark energy which, we argue, is composed of an enormous number of inert ``particles'' of extremely long wavelength. These "particles" necessarily obey infinite statistics in which all representations of the particle permutation group can occur. For every boson or fermion in the present observable universe there could be $\sim 10^{31}$ such "particles". We also discuss the compatibility between the holographic principle and infinite statistics.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX; added references and footnotes; version to appear in Physics Letters

A min-entropy uncertainty relation for finite size cryptography

Apart from their foundational significance, entropic uncertainty relations play a central role in proving the security of quantum cryptographic protocols. Of particular interest are thereby relations in terms of the smooth min-entropy for BB84 and six-state encodings. Previously, strong uncertainty relations were obtained which are valid in the limit of large block lengths. Here, we prove a new uncertainty relation in terms of the smooth min-entropy that is only marginally less strong, but has the crucial property that it can be applied to rather small block lengths. This paves the way for a practical implementation of many cryptographic protocols. As part of our proof we show tight uncertainty relations for a family of Renyi entropies that may be of independent interest.Comment: 5+6 pages, 1 figure, revtex. new version changed author's name from Huei Ying Nelly Ng to Nelly Huei Ying Ng, for consistency with other publication

On the nature of the omega tri-layer periodicity in rapidly cooled Ti-15Mo

High angle annular dark field (HAADF) images of the omega phase in metastable beta titanium alloys exhibit tri-layered periodicity. However, it is unclear if this indicates preferential site occupation, or is related to the structural modification of omega formation. Here, the periodicity was studied using a combination of HAADF imaging and electron energy loss spectroscopy. The results show that there is no preferential site occupancy or ordering and that the observed intensity variations are related to the imaging conditions.This work was supported by the Rolls-Royce/EPSRC Strategic Partnership (EP/H022309/1, EP/H500375/1 & EP/M005607/1).This is the final version. It was first published by Elsevier at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359646215002213

Minimax mean estimator for the trine

We explore the question of state estimation for a qubit restricted to the $x$-$z$ plane of the Bloch sphere, with the trine measurement. In our earlier work [H. K. Ng and B.-G. Englert, eprint arXiv:1202.5136[quant-ph] (2012)], similarities between quantum tomography and the tomography of a classical die motivated us to apply a simple modification of the classical estimator for use in the quantum problem. This worked very well. In this article, we adapt a different aspect of the classical estimator to the quantum problem. In particular, we investigate the mean estimator, where the mean is taken with a weight function identical to that in the classical estimator but now with quantum constraints imposed. Among such mean estimators, we choose an optimal one with the smallest worst-case error-the minimax mean estimator-and compare its performance with that of other estimators. Despite the natural generalization of the classical approach, this minimax mean estimator does not work as well as one might expect from the analogous performance in the classical problem. While it outperforms the often-used maximum-likelihood estimator in having a smaller worst-case error, the advantage is not significant enough to justify the more complicated procedure required to construct it. The much simpler adapted estimator introduced in our earlier work is still more effective. Our previous work emphasized the similarities between classical and quantum state estimation; in contrast, this paper highlights how intuition gained from classical problems can sometimes fail in the quantum arena.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure

Atomic parity violation in cesium and implications for the 3 - 3 - 1 models

The parity violation in cesium atom is analysed in the framework of the models based on the SU(3)_C X SU(3)_L X U(1)_N gauge group. It is shown that in the minimal version, the main contribution to a deviation of weak charge \Delta Q_W due to direct Z' exchange is negative. New data on parity violation in the cesium atom seems not favour to the minimal version, while it gets a positive value in the version with right-handed neutrinos. We obtain a bound on the $Z'$ mass at a range from 1.4 TeV to 2.6 TeV. The allowed regions for the Z-Z'$mixing angle are also derived.Comment: 7 pages, Journal versio

Reconsidering the black hole final state in Dirac fields

We extend Horowitz and Maldacena's proposal about black hole final state to Dirac fields and find that if annihilation of the infalling positrons and the collapsed electrons inside the horizon is considered, then the nonlinear evolution of collapsing quantum state will be avoided. We further propose that annihilation also plays the central role in the process of black hole information escaping in both Dirac and scalar fields. The computation speed of a black hole is also briefly discussed.Comment: 7pages; Phys. Lett. B 2005 (in press

Specimen dimensions influence the measurement of material properties in tendon fascicles

Stress, strain and modulus are regularly used to characterize material properties of tissue samples. However, when comparing results from different studies it is evident the reported material properties, particularly failure strains, vary hugely. The aim of our study was to characterize how and why specimen length and cross-sectional area (CSA) appear to influence failure stress, strain and modulus in fascicles from two functionally different tendons. Fascicles were dissected from five rat tails and five bovine foot extensors, their diameters determined by a laser micrometer, and loaded to failure at a range of grip-to-grip lengths. Strain to failure significantly decreased with increasing in specimen length in both rat and bovine fascicles, while modulus increased. Specimen length did not influence failure stress in rat tail fascicles, although in bovine fascicles it was significantly lower in the longer 40 mm specimens compared to 5 and 10 mm specimens. The variations in failure strain and modulus with sample length could be predominantly explained by end-effects. However, it was also evident that strain fields along the sample length were highly variable and notably larger towards the ends of the sample than the mid-section even at distances in excess of 5 mm from the gripping points. Failure strain, stress and modulus correlated significantly with CSA at certain specimen lengths. Our findings have implications for the mechanical testing of tendon tissue: while it is not always possible to control for fascicle length and/or CSA, these parameters have to be taken into account when comparing samples of different dimensions