Lo-Fi Matchmaking: A Study of Social Pairing for Backpackers

There is a new world emerging around mobile social networks and the technologies used to facilitate and mediate them. It is technically feasible for mobile social software such as pairing or matchmaking systems to introduce people to others and assist information exchange. However, little is known about the social structure of many mobile communities or why they would want pairing systems. When these systems are built, it is not clear what the social response by those communities will be or what the systems will be like to use in practice. While engaged in other work determining requirements for a mobile travel assistant we saw a potentially useful application for a pairing system to facilitate the exchange of travel information between backpackers. To explore this area, we designed two studies involving usage of a low-fidelity role prototype of a social pairing system for backpackers. Graphs of the resulting social pairings showed backpackers who were hubs in the network of travel information. It also demonstrated the effect of travel direction on information utility. Backpackers rated the utility of different pairing types, and provided feedback on the social implications of being paired based on travel histories. Practical usage of the social network pairing activity and the implications of broader societal usage are discussed

Can After Sale Service Generate Brand Equity

Purpose – This research attempts to empirically expand the Aaker's consumer based brand equity model in hybrid business firms by incorporating after sales service as a new dimension. Exploring and understanding the drivers of consumer based brand equity in a hybrid business context will help in building industry specific competitive barriers and generating brand wealth. Design/methodology/approach – The data were collected from Pakistani adults using a structured questionnaire based on established scales. Convenience sampling was used to gather data from 205 respondents across the major cities of Pakistan. To test the proposed research model the data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis. Findings – The results support the proposed five‐factor model of consumer based brand equity for the automotive industry. The results support the notion that after sales service is related but is a separate dimension of consumer based brand equity in the automotive sector.Research limitations/implications – This proposed CBBE model was tested in the automotive sector of Pakistan. However, the automotive industry is special in the sense that it builds brands at dual level. This study only investigates consumer based brand equity at marque level. Future studies can expand on this work by investigating consumer based brand equity both at marque and model levels. Practical implications – The establishment of after sale services as a separate but independent dimension of consumer based brand equity for the hybrid business organizations provides a fresh reminder regarding the possibilities of new sources for building brand equity. Managers can focus on delivering excellent after sale services to build and enhance the equity of their brands in hybrid business organizations. Originality/value – This study expands Aaker's brand equity model by empirically establishing after sales service as a fifth dimension for the firms operating on hybrid business model

Discovery of the first genome-wide significant risk loci for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a highly heritable childhood behavioral disorder affecting 5% of children and 2.5% of adults. Common genetic variants contribute substantially to ADHD susceptibility, but no variants have been robustly associated with ADHD. We report a genome-wide association meta-analysis of 20,183 individuals diagnosed with ADHD and 35,191 controls that identifies variants surpassing genome-wide significance in 12 independent loci, finding important new information about the underlying biology of ADHD. Associations are enriched in evolutionarily constrained genomic regions and loss-of-function intolerant genes and around brain-expressed regulatory marks. Analyses of three replication studies: a cohort of individuals diagnosed with ADHD, a self-reported ADHD sample and a meta-analysis of quantitative measures of ADHD symptoms in the population, support these findings while highlighting study-specific differences on genetic overlap with educational attainment. Strong concordance with GWAS of quantitative population measures of ADHD symptoms supports that clinical diagnosis of ADHD is an extreme expression of continuous heritable traits