Market Segmentation in the 21st Century: Discrete Solutions to Continuous Problems

Market segments exist because of information and cost constraints If manufacturers had accurate individual-level demand information and the ability to produce and deliver unique products at low cost, then individual customization of products would be a viable market strategy But as uncertainty about consumer demand increases and/or the cost of customization increases, firms find it more profitable to reduce the variety of the products they offer This paper reports on a critical examination of trends in the analysis of customer data and in reductions in the cost of customization brought about by innovations such as the Internet and flexible manufacturing systems We conclude that recent trends are not sufficient to support individual customization in most product categories However, despite the inability of these trends to support individual customization, we predict several changes In the dimensions surrounding successful segmentation strategies that will be used by firms in the future

Market Segmentation in the 21st Century Discrete Solutions to Continuous Problems

Market segments exist because of information and cost constraints If manufacturers had accurate individual-level demand information and the abllity to produce and deliver unique products at low cost, then individual customization of products would be a viable market strategy But as uncertainty about consumer demand increases and/or the cost of customization increases, firms find it more profitable to reduce the variety of the products they offer This paper reports on a critical examination of trends in the analysis of customer data and in reductions in the cost of customization brought about by inovations such as the Internet and flexlble manufacturing systems. We conclude that recent trends are not sufficient to support individual customization in most product categories. However, despite the inability of these trends to support individual customization, we predict several changes In the dimensions surrounding successful segmentation strategies that will be used by firms in the future

Relative Necessity Reformulated

This paper discusses some serious difficulties for what we shall call the standard account of various kinds of relative necessity, according to which any given kind of relative necessity may be defined by a strict conditional - necessarily, if C then p - where C is a suitable constant proposition, such as a conjunction of physical laws. We argue, with the help of Humberstone (1981), that the standard account has several unpalatable consequences. We argue that Humberstone's alternative account has certain disadvantages, and offer another - considerably simpler - solution

On the Determinants of Social Capital in Greece Compared to Countries of the European Union

Social capital refers to the stock of social relations, based on norms and networks of cooperation and trust that spill over to the market and state to enhance collective action between actors and achieve improved social efficiency and economic growth. The aim of the present paper is to discuss the implications of contemporary literature and empirical findings on social capital for the growth prospects of Greece, compared to the member-states of the European Union. In order to examine the potential of social capital to enhance growth, we must look into the factors that determine the nature and context of trust, norms and networks that have emerged in our multinational, multiethnic and multicultural Europe.The contribution of this paper is to offer insight on the determinants of social capital in Greece, compared to the European Union (EU - former 15 member-states). For this purpose, we regress an index of individual group membership, derived from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP), on a set of individual as well as aggregate factors of social capital. Regression results provide evidence of the impact of both individual and institutional characteristics on group membership. Differences on the extent of group membership between countries might be indicative of the historical and cultural differences that have affected the evolution of social capital across Europe. Particularly in Greece, the relatively low level of group membership compared to the other EU countries might provide further evidence of its low levels of civicness. Historically, its weak civil society has been a result of a prior civic tradition of clientelism under arbitrary rule, the interference of special-interest groups and the lack of credibility and impartiality from the part of the state. And these factors might be responsible for the slow pace in reform and growth observed compared to the rest of the EU. Nevertheless, the findings on the determinants of social capital may direct us to possible means of rebuilding patterns of participatory and cooperative behavior, especially in countries with low levels of trust and civicness, such as Greece

Efficient SVM training using low-rank kernel representations

SVM training is a convex optimization problem which scales with the training set size rather than the feature space dimension. While this is usually considered to be a desired quality, in large scale problems it may cause training to be impractical. The common techniques to handle this difficulty basically build a solution by solving a sequence of small scale subproblems. Our current effort is concentrated on the rank of the kernel matrix as a source for further enhancement of the training procedure. We first show that for a low rank kernel matrix it is possible to design a better interior point method (IPM) in terms of storage requirements as well as computational complexity. We then suggest an efficient use of a known factorization technique to approximate a given kernel matrix by a low rank matrix, which in turn will be used to feed the optimizer. Finally, we derive an upper bound on the change in the objective function value based on the approximation error and the number of active constraints (support vectors). This bound is general in the sense that it holds regardless of the approximation method

Book reviews

Southeast Asia: The Human Landscape of Modernization and Development. By Jonathan Rigg. London: Routledge, 1997. Pp.xxv + 326.�45 and �14.99. ISBN 0 415 13920 1 and 13921 X Militarization and Demilitarization in El Salvador's Transition to Democracy. By Philip J. Williams and Knut Walter. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997. Pp.vii + 244. US$45.00 and US$19.95. ISBN 0 8229 4041 8 and 5646 2. New Theories in Growth and Development. Edited by Fabrizio Coricelli, Massimo di Matteo and Frank Hahn. London: Croom Helm, 1998. Pp.viii + 304. �50. ISBN 0312 17621 X Localizing Modernity: Action, Interests and Association in Rural Zambia. By Jeremy Gould. Helsinki: The Finnish Anthropological Society, 1997. Pp.xiv + 286. ISBN 952 9573 18 9 Income, Inequality, and Poverty during the Transition from Planned to Market Economy. By Branko Milanovic. Washington, DC: World Bank, 1997. Pp.xiii + 237. $30. ISBN 0 8231 3994 X