The marketing firm and co‐creation: The case of co‐creation by LEGO

This article discusses the marketer and customer co‐creation process within the context of bilateral contingencies. Bilateral contingencies occur when the marketers' behavior is reinforced (and/or punished) by the customers' behavior, whereas the behavior of the customers is reinforced (and/or punished) by the marketers' actions. Using the example of the LEGO community, we discuss how the marketers in the organization can respond to behaviors resulting from co‐creational customer– customer exchanges. This paper fills the knowledge gap by presenting a behavior analysis framework (theory of the marketing firm) for the empirical measurement of the co‐creation process.The marketing firm and co‐creation: The case of co‐creation by LEGOacceptedVersio

The marketing firm and the consumer organization: a comparative analysis with special reference to charitable organizations

The accurate delineation of various forms of business organization requires a comparative analysis of their objectives, functions, and organizational structures. In particular, this paper highlights differences in managerial work between business firms and non-profits exemplified by the charitable organization. It adopts as its template the theory of the marketing firm, a depiction of the modern corporation as it responds to the imperatives of customer-oriented management, namely consumer discretion and consumer sophistication. It describes in §2 the essentials of the theory and its basis in consumer behavior analysis, and outlines its unique position as the organization responsible for marketing transactions, based on objective exchange, competitive markets and prices, and the deployment of the entire marketing mix. §3 deals in greater depth with the objective, strategic functions, and organization of the marketing firm in terms of the concepts of metacontingency and bilateral contingency. §4 discusses how the marketing firm differs from charities in terms of goal separation, market-based pricing and competition, the entrepreneurial (strategic) process, the pursuit of customer-oriented management, and organizational structure. Particular attention is accorded the organizational differences between marketing firms and charities, which arise as a direct consequence of the distinct patterns of contingency they entail. §5 discusses the implications of the foregoing analysis and draws appropriate conclusions

Initial Report on the Development of a Monte Carlo-Markov Chain Joint Inversion Approach for Geothermal Exploration

Geothermal exploration and subsequent characterization of potential resources typically employ a variety of geophysical, geologic and geochemical techniques. However, since the data collected by each technique provide information directly on only one or a very limited set of the many physical parameters that characterize a geothermal system, no single method can be used to describe the system in its entirety. Presently, the usual approach to analyzing disparate data streams for geothermal applications is to invert (or forward model) each data set separately and then combine or compare the resulting models, for the most part in a more or less ad hoc manner. However, while each inversion may yield a model that fits the individual data set, the models are usually inconsistent with each other to some degree. This reflects uncertainties arising from the inevitable fact that geophysical and other exploration data in general are to some extent noisy, incomplete, and of limited sensitivity and resolution, and so yield non-unique results. The purpose of the project described here is to integrate the different model constraints provided by disparate geophysical, geological and geochemical data in a rigorous and consistent manner by formal joint inversion. The objective is to improve the fidelity of exploration results and reservoir characterization, thus addressing the goal of the DOE Geothermal Program to improve success in exploration for economically viable resources by better defining drilling targets, reducing risk, and improving exploration/drilling success rates

The Marketing Firm: Retailer and consumer contingencies

acceptedVersionpublishedVersio

Final Report: Detection and Characterization of Underground Facilities by Stochastic Inversion and Modeling of Data from the New Generation of Synthetic Aperture Satellites

Many clandestine development and production activities can be conducted underground to evade surveillance. The purpose of the study reported here was to develop a technique to detect underground facilities by broad-area search and then to characterize the facilities by inversion of the collected data. This would enable constraints to be placed on the types of activities that would be feasible at each underground site, providing a basis the design of targeted surveillance and analysis for more complete characterization. Excavation of underground cavities causes deformation in the host material and overburden that produces displacements at the ground surface. Such displacements are often measurable by a variety of surveying or geodetic techniques. One measurement technique, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), uses data from satellite-borne (or airborne) synthetic aperture radars (SARs) and so is ideal for detecting and measuring surface displacements in denied access regions. Depending on the radar frequency and the acquisition mode and the surface conditions, displacement maps derived from SAR interferograms can provide millimeter- to centimeter-level measurement accuracy on regional and local scales at spatial resolution of {approx}1-10 m. Relatively low-resolution ({approx}20 m, say) maps covering large regions can be used for broad-area detection, while finer resolutions ({approx}1 m) can be used to image details of displacement fields over targeted small areas. Surface displacements are generally expected to be largest during or a relatively short time after active excavation, but, depending on the material properties, measurable displacement may continue at a decreasing rate for a considerable time after completion. For a given excavated volume in a given geological setting, the amplitude of the surface displacements decreases as the depth of excavation increases, while the area of the discernable displacement pattern increases. Therefore, the ability to detect evidence for an underground facility using InSAR depends on the displacement sensitivity and spatial resolution of the interferogram, as well as on the size and depth of the facility and the time since its completion. The methodology development described in this report focuses on the exploitation of synthetic aperture radar data that are available commercially from a number of satellite missions. Development of the method involves three components: (1) Evaluation of the capability of InSAR to detect and characterize underground facilities ; (2) inversion of InSAR data to infer the location, depth, shape and volume of a subsurface facility; and (3) evaluation and selection of suitable geomechanical forward models to use in the inversion. We adapted LLNL's general-purpose Bayesian Markov Chain-Monte Carlo procedure, the 'Stochastic Engine' (SE), to carry out inversions to characterize subsurface void geometries. The SE performs forward simulations for a large number of trial source models to identify the set of models that are consistent with the observations and prior constraints. The inverse solution produced by this kind of stochastic method is a posterior probability density function (pdf) over alternative models, which forms an appropriate input to risk-based decision analyses to evaluate subsequent response strategies. One major advantage of a stochastic inversion approach is its ability to deal with complex, non-linear forward models employing empirical, analytical or numerical methods. However, while a geomechanical model must incorporate adequate physics to enable sufficiently accurate prediction of surface displacements, it must also be computationally fast enough to render the large number of forward realizations needed in stochastic inversion feasible. This latter requirement prompted us first to investigate computationally efficient empirical relations and closed-form analytical solutions. However, our evaluation revealed severe limitations in the ability of existing empirical and analytical forms to predict deformations from underground cavities with an accuracy consistent with the potential resolution and precision of InSAR data. We followed two approaches to overcoming these limitations. The first was to develop a new analytical solution for a 3D cavity excavated in an elastic half-space. The second was to adapt a fast parallelized finite element method to the SE and evaluate the feasibility of using in the stochastic inversion. To date we have demonstrated the ability of InSAR to detect underground facilities and measure the associated surface displacements by mapping surface deformations that track the excavation of the Los Angeles Metro system. The Stochastic Engine implementation has been completed and undergone functional testing

The marketing firm and co‐creation: An empirical study of marketer and customer's co‐creation process

This study empirically investigates the marketer and customer's co‐creation process within the context of the marketing firm. Based on principles from bilateral contingencies, findings from a conjoint study (n = 98) indicate that utilitarian and informational reinforcing consequences from the marketer have a stronger impact on customers' co‐creation behavior relative to informational reinforcing consequences from other customers. Consequently, analyzing the impact of important reinforcing contingencies through the lens of bilateral contingencies expands our understanding of how and why co‐creation outcomes might occur. Also, a good co‐creation process may increase the business companies' research and intelligence and, as a consequence, strengthen their competitiveness.The marketing firm and co‐creation: An empirical study of marketer and customer's co‐creation processacceptedVersio

Double Difference Earthquake Locations at the Salton Sea Geothermal Reservoir

The purpose of this paper is to report on processing of raw waveform data from 4547 events recorded at 12 stations between 2001 and 2005 by the Salton Sea Geothermal Field (SSGF) seismic network. We identified a central region of the network where vertically elongated distributions of hypocenters have previously been located from regional network analysis. We process the data from the local network by first autopicking first P and S arrivals; second, improving these with hand picks when necessary; then, using cross-correlation to provide very precise P and S relative arrival times. We used the HypoDD earthquake location algorithm to locate the events. We found that the originally elongated distributions of hypocenters became more tightly clustered and extend down the extent of the study volume at 10 Km. However, we found the shapes to depend on choices of location parameters. We speculate that these narrow elongated zones of seismicity may be due to stress release caused by fluid flow

A knowledge-based design advisory system for collaborative design for micromanufacturing

The manufacture of microproducts differs from that of conventional products in many ways, not only in the sizes, but also in issues concerning the effects of material properties, tools, and manufacturing equipment. There was a need for a new design methodology and associated design tools to aid designers in assessing the design of their microproducts by considering new micromanufacturing capabilities and constraints. A knowledge-based design advisory system (DAS) was, therefore, developed in MASMICRO in which the knowledge-based system with dedicated assessment modules and knowledge representatives based on the ontology was created to implement the distributed design and manufacturing assessment for micromanufacturing. The modules address the assessment on geometrical features relating to manufacturability, manufacturing processes, selection of materials, tools, and machines, as well as manufacturing cost. The Microsoft C# programming language, ASP.NET web technology, Prolog, and Microsoft Access database were used to develop the DAS. The test on the DAS prototype system was found to provide an increase of design efficiency due to more efficient use of design and manufacturing knowledge and afforded a web-based collaborative design environment

Joint reconstructions of CO2 plumes using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach

We describe a stochastic inversion method for mapping subsurface regions where CO{sub 2} saturation is changing. The technique combines prior information with measurements of injected CO{sub 2} volume, reservoir deformation and electrical resistivity. Bayesian inference and a Metropolis simulation algorithm form the basis for this approach. The method can (a) jointly reconstruct disparate data types such as surface or subsurface tilt, electrical resistivity, and injected CO{sub 2} volume measurements, (b) provide quantitative measures of the result uncertainty, (c) identify competing models when the available data are insufficient to definitively identify a single optimal model and (d) rank the alternative models based on how well they fit available data. We use measurements collected during CO{sub 2} injection for enhanced oil recovery to illustrate the method's performance. The stochastic inversions provide estimates of the most probable location, shape, volume of the plume and most likely CO{sub 2} saturation. The results suggest that the method can reconstruct data with poor signal to noise ratio