Limitation of Sales Warranties as an Alternative to Intellectual Property Rights: An Empirical Analysis of IPhone Warranties’ Deterrent Impact on Consumers

Apple\u27s success with the Apple iPhone has brought with it certain problems. Its success has engendered a community that has attempted to circumvent Apple\u27s exclusive service agreement with AT&T. Unfortunately for Apple (and similarly situated manufacturers), intellectual property law allows consumers to alter their products so as to circumvent relationships that manufacturers may have with others. The patent and copyright law first sale doctrine allows consumers to manipulate a product after it is purchased. As a result, manufacturers are increasingly turning to alternatives to intellectual property to secure control over the device after the sale. One such alternative is the exclusion of warranty under Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code. This iBrief considers whether limitation of warranties have the deterrence effect manufacturers desire. Said differently, it considers whether manufacturers can use warranty limitations to prevent consumers from using their products in an unauthorized manner. The iBrief presents a behavioral model based on the Triandis model of planned behavior and enhances the model by accounting for likely and unlikely benefits and detriments. The model suggests that participants weigh the probability and magnitude of the detriment against the probability and magnitude of the beneficial impact when making the decision to engage in technological piracy. This model, considered with other empirical evidence, suggests that Apple\u27s warranty could be a stronger deterrent for consumers than civil liability. The iBrief concludes that manufacturers can better protect their post-sale expectation of profits by raising consumer awareness of their warranty\u27s quality and by raising awareness of the consequences for using the product in a way that is outside the terms of the consumers\u27 authorized use

Future acidification of the Baltic Sea - A sensitivity study

Future acidification of coastal seas will depend not only on the development of atmospheric CO2 partial pressure (pCO(2)), but also on changes in the catchment areas, exchange with the adjacent ocean, and internal cycling of carbon and nutrients. Here we use a coupled physical-biogeochemical Baltic Sea model to quantify the sensitivity of pH to changes both in external forcing and internal processes. The experiments include changes in runoff, supply of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity (A(T)), nutrient loads, exchange between the Baltic and North Seas, and atmospheric pCO(2). We furthermore address the potential different future developments of runoff and river loads in boreal and continental catchments, respectively. Changes in atmospheric pCO(2) exert the strongest control on future pH according to our calculations. This CO2-induced acidification could be further enhanced in the case of desalination of the Baltic Sea, although increased concentrations of A(T) in the river runoff due to increased weathering to some extent could counteract acidification. Reduced nutrient loads and productivity would reduce the average annual surface water pH but at the same time slightly increase wintertime surface water pH (the annual pH minimum). The response time of surface water pH to sudden changes in atmospheric pCO(2) is approximately one month, whereas response times to changes in e.g. runoff and A(T)/DIC loads are more related to residence times of water and salt (> 30 years). It seems unlikely that the projected future increase in atmospheric pCO(2) and associated pH reduction could be fully counteracted by any of the other processes addressed in our experiments.Peer reviewe

SHOULD WE DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN BUSINESS AND PRIVATE CUSTOMERS?

The literature on how customers make their service-provider choices largely distinguishes between private and business customers, and companies’ offerings have been separated accordingly. This study takes a closer look at the possible differences between these two customer categories. The results are explorative and based on both qualitative and quantitative studies focusing on customers’ actual behavior. The findings show that it is not only job-related aspects such as “being able to work” that influence business travel, and that private matters such as “time with the family” are clearly of equal significance in the choice situation. Price perception is important, but only when it is set against the appropriate social costs. The contradiction appears in the airlines’ offers to these customers, which are generally specifically job related. The results of the present study show that most business customers are, in fact, “private customers”.air travel, customer relationships, business-to-business relationships, preferences, choice, service

Long-Term and Seasonal Trends in Estuarine and Coastal Carbonate Systems

Coastal pH and total alkalinity are regulated by a diverse range of local processes superimposed on global trends of warming and ocean acidification, yet few studies have investigated the relative importance of different processes for coastal acidification. We describe long-term (1972-2016) and seasonal trends in the carbonate system of three Danish coastal systems demonstrating that hydrological modification, changes in nutrient inputs from land, and presence/absence of calcifiers can drastically alter carbonate chemistry. Total alkalinity was mainly governed by conservative mixing of freshwater (0.73-5.17mmolkg(-1)) with outer boundary concentrations (similar to 2-2.4mmolkg(-1)), modulated seasonally and spatially (similar to 0.1-0.2mmolkg(-1)) by calcifiers. Nitrate assimilation by primary production, denitrification, and sulfate reduction increased total alkalinity by almost 0.6mmolkg(-1) in the most eutrophic system during a period without calcifiers. Trends in pH ranged from -0.0088year(-1) to 0.021year(-1), the more extreme of these mainly driven by salinity changes in a sluice-controlled lagoon. Temperature increased 0.05 degrees Cyr(-1) across all three systems, which directly accounted for a pH decrease of 0.0008year(-1). Accounting for mixing, salinity, and temperature effects on dissociation and solubility constants, the resulting pH decline (0.0040year(-1)) was about twice the ocean trend, emphasizing the effect of nutrient management on primary production and coastal acidification. Coastal pCO(2) increased similar to 4 times more rapidly than ocean rates, enhancing CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. Indeed, coastal systems undergo more drastic changes than the ocean and coastal acidification trends are substantially enhanced from nutrient reductions to address coastal eutrophication.Peer reviewe

Modelling the effects of benthic fauna on carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus dynamics in the Baltic Sea

Even though the effects of benthic fauna on aquatic biogeochemistry have been long recognized, few studies have addressed the combined effects of animal bioturbation and metabolism on ecosystem-level carbon and nutrient dynamics. Here we merge a model of benthic fauna (BMM) into a physical-biogeochemical ecosystem model (BALTSEM) to study the long-term and large-scale effects of benthic fauna on nutrient and carbon cycling in the Baltic Sea. We include both the direct effects of faunal growth and metabolism and the indirect effects of its bioturbating activities on biogeochemical fluxes of and transformations between organic and inorganic forms of carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and oxygen (0). Analyses of simulation results from the Baltic Proper and Gulf of Riga indicate that benthic fauna makes up a small portion of seafloor active organic stocks (on average 1%-4 % in 2000-2020) but contributes considerably to benthic-pelagic fluxes of inorganic C (23%-31%), N (42%-51%) and P (25 %-34 %) through its metabolism. Results also suggest that the relative contribution of fauna to the mineralization of sediment organic matter increases with increasing nutrient loads. Further, through enhanced sediment oxygenation, bioturbation decreases benthic denitrification and increases P retention, the latter having far-reaching consequences throughout the ecosystem. Reduced benthic-pelagic P fluxes lead to a reduction in N fixation and primary production, lower organic matter sedimentation fluxes, and thereby generally lower benthic stocks and fluxes of C, N and P. This chain of effects through the ecosystem overrides the local effects of faunal respiration, excretion and bioturbation. Due to large uncertainties related to the parameterization of benthic processes, we consider this modelling study a first step towards disentangling the complex ecosystem-scale effects of benthic fauna on biogeochemical cycling.Peer reviewe

On the superconvergence of Galerkin methods for hyperbolic IBVP

Finite element Galerkin methods for periodic first order hyperbolic equations exhibit superconvergence on uniform grids at the nodes, i.e., there is an error estimate 0(h(sup 2r)) instead of the expected approximation order 0(h(sup r)). It will be shown that no matter how the approximating subspace S(sup h) is chosen, the superconvergence property is lost if there are characteristics leaving the domain. The implications of this result when constructing compact implicit difference schemes is also discussed

Two-way coupling between Ecosim (EwE-F) and a biogeochemical model of the Baltic Sea

Two-way coupling results for the Central Baltic Sea between EwE-F, a Fortran version of Ecosim, and the BALTSEM biogeochemical modelEuropean Commission: ClimeFish - Co-creating a decision support framework to ensure sustainable fish production in Europe under climate change (677039