Examining The Role of Information Technology in Cultivating Firms’ Dynamic Marketing Capabilities

Dynamic capabilities enable firms to reconfigure limited resources or relative strengths to respond to rapid changes in market conditions. This study considers the central role of IT in creating and enhancing dynamic capabilities by analyzing the essential determinants of dynamic marketing capabilities and proposing a model that includes market orientation, IT infrastructure capabilities, and use of IT to support CRM. Tests using a large-scale survey support the model and most of its hypotheses. The results reveal significant effects of a firm’s market orientation and use of IT to support CRM and the functionality of IT infrastructure capabilities on dynamic marketing capabilities

Robust block preconditioners for biot’s model

In this paper, we design robust and efficient block preconditioners for the two-field formulation of Biot’s consolidation model, where stabilized finite-element discretizations are used. The proposed block preconditioners are based on the well-posedness of the discrete linear systems. Block diagonal (norm-equivalent) and block triangular preconditioners are developed, and we prove that these methods are robust with respect to both physical and discretization parameters. Numerical results are presented to support the theoretical results

Experimental method for biaxial tensile strength of fabrics and preliminary investigations

This paper presents a novel experimental approach to determine the biaxial strength of fabrics. A double-layer cruciform specimen was proposed based on the improvement of previous test specimen. The design and manufacture process of the novel specimen was described in detail. Uniaxial and biaxial tests of a specific material were performed subsequently. Based on numerical simulation, the biaxial strength of the fabrics was preliminary investigated. And the correlation between uniaxial and biaxial strength of the material was discussed. The proposed experiments could characterize the biaxial strength of fabrics, and the biaxial strength of the fabrics at 1:1 tension is higher than the weft strength and little lower than the warp strength

An explorative study of interface support for image searching

In this paper we study interfaces for image retrieval systems. Current image retrieval interfaces are limited to providing query facilities and result presentation. The user can inspect the results and possibly provide feedback on their relevance for the current query. Our approach, in contrast, encourages the user to group and organise their search results and thus provide more fine-grained feedback for the system. It combines the search and management process, which - according to our hypothesis - helps the user to onceptualise their search tasks and to overcome the query formulation problem. An evaluation, involving young design-professionals and di®erent types of information seeking scenarios, shows that the proposed approach succeeds in encouraging the user to conceptualise their tasks and that it leads to increased user satisfaction. However, it could not be shown to increase performance. We identify the problems in the current setup, which when eliminated should lead to more effective searching overall

Robust preconditioners for a new stabilized discretization of the poroelastic equations

In this paper, we present block preconditioners for a stabilized discretization of the poroelastic equations developed in [C. Rodrigo, X. Hu, P. Ohm, J. Adler, F. Gaspar, and L. Zikatanov, Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg., 341 (2018), pp. 467-484]. The discretization is proved to be well-posed with respect to the physical and discretization parameters and thus provides a framework to develop preconditioners that are robust with respect to such parameters as well. We construct both norm-equivalent (diagonal) and field-of-value-equivalent (triangular) preconditioners for both the stabilized discretization and a perturbation of the stabilized discretization, which leads to a smaller overall problem after static condensation. Numerical tests for both two-and three-dimensional problems confirm the robustness of the block preconditioners with respect to the physical and discretization parameters

A Web-Based Recommendation System for Mobile Phone Selection

Mobile phones have become indispensable in our everyday life. The fierce market competition characterized by rapid expansion of advanced functionality and feature is making consumers’ mobile phone selections increasingly complex and challenging. In this study, we use Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a multiple criteria decision method, to build a recommendation system for mobile phones selection. AHP provides a structural and easily comprehensible model for making product choices. We empirically evaluate our recommendation system by conducting a controlled experiment that involved 244 mobile phone users. Our analysis results indicate that the use of the proposed system results in higher satisfaction than that associated with the rank-based and equal-weight based benchmark systems

Diffuse interstitial and multiple cavitary lung lesions due to Talaromyces marneffei infection in a non-HIV patient

AbstractA 57-year-old man presented with unproductive cough and dyspnea for 6 months in Fujian Province, China. His misuse of a large amount of steroids (accumulated dose equivalent to 3530 mg prednisolone) resulted in Talaromyces marneffei infection. Chest computed tomographic scan revealed diffuse interstitial and multiple cavitary lung lesions. Treatment with amphotericin B combined with itraconazole resulted in total recovery, with marked regression of lung lesions

Probing neutrino masses with future galaxy redshift surveys

We perform a new study of future sensitivities of galaxy redshift surveys to the free-streaming effect caused by neutrino masses, adding the information on cosmological parameters from measurements of primary anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Our reference cosmological scenario has nine parameters and three different neutrino masses, with a hierarchy imposed by oscillation experiments. Within the present decade, the combination of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and CMB data from the PLANCK experiment will have a 2-sigma detection threshold on the total neutrino mass close to 0.2 eV. This estimate is robust against the inclusion of extra free parameters in the reference cosmological model. On a longer term, the next generation of experiments may reach values of order sum m_nu = 0.1 eV at 2-sigma, or better if a galaxy redshift survey significantly larger than SDSS is completed. We also discuss how the small changes on the free-streaming scales in the normal and inverted hierarchy schemes are translated into the expected errors from future cosmological data.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures. Added results with the KAOS proposal and 1 referenc

Tension term, interchange symmetry, and the analogy of energy and tension laws of the AdS soliton solution

In this paper, we reconsider the energy and tension laws of the Ricci flat black hole by taking the contribution of the tension term into account. After this considering and inspired by the interchange symmetry between the Ricci flat black hole and the AdS soliton solution which arises from the double analytic continuation of the time and compact spatial direction, we find out the analogy of the energy and tension laws of the AdS soliton solution. Moreover, we also investigate the energy and tension laws of the boosted Ricci flat black hole, and discuss the boosted AdS soliton solution. However, although there is the same interchange symmetry between the boosted Ricci flat black hole and boosted AdS soliton, the analogy of laws of the boosted AdS soliton solution may be of no sense for the existence of the closed timelike curves and conical singularity. In spite of that, the conserved charges such as the energy and momentum of the boosted AdS soliton are well-defined, and an interesting result is that its energy is lower than that of the static AdS soliton. On the other hand, note that although the laws obtained above are the same as those of the asymptotically flat case, the underlying deduced contents are different. Thus, our results could also be considered as a simple generalization to the asymptotically AdS case. Moreover, during the calculation, we find that there may be a new way to define the gravitational tension which can come from the quasi-local stress tensor of the counter-term method.Comment: V4: 15 pages, no figure, version to appear in JHE

Exact Master Equation and Non-Markovian Decoherence for Quantum Dot Quantum Computing

In this article, we report the recent progress on decoherence dynamics of electrons in quantum dot quantum computing systems using the exact master equation we derived recently based on the Feynman-Vernon influence functional approach. The exact master equation is valid for general nanostructure systems coupled to multi-reservoirs with arbitrary spectral densities, temperatures and biases. We take the double quantum dot charge qubit system as a specific example, and discuss in details the decoherence dynamics of the charge qubit under coherence controls. The decoherence dynamics risen from the entanglement between the system and the environment is mainly non-Markovian. We further discuss the decoherence of the double-dot charge qubit induced by quantum point contact (QPC) measurement where the master equation is re-derived using the Keldysh non-equilibrium Green function technique due to the non-linear coupling between the charge qubit and the QPC. The non-Markovian decoherence dynamics in the measurement processes is extensively discussed as well.Comment: 15 pages, Invited article for the special issue "Quantum Decoherence and Entanglement" in Quantum Inf. Proces