State of the art of pricing policy in air transportation: network carriers vs. low-cost airlines

The modern air transport industry is highly competitive. To survive in the market, the implementation of a successful marketing strategy is fundamental. In particular, an effective pricing policy has become crucial for airlines to remain profitable. Correspondingly, the different types of airline in the market have also established very distinct pricing policies. The present study is based on a literature review and presents the state of the art of pricing policy in air transportation. The aim is to compare and discuss the pricing strategies of network carriers and low-cost airlines. Special attention is paid to Revenue Management, which is a very important management tool used by airlines to take advantage of the differences in willingness to pay of passengers. The pricing policy, however, depends on the overall business strategy of the airline. Results show many differences, resulting from the fact that these two types of airline are characterized by very different fundamental business models and, correspondingly, also target groups. Since network carriers and also low-cost airlines have adjusted their pricing strategies lately, these recent developments will be discussed as well. This paper adds to the knowledge of this topic because it presents the most up-to-date and complete study on pricing regarding network carriers vs. low-cost airlines.A moderna indústria do transporte aéreo é altamente competitiva. Para sobreviver no mercado, a implementação de uma estratégia de marketing bem-sucedida é fundamental. Em particular, uma política de preços eficaz tornou-se crucial para as companhias aéreas continuarem lucrativas. Os diferentes tipos de companhias aéreas no mercado também estabeleceram políticas de preços muito distintas. O presente estudo baseia-se numa revisão da literatura e apresenta o estado da arte da política de preços no transporte aéreo. O objetivo é comparar e discutir as estratégias de preços de companhias aéreas de linha e companhias aéreas de baixo custo. Atenção especial é dada à Gestão de Receitas (Revenue Management), que é uma ferramenta de gestão usada pelas companhias aéreas para aproveitar as diferenças na disposição de pagar dos passageiros. A política de preços, no entanto, depende da estratégia geral de negócios da companhia aérea. Os resultados mostram muitas diferenças, resultantes do facto de que esses dois tipos de companhias aéreas são caracterizados por modelos de negócios fundamentais muito diferentes e, correspondentemente, também grupos-alvo. Como as operadoras de rede e também as companhias aéreas de baixo custo ajustaram as suas estratégias de preços ultimamente, esses desenvolvimentos recentes também serão discutidos. Este documento contribui para o conhecimento deste tópico, pois apresenta o estudo mais atualizado e completo sobre preços de companhias aéreas de linha versus companhias aéreas de baixo custo.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Comment on "Theory and computer simulation for the equation of state of additive hard-disk fluid mixtures"

A flaw in the comparison between two different theoretical equations of state for a binary mixture of additive hard disks and Monte Carlo results, as recently reported in C. Barrio and J. R. Solana, Phys. Rev. E 63, 011201 (2001), is pointed out. It is found that both proposals, which require the equation of state of the single component system as input, lead to comparable accuracy but the one advocated by us [A. Santos, S. B. Yuste, and M. L\'{o}pez de Haro, Mol. Phys. 96, 1 (1999)] is simpler and complies with the exact limit in which the small disks are point particles.Comment: 4 pages, including 1 figur

Are beryllium abundances anomalous in stars with giant planets?

In this paper we present beryllium (Be) abundances in a large sample of 41 extra-solar planet host stars, and for 29 stars without any known planetary-mass companion, spanning a large range of effective temperatures. The Be abundances were derived through spectral synthesis done in standard Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium, using spectra obtained with various instruments. The results seem to confirm that overall, planet-host stars have ``normal'' Be abundances, although a small, but not significant, difference might be present. This result is discussed, and we show that this difference is probably not due to any stellar ``pollution'' events. In other words, our results support the idea that the high-metal content of planet-host stars has, overall, a ``primordial'' origin. However, we also find a small subset of planet-host late-F and early-G dwarfs that might have higher than average Be abundances. The reason for the offset is not clear, and might be related either to the engulfment of planetary material, to galactic chemical evolution effects, or to stellar-mass differences for stars of similar temperature.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Abrupt Changes in the Dynamics of Quantum Disentanglement

Entanglement evolution in high dimensional bipartite systems under dissipation is studied. Discontinuities for the time derivative of the lower bound of entanglement of formation is found depending on the initial conditions for entangled states. This abrupt changes along the evolution appears as precursors of entanglement sudden death.Comment: 4 pages and 6 figures, submitted for publicatio

Light elements in stars with exoplanets

It is well known that stars orbited by giant planets have higher abundances of heavy elements when compared with average field dwarfs. A number of studies have also addressed the possibility that light element abundances are different in these stars. In this paper we will review the present status of these studies. The most significant trends will be discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to the proceedings of IAU symposium 268: Light elements in the universe

Beryllium anomalies in solar-type field stars

We present a study of beryllium (Be) abundances in a large sample of field solar-type dwarfs and sub-giants spanning a large range of effective temperatures. The analysis shows that Be is severely depleted for F stars, as expected by the light-element depletion models. However, we also show that Beryllium abundances decrease with decreasing temperature for stars cooler than $\sim$6000 K, a result that cannot be explained by current theoretical models including rotational mixing, but that is, at least in part, expected from the models that take into account internal wave physics. In particular, the light element abundances of the coolest and youngest stars in our sample suggest that Be, as well as lithium (Li), has already been burned early during their evolution. Furthermore, we find strong evidence for the existence of a Be-gap for solar-temperature stars. The analysis of Li and Be abundances in the sub-giants of our sample also shows the presence of one case that has still detectable amounts of Li, while Be is severely depleted. Finally, we compare the derived Be abundances with Li abundances derived using the same set of stellar parameters. This gives us the possibility to explore the temperatures for which the onset of Li and Be depletion occurs.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Nitrogen abundances in Planet-harbouring stars

We present a detailed spectroscopic analysis of nitrogen abundances in 91 solar-type stars, 66 with and 25 without known planetary mass companions. All comparison sample stars and 28 planet hosts were analysed by spectral synthesis of the near-UV NH band at 3360 \AA observed at high resolution with the VLT/UVES,while the near-IR NI 7468 \AA was measured in 31 objects. These two abundance indicators are in good agreement. We found that nitrogen abundance scales with that of iron in the metallicity range -0.6 <[Fe/H]< +0.4 with the slope 1.08 \pm 0.05. Our results show that the bulk of nitrogen production at high metallicities was coupled with iron. We found that the nitrogen abundance distribution in stars with exoplanets is the high [Fe/H] extension of the curve traced by the comparison sample of stars with no known planets. A comparison of our nitrogen abundances with those available in the literature shows a good agreement.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, Accepted for publication in A&

Beryllium abundances in stars hosting giant planets

We have derived beryllium abundances in a wide sample of stars hosting planets, with spectral types in the range F7V-K0V, aimed at studying in detail the effects of the presence of planets on the structure and evolution of the associated stars. Predictions from current models are compared with the derived abundances and suggestions are provided to explain the observed inconsistencies. We show that while still not clear, the results suggest that theoretical models may have to be revised for stars with Teff<5500K. On the other hand, a comparison between planet host and non-planet host stars shows no clear difference between both populations. Although preliminary, this result favors a ``primordial'' origin for the metallicity ``excess'' observed for the planetary host stars. Under this assumption, i.e. that there would be no differences between stars with and without giant planets, the light element depletion pattern of our sample of stars may also be used to further investigate and constraint Li and Be depletion mechanisms.Comment: A&A in press -- accepted on the 22/02/2002 (11 pages, 6 figures included

Isotropy theorem for cosmological vector fields

We consider homogeneous Abelian vector fields in an expanding universe. We find a mechanical analogy in which the system behaves as a particle moving in three dimensions under the action of a central potential. In the case of bounded and rapid evolution compared to the rate of expansion, we show-by making use of the virial theorem-that for an arbitrary potential and polarization pattern, the average energy-momentum tensor is always diagonal and isotropic despite the intrinsic anisotropic evolution of the vector field. For simple power law potentials of the form V = lambda(A(mu)A(mu))(n), the average equation of state is found to be w = (n - 1)/(n + 1). This implies that vector coherent oscillations could act as natural dark matter or dark energy candidates. Finally, we show that under very general conditions, the average energy-momentum tensor of a rapidly evolving bounded vector field in any background geometry is always isotropic and has the perfect fluid form for any locally inertial observer