Horizontal Selling Alliances: The Effect Of Organizational Distance And Mutual Trust On Dyadic Working Relationships

In response to complex and uncertain environments, marketers are forming horizontal selling alliances in which sales representatives from two or more independent sales forces work cooperatively as partners to provide joint customer solutions. This study examined how organizational differences, perceived trustworthiness, and trusting behaviours affect the effectiveness of selling partner working relationships. Drawing on social exchange theory and the IMP Interaction Approach, conceptual and structural equation research models were developed. These were operationalized using relationship-level and aggregated individual-level indicators. Hypotheses were tested using Partial Least Squares and dyadic, self-report data collected from computer sales representatives.;Organizational differences, particularly differences in reputations for professionalism and job stability, were found to play a modest role in affecting perceptions of partner trustworthiness, but had little indirect impact on the mutual satisfaction of the partners, perceived relationship continuity, or perceived task performance. Dimensions of mutual perceived trustworthiness were found to be key determinants of mutual satisfaction, primarily through the intervening trusting behaviours of relationship-specific investment, communication openness, and forbearance from opportunism. In addition, mutual perceived equity and mutual perceived interdependence were found to be key determinants of mutual satisfaction.;The study highlights the importance of developing trust in working relationships, separating the belief and behavioural components of trust, and examining their underlying dimensions to be able to develop recommendations for managers and sales representatives in horizontal selling alliances. It also contributes to our understanding of using relationship-level and aggregated individual-level measures to study dyads as a unit of analysis

Warped Supersymmetric Unification with Non-Unified Superparticle Spectrum

We present a new supersymmetric extension of the standard model. The model is constructed in warped space, with a unified bulk symmetry broken by boundary conditions on both the Planck and TeV branes. In the supersymmetric limit, the massless spectrum contains exotic colored particles along with the particle content of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). Nevertheless, the model still reproduces the MSSM prediction for gauge coupling unification and does not suffer from a proton decay problem. The exotic states acquire masses from supersymmetry breaking, making the model completely viable, but there is still the possibility that these states will be detected at the LHC. The lightest of these states is most likely A_5^XY, the fifth component of the gauge field associated with the broken unified symmetry. Because supersymmetry is broken on the SU(5)-violating TeV brane, the gaugino masses generated at the TeV scale are completely independent of one another. We explore some of the unusual features that the superparticle spectrum might have as a consequence.Comment: 21 pages, Latex, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

System data communication structures for active-control transport aircraft, volume 2

The application of communication structures to advanced transport aircraft are addressed. First, a set of avionic functional requirements is established, and a baseline set of avionics equipment is defined that will meet the requirements. Three alternative configurations for this equipment are then identified that represent the evolution toward more dispersed systems. Candidate communication structures are proposed for each system configuration, and these are compared using trade off analyses; these analyses emphasize reliability but also address complexity. Multiplex buses are recognized as the likely near term choice with mesh networks being desirable for advanced, highly dispersed systems

System data communication structures for active-control transport aircraft, volume 1

Candidate data communication techniques are identified, including dedicated links, local buses, broadcast buses, multiplex buses, and mesh networks. The design methodology for mesh networks is then discussed, including network topology and node architecture. Several concepts of power distribution are reviewed, including current limiting and mesh networks for power. The technology issues of packaging, transmission media, and lightning are addressed, and, finally, the analysis tools developed to aid in the communication design process are described. There are special tools to analyze the reliability and connectivity of networks and more general reliability analysis tools for all types of systems

Kaneohe Bay Sewage Diversion Experiment: Perspectives on Ecosystem Responses to Nutritional Perturbation

Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, received increasing amounts of sewage from the 1950s through 1977. Most sewage was diverted from the bay in 1977 and early 1978. This investigation, begun in January 1976 and continued through August 1979, described the bay over that period, with particular reference to the responses of the ecosystem to sewage diversion. The sewage was a nutritional subsidy. All of the inorganic nitrogen and most of the inorganic phosphorus introduced into the ecosystem were taken up biologically before being advected from the bay. The major uptake was by phytoplankton, and the internal water-column cycle between dissolved nutrients, phytoplankton, zooplankton, microheterotrophs, and detritus supported a rate of productivity far exceeding the rate of nutrient loading. These water-column particles were partly washed out of the ecosystem and partly sedimented and became available to the benthos. The primary benthic response to nutrient loading was a large buildup of detritivorous heterotrophic biomass. Cycling of nutrients among heterotrophs, autotrophs, detritus, and inorganic nutrients was important. With sewage diversion, the biomass of both plankton and benthos decreased rapidly. Benthic biological composition has not yet returned to presewage conditions, partly because some key organisms are long-lived and partly because the bay substratum has been perturbed by both the sewage and other human influences

Comprehensive translational assessment of human-induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes for evaluating drug-induced arrhythmias

Induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CM) hold promise for assessment of drug-induced arrhythmias and are being considered for use under the comprehensive in vitro proarrhythmia assay (CiPA). We studied the effects of 26 drugs and 3 drug combinations on 2 commercially available iPSC-CM types using high-throughput voltage-sensitive dye and microelectrode-array assays being studied for the CiPA initiative and compared the results with clinical QT prolongation and torsade de pointes (TdP) risk. Concentration-dependent analysis comparing iPSC-CMs to clinical trial results demonstrated good correlation between drug-induced rate-corrected action potential duration and field potential duration (APDc and FPDc) prolongation and clinical trial QTc prolongation. Of 20 drugs studied that exhibit clinical QTc prolongation, 17 caused APDc prolongation (16 in Cor.4U and 13 in iCell cardiomyocytes) and 16 caused FPDc prolongation (16 in Cor.4U and 10 in iCell cardiomyocytes). Of 14 drugs that cause TdP, arrhythmias occurred with 10 drugs. Lack of arrhythmic beating in iPSC-CMs for the four remaining drugs could be due to differences in relative levels of expression of individual ion channels. iPSC-CMs responded consistently to human ether-a-go-go potassium channel blocking drugs (APD prolongation and arrhythmias) and calcium channel blocking drugs (APD shortening and prevention of arrhythmias), with a more variable response to late sodium current blocking drugs. Current results confirm the potential of iPSC-CMs for proarrhythmia prediction under CiPA, where iPSC-CM results would serve as a check to ion channel and in silico modeling prediction of proarrhythmic risk. A multi-site validation study is warranted

Parton Distributions Working Group

The main focus of this working group was to investigate the different issues associated with the development of quantitative tools to estimate parton distribution functions uncertainties. In the conclusion, we introduce a "Manifesto" that describes an optimal method for reporting data.Comment: Report of the Parton Distributions Working Group of the 'QCD and Weak Boson Physics workshop in preparation for Run II at the Fermilab Tevatron'. Co-Conveners: L. de Barbaro, S.A. Keller, S. Kuhlmann, H. Schellman, and W.-K. Tun

The Strategic Exploitation of Limited Information and Opportunity in Networked Markets

This paper studies the effect of constraining interactions within a market. A model is analysed in which boundedly rational agents trade with and gather information from their neighbours within a trade network. It is demonstrated that a trader’s ability to profit and to identify the equilibrium price is positively correlated with its degree of connectivity within the market. Where traders differ in their number of potential trading partners, well-connected traders are found to benefit from aggressive trading behaviour.Where information propagation is constrained by the topology of the trade network, connectedness affects the nature of the strategies employed