PRODUCT ATTRIBUTE PREFERENCES – A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH

The basis of buyers’ preferences are the differences of goods. Revealed preferences can be deducted from the market behaviour of the consumers, that is from their choices. In marketing consumer preferences are defined as the subjective tastes, as measured by utility, of various bundles of goods. They permit the consumer to rank these bundles of goods according to the levels of utility they give the consumer. In an expert brainstorming process we have identified eight factors that can determine the perception of product attributes: attribute strengths, preference interval, stability, product complexity, consumer task, lifelikeness, environment and experience. Our series of research plans to analyse the perception of product attributes and the system of the parameters of preferences related to them in a complex way. We aim to investigate preference systems that relate to the system of attributes with a multidisciplinary, multifocus, hierarchic series of surveys. As a first stage in our experimental study we are investigating intransitivity occurring in participants’ preferences during selection between simple, medium complex, and complex products. The participants’ task is to make pair-wise comparisons of preference between specific realizations of each product group. There are two possible versions to show up the pairs of virtual products to the subjects. We show up to the subject those attributes, which are not different, then only those that are different from each other. Using a computer based experimental design every participant has the personalized attribute set

Conductivity Exponent and Backbone Dimension in 2-d Percolation

We present high statistics simulations for 2-d percolation clusters in the "bus bar" geometry at the critical point, for site and for bond percolation. We measured their backbone sizes and electrical conductivities. For all sets of measurements we find large corrections to scaling, most of which do not seem to be described by single powers. Using single power terms for the corrections to scaling of the backbone masses, we would obtain fractal dimensions which are different for site and bond percolation, while the correct result is $D_b = 1.6432(8)$ for both. For the conductivity, the corrections to scaling are strongly non-monotonic for bond percolation. The exponent $t' = t/\nu$ is measured as 0.9826(8), in disagreement with the Alexander-Orbach and other conjectures.Comment: 15 pages, including 5 figures and 2 tables; minor change

Computation of Lyapunov functions for systems with multiple attractors

We present a novel method to compute Lyapunov functions for continuous-time systems with multiple local attractors. In the proposed method one first computes an outer approximation of the local attractors using a graphtheoretic approach. Then a candidate Lyapunov function is computed using a Massera-like construction adapted to multiple local attractors. In the final step this candidate Lyapunov function is interpolated over the simplices of a simplicial complex and, by checking certain inequalities at the vertices of the complex, we can identify the region in which the Lyapunov function is decreasing along system trajectories. The resulting Lyapunov function gives information on the qualitative behavior of the dynamics, including lower bounds on the basins of attraction of the individual local attractors. We develop the theory in detail and present numerical examples demonstrating the applicability of our method

Enhanced results for web search

“Ten blue links ” have defined web search results for the last fifteen years – snippets of text combined with document titles and URLs. In this paper, we establish the notion of enhanced search results that extend web search results to include multimedia objects such as images and video, intentspecific key value pairs, and elements that allow the user to interact with the contents of a web page directly from the search results page. We show that users express a preference for enhanced results both explicitly, and when observed in their search behavior. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of enhanced results in helping users to assess the relevance of search results. Lastly, we show that we can efficiently generate enhanced results to cover a significant fraction of search result pages

Command generation for FES enhanced grasping utilizing surface EMG in cervical injured

This is a preliminary report on a process to interpret commands from surface electromyography (sEMG) to assist grasping by individuals who have high level spinal cord injuries. The process extracts information from wrist extensor muscles sEMG to detect two distinct levels of volitional wrist extension. These levels could be used in any combination to implement specific commands to, 'increase' or 'decrease' stimulation intensity to finger flexor muscles for enhanced grasping. The process discriminated between true commands and potentially false signals due to either activities of daily living or stimulation artifacts. It is simple enough for implementation with basic, readily available hardware

The Extended Global Cardinality Constraint: An Empirical Survey

The Extended Global Cardinality Constraint (EGCC) is a vital component of constraint solving systems, since it is very widely used to model diverse problems. The literature contains many different versions of this constraint, which trade strength of inference against computational cost. In this paper, I focus on the highest strength of inference usually considered, enforcing generalized arc consistency (GAC) on the target variables. This work is an extensive empirical survey of algorithms and optimizations, considering both GAC on the target variables, and tightening the bounds of the cardinality variables. I evaluate a number of key techniques from the literature, and report important implementation details of those techniques, which have often not been described in published papers. Two new optimizations are proposed for EGCC. One of the novel optimizations (dynamic partitioning, generalized from AllDifferent) was found to speed up search by 5.6 times in the best case and 1.56 times on average, while exploring the same search tree. The empirical work represents by far the most extensive set of experiments on variants of GAC algorithms for EGCC. Overall, the best combination of optimizations gives a mean speedup of over 50 times compared to the same implementation without the optimizations

Fractionated Premotor, Motor, and Ankle Dorsiflexion Reaction Times in Hemiplegia

Ten hemiplegic subjects completed 20 rapid dorsiflexions of their afflicted and nonafflicted limbs. Electrodes were attached to the tibialis anterior and the gastrocnemius muscles and electromyograms were recorded for their premotor time, motor time, and simple reaction time during ankle dorsiflexion and plantar flexion of their lower limbs. The fractionated components of reaction time, namely, premotor time and motor time, of both legs were statistically compared. It was found that the premotor time of the subject's stroke-affected limb was significantly slower than the premotor time of the nonaffected limb (control), with no differences between their associated mean motor times. These results supported the hypothesis that a stroke has a deleterious affect upon the central, premotor time processing centers and has no disruptive influence upon the peripheral motor time. Comparing the fractionated components of reaction time (premotor time and motor time), with simple reaction time, the former provided a more sensitive and valid method to detect possible injurious side effects of a stroke upon the brain's neuromotor transmission centers and subcenters, and their peripheral, stimulus, response network