A marketing view of the customer value: Customer lifetime value and customer equity

Throughout this research the customer valuation trend in marketing is going to be reviewed, emphasizing Customer Lifetime Value and Customer Equity measures. The main theoretical contributions in the development and evolution of the Customer Lifetime Value concept are analysed. Customer Lifetime Value is also differentiated from Customer Equity and Customer Profitability analysis to estimate customer value in terms of firm profitability. Customer Lifetime Value and Customer Equity concepts are formally defined. Additionally, a classification of a set of published researches into Customer Lifetime Value and/or Customer Equity is developed. This classification has been posited according to several criteria that serves as a guide to key requirements for developing these types of models. Finally, several conclusions, suggestions and future research streams are highlighted

Collisional Heating as the Origin of Filament Emission in Galaxy Clusters

It has long been known that photoionization, whether by starlight or other sources, has difficulty in accounting for the observed spectra of the optical filaments that often surround central galaxies in large clusters. This paper builds on the first of this series in which we examined whether heating by energetic particles or dissipative magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wave can account for the observations. The first paper focused on the molecular regions which produce strong H2 and CO lines. Here we extend the calculations to include atomic and low-ionization regions. Two major improvements to the previous calculations have been made. The model of the hydrogen atom, along with all elements of the H-like iso-electronic sequence, is now fully nl-resolved. This allows us to predict the hydrogen emission-line spectrum including excitation by suprathermal secondary electrons and thermal electrons or nuclei. We show how the predicted H Ispectrum differs from the pure-recombination case. The second update is to the rates for H0–H2 inelastic collisions. We now use the values computed by Wrathmall et al. The rates are often much larger and allow the ro–vibrational H2 level populations to achieve a thermal distribution at substantially lower densities than previously thought. We calculate the chemistry, ionization, temperature, gas pressure and emission-line spectrum for a wide range of gas densities and collisional heating rates. We assume that the filaments are magnetically confined. The gas is free to move along field lines so that the gas pressure is equal to that of the surrounding hot gas. A mix of clouds, some being dense and cold and others hot and tenuous, can exist. The observed spectrum will be the integrated emission from clouds with different densities and temperatures but the same pressure P/k=nT. We assume that the gas filling factor is given by a power law in density. The power-law index, the only free parameter in this theory, is set by matching the observed intensities of infrared H2 lines relative to optical H I lines. We conclude that the filaments are heated by ionizing particles, either conducted in from surrounding regions or produced in situ by processes related to MHD waves

Inference of Well-Typings for Logic Programs with Application to Termination Analysis

This paper develops a method to infer a polymorphic well-typing for a logic program. One of the main motivations is to contribute to a better automation of termination analysis in logic programs, by deriving types from which norms can automatically be constructed. Previous work on type-based termination analysis used either types declared by the user, or automatically generated monomorphic types describing the success set of predicates. Declared types are typically more precise and result in stronger termination conditions than those obtained with inferred types. Our type inference procedure involves solving set constraints generated from the program and derives a well-typing in contrast to a success-set approximation. Experiments show that our automatically inferred well-typings are close to the declared types and thus result in termination conditions that are as good as those obtained with declared types for all our experiments to date. We describe the method, its implementation and experiments with termination analysis based on the inferred types

Rovibrationally Resolved Direct Photodissociation through the Lyman and Werner Transitions of H\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e for FUV/X-Ray-Irradiated Environments

Using ab initio potential curves and dipole transition moments, cross-section calculations were performed for the direct continuum photodissociation of H2 through the B1Σ+u ← X1Σ+g (Lyman) and C1Πu ← X1Σ+g (Werner) transitions. Partial cross-sections were obtained for wavelengths from 100 Å to the dissociation threshold between the upper electronic state and each of the 301 bound rovibrational levels v\u27\u27J\u27\u27 within the ground electronic state. The resulting cross-sections are incorporated into three representative classes of interstellar gas models: diffuse clouds, photon-dominated regions, and X-ray-dominated regions (XDRs). The models, which used the CLOUDY plasma/molecular spectra simulation code, demonstrate that direct photodissociation is comparable to fluorescent dissociation (or spontaneous radiative dissociation, the Solomon process) as an H2 destruction mechanism in intense far-ultraviolet or X-ray-irradiated gas. In particular, changes in H2 rotational column densities are found to be as large as 20% in the XDR model with the inclusion of direct photodissociation. The photodestruction rate from some high-lying rovibrational levels can be enhanced by pumping from H Lyβ due to a wavelength coincidence with cross-section resonances resulting from quasi-bound levels of the upper electronic states. Given the relatively large size of the photodissociation data set, a strategy is described to create truncated, but reliable, cross-section data consistent with the wavelength resolving power of typical observations

Yukawa couplings and masses of non-chiral states for the Standard Model on D6-branes on T6/Z6'

The perturbative leading order open string three-point couplings for the Standard Model with hidden USp(6) on fractional D6-branes on T6/Z6' from arXiv:0806.3039 [hep-th], arXiv:0910.0843 [hep-th] are computed. Physical Yukawa couplings consisting of holomorphic Wilsonian superpotential terms times a non-holomorphic prefactor involving the corresponding classical open string Kaehler metrics are given, and mass terms for all non-chiral matter states are derived. The lepton Yukawa interactions are at leading order flavour diagonal, while the quark sector displays a more intricate pattern of mixings. While N=2 supersymmetric sectors acquire masses via only two D6-brane displacements - which also provide the hierarchies between up- and down-type Yukawas within one quark or lepton generation -, the remaining vector-like states receive masses via perturbative three-point couplings to some Standard Model singlet fields with vevs along flat directions. Couplings to the hidden sector and messengers for supersymmetry breaking are briefly discussed.Comment: 52 pages (including 8p. appendix); 5 figures; 14 tables; v2: discussion in section 4.1.3 extended, footnote 5 added, typos corrected, accepted by JHE

Homeomorphic Embedding for Online Termination of Symbolic Methods

Well-quasi orders in general, and homeomorphic embedding in particular, have gained popularity to ensure the termination of techniques for program analysis, specialisation, transformation, and verification. In this paper we survey and discuss this use of homeomorphic embedding and clarify the advantages of such an approach over one using well-founded orders. We also discuss various extensions of the homeomorphic embedding relation. We conclude with a study of homeomorphic embedding in the context of metaprogramming, presenting some new (positive and negative) results and open problems

Single-cell immune profiling reveals markers of emergency myelopoiesis that distinguish severe from mild respiratory syncytial virus disease in infants

Whereas most infants infected with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) show no or only mild symptoms, an estimated 3 million children under five are hospitalized annually due to RSV disease. This study aimed to investigate biological mechanisms and associated biomarkers underlying RSV disease heterogeneity in young infants, enabling the potential to objectively categorize RSV-infected infants according to their medical needs. Immunophenotypic and functional profiling demonstrated the emergence of immature and progenitor-like neutrophils, proliferative monocytes (HLA-DRLow, Ki67+), impaired antigen-presenting function, downregulation of T cell response and low abundance of HLA-DRLow B cells in severe RSV disease. HLA-DRLow monocytes were found as a hallmark of RSV-infected infants requiring hospitalization. Complementary transcriptomics identified genes associated with disease severity and pointed to the emergency myelopoiesis response. These results shed new light on mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis and development of severe RSV disease and identified potential new candidate biomarkers for patient stratification

Gravitational collapse and thermalization in the hard wall model

We study a simple example of holographic thermalization in a confining field theory: the homogeneous injection of energy in the hard wall model. Working in an amplitude expansion, we find black brane formation for sufficiently fast energy injection and a scattering wave solution for sufficiently slow injection. We comment on our expectations for more sophisticated holographic QCD models.Comment: 33 pages, 5 figure