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COMMENTARY Enhancing consumer empowerment
Purpose of this paper:
Much of the literature on consumer empowerment focuses on consumersâ efforts to regain control of their consumption processes from suppliers. Our purpose is to argue that many suppliers achieve success by trying hard to empower consumers. The mechanism by which this takes place consists of researching and providing what
consumers want. Consumers feel empowered when they are able to enjoy the consumption process. This is of particular note in shopping, which is not simply obtaining products but also experience and enjoyment.
Design/methodology/approach:
Research is examined into the links between firmsâ efforts to understand what consumers want, atmospheric stimuli, emotions and buying behaviour.
Findings:
We find that successful firmsâ try hard to understand what consumers want and to improve consumer satisfaction and empowerment by providing pleasant marketing environments and apt, relevant information.
Research limitations/implications:
The approach is based on prior literature. We examine marketing to consumers in company locations, e.g. stores, malls, restaurants and banks to examine specific evidence of the effects of atmospheric stimuli such as aroma, music and video screen media.
Practical implications:
We contend that firms can and do become successful in a competitive arena by providing pleasant environments and information that people want.
What is original/value of paper?:
We show how consumer empowerment is an important concept. This paper contributes since there is a dearth of writings specifically about consumer empowerment in the marketing literature. Far from the popular view of consumers being manipulated by firms, successful firms try hard to and succeed in empowering consumers in their marketing activities
Searching a biomedical bibliographic database from the Ukraine: the Panteleimon database
The Panteleimon database is available via the Internet and is a public access, database, capable of being searched in English, Russian and Ukrainian, covering medical, pharmaceutical, and chemical publications, published in he Ukraine and Russia from 1998. Describes the formulation of a search strategy for the Panteleimon database, for the identification of citations to randomized controlled trials (RCTs), and the comparison of the search results with records included in the Cochrane Library's Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) database, to evaluate how comprehensive the coverage of the CENTRAL database is for the literature of the Ukraine. The results indicated that Panteleimon is an easily accessible bibliographic database offering easy access to the Ukrainian biomedical literature. The English language retrieval functions picked up most of the reports of RCTs/CCTs (91 per cent precision but the lower recall of 55 per cent indicates the need to search using Russian and Ukrainian terms for completeness. The overall precision of 26 per cent compares favourably with a search for RCTs in EMBASE, carried out by the UK Cochrane Centre, where 70,000 reports of RCTs were identified from 300,000 records down-loaded (precision 23 per cent). (Quotes from original text
Do elliptical galaxies have thick disks?
The authors discuss new evidence which supports the existence of thick disks in elliptical/SO galaxies. Numerical simulations of weak interactions with thick disk systems produce shell structures very similar in appearance to those observed in many shell galaxies. The authors think this model presents a more plausible explanation for the formation of shell structures in elliptical/SO galaxies than does the merger model and, if correct, supports the existence of thick disks in elliptical/SO galaxies
Structural, vibrational and thermal properties of densified silicates : insights from Molecular Dynamics
Structural, vibrational and thermal properties of densified sodium silicate
(NS2) are investigated with classical molecular dynamics simulations of the
glass and the liquid state. A systematic investigation of the glass structure
with respect to density was performed. We observe a repolymerization of the
network manifested by a transition from a tetrahedral to an octahedral silicon
environment, the decrease of the amount of non-bridging oxygen atoms and the
appearance of three-fold coordinated oxygen atoms (triclusters). Anomalous
changes in the medium range order are observed, the first sharp diffraction
peak showing a minimum of its full-width at half maximum according to density.
The previously reported vibrational trends in densified glasses are observed,
such as the shift of the Boson peak intensity to higher frequencies and the
decrease of its intensity. Finally, we show that the thermal behavior of the
liquid can be reproduced by the Birch-Murnaghan equation of states, thus
allowing us to compute the isothermal compressibility
On the complexion of pseudoscalar mesons
A strongly momentum-dependent dressed-quark mass function is basic to QCD. It
is central to the appearance of a constituent-quark mass-scale and an
existential prerequisite for Goldstone modes. Dyson-Schwinger equation (DSEs)
studies have long emphasised this importance, and have proved that QCD's
Goldstone modes are the only pseudoscalar mesons to possess a nonzero leptonic
decay constant in the chiral limit when chiral symmetry is dynamically broken,
while the decay constants of their radial excitations vanish. Such features are
readily illustrated using a rainbow-ladder truncation of the DSEs. In this
connection we find (in GeV): f_{eta_c(1S)}= 0.233, m_{eta_c(2S)}=3.42; and
support for interpreting eta(1295), eta(1470) as the first radial excitations
of eta(548), eta'(958), respectively, and K(1460) as the first radial
excitation of the kaon. Moreover, such radial excitations have electromagnetic
diameters greater than 2fm. This exceeds the spatial length of lattices used
typically in contemporary lattice-QCD.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. Contribution to the proceedings of the "10th
International Symposium on Meson-Nucleon Physics and the Structure of the
Nucleon (MENU04)," IHEP, Beijing, China, 30/Aug.-4/Sept./0
Convergence of the restricted Nelder-Mead algorithm in two dimensions
The Nelder-Mead algorithm, a longstanding direct search method for
unconstrained optimization published in 1965, is designed to minimize a
scalar-valued function f of n real variables using only function values,
without any derivative information. Each Nelder-Mead iteration is associated
with a nondegenerate simplex defined by n+1 vertices and their function values;
a typical iteration produces a new simplex by replacing the worst vertex by a
new point. Despite the method's widespread use, theoretical results have been
limited: for strictly convex objective functions of one variable with bounded
level sets, the algorithm always converges to the minimizer; for such functions
of two variables, the diameter of the simplex converges to zero, but examples
constructed by McKinnon show that the algorithm may converge to a nonminimizing
point.
This paper considers the restricted Nelder-Mead algorithm, a variant that
does not allow expansion steps. In two dimensions we show that, for any
nondegenerate starting simplex and any twice-continuously differentiable
function with positive definite Hessian and bounded level sets, the algorithm
always converges to the minimizer. The proof is based on treating the method as
a discrete dynamical system, and relies on several techniques that are
non-standard in convergence proofs for unconstrained optimization.Comment: 27 page
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Noble gases from the planetary nebula stage of stellar evolution implanted in meteoritic SiC grains
Comparing Line and HR Executivesâ Perceptions of HR Effectiveness: Services, Roles, and Contributions
This study compared HR and line executivesâ evaluations of the effectiveness of the HR function in terms of its service delivery, roles, and contributions to the firm. Survey responses from 44 HR and 59 line executives from 14 companies indicated that (a) HR executives consistently rated the functions effectiveness higher than did line executives, and (b) the greatest differences were observed on the more important and/or strategic aspects of HR. Implications are discussed
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