At Face Value: Visual Antecedents of Impression Formation in Servicescapes

Consumers may base employee impressions on physical appearance\ud and displayed personal objects. In a scenario experiment,\ud using photos of a physician and a 360-degree panorama of his\ud consultation room, we examined the effects of appearance and\ud tangibles on impression formation. Study 1 shows that observers\ud employ various strategies of combining information from different\ud sources when forming an impression of the employee’s friendliness\ud and competence. Whereas previous research has shown that impression\ud formation based on personal appearances proceeds in an\ud automatic fashion, the findings of study 2 indicate that impression\ud formation grounded in the perception of tangibles requires more\ud elaborate processin

Segre Product of Artin–Schelter Regular Algebras of Dimension 2 and Embeddings in Quantum P3's

AbstractThe Segre embedding of P1×P1as a smooth quadricQin P3corresponds to the surjection of the four-dimensional polynomial ring onto the Segre productSof two copies of the homogeneous coordinate ring of P1. We study Segre products of noncommutative algebras. If in particularAandBare two copies of a quantum P1thenS=⊕i(Ai⊗kBi) is a twisted homogeneous coordinate ring of the quadricQ. The main result of this paper is the classification of all embeddings of the Segre product of two quantum planes into so-called quantum P3's. These are (the Proj of) Artin–Schelter regular algebrasRof global dimension four with the Hilbert series of a commutative polynomial ring and which map ontoS. IfRis not a twist of a polynomial ring, then the point scheme ofReither is the union of the quadricQwith a line or is only the quadricQ. In the first case,Ris a central extension of a three-dimensional Artin–Schelter regular algebra and a twist of an algebra mapping onto the (commutative) homogeneous coordinate ring ofQ; in the second case, such an algebraRis the first known example of a four-dimensional Artin–Schelter regular algebra which is not determined by its point scheme

Amir Harrak, Syriac and Garshuni Inscriptions of Iraq

This momentous two-volume publication deals with the Christian history of Iraq. The collection of ca. 600 inscriptions reflects in multiple ways the history of the Christian communities from the early days under the Parthians and the Sassanians, through the Islamic and Ottoman period, until the present day. Throughout their history Iraqi Christians have lived as minorities in a non-Christian and non-Syriac environment. They have had to respond, therefore, to the challenges and opportunities t..

Shake it off; Radical meaning innovation in product design

This paper describes two techniques aimed at design-driven product innovation. Both techniques focus on providing a different, initially disruptive, perspective form which to approach a design assignment. As a result, sticky meanings and conventions are shaken loose, opening up avenues for considering new meanings that set the stage for design-driven product innovation.. Workshop results suggest that the techniques are effective in this respect; product solutions were original and out of the box and as such were ‘radical’ rather than ‘incremental’

The bodily basis of product experience

Based on the work of Lakoff and Johnson, this paper argues that part of our product experience is rooted in bodily interactions between people and their environments. Lakoff and Johnson convincingly demonstrated that repeated bodily interactions of a similar kind lead to the formation of image schemas guiding our understanding of verbal expressions. Here, it is proposed that the same underlying principles also govern our understanding of the expression of products. If correct, product expressions theoretically structured by the same underlying schema must be highly related. An experimental study involving chairs partly confirmed this prediction. The paper closes with a tentative discussion on how a chair's perceived expression could be related to the embodiment of schemas in its spatial and material features

Brand visualization: Effects of "product shape- typeface design" congruence on brand perceptions and price expectations

This research addresses effects of congruence of symbolic meanings connoted through product shape and typeface design on brand perceptions and price expectations. Based on processing fluency accounts, it is predicted that shape-typeface congruence, as opposed to shape-typeface incongruence, positively affects perceptions of brand credibility, brand aesthetics, and product value, the latter reflected in higher price expectations. These predictions were tested in two studies in which shape and typeface of a fictitious brand of bottled waters were manipulated. Findings from both studies were in line with our predictions. Moreover, study 2 indicates that perceived brand aesthetics mediates the effect of shape-typeface congruence on price expectations

Amir Harrak, Syriac and Garshuni Inscriptions of Iraq

This momentous two-volume publication deals with the Christian history of Iraq. The collection of ca. 600 inscriptions reflects in multiple ways the history of the Christian communities from the early days under the Parthians and the Sassanians, through the Islamic and Ottoman period, until the present day. Throughout their history Iraqi Christians have lived as minorities in a non-Christian and non-Syriac environment. They have had to respond, therefore, to the challenges and opportunities t..