Co-creation vs. mass customization in fashion industry : understanding new shoppers’ differential perceived value and preferences

Emerging literature highlights the importance of implementing user innovation in existing new product development as the offline fashion industry is stagnating. Co-creation and mass customization, denoted as an active collaboration process between fashion retailers and consumers, are user innovative concepts. There is little known how different shopper types embrace the final product outcomes of both concepts. Therefore, this research study aims to examine the differential effects on perceptions and preferences different shopper groups have towards user innovative fashion concepts. Shoppers’ perceptions were measured by quality innovativeness, and social status, whereas preferences were assessed by attractiveness and purchase intentions. Factor and Cluster analysis was conducted to identify a new shopper typology of six heterogeneous shopper types coupled with their shopping behaviour. In this between-subject research, each shopper’s perceptions and preferences on mass customized and co-created products have been assessed by using the two-way ANOVA technique. In general, it revealed that the personalized and risk-averse shopper tends towards co-creation in fashion, whereas the price-conscious one tends towards mass customization. The convenience and conventional as well as the individual shopper might not be appropriate target segments for fashion retailers. By understanding the outcomes of this study, fashion retailers can extent their product portfolio and adapt their positioning strategies to accelerate business with the help of user innovation concepts. Limitations and opportunities for further research are also discussed

Modeling pedestrian evacuation movement in a swaying ship

With the advance in living standard, cruise travel has been rapidly expanding around the world in recent years. The transportation of passengers in water has also made a rapid development. It is expected that ships will be more and more widely used. Unfortunately, ship disasters occurred in these years caused serious losses. It raised the concern on effectiveness of passenger evacuation on ships. The present study thus focuses on pedestrian evacuation features on ships. On ships, passenger movements are affected by the periodical water motion and thus are quite different from the characteristic when walking on static horizontal floor. Taking into consideration of this special feature, an agent-based pedestrian model is formulized and the effect of ship swaying on pedestrian evacuation efficiency is investigated. Results indicated that the proposed model can be used to quantify the special evacuation process on ships.Comment: Traffic and Granular Flow'15, At Delft, the Netherland

Modelling supported driving as an optimal control cycle: Framework and model characteristics

Driver assistance systems support drivers in operating vehicles in a safe, comfortable and efficient way, and thus may induce changes in traffic flow characteristics. This paper puts forward a receding horizon control framework to model driver assistance and cooperative systems. The accelerations of automated vehicles are controlled to optimise a cost function, assuming other vehicles driving at stationary conditions over a prediction horizon. The flexibility of the framework is demonstrated with controller design of Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Cooperative ACC (C-ACC) systems. The proposed ACC and C-ACC model characteristics are investigated analytically, with focus on equilibrium solutions and stability properties. The proposed ACC model produces plausible human car-following behaviour and is unconditionally locally stable. By careful tuning of parameters, the ACC model generates similar stability characteristics as human driver models. The proposed C-ACC model results in convective downstream and absolute string instability, but not convective upstream string instability observed in human-driven traffic and in the ACC model. The control framework and analytical results provide insights into the influences of ACC and C-ACC systems on traffic flow operations.Comment: Submitted to Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologie

Modelling of dishing for metal chemical mechanical polishing

In this paper, a physical model for the development of dishing during metal chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is proposed. The main assumption of the model is that material removal occurs predominantly at the pad/wafer contacts. The distribution of pad/wafer contact size is studied first. This distribution is used as an input for a model of the dependence for the material removal rate on the line width. A relation that describes the development of dishing as a function of overpolish time will be presented. The model describes to a great accuracy the observed dishing effects, using one free paramete

signaling pathways in elastic tissues

Abstract For many years elastin was considered as the matrix component structurally required to provide tissue elasticity. However, the expanded knowledge on the regulation of connective tissue homeostasis has revealed that elastic fibers also represent a source of elastokines and are the target of a number of signaling pathways mainly involving the TGF-β/BMP axis. A better understanding of these complex regulatory networks may pave the way for targeted therapeutic strategies in a number of genetic as well as acquired diseases and for the development of new functionalized biomaterials

Going new ways to end HIV: reaching men who have sex with men through a community, business, and public health partnership to increase HIV testing in Europe = Nuevas formas de acabar con el VIH: llegar a los hombres que tienen sexo con hombres a través de una asociación entre los sectores de salud pública, empresarial y comunitario para aumentar las pruebas de VIH en Europa

Abstract: Introduction: Sex between men is the main HIV transmission mode in the EU/EEA. Increasing HIV testing and early diagnosis among men who have sex with men is thus a public health priority to reduce new infections. This requires innovative approaches, tools and interventions to better target HIV testing services. Objective: Examine the impact of a public and private sector collaboration to use smartphone social networking apps for public health outreach during European Testing Weeks 2015, 2016 and 2017 regarding use of the advertised European Test Finder to search for testing sites online and reported uptake of tests following the intervention. Method: Descriptive statistics summarise the access to the European Test Finder during three campaign weeks. Surveys for participating organisations of European Testing Week included questions about the awareness of the campaign and whether clients tested as a result of it. Results: Access to the European Test Finder increased significantly during European Testing Week and the promotion efforts via the apps. A small sample of Testing Week participants responded that they knew the Test Finder and that clients had come for a test following the advertising. Conclusion: Smartphone apps allow targeted communication at large scale with opportunities for HIV prevention among men who have sex with men.Keywords: HIV; targeted testing; men who have sex with men; European Testing Week; European Test Finder; smartphone apps; dating apps.Resumen: Introducción: El aumento de los test de VIH y el diagnóstico temprano entre hombres que tienen sexo con hombres es una prioridad de salud pública para reducir las nuevas infecciones. Objetivo: Examinar las aplicaciones en teléfonos inteligentes para la divulgación de una campaña de salud pública durante las Semanas Europeas de Evaluación 2015, 2016 y 2017 en relación con el uso del “Buscador de Test Europeo” anunciado para buscar páginas web para realizar el test para la detección del VIH. Método: Se presenta el acceso al “Buscador de Test Europeo” durante tres semanas de campaña. Las encuestas dirigidas a las organizaciones participantes de la Semana Europea del Evaluación sobre VIH incluyeron preguntas sobre el nivel de conocimiento sobre la campaña y si los usuarios se hicieron las pruebas del VIH como medida del impacto. Resultados: El acceso al “Buscador de Test Europeo” aumentó significativamente durante la Semana Europea. Una pequeña muestra de participantes respondió que conocían el buscador y que los usuarios se habían realizado una prueba después de la campaña. Conclusión: las aplicaciones para teléfonos inteligentes permiten la comunicación dirigida a gran escala con oportunidades para la prevención del VIH entre hombres que tienen sexo con hombres.Palabras clave: VIH; pruebas dirigidas; hombres que tienen sexo con hombres; Semana Europea de la prueba Hepatitis-VIH; European Test Finder; aplicaciones de teléfonos inteligentes; aplicaciones de citas

Providing Information in Public Opinion Surveys: Motivation and Ability Effects in the Information-and-Choice Questionnaire

The Information-and-Choice Questionnaire (ICQ) is an instrument for public opinion survey in which respondents are presented with a policy-relevant decision problem and provided with information relevant to the problem (e.g. information about the consequences of the policy options). In the present paper we study the effects of respondents' motivation (operationalized as involvement in the issue) and ability (operationalized as respondent's level of education) on the formation and stability of preferences in the ICQ. Data were gathered in a nation-wide (N=991) survey on preferences for different ways of generating electricity in the Netherlands. As predicted, more motivated and more able respondents appeared to engage in more elaborate information processing