A netnography study on branded customer experience: Evidence from the red sea

This study addresses the question of what are the underlying dimensions and messages to self and others that constitute the construct of customer experience. The study uses a netnography method to validate or refute and extend a priori concepts that the literature identifies within the context of resort-hotel brands in a Sharm El Sheikh resort in Egypt. The results identify eight dimensions (comfort, educational, hedonic, novelty, recognition, relational, safety and sense of beauty) and unique configurations of these eight dimensions that extend prior research on customer experience

Crowding effects in vehicular traffic

While the impact of crowding on the diffusive transport of molecules within a cell is widely studied in biology, it has thus far been neglected in traffic systems where bulk behavior is the main concern. Here, we study the effects of crowding due to car density and driving fluctuations on the transport of vehicles. Using a microscopic model for traffic, we found that crowding can push car movement from a superballistic down to a subdiffusive state. The transition is also associated with a change in the shape of the probability distribution of positions from negatively-skewed normal to an exponential distribution. Moreover, crowding broadens the distribution of cars' trap times and cluster sizes. At steady state, the subdiffusive state persists only when there is a large variability in car speeds. We further relate our work to prior findings from random walk models of transport in cellular systems.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in PLoS ON

Applying marketing’s new dominant logic for interpreting customer experiences with brands

The concept of customer experience is evolving to an imperative area of study within the marketing discipline. Despite its importance and the positive attention this concept is receiving in the literature, the explanation of customer experiences remains vague and a thorough theoretical foundation is lacking. This paper addresses the gap in the literature and to facilitate a brand-management understanding of the concept of customer experience and its antecedents and consequences. The paper examines the impact of customer experience on brand loyalty via a comprehensive review of existing literature on the concept of customer experience and service brand literatures. Additionally, twelve propositions describe and explain the antecedents of customer experience and impacts upon brand loyalty within a service-centered marketing logic. This paper contributes a novel customer-brand experience perspective and conceptual tools relevant for further theory development and for effectively managing customer-brand relationships

The size, shape, and dynamics of cellular blebs

A cellular bleb grows when a portion of the cell membrane detaches from the underlying cortex under the influence of a cytoplasmic pressure. We develop a quantitative model for the growth and dynamics of these objects in a simple two-dimensional setting. In particular, we first find the minimum cytoplasmic pressure and minimum unsupported membrane length for a stationary bleb to nucleate and grow as a function of the membrane-cortex adhesion. We next show how a bleb may travel around the periphery of the cell when the cytoplasmic pressure varies in space and time in a prescribed way and find that the traveling speed is governed by the speed of the pressure change induced by local cortical contraction while the shape of the traveling bleb is governed by the speed of cortical healing. Finally, we relax the assumption that the pressure change is prescribed and couple it hydrodynamically to the cortical contraction and membrane deformation. By quantifying the phase space of bleb formation and dynamics, our framework serves to delineate the range and scope of bleb-associated cell motility and synthesizes a variety of experimental observations

Determinations of upper critical field in continuous Ginzburg-Landau model

Novel procedures to determine the upper critical field $B_{c2}$ have been proposed within a continuous Ginzburg-Landau model. Unlike conventional methods, where $B_{c2}$ is obtained through the determination of the smallest eigenvalue of an appropriate eigen equation, the square of the magnetic field is treated as eigenvalue problems so that the upper critical field can be directly deduced. The calculated $B_{c2}$ from the two procedures are consistent with each other and in reasonably good agreement with existing theories and experiments. The profile of the order parameter associated with $B_{c2}$ is found to be Gaussian-like, further validating the methodology proposed. The convergences of the two procedures are also studied.Comment: Revtex4, 8 pages, 4 figures, references modified, figures and table embedde

Tracking in a space variant active vision system

Without the ability to foveate on and maintain foveation, active vision for applications such as surveillance, object recognition and object tracking are difficult to build. Although foveation in cartesian coordinates is being actively pursued by many, multi-resolution high accuracy foveation in log polar space has not been given much attention. This paper addresses the use of foveation to track a single object as well as multiple objects for a simulated space variant active vision system. Complex logarithmic mapping is chosen firstly because it provides high resolution and wide angle viewing. Secondly, the spatially variant structure of log polar space leads to an object increasing in size as it moves towards the fovea. This is important as we know which object is closer to the fovea at any instant in time.<br /