Qualitative market research and product development: representations of food and marketing challenges

A new method for analysing social representations from sentences in natural language is presented. The basic nuclei of the social representation of "eating" are extracted from two corpuses, one coming from a large set of definitions from a dictionary, the other from free associations of 2000 French adult subjects. The method shows that "eating", as a mental model, is the connection of "libido", "intake", "foodstuffs", "meal", "filling up" and "living". Further analysis on free associations on "eating well" yields some pragmatic scripts, showing how consumers assemble the basic nuclei into action rules. Results uncover an archaeology of social knowledge, showing some psychological and cultural bases on which lie the contemporary representations of eating. As important marketing issues in the food business today are concerned with the psychological determinants of food behaviour, our method may bring some new tools for market research, and open new data fields to systematic investigation. A paper from an international symposium 'Enjeux actuels du marketing dans l'alimentation et la restauration' held in Montreal, Canada, May 24th to 27th, 1994

A Cosmological Solution to Mimetic Dark Matter

In this paper, a cosmological solution to Mimetic Dark Matter (MDM) for an exponential potential is provided. Then, a solution for the $0-i$ perturbed Einstein's differential equation of MDM is obtained based on an exponential potential that satisfies inflation for some initial conditions. Another general potential is suggested that incorporates inflation too. Then, quantum perturbations are included. The constants in the model can be tuned to be in agreement with the amplitude fluctuation of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Finally, the spectral index is calculated for the suggested potentials. Moreover, MDM is shown to be a viable model to produce dark matter, inflation, and CMB's fluctuation.Comment: 12 page

Text mining methods: an answer to Chartier and Meunier

Almost 20 years ago, in a paper introducing the text mining (TM) technique to my fellow statisticians, I expressed the fear that: “it would be unfortunate that this technique, because it is apparently so easy to use, would be abused by incompetent analysts” (Lahlou, 1994, my translation). And therefore I urged expert statisticians to engage in this issue and circumscribe abuses

Optimal Seigniorage in Developing Countries: An Empirical Investigation

This paper investigates the predictions of the theory of optimal seigniorage in developing countries over the period 1970-1999. The tax smoothing hypothesis, tested on forty selected developing countries, is rejected. However, the hypothesis that economies with high levels of expenditure and taxation also have high levels of inflation tax, tested on the forty selected developing countries and on a larger sample (up to 112 developing countries) can not be rejected.GMM., panel unit root tests, developing countries, tax smoothing, Optimal seigniorage