What Women and Men Want in Online Product Reviews: Gender Effects on Review Helpfulness Perceptions

While academic researchers have studied online product reviews extensively, gender differences have received little attention in the context of online product reviews. This paper identifies important message features in online product reviews and examines which message features female and male consumers value more in evaluating the helpfulness of online product reviews. We collected data from real-world product reviews on Amazon.com and analyzed the data to test the proposed hypotheses. Based on the data analysis results, we find that, in determining helpfulness of online product reviews, female consumers consider more heavily average paragraph length, negative viewpoints, and inclusion of pictures. However, male consumers value positive viewpoints and usage of point format more in evaluating online product reviews. Based on the findings, important contributions to the literature are discussed

Short- and long-run competition of retailer pricing strategies

Retailers' pricing strategies are one of the most important determinants of the retail dynamics and the competitive structure of the retail market. Retailers use both short-term and long-term pricing strategies to optimize their market share. This study addresses several critical questions: (1) To what extent do retailers react to competitive price specials? (2) Do retailers alternate price specials of competing brands? and, (3) Can one identify stores or brands, that are price leaders or do retailers/brands set prices independently? We use cointegration analysis to estimate a model which allows us to study both the short- and the long-run dynamics of competitive prices within a single framework

Flexible Nanopaper Composed of Wood-Derived Nanofibrillated Cellulose and Graphene Building Blocks

Nanopaper has attracted considerable interest in the fields of films and paper research. However, the challenge of integrating the many advantages of nanopaper still remains. Herein, we developed a facile strategy to fabricate multifunctional nanocomposite paper (NGCP) composed of wood-derived nanofibrillated cellulose (NFC) and graphene as building blocks. NFC suspension was consisted of long and entangled NFCs (10–30 nm in width) and their aggregates. Before NGCP formation, NFC was chemically modified with a silane coupling agent to ensure that it could interact strongly with graphene in NGCP. The resulting NGCP samples were flexible and could be bent repeatedly without any structural damage. Within the NGCP samples, the high aspect ratio of NFC made a major contribution to its high mechanical strength, whereas the sheet-like graphene endowed the NGCP with electrical resistance and electrochemical activity. The mechanical strength of the NGCP samples decreased as their graphene content increased. However, the electrical resistance and electrochemical activity of the NGCP samples both rose with increasing content of graphene. The NGCPs still kept advantageous mechanical properties even at high temperatures around 300°C because of the high thermal stability of NFCs and their strong entangled web-like structures. In view of its sustainable building blocks and multifunctional characteristics, the NGCP developed in this work is promising as low-cost and high-performance nanopaper

Predicting the Talents Needed in Coal Industry in China

China is the world’s second-largest energy consuming country and the largest producer and consumer of coal. While coal production plays an important role in the Chinese economy, its coal industry lacks sufficient talents. This paper predicts the number of talents needed in the coal industry in China using multiple linear regression method and grey forecasting model. We find that the method makes reliable medium- and long-term prediction of coal talents needed in China

Tetraphenylethene-Embedded Pillar[5]arene and [15]Paracyclophane: Distorted Cavities and Host–Guest Binding Properties

Two aggregation-induced emission (AIE) macrocycles (DMP[5]-TPE and PCP[5]-TPE) were prepared by embedding Tetraphenylethene (TPE) unit into the skeletons of Dimethoxypillar[5]arene (DMP[5]) and [15]Paracyclophane ([15]PCP) at meso position, respectively. In crystal, the PCP[5]-TPE showed a distorted cavity, and the incubation of hexane inside the DMP[5]-TPE cavity caused a distinct change in the molecular conformation compared to PCP[5]-TPE. There was no complexation between PCP[5]-TPE and 1,4-dicyanobutane (DCB). UV absorption experiments showed the distorted cavity of DMP[5]-TPE hindered association with DCB

A new aspect of cognitive selectivity: Working memory reselection for attended information

The selective function of brain is classically characterized by attentional mechanism. The current study proposed a new cognitive selectivity—working memory (WM) reselection process that could be distinguished from attentional selection. The first section of the present study provided both behavioral and neuroscientific evidence showing that even fully attended information was not ever encoded into WM, indicating there exists a WM reselection process for attended information. More importantly, in the second section, the mechanism of WM reselection was explored and the surprising finding was that the reselection operated through a dimensional-memory-filter. That is, the brain could selectively encode the attended information from one feature dimension while blocking others from another dimension at the same time. However, once a feature is selected, all concurrently attended information from the same dimension would be automatically encoded into WM regardless of whether they are necessary for the task. These findings have critical implications for understanding the mechanisms of memory formation

More attention with less working memory: The active inhibition of attended but outdated information

Attention has traditionally been regarded as a gateway to working memory, and almost all theoretical frameworks of attention and working memory assume that individuals always have a better memory for information that has received more attention. Here, we provide a series of counterintuitive demonstrations which show that paying more attention to a piece of information impedes, rather than enhances, the selection of this information into working memory. Experiments 1–5 provide converging evidence for an even weaker working memory trace of fully attended but outdated features, compared with baseline irrelevant features that were completely ignored. This indicates that the brain actively inhibits attended but outdated information to prevent it from entering working memory. Experiment 6 demonstrates that this inhibition processing is subject to executive control. These findings lead to a substantial reinterpretation of the relationship between attention and working memory

How Online Descriptions of Used Goods Affect Quality Assessment and Product Preferences: A Conjoint Study

Online sellers need to provide information about used products. This study answers two important related questions: (1) what kinds of product information should online sellers provide, and (2) how do different kinds of used product information affect online buyers’ preference and perception of quality? We find that when a used product is a high-involvement one, buyers’ preference of the product is more influenced by its physical condition than by price; however, when the product is a low-involvement product, its price is more important than the physical condition. Other information cues have a less significant impact on buyers’ preference

Why more can be less: An inference-based explanation for hyper-subadditivity in bundle valuation

We conceptualize, develop, and test a multiple-item bundle valuation model through which decision makers are able to make inferences about the value of uncertain items based on the value of certain items. Results of four experiments indicate that bundling a low-value certain item with a high-value uncertain item, which are not substitutes, results in a bundle valuation lower than the value of the uncertain item alone. We refer to this highly unexpected and previously unexplained phenomenon as “hyper-subadditivity.” In addition we find that bundling a high-value certain item with a low-value uncertain item leads to superadditivity, even though the items are not complements. Hence, we find that when two objects are bundled together, and one has a more certain value, decision makers use the value of the certain item to infer the value of the less certain item. They might infer that the other (less certain) object must be worth an amount similar to the item with which they are paired. We further demonstrate that reducing uncertainty eliminates these effects, and that direct value inferencing (not simple numeric priming, nor inferences about quality) is the most likely mechanism driving these effects

Why more can be less: An inference-based explanation for hyper-subadditivity in bundle valuation

We conceptualize, develop, and test a multiple-item bundle valuation model through which decision makers are able to make inferences about the value of uncertain items based on the value of certain items. Results of four experiments indicate that bundling a low-value certain item with a high-value uncertain item, which are not substitutes, results in a bundle valuation lower than the value of the uncertain item alone. We refer to this highly unexpected and previously unexplained phenomenon as "hyper-subadditivity." In addition we find that bundling a high-value certain item with a low-value uncertain item leads to superadditivity, even though the items are not complements. Hence, we find that when two objects are bundled together, and one has a more certain value, decision makers use the value of the certain item to infer the value of the less certain item. They might infer that the other (less certain) object must be worth an amount similar to the item with which they are paired. We further demonstrate that reducing uncertainty eliminates these effects, and that direct value inferencing (not simple numeric priming, nor inferences about quality) is the most likely mechanism driving these effects.