Search

Value-based pricing is known to be challenging, especially on online platforms, but is considered a superior pricing strategy. We investigate cross-platform pricing and other factors that influence perceived customer value in the context of the accommodation industry. This industry is characterized by powerful platforms (e.g., Booking.com) as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) selling across platforms. We compare the importance of platform choice and seller history as underlying signals conveying value and thus defining pricing beyond core product attributes. Such actor-signaling-actions for value are neglected in previous research. We pay particular attention to how time-based price discrimination affects the importance of these non-core product signals. As cross-platform efforts increase the complexity of value-based pricing, we apply machine learning methods to model how SMEs can successfully predict pricing across platforms. We discuss our methodological and theoretical contributions to value-based pricing and signaling theory.

Collective action has always been the heartbeat of social justice movements. However, existing systems pressure people to focus on hyper-competition and eradicate the ability to collectively resist...

This article covers the controversy that followed the March 16, 1893 escape of prisoner Yosaku Imada to the Japanese warship, the Naniwa, which was docked in Honolulu. Imada’s act of seeking refuge onboard the ship occurred at a time when the provisional government of Hawai‘i had no extradition treaty with Japan. This created a diplomatic event that entangled leaders from Japan, the provisional government, and the United States. To further complicate matters, Issei and Meiji government officials were also pressing for franchise in the Islands, a right that a majority of the community did not have access to at home. By placing Imada’s escape and the Issei fight for voting rights in the context of the uncertainty that followed the January 17, 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, this article emphasizes Hawai‘i’s relevance as a site where inter-imperial dynamics aligned with competing settler colonialisms.

The push for inclusion into the United States forced leaders of the Hawaiian “Republic,” and the American populace to face questions regarding the relationship between race, nation, and citizenship. This chapter questions why men such as Sanford Dole and Lorrin Thurston, two leaders of the provisional government of Hawai`i (1893-1894) and Hawaiian Republic (1894-1898), used all means necessary in order to change the racial classification of Portuguese labor in the islands to “white,” during the last years of the nineteenth century. By analyzing their attempt to create a white settler society in Hawai`i through their redefinition and recruitment of Portuguese labor, this chapter examines how evolving politics of race and class shape, and were shaped by, processes of late nineteenth century U.S. colonialism in the Pacific.

In recent times, the Asia-Pacific region has far surpassed Europe in terms of reciprocal trade with the United States, and since the 1980s immigrants from Asia entering the United States have exceeded their counterparts from Europe, reversing a longstanding historical trend and making Asian Americans the country's fastest growing racial group. What does transpacific history look like if the arc of the story is extended to the present? The essays in this volume offer answers to this question challenging current assumptions about transpacific relations. Many of these assumptions are expressed through fear: that the ascendance of China threatens a U.S.-led world system and undermines domestic economies; that immigrants subvert national unity; and that globalization, for all its transcending of international, cultural, and racial differences, generates its own forms of prejudice and social divisions that reproduce global and national inequalities. The contributors make clear that these fears associated with, and induced by, pacific integration are not new. Rather, they are the most recent manifestation of international, racial, and cultural conflicts that have driven transpacific relations in its premodern and especially modern iterations. Pacific America differs from other books that are beginning to flesh out the transnational history of the Pacific Ocean in that it is more self-consciously a people's history. While diplomatic and economic relations are addressed, the chapters are particularly concerned with histories from the "bottom up," including attention to social relations and processes, individual and group agency, racial and cultural perception, and collective memory. These perspectives are embodied in the four sections focusing on China and the early modern world, circuits of migration and trade, racism and imperialism, and the significance of Pacific islands. The last section on Pacific Islanders avoids a common failing in popular perception that focuses on both sides of the Pacific Ocean while overlooking the many islands in between. The chapters in this section take on one of the key challenges for transpacific history in connecting the migration and imperial histories of the United States, Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, and other nations, with the history of Oceania.

Human papillomavirus (HPV), and the related, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), are common yet poorly understood physical conditions. The diagnosis of HPV often elicits shame and guilt, which in turn may undermine psychological and physical health. The current study compared shame and guilt responses to diagnosis among two groups: women diagnosed with HPV/CIN and women diagnosed with Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV/IM). Eighty women recently diagnosed with HPV/CIN or EBV/IM completed measures of shame- and guilt-proneness, shame and guilt following diagnosis, and disease knowledge including prevalence estimates (HPV and EBV, respectively). HPV/CIN (vs. EBV/IM) predicted more diagnosis-related shame and guilt. Estimates of high prevalence interacted with diagnosis and shame-proneness to predict diagnosis-related shame. Simple slope analyses indicated that in women with HPV/CIN reporting low-to-average shame-proneness, high prevalence estimates reduced diagnosis-related shame; however, women high in shame-proneness experienced high diagnosis-related shame regardless of more accurate prevalence estimates. Women high in shame-proneness appear to be particularly vulnerable to HPV-related shame even when they are aware that it is very common.

Based on 164 undergraduate business majors, we examined the relationship between satisfaction with major and Holland’s vocational interests and with the Big Five and narrow personality traits. Contrary to our hypothesis, enterprising scores were unrelated to major satisfaction. As hypothesized, using ipsative and normative scores, investigative, artistic, and realistic interests were negatively related to major satisfaction. As hypothesized, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and optimism were positively related to major satisfaction, as were extra-version and assertiveness. A stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that 49% of the variance in major satisfaction could be accounted for by a combination of vocational interest themes and personality traits. Implications were drawn for theory and practice, including support for Holland’s continuity principle, adding personality traits to Holland’s vocational theory, and using vocational interest and normal personality trait measures in student advising and career counseling. Study limitations and implications for future research were noted.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the subjective experience of college students in leadership. Six participants, 4 females and 2 males, from a large, southeastern university were interviewed regarding their experiences; each response was transcribed and thematically analyzed to identify a perceptual background, as well as prominent figural themes through which the participants' experiences could be described. Three interrelated themes, people, action, and organization emerged from the ground of positive experience. Through examination of students' experiences in leadership roles, aspects of motivation, skills-building, and interacting personality variables may be more specifically targeted for future investigation.

Study Objectives: We utilized novel three-dimensional volumetric analysis techniques with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study the upper airway and surrounding soft-tissue structures. These MRI techniques allowed us to objectively quantify the volume of the tongue, soft palate, parapharyngeal fat pads, and lateral pharyngeal walls. Design: We first validated our volumetric imaging techniques on a phantom and then demonstrated that our results were reliable and reproducible in normal subjects who did not lose weight. Finally, we studied 12 obese, nonapneic women during wakefulness before and after weight loss. We hypothesized that our novel magnetic-resonance computer-reconstruction techniques would allow us to detect small reductions in the volume of the tongue, soft palate, lateral pharyngeal walls, and parapharyngeal fat pads and increases in the volume of the upper airway with weight loss. Setting: University medical center Participants: Normal controls and 12 obese nonapneic women Interventions: Weight loss Measurements and Results: Following a mean 17.1 ± 8.62 kg (17.3%) reduction in weight, upper airway volume increased (p = 0.06) in both the retropalatal and retroglossal regions. This increase in upper airway volume was mediated by significant reductions in the volume of the lateral pharyngeal wall (p = 0.0001) and parapharyngeal fat pads (p = 0.001). However, the volume of the tongue (p = 0.35) and soft palate (p = 0.39) were not reduced significantly with weight loss. Conclusions: These data indicate that volumetric MRI is a powerful tool to study anatomic changes in the upper airway and surrounding soft-tissue structures and is sensitive enough to detect changes in these structures.

We utilized novel three-dimensional volumetric analysis techniques with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study the upper airway and surrounding soft-tissue structures. These MRI techniques allowed us to objectively quantify the volume of the tongue, soft palate, parapharyngeal fat pads, and lateral pharyngeal walls.We first validated our volumetric imaging techniques on a phantom and then demonstrated that our results were reliable and reproducible in normal subjects who did not lose weight. Finally, we studied 12 obese, nonapneic women during wakefulness before and after weight loss. We hypothesized that our novel magnetic-resonance computer-reconstruction techniques would allow us to detect small reductions in the volume of the tongue, soft palate, lateral pharyngeal walls, and parapharyngeal fat pads and increases in the volume of the upper airway with weight loss.University medical center.Normal controls and 12 obese nonapneic women.Weight loss.Following a mean 17.1+/-8.62 kg (17.3%) reduction in weight, upper airway volume increased (p = 0.06) in both the retropalatal and retroglossal regions. This increase in upper airway volume was mediated by significant reductions in the volume of the lateral pharyngeal wall (p = 0.0001) and parapharyngeal fat pads (p = 0.001). However, the volume of the tongue (p = 0.35) and soft palate (p = 0.39) were not reduced significantly with weight loss.These data indicate that volumetric MRI is a powerful tool to study anatomic changes in the upper airway and surrounding soft-tissue structures and is sensitive enough to detect changes in these structures.

Objective: To quantitatively examine changes in the upper airway caliber of normal subjects at graded negative inspiratory pressures generated during nasopharyngoscopy with a Muller maneuver. Study Design: Eighteen normal subjects prospectively underwent nasopharyngoscopy with Muller maneuvers. Subjects performed graded and maximal effort Muller maneuvers while sitting upright, and maximal-effort Muller maneuvers in the supine position. Two regions of the upper airway—the retropalatal and retroglossal—were examined. Methods: Images from the endoscopic examination were objectively analyzed by adjusting manually traced airway contours using full-width, half-maximum edge detection algorithm software. The adjusted tracings' area and dimensions through the airway centroid were measured. Results: Muller maneuvers performed at -40 cm H2O resulted in a 64% ± 17% (P = .0001) reduction in upper airway area that consisted of a 51% ± 20% (P = .0001) reduction in the lateral dimension and a 21% ± 24% (P = .0026) reduction in antero-posterior dimension. Muller maneuvers in the retroglossal region did not significantly reduce airway area (P = .575), but demonstrated an altered airway conformation that consisted of lateral narrowing and an increase in antero-posterior dimension. Changes in body position did not result in significant differences in either airway caliber or airway dimension. Conclusions: Airway caliber during forced inspiration is mediated primarily through changes in the lateral pharyngeal walls. This study has also shown that antero-posterior and lateral airway structures are largely independent in their response to Muller maneuvers. Similarly, the retropalatal and retroglossal regions of the upper airway respond differently to forced negative intraluminal pressure. Key Words: Nasopharyngoscopy, Muller maneuver, normal subjects, upper airway, obstructive sleep apnea.

In the framework of the edge-channel picture and the scattering approach to conduction, we discuss the low frequency admittance of quantized Hall samples up to second order in frequency. The first-order term gives the leading order phase-shift between current and voltage and is associated with the displacement current. It is determined by the emittance which is a capacitance in a capacitive arrangement of edge channels but which is inductive-like if edge channels predominate which transmit charge between different reservoirs. The second-order term is associated with the charge relaxation. We apply our results to a Corbino disc and to two- and four-terminal quantum Hall bars, and we discuss the symmetry properties of the current response. In particular, we calculate the longitudinal resistance and the Hall resistance as a function of frequency., Comment: 11 pages, 2 figs. included; Contribution to the conference `The application of high magnetic fields in semiconductor physics', Wuerzburg, 28 July - 2 August. '96

A theory of the dynamical conductance of mesoscopic conductors is presented. It is applied to mesoscopic capacitors, resonant double barriers, ballistic wires, metallic diffusive wires, and to the Corbino disk and the Hall bar in quantizing magnetic fields. Central to this approach is a discussion of the charge and potential distribution in mesoscopic conductors. It is necessary to take into account the implications of the long-range Coulomb interaction in order to obtain a charge and current conserving theory. We emphasize the low-frequency response. This has the advantage that the approach is of considerable generality. The theory can be used to discuss the self-consistency of the dc-conductance formula. The theory can also be applied to discuss the rectifying (nonlinear) behavior of mesoscopic conductors., Comment: 29 pages, figures not included (preprints with figures can be obtained by conventional mail on request from T.Christen christet@sc2a.unige.ch)

of a dismal future state in which all human activities are viewed continuously and reient]essly by an all-seeing eye. The basic weakness in this picture is precisely this assumption of the existence of robot-like creatures who, alone, could perform such a function, plus the fact that millions of them would be required to keep the population under complete control. The concentration camp material supports this criticism. Many of the flaws in the efficiency of the concentration camp system were due to the venality of the SS personnel, some of them appeared because of the persistence of humane considerations, and vanity often played into the hands of the inmates. There is another important factor that contributes to the impossibility of instituting perfect social controls that is demonstrated by the concentration camp experience. This also pertains to the human rather than the material aspects of organization. To achieve their ends, the concentration camp personnel had to employ the services of their prisoners. Need for special skills made some of the jailors dependent upon some of the prisoners, a fact that gave these unforeseen opportunities to counteract administrative measures to the advantage of large numbers of inmates. Work requirements, for example, employment outside of the camps, often put prisoners in a position to thwart the controls imposed upon them. The ingenuity of the strategems used by concentration inmates makes for some of the brighter pictures in the otherwise monotonously gruesome record. Any ruling personnel is similarly dependent upon its subject population in one way or another and this dependence insures that control can never be complete. This fact should be of interest to students of bureaucracy, especially to those who draw a lugubrious picture of the consequences of the extension of bureaucratic control in our society. These analysts seem to have overlooked the corrective factors present in any organization by virtue of the fact that what is organized are human beings and not robots. In conclusion we might point out that all of the special topics of the sociology of the concentration camp system can be focused upon one basic issue, namely, the problem of survival in concentration camps. The material abundantly shows that only in rare instances was survival a purely individual achievement. In most cases survival was due to the operation of social factors some of which I have mentioned in the preceding discussion. If evidence is needed in support of a truism, this material clearly sustains the basis upon which sociology itself is founded, namely, the fact that for man, society is a means of survival for the individuals in whom it is manifest, and also, that richness of individual life depends upon the richness of the human relations available and the variety and complexity of social arrangements.

The possible role of ethical systems in accounting for the wide economic and social gap betweeri developed and underdeveloped countries is examined in the light of the Weberian thesis on the relationship between the Protestant Ethic, capitalism and economic development. Materials from various cultures seem to support Weber, but suggest that the crucial factor in economic development is not necessarily THE PROTESTANT ETHIC, but any ethical system which produces the following results: rational attitudes toward experiences, personal responsibility, a disciplined work force, and worldly asceticism. An ethic which encourages underconsumption and deferred gratification and which creates social motivations and legitimization for worldly work and economic enterprise seems to facilitate economic development in the takeoff period.

This paper is concerned with the aspects of social life implied in the terms community and welfare. Community is considered to be a spatially contingent interactional system in which there may emerge many kinds of products, one of which is welfare. Welfare is a rather ambiguous term variously employed, but, in general, it seems to describe a community condition that conforms to our value system, such as a presence of health, happiness, prosperity, social control and good housing, and the absence of undesirable conditions such as illness, poverty, vice, delinquency and crime, child neglect, ignorance, and unemployment. As responsibility for public welfare becomes increasingly a governmental concern and as "private" philanthropy becomes more and more a semi-public bureaucratic activity, there will be increasing demands for a public accounting. The handwriting is on the wall in the form of Congressional investigations of groups collecting funds for veterans, in the shape of attempts of medical associations to bring order into the community arena where a multitude of fund-raisers are fiercely contending for the various organs and parts of the human corpus, and in the restlessness of city and county governments that have to support an ever increasing welfare load in spite of a booming economy. Such accounting will require demonstrable ways to show the need for and accomplishments of social welfare action. And if this purpose is to be achieved, adequate and reliable definitions of welfare, and indices and measurements of it must be developed. The solution of this problem would be accelerated if there were good answers to some theoretical questions such as: Is welfare a basic or crucial element in community life; or to put it another way, is welfare one of the factors that must be included and its effects considered if variations between communities are to be explained? Is welfare a relatively independent factor or is it systematically related to other variables such as urbanism, rurality, wealth, etc.? If it is related to other community elements, then which ones and to what degree do these relationships exist? What is the anatomy of welfare in terms of measurable characteristics, and what are the best indices of its presence or absence? If the last question can be answered satisfactorily, a basis for an operational definition of welfare will have been laid upon which measures of the degree of welfare present, and the amount of progress toward a state of welfare, may be constructed.

T n HE measuring of attitudes has been and is one of the most persistent endeavors of social scientists, particularly psychologists, social-psychologists, and sociologists. Presumably, attitudes are measured because it is assumed that if these anticipatory sets or predispositions to action can be ascertained, the behavior which they determine may be predicted. However, few empirical studies have been made where the relationship has been tested by quantification of overt behavior by means of a scale and the correlation of scores on the behavior scale with scores on a scale measuring attitudes related to the overt behavior. The problem of the relationship between attitudes and behavior also has relevance for the theory of ecology. The socio-cultural position in ecology-that volition and purpose must be considered as important and integral aspects of spatial adaptation and not merely "inconsequential and adventitious features of the competitive process' assumes that attitudes and behavior are related. Firey, for example, in his study of Boston,2 demonstrates the relevance of values and attitudes by inference from such empirical data as economic and ecological indices. Hawley, however, leaning more toward the orthodox ecological position, questions the accuracy of these conclusions when he states, "Firey's reasoning confuses motive with an external limiting factor."3 The present study attempts to determine the relationship between attitudes and behavior in ecological mobility. Methodologically it seeks to minimize problems of inferential reasoning and to diminish the spread between data and interpretation by applying both attitude and behavior scales to the same individuals and then correlating the scores. In order to determine possible effects of external limiting factors on the attitude-action relationship the scales were applied to nine different populations inhabiting three different cities in different regions of the United States and eight different areas within the cities. If external limiting factors do affect the relationship between attitudes and behavior in mobility behavior, the correlation between attitudes and behavior should be affected by changing external limiting factors. Attitude-behavior studies have produced mixed results. Research in race relations does not encourage the belief that attitudes and behavior are closely related.4 On the other hand, good results have been achieved by some surveys of public opinion in predicting voting behavior from a premeasurement of voting attitudes.5 It has been suggested that the explanation of why attitudes seem to be able to predict behavior in the latter cases, but not in the former, may be attributable to differences between the situations in which attitude tests are given and the situations in which attitudes are translated into action. The problem here would seem to be to determine if mobility is a type of activity wherein a high correlation between attitudes and behavior may be expected. The hypothesis to be tested may be stated in the following form: Attitudes and behavior are not related in mobility behavior. *Presented at the annual meeting of the Ohio Valley Sociological Society, March 20, 1954. Much of the data on which this paper is based is from a study of urban decentralization in Columbus, Houston, and Seattle. The research was supported by a grant from the Highway Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D. C. 1 Cf. Walter Firey, Land Use in Central Boston (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947), p. 13. 2 Op. cit. 3 Amos H. Hawley, Human Ecology: A Theory of Community Structure (New York: The Ronald Press, 1950), p. 286. 4 Cf. Richard T. La Piere, "Attitudes vs. Actions," Social Forces, 13 (December, 1934) pp. 230-37; also cf. Melvin Seeman, Prejudice and Personality: A Study in the Social Psychology of Attitudes. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1947, p. 136. 5 Cf. Paul F. Lazarsfeld, The People's Choice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948).

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

n/a

In electric power devices for high voltage, the interface between solid and gaseous insulation is usually the most critical part with respect to electric discharges that may lead to breakdown. For a better understanding of the underlying fundamental physics of these discharges, we investigate the streamer propagation along dielectric surfaces, with focus on the streamer electric fields and surface charges deposited on the dielectric material. In particular, we constructed a setup that enables us to study the electric field of the streamer in situ. A positive high voltage pulse is generated using a push-pull switch and supplied to a needle close to a birefringent BSO (Bismuth Silicon Oxide) crystal, along which the streamers can then propagate. Using a power LED and polarizing optics, we are able to visualize via the Pockels effect the electric field caused by the discharge. With this, we are able to quantitatively study streamer electric fields with good temporal and spatial resolution, and can estimate lifetimes of the deposited charges.

Sociologists have made discoveries which have considerable significance for marketing. The author, a sociologist, tells in this article what some of these discoveries are. Specifically, findings significant for marketing have been produced by sociologists in population, collective behavior, motivation, stratification, methodology, research designs, measurement, prediction, human ecology, and the family. Much of this knowledge, of course, remains a potential rather than a realized source of information.

Scientists who seek a general theory of community are handicapped by lack of comparability of community studies and by the great complexity of their subject matter. This study attempts to deal with the first problem by applying a single mathematical model to quantitative variables operationally defined and to data gathered at one period of time from 88 community systems. It seeks to reduce complexity by a search for a few factors or fundamental unities in terms of which variations between community systems can be explained. Factor analysis extracted, from the great complexity presented by 82 variables, seven orthogonal factors that account for most of the variations in the systems analyzed. ONE fundamental difficulty with community theory is the great complexity of the phenomena which it seeks to describe. Physical scientists have faced and solved problems of complexity. Chemists, for example, have achieved tremendous control of the material world by discovering that the vast multitude of objects can be described in terms of less than a hundred elements. Is it possible to achieve the same kind of scientific parsimony in community analysis? Do the vast number of possible community variables form independent clusters or functional unities of highly interrelated components? If so, how many are there, what is their nature, and what is the relationship between clusters? This research sought to simplify the complex structure of community interrelationships and variables and to determine if they could be reduced to a relatively small number of factors that would explain all the others and account for differences between community systems. There is no dearth of theories as to the relationships between community components, but these have developed over a long period of time, and grown by the contributions of diverse investigators using different

TEBER'S essay,' The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, has *T continued to interest social scientists in the last decades, probably because it touches on some fundamental problems concerning the economic, religious, and political life of Western societies, and probably because it established so clearly a relationship between religion and other aspects of our cultural pattern. The thesis that Protestantism, and especially the English version of Calvinism, Puritanism, was the parent of modern capitalism has been much discussed. Writers on religion and capitalism following Weber have been much indebted to him in their analyses.2 Weber's thesis has been supported by the authority of such writers as Troeltsch, SchulzeGaevernitz, and Cunningham.3 It has been criticized by Tawney4 and Brentano.5 Furthermore, its subject matter places it in the very center of focus of those problems which are the main concern of intellectual interest today, namely, the relationship of ideas and