The Six E’s of Consumer Choice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Moore ◽  
John A. Quelch ◽  
Emily Boudreau
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Choice ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Health And Wellness ◽  
Healthcare Decision ◽  
Do So

Whenever consumers make a choice—in healthcare or in other situations—they do so based on the benefits they anticipate. Chapter 5 focuses on the most common benefits consumers seek when making health and wellness decisions. Though they may vary in relative importance based upon the healthcare decision at hand, these six commonly sought benefits are economy, effectiveness, empathy, efficiency, empowerment, and experience. This chapter reviews each of these benefits in-depth, highlighting examples of each in today’s market. Consumers have different ways of assessing these benefits ranging from simultaneously trading off importance between them to using four shortcuts that make comparisons easier.

scholarly journals A Multiobjective Decision-Making Model for Risk-Based Maintenance Scheduling of Railway Earthworks

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 965
Author(s):  
Irina Stipanovic ◽  
Zaharah Allah Bukhsh ◽  
Cormac Reale ◽  
Kenneth Gavin
Keyword(s):  
Utility Theory ◽  
Structural Reliability ◽  
Structural Performance ◽  
Maintenance Planning ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
User Cost ◽  
Multi Attribute Utility Theory ◽  
Network Maintenance ◽  
Decision Making Model ◽  
Do So

Aged earthworks constitute a major proportion of European rail infrastructures, the replacement and remediation of which poses a serious problem. Considering the scale of the networks involved, it is infeasible both in terms of track downtime and money to replace all of these assets. It is, therefore, imperative to develop a rational means of managing slope infrastructure to determine the best use of available resources and plan maintenance in order of criticality. To do so, it is necessary to not just consider the structural performance of the asset but also to consider the safety and security of its users, the socioeconomic impact of remediation/failure and the relative importance of the asset to the network. This paper addresses this by looking at maintenance planning on a network level using multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT). MAUT is a methodology that allows one to balance the priorities of different objectives in a harmonious fashion allowing for a holistic means of ranking assets and, subsequently, a rational means of investing in maintenance. In this situation, three different attributes are considered when examining the utility of different maintenance options, namely availability (the user cost), economy (the financial implications) and structural reliability (the structural performance and subsequent safety of the structure). The main impact of this paper is to showcase that network maintenance planning can be carried out proactively in a manner that is balanced against the needs of the organization.

scholarly journals Pharmaceuticals from natural products: current trends

2002 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER R. SEIDL
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural Products ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Pharmaceutical Companies ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Discovery Process ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Principal Source ◽  
Do So

The use of products extracted from plants for medicinal purposes can be traced to the beginnings of civilization and up until the end of the nineteenth century natural products were the principal source of medicines. Since then their relative importance has oscillated according to the strategies of large pharmaceutical companies. Now that these strategies are changing, there are new opportunities for countries like Brazil, in which a large proportion of the world's biodiversity is located. There are, however, new circumstances that must be taken into consideration: material must be collected by groups which are formally authorized to do so and under the conditions of the Convention of Biological Diversity, the discovery process is being successively outsourced to smaller specialized firms and there is a growing integration with producers of cosmetics and phytomedicines.

scholarly journals Should Antitrust Go Beyond “Antitrust”?

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy J. Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Efficiency ◽  
Consumer Choice ◽  
Consumer Welfare ◽  
The Political ◽  
Antitrust Enforcement ◽  
Labor Share ◽  
The Third ◽  
Managerial Competence ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Do So

Numerous observers, from all sides of the political spectrum, have proposed alternatives to economic efficiency as objectives for antitrust enforcement and decisions. A list includes fairness, inequality, labor share of income, jobs, effect on competition (apart from consumer welfare), consumer choice, promoting democracy, concentration of political power, globalization, domestic control over resources, media veracity, environmental protection, managerial competence, and mitigating consumer error. Three factors raise general doubts about the merits of doing so. One is that antitrust is sufficiently complex and that adding additional factors to balance may make it even less comprehensible to the general public (and even experts). A second is that other policies are available to pursue these alternatives that are both better designed to do so and are not subject to the vagary of whether a particular firm or sector might be involved in an antitrust violation. The third is that antitrust ought not be distracted from its economic efficiency mission, since there is no other economy wide tool for promoting economic efficiency. Those considerations and others are used to assess the potential effectiveness of incorporating each of these alternatives into antitrust enforcement and adjudication. Many of these alternatives may be a side benefit of antitrust enforcement, but not a factor that antitrust enforcers and courts can be expected to sensibly trade off against economic efficiency.

The phylogeny and ontogeny of behavior

1984 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 669-677 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. F. Skinner
Keyword(s):  
Relative Importance ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Learned Behavior ◽  
Specific Analysis ◽  
The Future ◽  
Do So

AbstractResponses are strengthened by consequences having to do with the survival of individuals and species. With respect to the provenance of behavior, we know more about ontogenic than phylogenic contingencies. The contingencies responsible for unlearned behavior acted long ago. This remoteness affects our scientific methods, both experimental and conceptual. Until we have identified he variables responsible for an event, we tend to invent causes. Explanatory entities such as “instincts,” “drives,” and “traits” still survive. Unable to show how organisms can behave effectively under complex circumstances, we endow them with special abilities permitting them to do so.Behavior exhibited by most members of a species is often accepted as inherited if all members were not likely to have been exposed to relevant ontogenic contingencies. When contingencies are not obvious, it is perhaps unwise to call any behavior either inherited or acquired, as the examples of churring in honey guides and following in imprinted ducklings show. Nor can the relative importance of phylogenic and ontogenic contingencies be argued from instances in which unlearned or learned behavior intrudes or dominates. Intrusions occur in both directions.Behavior influenced by its consequences seems directed toward the future, but only past effects are relevant. The mere fact that behavior is adaptive does not indicate whether phylogenic or ontogenic processes have been responsible for it. Examples include the several possible provenances of imitation, aggression, and communication. The generality of such concepts limits their usefulness. A more specific analysis is needed if we are to deal effectively with the two kinds of contingencies and their products.

Mao Tse-tung and Secret Societies

1966 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart R. Schram
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Career Concerns ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Secret Societies ◽  
Political Career ◽  
Do So

That Mao Tse-tung owes his rise to power to the support of the Chinese peasantry is an obvious and undisputed fact. The oldest controversy regarding his career concerns the degree of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy which can be attributed to such a peasant-based revolution in an agrarian country. Considerable attention has also been devoted to the guerrilla methods by which this revolution was carried out, and to the relative importance of the appeals of nationalism and of social justice in Tallying the peasants to Mao's banner. The fact that Mao himself has his roots among the Chinese peasantry has, of course, not been overlooked, but it has been considered primarily in the light of the advantages which Mao drew from this background in understanding and manipulating the peasantry. There is not the least doubt that Mao, who has been a Marxist revolutionary for some forty-five years, has endeavoured throughout his political career to exploit his knowledge of the Chinese masses in order to lead them towards goals lying partly outside their tradition-bound universe. But at the same time, he has, even yet, not totally transcended the inheritance of his youth although he is making a furious effort to do so through the current “cultural revolution.” When the patterns of his thought and action were taking shape, roughly in the decade 1926–36, he was still closer to his origins. It is therefore imperative to study not only what Mao Tse-tung has done with (or to) the Chinese peasantry, but what he owes to the fact that he was originally a part of it.

scholarly journals BENEFITS OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM ON EMPLOYEES’ PERFORMANCE: A STUDY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO BANKING SECTOR IN BANGLADESH

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (12) ◽  
pp. 77-88
Author(s):  
Dr. Dhanonjoy Kumar ◽  
Humaira Siddika
Keyword(s):  
Random Sampling ◽  
Banking Sector ◽  
Development Program ◽  
Employee Training ◽  
Training And Development ◽  
Stratified Random Sampling ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Bank Employees ◽  
Structured Questionnaire ◽  
Do So

Training and development is incredibly vital for ensuring effectiveness of the employees in an organization. The organizations have stretched understood so as to their most precious asset is their human capital where many are convinced for the large investments in employee training and development. This study aims to investigate the significance of training along with development program and its benefits to employees and organization. It focuses on the relative importance of training and development program and their impact on the overall organizational success. To do so, 50 bank employees from Agrani Bank Limited (ABL) have been interviewed through a structured questionnaire. The sample has taken from the Kushtia and Jhenaidah district followed by stratified random sampling. The study has found that training and development program increase the skill, ability and intellectuality of the bank employees. The study also has proposed some suggestions related with the present field.

scholarly journals The relative importance of seed competition, resource competition and perturbations on community structure

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 1107-1120 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Bohn ◽  
J. G. Dyke ◽  
R. Pavlick ◽  
B. Reineking ◽  
B. Reu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Community Structure ◽  
Resource Competition ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Plant Strategies ◽  
Primary Selection ◽  
Growth And Reproduction ◽  
Do So

Abstract. While the regional climate is the primary selection pressure for whether a plant strategy can survive, however, competitive interactions strongly affect the relative abundances of plant strategies within communities. Here, we investigate the relative importance of competition and perturbations on the development of vegetation community structure. To do so, we develop DIVE (Dynamics and Interactions of VEgetation), a simple general model that links plant strategies to their competitive dynamics, using growth and reproduction characteristics that emerge from climatic constraints. The model calculates population dynamics based on establishment, mortality, invasion and exclusion in the presence of different strengths of perturbations, seed and resource competition. The highest levels of diversity were found in simulations without competition as long as mortality is not too high. However, reasonable successional dynamics were only achieved when resource competition is considered. Under high levels of competition, intermediate levels of perturbations were required to obtain coexistence. Since succession and coexistence are observed in plant communities, we conclude that the DIVE model with competition and intermediate levels of perturbation represents an adequate way to model population dynamics. Because of the simplicity and generality of DIVE, it could be used to understand vegetation structure and functioning at the global scale and the response of vegetation to global change.

Unobtrusive Wearable Technology for Health Monitoring

2015 ◽  
pp. 382-395
Author(s):  
James Amor ◽  
Christopher James
Keyword(s):  
Health Monitoring ◽  
Wearable Technology ◽  
Wearable Devices ◽  
Health And Wellness ◽  
Minimal Impact ◽  
Long Term Monitoring ◽  
Term Monitoring ◽  
Common Device ◽  
Do So

There are a number of situations in the context of health and wellness where it is desirable to monitor a user for a period of time – either for short term assessment or longer term monitoring. It is further desirable, especially for long term monitoring, that the device chosen to do so has a minimal impact on the user. This form of monitoring is unobtrusive monitoring and uses wearable technology to achieve its aims. This chapter presents an overview of unobtrusive monitoring using wearable devices, discusses some common device types and the data that are available and makes some recommendations for factors to consider when choosing or designing a device for unobtrusive monitoring.

scholarly journals Traffic control

2003 ◽  
Vol 163 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Peifer ◽  
Alpha S. Yap
Keyword(s):  
Cell Adhesion ◽  
Mechanism Of Action ◽  
Traffic Control ◽  
Mammalian Cells ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Do So

Proteins of the p120 family have been implicated in the regulation of cadherin-based cell adhesion, but their relative importance in this process and their mechanism of action have remained less clear. Three papers in this issue suggest that p120 plays a key role in maintaining normal levels of cadherin in mammalian cells, and that it may do so by regulating cadherin trafficking (Chen et al., 2003; Davis et al., 2003; Xiao et al., 2003).

scholarly journals Quality control in the initiation of eukaryotic DNA replication

2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1584) ◽  
pp. 3545-3553 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. X. Diffley
Keyword(s):  
Cell Cycle ◽  
Quality Control ◽  
Cell Death ◽  
Dna Replication ◽  
Genome Stability ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Entire Genome ◽  
Initiation Of Replication ◽  
Eukaryotic Dna ◽  
Do So

Origins of DNA replication must be regulated to ensure that the entire genome is replicated precisely once in each cell cycle. In human cells, this requires that tens of thousands of replication origins are activated exactly once per cell cycle. Failure to do so can lead to cell death or genome rearrangements such as those associated with cancer. Systems ensuring efficient initiation of replication, while also providing a robust block to re-initiation, play a crucial role in genome stability. In this review, I will discuss some of the strategies used by cells to ensure once per cell cycle replication and provide a quantitative framework to evaluate the relative importance and efficiency of individual pathways involved in this regulation.

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