The Achilles tendon of dynamic pricing –– the effect of consumers' fairness preferences on platform's dynamic pricing strategies

PurposeIn this paper, the authors study the effect of consumers' fairness preferences on dynamic pricing strategies adopted by platforms in a non-cooperative game.Design/methodology/approachThis study applies fair game and repeated game theory.FindingsThis study reveals that, in a one-shot game, if consumers have fairness preferences, dynamic prices will slightly decline. In a repeated game, dynamic prices will be reduced even when consumers do not have fairness preferences. When fairness preferences and repeated game are considered simultaneously, dynamic prices are most likely to be set at fair prices. The authors also discuss the effect of platforms' discounting factors, the consumers' income and alternative choices of consumption on the dynamic prices.Research limitations/implicationsThe study findings illustrate the importance of incorporating behavioral elements in understanding and designing the dynamic pricing strategies for platforms and the implications on social welfare in general.Originality/valueThe authors developed a theoretical model to incorporate consumers' fairness preference into the decision-making process of platforms when they design the dynamic pricing strategies.

The Portuguese build an empire.

Albuquerque's victory in Malacca gave Portugal a major foothold in the Far Eastern pepper trade, but the Portuguese were never able to fully dominate it. The chapter summarizes the struggles of Portugal's building of its empire. It also discusses the cartaz system, where the Portuguese claimed suzerainty over the Indian Ocean and no one else was allowed to sail unless they purchased a safe conduct pass. The cartaz obliged Asian ships to call at a Portuguese-controlled port and pay customs duties before proceeding on their voyage. Ships without this document were considered fair game and their goods could be confiscated. It was, pure and simple, a protection racket. The cartaz system, plus customs duties and outright piracy, provided most of the funds defraying the costs of the Portuguese navy and its garrisons. The chapter also outlines the importance of Indian cotton in the Spice Trade and the routes of spices into Europe. Further, the chapter provides highlights of the Portuguese profits on spices. Portuguese imports of pepper held strong over most the sixteenth century. The total weight of the spice cargoes averaged 40,000 to 50,000 quintals (1 quintal = 130 pounds or 59 kilograms) annually in the first half of the century and 60,000 to 70,000 quintals later on. Records have been left of one cargo in 1518 that totalled almost 5 million pounds (2.27 million kilograms), of which 4.7 million pounds (2.13 million kilograms) was pepper, 12,000 pounds (5443 kilograms) cloves, 3000 pounds (1360 kilograms) cinnamon and 2000 pounds (907 kilograms) mace (Krondl, 2007). Most of the pepper and other spices were purchased in Malabar on the open market. Portuguese profits on the pepper trade could run as high as 500%. Lastly, the chapter briefly discusses how other European countries looked for alternative routes to the spices.

Rethinking extra-time in major national football tournaments

Extra-time (ET) of 30 minutes is played if football match scores are level after 90 minutes in tournament knockout play. The demanding schedule of these tournaments along with possible ET matches in the knockout stages significantly increase players’ overload and injury risk. Present study aimed to determine whether ET during major football national team tournaments contributes to the game outcome. Data on the percentage of elimination matches that needed ET, and the percentage of ET matches that eventually required shootouts were retrieved. Over the years, increased number of participating teams lead to increased number of knockout games, and more knockout games needed ET (13% until 1978, 33% from 1982, in FIFA World Cup). In a significant percentage of matches, the ET itself did not determine the winning team, and the majority of ET matches winners were determined by shootouts (FIFA World Cup since 1982: 60.8%; UEFA European championship: 61.3%; Copa America: 92%). The purpose of playing ET is to make a fair game outcome, and not leave the winning decision for shootouts. However, since in most matches ET does not determine the winner, while significantly increasing the player’s overload and injury susceptibility, the need for ET mandates rethinking.

Racism’s Back Door: A Mixed-Methods Content Analysis of Transformative Sketch Comedy in the US from 1960-2000

Comedy that challenges race ideology is transformative, widely available, and has the potential to affect processes of identity formation and weaken hegemonic continuity and dominance. Outside of the rules and constraints of serious discourse and cultural production, these comedic corrections thrive on discursive and semiotic ambiguity and temporality. Comedic corrections offer alternate interpretations overlooked or silenced by hegemonic structures and operating modes of cultural common sense. The view that their effects are ephemeral and insignificant is an incomplete and misguided evaluation. Since this paper adopts Hegel’s understanding of comedy as the spirit (Geist) made material, its very constitution, and thus its power, resides in exposing the internal thought processes often left unexamined, bringing them into the foreground, dissecting them, and exposing them for ridicule and transformation. In essence, the work of comedy is to consider all points of human processing and related structuration as fair game. The phenomenological nature of comedy calls for a micro-level examination. Select examples from The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1968), The Richard Pryor Show (1977), Saturday Night Live (1990), and Chappelle’s Show (2003) will demonstrate representative ways that comedy attacks and transforms racial hegemony.

Authorship and Unity of the Classical Arabic Poem through the Lens of Collaborative Composition

When a classical Arabic poem lacked a noticeable degree of thematic coherence and formal structure, it was at risk of foreign intervention aiming to improve it. Who was recognized in such a case as the author of the poem and on which grounds? This article looks at the interrelated questions of the poem’s unity and its authorship through the lens of collaborative poetry that was practiced by completing verse composed in the past. It presents an analysis of poetic collaboration cases from the second/eighth century to the Ayyubid era, and discusses different practical approaches of poets to authorship questions related to the earlier source poem and their own later completion. In the third/ninth century, as an expansive reservoir of ancient and modern poems became increasingly available, we occasionally notice the marks of plagiary, rather than forgery, on collaborative poems of this type. At the same time, and based on this very expansion, kinds of legitimate poetic influence can be detected in the completions of the later poets. Remarkably, poetic intervention did not cease and the poem conceptually did not achieve an inviolable status, when the scholars replaced the transmitters as the authorities on poetry around the third/ninth century and throughout the period under study. Nevertheless, the cultural domain for reshaping earlier verse changed, and the repertoire of poetry considered as “fair game” for this practice was narrowed down based on quality considerations.

Negativity in Filmonyms Translation: Interpretative Transformation or the Transformation of the Mind?

Introduction. The paper considers the specifics of filmonyms’ translation in the modern film discourse. The purpose of this paper is the analysis of the translation strategy for filmonyms’ negativisation. Scientific novelty consists in a new, cognitive approach to the analysis of translation activities, carried out at the level of consciousness with the analysis of cognitive concepts behind the translated material. The object of this research is the variety of foreign film industry filmonyms, which had been translated with the introduction of the negative connotation. Actuality of work is determined by the demand for the efficient introduction of the foreign content in its harmonious balance with the home content in the situation of a fierce international competition.Methodology and sources. Cognitive-discursive approach to the film discourse is used in the paper, being carried out through synchronous comparison of home and foreign variants. The methodology of estimation objectification is applied for the demonstration of the degree of convenience and ease of the resulting translation in the receiving culture. The filmonyms’ translation analysis is based on the transcreational method of reconceptualization, accompanied by the domestication of filmonyms in the home culture. The source for the analysis is found in the tree-year collection of 400 non-equivalently translated filmonyms from the home periodical “Peterburgsky telezritel’ “ of 2017-2020.Results and discussion. The analysis of negatively coloured filmonyms in home film discourse was based on the cognitive-discursive method, demonstrating meaningful statements behind the source and the translated material. The analysis of the negativity in the filmonyms’ translation has demonstrated, that the best is modified as the worst, the degree of danger is magnified, and fair game is turned into an unfair one, while the examples of amelioration in translation are rare. This is explained by the tendency for the pejorative valuation and results in the general viewers’ distrust for the film industry. . The use of the cognitive-discursive methods allowed to define the degree of the evaluative variability of the filmonyms’ translation, as well as the trend for the pejorative evaluation, reflecting the cultural specifics of the receiving culture in its contrast with the positivity of the culture of the original filmonyms. As a result the conclusion was formed, declaring the formation of the interpretational dialect of the film industry, which is lowering the level of the consumer preferences, which consequently leads to the growth of isolation and to the syndrome of the “social exclusion“.

Religion

Bazin argues that miracles are inexplicable events that test science. Wary of the supernatural and transcendence, he does not approve of Pius XII’s standards of sainthood. All religions are fair game for social anthropology, even if they address mankind’s spiritual dimension. Irrational belief in God is necessary to maintain hope in eternal justice, since human laws are imperfect. Cinema’s illusionism turns irrational belief into a spiritual sensibility even for those who do not believe in any religion. Opposed to the dogmatic tendencies of any religion, Bazin argues that, in comparison to Jean Delannoy’s literary adaptations, Robert Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest (1951) stands out as an avant-garde film that is a masterpiece. This film explores Blaise Pascal’s notion of the Hidden God, by remapping the senses in such a way as to mark a new stage in the evolution of cinematic language. It is an example of pure cinema, comparable to Vittorio De Sica’s very different Bicycle Thieves (1948).