A new marketing segmentation approach based on marginal individual utilities: applying CRM is not a chimera anymore

In the advent of Customer Relationship Management, a more accurate profile of the consumer is needed. The objective of this paper is to show the usefulness of knowing consumer’s complete utility function through his/her marginal utilities. This approach allows one to form groups of individuals with similar preferences (as traditional segmentation methods do) and to treat them individually (which represents an advance). The empirical application is carried out, on a sample of 2,127 individuals, in the context of tourism, where the customer relationship management philosophy is gaining more and more relevance.

Patronazgo literario en la Inglaterra medieval (SS. VII-XIV): una visión panorámica

Este artículo ofrece una aproximación panorámica a la práctica del patronazgo literario en Inglaterra desde el s. VII al XIV. Durante el período anglosajón las relaciones de patronazgo fueron principalmente de dos tipos: (1) un poeta o scop que quedaba vinculado a una corte (p. ej. Déor) y (2) un intérprete o gleoman que desarrollaba su actividad no creativa de forma itinerante ante públicos diversos (p. ej. Wídsid). Caso aparte es el del pastor Cadmon, quien por intervención divina se convirtió en poeta bíblico y fue acogido en un monasterio. Tras la conquista normanda se introdujo un modelo de patronazgo aristocrático que favoreció la aparición de la figura del autor (p. ej. Wace) que componía sus obras en anglonormando, mientras el inglés era usado por juglares anónimos para deleite de las clases populares. La literatura en lengua inglesa no asistiría a la aparición de sus primeros autores (p. ej. Chaucer y Gower) hasta el siglo XIV, gracias en parte al patronazgo del rey Ricardo II.

Earth’s Rotation: A Challenging Problem in Mathematics and Physics

A suitable knowledge of the orientation and motion of the Earth in space is a common need in various fields. That knowledge has been ever necessary to carry out astronomical observations, but with the advent of the space age, it became essential for making observations of satellites and predicting and determining their orbits, and for observing the Earth from space as well. Given the relevant role it plays in Space Geodesy, Earth rotation is considered as one of the three pillars of Geodesy, the other two being geometry and gravity. Besides, research on Earth rotation has fostered advances in many fields, such as Mathematics, Astronomy and Geophysics, for centuries. One remarkable feature of the problem is in the extreme requirements of accuracy that must be fulfilled in the near future, about a millimetre on the tangent plane to the planet surface, roughly speaking. That challenges all of the theories that have been devised and used to-date; the paper makes a short review of some of the most relevant methods, which can be envisaged as milestones in Earth rotation research, emphasizing the Hamiltonian approach developed by the authors. Some contemporary problems are presented, as well as the main lines of future research prospected by the International Astronomical Union/International Association of Geodesy Joint Working Group on Theory of Earth Rotation, created in 2013.

Os desafios para o serviço social diante a crise socioambiental

Com advento da crise ecológica lançada na atualidade, a sociedade se deparou com o maior desafio no que tange mudar as suas ações frente a esta questão. Diante de tal crise a qual consideramos socioambiental, o Serviço Social que como profissão se inscreve no tecido das relações sociais, não deve ficar alheio a essa questão. A finalidade desse estudo baseia-se na analise da questão ambiental nos tempos atuais numa contextualização sócio-histórica, bem como sobre a possibilidade da profissão contribuir a partir da atuação como educadores e sensibilizadores da questão socioambiental.