Subject identification via ECG fiducial-based systems:influence of the type of QT interval correction

Electrocardiography (ECG) has been recently proposed as biometric trait for identification purposes. Intra-individual variations of ECG might affect identification performance. These variations are mainly due to Heart Rate Variability (HRV). In particular, HRV causes changes in the QT intervals along the ECG waveforms. This work is aimed at analysing the influence of seven QT interval correction methods (based on population models) on the performance of ECG-fiducial-based identification systems. In addition, we have also considered the influence of training set size, classifier, classifier ensemble as well as the number of consecutive heartbeats in a majority voting scheme. The ECG signals used in this study were collected from thirty-nine subjects within the Physionet open access database. Public domain software was used for fiducial points detection. Results suggested that QT correction is indeed required to improve the performance. However, there is no clear choice among the seven explored approaches for QT correction (identification rate between 0.97 and 0.99). MultiLayer Perceptron and Support Vector Machine seemed to have better generalization capabilities, in terms of classification performance, with respect to Decision Tree-based classifiers. No such strong influence of the training-set size and the number of consecutive heartbeats has been observed on the majority voting scheme.

The value of indirect ties in citation networks:SNA analysis with OWA operator weights

This paper seeks to advance the theory and practice of the dynamics of complex networks in relation to direct and indirect citations. It applies social network analysis (SNA) and the ordered weighted averaging operator (OWA) to study a patent citations network. So far the SNA studies investigating long chains of patents citations have rarely been undertaken and the importance of a node in a network has been associated mostly with its number of direct ties. In this research OWA is used to analyse complex networks, assess the role of indirect ties, and provide guidance to reduce complexity for decision makers and analysts. An empirical example of a set of European patents published in 2000 in the renewable energy industry is provided to show the usefulness of the proposed approach for the preference ranking of patent citations.

Cross-national differences in e-WOM influence

Purpose: This paper aims to present a cross-national study that investigates changes in purchase intentions of UK versus Chinese consumers following exposure to successive e-WOM comments in the form of positive and negative user reviews for experience versus search products. Design/methodology/approach: A 2(e-WOM valence and order: negative versus positive most recent)×2(product type: experience versus search)×3(purchase intentions at t 1, t 2, t 3) repeated-measures factorial design is used to test a set of hypotheses developed from the literature. Findings: Chinese consumers are susceptible to recent e-WOM comments regardless of their valence, while UK consumers anchor on negative information regardless of the order in which it is acquired. This holds particularly for experience products. Originality/value: This cross-national study contributes to the scarce literature on the impact of e-WOM on consumer purchase decisions by comparing UK and Chinese consumers. The authors suggest that culture moderates the development of product evaluations following exposure to e-WOM. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Identifying (territorial) tensions in the servitization value chain

Purpose: To understand the tensions that servitization activities create between actors within networks. Design/methodology/approach: Interviews were conducted with manufacturers, intermediaries and customers across a range of industrial sectors. Findings: Tensions relating to two key sets of capabilities are identified: in developing or acquiring (i) operant technical expertise and (ii) operand service infrastructure. The former tension concerns whom knowledge is co-created with and where expertise resides. The latter involves a territorial investment component; firms developing strategies to acquire greater access to, or ownership of, infrastructures closer to customers. Developing and acquiring these capabilities is a strategic decision on the part of managers of servitizing firms, in order to gain recognized power and control in a particular territory. Originality/value: This paper explores how firms’ servitization activities involve value appropriation (from the rest of the network), contrasting with the narrative norm for servitization: that it creates additional value. There is a need to understand the tensions that servitization activities create within networks. Some firms may be able to improve servitization performance through co-operation rather than competition, generating co-opetitive relationships. Others may need to become much more aggressive, if they are to take a greater share of the ‘value’ from the value chain.

Web designers, social e-value creation and e-business planning:understanding resistance from conflicting demands

This chapter investigates the conflicting demands faced by web designers in the development of social e-atmospherics that aim to encourage e-value creation, thus strengthening and prolonging market planning strategies. While recent studies have shown that significant shifts are occurring concerning the importance of users’ generated content by way of social e-communication tools (e.g. blogs), these trends are also creating expectations that social and cultural cues ought to become a greater part of e-atmospherics and e-business strategies. Yet, there is growing evidence that organizations are resisting such efforts, fearing that they will lose control of their e-marketing strategy. This chapter contributes to the theory and literature on online cross-cultural understanding and the impact website designers (meso-level) can have on improving the sustainability of e-business planning, departing from recent studies that focus mainly on firms’ e-business plans (macro-level) or final consumers (micro-level). A second contribution is made with respect to online behavior regarding the advancement of technologies that facilitate the development and shaping of new social e-atmospherics that affect users’ behavior and long term e-business strategies through the avoidance of traditional, formal decision making processes and marketing strategy mechanisms implemented by firms. These issues have been highlighted in the literature on the co-production and co-creation of value, which few organizations have thus far integrated in their strategic and pragmatic e-business plans. Drawing upon fifteen online interviews with web designers in the USA, as key non-institutional actors at the meso-level who are developing what future websites will be like, this chapter analyzes ways in which identifying points of resistance and conflicting demands can lead to engagement with the debate over the online co-creation of value and more sustainable future e-business planning. A number of points of resistance to the inclusion of more e-social atmospherics are identified, and the implications for web designers’ roles and web design planning are discussed along with the limitations of the study and potential future research for e-business studies.

Modelling markets

Decision makers in marketing are often faced with rather complicated situations in which decisions have to be made. Let us consider the problem of determining the appropriate advertising budget. A brand manager is asked to determine the optimal budget. He knows that increases in advertising may lead to increased sales, but also lead to increased costs. The advertising expenditures in period t, say 1994, may not only lead to increases in sales in t, but also to increases in t + 1 (1995) and possibly may contribute to the value of the brand for a long time period.2 Increases in sales will result in changes in profit. The decision maker is allowed to spend more advertising money if there is more profit and more sales, thus advertising spending depends on past sales and profit performance. In order to account for these and possibly other relationships it is necessary to formalise these relations. This means that the decision maker has to specify which variables influence which other variables and what the directions of causality between these variables are. To this end a model has to be formalised, data have to be collected and the formalised model has to be calibrated.

The influence of culture and market orientation on services brands:insights from Irish banking and retail firms

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the influence of the culture of the service firm on its interpretation of the role of the brand and on the development and implementation of its brand values. Design/methodology/approach: A grounded theory approach was used. Interviews were conducted with 20 managers within two leading banking firms in Ireland and two leading grocery retailers in Ireland. Findings: The development of the brand, and its role within the firm, is closely related to the firm's culture. The research shows obstacles and opportunities created by the cultural context of firms wishing to disseminate and embed a set of brand values. The paper presents an "involvement model" of brand values implementation and outlines changes required to implement brand values. Research limitations/implications: The study was bound by access to firms, and managers' availability. The authors sought an insight into the relationship between each firm's culture and its brands. They advocate quantitative research to further investigate the findings within these service sectors and to test proposed antecedents (transformational leadership, employee involvement) and outcomes (employee-based brand equity and consumer-based brand equity) of values adoption. Practical implications: The paper identifies aspects of retail and banking cultures which support or detract from brand development. In particular, it presents the learnings from successful brand values implementation in a clan culture, aspects of which are applicable across other cultures. Originality/value: The paper provides valuable insights into the role of the brand within the service firm and the positive and negative influence of context on brand values and their development and implementation. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Cooperation in an HMMS-type supply chain: A management application of cooperative game theory = Kooperáció egy HMMS-típusú ellátási láncban: A kooperatív játékelmélet egy menedzsment alkalmazása

We apply cooperative game theory concepts to analyze a Holt-Modigliani-Muth-Simon (HMMS) supply chain. The bullwhip effect in a two-stage supply chain (supplier-manufacturer) in the framework of the HMMS-model with quadratic cost functions is considered. It is assumed that both firms minimize their relevant costs, and two cases are examined: the supplier and the manufacturer minimize their relevant costs in a decentralized and in a centralized (cooperative) way. The question of how to share the savings of the decreased bullwhip effect in the centralized (cooperative) model is answered by the weighted Shapley value, by a transferable utility cooperative game theory tool, where the weights are for the exogenously given “bargaining powers” of the participants of the supply chain. = A cikkben a kooperatív játékelmélet fogalmait alkalmazzuk egy Holt-Mogigliani-Muth-Simon-típusú ellátási lánc esetében. Az ostorcsapás-hatás elemeit egy beszállító-termelő ellátási láncban ragadjuk meg egy kvadratikus készletezési és termelési költség mellett. Feltételezzük, hogy mindkét vállalat minimalizálja a releváns költségeit. Két működési rendszert hasonlítunk össze: egy hierarchikus döntéshozatali rendszert, amikor először a termelő, majd a beszállító optimalizálja helyzetét, majd egy centralizált (kooperatív) modellt, amikor a vállalatok az együttes költségüket minimalizálják. A kérdés úgy merül fel, hogy a csökkentett ostorcsapás-hatás esetén hogyan osszák meg a részvevők ebben a transzferálható hasznosságú kooperatív játékban a költség megtakarítást, exogén módon adott tárgyalási pozíció mellett.

Consistency of the decision-maker in pair-wise comparisons

Most authors assume that the natural behaviour of the decision-maker is being inconsistent. This paper investigates the main sources of inconsistency and analyses methods for reducing or eliminating inconsistency. Decision support systems can contain interactive modules for that purpose. In a system with consistency control, there are three stages. First, consistency should be checked: a consistency measure is needed. Secondly, approval or rejection has to be decided: a threshold value of inconsistency measure is needed. Finally, if inconsistency is ‘high’, corrections have to be made: an inconsistency reducing method is needed. This paper reviews the difficulties in all stages. An entirely different approach is to elaborate a decision support system in order to force the decision-maker to give consistent values in each step of answering pair-wise comparison questions. An interactive questioning procedure resulting in consistent (sub) matrices has been demonstrated.

Vállalati döntés egy új információbiztonsági eszköz, a kvantumkulcscsere bevezetéséről (Corporate decision about the installation of a new information security device the quantum key distribution)

A szerzők tanulmányukban az információbiztonság egy merőben új, minőségi változást hozó találmányával, a kvantumkulcscserével (QKD-vel – quantum key distribution) foglalkoznak. Céljuk az, hogy az újdonságra mint informatikai biztonsági termékre tekintsenek, és megvizsgálják a bevezetéséről szóló vállalati döntés során felmerülő érveket, ellenérveket. Munkájuk egyaránt műszaki és üzleti szemléletű. Előbb elkülönítik a kvantumkulcscsere hagyományos eljárásokkal szembeni használatának motiváló tényezőit, és megállapítják, milyen körülmények között szükséges a napi működésben alkalmazni. Ezt követően a forgalomban is kapható QKD-termékek tulajdonságait és gyártóit szemügyre véve megfogalmazzák a termék széles körű elterjedésének korlátait. Végül a kvantumkulcscsere-termék bevezetéséről szóló vállalati döntéshozás különböző aspektusait tekintik át. Információbiztonsági és üzleti szempontból összehasonlítják az új, valamint a hagyományosan használt kulcscsereeszközöket. Javaslatot tesznek a védendő információ értékének becslésére, amely a használatbavétel költség-haszon elemzését támaszthatja alá. Ebből levezetve megállapítják, hogy mely szervezetek alkotják a QKD lehetséges célcsoportját. Utolsó lépésként pedig arra keresik a választ, melyik időpont lehet ideális a termék bevezetésére. _____ This study aims to illuminate Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), a new invention that has the potential to bring sweeping changes to information security. The authors’ goal is to present QKD as a product in the field of IT security, and to examine several pro and con arguments regarding the installation of this product. Their work demonstrates both the technical and the business perspectives of applying QKD. First they identify motivational factors of using Quantum Key Distribution over traditional methods. Then the authors assess under which circumstances QKD could be necessary to be used in daily business. Furthermore, to evaluate the limitations of its broad spread, they introduce the vendors and explore the properties of their commercially available QKD products. Bearing all this in mind, they come out with numerous factors that can influence corporate decision making regarding the installation of QKD. The authors compare the traditional and the new tools of key distribution from an IT security and business perspective. They also take efforts to estimate the value of the pieces of information to be protected. This could be useful for a subsequent cost–benefit analysis. Their findings try to provide support for determining the target audience of QKD in the IT security market. Finally the authors attempt to find an ideal moment for an organization to invest in Quantum Key Distribution.

A magyar hallgatók vállalkozásindító szándékát befolyásoló tényezők modellje - Ajzen tervezett magatartás elméletének kiterjesztése (Model of the Hungarian students’ business start-up intention influencing factors – Extending of Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior)

A vállalkozási tevékenység a munkahelyteremtés és a gazdasági növekedés egyik döntő tényezője. Ennek a jövőbeli kedvező alakulását a fiatalok mai attitűdjei határozzák meg. Ha be tudjuk azonosítani a legfontosabb tényezőket, amelyek a fiatalok vállalkozásindítási szándékát befolyásolják, el tudjuk dönteni azt is, mely területen lehet és érdemes beavatkozni annak érdekében, hogy minél több új, életképes vállalkozás szülessen. A cikk a GUESSS kutatási projekt magyarországi adatbázisának köszönhetően közel 6000 hallgató válaszait elemezve rendszerezi a felsőoktatásban résztvevők vállalkozásindítási szándékára ható legfontosabb tényezőcsoportokat. Első lépésben Ajzen tervezett magatartás elméletének alkalmazásával vizsgálja a vállalkozásindítási szándék alakítóit, majd további tényezők, így a felsőoktatási intézmények által nyújtott szolgáltatások, a családi háttér és a demográfiai jellemzők bevonásával igyekszik minél pontosabban leírni a szándék alakulását. _____ Entrepreneurial activity is a decisive factor in the dynamics of job creation and economic growth. The future level of this activity highly depends on the attitudes of today’s youth towards this. If the most important factors influencing attitudes are identified and the entrepreneurial intentions towards entrepreneurship are determined, the fields of intervention targeting the creation of as many new and viable enterprises as possible can be defined. This article aims to systematise the most important factor groups that influence the decisions of students studying in higher education in terms of start-up activities and is based on the Hungarian database of the GUESSS research project, containing almost 6000 respondents. Firstly, it tests Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior. Then such factors as supportive services provided by higher education institutions, family background and demographic factors are analysed in order to improve the explanatory power of the model.

An investigation into factors that influence the sense of competence of six high school girls

The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of environment, behavior, capabilities, beliefs and values, and identity, based on Dilts' (1990) levels of cognitive alignment, on the cognitive construct of sense of competence and related constructs of self-efficacy, motivation, expectations, and goal-setting among adolescent girls. An individual who is aligned is free from conflict among the interaction of these levels. In addition, academic achievement, adolescent culture, parental involvement, and school environment were four of several issues in the lives of adolescent girls examined to explore how these issues might interact with the levels of alignment and sense of competence.^ A case study approach used in-depth interviews with six female seniors from private single-sex and mixed-sex high schools organized around the levels of alignment and school environment. Response patterns were analyzed to determine each girl's varying evidence of alignment or freedom from conflict within her environment.^ The findings indicated that none of the girls were able to meet the conditions for alignment in Dilts' model or a sense of competence. School environment, parental involvement, and adolescent culture were important factors influencing the extent to which conflict was experienced by each girl. The girls with domain-specific successes developed strategies that concentrated their efforts in the domains in which they could demonstrate their best abilities. The results contribute to current theory and research on adolescent girls: and have value for practitioners working with adolescent girls in developing strategies to improve their self-efficacy, motivation, expectations, goal-setting, and overall sense of competence. ^

Using extreme value theory to value stock market returns

Extreme stock price movements are of great concern to both investors and the entire economy. For investors, a single negative return, or a combination of several smaller returns, can possible wipe out so much capital that the firm or portfolio becomes illiquid or insolvent. If enough investors experience this loss, it could shock the entire economy. An example of such a case is the stock market crash of 1987. Furthermore, there has been a lot of recent interest regarding the increasing volatility of stock prices. ^ This study presents an analysis of extreme stock price movements. The data utilized was the daily returns for the Standard and Poor's 500 index from January 3, 1978 to May 31, 2001. Research questions were analyzed using the statistical models provided by extreme value theory. One of the difficulties in examining stock price data is that there is no consensus regarding the correct shape of the distribution function generating the data. An advantage with extreme value theory is that no detailed knowledge of this distribution function is required to apply the asymptotic theory. We focus on the tail of the distribution. ^ Extreme value theory allows us to estimate a tail index, which we use to derive bounds on the returns for very low probabilities on an excess. Such information is useful in evaluating the volatility of stock prices. There are three possible limit laws for the maximum: Gumbel (thick-tailed), Fréchet (thin-tailed) or Weibull (no tail). Results indicated that extreme returns during the time period studied follow a Fréchet distribution. Thus, this study finds that extreme value analysis is a valuable tool for examining stock price movements and can be more efficient than the usual variance in measuring risk. ^

Selecting a college or university: A study of students and their parents

This case study investigated the decision-making process of high-achieving high school students and their parents in selecting a college or university. The conceptual framework that guided this study included theoretical and empirical research framed around a three-phase model of college choice. Parental influence dominated the first phase of this model. The search phase, which was the second and the most crucial one, included financial considerations related to this decision, admissions considerations during the search phase, the psychology of decision making, and advertising strategies for teenagers. Once students completed the search phase they developed expectations of the institutions they considered prior to making the final decision. The study employed qualitative methods using individual interviews with students and their parents. ^ Six high-achieving high school seniors from a South Florida high school and their parents were selected to participate in this study. Of these students, four were female and two were male. Participants were individually interviewed on two separate occasions over a three-month period. Students and their parents were interviewed separately, with one exception, during the first set of interviews and together during the second. The data obtained from these interviews were transcribed and these transcripts were coded, categorized, analyzed, and sorted into major themes and submitted to interpretive analysis. ^ In-depth descriptions of participants' experiences during the decision-making process are described in the study. Financial factors—which included the cost of college, the socio-economic status of the family, and scholarship possibilities—drove the selection process for these students and their parents, most of whom reported their family incomes between the lower-middle to upper-middle class range. All of these students took advantage of the Bright Futures Scholarship Program, other scholarship opportunities, and the lower tuition costs of in-state public institutions. The effectiveness of recruitment techniques, such as brochures, campus visits, the development of college Web sites, and the overall impact of Internet resources, was assessed by the researcher. ^ As these students had progressed through the search phase, they developed perceptions of potential institutions as they were assisted by those around them. The value of familiarity with institutions and the use of heuristics were quite evident in the final analysis of this study, based on what the students communicated about how their knowledge of and comfort in these institutions affected their decisions. Parental influence played an important role in the selection process for the students in this study as the parents clearly directed the process, by the constant advice they gave their children and by the financial limitations they communicated to them. ^