An algorithm for on-line price discrimination

NARCIS (Netherlands)

D.D.B. van Bragt; D.J.A. Somefun (Koye); E. Kutschinski; J.A. La Poutré (Han)

2002-01-01

textabstractThe combination of on-line dynamic pricing with price discrimination can be very beneficial for firms operating on the Internet. We therefore develop an on-line dynamic pricing algorithm that can adjust the price schedule for a good or service on behalf of a firm. This algorithm (a

Towards Practical Privacy-Preserving Internet Services

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Shiyuan

2012-01-01

Today's Internet offers people a vast selection of data centric services, such as online query services, the cloud, and location-based services, etc. These internet services bring people a lot of convenience, but at the same time raise privacy concerns, e.g., sensitive information revealed by the queries, sensitive data being stored and…

76 FR 7114 - International Mail: Mailing Services Price Change

Science.gov (United States)

2011-02-09

... POSTAL SERVICE 39 CFR Part 20 International Mail: Mailing Services Price Change AGENCY: Postal... States Postal Service, International Mail Manual (IMM[supreg]) for Mailing Services. This price change correlates to the Postal Service's January 13, 2011 filing of Docket No. R2011-2, Notice of Price Adjustment...

Is the Internet making markets more efficient? The evidence according to price indicators in Spain

OpenAIRE

Sabaté i Garriga, Ferran; Cañabate Carmona, Antonio; Cobo Valeri, Erik; García, Dominie

2009-01-01

It has been theorized that low search costs associated with e-commerce imply greater levels of efficiency relative to the conventional retail channels. Multiple empirical studies confirm this hypothesis concerning price level, although the evidence is mixed relative to price dispersion. This article empirically compares the efficiency of the Internet with the conventional retail channel through 4 price indicators for the CD market. The results, based on 1,603 prices collected in Spain, are su...

Service framework for Internet of People, Things and Services (IoPTS)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shinde, Gitanjali; Olesen, Henning

2016-01-01

Internet of Things (IoT) is a revolutionary technology, where devices around us will be capable of sensing, reacting, responding and working autonomously to provide services to the users e.g. within smart homes, enterprises, utilities and e-Health. In the IoT paradigm, every device...... will be connected to the Internet to provide services to the user. Bringing this together makes it relevant to talk about the "Internet of People, Things and Services (IoPTS)". However, providing the appropriate services to the users depending on their requirements is a major challenge for IoPTS. After reviewing...

Internet economics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Henten, Anders; Skouby, Knud Erik; Øst, Alexander Gorm

1997-01-01

A paper on the economics of the Internet with respect to end user pricing and pricing og interconnect.......A paper on the economics of the Internet with respect to end user pricing and pricing og interconnect....

Internet and Its Contributions to Library Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yaşar Çelik

1995-06-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the major Internet services such as email, telnet and ftp and describes various information discovery and retrieval tools such as gopher, WAIS, and WWW. It also discusses the contributions of the Internet to library and information services.

Risk Management of P2P Internet Financing Service Platform

Science.gov (United States)

Yalei, Li

2017-09-01

Since 2005, the world’s first P2P Internet financing service platform Zopa in UK was introduced, in the development of “Internet +” trend, P2P Internet financing service platform has been developed rapidly. In 2007, China’s first P2P platform “filming loan” was established, marking the P2P Internet financing service platform to enter China and the rapid development. At the same time, China’s P2P Internet financing service platform also appeared in different forms of risk. This paper focuses on the analysis of the causes of risk of P2P Internet financing service platform and the performance of risk management process. It provides a solution to the Internet risk management plan, and explains the risk management system of the whole P2P Internet financing service platform and the future development direction.

78 FR 63433 - International Mailing Services: Proposed Price Changes-CPI

Science.gov (United States)

2013-10-24

... POSTAL SERVICE 39 CFR Part 20 International Mailing Services: Proposed Price Changes--CPI AGENCY... mailing services price adjustments with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), effective on January 26... Postal Service, International Mail Manual (IMM[supreg]) to reflect these new price changes. DATES: We...

Why People Aren't Using Wireless Internet

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ahluwalia, Punit; Gimpel, Gregory; Varshney, Upkar

2010-01-01

This paper proposes a new model for understanding the adoption of internet services when competing technological standards can fulfil similar needs. Using prospect theory as its theoretical foundation, the model posits that reference prices, flat rate preference, and status quo bias constitute...... the perceived sacrifice when users consider adoption of new services such as wireless internet. Perceived sacrifice and perceived quality influence the perceived relative value, which in turn influences the intention to adopt wireless internet. The proposed model and related hypotheses are empirically confirmed...

Bandwidth allocation and pricing problem for a duopoly market

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

You Peng-Sheng

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This research discusses the Internet service provider (ISP bandwidth allocation and pricing problems for a duopoly bandwidth market with two competitive ISPs. According to the contracts between Internet subscribers and ISPs, Internet subscribers can enjoy their services up to their contracted bandwidth limits. However, in reality, many subscribers may experience the facts that their on-line requests are denied or their connection speeds are far below their contracted speed limits. One of the reasons is that ISPs accept too many subscribers as their subscribers. To avoid this problem, ISPs can set limits for their subscribers to enhance their service qualities. This paper develops constrained nonlinear programming to deal with this problem for two competitive ISPs. The condition for reaching the equilibrium between the two competitive firms is derived. The market equilibrium price and bandwidth resource allocations are derived as closed form solutions.

Contract-oriented software development for internet services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Giambiagi, Pablo; Owe, Olaf; Ravn, Anders Peter

2008-01-01

COSoDIS (Contract-Oriented Software Development for Internet Services) develops novel approaches to implement and reason about contracts in service oriented architectures (SOA). The rationale is that system developers benefit from abstraction mechanisms to work with these architectures. Therefore...... the goal is to design and test system modeling and programming language tools to empower SOA developers to deploy highly dynamic, negotiable and monitorable Internet services....

Pricing local distribution services in a competitive market

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Duann, D.J.

1995-12-01

Unbundling and restructuring of local distribution services is the focus of the natural gas industry. As a result of regulatory reforms, a competitive local distribution market has emerged, and the validity of traditional cost-based regulation is being questioned. One alternative is to completely unbundle local distribution services and transform the local distribution company into a common carrier for intrastate transportation services. Three kinds of alternative pricing mechanisms are examined. For firm intrastate transportation services, cost-based pricing is the preferred method unless it can be shown that a competitive secondary market can be established and maintained. Pricing interruptible transportation capacity is discussed

Internet technologies and information services

CERN Document Server

Miller, Joseph

2014-01-01

Internet Technologies and Information Services: Second Edition is a vital asset to students preparing for careers in library and information science and provides expanded coverage to important new developments while still covering Internet foundations. In addition to networking, the Internet, HTML, web design, web programming, XML, and web searching, this new edition covers additional topics such as cloud computing, content management systems, eBook technologies, mobile technologies and applications, relational database management systems (RDMS), open source software, and virtual priva

Price Comparisons on the Internet Based on Computational Intelligence

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Jun Woo; Ha, Sung Ho

2014-01-01

Information-intensive Web services such as price comparison sites have recently been gaining popularity. However, most users including novice shoppers have difficulty in browsing such sites because of the massive amount of information gathered and the uncertainty surrounding Web environments. Even conventional price comparison sites face various problems, which suggests the necessity of a new approach to address these problems. Therefore, for this study, an intelligent product search system was developed that enables price comparisons for online shoppers in a more effective manner. In particular, the developed system adopts linguistic price ratings based on fuzzy logic to accommodate user-defined price ranges, and personalizes product recommendations based on linguistic product clusters, which help online shoppers find desired items in a convenient manner. PMID:25268901

77 FR 1039 - Internet-Based Telecommunications Relay Service Numbering

Science.gov (United States)

2012-01-09

... FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION 47 CFR Part 64 [WC Docket No. 10-191; Report No. 2939] Internet... toll-free numbers by users of Internet- based Telecommunications Relay Services (iTRS). DATES... any rules of particular applicability. Subject: Internet-Based Telecommunications Relay Service...

CONSTRAINTS AND PROBLEMS OF INTERNET SERVICES IN ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

In spite of the benefits of the Internet to learning, teaching and research a number of difficulties still bedevil the provision of services in Nigeria. The objective of this study was to examine the constraints and problems of Internet Services at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Questionnaires were administered to ...

Pricing of Marine Products and Services in the Modular Age

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jiang, Liping; Al-Ajlouni, Omar

WHAT IS THE ISSUE? Pricing can be a particular challenging issue for marine suppliers with multiple products and services especially when suppliers want to address specific customer needs and at the same time achieves the efficiency in pricing. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? Appropriate pricing of products-and-services...... in the market. Lastly, customer satisfaction and loyalty will be increased accordingly. WHAT CAN BE DONE? The pricing challenge for multiple products and services can be overcome by applying the modular concept on pricing, where each product or service is offered as a module, so suppliers can either set...

27 CFR 6.99 - Stocking, rotation, and pricing service.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... pricing service. 6.99 Section 6.99 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO TAX AND... pricing service. (a) General. Industry members may, at a retail establishment, stock, rotate and affix the price to distilled spirits, wine, or malt beverages which they sell, provided products of other industry...

Dynamic Pricing for Resource Consumption in Cloud Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bin Cao

2018-01-01

Full Text Available This paper studies dynamic pricing for cloud service where different resources are consumed by different users. The traditional cloud resource pricing models can be divided into two categories: on-demand service and reserved service. The former only takes the using time into account and is unfair for the users with long using time and little concurrency. The latter charges the same price to all the users and does not consider the resource consumption of users. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a flexible dynamic pricing model for cloud resources, which not only takes into account the occupying time and resource consumption of different users but also considers the maximal concurrency of resource consumption. As a result, on the one hand, this dynamic pricing model can help users save the cost of cloud resources. On the other hand, the profits of service providers are guaranteed. The key of the pricing model is how to efficiently calculate the maximal concurrency of resource consumption since the cost of providers is dynamically varied based on the maximal concurrency. To support this function in real time, we propose a data structure based on the classical B+ tree and the implementation for its corresponding basic operations like insertion, deletion, split, and query. Finally, the experiment results show that we can complete the dynamic pricing query on 10 million cloud resource usage records within 0.2 seconds on average.

Economics and Governance of the wireless Internet

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Falch, Morten; Henten, Anders; Tadayoni, Reza

barriers of entry. In this paper three issues are discussed: 1) Developments in pricing schemes for Internet interconnection and Internet access with special focus on the role of wireless access. 2) Developments in supporting infrastructures with special focus on the increasing role of wireless......The Internet has undergone a growing diversification with regard to types of users, kinds of services and use of transmission technologies and infrastructures. Today, internet services are delivered by the use of many different wired and wireless communication technologies with different technical...... capabilities and limitations, and with different techno-economic characteristics. The question is whether these trends challenge the current mode of governance for the Internet. In the early days, the Internet was considered to be open, free, competitive, with a high level of entrepreneurialism, and with low...

Integrated approach to transmission services pricing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yu, C.W.; David, A.K.

1999-01-01

The paper presents an intuitively logical split between: (a) embedded, (b) operating, and (c) expansion cost based pricing and methodologies for implementation, for transmission services. A conceptually straightforward mechanism for the equitable allocation of transmission network embedded cost recovery based on capacity-use and reliability benefit is proposed, expansion cost is charged on a long-run marginal cost basis and finally, operating cost recovery is based on short-run marginal pricing. This is followed by co-ordinating these alternatives and integrating the pricing mechanisms to achieve appropriate price signals for bulk power users of transmission systems. (author)

Optimal Nonlinear Pricing, Bundling Commodities and Contingent Services

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Podesta, Marion; Poudou, Jean-Christophe

2008-01-01

In this paper, we propose to analyze optimal nonlinear pricing when a firm offers in a bundle a commodity and a contingent service. The paper studies a mechanism design where all private information can be captured in a single scalar variable in a monopoly context. We show that to propose the package for commodity and service is less costly for the consumer, the firm has lower consumers' rent than the situation where it sells their good and contingent service under an independent pricing strategy. In fact, the possibility to use price discrimination via the supply of package is dominated by the fact that it is costly for the consumer to sign two contracts. Bundling energy and a contingent service is a profitable strategy for a energetician monopoly practising optimal nonlinear tariff. We show that the rates of the energy and the contingent service depend to the optional character of the contingent service and depend to the degree of complementarity between commodities and services. (authors)

Current experiences with internet telepathology and possible evolution in the next generation of Internet services.

Science.gov (United States)

Della Mea, V; Beltrami, C A

2000-01-01

The last five years experience has definitely demonstrated the possible applications of the Internet for telepathology. They may be listed as follows: (a) teleconsultation via multimedia e-mail; (b) teleconsultation via web-based tools; (c) distant education by means of World Wide Web; (d) virtual microscope management through Web and Java interfaces; (e) real-time consultations through Internet-based videoconferencing. Such applications have led to the recognition of some important limits of the Internet, when dealing with telemedicine: (i) no guarantees on the quality of service (QoS); (ii) inadequate security and privacy; (iii) for some countries, low bandwidth and thus low responsiveness for real-time applications. Currently, there are several innovations in the world of the Internet. Different initiatives have been aimed at an amelioration of the Internet protocols, in order to have quality of service, multimedia support, security and other advanced services, together with greater bandwidth. The forthcoming Internet improvements, although induced by electronic commerce, video on demand, and other commercial needs, are of real interest also for telemedicine, because they solve the limits currently slowing down the use of Internet. When such new services will be available, telepathology applications may switch from research to daily practice in a fast way.

Optimal pricing policies for services with consideration of facility maintenance costs

Science.gov (United States)

Yeh, Ruey Huei; Lin, Yi-Fang

2012-06-01

For survival and success, pricing is an essential issue for service firms. This article deals with the pricing strategies for services with substantial facility maintenance costs. For this purpose, a mathematical framework that incorporates service demand and facility deterioration is proposed to address the problem. The facility and customers constitute a service system driven by Poisson arrivals and exponential service times. A service demand with increasing price elasticity and a facility lifetime with strictly increasing failure rate are also adopted in modelling. By examining the bidirectional relationship between customer demand and facility deterioration in the profit model, the pricing policies of the service are investigated. Then analytical conditions of customer demand and facility lifetime are derived to achieve a unique optimal pricing policy. The comparative statics properties of the optimal policy are also explored. Finally, numerical examples are presented to illustrate the effects of parameter variations on the optimal pricing policy.

Is the Internet making markets more efficient? The evidence according to price indicators in Spain

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ferran Sabate

2009-04-01

Full Text Available It has been theorized that low search costs associated with e-commerce imply greater levels of efficiency relative to the conventional retail channels. Multiple empirical studies confirm this hypothesis concerning price level, although the evidence is mixed relative to price dispersion. This article empirically compares the efficiency of the Internet with the conventional retail channel through 4 price indicators for the CD market. The results, based on 1,603 prices collected in Spain, are surprising. The conventional channel shows greater efficiency for both posted and final prices. These findings together with the coincident results of other reviewed studies would suggest key factors related to the development of e-commerce. Implications of the study and future considerations are discussed.

Price smarter on the Net.

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, W; Marn, M; Zawada, C

2001-02-01

Companies generally have set prices on the Internet in two ways. Many start-ups have offered untenably low prices in a rush to capture first-mover advantage. Many incumbents have simply charged the same prices on-line as they do off-line. Either way, companies are missing a big opportunity. The fundamental value of the Internet lies not in lowering prices or making them consistent but in optimizing them. After all, if it's easy for customers to compare prices on the Internet, it's also easy for companies to track customers' behavior and adjust prices accordingly. The Net lets companies optimize prices in three ways. First, it lets them set and announce prices with greater precision. Different prices can be tested easily, and customers' responses can be collected instantly. Companies can set the most profitable prices, and they can tap into previously hidden customer demand. Second, because it's so easy to change prices on the Internet, companies can adjust prices in response to even small fluctuations in market conditions, customer demand, or competitors' behavior. Third, companies can use the clickstream data and purchase histories that it collects through the Internet to segment customers quickly. Then it can offer segment-specific prices or promotions immediately. By taking full advantage of the unique possibilities afforded by the Internet to set prices with precision, adapt to changing circumstances quickly, and segment customers accurately, companies can get their pricing right. It's one of the ultimate drivers of e-business success.

Spectrum and service pricing for 802.22 networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Stefan, Andrei Lucian; Rota, Cyril; Pratas, Nuno

2011-01-01

of channels which have an impact on the demand, and thus on the spectrum pricing. The second part of the paper exemplifies how a Bertrand game model can solve the issue of service pricing for a Wireless Regional Area Network (WRAN) operator that is trying to deploy an 802.22 network in a region where...... a competitor already exists. In this work the service pricing was envisioned as a network preplanning step, one that would show the potential revenues for an operator by entering as inputs, among other, the competitor's coverage area and spectrum pricing. The case study has been conducted through CNPT1...

Internet-Based Indoor Navigation Services

OpenAIRE

Zeinalipour-Yazti, Demetrios; Laoudias, Christos; Georgiou, Kyriakos

2017-01-01

Smartphone advances are leading to a class of Internet-based Indoor Navigation services. IIN services rely on geolocation databases that store indoor models, comprising floor maps and points of interest, along with wireless, light, and magnetic signals for localizing users. Developing IIN services creates new information management challenges - such as crowdsourcing indoor models, acquiring and fusing big data velocity signals, localization algorithms, and custodians' location privacy. Here, ...

NASA policy on pricing shuttle launch services

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, J. M.

1977-01-01

The paper explains the rationale behind key elements of the pricing policy for STS, the major features of the non-government user policy, and some of the stimulating features of the policy which will open space to a wide range of new users. Attention is given to such major policy features as payment schedule, cost and standard services, the two phase pricing structure, optional services, shared flights, cancellation and postponement, and earnest money.

The Effect of Service Quality to Customer Satisfaction by Using Internet Banking Service in Jambi

OpenAIRE

Assegaff, Setiawan

2016-01-01

. Internet banking service has become an important part of the current banking products. It could be said almost all bank, which is operating in Indonesia, have to equip their products by providing internet-banking services for its customers. Despite the fact that the investment to build the internet banking service has been carried out by almost all banks in Indonesia, but in fact the use of internet banking adoption is still not significant. Banking in Indonesia still filled with questions ...

Internet Economics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Henten, Anders; Skouby, Knud Erik; Øst, Alexander Gorm

1998-01-01

Article descibing and analysing the influence of the commercialisation of Internet on end-user and interconnect pricing.......Article descibing and analysing the influence of the commercialisation of Internet on end-user and interconnect pricing....

A study of pricing and trading model of Blockchain & Big data-based Energy-Internet electricity

Science.gov (United States)

Fan, Tao; He, Qingsu; Nie, Erbao; Chen, Shaozhen

2018-01-01

The development of Energy-Internet is currently suffering from a series of issues, such as the conflicts among high capital requirement, low-cost, high efficiency, the spreading gap between capital demand and supply, as well as the lagged trading & valuation mechanism, any of which would hinder Energy-Internet's evolution. However, with the development of Blockchain and big-data technology, it is possible to work out solutions for these issues. Based on current situation of Energy-Internet and its requirements for future progress, this paper demonstrates the validity of employing blockchain technology to solve the problems encountered by Energy-Internet during its development. It proposes applying the blockchain and big-data technologies to pricing and trading energy products through Energy-Internet and to accomplish cyber-based energy or power's transformation from physic products to financial assets.

75 FR 32692 - Schools and Libraries Universal Service Support Mechanism

Science.gov (United States)

2010-06-09

...-rate program--separately priced firewall services, anti-virus/anti-spam software, scheduling services.../anti-spam software, scheduling services, wireless Internet access applications, and web hosting should... that separately priced firewall services, anti-virus and anti-spam software, teleconferencing...

Contract-based Internet Service Software Development

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Giambiagi, Pablo; Owe, Olaf; Schneider, Gerardo

The fast evolution of the Internet has popularized service-oriented architectures dynamic IT-supported inter-business collaborations. Yet, interoperability between different organizations, requires contracts to reduce risks. Thus, high-level models of contracts are making their way into service...

QoS Predictability of Internet Services

Science.gov (United States)

Bilski, Tomasz

The paper presents problems of QoS (Quality of Service) predictability of network services (mainly in WAN environment). In the first part we present general remarks on QoS predictability problem, mentioning some research projects and available resources. The main part of the paper deals with QoS predictability in long-term as well as short-term viewpoints. We will try to answer a question: is it possible to predict network QoS/performance level with a use of statistical data from the past? The term quality of service has many meanings ranging from the user's qualitative perception of the service to a set of quantitative connection parameters (RTT (Round Trip Time), throughput, loss packet rate) necessary to achieve particular service quality. In the paper we will mostly use the second meaning of the term based on RFC 2386 [1]. Analyzed, statistical data on Internet performance are taken from the IEPM (Internet End-to-end Performance Measurement) database.

Pricing: A Normative Strategy in the Delivery of Human Services.

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, Stephen T.

1995-01-01

Discusses a normative strategy toward pricing human services, which will allow providers to develop pricing strategies within the context of organizational missions, goals, and values. Pricing is an effective tool for distributing resources and improving efficiency, and can be used as a tool for encouraging desired patterns of service utilization.…

76 FR 4395 - Postal Service Price Adjustment

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-25

... pricing design changes in First-Class Mail. One involves the introduction of two separate pricing... the value of the services the accounting fee supports and the goal of recovering institutional costs... INFORMATION: I. Introduction II. Class-Specific Summary III. Preferred Mail IV. Mail Classification Schedule...

Service Oriented Middleware for the Internet of Things: A Perspective

OpenAIRE

Teixeira , Thiago; Hachem , Sara; Issarny , Valérie; Georgantas , Nikolaos

2011-01-01

International audience; The Internet of Things plays a central role in the foreseen shift of the Internet to the Future Internet, as it incarnates the drastic expansion of the In- ternet network with non-classical ICT devices. It will further be a major source of evolution of usage, due to the penetration in the user's life. As such, we en- vision that the Internet of Things will cooperate with the Internet of Services to provide users with services that are aware of their surrounding environ...

78 FR 14701 - Misuse of Internet Protocol (IP) Captioned Telephone Service; Telecommunications Relay Services...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-03-07

...] Misuse of Internet Protocol (IP) Captioned Telephone Service; Telecommunications Relay Services and..., the information collection associated with the Commission's Misuse of Internet Protocol (IP) Captioned...- 2235075, or email [email protected] . SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This document announces that, on...

THE CONCEPTUALISATION AND OPERATIONAL MEASUREMENT OF PRICE FAIRNESS PERCEPTION IN MASS SERVICE CONTEXT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Saowanee Srikanjanarak

2009-01-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to develop a measure of price fairness perception by extending price fairness conceptualisation to a multi-scale measure, thereby capturing its complexity in a mass service context. The service context is becoming increasingly competitive, particularly in the telecommunication industry, where a variety of service options is offered (e.g., mobile phone services. A review of price fairness perception literature usually focuses on the equity and social exchange theory and upon findings from exploratory research of the current market situation. In this article, the measure is conceptualised to entail a more extensive set of dimensions. These dimensions include the following: flexible price, reasonable price, acceptable price and superior price. Previous researchers have used actual price to focus on the structure and price comparison of competitors within the service industry. In contrast, this research has focused on the price comparison in terms of relative price. Additionally, we use a survey to elicit responses from 998 individual users of prepaid mobile phone services in Thailand. The results indicate a valid and reliable measure of price fairness perception, permitting us to understand how customers perceive that a price offered by service providers is fair. This understanding will help managers (and their respective organisations to design an appropriate price strategy that fits what their customer's wants and needs while fostering a long-term relationship with them.

Retailer Stackelberg game in a supply chain with pricing and service decisions and simple price discount contract.

Science.gov (United States)

Sadjadi, Seyed Jafar; Asadi, Hashem; Sadeghian, Ramin; Sahebi, Hadi

2018-01-01

This paper studies the Retailer Stackelberg game in a supply chain consisting of two manufacturers and one retailer where they compete simultaneously under three factors including price, service and simple price discount contract. It is assumed that the second manufacturer provides service directly to his customers, and the retailer provides service for the first product's customers, while the retailer buys the first product under price discount from the first manufacturer. The analysis of the optimal equilibrium solutions and the results of the numerical examples show that if a manufacturer chooses the appropriate range of discount rate, he will gain more profit than when there is no discount given to the retailer. This situation can be considered as an effective tool for the coordination of the first manufacturer and the retailer to offer discount by manufacturer and to provide the service by the retailer. We obtain equilibrium solution of Retailer Stackelberg game and analyze the numerical examples under two cases: a) the manufacturers sell their products to the retailer without price discount contract. b) The first manufacturer sells his products to the retailer with the simple price discount contract. The preliminary results show that the service and the price discount contract can improve the performance of supply chain.

Retailer Stackelberg game in a supply chain with pricing and service decisions and simple price discount contract

Science.gov (United States)

Sadjadi, Seyed Jafar; Sadeghian, Ramin; Sahebi, Hadi

2018-01-01

This paper studies the Retailer Stackelberg game in a supply chain consisting of two manufacturers and one retailer where they compete simultaneously under three factors including price, service and simple price discount contract. It is assumed that the second manufacturer provides service directly to his customers, and the retailer provides service for the first product’s customers, while the retailer buys the first product under price discount from the first manufacturer. The analysis of the optimal equilibrium solutions and the results of the numerical examples show that if a manufacturer chooses the appropriate range of discount rate, he will gain more profit than when there is no discount given to the retailer. This situation can be considered as an effective tool for the coordination of the first manufacturer and the retailer to offer discount by manufacturer and to provide the service by the retailer. We obtain equilibrium solution of Retailer Stackelberg game and analyze the numerical examples under two cases: a) the manufacturers sell their products to the retailer without price discount contract. b) The first manufacturer sells his products to the retailer with the simple price discount contract. The preliminary results show that the service and the price discount contract can improve the performance of supply chain. PMID:29649315

USERS EVALUATIONS ABOUT E-SERVICE QUALITY OF INTERNET BANKING: KUVEYT TURK SAMPLE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ali Ulvi İşler

2015-10-01

Full Text Available After rising the proportion of services sector in the economies of the countries, the need for quality measurement studies in services increased. Because internet banking, that began in 90’s, has a lot of advantages for banks and customers, it developed rapidly and a lot of banking services could be done in this new distribution channel. So, it is a requirement to measure of service qualities for internet banking distribution channel. In this study, it was tried to understand users thoughts about service quality in internet banking area. Practice study was done in internet banking users of Kuveyt Turk Participation Bank. Study results show that how the electronic banking services are perceived by users and what users expect from internet banking services.

76 FR 72124 - Internet-Based Telecommunications Relay Service Numbering

Science.gov (United States)

2011-11-22

... Docket No. 10-191; FCC 11-123] Internet-Based Telecommunications Relay Service Numbering AGENCY: Federal..., the information collection associated with the Commission's Internet- Based Telecommunications Relay... Telecommunications Relay Service Numbering, CG Docket No. 03-123; WC Docket No. 05-196; WC Docket No. 10-191; FCC 11...

Assistive technology pricing in Australia: is it efficient and equitable?

Science.gov (United States)

Summers, Michael P; Verikios, George

2018-02-01

over-servicing/over-charging align well with the original intention of the NDIS, and are likely to yield the best outcomes for consumers at the lowest costs. What is known about the topic? Government-funded programs are used extensively to purchase AT because it is a primary enabler for people of all ages with disabilities. Perceptions of unreasonably high prices for AT in Australia are resulting in the widespread adoption of bulk purchasing and related strategies by governments. What does this paper add? Carefully undertaken systematic price comparisons between Australia and comparable Organization For Economic Cooperation and Development countries indicate that, on average, Australian prices are lower than elsewhere when delivery to Australia is taken into account. It was also found that prices at brick-and-mortar shops, with all the services they provide to ensure the appropriateness of the products provided to meet the consumers' needs and goals, are substantially higher than Internet purchases in which the consumer bears all the risks and responsibilities for outcomes. What are the implications? Overuse of government bulk purchasing and similar arrangements will lead to less diversity in the available AT products, related services and retail outlets, resulting in less choice for consumers and higher risks of poor outcomes through less focus on matching consumers with the 'right' products for their needs and goals, and ultimately higher AT prices over time as competition is reduced to a few major suppliers.

An Introduction to Services Accessible on the Internet.

Science.gov (United States)

Giguere, Marlene

1992-01-01

Provides an overview of the INTERNET and INTERNET services of interest to libraries, including electronic mail, bulletin boards, electronic publishing, online public access catalogs and databases, and downloaded texts and software. (16 references) (MES)

Price discrimination in obstetric services--a case study in Bangladesh.

Science.gov (United States)

Amin, Mohammad; Hanson, Kara; Mills, Anne

2004-06-01

This article examines the existence of price discrimination for obstetric services in two private hospitals in Bangladesh, and considers the welfare consequences of such discrimination, i.e. whether or not price discrimination benefited the poorer users. Data on 1212 normal and caesarean section patients discharged from the two hospitals were obtained. Obstetric services were chosen because they are relatively standardised and the patient population is relatively homogeneous, so minimising the scope and scale of product differentiation due to procedure and case-mix differences. The differences between the hospital list price for delivery and actual prices paid by patients were calculated to determine the average rate of discount. The welfare consequences of price discrimination were assessed by testing the differences in mean prices paid by patients from three income groups: low, middle and high. The results suggest that two different forms of price discrimination for obstetric services occurred in both these hospitals. First, there was price discrimination according to income, with the poorer users benefiting from a higher discount rate than richer ones; and second, there was price discrimination according to social status, with three high status occupational groups (doctors, senior government officials, and large businessmen) having the highest probability of receiving some level of discount. Copyright 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Investigation of Service Quality of Measurement Reference Points for the Internet Services on Mobile Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Lipenbergs, E.; Bobrovs, Vj.; Ivanovs, G.

2016-10-01

To ensure that end-users and consumers have access to comprehensive, comparable and user-friendly information regarding the Internet access service quality, it is necessary to implement and regularly renew a set of legislative regulatory acts and to provide monitoring of the quality of Internet access services regarding the current European Regulatory Framework. The actual situation regarding the quality of service monitoring solutions in different European countries depends on national regulatory initiatives and public awareness. The service monitoring solutions are implemented using different measurement methodologies and tools. The paper investigates the practical implementations for developing a harmonising approach to quality monitoring in order to obtain objective information on the quality of Internet access services on mobile networks.

Using Partial Differential Equations for Pricing of Goods and Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Traykov Metodi

2016-06-01

Full Text Available This article is based on the methodology of comparative analysis, using an innovative approach for pricing of various goods and services. Benchmarking is the continuous search to find and adapt better pricing methods that leading to increased profits. We will consider the numerical solution of partial differential equations, based on Black-Scholes model for pricing of goods and services within European option. Also, we will present formulation and numerical behavior of explicit and implicit methods that can be use in pricing for company assets within European option.

STUDY ON THE EVOLUTION AND USE OF INTERNET BANKING SERVICES IN ROMANIA

OpenAIRE

KISS MARTA

2017-01-01

Nowadays, Internet banking is a service provided by all Romanian banks which has become a daily need for millions of users. This study contains a brief overview of the Internet banking services usage level in the European Union for the period 2007-2016. An increasing in the use of Internet banking services in the EU can be observed at the level of the analysed period. At the same time we compared the users (individuals aged 16 to 74) of Internet banking services to other European ...

The Net Neutrality Debate: Analysis of economic implications of net neutrality on internet service providers, content providers and internet users

OpenAIRE

Møinichen, Jørgen

2014-01-01

This thesis studies the economic implications of a transition from a neutral to a non-neutral network. A mathematical model with an end to end ecosystem is developed, which includes a backbone internet service provider that provides connectivity for the content providers. The model also includes internet users that pay an access internet service provider for connectivity to interact with the content providers, advertisers that pay the content providers, and access internet service providers t...

Energy Aware Pricing in a Three-Tiered Cloud Service Market

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Debdeep Paul

2016-09-01

Full Text Available We consider a three-tiered cloud service market and propose an energy efficient pricing strategy in this market. Here, the end customers are served by the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS providers, who implement customized services for their customers. To host these services, these SaaS providers, in turn, lease the infrastructure related resources from the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS or Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS providers. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a mechanism for pricing between SaaS providers and Iaas/PaaS providers and between SaaS providers and the end customers. The pricing scheme is designed in a way such that the integration of renewable energy is promoted, which is a very crucial aspect of energy efficiency. Thereafter, we propose a technique to strategically provide an improved Quality of Service (QoS by deploying more resources than what is computed by the optimization procedure. This technique is based on the square root staffing law in queueing theory. We carry out numerical evaluations with real data traces on electricity price, renewable energy generation, workload, etc., in order to emulate the real dynamics of the cloud service market. We demonstrate that, under practical assumptions, the proposed technique can generate more profit for the service providers operating in the cloud service market.

76 FR 67500 - Postal Service Price Adjustment

Science.gov (United States)

2011-11-01

... available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics provides the Postal Service with inflation-based price... includes a brief introductory section, three enumerated parts, and three attachments. The Postal Service also submitted separate workpapers supporting the planned changes. The introductory section includes...

Pricing Models for Dual-channel Reverse Supply Chain Considering Regional Differences under “Internet Recycling” Mode in China

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Di; Li, Peng; Chen, Juhong

2018-01-01

In recent years, the Internet technology has been deeply influencing recycling industry to make it more intelligent and interconnected. However, most existing papers on “Internet Recycling” neglected the problem of pricing strategy under online and offline channels for different levels of recyclers. Moreover, the effect of regional differences has been emphasized a lot in dual-channel forward supply chain, but recycling field has seldom been concerned about it. In this paper, a recycling system consisting of one recycling center and several third-party recyclers (TPR) was investigated based on traditional mode and dual-channel mode. The dual-channel reverse supply chain model is transformed from traditional mode by the introduction of online channel. It involves two recycling modes, as recycling centre for online recovery and “Recycling center+TPR” for offline recovery. By establishing pricing strategies based on Stackelberg game model, the impacts of regional differences were analysed. Finally, numerical analysis was given to illustrate the effectiveness of the pricing mechanisms and strategies.

Bottleneck Analysis of the Mobile Internet Diffusion in Emerging Markets

OpenAIRE

Benseny, Jaume; Finley, Benjamin; Hämmäinen, Heikki

2016-01-01

According to the ITU, in 2013, only 6% of the population in developing countries had access to broadband Internet. Nevertheless, mobile Internet penetration rates have already exceeded those of fixed telecommunication services and may help in bridging the digital divide. To understand this phenomenon, we model the mobile Internet diffusion process via a system dynamics model that includes user competence, data price, and mobile network capacity as the main contributors to consumer utility and...

VT Wireless Internet Service Providers 2006

Data.gov (United States)

Vermont Center for Geographic Information — (Link to Metadata) The VT Wireless Internet Service Provider (ISP) dataset (WISP2006) includes polygons depicting the extent of Vermont's WISP broadband system as of...

VT Wireless Internet Service Providers 2007

Data.gov (United States)

Vermont Center for Geographic Information — (Link to Metadata) The VT Wireless Internet Service Provider (ISP) dataset (WISP2007) includes polygons depicting the extent of Vermont's WISP broadband system as of...

Price elasticity of expenditure across health care services.

Science.gov (United States)

Duarte, Fabian

2012-12-01

Policymakers in countries around the world are faced with rising health care costs and are debating ways to reform health care to reduce expenditures. Estimates of price elasticity of expenditure are a key component for predicting expenditures under alternative policies. Using unique individual-level data compiled from administrative records from the Chilean private health insurance market, I estimate the price elasticity of expenditures across a variety of health care services. I find elasticities that range between zero for the most acute service (appendectomy) and -2.08 for the most elective (psychologist visit). Moreover, the results show that at least one third of the elasticity is explained by the number of visits; the rest is explained by the intensity of each visit. Finally, I find that high-income individuals are five times more price sensitive than low-income individuals and that older individuals are less price-sensitive than young individuals. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A Customer Service Management Architecture for the Internet

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sprenkels, Ron; Pras, Aiko; van Beijnum, Bernhard J.F.; de Goede, Leo; Ambler, Anthony; Calo, Seraphin B.; Kar, Gautam

2000-01-01

Managing services on the Internet is becoming more and more complex and time consuming for service providers since services are increasing both in number and complexity. Also the number of users per service is going up. A solution to this problem is to allow the service users themselves to partly

Determinants of the Internet Islamic Banking Services Adoption in Jordan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Loai Naser Mahmoud Alhawamdeh

2017-12-01

 Implication: This researchpresents a conceptually yet empirically supported model to describe the factors influencing internet banking services and internet Islamic banking services. This research will be significant in several areas, by adding new knowledge for the academics, practitioners and organizations in general and particularly in Jordan

STUDY ON THE EVOLUTION AND USE OF INTERNET BANKING SERVICES IN ROMANIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

KISS MARTA

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Nowadays, Internet banking is a service provided by all Romanian banks which has become a daily need for millions of users. This study contains a brief overview of the Internet banking services usage level in the European Union for the period 2007-2016. An increasing in the use of Internet banking services in the EU can be observed at the level of the analysed period. At the same time we compared the users (individuals aged 16 to 74 of Internet banking services to other European countries and we found that the users of the Internet banking services in Romania are still far below the European average but the trend is an upward one. In this study we have focused our attention only on Internet banking, as it is the most commonly used payment instrument in the Romanian practice of remote access payment instruments. The indicators considered in this study were the Internet banking users and the Internet users. We have used the model of the simple linear regression to highlight the existence of a relationship between the variables. In this respect we used statistical data taken from Eurostat and Romanian Ministry of Communications and Information Society as well as data provided by the Romanian National Institute of Statistics for the period 2009-2014. The results of the model have pointed out the fact that the rise of the number of Internet users leads to an increase of the number of Internet banking users.

Essays on Pricing of Information Goods and Services

Science.gov (United States)

Lahiri, Atanu

2010-01-01

This dissertation consists of three essays that examine, in three specific contexts, issues related to pricing of information goods and services. As the ability to measure technology resource usage gets easier with increased connectivity, the question whether a technology resource should be priced by the amount of the resource used or by the…

Valuing ecosystem services. A shadow price for net primary production

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Richmond, Amy; Kaufmann, Robert K.; Myneni, Ranga B.

2007-01-01

We analyze the contribution of ecosystem services to GDP and use this contribution to calculate an empirical price for ecosystem services. Net primary production is used as a proxy for ecosystem services and, along with capital and labor, is used to estimate a Cobb Douglas production function from an international panel. A positive output elasticity for net primary production probably measures both marketed and nonmarketed contributions of ecosystems services. The production function is used to calculate the marginal product of net primary production, which is the shadow price for ecosystem services. The shadow price generally is greatest for developed nations, which have larger technical scalars and use less net primary production per unit output. The rate of technical substitution indicates that the quantity of capital needed to replace a unit of net primary production tends to increase with economic development, and this rate of replacement may ultimately constrain economic growth. (author)

Preference-based Internet of Things dynamic service selection for smart campus

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Manqele, L

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The usage of the Internet of Things technology across different service provisioning environments has increased the challenges associated with service discovery and selection. Users cannot always remember the Internet Protocol (IP) address for every...

Customer Churn Prediction for Broadband Internet Services

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, B. Q.; Kechadi, M.-T.; Buckley, B.

Although churn prediction has been an area of research in the voice branch of telecommunications services, more focused studies on the huge growth area of Broadband Internet services are limited. Therefore, this paper presents a new set of features for broadband Internet customer churn prediction, based on Henley segments, the broadband usage, dial types, the spend of dial-up, line-information, bill and payment information, account information. Then the four prediction techniques (Logistic Regressions, Decision Trees, Multilayer Perceptron Neural Networks and Support Vector Machines) are applied in customer churn, based on the new features. Finally, the evaluation of new features and a comparative analysis of the predictors are made for broadband customer churn prediction. The experimental results show that the new features with these four modelling techniques are efficient for customer churn prediction in the broadband service field.

Internet services in e-learning management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Вера Николаевна Бутова

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The article describes the issues of Internet services practical application in order to check correspondence of written works to their topics in terms of Human Sciences as well as checking of written texts on uniqueness.

Development of internet service for airborne dust monitor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jakowiuk, A.

2006-01-01

During use of the system for acquisition and presentation of measuring data from dust monitors AMIZ-2004G, it became evident that creation of an internet service should be very useful. The task of such a service would be presentation of the idea of dust monitoring system that was put into operation, as well as presentation of measuring results from already existing measuring stations. Such an internet service was created and is accessible now on web page www.amiz.ajaksoft.com.pl. Description of the dust monitoring system, instruction how to operate the program for acquisition of measured data, operating instruction of the monitor AMIZ-2004G, and leaflets of the system can also be found there

Internet Use for Service Provision and Research in Libraries and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This study discussed internet, the services and the uses, it can be put to in the provision of library services, or in an information centre. Literature search was used to elicit information for this study. The results revealed that whenever internet intervenes in library operations, these is bridge in time, space, minimized cost and ...

Costing and pricing electric power reserve services. Final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kirsch, L.D.; Rajaraman, R.; Clark, C.

1997-12-01

In the competitive electric power markets of the imminent future, reserves will be the second largest generation service in terms of their revenues and profits. Because reserves will be more widely traded than at present, they will be provided by the cheapest available sources regardless of the ownership of those sources. Price will determine the willingness of generators and consumers to provide reserve services; and it may also determine the willingness of reserve users to purchase reserve services. This report presents a methodology by which generation firms and merchant firms can profitably cost and price the reserve services that they offer. The methodology is generally applicable to a wide range of market structures that such firms might face

Electricity prices in a competitive environment: Marginal cost pricing of generation services and financial status of electric utilities. A preliminary analysis through 2015

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1997-08-01

The emergence of competitive markets for electricity generation services is changing the way that electricity is and will be priced in the United States. This report presents the results of an analysis that focuses on two questions: (1) How are prices for competitive generation services likely to differ from regulated prices if competitive prices are based on marginal costs rather than regulated {open_quotes}cost-of-service{close_quotes} pricing? (2) What impacts will the competitive pricing of generation services (based on marginal costs) have on electricity consumption patterns, production costs, and the financial integrity patterns, production costs, and the financial integrity of electricity suppliers? This study is not intended to be a cost-benefit analysis of wholesale or retail competition, nor does this report include an analysis of the macroeconomic impacts of competitive electricity prices.

An Explanatory Model of Self-Service on the Internet

Science.gov (United States)

Oliver, Dave; Livermore, Celia Romm; Farag, Neveen Awad

This chapter describes research that identifies and classifies the dimensions of self-service activity enabled through the Internet. Self-service is effected by organizations providing ways and means whereby customers perform tasks related to the procurement of goods and services. We describe how an instrument used to measure Internet-based self-service was developed, validated and applied. The results from applying the instrument to a large number of Web sites, covering a range of industries, countries and cultures, are analyzed and discussed. The study presents a model in which type of industry, level of technological development, income and cultural factors are proposed as explanatory variables for Web-based self-service. We conclude with an assessment of this program of research’s achievements so far.

THE USE OF INTERNET SERVICES IN TEACHING TECHNOLOGY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. L. Gruzdeva

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Introduction: The article is devoted to the use of various means and technologies of the Internet on technology lessons. As the authors of the article show, recently a lot of sites, applicable for joint work, so-called Web 2.0 tools have been developed and put into operation. Many of them can facilitate the work of teachers, make the material more visible, more quickly monitor the performance of homework, etc. The authors are sure that such services as google-tables and google-presentations can reduce the organizational time in the lesson, which is so expensive for practical classes, will make it possible to disassemble more new material, increase the efficiency and speed of the practical work.Materials and methods: The article examines different methods of organizing a lesson using Internet services: when studying a new topic, when working on a project, with differentiated work in a lesson, etc.The results of the research: The article describes the Internet services that the technology teachers can use in their professional activities: a graphical service for creating the layout and interior of the house Planoplan, services that allow you to create schemes for embroidery and share the already created schemes with other embroiderers (igolki.net, x.fanreal.ru, crosti.ru and othersDiscussion and conclusion: The article discusses the complexity of the use of virtual services in the study of the subject of Technology, namely the fact that the student needs to learn the manual operations used for centuries that were not worked out on one generation of students with virtually no changes in the methodology. In addition, there are practically no services developed specifically for the method of teaching the subject of Technology. Internet technologies have firmly taken their positions in the life of modern society. Teachers should use all the tools that can attract the attention of a new generation to teach them their subject.

"Photographing money" task pricing

Science.gov (United States)

Jia, Zhongxiang

2018-05-01

"Photographing money" [1]is a self-service model under the mobile Internet. The task pricing is reasonable, related to the success of the commodity inspection. First of all, we analyzed the position of the mission and the membership, and introduced the factor of membership density, considering the influence of the number of members around the mission on the pricing. Multivariate regression of task location and membership density using MATLAB to establish the mathematical model of task pricing. At the same time, we can see from the life experience that membership reputation and the intensity of the task will also affect the pricing, and the data of the task success point is more reliable. Therefore, the successful point of the task is selected, and its reputation, task density, membership density and Multiple regression of task positions, according to which a nhew task pricing program. Finally, an objective evaluation is given of the advantages and disadvantages of the established model and solution method, and the improved method is pointed out.

The Shift of the Demand for Air Transport Services when Prices Change

OpenAIRE

Dan Pauna

2011-01-01

The decrease of the charge/unit price determines the extension of demand, as well as the increaseof the amount of a product/service required on the market. The relationship between the evolution ofcharge/unit price (the independent variable) and the market demand of a good/service (the dependentvariable) can be illustrated in a table, a function or a graph. The causal relationships between the change ofthe charge/unit price of a good/service and the change of the amount required represent the...

Integrated Marketing Communication to Enhance Active User of Internet Banking Service: Case Study Bank XYZ

OpenAIRE

Prawitasari, Larasati; Hudrasyah, Herry

2012-01-01

Internet banking is a form of self-service technology. In the global banking business, Internet banking has a big role for doing the business. In developing country, Internet banking received relatively little attention although has been deployed for years. Only 3% of customer Bank XYZ in Indonesia using Internet banking service actively, although has been 9 years Bank XYZ introduced Internet banking service. This study addressed what factor that drives and influences Internet banking accepta...

78 FR 8032 - Misuse of Internet Protocol (IP) Captioned Telephone Service; Telecommunications Relay Services...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-02-05

... providers to ensure that equipment and software used in conjunction with their service have a default...] Misuse of Internet Protocol (IP) Captioned Telephone Service; Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals With Hearing and Speech Disabilities AGENCY: Federal...

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL NETWORKS ON THE ABUSE OF INTERNET SERVICES IN THE WORKPLACE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gorenc Mateja

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Employees who abuse Internet services in the workplace have become a major concern among today's employers. The aim of the research was to investigate the influence of social networks on the abuse of Internet services in the workplace in Slovenia. We have designed a structural model to study the impact of social networks on the abuse of Internet services in the workplace. Research was conducted in order to collect data on the impact of social networks on Internet abuse in the workplace. The survey sample included employed people in Slovenia. Our results indicate that there is a serious problem within the impact of social networks on the abuse of Internet services in the workplace. The proposed model in this study can be used for further research on the abuse of Internet services in the workplace.

Pricing strategies under heterogeneous service requirements

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mandjes, M.R.H.

2003-01-01

This paper analyzes a communication network with heterogeneous customers. We investigate priority queueing as a way to differentiate between these users. Customers join the network as long as their utility (which is a function of the queueing delay) is larger than the price of the service. We focus

Usability Evaluation Methods for Special Interest Internet Information Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eva-Maria Schön

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The internet provides a wide range of scientific information for different areas of research, used by the related scientific communities. Often the design or architecture of these web pages does not correspond to the mental model of their users. As a result the wanted information is difficult to find. Methods established by Usability Engineering and User Experience can help to increase the appeal of scientific internet information services by analyzing the users’ requirements. This paper describes a procedure to analyze and optimize scientific internet information services that can be accomplished with relatively low effort. It consists of a combination of methods that already have been successfully applied to practice: Personas, usability inspections, Online Questionnaire, Kano model and Web Analytics.

78 FR 8090 - Misuse of Internet Protocol (IP) Captioned Telephone Service; Telecommunications Relay Services...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-02-05

... equipment and software used in conjunction with their service have captions turned off as the default... equipment and software used in conjunction with their service have a default setting of captions off, so...] Misuse of Internet Protocol (IP) Captioned Telephone Service; Telecommunications Relay Services and...

Pricing health care services: applications to the health maintenance organization.

Science.gov (United States)

Sweeney, R E; Franklin, S P

1986-01-01

This article illustrates how management in one type of service industry, the health maintenance organization (HMO), have attempted to formalize pricing. This effort is complicated by both the intangibility of the service delivered and the relatively greater influence in service industries of non-cost price factors such as accessibility, psychology, and delays. The presentation describes a simple computerized approach that allows the marketing manager to formally estimate the effect of incremental changes in rates on the firm's projected patterns of enrollment growth and net revenues. The changes in turn reflect underlying variations in the mix of pricing influences including psychological and other factors. Enrollment projections are crucial to the firm's financial planning and staffing. In the past, most HMO enrollment and revenue projections of this kind were notoriously unreliable. The approach described here makes it possible for HMOs to fine-tune their pricing policies. It also provides a formal and easily understood mechanism by which management can evaluate and reach consensus on alternative scenarios for enrollment growth, staff recruitment and capacity expansion.

Factors Influencing the Types of Products and Services Purchased over the Internet.

Science.gov (United States)

Phau, Ian; Poon, Sui Meng

2000-01-01

Presents the findings of an empirical investigation of Internet shopping in Singapore. Compares Internet buying behavior between potential Internet buyers and non-Internet buyers, and concludes that the classification of different types of products and services will significantly influence consumer choice between a retail store and the Internet.…

Pricing Digital Goods: Discontinuous Costs and Shared Infrastructure

OpenAIRE

Ke-Wei Huang; Arun Sundararajan

2006-01-01

We develop and analyze a model of pricing for digital products with discontinuous supply functions. This characterizes a number of information technology-based products and services for which variable increases in demand are fulfilled by the addition of "blocks" of computing or network infrastructure. Examples include internet service, telephony, online trading, on-demand software, digital music, streamed video-on-demand and grid computing. These goods are often modeled as information goods w...

Electricity prices in a competitive environment: Marginal cost pricing of generation services and financial status of electric utilities. A preliminary analysis through 2015

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1997-08-01

The emergence of competitive markets for electricity generation services is changing the way that electricity is and will be priced in the United States. This report presents the results of an analysis that focuses on two questions: (1) How are prices for competitive generation services likely to differ from regulated prices if competitive prices are based on marginal costs rather than regulated open-quotes cost-of-serviceclose quotes pricing? (2) What impacts will the competitive pricing of generation services (based on marginal costs) have on electricity consumption patterns, production costs, and the financial integrity patterns, production costs, and the financial integrity of electricity suppliers? This study is not intended to be a cost-benefit analysis of wholesale or retail competition, nor does this report include an analysis of the macroeconomic impacts of competitive electricity prices

The Impact of Price Comparison Service on Pricing Strategy in a Dual-Channel Supply Chain

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qi Xu

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Recently, price comparison service (PCS websites are more and more popular due to its features in facilitating transparent price and promoting rational purchase decision. Motivated by the industrial practices, in this study, we examine the pricing strategies of retailers and supplier in a dual-channel supply chain influenced by the signals of PCS. We categorize and discuss three situations according to the signal availability of PCS, under which the optimal pricing strategies are derived. Finally, we conduct a numerical study and find that in fact the retailers and supplier are all more willing to avoid the existence of PCS with the objective of profit maximization. When both of retailers are affected by the PCS, the supplier is more willing to reduce the availability of price information. Important managerial insights are discussed.

ABUSE OF INTERNET SERVICES IN THE WORKPLACE AND THE EMERGENCE OF ADDICTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mateja Gorenc

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Employees who abuse Internet privileges have become a major concern among today's employers. Employees misuse Internet at the workplace due to the overcrowded schedule, pressures at work, etc. Internet for private purposes is also used as a release or escape from work, escape from the reality of the workplace or due to poor organizational climate; it can be used as an efficient use of time at work but it can also be excessively used when the employees are not monitored. The survey results show that there is a correlation between Internet addiction and misuse of the Internet in the workplace. Electronic monitoring has a strong impact on the abuse of the Internet. More electronic monitoring will decrease the abuse of the internet services in the workplace and vice versa. Organizational climate, relations in the working organization, the Internet policy and demographic factors do not affect the abuse of Internet services in the workplace.

Direct-to-consumer sales of genetic services on the Internet.

Science.gov (United States)

Gollust, Sarah E; Wilfond, Benjamin S; Hull, Sara Chandros

2003-01-01

PURPOSE The increasing use of the Internet to obtain genetics information and to order medical services without a prescription, combined with a rise in direct-to-consumer marketing for genetic testing, suggests the potential for the Internet to be used to sell genetic services. METHODS A systematic World Wide Web search was conducted in May 2002 to assess the availability of genetic services sold directly to consumers on the Internet. RESULTS Out of 105 sites that offered genetic services directly, most offered non-health-related services, including parentage confirmation testing (83%), identity testing (56%), and DNA banking (24%); however, health-related genetic tests were offered through 14 sites (13%). The health-related genetic tests available ranged from standard tests, such as hemochromatosis and cystic fibrosis, to more unconventional tests related to nutrition, behavior, and aging. Of these 14 sites, 5 described risks associated with the genetic services and 6 described the availability of counseling. CONCLUSIONS The availability of direct sales of health-related genetic tests creates the potential for inadequate pretest decision making, misunderstanding test results, and access to tests of questionable clinical value.

INTERNET BANKING SERVICES - A BUSINESS NECESSITY IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

CLAUDIA ISAC

2015-12-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we have presented several theoretical aspects of internet banking, based on the place of this type of services in the range of electronic services within the banking system and further on we have revealed the obvious benefits that these services have for individuals and legal entities, as well as their security features. The second part of the paper highlights some statistical aspects of online banking penetration in EU countries and in Romania by comparison. Based on the statistical data presented by Romanian banking institutions, we have made a comparison of the number of individuals and legal entities who access internet banking services.

Characteristics of the prices of operating reserves and regulation services in competitive electricity markets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Peng; Zareipour, Hamidreza; Rosehart, William D.

2011-01-01

In this paper, characteristics of the prices of reserves and regulation services in the Ontario, New York and ERCOT electricity markets are studied. More specifically, price variability, price jumps, long-range correlation, and non-linearity of the prices are analyzed using the available measures in the literature. For the Ontario electricity market, the prices of 10-min spinning, 10-min non-spinning, and 30-min operating reserves for the period May 1, 2002 to December 31, 2007 are analyzed. For the New York market, prices of the same reserves plus regulation service are studied for the period February 5, 2005 to December 31, 2008. For the ERCOT market, we analyze the prices of responsive reserve, regulation up and regulation down services, for the period January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2009. The studied characteristics of operating reserve and regulation prices are also compared with those of energy prices. The findings of this paper show that the studied reserve and regulation prices feature extreme volatility, more frequent jumps and spikes, different peak price occurrence time, and lower predictability, compared to the energy prices. - Research highlights: → We examine various statistical characteristics of reserve and regulation prices. → We compare characteristics of reserve and regulation and energy prices. → Reserve and regulation prices feature different patterns from energy prices. → Reserve and regulation prices are more dispersive and volatile than energy price.

Evaluation Method for Service Branding Using Word-of-Mouth Data

Science.gov (United States)

Shirahada, Kunio; Kosaka, Michitaka

Development and spread of internet technology contributes service firms to obtaining the high capability of brand information transmission as well as relative customer feedback data collection. In this paper, we propose a new evaluation method for service branding using firms and consumers data on the internet. Based on service marketing 7Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People, Physical evidence, Process) which are the key viewpoints for branding, we develop a brand evaluation system including coding methods for Word-of-Mouth (WoM) and corporate introductory information on the internet to identify both customer's service value recognition vector and firm's service value proposition vector. Our system quantitatively clarify both customer's service value recognition of the firm and firm's strength in service value proposition, thereby analyzing service brand communication gaps between firm and consumers. We applied this system to Japanese Ryokan hotel industry. Using six ryokan-hotels' data on Jyaran-net and Rakuten travel, we made totally 983 codes from WoM information and analyzed their service brand value according to three price based categories. As a result, we found that the characteristics of customers' service value recognition vector differ according to the price categories. In addition, the system clarified that there is a firm that has a different service value proposition vector from customers' recognition vector. This helps to analyze corporate service brand strategy and has a significance as a system technology supporting service management.

Estimation of Monetary Value of Information on the Internet

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohsen Nazari

2015-03-01

Full Text Available This research estimates the monetary value of internet information for each type of information and services by using Hedonic pricing method. The statistic social of this research is high-speed internet users in Tehran. Based on the results, high speed internet users of Tehran consider a positive monetary value for some information types in the internet, in descendent respect, such as film downloading, gaming, News, social network, and music. Also, the results indicates that people with higher education level and people who are subscribed to high speed internet earlier than other people consider more monetary value to use the internet. For generalizing the result of this research, it’s suggested to do this research at other cities of Iran. At last, some applicable suggestions made.

Reference-based pricing: an evidence-based solution for lab services shopping.

Science.gov (United States)

Melton, L Doug; Bradley, Kent; Fu, Patricia Lin; Armata, Raegan; Parr, James B

2014-01-01

To determine the effect of reference-based pricing (RBP) on the percentage of lab services utilized by members that were at or below the reference price. Retrospective, quasi-experimental, matched, case-control pilot evaluation of an RBP benefit for lab services. The study group included employees of a multinational grocery chain covered by a national health insurance carrier and subject to RBP for lab services; it had access to an online lab shopping tool and was informed about the RBP benefit through employer communications. The reference group was covered by the same insurance carrier but not subject to RBP. The primary end point was lab compliance, defined as the percentage of lab claims with total charges at or below the reference price. Difference-in-difference regression estimation evaluated changes in lab compliance between the 2 groups. Higher compliance per lab claim was evident for the study group compared with the reference group (69% vs 57%; Ponline shopping tool was used by 7% of the matched-adjusted study group prior to obtaining lab services. Lab compliance was 76% for study group members using the online tool compared with 68% among nonusers who were subject to RBP (P<.01). RBP can promote cost-conscious selection of lab services. Access to facilities that offer services below the reference price and education about RBP improve compliance. Evaluation of the effect of RBP on higher-cost medical services, including radiology, outpatient specialty, and elective inpatient procedures, is needed.

Internet and Its Contributions to Library Services Internet: Kütüphane Hizmetlerine Katkıları

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yaşar Çelik

1995-06-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the major Internet services such as email, telnet and ftp and describes various information discovery and retrieval tools such as gopher, WAIS, and WWW. It also discusses the contributions of the Internet to library and information services. Bu makalede elektronik posta, telnet ve ftp gibi belli başlı Internet hizmetleri tanıtılmış, çeşitli bilgi keşfetme ve erişim araçları (gopher, WAIS, WWW açıklanmıştır. İnternet'in kütüphane hizmetlerine katkıları kısaca tartışılmıştır.

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL NETWORKS ON THE ABUSE OF INTERNET SERVICES IN THE WORKPLACE

OpenAIRE

Gorenc Mateja

2018-01-01

Employees who abuse Internet services in the workplace have become a major concern among today's employers. The aim of the research was to investigate the influence of social networks on the abuse of Internet services in the workplace in Slovenia. We have designed a structural model to study the impact of social networks on the abuse of Internet services in the workplace. Research was conducted in order to collect data on the impact of social networks on Internet abuse in the workplace. The s...

Quality of Service in the Internet

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Home; Journals; Resonance – Journal of Science Education; Volume 10; Issue 3. Quality of Service in the Internet. Prashant Bharadwaj. General Article Volume 10 Issue 3 March 2005 pp 57-70. Fulltext. Click here to view fulltext PDF. Permanent link: https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/reso/010/03/0057-0070. Keywords.

77 FR 15370 - General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation; Information Collection; Price Reductions...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-03-15

... Services Administration Acquisition Regulation; Information Collection; Price Reductions Clause; Extension... notice of request for comments regarding OMB Control No. 3090-0235, Price Reductions Clause, published in... 16, 2012. ADDRESSES: Submit comments identified by Information Collection 3090- 0235, Price...

Economic grand rounds: the price is right? Changes in the quantity of services used and prices paid in response to parity.

Science.gov (United States)

Goldman, Howard H; Barry, Colleen L; Normand, Sharon-Lise T; Azzone, Vanessa; Busch, Alisa B; Huskamp, Haiden A

2012-02-01

The impact of parity coverage on the quantity of behavioral health services used by enrollees and on the prices of these services was examined in a set of Federal Employees Health Benefit (FEHB) Program plans. After parity implementation, the quantity of services used in the FEHB plans declined in five service categories, compared with plans that did not have parity coverage. The decline was significant for all service types except inpatient care. Because a previous study of the FEHB Program found that total spending on behavioral health services did not increase after parity implementation, it can be inferred that average prices must have increased over the period. The finding of a decline in service use and increase in prices provides an empirical window on what might be expected after implementation of the federal parity law and the parity requirement under the health care reform law.

Selling Internet Service: An Ancient Art Form on a New Canvas.

Science.gov (United States)

Maloff, Joel H.

1992-01-01

The Internet, no longer solely the domain of scientists and network engineers, is expanding rapidly to serve a diverse community of business professionals. Those marketing Internet services to these decision makers must practice the ancient art of salesmanship in a complex technological environment. Crucial is knowledge of Internet opportunities,…

Distributor pricing approaches enabled in Smart Grid to differentiate delivery service quality

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhongwei Jake Zhang

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Industry practitioners who advocate retail competition and Demand-side Participation now look for approaches to link both initiatives through distributor pricing. As distributors incrementally convert more traditional assets into Smart Grid assets, they also need to consider different pricing approaches to recover the investment costs and meet the regulatory business requirements. Small electricity consumers need incentives to take part in these initiatives but their delivery service quality should also be closely guarded. Hence this paper addresses the above needs as a whole and investigates a set of distributor pricing approaches with Smart Grid technologies. Pricing of network and non-network based solutions should follow the incremental basis, such as the long run average incremental cost (LRAIC. The benefit of deferring network investment is calculated and should be passed to consumers as peak pricing rebate. A concept of reliability premium (RP based on load point reliability index is proposed, through which customers can express their preference of service quality and adjust their network tariff payment accordingly. A service delivery model is also proposed to utilize the savings from wholesale market trading to compensate for the downgraded service when loads are controlled. The IEEE 123-node distribution test feeder and the IEEE distribution system for RBTS Bus No. 2 are simulated, and solved using General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS to demonstrate the proposed distributor pricing approaches in Smart Grid.

Pricing decision research for TPL considering different logistics service level influencing the market demand

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wei Li

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Purpose: With the rapid development of economy and the support of government policy, the development of the logistics industry has become a new economic growth engine. As we all know, the reasonable price of logistics service is the most critical factor for logistics enterprises to win market share and make profit. At the same time, the service level is one of the most important factors which will influence the size of the market share. Therefore, this paper constructs a pricing model considering a situation that the logistics service level affects the market demand. This model helps the enterprises to make scientific decisions.Methodology: To achieve this objective, this paper constructs the TPL service and the pricing decision models based on the game theory.Findings: The conclusion shows that under the situation of independent decision-making, the enterprise which has strong ability of logistics service does not necessarily have a competitive advantage, while pricing equilibrium under the situation of joint decision-making, not only make both sides get more income, but also be conducive to improve the level of service.Research limitations: In this research, there are some assumptions that might affect the accuracy the model such as there are only two TPL enterprises to participate in, and considerations are taken under the condition of complete information environment. These assumptions can be relaxed in the future work.Originality: In this research, logistics service level is taken account into the areas of logistics service pricing, which makes the models more practical and more perfect. And this paper constructs game models based on game theory to make up the limitations of traditional pricing theories in logistics service pricing.

Applying Activity Based Costing (ABC) Method to Calculate Cost Price in Hospital and Remedy Services.

Science.gov (United States)

Rajabi, A; Dabiri, A

2012-01-01

Activity Based Costing (ABC) is one of the new methods began appearing as a costing methodology in the 1990's. It calculates cost price by determining the usage of resources. In this study, ABC method was used for calculating cost price of remedial services in hospitals. To apply ABC method, Shahid Faghihi Hospital was selected. First, hospital units were divided into three main departments: administrative, diagnostic, and hospitalized. Second, activity centers were defined by the activity analysis method. Third, costs of administrative activity centers were allocated into diagnostic and operational departments based on the cost driver. Finally, with regard to the usage of cost objectives from services of activity centers, the cost price of medical services was calculated. The cost price from ABC method significantly differs from tariff method. In addition, high amount of indirect costs in the hospital indicates that capacities of resources are not used properly. Cost price of remedial services with tariff method is not properly calculated when compared with ABC method. ABC calculates cost price by applying suitable mechanisms but tariff method is based on the fixed price. In addition, ABC represents useful information about the amount and combination of cost price services.

Method of determining the efficiency of price and non-price competition in service sector

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Savel’eva Nadezhda

2017-01-01

Full Text Available With the end of 2014, the domestic banking system has serious difficulties with the availability of capital for lending and investment programs. Problems based on international political divisions, and their resolution lies in the distant future. in these circumstances, the government is concerned about the development of the Russian banking system in terms of ensuring their competitiveness in the international arena. foreign capital has always been a cheap resource for the domestic banking system, the problem area remains its state at the time of lifting of sanctions. Nowadays banks are forced to use different competition methods in target to adapt to environmental changes and ensure competitive success. So the development of methods for price and non-price competition has economic importance. Analysis of qualitative methodological foundations in banks service revealed strong background. Based on neoteric qualitative evaluation methodology, authors developed method for price and non-price competitiveness. It defines variables of price and non-price competitiveness, to set the value factors, to identify the closest competitors, and to set the position of a particular bank among other participants. It also helps to shape competitors dossier based on the evaluated score.

Internet-based mental health services in Norway and Sweden: characteristics and consequences.

Science.gov (United States)

Andersen, Anders Johan W; Svensson, Tommy

2013-03-01

Internet-based mental health services increase rapidly. However, national surveys are incomplete and the consequences for such services are poorly discussed. This study describes characteristics of 60 Internet-based mental health services in Norway and Sweden and discusses their social consequences. More than half of the services were offered by voluntary organisations and targeted towards young people. Professionals answered service users' questions in 60% of the services. Eight major themes were identified. These characteristics may indicate a shift in the delivery of mental health services in both countries, and imply changes in the understanding of mental health.

Quality of service agents in the internet

OpenAIRE

Schelén, Olov

1998-01-01

The Internet is a multi-purpose communication network supporting users and applications with different service demands. To meet these demands, mechanisms for service differentiation in the network are proposed. This thesis presents an admission control architecture where clients can make resource reservations through agents. For each domain in the network there is an agent responsible for admission control. The architecture provides scalable resource reservations for virtual leased lines. Res...

Spatial Data Web Services Pricing Model Infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Ozmus, L.; Erkek, B.; Colak, S.; Cankurt, I.; Bakıcı, S.

2013-08-01

most important law with related NSDI is the establishment of General Directorate of Geographic Information System under the Ministry of Environment and Urbanism. due to; to do or to have do works and activities with related to the establishment of National Geographic Information Systems (NGIS), usage of NGIS and improvements of NGIS. Outputs of these projects are served to not only public administration but also to Turkish society. Today for example, TAKBIS data (cadastre services) are shared more than 50 institutions by Web services, Tusaga-Aktif system has more than 3800 users who are having real-time GPS data correction, Orthophoto WMS services has been started for two years as a charge of free. Today there is great discussion about data pricing among the institutions. Some of them think that the pricing is storage of the data. Some of them think that the pricing is value of data itself. There is no certain rule about pricing. On this paper firstly, pricing of data storage and later on spatial data pricing models in different countries are investigated to improve institutional understanding in Turkey.

Inferring Internet Denial-of-Service Activity

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Moore, David

2001-01-01

.... During this period, we observe more than 2,000 attacks against more than 5,000 distinct targets, ranging from well known e-commerce companies such as Amazon and Hotmail to small foreign ISPs and dial-up connections. We believe that our work is the only publically available data quantifying denial-of-service activity in the Internet.

An Electricity Price-Aware Open-Source Smart Socket for the Internet of Energy.

Science.gov (United States)

Blanco-Novoa, Óscar; Fernández-Caramés, Tiago M; Fraga-Lamas, Paula; Castedo, Luis

2017-03-21

The Internet of Energy (IoE) represents a novel paradigm where electrical power systems work cooperatively with smart devices to increase the visibility of energy consumption and create safer, cleaner and sustainable energy systems. The implementation of IoE services involves the use of multiple components, like embedded systems, power electronics or sensors, which are an essential part of the infrastructure dedicated to the generation and distribution energy and the one required by the final consumer. This article focuses on the latter and presents a smart socket system that collects the information about energy price and makes use of sensors and actuators to optimize home energy consumption according to the user preferences. Specifically, this article provides three main novel contributions. First, what to our knowledge is the first hardware prototype that manages in a practical real-world scenario the price values obtained from a public electricity operator is presented. The second contribution is related to the definition of a novel wireless sensor network communications protocol based on Wi-Fi that allows for creating an easy-to-deploy smart plug system that self-organizes and auto-configures to collect the sensed data, minimizing user intervention. Third, it is provided a thorough description of the design of one of the few open-source smart plug systems, including its communications architecture, the protocols implemented, the main sensing and actuation components and the most relevant pieces of the software. Moreover, with the aim of illustrating the capabilities of the smart plug system, the results of different experiments performed are shown. Such experiments evaluate in real-world scenarios the system's ease of use, its communications range and its performance when using HTTPS. Finally, the economic savings are estimated for different appliances, concluding that, in the practical situation proposed, the smart plug system allows certain energy

Internet of Things in Service Innovation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiangxuan Xu

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Last decade has witnessed rapid growth of Internet of Things (IoT literatures by scientists from technology domain such as computer science, telecommunication and engineering, but very few studies have been done by sociologists and even fewer by economic geographers in service research. The great impact that IoT will bring to service offerings and its spatial consequence is disproportionate to how much research has been done in this area. The paper aims to understand how the adoption of IoT affects the spatial ramification of service offerings and service business. After the theoretical framework and research method, part three explains what the implications of IoT in service context are, why and how IoT enables innovation in services and the current obstacles. Part four further discusses what could be the spatial ramification with the case of China emerging IoT industry in city Wuxi.

Real-Time Pricing Strategy Based on the Stability of Smart Grid for Green Internet of Things

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Huwei Chen

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The ever increasing demand of energy efficiency and the strong awareness of environment have led to the enhanced interests in green Internet of things (IoTs. How to efficiently deliver power, especially, with the smart grid based on the stability of network becomes a challenge for green IoTs. Therefore, in this paper we present a novel real-time pricing strategy based on the network stability in the green IoTs enabled smart grid. Firstly, the outage is analyzed by considering the imbalance of power supply and demand as well as the load uncertainty. Secondly, the problem of power supply with multiple-retailers is formulated as a Stackelberg game, where the optimal price can be obtained with the maximal profit for retailers and users. Thirdly, the stability of price is analyzed under the constraints. In addition, simulation results show the efficiency of the proposed strategy.

Joint inventory control and pricing in a service-inventory system

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Marand, Ata Jalili; Li, Hongyan Jenny; Thorstenson, Anders

2017-01-01

This study addresses joint inventory control and pricing decisions for a service-inventory system. In such a system both an on-hand inventory item and a positive service time are required to fulfill customer demands. The service-inventory system also captures main features of the classical...... inventory systems with a positive processing time, e.g., make-to-order systems. In this study, the service-inventory system is modeled as an M/M/1 queue in which the customer arrival rate is price dependent. The inventory of an individual item is continuously reviewed under an (r,Q) policy....... The replenishment lead times of the inventory are exponentially distributed. Furthermore, customers arriving during stock-out periods are lost. The stochastic customer inter-arrival times, service times, and inventory replenishment lead times cause the high complexity of the problem and the difficulty in solving it...

75 FR 10272 - Notice Regarding 340B Drug Pricing Program-Contract Pharmacy Services

Science.gov (United States)

2010-03-05

... Regarding 340B Drug Pricing Program--Contract Pharmacy Services AGENCY: Health Resources and Services... drug pricing program by which manufacturers who sell covered outpatient drugs to particular covered... provisions, which had been previously limited to the Alternative Methods Demonstration Project program. FOR...

Financial Services and the Internet: What Does Cyberspace Mean for the Financial Services Industry?

Science.gov (United States)

Birch, David; Young, Michael A.

1997-01-01

More than 30 million households own PCs and more than 20% of these use PCs to manage their finances. This article examines the Internet and financial services, consumer needs, and differentiation in service products and predicts future trends in retail financial services (cheaper niche products, cross-border selling, selling knowledge, payments,…

Internet from Above.

Science.gov (United States)

Sullivan, Laura

1998-01-01

Explains how fast and reliable Internet access can be obtained by using satellite communications based on experiences at a high school in Mississippi. Discusses Internet communications; how it was implemented in the media center; local area networks; the need for Ethernet-based connection to the Internet; and price. (LRW)

78 FR 14359 - Verizon Business Networks Services, Inc., Senior Analysts-Order Management, Voice Over Internet...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-03-05

... Business Networks Services, Inc., Senior Analysts-Order Management, Voice Over Internet Protocol, Small And... Management, Voice Over Internet Protocol, Small And Medium Business, San Antonio, TX; Amended Certification... Business Networks Services, Inc., Senior Analysts-Order Management, Voice Over Internet Protocol, Small and...

Netherlands Electricity Regulatory Service DTe. Internet site

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1999-01-01

The implementation of the Dutch Electricity Law and the observance of compliance with the law is commissioned to the Netherlands Electricity Regulatory Service DTe. Their Internet site contains several full-text documents related to the tasks of DTe (mainly with respect to tariffs and transportation of electricity)

Improving quality of service in the internet

OpenAIRE

Flückiger, François

2000-01-01

The Internet transport technology was designed to be robust, resilient to link or node outages, and with no single point of failure. The resulting connectionless system supports what is called a "best effort datagram delivery service", the perfo rmance of which is often greatly unpredictable. To improve the predictability of IP-based networks, several Quality of Service technologies have been designed over the past decade. The first one, RSVP, based on reservation of resources, is operational...

77 FR 63771 - Implementation of Full-Service Intelligent Mail Requirements for Automation Prices

Science.gov (United States)

2012-10-17

... large amount of additional data. Also, it requires each of my customers to have their own CRID. Today... Automation Prices AGENCY: Postal Service TM . ACTION: Proposed rule. SUMMARY: The Postal Service is proposing...]) throughout various sections to modify eligibility requirements for mailers to obtain automation prices for...

Customizing Prices in Online Markets

OpenAIRE

Werner Reinartz

2002-01-01

Dynamic pricing is the dynamic adjustment of prices to consumers depending on the value these customers attribute to a good. Underlying the concept of dynamic pricing is what marketers call price customization. Price customization is the charging of different prices to end consumers based on a discriminatory variable. Internet technology will serve as a great enabling tool for making dynamic pricing accessible to many industries.

How Much Is Too Much to Pay for Internet Access? A Behavioral Economic Analysis of Internet Use.

Science.gov (United States)

Broadbent, Julie; Dakki, Michelle A

2015-08-01

The popularity of online recreational activities, such as social networking, has dramatically increased the amount of time spent on the Internet. Excessive or inappropriate use of the Internet can result in serious adverse consequences. The current study used a behavioral economic task to determine if the amount of time spent online by problematic and nonproblematic users can be modified by price. The Internet Purchase Task was used to determine how much time undergraduate students (N=233) would spend online at 13 different prices. Despite high demand for Internet access when access was free, time spent online by both problematic and nonproblematic users decreased dramatically, even at low prices. These results suggest that the amount of time spent online may be modified by having a tangible cost associated with use, whereas having free access to the Internet may encourage excessive, problematic use.

Cooperative Cloud Service Aware Mobile Internet Coverage Connectivity Guarantee Protocol Based on Sensor Opportunistic Coverage Mechanism

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qin Qin

2015-01-01

Full Text Available In order to improve the Internet coverage ratio and provide connectivity guarantee, based on sensor opportunistic coverage mechanism and cooperative cloud service, we proposed the coverage connectivity guarantee protocol for mobile Internet. In this scheme, based on the opportunistic covering rules, the network coverage algorithm of high reliability and real-time security was achieved by using the opportunity of sensor nodes and the Internet mobile node. Then, the cloud service business support platform is created based on the Internet application service management capabilities and wireless sensor network communication service capabilities, which is the architecture of the cloud support layer. The cooperative cloud service aware model was proposed. Finally, we proposed the mobile Internet coverage connectivity guarantee protocol. The results of experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has excellent performance, in terms of the security of the Internet and the stability, as well as coverage connectivity ability.

Social Norms in Water Services: Exploring the Fair Price of Water

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ossi Heino

2015-02-01

Full Text Available The aim of this article is to analyse price fairness in water services. Although a considerable amount of literature has been published on water pricing, these studies have mainly approached the question from instrumental and rational perspectives. Little attention has been paid to the human side of water pricing. Therefore, the general objective of this research is to shed light on these softer factors, filling the gap in knowledge of the emotional connections with water services. In this research, we explored peopleʼs ideas and views about water pricing by conducting 74 interviews in 11 municipalities in Finland. The results suggest that people are not just rational consumers of a good but also have emotional ties to water utilities and municipal decision-making. The general attitude towards a water utility is confident and sympathetic if its operations and municipal decision-making processes are considered as fair, and conversely, unsympathetic if operations and decision-making are considered unfair. This is a topical issue as many water utilities are facing pressures to increase water prices; being fair appeared to be a crucial way to gain appreciation and support through difficult times. Because fairness seems to be an emergent property of social experiences, special attention should be paid to the 'soft side' of water services.

Selecting profitable customers for complex services on the internet

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vroomen, B; Donkers, B; Verhoef, PC; Franses, PH

In contrast to books and compact discs, the number of complex services offered on the Internet is still small. The decision-making process for complex services is different because it has an additional intermediate step of "indication of interest." The Web site is (a) visited and searched for

A Two-Sided Market Model of Optimal Price Structure for Instant Messenger

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jun Xu

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Instant messenger (IM is one of the most popular Internet applications all over the world. This paper examines the pricing problem of IM based on two-sided market model. IM serves as a two-sided platform, which gets both Internet users and advertisers on board. This paper concludes that IM operator adopts a heavily skewed price structure that favors IM users both under monopolistic case and under horizontal differentiated duopolistic case. When advertising revenue is large enough relatively to marginal cost for serving IM users, IM users can enjoy free service provided by IM operators. The competitive equilibrium of duopolistic case is not necessarily symmetric when advertisers choose singlehoming. Even in the symmetric equilibrium platform would rather deter all advertisers.

Evolution in reference and information services the impact of the Internet

CERN Document Server

Katz, Linda S

2013-01-01

Explore ways to bring and keep your library's electronic services up to date!From editor Di Su: "Some years ago, if you were told that a library's catalog would be available on a 24/7/365 basis, you'd think it was just another fiction. Perhaps as influential as Johannes Gutenberg's invention of movable type printing, the Internet is one of the most significant happenings in the information world in modern times."In addition to showing you how library services have been influenced and enhanced by the advent of the Internet, Evolution in Reference and Information Services: Th

CREDIT RISK MINIMIZATION WAYS AND PRICING OF BANKING SERVICES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

V. E. Gladkova

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Accurate accounting of own expenses on rendering banking services and forming reasonable prices for them make it possible for commercial banks to adequately react to market situation changes. Credit risk minimization comprises: credit rationing (in Russia according to RF Central Bank norms; credit diversification; credit structuring; and forming reserves to cover respective bank risks (also in accordance with RF CB documents. Effective is bank credit hedging (insuring through credit derivatives. Most advanced at international finance markets are such risk minimization systems as Basel-II and IRBA. Pricing models based on individual assessment of each borrower’s risk class (Risk Based Pricing approach are widely used.

48 CFR 52.222-44 - Fair Labor Standards Act and Service Contract Act-Price Adjustment.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... and Service Contract Act-Price Adjustment. 52.222-44 Section 52.222-44 Federal Acquisition Regulations... CLAUSES Text of Provisions and Clauses 52.222-44 Fair Labor Standards Act and Service Contract Act—Price... Contract Act—Price Adjustment (SEP 2009) (a) This clause applies to both contracts subject to area...

77 FR 58380 - General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation; Submission for OMB Review; Price...

Science.gov (United States)

2012-09-20

...] General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation; Submission for OMB Review; Price Reductions Clause... requirement regarding the GSAR Price Reductions Clause. A notice was published in the Federal Register at 76... identified by Information Collection 3090- 0235, Price Reduction Clause, by any of the following methods...

The Internet and Multicultural Library Services: A Vision for the Future.

Science.gov (United States)

Skrzeszewski, Stan; Cubberley, Maureen

1998-01-01

Surveys public libraries in Canada and a 1997 IFLA conference regarding use of Internet for multicultural library services. Librarians identified if, and how the Internet is currently used. Key strategies in training, communications, global library partnerships, and funding need to be considered for a global implementation. (MMU)

78 FR 22490 - Administrative Practice and Procedure; Postal Service; Review of Price Cap Rules

Science.gov (United States)

2013-04-16

...] Administrative Practice and Procedure; Postal Service; Review of Price Cap Rules AGENCY: Postal Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Proposed rule. SUMMARY: The Commission is initiating a review of its Price Cap Rules. The... implemented without a price cap calculation. Docket No. R2011-5, Order Approving Market Dominant Price...

Research on the cultivation path of smart home-based care service mode in Internet+ vision

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peng Qingchao

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Home-based care for the aged is an effective method to solve the problem of caring the aged in China. This thesis analyzes some problems existing in the development of current home-based care service for the aged in our country and the positive effects brought by Internet+ in home-based care service. It proposes a new service mode of care for the aged--Internet+ home-based care service, and explains the establishment of this system and the responsibilities of the participants. Also, it explores the path to realize the establishment of Internet+ home-based care service mode so as to promote the healthy development of home-based care service in China.

75 FR 76282 - Domestic Shipping Services Pricing and Mailing Standards Changes

Science.gov (United States)

2010-12-08

... United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM[reg]), to reflect changes to prices and mailing standards for the following Shipping Services: Express Mail[reg], Priority Mail[reg], Parcel Select[reg... following changes to Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM...

Price elasticity of demand for psychiatric consultation in a Nigerian psychiatric service.

Science.gov (United States)

Esan, Oluyomi

2016-12-01

This paper addresses price elasticity of demand (PED) in a region where most patients make payments for consultations out of pocket. PED is a measure of the responsiveness of the quantity demanded of goods or services to changes in price. The study was done in the context of an outpatient psychiatric clinic in a sub -Saharan African country. The study was performed at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Nigeria. Aggregate data were collected on weekly clinic attendance over a 24-month period October 2008 - September 2010 representing 12 months before, to 12months after a 67% increase in price of outpatient psychiatric consultation. The average weekly clinic attendance prior to the increase was compared to the average clinic attendance after the price increase. Arc-PED for consultation was also estimated. Clinic attendance dropped immediately and significantly in the weeks following the price increase. There was a 34.4% reduction in average weekly clinic attendance. Arc-PED for psychiatric consultation was -0.85. In comparison to reported PED on health care goods and services, this study finds a relatively high PED in psychiatric consultation following an increase in price of user fees of psychiatric consultation.

Mitigating Distributed Denial of Service Attacks with Dynamic Resource Pricing

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Mankins, David

2001-01-01

.... By employing different price and purchase functions, the architecture can provide service quality differentiation and furthermore, select good client behavior and discriminate against adversarial behavior...

Willingness to Pay for Elderly Telecare Service Using the Internet and Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaga, Satoshi; Suzuki, Teppei; Ogasawara, Katsuhiko

2017-10-24

In Japan over the past few years, more attention has been focused on unnoticed solitary death in the context of an aging society and the trend toward nuclear family. A number of institutions and companies have implemented a prevention measure with digital terrestrial broadcasting telecare services for the elderly: Hokkaido University; TV-Asahi Corporation; Hitachi, Ltd; Iwamizawa City; Hokkaido Television Broadcasting Co, Ltd; and Hamanasu Information Co, Ltd. Although this system is provided free of charge as a demonstration test, determining the appropriate price for the service is required for its sustainable operation. The aim of this study was to quantify individual willingness to pay (WTP) so as to test the tenability of digital terrestrial broadcasting service for elderly telecare. We used the contingent valuation method (CVM) to estimate the WTP for this service among 305 citizens (valid response rate 76.0%) living in Japan. A questionnaire survey was conducted for people aged 18 to 100 years according to Japanese age distribution from September 2016. To elicit WTP, we adopted a double-bound dichotomous choice method to ask the respondents whether they agree or disagree with the price we offered. The median WTP for this service's monthly fee is estimated to be 431 JPY (approximately US $3.7). The finding suggests that gender (0.66, P=.01), health consciousness (1.08, P=.01), willingness to use (2.38, PWTP. We conclude that reliable WTP was elicited by CVM based on an Internet survey. Calculated median WTP for digital terrestrial broadcasting service for elderly telecare was 431 JPY (approximately US $3.7). In the analysis of factors that affect WTP, constant factors, log-bid, health consciousness, gender, see others less than one time for week, and willingness to use made positive effect to probability of acceptance. In comparison of WTP in different groups, age groups showed that WTP of the elderly group was higher than WTP of the middle age group and

Access to CERN from the Internet: termination of the VPN service

CERN Multimedia

2007-01-01

Due to the continued incidents and growing security risks from the service, access to CERN using the VPN (Virtual Private Network) service will be discontinued on Tuesday 29th January 2008. In addition, new registrations will no longer be accepted. Further information is linked from: http://cern.ch/security/vpn Users are requested to stop using VPN immediately and start using the recommended alternative methods for connecting to CERN from the Internet. These are outlined together with a set of FAQs at: http://cern.ch/security/Internet IT Department

Pricing transmission services

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Haaden, E.

1995-01-01

The price structure for transmission of electric power through the main lines in Sweden is analyzed. After deregulation of the electricity market, the main transmission lines are owned by a separate national company, with no interests from the power producers. Comparisons are made to ideal marginal price structures. 6 refs

An Electricity Price-Aware Open-Source Smart Socket for the Internet of Energy

Science.gov (United States)

Blanco-Novoa, Óscar; Fernández-Caramés, Tiago M.; Fraga-Lamas, Paula; Castedo, Luis

2017-01-01

The Internet of Energy (IoE) represents a novel paradigm where electrical power systems work cooperatively with smart devices to increase the visibility of energy consumption and create safer, cleaner and sustainable energy systems. The implementation of IoE services involves the use of multiple components, like embedded systems, power electronics or sensors, which are an essential part of the infrastructure dedicated to the generation and distribution energy and the one required by the final consumer. This article focuses on the latter and presents a smart socket system that collects the information about energy price and makes use of sensors and actuators to optimize home energy consumption according to the user preferences. Specifically, this article provides three main novel contributions. First, what to our knowledge is the first hardware prototype that manages in a practical real-world scenario the price values obtained from a public electricity operator is presented. The second contribution is related to the definition of a novel wireless sensor network communications protocol based on Wi-Fi that allows for creating an easy-to-deploy smart plug system that self-organizes and auto-configures to collect the sensed data, minimizing user intervention. Third, it is provided a thorough description of the design of one of the few open-source smart plug systems, including its communications architecture, the protocols implemented, the main sensing and actuation components and the most relevant pieces of the software. Moreover, with the aim of illustrating the capabilities of the smart plug system, the results of different experiments performed are shown. Such experiments evaluate in real-world scenarios the system’s ease of use, its communications range and its performance when using HTTPS. Finally, the economic savings are estimated for different appliances, concluding that, in the practical situation proposed, the smart plug system allows certain energy

Risk hedging against the fuel price fluctuation in energy service business

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bannai, Masaaki; Tomita, Yasushi; Ishida, Yasushi; Miyazaki, Takahiko; Akisawa, Atsushi; Kashiwagi, Takao

2007-01-01

Energy service business, or energy service company (ESCO), is expanding among industrial users as a means of energy saving. The ESCO business normally tends to become a long-term operation. During the operation, fluctuations of fuel and electricity costs significantly impact on the stability of the profit from ESCO business. Therefore, it is essential to reduce the risk of fuel and electricity cost fluctuations. Generally, a transaction called ''financial derivative'' is used as a measure of hedging against the fuel price fluctuation. In the case of ESCO business, it is necessary to manage the risk of both electricity and fuel price fluctuations because the variation in electricity price strongly affects the profit from ESCO as that in fuel price does. In this paper, the stabilization of the ESCO profit using financial derivatives was discussed by quantitative analyses of the actual data from existing plants. Case studies revealed that the appropriate volume of the fuel derivative implementation was less than a half of the fuel consumption at the ESCO facilities, and it ranged from 5% to 50%. (author)

The Role of Demand Response in Default Service Pricing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barbose, Galen; Goldman, Charles; Neenan, Bernie

2006-01-01

In designing default service for competitive retail markets, demand response has been an afterthought at best. But that may be changing, as states that initiated customer choice in the past five to seven years reach an important juncture in retail market design and consider an RTP-type default service for large commercial and industrial customers. The authors describe the experience to date with RTP as a default service, focusing on its role as an instrument for cultivating price-responsive demand. (author)

The Impact of Service Quality and Price to Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty in Swiss-belhotel Maleosan Manado

OpenAIRE

Montolalu, Marcelitha T.

2013-01-01

Loyalty of the firm´s customers has been recognized as the dominant factors in a business organization´s success. Service quality and price are vital competitive policy to keep customer support and build great base. Hotels are trying to win customer loyalty by providing good quality services, affordable price and also make sure that customers are satisfied. This study is aimed to analyze the influence of service quality and price to customer satisfaction, service quality and price to custome...

Pricing in M/M/1 queues when cost of waiting in queue differs from cost of waiting in service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Görkem Sarıyer

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Service providers can adjust the entrance price to the state of the demand in real life service systems where the customers' decision to receive the service, is based on this price, state of demand and other system parameters. We analyzed service provider's short and long term pricing problems in unobservable M/M/1 queues having the rational customers, where, for customers, the unit cost of waiting in the queue is higher than unit cost of waiting in the service. We showed that waiting in the queue has a clear negative effect on customers’ utilities, hence the service provider's price values. We also showed that, in the short term, monopolistic pricing is optimal for congested systems with high server utilization levels, whereas in the long term, market capturing pricing is more profitable.

76 FR 76619 - International Mail: New Prices and Fee Changes-Mailing Services

Science.gov (United States)

2011-12-08

... fraction thereof)......... 0.80 Duplicate copy of PS Form 3606 1.15 * * * * * International Business Reply Service (382) [For each country that offers International Business Reply Service, revise the fees to read... POSTAL SERVICE 39 CFR Part 20 International Mail: New Prices and Fee Changes--Mailing Services...

THE DEPENDENCE OF INTERNET TOURISTS IN THE CHOICE OF TOURIST DESTINATIONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

ENEA CONSTANTA

2018-02-01

Full Text Available In tourism, as in any other industry, information plays an extremely important role. If until now some years planning a holiday was made only at the offices of travel agencies, now we have the alternative internet. The multitude of portals, last minute offers, early booking and city breaks can help plan a much dreamed vacation. All at a distance from a few clicks. You just need to be patient and willing to read a lot because the forums are filled with opinions and comments of those who have been in one place or another. Internal and external tourism recorded significant increases amid constant existence of an increasingly number of tourists and diversification of existing offers. According, investigations, this growth is the Internet, which managed to turn aggressive competition and prices. Based on various information about all destinations, routes and accommodation, tourists are increasingly demanding internet site allowing them to "visualize" holiday, and thus obliges travel agencies and hoteliers to provide better service better even at lower prices. This paper highlights the changes made in the tourism sector with remarkable developments of the computer era, and the Internet in particular.

From a bundled energy-capacity pricing model to an energy-capacity-ancillary services pricing model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Raineri, Ricardo; Arce, Raul; Rios, Sebastian; Salamanca, Carlos

2008-01-01

In this paper, we extend the Chilean power generation pricing mechanism, with capacity and energy payments, to one where ancillary services (AS), as frequency regulation and voltage control, are explicitly recognized. Adequacy and security attributes of the electric system and the public good characteristics of AS are set within the payment structure to distribute the financing of AS among those who benefit from their provision. The contribution to finance the provision of AS is determined assessing the value assigned to the system security by each agent, following what's an efficient pricing mechanism in the presence of public goods

Price Determination for Educational Services Based on the Investments in Education

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Blaga Radu Lucian

2016-11-01

Full Text Available The study aims at highlighting the link between educational marketing (product/service and price determination for educational services and investment in education, using empirical models and customization of classic approaches (interpolation method addressed to individual educational investment.

MEASURING AND MODELLING INTERNET BANKING SERVICE QUALITY IN SOUTH AFRICA

OpenAIRE

Redda, Ephrem Habtemichael; Surujlal, Jhalukpreya

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to develop a measuring and modelling instrument of Internet banking service quality (IBSQ) for the South African banking sector. Snowball and convenience sampling, both non-probability techniques were used to recruit participants for the study. A total of 310 Internet banking customer responses were utilised in the analysis. Using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), eight determinant factors that explained IBSQ were extracted. Following this, the study...

Price and Service Competition between New and Remanufactured Products

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bin Wang

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This paper sets two manufacturers on the market. One is traditional manufacturer, which produces new products, and the other remanufactures by recycling used products. Two manufacturers sell products to customers through one retailer and also provide product-related services. Three participators decide prices and service levels independently. We discuss the optimal decision of prices, service levels, demands, and profits in three scenarios: Manufacturers Stackelberg, Retailer Stackelberg, and Nash Equilibrium. We also study the influence of customer acceptance of remanufactured product (θ on participators’ decisions. With the increase of θ, new product profit reduces; remanufactured product profit increases at the beginning and then decreases. Retailer profit grows steadily. In Manufacturers Stackelberg, new and remanufactured products can get the maximum profits, and retailer only has the minimum profit. In Retailer Stackelberg, retailer can get the maximum profit; new product only has the minimum profit and remanufactured product has the medium gain. In Nash Equilibrium, new product and retailer have the medium gains, and remanufactured product has the minimum profit.

75 FR 36071 - Framework for Broadband Internet Service

Science.gov (United States)

2010-06-24

... Internet service. Introduction 3. This Commission exists ``[f]or the purpose of regulating interstate and... news groups, the ability to create a personal Web page, and the ability to retrieve information from... broadband policies. 31. Some have suggested that although the D.C. Circuit rejected the Commission's theory...

Evaluating Discovery Services Architectures in the Context of the Internet of Things

Science.gov (United States)

Polytarchos, Elias; Eliakis, Stelios; Bochtis, Dimitris; Pramatari, Katerina

As the "Internet of Things" is expected to grow rapidly in the following years, the need to develop and deploy efficient and scalable Discovery Services in this context is very important for its success. Thus, the ability to evaluate and compare the performance of different Discovery Services architectures is vital if we want to allege that a given design is better at meeting requirements of a specific application. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a paradigm for the evaluation of different Discovery Services for the Internet of Things in terms of efficiency, scalability and performance through the use of simulations. The methodology presented uses the application of Discovery Services to a supply chain with the Service Lookup Service Discovery Service using OMNeT++, an open source network simulation suite. Then, we delve into the simulation design and the details of our findings.

Identification of general characteristics, motivation, and satisfaction of internet-based medical consultation service users in Croatia.

Science.gov (United States)

Klinar, Ivana; Balazin, Ana; Barsić, Bruno; Tiljak, Hrvoje

2011-08-15

To identify users' reasons to look for physician consultation on the internet instead of visiting a physician and to explore their general characteristics, motivation, and satisfaction with internet medical consultation service 'Your Questions.' Users of a free internet medical consultation service 'Your Questions' (www.plivazdravlje.hr) were invited to participate in a web-based survey designed to explore their general characteristics (age, sex, etc), reasons for using the service, the nature of their health problem or question, and their satisfaction with the service. Respondents were divided into two groups: users who consulted an internet physician only (Group I) and users who used internet consulting before or after visiting a physician (Group II). The response rate was 38% (1036/2747), with 79% female respondents. A fifth of the respondents (21%) consulted an internet physician only (Group I). Multivariate analysis revealed that the respondents in Group I were younger (median 24 vs 28 years in Group II), more interested into questions about pregnancy (odds ratio [OR], 1.984; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.203-3.272), more often embarrassed to talk to a physician in person (OR, 1.828; 95% CI, 1.119-2.989), and more motivated to protect their privacy (OR, 1.727; 95% CI, 1.252-2.380). They also had greater satisfaction with the service (77% vs 60%, Pinternet-based medical consultation services were younger age, need for privacy protection, avoidance of embarrassment at the physician's office, and having a question related to pregnancy. This reveals the internet medical consultation service as a useful health promotion supplement that is particularly applicable for the population of young adults.

Use of internet library based services by the students of Imo State ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Findings show that students utilizes internet based library services in their academic work, for their intellectual development as well as in communicating to their lecturers and other relations on their day to day information needs. It is recommended that University libraries should provide and offer internet based library ...

The Transfer Pricing Problem in a Service Firm : A Case Study on a Swedish Multinational Enterprise

OpenAIRE

Husain, Shakir; Yilmaz, Emre

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study is to answer the research question of how a service company (ServiceCo) could achieve a transfer price of its services. This is of particular interest, due to the growth of service firms that have rapidly increased and surpassed the manufacturing firms, as well as the dominant logic shifting towards services. However, the problem with this field of study is that transfer pricing with regards to the service industry, is a rather unexplored phenomenon in which the guid...

Access to CERN from the Internet: termination of the VPN service - Reminder

CERN Multimedia

IT Department

2008-01-01

Due to the continued incidents and growing security risks associated with the service, access to CERN using the VPN (Virtual Private Network) service will be discontinued as of Tuesday, 29 January 2008. In addition, new registrations are no longer accepted. For further information see: http://cern.ch/security/vpn. Users are requested to stop using VPN immediately and to start to use the recommended alternative methods for connecting to CERN from the Internet. An outline of these methods and a set of FAQs are available at: http://cern.ch/security/Internet IT Department

Content analysis of e-cigarette products, promotions, prices and claims on Internet tobacco vendor websites, 2013-2014.

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, Rebecca S; Derrick, Jason; Liebman, Aliza K; LaFleur, Kevin

2017-11-03

To identify the population of Internet e-cigarette vendors (IEVs) and conduct content analysis of products sold and IEVs' promotional, claims and pricing practices. Multiple sources were used to identify IEV websites, primarily complex search algorithms scanning over 180 million websites. In 2013, 32 446 websites were manually screened, identifying 980 IEVs, with the 281 most popular selected for content analysis. This methodology yielded 31 239 websites for manual screening in 2014, identifying 3096 IEVs, with 283 selected for content analysis. While the majority of IEVs (71.9%) were US based in 2013, this dropped to 64.3% in 2014 (plocated in at least 38 countries, and 12% providing location indicators reflecting two or more countries, complicating jurisdictional determinations.Reflecting the retail market, IEVs are transitioning from offering disposable and 'cigalike' e-cigarettes to larger tank and "mod" systems. Flavored e-cigarettes were available from 85.9% of IEVs in 2014, with fruit and candy flavors being most popular. Most vendors (76.5%) made health claims in 2013, dropping to 43.1% in 2014. Some IEVs featured conflicting claims about whether or not e-cigarettes aid in smoking cessation. There was wide variation in pricing, with e-cigarettes available as inexpensive as one dollar, well within the affordable range for adults and teens. The number of Internet e-cigarette vendors grew threefold from 2013 to 2014, far surpassing the number of Internet cigarette vendors (N=775) at the 2004 height of that industry. New and expanded regulations for online e-cigarette sales are needed, including restrictions on flavors and marketing claims. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2017. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

A DHT-Based Discovery Service for the Internet of Things

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Federica Paganelli

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Current trends towards the Future Internet are envisaging the conception of novel services endowed with context-aware and autonomic capabilities to improve end users’ quality of life. The Internet of Things paradigm is expected to contribute towards this ambitious vision by proposing models and mechanisms enabling the creation of networks of “smart things” on a large scale. It is widely recognized that efficient mechanisms for discovering available resources and capabilities are required to realize such vision. The contribution of this work consists in a novel discovery service for the Internet of Things. The proposed solution adopts a peer-to-peer approach for guaranteeing scalability, robustness, and easy maintenance of the overall system. While most existing peer-to-peer discovery services proposed for the IoT support solely exact match queries on a single attribute (i.e., the object identifier, our solution can handle multiattribute and range queries. We defined a layered approach by distinguishing three main aspects: multiattribute indexing, range query support, peer-to-peer routing. We chose to adopt an over-DHT indexing scheme to guarantee ease of design and implementation principles. We report on the implementation of a Proof of Concept in a dangerous goods monitoring scenario, and, finally, we discuss test results for structural properties and query performance evaluation.

The pricing of capital services over time

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Valle, A.P.D.; Watkins, G.C.

1990-01-01

In 1982, the Canadian National Energy Board and McGill University sponsored a conference on pipeline regulation in an inflationary era, focussing especially on the possible introduction of some form of tariff levelling. Ironically, shortly after the conference proceedings were published the very concerns addressed receded: inflation declined markedly and emerging weaknesses in oil and gas prices saw the demise or deferral of big projects with large up-front investments, the very projects which had excited interest in developing new regulatory techniques. This paper is organized in three main sections. Section I outlines the problems raised by traditional tariff regulation. Section II develops and discusses theoretical aspects of alternative rate structures. Section II focuses on practical problems of implementing rate structures that, on the face of it, have a better economic rationale than cost-of-service style pricing. Concluding remarks are made in Section IV

Perceived benefits of adopting Standard – Based pricing mechanism for mechanical and electrical services installations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ganiyu Amuda Yusuf

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Cost is an important measure of project success and clients will expect a reliable forecast at the early stage of construction projects to inform their business decision. This study was undertaken to investigate the current practices in managing cost of mechanical and electrical (M&E services in buildings. The perceptions of practitioners on the benefits of adopting Standard – Based Pricing Mechanism for M&E services as used for building fabrics and finishes was ascertained. The methodology adopted for the study was semi – structure interview and questionnaire survey.  Inferential statistics technique was used to analyse the data collected. The results revealed that, M&E services tender documents are often based on lump sum contract. Practitioners are of the opinion that the adoption of Standard – Based Pricing Mechanism (SBPM could enhance the quality of M&E services price forecast; ensure active post contract cost monitoring and control; encourage collaborative working relationship; enhance efficient whole life cycle cost management; improve risk management and facilitate efficient tendering process. The study suggested the development of local Standard Method of Measurement for M&E services and proposed strategies to facilitate the adoption of SBPM as basis for forecasting contract price of mechanical and electrical services in buildings.

#eVALUate: Monetizing Service Acquisition Trade-offs Using the QUALITY-INFUSED Price Methodology

Science.gov (United States)

2016-04-01

they determine their source selection methodology along the best-value spectrum, ranging from lowest price technically acceptable (LPTA) to full...sidering factors determined to be germane to service value to the agency (Finkenstadt, 2015). Once an offeror’s prices are determined to be fair and... determine whether the quality rating system would affect the quality trade-off. In this case, the highest priced yet highest rated offeror was selected

Purchasing complex services on the Internet; An analysis of mortgage loan acquisitions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

B.L.K. Vroomen (Björn); A.C.D. Donkers (Bas); P.C. Verhoef (Peter); Ph.H.B.F. Franses (Philip Hans)

2003-01-01

textabstractIn contrast to, for example, books and compact discs, the number of complex services offered on the Internet is still small. A good example of such a service concerns mortgage loans. The decision-making process differs for complex services in that they have an extra intermediate step of

Pre-Service Teachers’ Internet Usage a Function of Demographic Factors: The Case of a Nigerian College of Education

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bede Blaise Chukwunyere Onwuagboke

2014-11-01

Full Text Available With the overreaching acceptance of ICT in education and access to Internet occasioned by advancement in technology, this paper investigates pre-service teachers’ use of Internet in a college of education. The study was a descriptive survey. Data was collected using a researcher designed instrument tagged “Student Internet Use Scale” (SIUS. The population comprised of all NCE pre-service teachers in Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education Owerri Nigeria. Findings show that  mobile phones remains the most widely used mode of internet access with social networking, searching for information on school assignments, chatting forming the major reasons why they surf the net. Social networking is the major purpose for Internet use by female pre-service teachers while school related activities are of priority to males. The difference in purpose of internet use according to gender is however not statistically significant; similarly, there is no statically significant difference between male and female pre-service teachers in the frequency of Internet usage. The result has far reaching implication for provision and use of Internet facilities to enhance teaching and learning in the College and colleges of education in Nigeria.

Optimal pricing of transmission and distribution services in electricity supply

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Farmer, E.D.; Cory, B.J.; Perera, B.L.P.P.

1995-01-01

A new strategy for the separate pricing of transmission and distribution services in electricity supply is formulated and evaluated. The proposed methodology is a multivariate transmission generalisation of the method of peak load pricing previously applied to the optimal time-of-use pricing of generation on a power system with diverse generation technologies and with elastic demand. The method allocates both capacity and operational costs on a time-of-use basis, in an optimal manner, that avoids cross-subsidisation both between differing supply system participants and differing times of usage. The method is shown to promote the optimal development of the transmission, distribution or interconnecting systems, rewarding justified investments in transmission capacity and discouraging overinvestment. It also leads to appropriate returns on invested capital without significant 'revenue reconciliation'. This contrasts with SRMC pricing as is shown by a comparative revenue evaluation. It is concluded that the method has wide potential application in electricity supply. (author)

Deliverable 2: tutorial on internet services for SURFnet4 Infrastructure Project 1998

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Chimento, P.F.

1998-01-01

This document contains a tutorial on the recent work in the area of offering services in the Internet. We cover the principles and some of the details of In- tegrated Services and Differentiated Services. We also explain the relationship to RSVP of each of these architectures. Finally, we draw some

Reasons for Consulting a Doctor on the Internet: Web Survey of Users of an Ask the Doctor Service

OpenAIRE

Umefjord, Göran; Petersson, Göran; Hamberg, Katarina

2003-01-01

Background In 1998 the Swedish noncommercial public health service Infomedica opened an Ask the Doctor service on its Internet portal. At no charge, anyone with Internet access can use this service to ask questions about personal health-related and disease-related matters. Objective To study why individuals choose to consult previously-unknown doctors on the Internet. Methods Between November 1, 2001, and January 31, 2002 a Web survey of the 3622 Ask the Doctor service users, 1036 men (29%) a...

Research on the cultivation path of smart home-based care service mode in Internet+ vision

OpenAIRE

Peng Qingchao

2016-01-01

Home-based care for the aged is an effective method to solve the problem of caring the aged in China. This thesis analyzes some problems existing in the development of current home-based care service for the aged in our country and the positive effects brought by Internet+ in home-based care service. It proposes a new service mode of care for the aged--Internet+ home-based care service, and explains the establishment of this system and the responsibilities of the participants. Also, it explor...

Study of Internet advertising pricing model --a hypothetical qualitative model%网络广告定价模式研究

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

张星

2013-01-01

　　网络广告是当前最具发展势头的广告之一。随着人们对网络广告认识的逐步深化，出现了许多各具特色的网络定价方法。根据网络媒体的特点，从广告对消费者心理和行为影响的整个过程出发，就优化网络广告定价模式的标准化以及网络广告定价模式最优化问题提出一种可能性的解决方案，对于我国网络广告定价模式的标准化问题具有重要的实践意义。%Internet advertising—a new type of Advertisements, has becoming a very important area of marketing research. Nowadays,web advertising in China grows up rapidly. Along with the high-speed development, the research of online Ads pricing models has been more and more deepening.This paper begins with the describing of the media traits of web, based on the consumers' behavior affected by the internet ads, envisages a new type of pricing model. Discussions in this paper will benefit firms and governments when determining prices and policies.

Internet services for planning embedded generation connections

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2005-12-15

The required publication by distributed network operators (DNOs) of details of the current state of their network systems and future planned developments in the form of Long Term Development Statements (LTDS) are discussed. This project aims to increase the usefulness of the information in the LTDS by making it available on the internet, by transforming LTDSs into electronic format, and integrating LTDS information with geographical information in a single database. Services developed provide for data loading, data visualisation, initial assessment of connection opportunities, and reporting. The benefits of the services, and the demonstrated feasibility of publishing information concerning UK renewable generation sites are considered. The web address of the site is given.

Improving Service Management in the Internet of Things

Science.gov (United States)

Sammarco, Chiara; Iera, Antonio

2012-01-01

In the Internet of Things (IoT) research arena, many efforts are devoted to adapt the existing IP standards to emerging IoT nodes. This is the direction followed by three Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Working Groups, which paved the way for research on IP-based constrained networks. Through a simplification of the whole TCP/IP stack, resource constrained nodes become direct interlocutors of application level entities in every point of the network. In this paper we analyze some side effects of this solution, when in the presence of large amounts of data to transmit. In particular, we conduct a performance analysis of the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP), a widely accepted web transfer protocol for the Internet of Things, and propose a service management enhancement that improves the exploitation of the network and node resources. This is specifically thought for constrained nodes in the abovementioned conditions and proves to be able to significantly improve the node energetic performance when in the presence of large resource representations (hence, large data transmissions).

NSI customer service representatives and user support office: NASA Science Internet

Science.gov (United States)

1991-01-01

The NASA Science Internet, (NSI) was established in 1987 to provide NASA's Offices of Space Science and Applications (OSSA) missions with transparent wide-area data connectivity to NASA's researchers, computational resources, and databases. The NSI Office at NASA/Ames Research Center has the lead responsibility for implementing a total, open networking program to serve the OSSA community. NSI is a full-service communications provider whose services include science network planning, network engineering, applications development, network operations, and network information center/user support services. NSI's mission is to provide reliable high-speed communications to the NASA science community. To this end, the NSI Office manages and operates the NASA Science Internet, a multiprotocol network currently supporting both DECnet and TCP/IP protocols. NSI utilizes state-of-the-art network technology to meet its customers' requirements. THe NASA Science Internet interconnects with other national networks including the National Science Foundation's NSFNET, the Department of Energy's ESnet, and the Department of Defense's MILNET. NSI also has international connections to Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and several European countries. NSI cooperates with other government agencies as well as academic and commercial organizations to implement networking technologies which foster interoperability, improve reliability and performance, increase security and control, and expedite migration to the OSI protocols.

Study the Effect of Value-Added of Services Sector on Forecasting of Electricity Demand in Services Sector due to Price Reform

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sayed Mahdi Mostafavi

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Electrical energy is as one of the important effective factors on economic growth and development. In recent decades, numerous studies in different countries to estimate and forecast electricity demand in different parts of the economy have been made. In this paper, using the method ARDL, estimation and forecasting of electricity demand in the services sector of Iran are determined for the time period from 1983 to 2012. Estimated equations show that the added value of the services sector and a significant positive impact on the demand for electricity in this sector. The price elasticity for services sector is smaller than 1 due to low electricity prices and subsidized electricity. Hence, electricity prices have little impact on the demand for electricity. The results of the estimate represents a long-term relationship between the variables in the services sector. In this paper, based on amendments to the law on subsidies and estimated values, anticipated electricity demand until the end of the fifth development plan was carried out. The results indicate an increase in power consumption in the services sector.

78 FR 23137 - Implementation of Full-Service Intelligent Mail Requirements for Automation Prices

Science.gov (United States)

2013-04-18

... re- work or pay the additional postage. The existing thresholds used to verify and qualify automation...-work or pay the additional postage to mail at a non- automation price. Full-Service Electronic... re-work or pay the additional postage to mail at a non-automation price. In addition to the full...

Investigating the effect of online service quality of internet duty-free shops on trust and behavioral intention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Soo-Ahn Choi

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Purpose: This study seeks to identify the effect of service quality in internet duty-free shops on a customer's trust and behavioral intention.Design/methodology/approach: For this analysis, a survey was executed targeting customers who have used an internet duty-free shop. A total of 210 questionnares were anaylyzed using structural equation modeling.Findings: The results revealed that a high online service quality experience using an internet duty-free shop had a positive effect on the customers' trust. In addition, trust also had a positive effect on the customers' behavioral intention.Originality/value: This study is the first paper that examines the effect of online service quality in internet duty-free shops in Korea. Results of this study could be used as basic data to help establish day to day management strategies for internet duty-free shops.

18 CFR 2.22 - Pricing policy for transmission services provided under the Federal Power Act.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Pricing policy for... INTERPRETATIONS Statements of General Policy and Interpretations Under the Federal Power Act § 2.22 Pricing policy... Policy Statement on its pricing policy for transmission services provided under the Federal Power Act...

World tour through the internet

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jang, Ji Hwan; Kang, Ho Seong; Kim, Jong Hun

1994-03-01

This book deals with basic knowledge and familiarity with internet use, which is composed of seven chapters ; the world of internet, the basic knowledge for internet use such as telnet, mail, talk, basic command on Unix and command for communication, to access to the internet, if you get on the internet for the first time, useful service of internet such as archie service, gopher service, who is service, Use net, IRC and Netiquette on IRC, interesting internet trip like Billboard charts, TV-Rating, Solar Report, Agricultural Info, CARL, Nat'l Education BBS, internet service in Sydney university FEDIX, CAIR, NOAA, SDDAS, Stock, MUD and international Go server. The last chapter is computer networks connected to the internet ; computer services, BITNET, and FidoNet.

World tour through the internet

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jang, Ji Hwan; Kang, Ho Seong; Kim, Jong Hun

1994-03-15

This book deals with basic knowledge and familiarity with internet use, which is composed of seven chapters ; the world of internet, the basic knowledge for internet use such as telnet, mail, talk, basic command on Unix and command for communication, to access to the internet, if you get on the internet for the first time, useful service of internet such as archie service, gopher service, who is service, Use net, IRC and Netiquette on IRC, interesting internet trip like Billboard charts, TV-Rating, Solar Report, Agricultural Info, CARL, Nat'l Education BBS, internet service in Sydney university FEDIX, CAIR, NOAA, SDDAS, Stock, MUD and international Go server. The last chapter is computer networks connected to the internet ; computer services, BITNET, and FidoNet.

Strategy and the Internet.

Science.gov (United States)

Porter, M E

2001-03-01

Many of the pioneers of Internet business, both dot-coms and established companies, have competed in ways that violate nearly every precept of good strategy. Rather than focus on profits, they have chased customers indiscriminately through discounting, channel incentives, and advertising. Rather than concentrate on delivering value that earns an attractive price from customers, they have pursued indirect revenues such as advertising and click-through fees. Rather than make trade-offs, they have rushed to offer every conceivable product or service. It did not have to be this way--and it does not have to be in the future. When it comes to reinforcing a distinctive strategy, Michael Porter argues, the Internet provides a better technological platform than previous generations of IT. Gaining competitive advantage does not require a radically new approach to business; it requires building on the proven principles of effective strategy. Porter argues that, contrary to recent thought, the Internet is not disruptive to most existing industries and established companies. It rarely nullifies important sources of competitive advantage in an industry; it often makes them even more valuable. And as all companies embrace Internet technology, the Internet itself will be neutralized as a source of advantage. Robust competitive advantages will arise instead from traditional strengths such as unique products, proprietary content, and distinctive physical activities. Internet technology may be able to fortify those advantages, but it is unlikely to supplant them. Porter debunks such Internet myths as first-mover advantage, the power of virtual companies, and the multiplying rewards of network effects. He disentangles the distorted signals from the marketplace, explains why the Internet complements rather than cannibalizes existing ways of doing business, and outlines strategic imperatives for dot-coms and traditional companies.

Towards a Framework for Knowledge-based Pricing Services Improving Operational Agility in the Retail Industry

OpenAIRE

Kowatsch, Tobias; Maass, Wolfgang

2009-01-01

Marketing research has identified several benefits of dynamic pricing models. For example, dynamic pricing in terms of inventory considerations and time horizons, bundling or personalized offerings has been found to increase sales volume, customer satisfaction and to skim reservation prices. However, today's retailers lack the capability to apply dynamic pricing models because of missing services that realize them and technologies such as smart product infrastructures that deliver the resu...

Megastore: Advanced Internet-based Electronic Commerce Service for Music Industry

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Benabdelkader, A.; Afsarmanesh, H.; Hertzberger, L.O.; Ibrahim, M.; Küng, J.; Revell, N.

2000-01-01

To support necessary requirements and flexibility to the buyers of different goods; advanced and efficient internet-based Electronic Commerce services must be designed and developed. In addition to the traditional user requirements, the developed system must properly address efficiency issues, among

Evaluating Common Privacy Vulnerabilities in Internet Service Providers

Science.gov (United States)

Kotzanikolaou, Panayiotis; Maniatis, Sotirios; Nikolouzou, Eugenia; Stathopoulos, Vassilios

Privacy in electronic communications receives increased attention in both research and industry forums, stemming from both the users' needs and from legal and regulatory requirements in national or international context. Privacy in internet-based communications heavily relies on the level of security of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs), as well as on the security awareness of the end users. This paper discusses the role of the ISP in the privacy of the communications. Based on real security audits performed in national-wide ISPs, we illustrate privacy-specific threats and vulnerabilities that many providers fail to address when implementing their security policies. We subsequently provide and discuss specific security measures that the ISPs can implement, in order to fine-tune their security policies in the context of privacy protection.

A PhD abstract presentation on Cluster Framework for Internet of People, Things and Services (IoPTS)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Shinde, Gitanjali; Olesen, Henning

2014-01-01

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a revolutionary technology, where devices around us are capable of sensing, reacting, responding and working autonomously to provide services to the users /people, e.g. smart homes, enterprise, utilities and e-Health. In the IoT paradigm, every device will be conne......The Internet of Things (IoT) is a revolutionary technology, where devices around us are capable of sensing, reacting, responding and working autonomously to provide services to the users /people, e.g. smart homes, enterprise, utilities and e-Health. In the IoT paradigm, every device...... will be connected to the Internet to provide services to the user. Bringing this together makes it relevant to talk about the "Internet of People, Things and Services (IoPTS)."However, managing such a huge number of devices is a major challenge for IoPTS. In any given context, a number of devices will work together...... announce their services to those who need them. Users can access these services with the help of widely interconnected devices. To access the services user has to provide some personal data. In IoPTS services are large in numbers, and to protect the user data there is a need to ensure that these services...

Forecasting ability of the investor sentiment endurance index: The case of oil service stock returns and crude oil prices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

He, Ling T.; Casey, K.M.

2015-01-01

Using a binomial probability distribution model this paper creates an endurance index of oil service investor sentiment. The index reflects the probability of the high or low stock price being the close price for the PHLX Oil Service Sector Index. Results of this study reveal the substantial forecasting ability of the sentiment endurance index. Monthly and quarterly rolling forecasts of returns of oil service stocks have an overall accuracy as high as 52% to 57%. In addition, the index shows decent forecasting ability on changes in crude oil prices, especially, WTI prices. The accuracy of 6-quarter rolling forecasts is 55%. The sentiment endurance index, along with the procedure of true forecasting and accuracy ratio, applied in this study provides investors and analysts of oil service sector stocks and crude oil prices as well as energy policy-makers with effective analytical tools

Advanced Internet Protocols, Services, and Applications

CERN Document Server

Oki, Eiji; Tatipamula, Mallikarjun; Vogt, Christian

2012-01-01

Today, the internet and computer networking are essential parts of business, learning, and personal communications and entertainment. Virtually all messages or transactions sent over the internet are carried using internet infrastructure- based on advanced internet protocols. Advanced internet protocols ensure that both public and private networks operate with maximum performance, security, and flexibility. This book is intended to provide a comprehensive technical overview and survey of advanced internet protocols, first providing a solid introduction and going on to discu

Bla-bla-bla: video chat service on the Internet - a market feasibility study

OpenAIRE

Lindgreen, Adam; Antioco, Michael; Wetzels, Martin

2004-01-01

The Internet is changing the way that companies carry out their business and, in fact, constitutes an entirely new application domain, which makes product innovation possible. Moreover, it is a new medium for reaching consumers, which is a central preoccupation to organisations in the current business market. Here interest lies in video chatting on the Internet. This is a type of service that adds video support to chatting using a Web cam and is gradually attracting more Internet users. The p...

Price Strategies in Banking Marketing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Iuliana Cetina

2007-01-01

Full Text Available All organizations must settle a price for the services they offer. The price for services is an important element of the marketing mix, being an important income source for the organization. The settlement of a correct price, both for the market and the competition, is a significant element for the sector of financial - banking services. Another important factor to take into consideration is the fact that the banks do not settle only the prices for individual services, but also coordinate their prices for service packages. As the competition in the financial - banking services has intensified, the settlement of correct prices has become an essential element for the marketing strategy. Nevertheless it is important to remind that the price is not a central element. There are other significant grounds, the price being only one of the elements of the marketing mix. Although in Romania many customers may be sensitive in present to the price, as the competition will increase, the quality of the services will become more important to the customers, and the demand will be complex.

Exploration of Problematic Internet Use and Social Interaction Anxiety among Turkish Pre-Service Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Cuhadar, Cem

2012-01-01

The current study investigated the relationship between problematic Internet use and social interaction anxiety among pre-service teachers. Participants were 1235 students attending teacher training programs at a Turkish state university. The "Problematic Internet Use Scale" and "Social Interaction Anxiety Scale" were used to…

Cost and price auditing: effectiveness in the procurement of defense services in Spain

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

José Aguado Romero

Full Text Available Abstract Contract auditing, or cost and price auditing, has been applied in Spain as a means of determining prices in non-competitive defense contracts since 1989. Factors such as Spain's participation in international defense organizations, the characteristics of the defense market and the contractual legal framework for the procurement of defense goods and services help underscore the need for the Spanish Ministry of Defense to implement cost and price auditing. With the evolution of cost and price auditing in Spain in mind, this paper analyses the entire process, describes the audit procedures that are most commonly used today and assesses the main results achieved, in terms of financial savings. The results obtained show that cost and price auditing does indeed contribute to a more efficient use of public resources.

Resource-based interdependencies in value networks for mobile Internet services

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Montalvo, U.W. de; Kar, E. van de; Maitland, C.

2004-01-01

The advent of new electronic platforms, such as fixed and mobile Internet, is forcing firms from a range of industries to come together in so-called 'value networks' for the provision of innovative services. Firms from different industries have widely varying resources. Our analysis is aimed at

The emergence of internet-based virtual private networks in international safeguards

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Smartt, Heidi Anne

2001-01-01

Full text: The costs associated with secure data transmission can be an obstacle to International Safeguards. Typical communication methods are priced by distance and may include telephone lines, frame relay, and ISDN. It is therefore costly to communicate globally. The growth of the Internet has provided an extensive backbone for global communications; however, the Internet does not provide intrinsic security measures. Combining the Internet with Virtual Private Network technology, which encrypts and authenticates data, creates a secure and potentially cost-effective data transmission path, as well as achieving other benefits such as reliability and scalability. Access to the Internet can be achieved by connecting to a local Internet Service Provider, which can be preferable to installing a static link between two distant points. The cost-effectiveness of the Internet-based Virtual Private Network is dependent on such factors as data amount, current operational costs, and the specifics of the Internet connection, such as user proximity to an Internet Service Provider or existing access to the Internet. This paper will introduce Virtual Private Network technology, the benefits of Internet communication, and the emergence of Internet-based Virtual Private Networks throughout the International Safeguards community. Specific projects to be discussed include: The completed demonstration of secure remote monitoring data transfer via the Internet between STUK in Helsinki, Finland, and the IAEA in Vienna, Austria; The demonstration of secure remote access to IAEA resources by traveling inspectors with Virtual Private Network software loaded on laptops; The proposed Action Sheets between ABACC/DOE and ARN/DOE, which will provide a link between Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires; The proposed use at the HIFAR research reactor, located in Australia, to provide remote monitoring data to the IAEA; The use of Virtual Private Networks by JRC, Ispra, Italy. (author)

48 CFR 52.222-43 - Fair Labor Standards Act and Service Contract Act-Price Adjustment (Multiple Year and Option...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... and Service Contract Act-Price Adjustment (Multiple Year and Option Contracts). 52.222-43 Section 52... Standards Act and Service Contract Act—Price Adjustment (Multiple Year and Option Contracts). As prescribed in 22.1006(c)(1), insert the following clause: Fair Labor Standards Act and Service Contract Act...

The Validity and Reliability Studies of the Internet Use of Pre-Service English Teachers Survey: A Turkish Context

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gülşah Külekçi

2011-11-01

Full Text Available As the availability of computers and the Internet in schools and classrooms has grown, so has interest in the extent to which these technologies are being used and for what purposes. Recently there has been many studies on teachers’ use of education technology in their classrooms and schools, the availability of this technology in their classrooms and schools, their training and preparation for their use and the barriers to technology use they encounter. Using the Internet effectively and the success of the Internet utilization is very much related to the users’ attitudes toward the Internet. This study aims at investigating the reliability and the validity of the Internet Use of Pre-service English Teachers Survey modified from the Master Thesis of Sudsuang Yutdhana. The survey contains two subscales as Internet Attitude Scale and Self-perception of Computing Skills. The survey was administered to randomly selected third and fourth year 96 pre – service English Teachers at Dokuz Eylül University Buca, Faculty of Education, Department of English Language Teaching. The results indicated that Internet Use of Pre-service English Teachers Survey (IUPETS is reliable and valid.

User Acceptance of Internet Banking Service in Malaysia

Science.gov (United States)

Yenyuen, Yee; Yeow, P. H. P.

The study is the first research in Malaysia that investigates user acceptance of Internet banking service (IBS) based on Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology model (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis and Davis, 2003). Two hundred and eighty questionnaires were distributed and collected from two major cities, Kuala Lumpur and Melaka. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data. The results show that Malaysians have intentions of using IBS (mean rating of close to 4.00). Moreover, Malaysians recognize the benefits of IBS by giving a high mean rating (close to 4.00) to performance expectancy. However, they give relative low mean ratings (close to 3.00) on other indicators of Behavioural Intention to Use IBS such as effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions and perceived credibility. Recommendations were given to promote a safe, efficient and conducive environment for user adoption of Internet banking.

Price and Service Discrimination in Queuing Systems: Incentive Compatibility of Gc\\mu Scheduling

OpenAIRE

Jan A. Van Mieghem

2000-01-01

This article studies the optimal prices and service quality grades that a queuing system---the "firm"---provides to heterogeneous, utility-maximizing customers who measure quality by their experienced delay distributions. Results are threefold: First, delay cost curves are introduced that allow for a flexible description of a customer's quality sensitivity. Second, a comprehensive executable approach is proposed that analytically specifies scheduling, delay distributions and prices for arbitr...

Adaptive Strategies for Dynamic Pricing Agents

NARCIS (Netherlands)

S. Ramezani (Sara); P.A.N. Bosman (Peter); J.A. La Poutré (Han)

2011-01-01

htmlabstractDynamic Pricing (DyP) is a form of Revenue Management in which the price of a (usually) perishable good is changed over time to increase revenue. It is an effective method that has become even more relevant and useful with the emergence of Internet firms and the possibility of readily

The price facade: Symbolic and behavioural price cues in service environments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Verhoeven, J.W.M.; van Rompay, Thomas Johannes Lucas; Pruyn, Adriaan T.H.

2009-01-01

Although the role of price expectations in predicting consumer behavior has been widely acknowledged, little is known about the way in which price expectations depend on environmental elements in hospitality settings. We propose that restaurant guests base price expectations on (1) perceptions of

Analisis Perkembangan Internet Broadband di Daerah Perbatasan Sulawesi Utara

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Riva'atul Adaniah Wahab

2016-12-01

infrastructure is still insufficient, the availability of high-quality internet broadband services with low rates are still difficult to realize. From the aspect of demand, stigma or the community perception that the internet is not important makes the people don't have internet access. The barriers is predominantly lack of knowledge in internet usage. This factor also causes community internet broadband literacy at level 0. As solutions, the preparation and establishment of policies and regulations such as the QoS service, interconnection, infrastructure sharing can provide high-quality internet broadband internet at a cheaper price. Besides the distribution of valuable mobile device (smartphone should also be encouraged by the application of local content level for the production of the device. No less important is the increase of community lietracy in internet broadband through socialization or training, both formal and informal.

Value of big data to finance: observations on an internet credit Service Company in China

OpenAIRE

Zhang, Shaofeng; Xiong, Wei; Ni, Wancheng; Li, Xin

2015-01-01

Background: his paper presents a case study on 100Credit, an Internet credit service provider in China. 100Credit began as an IT company specializing in e-commerce recommendation before getting into the credit rating business. The company makes use of Big Data on multiple aspects of individuals' online activities to infer their potential credit risk. Methods: Based on 100Credit's business practices, this paper summarizes four aspects related to the value of Big Data in Internet credit service...

Trust-based Service Management of Internet of Things Systems and Its Applications

OpenAIRE

Guo, Jia

2018-01-01

A future Internet of Things (IoT) system will consist of a huge quantity of heterogeneous IoT devices, each capable of providing services upon request. It is of utmost importance for an IoT device to know if another IoT service is trustworthy when requesting it to provide a service. In this dissertation research, we develop trust-based service management techniques applicable to distributed, centralized, and hybrid IoT environments. For distributed IoT systems, we develop a trust protocol...

A Three-Part Electricity Price Mechanism for Photovoltaic-Battery Energy Storage Power Plants Considering the Power Quality and Ancillary Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yajing Gao

2017-08-01

Full Text Available To solve the problem of solar abandoning, which is accompanied by the rapid development of photovoltaic (PV power generation, a demonstration of a photovoltaic-battery energy storage system (PV-BESS power plant has been constructed in Qinghai province in China. However, it is difficult for the PV-BESS power plant to survive and develop with the current electricity price mechanism and subsidy policy. In this paper, a three-part electricity price mechanism is proposed based on a deep analysis of the construction and operation costs and economic income. The on-grid electricity price is divided into three parts: the capacity price, graded electricity price, and ancillary service price. First, to ensure that the investment of the PV-BESS power plant would achieve the industry benchmark income, the capacity price and benchmark electricity price are calculated using the discounted cash flow method. Then, the graded electricity price is calculated according to the grade of the quality of grid-connected power. Finally, the ancillary service price is calculated based on the graded electricity price and ancillary service compensation. The case studies verify the validity of the three-part electricity price mechanism. The verification shows that the three-part electricity price mechanism can help PV-BESS power plants to obtain good economic returns, which can promote the development of PV-BESS power plants.

THE EFFECT OF PRODUCTS, PRICE AND SERVICE QUALITY ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IN “RICE FOR THE POORS” PROGRAM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Surip N.

2017-12-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to determine and analyze the partial influence of product variables, price and service quality on consumer satisfaction in Indonesian government’s “Rice for the Poors” (“Beras Miskin”, abbreviated as “Raskin” program, as well as the influence of product variable, price and service quality simultaneously to customer satisfaction in the program. The sampling method used is proportionate stratified random sampling. The research is conducted in West Bandung regency, Jawa Barat (West Java Province with a population of 86.908 RTS-PM, and data collection was conducted on October 2015. The method of analysis used in this research is the analysis of correlation and linear regression. The results of the study conclude that the variable of product, price and quality of service simultaneously or partially possess positive and significant effect on consumer satisfaction in Raskin program. The service quality is one of the strong variables that influence the consumer satisfaction, followed by price and product variables.

Estimating the cost of improving service quality in water supply: A shadow price approach for England and wales.

Science.gov (United States)

Molinos-Senante, María; Maziotis, Alexandros; Sala-Garrido, Ramón

2016-01-01

Service quality to customers is an aspect that cannot be ignored in the performance assessment of water companies. Nowadays water regulators introduce awards or penalties to incentivize companies to improve service quality to customers when setting prices. In this study, the directional distance function is employed to estimate the shadow prices of variables indicating the lack of service quality to customers in the water industry i.e., written complaints, unplanned interruptions and properties below the reference level. To calculate the shadow price of each undesirable output for each water company, it is needed to ascribe a reference price for the desirable output which is the volume of water delivered. An empirical application is carried out for water companies in England and Wales. Hence, the shadow price of each undesirable output is expressed both as a percentage of the price of the desirable output and in pence per cubic meter of water delivered The estimated results indicate that on average, each additional written complaint that needs to be dealt with by the water company includes a service quality cost of 0.399p/m(3). As expected, when looking at the other service quality variables which involve network repair or replacement, these values are considerably higher. On average, the water company must spend an extra 0.622p/m(3) to prevent one unplanned interruption and 0.702p/m(3) to avoid one water pressure below the reference level. The findings of this study are of great importance for regulated companies and regulators as it has been illustrated that improvements in the service quality in terms of customer service could be challenging and therefore ongoing investments will be required to address these issues. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

31 CFR 560.540 - Exportation of certain services and software incident to Internet-based communications.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

....540 Exportation of certain services and software incident to Internet-based communications. (a) To the....S. persons, wherever located, to persons in Iran of software necessary to enable the services... indirect exportation of services or software with knowledge or reason to know that such services or...

31 CFR 538.533 - Exportation of certain services and software incident to Internet-based communications.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

....533 Exportation of certain services and software incident to Internet-based communications. (a) To the....S. persons, wherever located, to persons in Sudan of software necessary to enable the services... indirect exportation of services or software with knowledge or reason to know that such services or...

Internet services for planning distributed generation connections

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Curry, D.; Morgan, A.; Barbier, C.; Reay, P.

2005-07-01

The required publication by distributed network operators (DNOs) of details of the current state of their network systems and future planned developments in the form of Long Term Development Statements (LTDS) are discussed. This project aims to increase the usefulness of the information in the LTDS by making it available on the internet and by providing an initial assessment of connection opportunities and the possibility of viewing existing renewable generation projects. The services developed covered data loading, data visualisation, security, connection assessment, reporting, and generation site registration. The benefits of an electronic version of the LTDS are highlighted.

THE INFLUENCE OF SERVICE QUALITY AND PRICE TOWARD TRUST AND ITS IMPACT ON CUSTOMER LOYALTY OF LOW COST CARRIER INDONESIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammad Rizan

2016-04-01

Full Text Available This study was conducted to determine the descriptive and empirical impact of service quality and price on customer loyalty by the trust as a mediator variable. The object of this research was 200 respondents who have ever used the service of Indonesia AirAsia at least two times in Jakarta. Methods of data collection using survey methods. Data analysis using SPSS version 22 and SEM (Structural Equation Model of a statistical package LISREL 8.7 to process and analyze the research data. The results of descriptive test explained that the service quality and price provided is good according to the customer, so that the customer is believe and tend to be a loyal customer of Indonesia AirAsia.The hypothesis test shows; (1 price has positive and significant effect on customer loyalty, but positive effect is insignificant on service quality to customer loyalty; (2 service quality and price has positive and significant effect on trust; (3 trust has positive and significant effect on customer loyalty; (4 service quality and price has positive and significant effect on customer loyalty through trust as mediating variable.

New Evidence on the Price Effects of Cigarette Tax Competition.

Science.gov (United States)

Carpenter, Christopher S; Mathes, Michael T

2016-05-01

Multiple studies have shown that cigarette taxes are more than fully passed through to cigarette prices and that access to a nearby state with a lower cigarette tax also reduces local cigarette prices. We study two other sources of tax competition: nearby Native American reservations and online sales. Using quarterly data on local cigarette prices from 1976-2003, we show that the opening of a Native American casino within 25 miles of a city center is associated with a $0.016-$0.027 lower per-pack price, while a 50 percentage point increase in internet penetration is associated with a $0.22-$0.25 per-pack price reduction. These effects are not observed for other local prices for which there is no potential tax savings. Our results further our understanding of how tax competition affects local cigarette prices and provide context to studies linking Native American reservations and internet penetration to cigarette smuggling.

Application Service Program (ASP) Price Elasticities

OpenAIRE

Hong Jaeweon; Cho Wanwoo; Jang Ho; Kwak Youngsik

2010-01-01

Although the price elasticities for off-line industry are well documented in academic field, the report of price elasticities for on-line to a given brand or industry in practice have beenrelatively rare. The researcher aims to try to full this gap by applying a price response function to Home Trading System’s on-line transaction data for the first time in Korean securities market. The different price elasticities among seven brands were found from -0.819 to -1.811. These results suggested th...

Commercialisation of Internet

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Henten, Anders; Skouby, Knud Erik

An anthology dealing with the commercialisation of Internet and the development of new services.......An anthology dealing with the commercialisation of Internet and the development of new services....

Big Brother’s Little Helpers: The Right to Privacy and the Responsibility of Internet Service Providers

OpenAIRE

Ronen, Yael

2015-01-01

Following the 2013 revelations on the extent of intelligence gathering through internet service providers, this article concerns the responsibility of internet service providers (ISPs) involved in disclosure of personal data to government authorities under the right to privacy, by reference to the developing, non-binding standards applied to businesses under the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework. The article examines the manner in which the Framework applies to ISPs and looks at measures ...

Pricing Energy and Ancillary Services in a Day-Ahead Market for a Price-Taker Hydro Generating Company Using a Risk-Constrained Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Perica Ilak

2014-04-01

Full Text Available This paper analyzes a price-taker hydro generating company which participates simultaneously in day-ahead energy and ancillary services markets. An approach for deriving marginal cost curves for energy and ancillary services is proposed, taking into consideration price uncertainty and opportunity cost of water, which can later be used to determine hourly bid curves. The proposed approach combines an hourly conditional value-at-risk, probability of occurrence of automatic generation control states and an opportunity cost of water to determine energy and ancillary services marginal cost curves. The proposed approach is in a linear constraint form and is easy to implement in optimization problems. A stochastic model of the hydro-economic river basin is presented, based on the actual Vinodol hydropower system in Croatia, with a complex three-dimensional relationship between the power produced, the discharged water, and the head of associated reservoir.

78 FR 49693 - Speech-to-Speech and Internet Protocol (IP) Speech-to-Speech Telecommunications Relay Services...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-08-15

...-Speech Services for Individuals with Hearing and Speech Disabilities, Report and Order (Order), document...] Speech-to-Speech and Internet Protocol (IP) Speech-to-Speech Telecommunications Relay Services; Telecommunications Relay Services and Speech-to-Speech Services for Individuals With Hearing and Speech Disabilities...

Penerapan Model Multidimensional Scaling dalam Pemetaan Brand Positioning Internet Service Provider

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Robertus Tang Herman

2010-03-01

Full Text Available In this high-tech era, there have been tremendous advances in tech-based products and services. Internet is one of them that have widened the world’s eyes to a new borderless marketplace. High competition among internet service providers has pushed companies to create competitive advantage and brilliant marketing strategies. They undertake positioning mapping to describe product or service’s positioning amongst many competitors. The right positioning strategy becomes a powerful weapon to win in the battle. This research is designed to create positioning mapping based on perceptual mapping. The researcher uses Multidimensional Scaling and image mapping to achieve this research goal. Sampling is using non-probability sampling in Jakarta. Based on non-attribute approach, the research findings show that there is similarity between two different brands. Thus, both brands are competing against one another. On the other hand, CBN and Netzap provider reflect some differences to others. And some brands require some improvements in terms of network reliability.

Telecommunications: Issues in Providing Cable and Satellite Television Services

Science.gov (United States)

2002-10-01

This report provides information on (1) whether the availability of cable modem Internet access service appears to be affecting the competitiveness of direct broadcast satellite (DBS) companies in the provision of video services, (2) whether cable prices and DBS penetration rates appear to be affected in areas where the DBS companies offer local broadcast channels, and (3) whether the two individual DBS companies are technologically capable of expanding local broadcast channel services into all 210 television markets in the United States.

Alternative pricing methodologies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1991-01-01

With the increased interest in competitive market forces and growing recognition of the deficiencies in current practices, FERC and others are exploring alternatives to embedded cost pricing. A number of these alternatives are discussed in this chapter. Marketplace pricing, discussed briefly here, is the subject of the next chapter. Obviously, the pricing formula may combine several of these methodologies. One utility of which the authors are aware is seeking a price equal to the sum of embedded costs, opportunity costs, line losses, value of service, FERC's percentage adder formula and a contract service charge

39 CFR 551.6 - Pricing.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 39 Postal Service 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Pricing. 551.6 Section 551.6 Postal Service UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE POSTAGE PROGRAMS SEMIPOSTAL STAMP PROGRAM § 551.6 Pricing. (a) The Semipostal Authorization Act, as amended by Public Law 107-67, section 652, 115 Stat. 514 (2001), prescribes that the price...

A framework for cost-based pricing of transmission and ancillary services in competitive electric power markets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zobian, A.; Ilic, M.D.

1995-01-01

In this paper the authors propose a framework for accurate cost determination and pricing of transmission and ancillary services in competitive electric power markets. The proposed framework is based on their anticipation of the evolving environment and industry structure. They envision the future as a competitive energy market with a centralized control entity that coordinates system activities, prices transmission and ancillary services and controls various system resources. This control entity has control over a certain (pre-defined) geographical area. It is proposed that the system operation and control be kept as they are currently done in control centers, no major change in these functions is required for the proposed pricing strategy. The pricing strategy is divided into two main classes based on time scale separation and firmness, short and long term, firm and interruptible contracts. The approach is based on superposition of different transaction on the network, and a three-part tariff design. The charges are directly related to the impact of each transaction on the system

Period of internet usage: An indicator of the buying behaviour of internet users?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

PJ du Plessis

2004-07-01

Full Text Available This article focuses on the experience of the Internet user with regard to purchasing goods and services. A self-administered survey, hosted on a dedicated website, was used as a data collection method and 1005 responses were received. It was found that the period of Internet usage significantly influenced the decision to purchase via the Internet. Another finding was that the period of Internet usage significantly influenced whether those shopping on the Internet searched for, or considered searching for, product and service information online prior to purchasing from non-Internet-based sellers.

THE STUDY OF PRICING IN THE SPHERE OF EDUCATIONAL SERVICES (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE REPUBLIC OF MARI EL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. G. Ackoraeva

2010-01-01

Full Text Available The summary: the basic features of pricing of educational services of higher educational institutions Are considered. Research of the market of educational services of republic of Mary El is carried out. Recommendations about formation of price strategy depending on influence of the big spectrum of external factors are offered.

Diversifying Fiscal Support by Pricing Public Library Services: A Policy Impact Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Hicks, Donald A.

1980-01-01

Addresses the possibility of diversifying the resource base of public libraries dependent on property taxes for funding through the setting of fees for library services, and reports on a pricing policy adopted by the Dallas Public Library System. Twenty-seven references are cited. (FM)

Reasons for consulting a doctor on the Internet: Web survey of users of an Ask the Doctor service.

Science.gov (United States)

Umefjord, Göran; Petersson, Göran; Hamberg, Katarina

2003-10-22

In 1998 the Swedish noncommercial public health service Infomedica opened an Ask the Doctor service on its Internet portal. At no charge, anyone with Internet access can use this service to ask questions about personal health-related and disease-related matters. To study why individuals choose to consult previously-unknown doctors on the Internet. Between November 1, 2001, and January 31, 2002 a Web survey of the 3622 Ask the Doctor service users, 1036 men (29%) and 2586 (71%) women, was conducted. We excluded 186 queries from users. The results are based on quantitative and qualitative analysis of the answers to the question "Why did you choose to ask a question at Infomedica's 'Ask the Doctor' service?" 1223 surveys were completed (response rate 36 %). Of the participants in the survey 322 (26%) were male and 901 (74%) female. As major reasons for choosing to consult previously-unknown doctors on the Internet participants indicated: convenience (52%), anonymity (36%), "doctors too busy" (21%), difficult to find time to visit a doctor (16%), difficulty to get an appointment (13%), feeling uncomfortable when seeing a doctor (9%), and not being able to afford a doctors' visit (3%). Further motives elicited through a qualitative analysis of free-text answers were: seeking a second opinion, discontent with previous doctors and a wish for a primary evaluation of a medical problem, asking embarrassing or sensitive questions, seeking information on behalf of relatives, preferring written communication, and (from responses by expatriates, travelers, and others) living far away from regular health care. We found that that an Internet based Ask the Doctor service is primarily consulted because it is convenient, but it may also be of value for individuals with needs that regular health care services have not been able to meet.

Increasing the Role of the Internet Service Center in Distric to Stimuli the Society towards Tourism Village

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sumarsono Soemardjo

2014-07-01

Full Text Available The use of internet was expanding, reaching various lines of human life, including ecotourism development sector. However, internet as a tool as well as an enabler, occasionally are less contributing to better accomplish human activity since various determinants which underestimated. Related to that, the government has made programs to expand internet access to rural areas in order to introduce innovation and creating opportunities through the construction of the District Internet Service Centre (PLIK. The research question is how the role of the District Internet Service Centre (PLIK as stimuli for the rural community to develop a tourism village. The purpose of this research is to analyze the role of PLIK to stimuli the rural community to develop the tourism village. This research reveals how the internet could represent as a stimuli for the rural community to develop a tourism village. In addition, the approach of the research is qualitative. Data gathering through in-depth interview with purposive chosen key informants. The result indicates that the role of the internet can be increased to develop a tourism village through various activities of information dissemination and giving encouragement and transformation value of “sapta pesona” to the local rural community.

Displacement and Supplemental Effects of the Mobile Internet on Fixed Internet Use

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ongena, G.; Bouwman, H.; Gillebaard, H.

2012-01-01

Mobile devices facilitate the use of mobile services that are similar to services used via fixed Internet connections. The objective of this article is to assess displacement effects between fixed and mobile Internet services, and to research the role of technical capabilities of mobile handsets and

Comparing the Internet Usage of Pre-service Language Teachers With Teachers of Other Subjects: Distance Learning vs. On-Campus Learning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mehmet Firat

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Teachers play a crucial role in helping individuals gain adequate Internet competency, which requires teachers themselves to be Internet-literate. The purpose of this study is to investigate the Internet use of the distance and on-campus pre-service teachers of language and other disciplines by multiple parameters. A total of 789 teacher candidates participated in this survey. The findings show that the candidate teachers in on-campus and distance-learning programs have an average level of Internet usage adequacy and that the younger candidate teachers and those in higher classes use the Internet more frequently. Pre-service foreign language teachers have been found to have a moderate level of Internet usage frequency, adequacy and technology ownership in comparison with the other preservice teacher groups.

Proceedings: 1996 EPRI conference on innovative approaches to electricity pricing: Managing the transition to market-based pricing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1996-03-01

This report presents the proceedings from the EPRI conference on innovative approaches to electricity pricing. Topics discussed include: power transmission pricing; retail pricing; price risk management; new pricing paradigms; changes from cost-based to a market-based pricing scheme; ancillary services; retail market strategies; profitability; unbundling; and value added services. This is the leading abstract. Papers are processed separately for the databases

The association between psychological well-being and problematic use of Internet communicative services among young people.

Science.gov (United States)

Casale, Silvia; Lecchi, Stefano; Fioravanti, Giulia

2015-01-01

Previous studies on problematic Internet use have focused almost exclusively on the fact that presence of negative functioning, such as social anxiety, depressive symptoms, or loneliness, represents a risk factor for unhealthy use of the web. For this reason the aim of the present study was to investigate the association between psychological well-being dimensions and problematic use of Internet communicative services. In the current study 495 undergraduate students were recruited. The Italian adaptations of the Psychological Well-being Scales and the Generalized Problematic Internet Use Scale 2 (GPIUS2) were used to assess psychological well-being dimensions and generalized problematic Internet use, respectively. Psychological well-being dimensions explained a significant portion of variance for the GPIUS2 total score levels, after controlling for sex, age, and occupational status. The levels of Autonomy, Environmental Mastery, and Positive Relations with Others acted as significant negative predictors of the tendency to use the web for regulating negative feelings, compulsive use of the web, and the negative outcomes that can arise as a result. The overall findings of the present study provide preliminary evidence that low psychological well-being is associated with problematic use of Internet communicative services.

Towards Formal Validation of Trust and Security of the Internet of Services

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Carbone, Roberto; Minea, Marius; Mödersheim, Sebastian Alexander

2011-01-01

Service designers and developers, while striving to meet the requirements posed by application scenarios, have a hard time to assess the trust and security impact of an option, a minor change, a combination of functionalities, etc., due to the subtle and unforeseeable situations and behaviors...... techniques to efficiently tackle industrial-size problems. The formal verification of trust and security of the Internet of Services will significantly boost its development and public acceptance....

Impact of the internet on consumers

OpenAIRE

Mihaela BADEA; Bogdan PÎRVULESCU

2014-01-01

The main purpose of this study is to show the current opportunities, prospects and the impact of the Internet on the consumer. This will be achieved by comparing the behaviour of the British consumer and the Romanian consumer and the changes that appeared under the influence of the Internet. Among the actions undertaken by the Internet marketing, which deals with the promotion of products at a certain price, a concept that has become significant in recent years, there is the placement of prod...

Performance evaluation of recommendation algorithms on Internet of Things services

Science.gov (United States)

Mashal, Ibrahim; Alsaryrah, Osama; Chung, Tein-Yaw

2016-06-01

Internet of Things (IoT) is the next wave of industry revolution that will initiate many services, such as personal health care and green energy monitoring, which people may subscribe for their convenience. Recommending IoT services to the users based on objects they own will become very crucial for the success of IoT. In this work, we introduce the concept of service recommender systems in IoT by a formal model. As a first attempt in this direction, we have proposed a hyper-graph model for IoT recommender system in which each hyper-edge connects users, objects, and services. Next, we studied the usefulness of traditional recommendation schemes and their hybrid approaches on IoT service recommendation (IoTSRS) based on existing well known metrics. The preliminary results show that existing approaches perform reasonably well but further extension is required for IoTSRS. Several challenges were discussed to point out the direction of future development in IoTSR.

What Internet services would patients like from hospitals during an epidemic? Lessons from the SARS outbreak in Toronto.

Science.gov (United States)

Rizo, Carlos A; Lupea, Doina; Baybourdy, Homayoun; Anderson, Matthew; Closson, Tom; Jadad, Alejandro R

2005-08-03

International health organizations and officials are bracing for a pandemic. Although the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Toronto did not reach such a level, it created a unique opportunity to identify the optimal use of the Internet to promote communication with the public and to preserve health services during an epidemic. The aim of the study was to explore patients' attitudes regarding the health services that might be provided through the Internet to supplement those traditionally available in the event of a future mass emergency situation. We conducted "mask-to-mask" surveys of patients at three major teaching hospitals in Toronto during the second outbreak of SARS. Patients were surveyed at the hospital entrances and selected clinics. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression models were used for the analysis. In total, 1019 of 1130 patients responded to the survey (90% overall response rate). With respect to Internet use, 70% (711/1019) used the Internet by themselves and 57% (578/1019) with the help of a friend or family member. Of the Internet users, 68% (485/711) had already searched the World Wide Web for health information, and 75% (533/711) were interested in communicating with health professionals using the Internet as part of their ongoing care. Internet users expressed interest in using the Web for the following reasons: to learn about their health condition through patient education materials (84%), to obtain information about the status of their clinic appointments (83%), to send feedback to the hospital about how to improve its services (77%), to access screening tools to help determine if they were potentially affected by the infectious agent responsible for the outbreak (77%), to renew prescriptions (75%), to consult with their health professional about nonurgent matters (75%), and to access laboratory test results (75%). Regression results showed that younger age, higher education, and English as a first

A survey of Internet based products and services for the commerce with electricity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Morch, Andrei Z.

2002-01-01

The increase within the energy and effect consumption in Norway, parallel with a small development of new power production has resulted in an increased focus on the end user flexibility. An efficient utilisation of the end user flexibility assumes that the market mechanisms are adapted/developed so that the user has economical incentives for reducing the consumption in periods with energy and effect shortage. Furthermore the technological solutions within the information and communication technology (ICT) open new possibilities for acquiring energy and effect reducing potentials at the end users. The Internet is an universal communication channel which opens new possibilities for communication between the power market and the end users. The unique properties of the internet particularly the easy access and low costs for upgrading and maintenance, makes a considerable potential for the use of new products and services which will increase the flexibility in the use of energy and effect. The report presents a survey of existing products and services which are offered on the Internet in the power sector. The report emphasises particularly on a comparison of these solutions regarding purpose, functionality, user friendliness and limitations of these products. The appendix includes a glossary of works and expressions which is related to the ICT. This report is published as a part of a sub project ''Internet based services for customers with current communication'' in a research project. ''Consumer flexibility and efficient use of ICT''. The project is financed by the Norges Forskningsraad, EBL Kompetanse AS and others and is carried out at the SINTEF Energiforskning AS. This project has been started from results and experiences from earlier projects as ''End user market'' and ''Information and communication systems for the energy sector''

Internet Use with Learning Aim: Views of German Language Pre-Service Teachers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mukadder Seyhan Yücel

2011-10-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study is to indicate the views of teacher candidates of German Language Department at Education Faculty, Trakya University about the use of internet with the aim of learning. This study has designed as phenomenology which is one of the qualitative research methods. The study data were obtained via semi-constructed interview technique and the content analysis technique was used in the data analysis. In the research, the findings gathered from the interviews with the teacher candidates are presented in themes, and then interpreted. Considering findings of the study, it has been seen that Internet should be used for learning-teaching purpose. Teacher candidates of German Language support the fact that Internet has a crucial role in education, and particularly it is useful and essential as Internet provides lots of opportunities for German Language Teaching such as authentic study samples, rich materials and exercises on skills, contemporary videos reflecting German culture or film sections. Internet is also a good material which provides accessing various information and also realizing and sharing many goals. If the information is gathered via audio and visual ways, it will be retentive. Thus, German Language teacher candidates can have opportunity to study on the foreign language and its culture through Internet. Furthermore, they have met the contemporary approaches like realizing self-directed learning individually. That’s why, the views of German Language pre-service teacher about the use of Internet with the aim of learning are very important.

Internet Use with Learning Aim: Views of German Language Pre-Service Teachers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mukadder Seyhan Yücel

2011-04-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study is to indicate the views of teacher candidates of German Language Department at Education Faculty, Trakya University about the use of internet with the aim of learning. This study has designed as phenomenology which is one of the qualitative research methods. The study data were obtained via semi-constructed interview technique and the content analysis technique was used in the data analysis. In the research, the findings gathered from the interviews with the teacher candidates are presented in themes, and then interpreted. Considering findings of the study, it has been seen that Internet should be used for learning-teaching purpose. Teacher candidates of German Language support the fact that Internet has a crucial role in education, and particularly it is useful and essential as Internet provides lots of opportunities for German Language Teaching such as authentic study samples, rich materials and exercises on skills, contemporary videos reflecting German culture or Şlm sections. Internet is also a good material which provides accessing various information and also realizing and sharing many goals. If the information is gathered via audio and visual ways, it will be retentive. Thus, German Language teacher candidates can have opportunity to study on the foreign language and its culture through Internet. Furthermore, they have met the contemporary approaches like realizing self-directed learning individually. That’s why, the views of German Language pre-service teacher about the use of Internet with the aim of learning are very important

eHealth literacy, Internet and eHealth service usage: a survey among cancer patients and their relatives.

Science.gov (United States)

Halwas, Nikolaus; Griebel, Lena; Huebner, Jutta

2017-11-01

The aim of our study was to investigate Internet and eHealth usage, with respect to eHealth literacy, by cancer patients and their relatives. Using a standardized questionnaire we asked patients who attended lectures on complementary medicine in 2016. We received 142 questionnaires. The frequency of general Internet usage was directly associated with younger age and better Internet connection. Younger participants were not only more confident in allocating health-related Internet information into reliable or unreliable facts, but also more confident and capable of gaining medical knowledge through eHealth services. A regular use of eHealth services facilitated the decision-making process. Reading ability was associated with a better understanding regarding eHealth offers. In a modern health care system, emphasis should be on skills contributing to eHealth literacy among patients to improve their ability to profit from eHealth offers and improve health care.

INTERNET AND PIRACY

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

无

2012-01-01

正Internet has penetrated into all the aspects of our life and work.We can study and work by it;we can find a job by it;we can communicate by it;we can entertain by it;we can buy and sell by it.We can do almost everything on the Internet,and almost anywhere anytime. However,at the same time Internet provides services for us,it is inevitably invading our privacy to some degree.The services on most websites require our registering. If we want to enjoy these services,we have to provide much private informa-

The Impact of Price Disclosure on Dynamic Shopping Decisions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

B.G.C. Dellaert (Benedict); V.Y. Golounov (Vladislav); J. Prabhu (Jaideep)

2005-01-01

textabstractA potentially powerful way to assist consumers in making dynamic shopping decisions is to disclose price information to them before they shop, for example by posting prices on the Internet. This paper addresses the differential impact of disclosing either only current, or both current

Modeling the Internet.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kelic, Andjelka; Mitchell, Michael David; Shirah, Donald N.

2017-12-01

The National Infrastructure Simulations and Analysis Center (NISAC) has developed a nationwide model of the Internet to study the potential impact of the loss of physical facilities on the network and on other infrastructures that depend on the Internet for services. The model looks at the Internet from the perspective of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and their connectivity and can be used to determine how the network connectivity could be modified to assist in mitigating an event. In addition the model could be used to explore how portions of the network could be made more resilient to disruptive events.

Pricing by timing: innovating broadband data plans

Science.gov (United States)

Ha, Sangtae; Joe-Wong, Carlee; Sen, Soumya; Chiang, Mung

2012-01-01

Wireless Internet usage is doubling every year. Users are using more of high bandwidth data applications, and the heavy usage concentrates on several peak hours in a day, forcing ISPs to overprovision their networks accordingly. In order to remain profitable, ISPs have been using pricing as a congestion management tool. We review many of such pricing schemes in practice today and argue that they do not solve ISPs' problem of growing data traffic. We believe that dynamic, time-dependent usage pricing, which charges users based on when they access the Internet, can incentivize users to spread out their bandwidth consumption more evenly across different times of the day, thus helping ISPs to overcome the problem of peak congestion. Congestion pricing is not a new idea in itself, but the time for its implementation in data networks has finally arrived. Our key contribution lies in developing new analysis and a fully integrated system architecture, called TUBE (Time-dependent Usage-based Broadband price Engineering) that enables ISPs to implement the proposed TDP plan. The theory, simulation, and system implementation of TUBE system is further complemented with consumer surveys conducted in India and the US, along with preparations for a field trial that is currently underway.

Responding to high energy prices: energy management services

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Raynolds, M.

2001-01-01

Rapid growth in the number and sophistication of energy management companies has been observed in the wake of rising energy prices. These companies offer energy-efficiency consulting services to utilities, government and industry with the promise of improved cost efficiency, marketplace competitiveness and environmental commitments. The environmental benefits result from the reduction in emissions and pollutants associated with power production and natural gas used for space heating. In general, the stock in trade of these energy management companies is the energy audit involving evaluation of existing equipment in buildings and facilities and the resulting recommendations to install energy-efficient equipment such as lighting retrofits, boiler replacement, chiller replacement, variable speed drives, high-efficiency motors, improved insulation and weather proofing, water heaters and piping. The North American market for energy management services was estimated in 1997 at $208 billion (rising to $350 billion by 2004). Current market penetration is less than two per cent

People, processes, services, and things using services innovation to enable the internet of everything

CERN Document Server

Dahir, Hazim

2015-01-01

This book guides the reader through the technological advances, business needs, and societal shifts that drive the Internet of Everything (IoE). IoE offers many benefits to industries and organizations that embrace it, but there are real adoption and success barriers to address and overcome. In many cases, services are the solution because they drive IoE application and impact. The business and technical services need to deliver IoE and realize the promised benefits. Discussions include assisting candidate IoE customers to assess and rank priority gaps in business process insight, strategies to connected things, and ways to wrangle and transform data streams of new things into actionable information. Knowledge of leading practices, organizational values, and sensitivities are keys to successful IoE transformations.

Strategic Generation with Conjectured Transmission Price Responses in a Mixed Transmission Pricing System. Part 2. Application

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wals, A.F.; Hobbs, B.F.; Rijkers, F.A.M.

2004-05-01

The conjectured transmission price response model presented in the first of this two-paper series considers the expectations of oligopolistic generators regarding how demands for transmission services affect the prices of those services. Here, the model is applied to northwest Europe, simulating a mixed transmission pricing system including export fees, a path-based auction system for between-country interfaces, and implicit congestion-based pricing of internal country constraints. The path-based system does not give credit for counterflows when calculating export capability. The application shows that this no-netting policy can exacerbate the economic inefficiencies caused by oligopolistic pricing by generators. The application also illustrates the effects of different generator conjectures regarding rival supply responses and transmission prices. If generators anticipate that their increased demand for transmission services will increase transmission prices, then competitive intensity diminishes and energy prices rise. In the example here, the effect of this anticipation is to double the price increase that results from oligopolistic (Cournot) competition among generators

e-Calibrations: using the Internet to deliver calibration services in real time at lower cost

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Desrosiers, Marc; Nagy, Vitaly; Puhl, James; Glenn, Robert; Densock, Robert; Stieren, David; Lang, Brian; Kamlowski, Andreas; Maier, Diether; Heiss, Arthur

2002-01-01

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is expanding into a new frontier in the delivery of measurement services. The Internet will be employed to provide industry with electronic traceability to national standards. This is a radical departure from the traditional modes of traceability and presents many new challenges. The traditional mail-based calibration service relies on sending artifacts to the user, who then mails them back to NIST for evaluation. The new service will deliver calibration results to the industry customer on-demand, in real-time, at a lower cost. The calibration results can be incorporated rapidly into the production process to ensure the highest quality manufacturing. The service would provide the US radiation processing industry with a direct link to the NIST calibration facilities and its expertise, and provide an interactive feedback process between industrial processing and the national measurement standard. Moreover, an Internet calibration system should contribute to the removal of measurement-related trade barriers

Service Orchestration on the Internet of Things

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jordán Pascual Espada

2012-12-01

Full Text Available On July 27, 2010, Jordán Pascual Espada defended his Master’s thesis at Oviedo University (Spain, titled: “Service Orchestration on the internet of things”. This Master’s thesis is the final part of the Web Engineering Official Research Master belonging to the European Higher Education Area. Jordán Pascual Espada defended his dissertation in a publicly open presentation held in the School of Computer Engineering at Oviedo University, and was able to comment on every question raised by his committee and the audience. The master’s thesis was supervised by his advisors, Juan Manuel Cueva Lovelle and Oscar Sanjuán Martínez. The thesis has been read and approved by his thesis committee, receiving the highest rating.

The application of the Internet of Things and Physical Internet in Norwegian aquaculture supply chains

OpenAIRE

Ødegaard, Andreas; Dåvøy, Simon

2016-01-01

Master's thesis in Strategy and Management The topic for this master thesis is Supply Chain Management within the Norwegian aquaculture industry. The thesis aims to examine how the industry can make use of aspects within the Internet of Things and Physical Internet in order to improve their supply chains. Moreover, the thesis identifies and defines three main factors affecting the customers purchasing decision; namely quality, time, and price. These factors are interconnected, and inf...

Internet of people, things and services - the convergence of security, trust and privacy

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Eloff, JHP

2009-12-01

Full Text Available The Future Internet will consist of billions of people, things and services having the potential to interact with each other and their environment. This highly interconnected global network structure presents new types of challenges from a security...

An innovative HIV testing service using the internet: Anonymous urine delivery testing service at drugstores in Beijing, China.

Science.gov (United States)

He, Xiaoxia; Liu, Guowu; Xia, Dongyan; Feng, Xia; Lv, Yi; Cheng, Huanyi; Wang, Yuehua; Lu, Hongyan; Jiang, Yan

2018-01-01

Innovative human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing services will be needed to achieve the first 90 (90% of HIV-positive persons aware of their infection status) of the 90-90-90 target in China. Here, we describe an internet-based urine delivery testing service delivered through three pilot drugstores in Beijing that send specimens to a designated laboratory for HIV. From May 2016 to January 2017, we provided 500 HIV urine-testing service packs for display at the drugstores, and a total of 430 (86.0%) urine specimens were mailed back. All of the 430 urine specimens were of good quality and were tested. 70 urine specimens were HIV positive, showing a 16.3% (70/430) positivity rate. A total of 94.3% (66/70) of the HIV-positive participants obtained their test results through the internet, and 69.7% (46/66) of these participants received follow-up care. A total of 40 out of 46 (87.0%) participants agreed to have their results confirmed by a blood test, and 39 out of 40 (97.5%) participants were confirmed as HIV-1 positive, including two individuals that were previously diagnosed. Lastly, 28 out of 37 (75.7%) of the study participants were referred to the hospital and provided free antiviral treatment. Our data indicate that this innovative HIV testing service is effective and play an important role in HIV testing and surveillance.

The Equilibrium Decisions in a Two-Echelon Supply Chain under Price and Service Competition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaonan Han

2014-07-01

Full Text Available This article studies a supply chain composed of a manufacturer and two competing retailers. The manufacturer produces two substitutable products and offers respective service levels to customers who buy one of the two products. Each retailer can only order one kind of product from the manufacturer, and then sell them to the market at a certain sale price. The demands for two products are influenced not only by the service levels the manufacturer provides, but also the sales prices of the two products. Furthermore, we investigate the equilibrium behavior of members in the supply chain with the aid of the Stackelberg game, and discover a number of insights concerning some important parameters. Finally, Numerical analysis is presented to validate our theoretical results and compare channel performances.

Perception of using group buying sites to acquire tourist services cou-pons

OpenAIRE

Luiz Mendes Filho; Vanessa Araújo Jorge; Otávio Bezerra de Sena Júnior

2016-01-01

Technologies brought new forms of business as in the case of group buying sites, which are basically a way to sell on the Internet that allows consumers to buy goods and services at lower prices. This study analyzed the travelers’ perception of the use of group buying sites to acquire tourist services coupons. The research presents a quantitative-exploratory approach using the Technology Acceptance Model to investigate the use of group buying sites to acquire tourist services coupons during a...

Extending the Internet of Things to the Future Internet Through IPv6 Support

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonio J. Jara

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Emerging Internet of Things (IoT/Machine-to-Machine (M2M systems require a transparent access to information and services through a seamless integration into the Future Internet. This integration exploits infrastructure and services found on the Internet by the IoT. On the one hand, the so-called Web of Things aims for direct Web connectivity by pushing its technology down to devices and smart things. On the other hand, the current and Future Internet offer stable, scalable, extensive, and tested protocols for node and service discovery, mobility, security, and auto-configuration, which are also required for the IoT. In order to integrate the IoT into the Internet, this work adapts, extends, and bridges using IPv6 the existing IoT building blocks (such as solutions from IEEE 802.15.4, BT-LE, RFID while maintaining backwards compatibility with legacy networked embedded systems from building and industrial automation. Specifically, this work presents an extended Internet stack with a set of adaptation layers from non-IP towards the IPv6-based network layer in order to enable homogeneous access for applications and services.

Quick Access: Find Statistical Data on the Internet.

Science.gov (United States)

Su, Di

1999-01-01

Provides an annotated list of Internet sources (World Wide Web, ftp, and gopher sites) for current and historical statistical business data, including selected interest rates, the Consumer Price Index, the Producer Price Index, foreign currency exchange rates, noon buying rates, per diem rates, the special drawing right, stock quotes, and mutual…

A Novel Stackelberg-Bertrand Game Model for Pricing Content Provider

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cheng Zhang

2015-11-01

Full Text Available With the popularity of smart devices such as smartphone, tablet, contents that traditionally be viewed on a personal computer, can also be viewed on these smart devices. The demand for contents thus is increasing year by year, which makes the content providers (CPs get great revenue from either users’ subscription or advertisement. On the other hand, Internet service providers (ISPs, who keep investing in the network technology or capacity capacity to support the huge traffic generated by contents, do not benefit directly from the content traffic. One choice for ISPs is to charge CPs to share the revenue from the huge content traffic. Then ISPs have enough incentives to invest in network infrastructure to improve quality of services (QoS, which eventually benefit CPs and users. This paper presents a novel economic model called Stackelberg-Bertrand game to capture the interaction and competitions among ISPs, CPs and users when ISPs charge CPs. A generic user demand function is assumed to capture the sensitivity of demand to prices of ISPs and CPs. The numerical results show that the price elasticity of ISP and CP plays an important part on the payoff of the ISP and CP.

Defense Travel System (DTS) Airline Ticket Price Analysis: Do DTS Ticket Prices Differ From Other Online Tickets Available for Naval Postgraduate School Travelers

Science.gov (United States)

2007-12-01

price dispersion at least as large as dispersion for traditional retailers for books, music CDs, and software offered through 52 Internet and...dispersion differences. For instance, for 22 old-hit albums , average price percentage differences are 31% on-line, compared to 11% off-line. But for 21...current-hit albums , differences are smaller at 18% on-line and 19% off-line. This suggests price dispersion levels are related to product

Data mining techniques for distributed denial of service attacks detection in the internet of things: A research survey

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Machaka, P

2016-08-01

Full Text Available This chapter reviews the evolution of the traditional internet into the Internet of Things (IoT). The characteristics and application of the IoT are also reviewed, together with its security concerns in terms of distributed denial of service attacks...

Internet en service pack

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Máximo Lameiro

2004-04-01

Full Text Available En contra de los sueños románticos que, no hace tantos años, muchos albergamos, Internet se ha convertido en un inmenso mercado en el cual es cada vez más difícil encontrar alguna cosa genuina y del que es cada vez más improbable salir ileso. La Internet de hoy es tan distinta de lo que fue que poca gente recuerda cómo se gestó y cual era su 'espíritu' en los comienzos. La Red de redes fue el resultado de un proceso, no previsto, que empezó como red militar, siguió como red universitaria, luego alcanzó nivel intercontinental y finalmente se globalizó tanto como el mundo al que ella misma contribuyó a unificar.

Introduction to pricing issues

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1991-01-01

This chapter provides an overview of pricing issues the proper pricing of transmission services is essential to efficient operation of the grid. Wheeling rights have little meaning if capacity on existing lines is scarce and there is no incentive to build new lines. Depending on the type of transmission pricing policies FERC adopts, the Commission may be able to encourage more voluntary wheeling service, and to influence decisions to build or upgrade the supply of facilities

Orchestrating utility supply and demand in real-time via the Internet, home networks, and smart appliances

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cruickshank, R.F. III [Power Networks, Big Indian, NY (United States)

2008-07-01

This paper presented a model to illustrate the efficient coordination between the supply-side and demand-side of household electricity use and the magnitude of demand that can be managed using real-time pricing. In real-time supply and demand side management, a variable price for service is sent via Internet from the supply-side to the demand-side. The 3 benefits to this type of demand-side management are that traditional fossil-fuelled electrical capacity can operate less of the time and more efficiently; renewable electrical capacity such as wind and solar power can be put to use more efficiently when it becomes available; and additional means are available to protect the transmission and distribution infrastructure of the utility. A critical requirement is that pricing should change frequently throughout the day so that budget conscious consumers do not have to wait too long for favourable pricing to use their appliances. 12 refs., 9 figs.

Service-Oriented Security Framework for Remote Medical Services in the Internet of Things Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Jae Dong; Yoon, Tae Sik; Chung, Seung Hyun

2015-01-01

Objectives Remote medical services have been expanding globally, and this is expansion is steadily increasing. It has had many positive effects, including medical access convenience, timeliness of service, and cost reduction. The speed of research and development in remote medical technology has been gradually accelerating. Therefore, it is expected to expand to enable various high-tech information and communications technology (ICT)-based remote medical services. However, the current state lacks an appropriate security framework that can resolve security issues centered on the Internet of things (IoT) environment that will be utilized significantly in telemedicine. Methods This study developed a medical service-oriented frame work for secure remote medical services, possessing flexibility regarding new service and security elements through its service-oriented structure. First, the common architecture of remote medical services is defined. Next medical-oriented secu rity threats and requirements within the IoT environment are identified. Finally, we propose a "service-oriented security frame work for remote medical services" based on previous work and requirements for secure remote medical services in the IoT. Results The proposed framework is a secure framework based on service-oriented cases in the medical environment. A com parative analysis focusing on the security elements (confidentiality, integrity, availability, privacy) was conducted, and the analysis results demonstrate the security of the proposed framework for remote medical services with IoT. Conclusions The proposed framework is service-oriented structure. It can support dynamic security elements in accordance with demands related to new remote medical services which will be diversely generated in the IoT environment. We anticipate that it will enable secure services to be provided that can guarantee confidentiality, integrity, and availability for all, including patients, non-patients, and medical

Service-Oriented Security Framework for Remote Medical Services in the Internet of Things Environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Jae Dong; Yoon, Tae Sik; Chung, Seung Hyun; Cha, Hyo Soung

2015-10-01

Remote medical services have been expanding globally, and this is expansion is steadily increasing. It has had many positive effects, including medical access convenience, timeliness of service, and cost reduction. The speed of research and development in remote medical technology has been gradually accelerating. Therefore, it is expected to expand to enable various high-tech information and communications technology (ICT)-based remote medical services. However, the current state lacks an appropriate security framework that can resolve security issues centered on the Internet of things (IoT) environment that will be utilized significantly in telemedicine. This study developed a medical service-oriented frame work for secure remote medical services, possessing flexibility regarding new service and security elements through its service-oriented structure. First, the common architecture of remote medical services is defined. Next medical-oriented secu rity threats and requirements within the IoT environment are identified. Finally, we propose a "service-oriented security frame work for remote medical services" based on previous work and requirements for secure remote medical services in the IoT. The proposed framework is a secure framework based on service-oriented cases in the medical environment. A com parative analysis focusing on the security elements (confidentiality, integrity, availability, privacy) was conducted, and the analysis results demonstrate the security of the proposed framework for remote medical services with IoT. The proposed framework is service-oriented structure. It can support dynamic security elements in accordance with demands related to new remote medical services which will be diversely generated in the IoT environment. We anticipate that it will enable secure services to be provided that can guarantee confidentiality, integrity, and availability for all, including patients, non-patients, and medical staff.

Estimating the economic value of cultural ecosystem services in an urbanizing area using hedonic pricing

Science.gov (United States)

Heather A. Sander; Robert G. Haight

2012-01-01

A need exists to increase both knowledge and recognition of the values associated with ecosystem services and amenities. This article explores the use of hedonic pricing as a tool for eliciting these values. We take a case study approach, valuing several services provided by ecosystems, namely aesthetic quality (views), access to outdoor recreation, and the benefits...

The price effects of enhancing services sector competition in a large open economy

NARCIS (Netherlands)

P.A.D. Cavelaars

2003-01-01

textabstractThis paper studies the price e?ects of shocks to the degree of competition. It is motivated by initiatives to enhance competition in services in the European Union. The paper shows that a higher degree of competition in the nontradable goods sector may have adverse implications for

Public transparency Web sites for radiology practices: prevalence of price, clinical quality, and service quality information.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosenkrantz, Andrew B; Doshi, Ankur M

2016-01-01

To assess information regarding radiology practices on public transparency Web sites. Eight Web sites comparing radiology centers' price and quality were identified. Web site content was assessed. Six of eight Web sites reported examination prices. Other reported information included hours of operation (4/8), patient satisfaction (2/8), American College of Radiology (ACR) accreditation (3/8), on-site radiologists (2/8), as well as parking, accessibility, waiting area amenities, same/next-day reports, mammography follow-up rates, examination appropriateness, radiation dose, fellowship-trained radiologists, and advanced technologies (1/8 each). Transparency Web sites had a preponderance of price (and to a lesser extent service quality) information, risking fostering price-based competition at the expense of clinical quality. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Estimating customer preferences for new pricing products. Final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Goett, A.A.

1998-10-01

This report summarizes the results of a review of various methods to analyze customer preferences for electric service pricing products. The purpose of this study was to evaluate different techniques for analyzing preferences for electric service and pricing products in a competitive retail electricity market. In this market, competing providers will offer a variety of electric services under different price structures, and customers will face the decision of choosing a single electric service provider and pricing plan. The service and price characteristics that utilities offer will largely determine their market shares and profitability. Understanding preferences will be critical to quantifying the effects of service and pricing attributes on market share and profitability in the deregulated retail electricity market

An innovative HIV testing service using the internet: Anonymous urine delivery testing service at drugstores in Beijing, China.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaoxia He

Full Text Available Innovative human immunodeficiency virus (HIV testing services will be needed to achieve the first 90 (90% of HIV-positive persons aware of their infection status of the 90-90-90 target in China. Here, we describe an internet-based urine delivery testing service delivered through three pilot drugstores in Beijing that send specimens to a designated laboratory for HIV. From May 2016 to January 2017, we provided 500 HIV urine-testing service packs for display at the drugstores, and a total of 430 (86.0% urine specimens were mailed back. All of the 430 urine specimens were of good quality and were tested. 70 urine specimens were HIV positive, showing a 16.3% (70/430 positivity rate. A total of 94.3% (66/70 of the HIV-positive participants obtained their test results through the internet, and 69.7% (46/66 of these participants received follow-up care. A total of 40 out of 46 (87.0% participants agreed to have their results confirmed by a blood test, and 39 out of 40 (97.5% participants were confirmed as HIV-1 positive, including two individuals that were previously diagnosed. Lastly, 28 out of 37 (75.7% of the study participants were referred to the hospital and provided free antiviral treatment. Our data indicate that this innovative HIV testing service is effective and play an important role in HIV testing and surveillance.

Two-Stage Dynamic Pricing and Advertising Strategies for Online Video Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhi Li

2017-01-01

Full Text Available As the demands for online video services increase intensively, the selection of business models has drawn the great attention of online providers. Among them, pay-per-view mode and advertising mode are two important resource modes, where the reasonable fee charge and suitable volume of ads need to be determined. This paper establishes an analytical framework studying the optimal dynamic pricing and advertising strategies for online providers; it shows how the strategies are influenced by the videos available time and the viewers’ emotional factor. We create the two-stage strategy of revenue models involving a single fee mode and a mixed fee-free mode and find out the optimal fee charge and advertising level of online video services. According to the results, the optimal video price and ads volume dynamically vary over time. The viewer’s aversion level to advertising has direct effects on both the volume of ads and the number of viewers who have selected low-quality content. The optimal volume of ads decreases with the increase of ads-aversion coefficient, while increasing as the quality of videos increases. The results also indicate that, in the long run, a pure fee mode or free mode is the optimal strategy for online providers.

A Low-Cost Remote Lab for Internet Services Distance Education

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

James Sissom

2006-08-01

Full Text Available Academic departments seeking to reach students via distance education course offerings find that some on-line curricula require a traditional hands-on lab model for student evaluation and assessment. The authors solve the problem of providing distance education curriculum and supporting instruction lab components by using a low-cost remote lab. The remote lab is used to evaluate student performance in managing web services and website development, solving security problems, patch management, scripting and web server management. In addition, the authors discuss assessment and evaluation techniques that will be used to determine instructional quality and student performance. Discussed are the remote lab architecture, use of disk images and utilization of Windows 2003 Internet Information Service, and Linux Red Hat 9.0 platforms.

Transmission pricing: paradigms and methodologies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shirmohammadi, Dariush [Pacific Gas and Electric Co., San Francisco, CA (United States); Vieira Filho, Xisto; Gorenstin, Boris [Centro de Pesquisas de Energia Eletrica (CEPEL), Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil); Pereira, Mario V.P. [Power System Research, Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil)

1994-12-31

In this paper we describe the principles of several paradigms and methodologies for pricing transmission services. The paper outlines some of the main characteristics of these paradigms and methodologies such as where they may be used for best results. Due to their popularity, power flow based MW-mile and short run marginal cost pricing methodologies will be covered in some detail. We conclude the paper with examples of the application of these two pricing methodologies for pricing transmission services in Brazil. (author) 25 refs., 2 tabs.

INTERNET ADVERTISING: A PRIMER

OpenAIRE

Matthew N. O. Sadiku*, Shumon Alam, Sarhan M. Musa

2017-01-01

Internet advertising (IA) is using the Internet to market products and services to a large audience. In the current era of Internet commerce, companies have chosen to use Internet advertising and the trend is irreversible. The goal of Internet advertising is to drive customers to your website. Understanding some key concepts of Internet advertising is crucial to creating a strategy that will suit one’s business. This paper provides a brief introduction to Internet or online advertising.

WWREX: A case study in the development of Internet E-Commerce in the energy industry

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yeich, K.; Horner, D.; Dunn, A. [Per-Se Technologies, Columbia, MD (United States)

1998-12-31

Even more so than the World Wide Web, the utility industry is undergoing a massive deregulation that is turning it into a Wild West environment that has fostered fierce competition, new technology and new services in the energy marketplace. It has become increasingly complex for consumers, suppliers and utilities to buy and sell energy at the best prices. With the help of the Internet, Per-Se Technologies and North American Power have developed the World Wide Retail Energy eXchange (WWREX): a real-time, Web-based electronic commerce application that matches suppliers of electricity and natural gas with potential customers online. This service is the first online application to facilitate the buying and selling of energy via the Internet. Designed to take advantage of the deregulated utilities marketplace, REX benefits multiple market players. With REX, business energy consumers can buy energy at the best price, from multiple suppliers and with significant time and cost reductions. Suppliers can instantly access new customer bases and close efficient, bulk transactions without the traditional sales and marketing costs associated with selling to a diverse set of consumers. The challenges and solutions of this project illustrate the technologies and techniques in creating a viable E-Commerce application. The resulting system provides effective electronic commerce and solves a critical business need at a relatively low cost.

A precursor of market crashes: Empirical laws of Japan's internet bubble

Science.gov (United States)

Kaizoji, T.

2006-03-01

In this paper, we quantitatively investigate the properties of a statistical ensemble of stock prices. We focus attention on the relative price defined as X(t) = S(t)/S(0), where S(0), is the stock price for an onset time of the bubble. We selected approximately 3200 stocks traded on the Japanese Stock Exchange, and formed a statistical ensemble of daily relative prices for each trading day in the 3-year period from January 4, 1999 to December 28, 2001, corresponding to the period in which internet Bubble formed and crashed in the Japanese stock market. We found that the upper tail of the complementary cumulative distribution function of the ensemble of the relative prices in the high value of the price is well described by a power-law distribution, P(S>x) ˜x-α , with an exponent that moves over time. Furthermore we found that as the power-law exponents α approached two, the bubble burst. It is reasonable to suppose that it indicates that internet bubble is about to burst.

Adopting Internet Banking in Ghana

OpenAIRE

G.O. Ofori-Dwumfuo; Betty A. Dankwah

2013-01-01

This study looks at the benefits, challenges and barriers in adopting Internet banking at a major bank in Ghana. The development of the Internet is changing the way financial services are provided in Ghana. The Internet banking facility has resulted in new ways of delivering banking services. The research is a case study based on the staffs that has worked with the bank for more than three years. In evaluating benefits, challenges and barriers to the bank in adopting Internet banking, intervi...

Pricing for Efficiency, Equity, and Simplicity: A Model Policy for an Interlibrary Courier Service.

Science.gov (United States)

Gassler, Robert Scott

1985-01-01

Presents an example of a pricing policy for any interlibrary courier service which (1) calculates fixed, travelling, and stopping costs; (2) charges by how often the courier stops at each participating library; and (3) uses any subsidies for costs libraries cannot control. (CDD)

IPTV technology for the wireless Internet service provider (WISP

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mitchell Vásquez Bermúdez

2018-02-01

Full Text Available This article describes the implementation of the IPTV technology through an open source system for the wireless Internet service provider (WISP in the Cerecita site, located in the province of Guayas, Ecuador. The feasibility of implementing the IPTV technology is given through the use of the Emby Server application, in addition to the use of an operating system such as CentOS 7, which are open source and have the necessary requirements for the creation of this service. The analysis of data tra c generated on the WISP network, which will establish the advantages and disadvantages generated by the transmission of this technology, created to VOD multimedia content server that allows the video signal to be sent to users Finally, a feasibility study was carried out to analyze the advantages and disadvantages that exist in the implementation of this IPTV technology.

A Web Service Protocol Realizing Interoperable Internet of Things Tasking Capability

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Chih-Yuan; Wu, Cheng-Hung

2016-01-01

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an infrastructure that interconnects uniquely-identifiable devices using the Internet. By interconnecting everyday appliances, various monitoring, and physical mashup applications can be constructed to improve human’s daily life. In general, IoT devices provide two main capabilities: sensing and tasking capabilities. While the sensing capability is similar to the World-Wide Sensor Web, this research focuses on the tasking capability. However, currently, IoT devices created by different manufacturers follow different proprietary protocols and are locked in many closed ecosystems. This heterogeneity issue impedes the interconnection between IoT devices and damages the potential of the IoT. To address this issue, this research aims at proposing an interoperable solution called tasking capability description that allows users to control different IoT devices using a uniform web service interface. This paper demonstrates the contribution of the proposed solution by interconnecting different IoT devices for different applications. In addition, the proposed solution is integrated with the OGC SensorThings API standard, which is a Web service standard defined for the IoT sensing capability. Consequently, the Extended SensorThings API can realize both IoT sensing and tasking capabilities in an integrated and interoperable manner. PMID:27589759

A Web Service Protocol Realizing Interoperable Internet of Things Tasking Capability.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Chih-Yuan; Wu, Cheng-Hung

2016-08-31

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an infrastructure that interconnects uniquely-identifiable devices using the Internet. By interconnecting everyday appliances, various monitoring, and physical mashup applications can be constructed to improve human's daily life. In general, IoT devices provide two main capabilities: sensing and tasking capabilities. While the sensing capability is similar to the World-Wide Sensor Web, this research focuses on the tasking capability. However, currently, IoT devices created by different manufacturers follow different proprietary protocols and are locked in many closed ecosystems. This heterogeneity issue impedes the interconnection between IoT devices and damages the potential of the IoT. To address this issue, this research aims at proposing an interoperable solution called tasking capability description that allows users to control different IoT devices using a uniform web service interface. This paper demonstrates the contribution of the proposed solution by interconnecting different IoT devices for different applications. In addition, the proposed solution is integrated with the OGC SensorThings API standard, which is a Web service standard defined for the IoT sensing capability. Consequently, the Extended SensorThings API can realize both IoT sensing and tasking capabilities in an integrated and interoperable manner.

78 FR 69755 - International Product and Price Changes

Science.gov (United States)

2013-11-21

... POSTAL SERVICE 39 CFR Part 20 International Product and Price Changes AGENCY: Postal Service TM... Service, International Mail Manual (IMM[supreg]), to reflect the prices, product features, and...-0372. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: New prices are available under Docket Number CP2014-5 on the Postal...

76 FR 75786 - International Product and Price Changes

Science.gov (United States)

2011-12-05

... POSTAL SERVICE 39 CFR Part 20 International Product and Price Changes AGENCY: Postal Service TM... Service, International Mail Manual (IMM[supreg]), to reflect the prices, product features, and.... SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: New prices are available under Docket Number CP2012-2 on the Postal Regulatory...

Cost accounting models used for price-setting of health services: an international review.

Science.gov (United States)

Raulinajtys-Grzybek, Monika

2014-12-01

The aim of the article was to present and compare cost accounting models which are used in the area of healthcare for pricing purposes in different countries. Cost information generated by hospitals is further used by regulatory bodies for setting or updating prices of public health services. The article presents a set of examples from different countries of the European Union, Australia and the United States and concentrates on DRG-based payment systems as they primarily use cost information for pricing. Differences between countries concern the methodology used, as well as the data collection process and the scope of the regulations on cost accounting. The article indicates that the accuracy of the calculation is only one of the factors that determine the choice of the cost accounting methodology. Important aspects are also the selection of the reference hospitals, precise and detailed regulations and the existence of complex healthcare information systems in hospitals. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

When the Internet Hits the Road

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Christian Søndergaard

2007-01-01

The Internet has recovered from the dot-com crash of the early 2000's and now features an abundance of new, innovative technologies and services. We are also witnessing the emergence of a communication and computing infrastructure that encompasses millions of people with mobile devices, such as m......The Internet has recovered from the dot-com crash of the early 2000's and now features an abundance of new, innovative technologies and services. We are also witnessing the emergence of a communication and computing infrastructure that encompasses millions of people with mobile devices......, such as mobile phones, with Internet connectivity. This infrastructure will soon enable the Internet to go mobile. This paper describes the background and aspirations of a new research project that is concerned with data management aspects of innovative mobile Internet services. It is argued that mobile services...

Wireless Sensor Network-Based Service Provisioning by a Brokering Platform.

Science.gov (United States)

Guijarro, Luis; Pla, Vicent; Vidal, Jose R; Naldi, Maurizio; Mahmoodi, Toktam

2017-05-12

This paper proposes a business model for providing services based on the Internet of Things through a platform that intermediates between human users and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). The platform seeks to maximize its profit through posting both the price charged to each user and the price paid to each WSN. A complete analysis of the profit maximization problem is performed in this paper. We show that the service provider maximizes its profit by incentivizing all users and all Wireless Sensor Infrastructure Providers (WSIPs) to join the platform. This is true not only when the number of users is high, but also when it is moderate, provided that the costs that the users bear do not trespass a cost ceiling. This cost ceiling depends on the number of WSIPs, on the value of the intrinsic value of the service and on the externality that the WSIP has on the user utility.

Faktor Penentu Yang Mempengaruhi Penggunaan Layanan Internet Banking

OpenAIRE

Sihotang, Ellen Theresia

2016-01-01

This study aims to analysis the important factor that influence the use of internet banking according to Booklet Perbankan Indonesia 2016 and the implication for the marketing of internet banking services. Security has become a determining factor which affecting the use of internet banking services. It is important for the bank to find out how to maintain the customers who have used the internet banking services in order to encounter competition with a variety of banking services distributi...

Peering Strategic Game Models for Interdependent ISPs in Content Centric Internet

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jia Zhao

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Emergent content-oriented networks prompt Internet service providers (ISPs to evolve and take major responsibility for content delivery. Numerous content items and varying content popularities motivate interdependence between peering ISPs to elaborate their content caching and sharing strategies. In this paper, we propose the concept of peering for content exchange between interdependent ISPs in content centric Internet to minimize content delivery cost by a proper peering strategy. We model four peering strategic games to formulate four types of peering relationships between ISPs who are characterized by varying degrees of cooperative willingness from egoism to altruism and interconnected as profit-individuals or profit-coalition. Simulation results show the price of anarchy (PoA and communication cost in the four games to validate that ISPs should decide their peering strategies by balancing intradomain content demand and interdomain peering relations for an optimal cost of content delivery.

Peering Strategic Game Models for Interdependent ISPs in Content Centric Internet

Science.gov (United States)

Guan, Jianfeng; Xu, Changqiao; Su, Wei; Zhang, Hongke

2013-01-01

Emergent content-oriented networks prompt Internet service providers (ISPs) to evolve and take major responsibility for content delivery. Numerous content items and varying content popularities motivate interdependence between peering ISPs to elaborate their content caching and sharing strategies. In this paper, we propose the concept of peering for content exchange between interdependent ISPs in content centric Internet to minimize content delivery cost by a proper peering strategy. We model four peering strategic games to formulate four types of peering relationships between ISPs who are characterized by varying degrees of cooperative willingness from egoism to altruism and interconnected as profit-individuals or profit-coalition. Simulation results show the price of anarchy (PoA) and communication cost in the four games to validate that ISPs should decide their peering strategies by balancing intradomain content demand and interdomain peering relations for an optimal cost of content delivery. PMID:24381517

Design theory, modelling and the application for the Internet of Things service

Science.gov (United States)

Shang, Xiaopu; Zhang, Runtong; Zhu, Xiaomin; Zhou, Quan

2016-03-01

The Internet of Things (IoT) makes it possible for us to sense the physical world and locate objects in it using the enabling technologies associated with IoT. Compared with traditional information systems, IoT enabling technologies can help acquire real-time data necessary for managing enterprise business process. An IoT system should have an ability beyond integrating enabling technologies and traditional information systems that are only used to access environmental data. This paper begins with a literature review of IoT-related issues and a discussion of the difference between traditional information service and IoT service. Three principles for IoT service design from the perceptive of service classification, coordination and compatibility are proposed. The paper also proposes a utility model for resource allocation in order to improve IoT service performance, and an application involving a cold chain visibility platform is given to illustrate our research.

Proximity-Based Asynchronous Messaging Platform for Location-Based Internet of Things Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hyeong gon Jo

2016-07-01

Full Text Available The Internet of Things (IoT opens up tremendous opportunities to provide location-based applications. However, despite the services around a user being physically adjacent, common IoT platforms use a centralized structure, like a cloud-computing architecture, which transfers large amounts of data to a central server. This raises problems, such as traffic concentration, long service latency, and high communication cost. In this paper, we propose a physical distance-based asynchronous messaging platform that specializes in processing personalized data and location-based messages. The proposed system disperses traffic using a location-based message-delivery protocol, and has high stability.

Banking on the Internet.

Science.gov (United States)

Internet Research, 1996

1996-01-01

Electronic ground was broken in 1995 with the development of the completely Internet-based bank Security First Network Bank. This article discusses the need for developing online services, outlines the reasons for the formation of an Internet-based bank and argues that to remain competitive financial services providers must provide easier customer…

Internet use, online information seeking and knowledge among third molar patients attending public dental services.

Science.gov (United States)

Hanna, K; Sambrook, P; Armfield, J M; Brennan, D S

2017-09-01

While Australians are searching the internet for third molar (TM) information, the usefulness of online sources may be questioned due to quality variation. This study explored: (i) internet use, online information-seeking behaviour among TM patients attending public dental services; and (ii) whether patients' TM knowledge scores are associated with the level of internet use and eHealth Literacy Scale (eHEALS) scores. Baseline survey data from the 'Engaging Patients in Decision-Making' study were used. Variables included: sociodemographics, internet access status, online information-seeking behaviour, eHEALS, the Control Preferences Scale (CPS) and TM knowledge. Participants (N = 165) were mainly female (73.8%), aged 19-25 years (42.4%) and had 'secondary school or less' education (58.4%). A majority (N = 79, 52.7%) had sought online dental information which was associated with active decisional control preference (odds ratio = 3.1, P = 0.034) and higher educational attainment (odds ratio = 2.7, P = 0.040). TM knowledge scores were not associated with either the level of internet use (F (2,152) = 2.1, P = 0.094, χ 2 = 0.0310) or the eHEALS scores (r = 0.147, P = 0.335). 'The internet-prepared patient' phenomena exists among public TM patients and was explained by preference for involvement in decision-making. However, internet use was not associated with better TM knowledge. Providing TM patients with internet guidance may be an opportunity to improve TM knowledge. © 2017 Australian Dental Association.

Press point on prices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schilansky, J.L.

2005-06-01

This document presents information and statistical data on the prices of the crude oils, refining and petroleum products, at the date of the 28 June 2005: evolution of the barrel price, supply and demand, geo-policy, consumption, diesel and gasoline, prices at the service station. (A.L.B.)

The Influence of Brand Image, Price, Service Quality and Facilities on Customer Satisfaction at Aston Hotel Manado

OpenAIRE

Taroreh, Rita N.; Mananeke, Lisbeth; Suwandi, Monica M.

2015-01-01

The economic condition of a country will change the mindset of people, so what happened in Indonesia it determines the public goods and services, in accordance with ability of business players and their business oriented towards the consumer. Consumers free use of money and free compare products or services and factors associated with services like the brand image, price, service quality and facilities. These days, service business in this case of hotel, have a thighter competition. As the ne...

Electricity and gas : market and price convergence : fundamentals of restructuring and convergence

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Heintz, H.; Spragins, R.

2000-07-01

One of the results of the transition from regulation to competition in the Canadian and American natural gas and electricity industries is convergence of the two industries. Convergence is occurring in the areas of corporate structuring activities (mergers and acquisitions), natural gas and electricity prices, products and services, and on a geographic basis. This study examines the restructuring and convergence from the perspective of industry stakeholders, consumers, competitors and regulators. The trend to deregulate to establish competitive markets has been driven by the assumption that lower prices and more choices will result. Deregulation has been made easier by technological developments and innovations in the area of conventional generation, distributed generation, information management and analysis, as well as mass communication channels such as the Internet. These changes have made it possible to measure and monitor energy use in real-time. Technological changes will continue to influence the energy industry. The use of different restructuring rules and regulations in jurisdictions that are implementing change may be one of the primary factors that could limit the extent of convergence. Successful competition by energy service providers in converged retail energy markets will depend on several factors, the first of which is the ability to control the customer interface through retail cycle services such as metering and billing. The second is the successful branding of corporate identities, products and services. These will ensure customer loyalty and facilitate the marketing of new products. Another factor would be the effective management of information regarding natural gas and electricity consumption patterns and the establishment of low cost operations through the use of conventional generation technologies. The final factor for successful competition is the effective use of low cost communication technologies such as the Internet. The transition

Electricity and gas : market and price convergence : fundamentals of restructuring and convergence

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Heintz, H.; Spragins, R.

2000-01-01

One of the results of the transition from regulation to competition in the Canadian and American natural gas and electricity industries is convergence of the two industries. Convergence is occurring in the areas of corporate structuring activities (mergers and acquisitions), natural gas and electricity prices, products and services, and on a geographic basis. This study examines the restructuring and convergence from the perspective of industry stakeholders, consumers, competitors and regulators. The trend to deregulate to establish competitive markets has been driven by the assumption that lower prices and more choices will result. Deregulation has been made easier by technological developments and innovations in the area of conventional generation, distributed generation, information management and analysis, as well as mass communication channels such as the Internet. These changes have made it possible to measure and monitor energy use in real-time. Technological changes will continue to influence the energy industry. The use of different restructuring rules and regulations in jurisdictions that are implementing change may be one of the primary factors that could limit the extent of convergence. Successful competition by energy service providers in converged retail energy markets will depend on several factors, the first of which is the ability to control the customer interface through retail cycle services such as metering and billing. The second is the successful branding of corporate identities, products and services. These will ensure customer loyalty and facilitate the marketing of new products. Another factor would be the effective management of information regarding natural gas and electricity consumption patterns and the establishment of low cost operations through the use of conventional generation technologies. The final factor for successful competition is the effective use of low cost communication technologies such as the Internet. The transition

Internet services for nuclear data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chang, Jong hwa

1998-01-01

Modern internet technology make it possible to acquire the up to data and reliable nuclear data easily for the user. Main international and national centers distributing the nuclear data are as follows: · IAEA Nuclear Data Section (http://www-nds.iaea.or.at/) · NEA Databank (http://www.nea.fr/html/databank/) · BNL National Nuclear Data Center (http://www.nndc.bnl.gov/) · LANL T2 (http://t2.lanl.gov/) · JAERI Japanese Nuclear Data Center (http://www.nndc.tokai.jaeri.go.jp/) KAERI is also servicing a nuclear data web server since 1994(http://hpngp01.kaeri.re.kr/). The target customers for the KAERI web server are those who are not so familiar with the conventions of nuclear data production society. The server has a 'Table of Nuclides' with graphic interface which contains the mass of nuclides, the decay and half life, the decay scheme, the neutron capture cross section, the fission yields and the neutron cross section. An interactive cross section plotter is provided to compare the cross sections between each evaluated files. We have archived the MCNP library sets, which were processed upon the request from domestic users. An electron and X-ray attenuation factor calculator is also provided for medical scientists

Judgments about Judgments: The Dissociation of Consideration Price and Transaction Commitment Judgments

Science.gov (United States)

Janiszewski, Chris; Lichtenstein, Donald R.; Belyavsky, Julia

2008-01-01

There are many contexts in which people make judgments about prior judgments. For example, Internet shopping bots (e.g., NexTag.com) allow consumers to search for products and, if the price is too high, list a price at which they would consider making the purchase (i.e., base judgment). If the price drops to this level, the vendor generates an…

EFFECTIVE ANNUAL INTEREST SIGNIFIANCE ON BANKING PRODUCTS PRICE STRUCTURE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Medar Lucian-Ion

2011-06-01

Full Text Available The importance of the products and services prices can be found in the reference price, that customer must compare it with the price of the last made acquisition. The price of the banking product, that includes the effective annual intrest rate (EAI, is a guide price including all the cost elements related to banking products and services. The price of the products promoted through lending activities, is affected by the exchange rate of national and foreign currency, available on the money market. The role of the banking fee is very important in the specific services and bank products price formation.

Customer perceptions on Internet banking information protection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

André Redlinghuis

2010-12-01

Objectives: This article has reported on the results of a survey (a close-ended questionnaire that was conducted by alumni of the University of Johannesburg (UJ. The research problem for this study has been formulated as ‘what are Internet banking customers’ perception on information protection when using Internet banking services and products?’ Method: The methodology for this study falls on quantitative research. The research study consisted of a detailed literature review, followed by an empirical component which consisted of a quantitative questionnaire. The questionnaire used in this study consisted of eight sections covering biographical information, financial institution and Internet banking, Internet banking service quality and delivery, Internet banking functionality, Internet banking costs, Internet banking convenience and relationships, Internet banking trust and Internet banking security and information technology (IT. Results: It was established that the findings of this research could assist financial institutions with fostering and building greater value adding relationships with their customers. These value-adding endeavours will ensure that customers experience and perceive their Internet banking experience to be enriching. Education and awareness campaigns are key focus areas financial institutions should continuously invest in. Information should be easily retrievable and communicated in a manner that makes sense to the diverse customer base, especially within South Africa with its diverse cultures and languages. Conclusion: The final conclusion that could be reached is that Internet banking products and services will continue to grow across various divides and platforms as the Internet costs decrease in future, the growth of Internet related products and services such as Internet banking will increase.

Delegating pricing power to customers: Pay what you want or name your own price?

OpenAIRE

Krämer, Florentin; Schmidt, Klaus M.; Spann, Martin; Stich, Lucas

2015-01-01

Pay What You Want (PWYW) and Name Your Own Price (NYOP) are customer driven pricing mechanisms that give customers (some) pricing power. Both have been used in service industries with high fixed costs to price discriminate without setting a reference price. Their participatory and innovative nature gives rise to promotional benefits that do not accrue to posted-price sellers. We explore the nature and effects of these benefits and compare PWYW and NYOP using controlled lab experiments. We sho...

Innovations in Statistical Observations of Consumer Prices

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Olga Stepanovna Oleynik

2016-10-01

Full Text Available This article analyzes the innovative changes in the methodology of statistical surveys of consumer prices. These changes are reflected in the “Official statistical methodology for the organization of statistical observation of consumer prices for goods and services and the calculation of the consumer price index”, approved by order of the Federal State Statistics Service of December 30, 2014 no. 734. The essence of innovation is the use of mathematical methods in determining the range of studies objects of trade and services, in calculating the sufficient observable price quotes based on price dispersion, the proportion of the observed product (service, a representative of consumer spending, as well as the indicator of the complexity of price registration. The authors analyzed the mathematical calculations of the required number of quotations for observation in the Volgograd region in 2016, the results of calculations are compared with the number of quotes included in the monitoring. The authors believe that the implementation of these mathematical models allowed to substantially reduce the influence of the subjective factor in the organization of monitoring of consumer prices, and therefore to increase the objectivity of the resulting statistics on consumer prices and inflation. At the same time, the proposed methodology needs further improvement in terms of payment for goods, products (services by representatives having a minor share in consumer expenditure.

Marketplace pricing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1991-01-01

As discussed in this chapter, interest in marketplace pricing has been increasing in recent years, reflecting the societal trend toward substituting competition for regulation where appropriate. Competition is valuable because it encourages utilities to make efficient decisions with a minimum of regulatory intervention. It enhances efficiency through the incentive for innovation by the regulated companies and by increasing the likelihood they will come forward with proposals for better services, lower prices or both. Ultimately, consumers are beneficiaries. Marketplace pricing is emblematic of the view that the degree of regulation should reflect the degree of market power, that workably competitive markets should be allowed to operate with as little regulatory interference as possible. The Edison Electric Institute has made perhaps the most detailed proposal on marketplace pricing. It and others perceive numerous benefits from this method of pricing transmission services. Given the undeniable market power resulting from line ownership, FERC has emphasized the need to find a workably competitive market before approving such proposals. The ability to make this distinction without a full-blown antitrust review for every transaction is questionable, and FERC has yet to provide generic guidance. Finally, FERC's legal ability to depart from cost-based standards is questionable

Wireless mobile Internet security

CERN Document Server

Rhee, Man Young

2013-01-01

  The mobile industry for wireless cellular services has grown at a rapid pace over the past decade. Similarly, Internet service technology has also made dramatic growth through the World Wide Web with a wire line infrastructure. Realization for complete wired/wireless mobile Internet technologies will become the future objectives for convergence of these technologies thr

Internet Hospitals in China: Cross-Sectional Survey.

Science.gov (United States)

Xie, Xiaoxu; Zhou, Weimin; Lin, Lingyan; Fan, Si; Lin, Fen; Wang, Long; Guo, Tongjun; Ma, Chuyang; Zhang, Jingkun; He, Yuan; Chen, Yixin

2017-07-04

The Internet hospital, an innovative approach to providing health care, is rapidly developing in China because it has the potential to provide widely accessible outpatient service delivery via Internet technologies. To date, China's Internet hospitals have not been systematically investigated. The aim of this study was to describe the characteristics of China's Internet hospitals, and to assess their health service capacity. We searched Baidu, the popular Chinese search engine, to identify Internet hospitals, using search terms such as "Internet hospital," "web hospital," or "cloud hospital." All Internet hospitals in mainland China were eligible for inclusion if they were officially registered. Our search was carried out until March 31, 2017. We identified 68 Internet hospitals, of which 43 have been put into use and 25 were under construction. Of the 43 established Internet hospitals, 13 (30%) were in the hospital informatization stage, 24 (56%) were in the Web ward stage, and 6 (14%) were in full Internet hospital stage. Patients accessed outpatient service delivery via website (74%, 32/43), app (42%, 18/43), or offline medical consultation facility (37%, 16/43) from the Internet hospital. Furthermore, 25 (58%) of the Internet hospitals asked doctors to deliver health services at a specific Web clinic, whereas 18 (42%) did not. The consulting methods included video chat (60%, 26/43), telephone (19%, 8/43), and graphic message (28%, 12/43); 13 (30%) Internet hospitals cannot be consulted online any more. Only 6 Internet hospitals were included in the coverage of health insurance. The median number of doctors available online was zero (interquartile range [IQR] 0 to 5; max 16,492). The median consultation fee per time was ¥20 (approximately US $2.90, IQR ¥0 to ¥200). Internet hospitals provide convenient outpatient service delivery. However, many of the Internet hospitals are not yet mature and are faced with various issues such as online doctor scarcity and

Webtechnology and internet services at power rail systems of German Railway DB AG; Nutzung von Webtechnologien und Internet-Diensten bei der Energieversorgung der Deutschen Bahn

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Walther, J.T. [DB Energie, Frankfurt am Main (Germany)

2007-07-01

Internet services and the technologies of the World Wide Web are used at power rail systems of German Railway in some processes. Important applications are systems support, service and parametering of substation control- and protection equipment and the monitoring of switches and power transformers. The performance of the security claims of the asset management and the IT-Department are a condition for implementation these technologies. (orig.)

STS pricing policy

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, C. M.; Stone, B.

1982-01-01

In 1977 NASA published Shuttle Reimbursement Policies for Civil U.S. Government, DOD and Commercial and Foreign Users. These policies were based on the principle of total cost recovery over a period of time with a fixed flat price for initial period to time to enhance transition. This fixed period was to be followed with annual adjustments thereafter, NASA is establishing a new price for 1986 and beyond. In order to recover costs, that price must be higher than the initial fixed price through FY 1985. NASA intends to remain competitive. Competitive posture includes not only price, but other factors such as assured launch, reliability, and unique services. NASA's pricing policy considers all these factors.

Internet Banking in Romania at a Glance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Silvia Ghita-Mitrescu

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The development of the information and communication technologies and the changes brought to the business models by introducing the use of internet services in the recent decades could not be ignored by the banking industry. The emergence and the development of the internet banking have raised many questions to both academia and industry representatives, both in terms of the benefits of the new organizational models based on providing financial services online and the degree of penetration of these services at the national economy level. This paper aims to make an analysis of the extent to which the internet banking services are used in Romania. The analysis took into account various criteria for the classification of internet banking users (age, residence, occupational status. The study showed that the use of the internet banking services in Romania is still below the European average but has an upward trend.

Internet Use for Health Information

Science.gov (United States)

... Health Services Utilization > Internet use for Health Information Internet use for Health Information Narrative Due in part ... adults in the United States who use the Internet has increased substantially, from 47 percent in 2000 ...

Environmental prices in the long term; Miljoepriser paa lang sikt

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1997-12-31

Economic analyses may undervalue important long-time environmental impacts of economic activities if the calculated price of the impacts are wrong. This report discusses how one may estimate the future calculated price of some environmental services. The term environmental service denotes something the presence or absence of which has an impact on the environment that can be valued. Thus, puffins, NOx emissions and suspended dust are all environmental services. The calculated price of an environmental service is the price used in socio-economic benefit-cost analyses. A calculation method is proposed and evaluated by application to such diverse environmental services as the stock of puffins, impregnated wood, NOx emissions and suspended dust. None of these services are priced in the market. The proposed method can be used to estimate the future prices of environmental services that are not priced in the market. The most important difficulties experienced with the method have been (1) how to find data for the increase in the supply of environmental services and (2) how to define environmental services in a satisfactory way. 29 refs., 5 figs., 6 tabs.

Reaching out to people struggling with their lives: a discourse analysis of answers from Internet-based services in Norway and Sweden

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andersen AJ

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Anders Johan W Andersen,1 Tommy Svensson21Department of Psychosocial Health, University of Agder, Grimstad, Norway; 2Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, Linköping, SwedenAbstract: The Internet has enlarged the scope of human communication, opening new avenues for connecting with people who are struggling with their lives. This article presents a discourse analysis of 101 responses to 98 questions that were posted on 14 different Internet-based mental health services in Norway and Sweden. We aimed to examine and describe the dominant understandings and favored recommendations in the services’ answers, and we reflected upon the social consequences of those answers. The services generally understood life struggles as an abnormal state of mind, life rhythms, or self-reinforcing loops. Internet-based mental health services primarily counsel service users to seek help, talk to health care professionals face-to-face, and discuss their life struggles openly and honestly. They also urge service users to take better care of themselves and socialize with other people. However, such answers might enhance the individualization of life problems, masking social origin and construction. Consequently, the services are challenged to include social explanations in their answers and strengthen their responsibility to amplify peoples’ messages at a societal level. Potentially, such answers could strengthen democratic structures and put pressure on social equity.Keywords: depression, e-mental health, health psychology, Internet, public health

Exploring the influence of reference situations and reference pricing on mobile service user behaviour

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Blechar, Jennifer; Constantiou, Ioanna; Damsgaard, Jan

2006-01-01

Despite widespread proliferation of mobile devices providing access to a variety of advanced and data-rich services, adoption of those services remains low in most of the Western world. Thus, research related to the acceptance and use of mobile technology and services continues to develop. Tradit...... situations and reference prices. The article suggests that users cognitive referencing is an influential factor that must be considered when exploring their usage behaviour in the mobile services market.......Despite widespread proliferation of mobile devices providing access to a variety of advanced and data-rich services, adoption of those services remains low in most of the Western world. Thus, research related to the acceptance and use of mobile technology and services continues to develop....... Traditional research in this domain has been useful for exploring adoption and use related to individual technologies or novel services. However, our research efforts indicate that users often reflect on former experiences with similar technologies or services when choosing mobile services. This suggests...

75 FR 166 - Postal Product Price Changes

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-04

... POSTAL REGULATORY COMMISSION [Docket No. CP2009-49; Order No. 371] Postal Product Price Changes...-filed Postal Service request to change prices for a Global Plus 2 contract. This notice provides an...: On December 21, 2009, the Postal Service filed a notice that prices for the Global Plus 2 contract at...

Strategic Generation with Conjectured Transmission Price Responses in a Mixed Transmission Pricing System. Part 1. Formulation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hobbs, B.F.; Rijkers, F.A.M.

2004-05-01

The conjectured supply function (CSF) model calculates an oligopolistic equilibrium among competing generating companies (GenCos), presuming that GenCos anticipate that rival firms will react to price increases by expanding their sales at an assumed rate. The CSF model is generalized here to include each generator's conjectures concerning how the price of transmission services (point-to-point service and constrained interfaces) will be affected by the amount of those services that the generator demands. This generalization reflects the market reality that large producers will anticipate that they can favorably affect transmission prices by their actions. The model simulates oligopolistic competition among generators while simultaneously representing a mixed transmission pricing system. This mixed system includes fixed transmission tariffs, congestion-based pricing of physical transmission constraints (represented as a linearized dc load flow), and auctions of interface capacity in a path-based pricing system. Pricing inefficiencies, such as export fees and no credit for counterflows, can be simulated. The model is formulated as a linear mixed complementarity problem, which enables very large market models to be solved. In the second paper of this two-paper series, the capabilities of the model are illustrated with an application to northwest Europe, where transmission pricing is based on such a mixture of approaches

Marketing and pricing strategies of online pharmacies.

Science.gov (United States)

Levaggi, Rosella; Orizio, Grazia; Domenighini, Serena; Bressanelli, Maura; Schulz, Peter J; Zani, Claudia; Caimi, Luigi; Gelatti, Umberto

2009-10-01

Internet and e-commerce have profoundly changed society, the economy, and the world of health care. The web offers opportunities to improve health, but it may also represent a big health hazard since it is a basically unregulated market with very low consumer protection. In this paper we analyze marketing and pricing strategies of online pharmacies (OPs). Our analysis shows that OPs use strategies that would be more suitable for a commodity market than for drugs. These strategies differentiate according to variety (brand or generic), quality, quantity, and target group. OPs are well aware that the vacuum in the legislation allows them to reach a target of consumers that pharmacies cannot normally reach, such as those who would like to use the drug without consulting a physician (or, even worse, against the physician's advice). In this case, they usually charge a higher price, reassure the users by minimizing on the side effects, and induce them to bulk purchase through sensible price discounts. This analysis suggests that the selling of drugs via the Internet can turn into a "public health risk", as has been pointed out by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Preservice Teachers' Internet Addiction in Terms of Gender, Internet Access, Loneliness and Life Satisfaction

Science.gov (United States)

Demirer, Veysel; Bozoglan, Bahadir; Sahin, Ismail

2013-01-01

The aim of this study is to investigate pre-service teachers' Internet addiction in terms of gender, Internet accessibility, loneliness and life satisfaction. Statistical analyses were completed on the data by the 247 preservice teachers that filled the surveys completely. According to findings, pre-service teachers' level of loneliness and…

Trends in Internet Marketing

OpenAIRE

Panchanathan, Nitin

2005-01-01

Internet marketing involves the usage of the Internet to market and sell goods or services. In this thesis we wished to seek answers for the following questions with the help of web, email surveys taking into consideration consumer perspective, company perspective and 3rd party internet marketing agency perspective. Our survey sample was based on a small set of companies, consumers and internet marketing agencies. The survey results helped us in predicting the trends in internet marketing. We...

Coordinating Channels Under Price and Nonprice Competition

OpenAIRE

Ganesh Iyer

1998-01-01

This paper analyzes how manufacturers should coordinate distribution channels when retailers compete in price as well as important nonprice factors such as the provision of product information, free repair, faster check-out, or after-sales service. Differentiation among retailers in price and nonprice service factors is a central feature of markets ranging from automobiles and appliances to gasoline and is especially observed in the coexistence of high-service retailers and lower price discou...

Economic Feasibility of Wireless Sensor Network-Based Service Provision in a Duopoly Setting with a Monopolist Operator.

Science.gov (United States)

Sanchis-Cano, Angel; Romero, Julián; Sacoto-Cabrera, Erwin J; Guijarro, Luis

2017-11-25

We analyze the feasibility of providing Wireless Sensor Network-data-based services in an Internet of Things scenario from an economical point of view. The scenario has two competing service providers with their own private sensor networks, a network operator and final users. The scenario is analyzed as two games using game theory. In the first game, sensors decide to subscribe or not to the network operator to upload the collected sensing-data, based on a utility function related to the mean service time and the price charged by the operator. In the second game, users decide to subscribe or not to the sensor-data-based service of the service providers based on a Logit discrete choice model related to the quality of the data collected and the subscription price. The sinks and users subscription stages are analyzed using population games and discrete choice models, while network operator and service providers pricing stages are analyzed using optimization and Nash equilibrium concepts respectively. The model is shown feasible from an economic point of view for all the actors if there are enough interested final users and opens the possibility of developing more efficient models with different types of services.

Internet Group Management Protocol for IPTV Services in Passive Optical Network

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Eunjo; Park, Sungkwon

We propose a new Internet group management protocol (IGMP) which can be used in passive optical network (PON) especially for IPTV services which dramatically reduces the channel change response time caused by traditional IGMP. In this paper, the newly proposed IGMP is introduced in detail and performance analysis is also included. Simulation results demonstrated the performance of the newly proposed IGMP, whereby, viewers can watch the shared IPTV channels without the channel change response time when channel request reaches a threshold.

Will India set the price for teleradiology?

Science.gov (United States)

McLean, Thomas R

2009-06-01

With a lower cost for labour, Indian teleradiologists have an absolute price advantage in the global market. However, because trade is determined by comparative advantage rather than absolute price advantage, India's ability to export teleradiology services may be limited. The issue is, can the 'India price' for teleradiology set the price for these services in the USA? Review of the economic literature concerning the global teleradiology market. Currently, minimal information exists concerning the economic of global teleradiology market. However, a Ricardian analysis of this market suggests that India's ability to export teleradiology may be limited by rising opportunity costs (i.e. social unrest). Similarly, Heckscher-Ohlin analysis suggests that a lack of English-speaking physicians will limit India's ability to export teleradiology services to the USA. It appears unlikely that India will gain sufficient market share in the USA to determine the price of teleradiology services.

The evolving price of household LED lamps: Recent trends and historical comparisons for the US market

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gerke, Brian F.; Ngo, Allison T.; Alstone, Andrea L.; Fisseha, Kibret S.

2014-10-14

In recent years, household LED light bulbs (LED A lamps) have undergone a dramatic price decline. Since late 2011, we have been collecting data, on a weekly basis, for retail offerings of LED A lamps on the Internet. The resulting data set allows us to track the recent price decline in detail. LED A lamp prices declined roughly exponentially with time in 2011-2014, with decline rates of 28percent to 44percent per year depending on lumen output, and with higher-lumen lamps exhibiting more rapid price declines. By combining the Internet price data with publicly available lamp shipments indices for the US market, it is also possible to correlate LED A lamp prices against cumulative production, yielding an experience curve for LED A lamps. In 2012-2013, LED A lamp prices declined by 20-25percent for each doubling in cumulative shipments. Similar analysis of historical data for other lighting technologies reveals that LED prices have fallen significantly more rapidly with cumulative production than did their technological predecessors, which exhibited a historical decline of 14-15percent per doubling of production.

7 CFR 1005.54 - Equivalent price.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 9 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true Equivalent price. 1005.54 Section 1005.54 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing Agreements... Handling Class Prices § 1005.54 Equivalent price. See § 1000.54. Uniform Prices ...

7 CFR 1126.54 - Equivalent price.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 9 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true Equivalent price. 1126.54 Section 1126.54 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing Agreements... Handling Class Prices § 1126.54 Equivalent price. See § 1000.54. Producer Price Differential ...

7 CFR 1001.54 - Equivalent price.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 9 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true Equivalent price. 1001.54 Section 1001.54 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing Agreements... Handling Class Prices § 1001.54 Equivalent price. See § 1000.54. Producer Price Differential ...

7 CFR 1032.54 - Equivalent price.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 9 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true Equivalent price. 1032.54 Section 1032.54 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing Agreements... Handling Class Prices § 1032.54 Equivalent price. See § 1000.54. Producer Price Differential ...

7 CFR 1033.54 - Equivalent price.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 9 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true Equivalent price. 1033.54 Section 1033.54 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing Agreements... Handling Class Prices § 1033.54 Equivalent price. See § 1000.54. Producer Price Differential ...

7 CFR 1131.54 - Equivalent price.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 9 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true Equivalent price. 1131.54 Section 1131.54 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing Agreements... Handling Class Prices § 1131.54 Equivalent price. See § 1000.54. Uniform Prices ...

7 CFR 1006.54 - Equivalent price.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 9 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true Equivalent price. 1006.54 Section 1006.54 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing Agreements... Handling Class Prices § 1006.54 Equivalent price. See § 1000.54. Uniform Prices ...

7 CFR 1007.54 - Equivalent price.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 9 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true Equivalent price. 1007.54 Section 1007.54 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing Agreements... Handling Class Prices § 1007.54 Equivalent price. See § 1000.54. Uniform Prices ...

The internet trade of counterfeit spirits in Russia - an emerging problem undermining alcohol, public health and youth protection policies?

Science.gov (United States)

Neufeld, Maria; Lachenmeier, Dirk W; Walch, Stephan G; Rehm, Jürgen

2017-01-01

Counterfeit alcohol belongs to the category of unrecorded alcohol not reflected in official statistics. The internet trade of alcoholic beverages has been prohibited by the Russian Federation since 2007, but various sellers still offer counterfeit spirits (i.e., forged brand spirits) over the internet to Russian consumers, mostly in a non-deceptive fashion at prices up to 15 times lower than in regular sale. The public health issues arising from this unregulated trade include potential harm to underage drinkers, hazards due to toxic ingredients such as methanol, but most importantly alcohol harms due to potentially increased drinking volumes due to low prices and high availability on the internet. The internet sale also undermines existing alcohol policies such as restrictions of sale locations, sale times and minimum pricing. The need to enforce measures against counterfeiting of spirits, but specifically their internet trade should be implemented as key elements of alcohol policies to reduce unrecorded alcohol consumption, which is currently about 33 % of total consumption in Russia.

7 CFR 1124.54 - Equivalent price.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 9 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true Equivalent price. 1124.54 Section 1124.54 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing Agreements... Regulating Handling Class Prices § 1124.54 Equivalent price. See § 1000.54. Producer Price Differential ...

Perceptions of the community on the pricing of community mental health services.

Science.gov (United States)

Ogden, J R; Ogden, D T

1992-01-01

In the past few years there has been a decrease in governmental support of Community Mental Health centers. Because of this, there has been some concern, on the part of Community Mental Health professionals, as to the overall impact of this decreased governmental support. Research has been conducted that speculates on how best to handle this mini-crisis. One article suggests moving to an overall marketing approach to help combat this dollar support decline (Day and Ford 1988). Others provide methods for surveying Community Mental Health users (Ludke, Curry & Saywell 1983). William Winston (1988) suggests an overall psychographic segmentation approach to developing market targets. There has also been research detailing promotional methods for expanded marketing coverage (Moldenhauer 1988), however little has been written defining the pricing impact on Community Mental Health services. This study addresses the perceptions of Community Mental Health Center users toward the price variable of the marketing mix.

Options for pricing ancillary services in a deregulated power system

Science.gov (United States)

Yamin, Hatim Yahya

2001-07-01

GENCOs in restructured systems are compensated for selling energy in the market. In a restructured market, a mechanism is required to entice participants in the market to provide ancillary services and to ensure adequate compensation that would guarantee its economic viability. The ISO controls the dispatch of generation, manages the reliability of the transmission grid, provides open access to the transmission, buys and provides ancillary services as required, coordinates day-ahead, hour-ahead schedules and performs real time balancing of load and generation, settles real time imbalances and ancillary services sales and purchases. The ISO, also, administers congestion management protocols for the transmission grid. Since the ISO does not own any generating units it must ensure that there is enough reserves for maintaining reliability according to FERC regulations, and sufficient unloaded generating capacity for balancing services in a real-time market. The ISO could meet these requirements by creating a competitive market for ancillary services, which are metered and remain unbundled to provide an accurate compensation for each supplier and cost to each consumer, In this study, we give an overview for restructuring and ancillary services in a restructured power marketplace. Also, we discuss the effect of GENCOs' actions in the competitive energy and ancillary service markets. In addition, we propose an auction market design for hedging ancillary service costs in California market. Furthermore, we show how to include the n-1 and voltage contingencies in security constrained unit commitment. Finally, we present two approaches for GENCOs' unit commitment in a restructured power market; one is based on game theory and the other is based on market price forecasting. In each of the two GENCOs' unit commitment approaches, we discuss the GENCOs' optimal bidding strategies in energy and ancillary service markets to maximize the GENCOs' profit.

48 CFR 652.216-71 - Price Adjustment.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

...) The contract price may be increased or decreased in actual costs of direct service labor which result...] Government. Direct service labor costs include only the costs of wages and direct benefits (such as social... number] of this contract. Price adjustments will include only changes in direct service labor costs...

Word-of-Mouth in the Context of Internet Mediated Services: the case of Skype

OpenAIRE

Gavronski, Maarja

2007-01-01

Skype is a contemporary innovative business providing Internet mediated services. More importantly Skype is a company, which because of the business model is highly dependent on its users and at the same time has made word-of-mouth integral to the service, as a way of extending the user base. Therefore, the effect of satisfaction on word-of-mouth was examined, as well as the mediating effect of loyalty on the relationship between satisfaction and word-of-mouth. The second part of the research...

Perceived benefits of adopting Standard – Based pricing mechanism for mechanical and electrical services installations

OpenAIRE

Ganiyu Amuda Yusuf; Sarajul Fikri Mohamed

2014-01-01

Cost is an important measure of project success and clients will expect a reliable forecast at the early stage of construction projects to inform their business decision. This study was undertaken to investigate the current practices in managing cost of mechanical and electrical (M&E) services in buildings. The perceptions of practitioners on the benefits of adopting Standard – Based Pricing Mechanism for M&E services as used for building fabrics and finishes was ascertained. The meth...

Towards a dynamic social-network-based approach for service composition in the Internet of Things

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Wen; Hu, Zheng; Gong, Tao; Zhao, Zhengzheng

2011-12-01

The User-Generated Service (UGS) concept allows end-users to create their own services as well as to share and manage the lifecycles of these services. The current development of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) has brought new challenges to the UGS area. Creating smart services in the IoT environment requires a dynamic social network that considers the relationship between people and things. In this paper, we consider the know-how required to best organize exchanges between users and things to enhance service composition. By surveying relevant aspects including service composition technology, social networks and a recommendation system, we present the first concept of our framework to provide recommendations for a dynamic social network-based means to organize UGSs in the IoT.

Time-Aware Service Ranking Prediction in the Internet of Things Environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Yuze; Huang, Jiwei; Cheng, Bo; He, Shuqing; Chen, Junliang

2017-04-27

With the rapid development of the Internet of things (IoT), building IoT systems with high quality of service (QoS) has become an urgent requirement in both academia and industry. During the procedures of building IoT systems, QoS-aware service selection is an important concern, which requires the ranking of a set of functionally similar services according to their QoS values. In reality, however, it is quite expensive and even impractical to evaluate all geographically-dispersed IoT services at a single client to obtain such a ranking. Nevertheless, distributed measurement and ranking aggregation have to deal with the high dynamics of QoS values and the inconsistency of partial rankings. To address these challenges, we propose a time-aware service ranking prediction approach named TSRPred for obtaining the global ranking from the collection of partial rankings. Specifically, a pairwise comparison model is constructed to describe the relationships between different services, where the partial rankings are obtained by time series forecasting on QoS values. The comparisons of IoT services are formulated by random walks, and thus, the global ranking can be obtained by sorting the steady-state probabilities of the underlying Markov chain. Finally, the efficacy of TSRPred is validated by simulation experiments based on large-scale real-world datasets.

Time-Aware Service Ranking Prediction in the Internet of Things Environment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yuze Huang

2017-04-01

Full Text Available With the rapid development of the Internet of things (IoT, building IoT systems with high quality of service (QoS has become an urgent requirement in both academia and industry. During the procedures of building IoT systems, QoS-aware service selection is an important concern, which requires the ranking of a set of functionally similar services according to their QoS values. In reality, however, it is quite expensive and even impractical to evaluate all geographically-dispersed IoT services at a single client to obtain such a ranking. Nevertheless, distributed measurement and ranking aggregation have to deal with the high dynamics of QoS values and the inconsistency of partial rankings. To address these challenges, we propose a time-aware service ranking prediction approach named TSRPred for obtaining the global ranking from the collection of partial rankings. Specifically, a pairwise comparison model is constructed to describe the relationships between different services, where the partial rankings are obtained by time series forecasting on QoS values. The comparisons of IoT services are formulated by random walks, and thus, the global ranking can be obtained by sorting the steady-state probabilities of the underlying Markov chain. Finally, the efficacy of TSRPred is validated by simulation experiments based on large-scale real-world datasets.

Smart City Services over a Future Internet Platform Based on Internet of Things and Cloud: The Smart Parking Case

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jorge Lanza

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Enhancing the effectiveness of city services and assisting on a more sustainable development of cities are two of the crucial drivers of the smart city concept. This paper portrays a field trial that leverages an internet of things (IoT platform intended for bringing value to existing and future smart city infrastructures. The paper highlights how IoT creates the basis permitting integration of current vertical city services into an all-encompassing system, which opens new horizons for the progress of the effectiveness and sustainability of our cities. Additionally, the paper describes a field trial on provisioning of real time data about available parking places both indoor and outdoor. The trial has been carried out at Santander’s (Spain downtown area. The trial takes advantage of both available open data sets as well as of a large-scale IoT infrastructure. The trial is a showcase on how added-value services can be created on top of the proposed architecture.

Distributed Data Service for Data Management in Internet of Things Middleware

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ruben Cruz Huacarpuma

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The development of the Internet of Things (IoT is closely related to a considerable increase in the number and variety of devices connected to the Internet. Sensors have become a regular component of our environment, as well as smart phones and other devices that continuously collect data about our lives even without our intervention. With such connected devices, a broad range of applications has been developed and deployed, including those dealing with massive volumes of data. In this paper, we introduce a Distributed Data Service (DDS to collect and process data for IoT environments. One central goal of this DDS is to enable multiple and distinct IoT middleware systems to share common data services from a loosely-coupled provider. In this context, we propose a new specification of functionalities for a DDS and the conception of the corresponding techniques for collecting, filtering and storing data conveniently and efficiently in this environment. Another contribution is a data aggregation component that is proposed to support efficient real-time data querying. To validate its data collecting and querying functionalities and performance, the proposed DDS is evaluated in two case studies regarding a simulated smart home system, the first case devoted to evaluating data collection and aggregation when the DDS is interacting with the UIoT middleware, and the second aimed at comparing the DDS data collection with this same functionality implemented within the Kaa middleware.

Distributed Data Service for Data Management in Internet of Things Middleware

Science.gov (United States)

Cruz Huacarpuma, Ruben; de Sousa Junior, Rafael Timoteo; de Holanda, Maristela Terto; de Oliveira Albuquerque, Robson; García Villalba, Luis Javier; Kim, Tai-Hoon

2017-01-01

The development of the Internet of Things (IoT) is closely related to a considerable increase in the number and variety of devices connected to the Internet. Sensors have become a regular component of our environment, as well as smart phones and other devices that continuously collect data about our lives even without our intervention. With such connected devices, a broad range of applications has been developed and deployed, including those dealing with massive volumes of data. In this paper, we introduce a Distributed Data Service (DDS) to collect and process data for IoT environments. One central goal of this DDS is to enable multiple and distinct IoT middleware systems to share common data services from a loosely-coupled provider. In this context, we propose a new specification of functionalities for a DDS and the conception of the corresponding techniques for collecting, filtering and storing data conveniently and efficiently in this environment. Another contribution is a data aggregation component that is proposed to support efficient real-time data querying. To validate its data collecting and querying functionalities and performance, the proposed DDS is evaluated in two case studies regarding a simulated smart home system, the first case devoted to evaluating data collection and aggregation when the DDS is interacting with the UIoT middleware, and the second aimed at comparing the DDS data collection with this same functionality implemented within the Kaa middleware. PMID:28448469

Distributed Data Service for Data Management in Internet of Things Middleware.

Science.gov (United States)

Cruz Huacarpuma, Ruben; de Sousa Junior, Rafael Timoteo; de Holanda, Maristela Terto; de Oliveira Albuquerque, Robson; García Villalba, Luis Javier; Kim, Tai-Hoon

2017-04-27

The development of the Internet of Things (IoT) is closely related to a considerable increase in the number and variety of devices connected to the Internet. Sensors have become a regular component of our environment, as well as smart phones and other devices that continuously collect data about our lives even without our intervention. With such connected devices, a broad range of applications has been developed and deployed, including those dealing with massive volumes of data. In this paper, we introduce a Distributed Data Service (DDS) to collect and process data for IoT environments. One central goal of this DDS is to enable multiple and distinct IoT middleware systems to share common data services from a loosely-coupled provider. In this context, we propose a new specification of functionalities for a DDS and the conception of the corresponding techniques for collecting, filtering and storing data conveniently and efficiently in this environment. Another contribution is a data aggregation component that is proposed to support efficient real-time data querying. To validate its data collecting and querying functionalities and performance, the proposed DDS is evaluated in two case studies regarding a simulated smart home system, the first case devoted to evaluating data collection and aggregation when the DDS is interacting with the UIoT middleware, and the second aimed at comparing the DDS data collection with this same functionality implemented within the Kaa middleware.

77 FR 20656 - Postal Service Classification and Price Adjustments

Science.gov (United States)

2012-04-05

... and Price Adjustments AGENCY: Postal Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice. SUMMARY: The Commission is... implement Picture Permit Imprint Indicia as price categories for First-Class Mail and Standard Mail letters and cards pursuant to 39 U.S.C. 3622 and 39 CFR 3010.\\1\\ The classification and price adjustment will...

State energy price and expenditure report, 1995

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1998-08-01

The State Energy Price and Expenditure Report (SEPER) presents energy price and expenditure estimates individually for the 50 States and the District of Columbia and in aggregate for the US. The estimates developed in the State Energy Price and Expenditure Data System (SEPEDS) are provided by energy source and economic sector and are published for the years 1970 through 1995. Data for all years are available on a CD-ROM and via Internet. Consumption estimates used to calculate expenditures and the documentation for those estimates are taken from the State Energy Data Report 1995, Consumption Estimates (SEDR), published in December 1997. Expenditures are calculated by multiplying the price estimates by the consumption estimates, which are adjusted to remove process fuel; intermediate petroleum products; and other consumption that has no direct fuel costs, i.e., hydroelectric, geothermal, wind, solar, and photovoltaic energy sources.

Logistic service providers and sustainable physical distribution

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stef Weijers

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Background: Logistic Service Providers main concern was to ensure reliability for a low price (Christopher, 2005. Dutch Logistic Service Providers still have these two aspects at the top of their list, but also have to take in a new aspect: sustainability. 88% Of the investigated Logistic Service Providers have included sustainability in the company's goals. These Logistic Service Providers have developed different strategies to achieve a higher level of sustainability. This paper presents the results of a study into what Logistic Service Providers say what they are doing, or intend to do, to improve sustainability for their transport services. In this way insight is given in the attitude of Dutch Logistic Service Providers towards sustainability and how they intend to translate this into business practise: internal solutions or new methods incorporating external partners. Methods: Various methods of the investigations were used, among which the analysis of the statements about the sustainabilityon the websites of various companies as well as the questionnaire per Internet. The research covered 50 largest logistics companies operating in the Netherlands and 60 companies that competed for the award "Lean and Green" advertised in the Netherlands. In addition, the Internet survey was answered by 41 companies that belong to the network of our university. Results: The investigation has shown that sustainability is handled by the logistics company as an integral part of the corporate strategy. In contrast, shippers depend in the choice of logistics services primarily on such classical aspects as the reliability or the price and the sustainability play a minor role. Conclusions: Trying to find methods to improve the sustainability, Dutch logistics service providers, in the first place, look for solutions that increase the efficiency and therefore the cost reduction potential. Solutions, which require the involvement of clients, were less often

The internet trade of counterfeit spirits in Russia – an emerging problem undermining alcohol, public health and youth protection policies?

Science.gov (United States)

Neufeld, Maria; Lachenmeier, Dirk W.; Walch, Stephan G.; Rehm, Jürgen

2017-01-01

Counterfeit alcohol belongs to the category of unrecorded alcohol not reflected in official statistics. The internet trade of alcoholic beverages has been prohibited by the Russian Federation since 2007, but various sellers still offer counterfeit spirits (i.e., forged brand spirits) over the internet to Russian consumers, mostly in a non-deceptive fashion at prices up to 15 times lower than in regular sale. The public health issues arising from this unregulated trade include potential harm to underage drinkers, hazards due to toxic ingredients such as methanol, but most importantly alcohol harms due to potentially increased drinking volumes due to low prices and high availability on the internet. The internet sale also undermines existing alcohol policies such as restrictions of sale locations, sale times and minimum pricing. The need to enforce measures against counterfeiting of spirits, but specifically their internet trade should be implemented as key elements of alcohol policies to reduce unrecorded alcohol consumption, which is currently about 33 % of total consumption in Russia. PMID:28663784

Effects of complaint behaviour and service recovery satisfaction on consumer intentions to repurchase on the internet

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bijmolt, Tammo H.A.; Huizingh, Eelko K.R.E.; Krawczyk, Adriana

2014-01-01

Purpose This paper investigates the impact of complaint behaviour and service recovery satisfaction on consumer intentions to repurchase through Internet channels. Design/methodology/approach Using survey data from large consumer samples from 15 European countries, the authors classify consumers

Electronic Journals, the Internet, and Scholarly Communication.

Science.gov (United States)

Kling, Rob; Callahan, Ewa

2003-01-01

Examines the role of the Internet in supporting scholarly communication via electronic journals. Topics include scholarly electronic communication; a typology of electronic journals; models of electronic documents and scholarly communication forums; publication speed; costs; pricing; access and searching; citations; interactivity; archiving and…

Pricing and sales tax collection policies for e-cigarette starter kits and disposable products sold online.

Science.gov (United States)

Cuomo, Raphael E; Miner, Angela; Mackey, Tim K

2015-10-23

Previous studies have examined marketing characteristics of e-cigarettes sold online and others have examined e-cigarettes pricing in retail (non-Internet) settings. This study expands on these findings by examining pricing and marketing characteristics of interest among e-cigarette online vendors. Structured web searches were conducted from August-September 2014 to identify popular e-cigarette Internet vendors. We then collected pricing data (e-cigarette starter kits and disposables), sales tax collection policies and other vendor marketing characteristics. Average price for each product category was then compared with marketing characteristics using linear regression for continuous variables and independent t-tests for binary variables. Our searches yielded 44 e-cigarette Internet vendors of which 77% (n = 34) sold a total of 238 starter kit offerings (Mprice = $55.89). Half (n = 22) sold disposable types of e-cigarettes (Mprice = $7.17 p/e-cigarette) at a price lower than reported elsewhere in retail settings. Average disposable e-cigarette prices were also significantly higher for vendors displaying more health warning notices (P = 0.001). Only 46% disclosed sales tax collection policies and only 39% collected sales tax in their state of business. This study expands on current understanding of e-cigarette pricing and availability online and finds variation in e-cigarette pricing may be influenced by type of product, use of online health warnings and vendor sales tax collection policies. It also finds that e-cigarette online access and availability may be impacted by a combination of pricing and marketing strategies uniquely different from e-cigarette retail settings that requires further study and targeted policy-making. [Cuomo RE, Miner A, Mackey TK. Pricing and sales tax collection policies for e-cigarette starter kits and disposable products sold online. Drug Alcohol Rev 2015]. © 2015 Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and

Energy sector pricing: On the role of neglected nonlinearity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kyrtsou, Catherine; Malliaris, Anastasios G.; Serletis, Apostolos

2009-01-01

Modern economies have been subjected to a number of shocks during the past several years such as the burst of the Internet bubble, terrorist attacks, corporate scandals, the war in Iraq, the uncertainty about energy prices, and the recent subprime mortgage crisis. In particular, during the last few years, the energy shock has caused concerns for potential stagflation for both the United States and numerous other countries. We perform numerous univariate tests for non-linearity and chaotic structure using price data from the energy sector to resolve whether the sector's fundamentals or exogenous shocks drive these prices.

Energy sector pricing: On the role of neglected nonlinearity

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kyrtsou, Catherine [University of Macedonia (Greece); Malliaris, Anastasios G. [Loyola University Chicago (United States); Serletis, Apostolos [University of Calgary (Canada)], E-mail: Serletis@ucalgary.ca

2009-05-15

Modern economies have been subjected to a number of shocks during the past several years such as the burst of the Internet bubble, terrorist attacks, corporate scandals, the war in Iraq, the uncertainty about energy prices, and the recent subprime mortgage crisis. In particular, during the last few years, the energy shock has caused concerns for potential stagflation for both the United States and numerous other countries. We perform numerous univariate tests for non-linearity and chaotic structure using price data from the energy sector to resolve whether the sector's fundamentals or exogenous shocks drive these prices.

Energy sector pricing. On the role of neglected nonlinearity

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kyrtsou, Catherine [University of Macedonia (Greece); Malliaris, Anastasios G. [Loyola University Chicago (United States); Serletis, Apostolos [University of Calgary (Canada)

2009-05-15

Modern economies have been subjected to a number of shocks during the past several years such as the burst of the Internet bubble, terrorist attacks, corporate scandals, the war in Iraq, the uncertainty about energy prices, and the recent subprime mortgage crisis. In particular, during the last few years, the energy shock has caused concerns for potential stagflation for both the United States and numerous other countries. We perform numerous univariate tests for non-linearity and chaotic structure using price data from the energy sector to resolve whether the sector's fundamentals or exogenous shocks drive these prices. (author)

Taking the pulse of Internet pharmacies.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Z; Peterson, R T; Huang, L

2001-01-01

Like most businesses, online pharmacy companies will only be successful if they make sure customers are satisfied with the service they receive. But what attributes of service quality lead to satisfaction and dissatisfaction? This study identified 19 Internet pharmacy service quality dimensions in three categories: (1) product cost and availability, (2) customer service, and (3) the online information system. Our analysis uncovered attributes that tend to determine consumer satisfaction and points out ways to improve overall service quality in the Internet pharmacy arena.

Price and Profit Optimization for Financial Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Catalina Bolancé

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Prospective customers of financial and insurance products can be targeted based on the profit the provider expects to earn from them. We present a model for individual expected profit and two alternatives for calculating optimal personalized prices that maximize the expected profit. For one of these alternatives, we obtain a closed-form expression for the price offered to each prospective customer; for the other, we need to use a numerical approximation. In both approaches, the profits generated by prospective customers are not immediately observed, given that the products sold by these companies have a risk component. We assume that willingness to pay is heterogeneous and apply our methodology using real data from a European insurance company. Our study indicates that a substantial boost in profits can be expected when applying the simplest optimal pricing method proposed.

On the Use of Hedonic Price Indices to Understand Ecosystem Service Provision from Urban Green Space in Five Latin American Megacities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ursula Loret de Mola

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Latin American (LA megacities are facing enormous challenges to provide welfare to millions of people who live in them. High rates of urbanization and limited administrative capacity of LA cities to plan and control urban growth have led to a critical deficit of urban green space, and therefore, to sub-optimal outcomes in terms of urban sustainability. This study seeks to assess the possibility of using real estate prices to provide an estimate of the monetary value of the ecosystem services provided by urban green space across five Latin American megacities: Bogota, Buenos Aires, Lima, Mexico City and Santiago de Chile. Using Google Earth images to quantify urban green space and multiple regression analysis, we evaluated the impact of urban green space, crime rates, business density and population density on real estate prices across the five mentioned megacities. In addition, for a subset of the data (Lima and Buenos Aires we analyzed the effects of landscape ecology variables (green space patch size, connectivity, etc. on real estate prices to provide a first insight into how the ecological attributes of urban green space can determine the level of ecosystem service provision in different urban contexts in Latin America. The results show a strong positive relationship between the presence of urban green space and real estate prices. Green space explains 52% of the variability in real estate prices across the five studied megacities. Population density, business density and crime had only minor impacts on real estate prices. Our analysis of the landscape ecology variables in Lima and Buenos Aires also show that the relationship between green space and price is context-specific, which indicates that further research is needed to better understand when and where ecological attributes of green space affect real estate prices so that managers of urban green space in LA cities can optimize ecological configuration to maximize ecosystem service

A Large Scale Code Resolution Service Network in the Internet of Things

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Haining; Zhang, Hongli; Fang, Binxing; Yu, Xiangzhan

2012-01-01

In the Internet of Things a code resolution service provides a discovery mechanism for a requester to obtain the information resources associated with a particular product code immediately. In large scale application scenarios a code resolution service faces some serious issues involving heterogeneity, big data and data ownership. A code resolution service network is required to address these issues. Firstly, a list of requirements for the network architecture and code resolution services is proposed. Secondly, in order to eliminate code resolution conflicts and code resolution overloads, a code structure is presented to create a uniform namespace for code resolution records. Thirdly, we propose a loosely coupled distributed network consisting of heterogeneous, independent; collaborating code resolution services and a SkipNet based code resolution service named SkipNet-OCRS, which not only inherits DHT's advantages, but also supports administrative control and autonomy. For the external behaviors of SkipNet-OCRS, a novel external behavior mode named QRRA mode is proposed to enhance security and reduce requester complexity. For the internal behaviors of SkipNet-OCRS, an improved query algorithm is proposed to increase query efficiency. It is analyzed that integrating SkipNet-OCRS into our resolution service network can meet our proposed requirements. Finally, simulation experiments verify the excellent performance of SkipNet-OCRS. PMID:23202207

A large scale code resolution service network in the Internet of Things.

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Haining; Zhang, Hongli; Fang, Binxing; Yu, Xiangzhan

2012-11-07

In the Internet of Things a code resolution service provides a discovery mechanism for a requester to obtain the information resources associated with a particular product code immediately. In large scale application scenarios a code resolution service faces some serious issues involving heterogeneity, big data and data ownership. A code resolution service network is required to address these issues. Firstly, a list of requirements for the network architecture and code resolution services is proposed. Secondly, in order to eliminate code resolution conflicts and code resolution overloads, a code structure is presented to create a uniform namespace for code resolution records. Thirdly, we propose a loosely coupled distributed network consisting of heterogeneous, independent; collaborating code resolution services and a SkipNet based code resolution service named SkipNet-OCRS, which not only inherits DHT’s advantages, but also supports administrative control and autonomy. For the external behaviors of SkipNet-OCRS, a novel external behavior mode named QRRA mode is proposed to enhance security and reduce requester complexity. For the internal behaviors of SkipNet-OCRS, an improved query algorithm is proposed to increase query efficiency. It is analyzed that integrating SkipNet-OCRS into our resolution service network can meet our proposed requirements. Finally, simulation experiments verify the excellent performance of SkipNet-OCRS.

Analisis Pengaruh Brand Image, Price Perception, Dan Service Quality Terhadap Customer Loyalty Pada Pelanggan Urban Kitchen

OpenAIRE

Joshua, Timothy Joshua; Haryadi, Eddy

2014-01-01

This study was conducted to determine the influence of Brand Image, Price Perception, and Customer Service Qualityon Customer Loyalty in Urban Kitchen. The questionnaires were distributed to 150 respondents in four locations of Urban Kitchen employing simple random sampling technique. The data obtained were processed and analyzed using the Structural Equation Model (SEM) with LISREL8.72. The results indicate that Brand Image and Service Quality have significant influences on Customer Loyalty,...

Pricing the Services of the Computer Center at the Catholic University of Louvain. Program on Institutional Management in Higher Education.

Science.gov (United States)

Hecquet, Ignace; And Others

Principles are outlined that are used as a basis for the system of pricing the services of the Computer Centre. The system illustrates the use of a management method to secure better utilization of university resources. Departments decide how to use the appropriations granted to them and establish a system of internal prices that reflect the cost…

48 CFR 239.7406 - Cost or pricing data and information other than cost or pricing data.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Cost or pricing data and information other than cost or pricing data. 239.7406 Section 239.7406 Federal Acquisition Regulations System... ACQUISITION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Telecommunications Services 239.7406 Cost or pricing data and...

7 CFR 1030.54 - Equivalent price.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 9 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true Equivalent price. 1030.54 Section 1030.54 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture (Continued) AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Marketing Agreements... Handling Class Prices § 1030.54 Equivalent price. See § 1000.54. ...

Nonlinear Pricing in Markets with Interdependent Demand

OpenAIRE

Shmuel S. Oren; Stephen A. Smith; Robert B. Wilson

1982-01-01

This paper provides a mathematical framework for modeling demand and determining optimal price schedules in markets which have demand externalities and can sustain nonlinear pricing. These fundamental economic concepts appear in the marketplace in the form of mutual buyers' benefits and quantity discounts. The theory addressing these aspects is relevant to a wide variety of goods and services. Examples include tariffs for electronic communications services, pricing of franchises, and royalty ...

Nonlinear Pricing in Energy and Environmental Markets

Science.gov (United States)

Ito, Koichiro

This dissertation consists of three empirical studies on nonlinear pricing in energy and environmental markets. The first investigates how consumers respond to multi-tier nonlinear price schedules for residential electricity. Chapter 2 asks a similar research question for residential water pricing. Finally, I examine the effect of nonlinear financial rewards for energy conservation by applying a regression discontinuity design to a large-scale electricity rebate program that was implemented in California. Economic theory generally assumes that consumers respond to marginal prices when making economic decisions, but this assumption may not hold for complex price schedules. The chapter "Do Consumers Respond to Marginal or Average Price? Evidence from Nonlinear Electricity Pricing" provides empirical evidence that consumers respond to average price rather than marginal price when faced with nonlinear electricity price schedules. Nonlinear price schedules, such as progressive income tax rates and multi-tier electricity prices, complicate economic decisions by creating multiple marginal prices for the same good. Evidence from laboratory experiments suggests that consumers facing such price schedules may respond to average price as a heuristic. I empirically test this prediction using field data by exploiting price variation across a spatial discontinuity in electric utility service areas. The territory border of two electric utilities lies within several city boundaries in southern California. As a result, nearly identical households experience substantially different nonlinear electricity price schedules. Using monthly household-level panel data from 1999 to 2008, I find strong evidence that consumers respond to average price rather than marginal or expected marginal price. I show that even though this sub-optimizing behavior has a minimal impact on individual welfare, it can critically alter the policy implications of nonlinear pricing. The second chapter " How Do

The Influence of Price, Service Quality, and Physical Environment on Customer Satisfaction. Case Study Markobar Cafe Mando

OpenAIRE

Cristo, Mandang; Saerang, David P. E; Worang, Frederik

2017-01-01

The Customer Satisfaction is the extent to which the responds of products or service meet the expectation of buyers. If the performance of the product or service is higher than the expectation of customer, the buyers will be satisfied. There are several factors that influence customer satisfaction such as price, service quality and physical environment. At the beginning of 2016 Markobar café become famous, and now Markobar Café already open some new brach in several cities in Indonesia and al...

Big Brother’s Little Helpers: The Right to Privacy and the Responsibility of Internet Service Providers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yael Ronen

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Following the 2013 revelations on the extent of intelligence gathering through internet service providers, this article concerns the responsibility of internet service providers (ISPs involved in disclosure of personal data to government authorities under the right to privacy, by reference to the developing, non-binding standards applied to businesses under the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework. The article examines the manner in which the Framework applies to ISPs and looks at measures that ISPs can take to fulfil their responsibility to respect the right to privacy. It utilizes the challenges to the right to privacy to discuss some aspects of the extension of human rights responsibilities to corporations. These include the respective roles of government and non-state actors, the extent to which corporations may be required to act proactively in order to protect the privacy of clients, and the relevance of transnational activity.

Internet Usage Habits and Internet Usage in Educational Studies of Vocational School Students

OpenAIRE

Zehra Deniz Yakıncı; Perihan Gürbüz; Gülsüm Yetiş

2018-01-01

Internet is the easiest way to access information. It provides positive contributions to individual and surroundings, in learning and information era. At this point the answers of the questions: ‘How do young people use internet and how much do they use internet for their education?’ come into prominence. In order to find the answers; a questionnaire prepared by resarchers and Young Internet Addiction Test- Short Form (YIAT-SF) was used on ‘Health Services Vocational High School’ students, in...

PERCEIVED RISK, PRICE AND ONLINE TRAVEL AGENCIES: DOES PRICE ALWAYS MATTER?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patricea Elena BERTEA

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The present study analyzes the influence of price level in the case of onlineshopping for travel services. The methodology used is a quasi experimentdeveloped in the online environment. The analysis is made within groups andfollows three scenarios which depend on the level of brand awareness.Inside each scenario price takes two levels: similar to competition andsmaller than competition. Results show that price does not have an influenceon all types of perceived risk and that its influence depends also on the brandawareness component.

THE INFLUENCE OF PRICE AND SERVICE QUALITY OF BRAND IMAGE AND ITS IMPACT ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION GOJEK (STUDENTS STUDY ON A STATE UNIVERSITY OF JAKARTA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammad Rizan

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the research are to: test empirically influence of price to brand image on customer satisfaction Gojek, test empirically influence of service quality to brand image on customer satisfaction Gojek, test empirically influence of price on customer satisfaction Gojek, test empirically influence of service quality on customer satisfaction Gojek, test empirically influence of brand image on customer satisfaction Gojek. This study used confirmatory factor analysis. The research was conducted in State University of Jakarta and used purposive sampling techniques, while the data collecting technique used questionaire, SPSS and SEM LISREL for data processing. The result shows a significant influence of price and service quality for brand image and its impact on customer satisfaction.

Effect of management, marketing, and certified health programs on the sale price of beef calves sold through a livestock video auction service from 1995 through 2009.

Science.gov (United States)

Seeger, Jon T; King, Michael E; Grotelueschen, Dale M; Rogers, Glenn M; Stokka, Gerald S

2011-08-15

To evaluate and update the previously quantified effects of management, marketing, and certified health programs on the sale price of beef calves sold through a livestock video auction service. Longitudinal study. 41,657 lots representing 5,042,272 beef calves sold from 1995 through 2009. Data describing each lot of beef calves marketed from 1995 through 2009 by a livestock video auction service were obtained from sale catalogues. For each year of the study, multiple regression analysis was used to quantify the effect of management, marketing, and certified health programs on sale price. Sale date, base sale weight, quadratic effect of base weight, sex of calf, region of origin, breed description, inclusion in a certified health program, and number of calves in the lot significantly affected sale price for every year of the study. Variation in body weight, flesh score, and number of days between sale and delivery date had significant effects on price in most of the years; frame score and calves with horns affected price in 7 of 15 years; age and source verification influenced sale price in every year since source verification was introduced in 2005; and the auction service's progressive genetics program increased price during the 1 year that program was available. Some management, marketing, and certified health initiatives have consistently increased the sale price of beef calves, and producers can increase the price of their calves by implementing these practices.

Internet cigarette vendors make tax-free claims and sell cigarettes cheaper than retail outlets.

Science.gov (United States)

Hall, Marissa G; Williams, Rebecca S; Gammon, Doris G; Ribisl, Kurt M

2016-11-01

This paper aims to (1) assess whether promotion of tax-free sales among Internet cigarette vendors (ICVs) changed between 2009 and 2011, (2) determine which types of ICVs are most likely to promote tax-free sales (eg, US-based, international or mixed location ICVs), and (3) compare the price of cigarettes advertised in ICVs to prices at brick-and-mortar retail outlets. We analysed data from the 200 most popular ICVs in 2009, 2010 and 2011 to assess promotion of tax-free sales and the price of Marlboro cigarette cartons. We used Nielsen scanner data from 2009, 2010 and 2011 to measure the price of Marlboro cartons in US grocery stores. The odds of ICVs claiming tax-free status were higher in 2011 than in 2009 (OR=1.58, ponline, compared to $52.73 in US grocery stores. We estimated that in 2011, a pack-a-day smoker living in an area with high cigarette prices would save $1508 per year buying cigarettes online. ICVs commonly promote tax-free sales, and cigarettes are cheaper online compared to US grocery stores. Better enforcement of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act is needed to address tax-free cigarette sales among ICVs. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

78 FR 29785 - Priority Mail Pricing

Science.gov (United States)

2013-05-21

... POSTAL REGULATORY COMMISSION [Docket No. R2013-7; Order No. 1714] Priority Mail Pricing AGENCY: Postal Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice. SUMMARY: The Commission is noticing a recently-filed Postal... that after the price change, the unused pricing authority available for the Special Services class will...

Frequency Based Real-time Pricing for Residential Prosumers

Science.gov (United States)

Hambridge, Sarah Mabel

This work is the first to explore frequency based pricing for secondary frequency control as a price-reactive control mechanism for residential prosumers. A frequency based real-time electricity rate is designed as an autonomous market control mechanism for residential prosumers to provide frequency support as an ancillary service. In addition, prosumers are empowered to participate in dynamic energy transactions, therefore integrating Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), and increasing distributed energy storage onto the distributed grid. As the grid transitions towards DERs, a new market based control system will take the place of the legacy distributed system and possibly the legacy bulk power system. DERs provide many benefits such as energy independence, clean generation, efficiency, and reliability to prosumers during blackouts. However, the variable nature of renewable energy and current lack of installed energy storage on the grid will create imbalances in supply and demand as uptake increases, affecting the grid frequency and system operation. Through a frequency-based electricity rate, prosumers will be encouraged to purchase energy storage systems (ESS) to offset their neighbor's distributed generation (DG) such as solar. Chapter 1 explains the deregulation of the power system and move towards Distributed System Operators (DSOs), as prosumers become owners of microgrids and energy cells connected to the distributed system. Dynamic pricing has been proposed as a benefit to prosumers, giving them the ability to make decisions in the energy market, while also providing a way to influence and control their behavior. Frequency based real-time pricing is a type of dynamic pricing which falls between price-reactive control and transactive control. Prosumer-to-prosumer transactions may take the place of prosumer-to-utility transactions, building The Energy Internet. Frequency based pricing could be a mechanism for determining prosumer prices and supporting

Consumption of Advanced Internet Services in the Enterprises Sector: the Spread of Telework in the Metropolitan Area of Madrid

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

José Carlos MACÍA ARCE

2012-06-01

Full Text Available One of the pillars of the technological revolution that began in the seventies was the development of the Internet. This network has evolved in such a way that it now forms a complex structure that radically changed the social and economic dynamics at the end of century XX. Nowadays, new technologies allow anything from communication and information exchange to the realization of complex financial transactions, all from anywhere in the world and almost instantaneously. In spite of the widespread use of the Internet, there are still territories and inhabitants, mostly emplaced in remote rural areas, who live outside of this technological revolution. By contrast, urban areas enjoy a privileged position in the dissemination of the information society by concentrating most of the telecommunications infrastructure and monopolize the most qualified people. But there are many disparities in terms of diffusion of new technologies and these will transfer, in turn, to the enterprise sector which is the subject of this research. The differences in the use of new technologies and more specifically the use of advanced services on the Internet are related to the sector where the population is employed and its level of training. One of the advanced services offered by the Network is teleworking. Nowadays there are companies that offer their employees the opportunity to develop their professional activities outside their headquarters, using their homes as an alternative or call centers enabled with computers and Internet access. The purpose of this research is the study of the consumption of Internet advanced services by companies in the metropolitan area of Madrid, analyzing the spread of telework in more detail,a potential offered by new technologies and which may modify the current pattern of mobility in the main urban areas because it is from here where big companies are guiding the global economy.

Transfer pricing as tax avoidance under different legislative schemes

OpenAIRE

Holzmann, Carolin Maria

2016-01-01

This paper investigates transfer pricing as tax avoidance before and after reforms of anti-avoidance legislation. The reforms introduced and tightened obligatory documentation requirements for transfer prices to enforce that multinational enterprises (MNEs) set internal transfer prices at an arm’s-length. Linking data from the Microdatabase Statistics on International Trade in Services that comprehends prices of MNEs’ international service transactions to the Microdatabase Direct Investment, ...

Ensuring Freedoms and Protecting Rights in the Governance of the Internet: A Comparative Analysis on Blocking Measures and Internet Providers’ Removal of Illegal Internet Content

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katalin Parti

2013-02-01

Full Text Available Removing illegal or harmful material from the internet has been pursued for more than two decades. The advent of Web 2.0, with the prominent increase and diffusion of user-generated content, amplifies the necessity for technical and legal frameworks enabling the removal of illegal material from the network. This study deals with different levels and methods of Internet ‘cleansing’ measures, comparing government regulated and Internet service provider based removals of illegal Internet content. The paper aims at putting the regulatory option of internet blocking measures into the broader perspective of the legal framework regulating the (exemption from liability of Intermediary Service Providers (ISPs for user-generated contents. In addition, the paper suggests proposals on which regulatory options can better ensure the respect of freedoms and the protection of rights. The paper introduces several significant cases of blocking online copyright infringing materials. Copyright related blocking techniques have been devised for business reasons – by copyright holders’ associations. It must be recalled, however, that these blocking actions cannot be enforced without the states’ intervention. These business-level actions become isolated if they are not supported by both the European Union and its Member States. Conversely, state-centred initiatives cannot work out without the private sector’s cooperation. Internet service providers play a crucial role in this cooperative framework because of their task of providing access to the Internet and hosting web contents.

Interest in internet lung cancer support among rural cardiothoracic patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Quin, Jacquelyn; Stams, Victor; Phelps, Beth; Boley, Theresa; Hazelrigg, Stephen

2010-05-01

The Internet may provide an alternative option for rural lung cancer patients who lack access to on-site cancer support; however, Internet access and use among rural patients is unknown. An anonymous waiting-room survey was administered to all outpatient cardiothoracic surgery patients over 3 mo. Survey questions included age, gender, and diagnosis, possession of a home computer and Internet service, estimated Internet use, and use of the Internet for health information. Patients with known or suspected lung cancer were asked to indicate their interest in on-site and Internet cancer support. There were 597 returned surveys (response rate 96%). The mean age was 64.6 y (SE 0.55), and 58% were men. Diagnoses included known or possible lung cancer (15.4%), lung disease (9.5%), heart disease (30.4%), other diagnoses (13.9%), and undetermined (30.6%). There were 343 patients (57.4%) with a home computer and 299 (50.1%) with home Internet service. Average Internet use was 8.5 h per wk (n = 298), and 225 patients used the Internet for health information. Of the 92 patients with lung cancer, 10 indicated interest in on-site support services while 37 expressed interest in Internet-based support. Based on survey results, a slight majority of rural patients have a home computer and Internet access. Internet use for health information appears relatively common. Overall interest for support services among lung cancer patients appears modest with a greater interest in Internet-based services compared with on-site support. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Analisa Pengaruh Price Service Quality, Dan Corporate Image Terhadap Customer Loyalty Dengan Customer Satisfaction Sebagai Variabel Intervening Konsumen Ipo Korean Cafe Dan Restaurant Suarabaya

OpenAIRE

Sia, Florencia Tjandra

2013-01-01

Ipo Korean Cafe dan Restaurant tergolong dalam bisnis restoran yang masih baru di pasar, sehingga perlu untuk mengatur price, service quality, dan corporate image yang tepat agar dapat memberikan kepuasan bagi konsumennya dan pada akhirnya membentuk loyalitas.Penelitian dilakukan dengan membagikan kuisioner kepada 200 responden dengan perhitungan Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Hasil penelitian menunjukan bahwa service quality, corporate image dan price berpengaruh signifikan dan positif...

Explaining the acceptance and use of government Internet services: a multivariate analysis of 2006 survey data in the Netherlands

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Dijk, Johannes A.G.M.; Peters, O.; Ebbers, Wolfgang E.

2008-01-01

In this article, an attempt is made to explain the descriptive data of a large-scale representative survey of the use of government Internet services by the Dutch population in 2006 by means of a multidisciplinary model of technology acceptance and use that is applied to these services. Ultimately,

Pricing strategies of the supermarket sector

OpenAIRE

Leal, Joana Lobato da Fonseca Sáragga

2014-01-01

The food retail industry is a very competitive market. Supermarkets use a combination of price, quality of products and service to lure consumers and increase their profit. This work project draws upon both empirical and theoretical literatures to understand the different pricing strategies that the supermarket sector uses. Everyday Low Price, Promotional, Zone Pricing and Loyalty Programs are the most common pricing strategies in this industry. By using data from the Portuguese supermarket l...

Do We Really Have an Internet Problem? Statistics, Credibility and Issues Concerning Public Internet Access in Academic Libraries.

Science.gov (United States)

Cubbage, Charlotte

2002-01-01

Discusses problems with patron Internet access in academic libraries and describes a study conducted at Northwestern University (Illinois) that used Internet tracking software to assess user Internet behavior. Topics include Internet use policies; pornography; and loss of control over library services and information content that is provided. (LRW)

Pricing Strategies for CD-ROM Products.

Science.gov (United States)

Rowley, J. E.

1994-01-01

Pricing strategies for subscriptions and licenses for CD-ROMs are different for single users and networks. The basic components of pricing strategies are charges for subscription, connect line, display/print, telecommunication, session rate, special commands, and special services. Highlights selected supplier pricing strategies for single users…

Measurement on Usage of the Internet Banking in Colombia

OpenAIRE

Fredy ECS; Torres JMS

2015-01-01

Internet Banking is a set of financial services through internet platforms. Its measure is oriented towards infrastructures more than users. For such a reason, it is required to understand the needs of strengthening measurements in Internet Banking uses. In Colombia, there were no studies identified in measurement of Internet Banking most used service and motivating factors for such uses. Therefore, the purpose of this study herein is to present the results on the measurements of Internet Ban...

Enhancing the use of internet banking in an emerging market

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jacques Nel

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Electronic banking services such as internet banking offer bank clients substantial benefits over traditional banking channels. Although internet banking has been around for many years, increasing the use of the service by bank clients remains a priority for many managers of internet banking services. To address this managerial concern, the study investigates the factors that contribute to the enhanced use of internet banking by bank clients. Based on a literature review, internet-banking factors that could influence bank clients’ actual use of internet banking were identified. Data were collected from 1 156 users of internet banking. The results of the study showed that two factors influence internet banking usage, namely internet banking facilitating conditions and internet banking risk beliefs. The more favourable internet banking facilitating conditions are perceived to be, the more likely bank clients are to increase their use of internet banking. On the other hand, the greater the perceived risks associated with internet banking, the less the chances are that clients will do their banking through the internet. On the basis of these results, recommendations are provided to enhance the use of internet banking.

Review on Research and Practice of TV-Internet Service%电视上网服务实践与研究综述

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

陈越; 赵欣艳

2012-01-01

This paper first defines the TV-Internet service, and then summarizes the factors that influence consumer adoption of TV-Internet service based on literature review. Four factors are obtained: the TV-Internet service factor, the consumer factor, the perceived service factor and the environment factor. This paper points out that consumer adoption should be paid more attention to in the further research, for the consumer is the foundation of TV-Internet service. A clarification of consumer adoption can provide the guideline and guarantee for sustainable and healthy development of the service.%首先给出电视上网服务的明确界定，接着通过文献研究，将影响消费者采纳电视上网服务的因素归类。最终，将上述因素归为四类：服务本身特征的影响、消费者自身特征的影响、消费者感知服务特征的影响、外界环境因素的影响。本文认为消费者是电视上网服务发展的基础，未来应注重消费者采纳相关的研究，明确影响消费者采纳的影响因素将为电视上网服务的健康持续发展提供指导和保障。

The Internet Erlang Formula

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Iversen, Villy Bæk

2012-01-01

This paper presents a robust and efficient algorithm for evaluating multi-service multi-rate queueing systems, including finite buffer systems and loss systems. Vint Cerf listed in 2007 seven research problems concerning the Internet. This paper responds to the second problem: an Internet Erlang...

Real Time Pricing as a Default or Optional Service for C&ICustomers: A Comparative Analysis of Eight Case Studies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Barbose, Galen; Goldman, Charles; Bharvirkar, Ranjit; Hopper,Nicole; Ting, Michael; Neenan, Bernie

2005-08-01

Demand response (DR) has been broadly recognized to be an integral component of well-functioning electricity markets, although currently underdeveloped in most regions. Among the various initiatives undertaken to remedy this deficiency, public utility commissions (PUC) and utilities have considered implementing dynamic pricing tariffs, such as real-time pricing (RTP), and other retail pricing mechanisms that communicate an incentive for electricity consumers to reduce their usage during periods of high generation supply costs or system reliability contingencies. Efforts to introduce DR into retail electricity markets confront a range of basic policy issues. First, a fundamental issue in any market context is how to organize the process for developing and implementing DR mechanisms in a manner that facilitates productive participation by affected stakeholder groups. Second, in regions with retail choice, policymakers and stakeholders face the threshold question of whether it is appropriate for utilities to offer a range of dynamic pricing tariffs and DR programs, or just ''plain vanilla'' default service. Although positions on this issue may be based primarily on principle, two empirical questions may have some bearing--namely, what level of price response can be expected through the competitive retail market, and whether establishing RTP as the default service is likely to result in an appreciable level of DR? Third, if utilities are to have a direct role in developing DR, what types of retail pricing mechanisms are most appropriate and likely to have the desired policy impact (e.g., RTP, other dynamic pricing options, DR programs, or some combination)? Given a decision to develop utility RTP tariffs, three basic implementation issues require attention. First, should it be a default or optional tariff, and for which customer classes? Second, what types of tariff design is most appropriate, given prevailing policy objectives, wholesale market

Internet dalam Konteks Perpustakaan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roni Rodhin

2017-02-01

Full Text Available The presence of internet would bring a variaty of effects in all areas of human life. The impac of bias could be both a positive and negative. On the other side for libraries it would bring a disparate impact, engaged  in the service and information. In the contect of libraries, the internet is very helpfull to disseminate information that is available in it. It means internet becomes a partner in the dissemination of information. Therefore, the existence of internet is very important for the library.

Price and Service Competition of Dual-Channel Supply Chain with Consumer Returns

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lili Ren

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Products returned by consumers are common in the retail industry and result in additional costs to both the manufacturer and the retailer. This paper proposes dual-channel supply chain models involving consumer returns policies. Also, the price and service competition between retail channel and direct channel is considered in the models. According to the models, we analyze the optimal decisions in both centralized and decentralized scenarios. Then we design a new contract, coordinate the dual-channel supply chain, and enable both the retailer and the manufacturer to be a win-win.

Internet applications in radiation safety

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hill, P.; Geisse, C.; Wuest, E.

1998-01-01

As a means of effective communication the Internet is presently becoming more and more important in German speaking countries, too. Its possibilities to exchange and to obtain information efficiently and rapidly are excellent. Internet and email access are available now in most institutions for professional use. Internet services of importance to radiation safety professionals are described. (orig.) [de

Did the expiration of retail price caps affect prices in the restructured Texas electricity market?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kang, Linhong; Zarnikau, Jay

2009-01-01

On January 1, 2007, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) market became the first restructured market in the US to completely remove caps on the prices which could be charged to residential energy consumers by the retailers associated with the traditional or incumbent utility service providers. Our analysis suggests that the expiration of the price-to-beat (PTB) price caps may have led to a reduction in the average prices charged by competitive retail electric providers (REPs). (author)

Does Online Investor Sentiment Affect the Asset Price Movement? Evidence from the Chinese Stock Market

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Chi Xie

2017-01-01

Full Text Available With the quick development of the Internet, online platforms that provide financial news and opinions have attracted more and more attention from investors. The question whether investor sentiment expressed on the Internet platforms has an impact on asset return has not been fully addressed. To this end, this paper uses the Baidu Searching Index as the agent variable to detect the effect of online investor sentiment on the asset price movement in the Chinese stock market. The empirical study shows that although there is a cointegration relationship between online investor sentiment and asset return, the sentiment has a poor ability to predict the price, return, and volatility of asset price. Meanwhile, the structural break points of online investor sentiment do not lead to changes in the asset price movement. Based on the empirical mode decomposition of online investor sentiment, we find that high frequency components of online investor sentiment can be used to predict the asset price movement. Thus, the obtained results could be useful for risk supervision and asset portfolio management.

Price Transparency in the Online Age.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaplan, Jonathan L; Mills, Parker H

2016-05-01

Plastic surgeons are sometimes hesitant to provide their pricing information online, due to several concerns. However, if implemented right, price transparency can be used as a lead generation tool that provides consumers with the pricing information they want and gives the physician the consumer's contact information for follow-up. This study took place during the author's first year in private practice in a new city. An interactive price transparency platform (ie, cost estimator) was integrated into his website, allowing consumers to submit a "wishlist" of procedures to check pricing on these procedures of interest. However, the consumer must submit their contact information to receive the desired breakdown of costs that are tailored based on the author's medical fees. During that first year, without any advertising expenditure, the author's website received 412 wishlists from 208 unique consumers. Consumers (17.8%) that submitted a wishlist came in for a consultation and 62% of those booked a procedure. The average value of a booked procedure was over US $4000 and cumulatively, all of the leads from this one lead source in that first year generated over US $92,000 in revenue. When compared with non-price-aware patients, price-aware patients were 41% more likely to book a procedure. Price transparency led to greater efficiency and reduced consultations that ended in "sticker shock." When prudently integrated into a medical practice, price transparency can be a great lead generation source for patients that are (1) paying out of pocket for medically necessary services due to a high-deductible health plan or (2) paying for services not typically covered by insurance, such as cosmetic services.

A Large Scale Code Resolution Service Network in the Internet of Things

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Xiangzhan Yu

2012-11-01

Full Text Available In the Internet of Things a code resolution service provides a discovery mechanism for a requester to obtain the information resources associated with a particular product code immediately. In large scale application scenarios a code resolution service faces some serious issues involving heterogeneity, big data and data ownership. A code resolution service network is required to address these issues. Firstly, a list of requirements for the network architecture and code resolution services is proposed. Secondly, in order to eliminate code resolution conflicts and code resolution overloads, a code structure is presented to create a uniform namespace for code resolution records. Thirdly, we propose a loosely coupled distributed network consisting of heterogeneous, independent; collaborating code resolution services and a SkipNet based code resolution service named SkipNet-OCRS, which not only inherits DHT’s advantages, but also supports administrative control and autonomy. For the external behaviors of SkipNet-OCRS, a novel external behavior mode named QRRA mode is proposed to enhance security and reduce requester complexity. For the internal behaviors of SkipNet-OCRS, an improved query algorithm is proposed to increase query efficiency. It is analyzed that integrating SkipNet-OCRS into our resolution service network can meet our proposed requirements. Finally, simulation experiments verify the excellent performance of SkipNet-OCRS.

Internet 2 - WWW: Where, When and Why?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adi Armoni

2001-01-01

Full Text Available After the World Wide Web and other great inventions of the academic world, comes Internet 2. The new Inter-University project is rapidly evolving into a powerful consortium. 181 universities, 60 American companies and a few dozen international institutions are collaborating to create the communications technologies of the future. Their main focus is to rid themselves of the terrible congestion that exemplifies the Internet and create a new fast multimedia connection between research institutions. They promise that all this will be done far from the intrusion of the private market, a market that, according to the four fathers of Internet 2, "stifles creativity".The foundations of Internet 2 are comprised of two main technological notions. The first is the Gigapop, which is a regional network's interconnection point to the new Internet 2 cutting edge services. Some types of Gigapops are being constructed so that Internet 2 members can connect solely to Internet 2 services, while other Gigapops are being constructed to connect non Internet 2 members to various other services, such as the old Internet (a.k.a. the commodity Internet or Internet 1.The second technological notion is QoS, which stands for Quality of Services and is a new method of sending information around more efficiently. The basis of QoS is to create priorities for the information sent. In this way crucial medical information will have priority when compared to chess game simulations.The implementation of these two notions, together with other innovative technologies, requires a vast amount of funding, which is partly private but mainly governmental. The methods discussed here for budgeting and funding of institutions for the Internet 2 project are interesting and are a main force in the shaping of Internet 2. Moreover, they will also influence important infrastructure and technical decisions yet to be made, such as routing methods, protocols and speeds that will shape and mold I2

Online vs. On-Campus: An Analysis of Course Prices of U.S. Educational Institutions

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Shouhong

2015-01-01

Pricing online courses is an important issue for managing online education. This research note reports a statistical analysis of price differences between online courses and on-campus courses at 103 US educational institutions based on the data available on the Internet. The finding indicates that educational institutions set significantly lower…

Energy Price Comparisons. Study on the quality of comparison sites for electricity and natural gas on the Internet; Energieprijsvergelijkers. Onderzoek naar de kwaliteit van vergelijkingssites voor elektriciteit en gas op het internet

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Boezaard, P.M.; Van Liere, M.M.; Van Steenpaal, D.F.J.M.

2007-06-15

Internet sites with comparisons of prices for electricity and natural gas appear to be important tools for consumers. On a regular basis the Dutch Office of Energy Regulation (DTe) carries out a study on the quality of such price comparison sites. In this report the results of the June 2007 study are summarized. [Dutch] Voor een goedwerkende markt is een goed geinformeerde consument van belang. Uit de Consumentenmonitor, kwalitatief onderzoek dat de NMa in 2006 heeft laten uitvoeren, is gebleken dat de consument bij een overstap vaak gebruik maakt van prijsvergelijkingssites. Het belang van dergelijke sites neemt alleen maar toe. Door een grotere differentiatie aan producten en meer variatie in prijsstelling wordt een goede vergelijking van energieleveranciers voor de gemiddelde consument steeds lastiger. Ook voor de prijsvergelijkingssites neemt de complexiteit toe. De Directie Toezicht Energie (DTe) van de Nederlandse Mededingingsautoriteit (NMa) onderzoekt sinds 2004 jaarlijks de kwaliteit van (prijs)vergelijkingssites voor elektriciteit en gas. Gezien de groeiende complexiteit van de prijsvergelijkingen is het van belang dat de NMa dit onderzoek ook in 2007 uitvoert. In dit rapport worden de resultaten van dit jaar gepresenteerd. Daarnaast heeft de NMa voor het eerst een handleiding met tips voor de consument als bijlage bij dit rapport opgenomen.

Patient's experience with blended video- and internet based cognitive behavioural therapy service in routine care

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anne Etzelmueller

2018-06-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Internet-based guided self-help and face-to-face CBT have shown to be effective in the treatment of depression, but both approaches might not be an available treatment option for all patients. A treatment which blends internet-based guided self-help with video-based psychotherapy might reduce potential disadvantages of both approaches, while maintaining major advantages such as being location-independent. Additionally, it could provide a stronger focus on patient empowerment and lower resource use compared to traditional face-to-face treatment. Aim: The aim of this study is to evaluate patient's experiences with blended internet- and video-based CBT (blended iCBT treatment and to derive suggestions for the improvement of such services. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 participants of the blended iCBT treatment as part of the European MasterMind trial. Participants included adults suffering from Major Depressive Disorder. The interview guide assessed patient's experiences regarding the four treatment components program, 1. face-to-face diagnostic interviews, 2. video-based synchronous therapy sessions (VTS, 3. online self-help treatment modules (OTM as well as 4. behaviour diaries and symptom monitoring. Interviews were analyzed using the framework method and outcomes regarding connections within and between participants and categories were generated by counting the statements within relevant themes. Results: Overall, patients indicated to have been satisfied with all components of the treatment, highlighting the option to independently work from home in their own pace. While the OTMs allowed for a deeper reflection of the content, the VTS with the therapist were mentioned to provide the personal character of the service. The working alliance with the therapist was experienced as fostering the individual fit of the treatment. Patients reported a high self-perceived treatment effectiveness. Negative effects

Customer Perception On Products Pricing Service Quality Towards Customers Quality Relationships And Loyalty Of Domestic Airlines Indonesia

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Hasniaty

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Aviation services industry is an important industry that holds Indonesia. Indonesia has approximately 17 thousand islands scattered with a long coastline over 5000 kilometers. Air transport is an essential component for connecting approximately 250 million people with a population growth of 1.49 percent annually. Air transport services become business areas that are needed by todays modern society. This study aims to quantify the relationship between customer perceptions on the concept or product price service quality and relationship quality on customer loyalty of domestic airline in Indonesia. This study took a sample of 300 respondents. The data analyzed using SEM Structural Equation Modeling. The results of this study is theoretical findings suggests that the product has a significant positive effect on trust customer satisfaction and loyalty but positive effect is insignificant on commitment. The price has significant positive effect on trust commitment satisfaction but positive effect is insignificant on loyalty. Service quality has a significant positive effect on trust commitment satisfaction but positive effect is insignificant on loyalty. Trust has significant positive effect on satisfaction and loyalty. Commitment has significant positive effect on loyalty but positive effect is insignificant on loyalty. Satisfaction has significant positive effect on satisfaction and loyalty.

A fuzzy multi-objective model for capacity allocation and pricing policy of provider in data communication service with different QoS levels

Science.gov (United States)

Pan, Wei; Wang, Xianjia; Zhong, Yong-guang; Yu, Lean; Jie, Cao; Ran, Lun; Qiao, Han; Wang, Shouyang; Xu, Xianhao

2012-06-01

Data communication service has an important influence on e-commerce. The key challenge for the users is, ultimately, to select a suitable provider. However, in this article, we do not focus on this aspect but the viewpoint and decision-making of providers for order allocation and pricing policy when orders exceed service capacity. It is a multiple criteria decision-making problem such as profit and cancellation ratio. Meanwhile, we know realistic situations in which much of the input information is uncertain. Thus, it becomes very complex in a real-life environment. In this situation, fuzzy sets theory is the best tool for solving this problem. Our fuzzy model is formulated in such a way as to simultaneously consider the imprecision of information, price sensitive demand, stochastic variables, cancellation fee and the general membership function. For solving the problem, a new fuzzy programming is developed. Finally, a numerical example is presented to illustrate the proposed method. The results show that it is effective for determining the suitable order set and pricing policy of provider in data communication service with different quality of service (QoS) levels.

An Assessment of Mobile Device Internet Services on Customer Perceived Value and Loyalty