Query: Pricing Strategies for Information Technology Services: A Value-Based Approach

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Availability : A Heuristic for Judging Frequency and Probability 122 <=SEP=> This paper explores a judgmental heuristic in which a person evaluates the frequency of classes or the probability of events by availability, i.e., by the ease with which relevant instances come to mind. In general, availability is correlated with ecological frequency, but it is also affected by other factors. Consequently, the reliance on the availability heuristic leads to systematic biases. Such biases are demonstrated in the judged frequency of classes of words, of combinatorial outcomes, and of repeated events. The phenomenon of illusory correlation is explained as an availability bias. The effects of the availability of incidents and scenarios on subjective probability are discussed.

Towards value-based pricing — An integrative framework for decision making <=SEP=> Despite a recent surge of interest, the subject of pricing in general and value-based pricing in particular has received little academic investigation. Yet, pricing has a huge impact on financial results, both in absolute terms and relative to other instruments of the marketing mix. The objective of this paper is to present a comprehensive framework for pricing decisions which considers all relevant dimensions and elements for profitable and sustainable pricing decisions. The theoretical framework is useful for guiding new product pricing decisions as well as for implementing price-repositioning strategies for existing products. The practical application of this framework is illustrated by a case study involving the pricing decision for a major product launch at a global chemical company. D 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Software Engineering Economics <=SEP=> This paper summarizes the current state of the art and recent trends in software engineering economics. It provides an overview of economic analysis techniques and their applicability to software engineering and management. It surveys the field of software cost estimation, including the major estimation techniques available, the state of the art in algorithmic cost models, and the outstanding research issues in software cost estimation.

Subjective Probability : A Judgment of Representativeness <=SEP=> This paper explores a heuristic-representativeness-according to which the subjective probability of an event, or a sample, is determined by the degree to which it: (i) is similar in essential characteristics to its parent population; and (ii) reflects the salient features of the process by which it is generated. This heuristic is explicated in a series of empirical examples demonstrating predictable and systematic errors in the evaluation of uncertain events. In particular, since sample size does not represent any property of the population, it is expected to have little or no effect on judgment of likelihood. This prediction is confirmed in studies showing that subjective sampling distributions and posterior probability judgments are determined by the most salient characteristic of the sample (e.g., proportion, mean) without regard to the size of the sample. The present heuristic approach is contrasted with the normative (Bayesian) approach to the analysis of the judgment of uncertainty.

RECOGNITION AND RETRIEVAL PROCESSES IN FREE RECALL <=SEP=> A model of free recall is described which identifies two processes in free recall: a retrieval process by which the subject accesses the words, and a recognition process by which the subject decides whether an implicitly retrieved word is a to-be-recalled word. Submodels for the recognition process and the retrieval process are described. The recognition model assumes that during the study phase, the subject associates "list markers" to the to-be-recalled words. The establishment of such associates is postulated to be an all-or-none stochastic process. In the test phase, the subject recognizes to-be-recalled words by deciding which words have relevant list markers as associates. A signal detectability model is developed for this decision process. The retrieval model is introduced as a computer program that tags associative paths between list words. In several experiments, subjects studied and were tested on a sequence of overlapping sublists sampled from a master set of common nouns. The twoprocess model predicts that the subject's ability to retrieve the words should increase as more overlapping sublists are studied, but his ability to differentiate the words on the most recent list should deteriorate. Experiments confirmed this predicted dissociation of recognition and retrieval. Further predictions derived from the free recall model were also supported.

X band septum polarizer as feed for parabolic antenna <=SEP=> Contemporary RHCP and LHCP wave occurs in several applications of microwave communication and measurement system. From this point of view the septum polarizer can be useful. The septum polarizer is a four-port waveguide device. The square waveguide at one end constitutes two ports because it can support two orthogonal modes. A slopping (or stepped) septum divides the square waveguide into two standard rectangular waveguides sharing a common broad-wall. The size of the septum as well as two versions of the waveguides excitation were analyzed and are described in this paper.

Expanding cellular coverage via cell-edge deployment in heterogeneous networks: spectral efficiency and backhaul power consumption perspectives <=SEP=> Heterogeneous small-cell networks (HetNets) are considered to be a standard part of future mobile networks where operator/consumer deployed small-cells, such as femto-cells, relays, and distributed antennas (DAs), complement the existing macrocell infrastructure. This article proposes the need-oriented deployment of small-cells and device-to-device (D2D) communication around the edge of the macrocell such that the small-cell base stations (SBSs) and D2D communication serve the cell-edge mobile users, thereby expanding the network coverage and capacity. In this context, we present competitive network configurations, namely, femto-on-edge, DA-one-dge, relay-on-edge, and D2D-communication on- edge, where femto base stations, DA elements, relay base stations, and D2D communication, respectively, are deployed around the edge of the macrocell. The proposed deployments ensure performance gains in the network in terms of spectral efficiency and power consumption by facilitating the cell-edge mobile users with small-cells and D2D communication. In order to calibrate the impact of power consumption on system performance and network topology, this article discusses the detailed breakdown of the end-to-end power consumption, which includes backhaul, access, and aggregation network power consumptions. Several comparative simulation results quantify the improvements in spectral efficiency and power consumption of the D2D-communication-on-edge configuration to establish a greener network over the other competitive configurations.

Chapter 2 Challenges to the Adoption of E-commerce Technology for Supply Chain Management in a Developing Economy : A Focus on Nigerian SMEs <=SEP=> The evolution of Information Technology has enhanced consumers’ and organisations’ ability to gather information along with purchasing goods and services. Information Technology offers businesses increased competition, lower prices of goods and services, the choice of comparing products from different vendors and easy access to various vendors anywhere, anytime. Therefore, Information Technology facilitates the global nature of commerce. In developing countries, e-commerce dominates their economic activities. E-commerce is one of the leading non-oil sectors in Nigeria, 18.9 % GDP. In contrast with developed nations, e-commerce has not been as successfully adopted in developing countries. This chapter addresses the challenges and benefits of e-commerce technology in relation to SMEs in Nigeria. It presents quantitative evidence of SMEs perceptions of e-commerce technology, benefits, and barriers. A number of hypotheses are presented and assessed. Recommendations to mitigate barriers are suggested.

Incorporating partitioning and parallel plans into the SCOPE optimizer <=SEP=> Massive data analysis on large clusters presents new opportunities and challenges for query optimization. Data partitioning is crucial to performance in this environment. However, data repartitioning is a very expensive operation so minimizing the number of such operations can yield very significant performance improvements. A query optimizer for this environment must therefore be able to reason about data partitioning including its interaction with sorting and grouping. SCOPE is a SQL-like scripting language used at Microsoft for massive data analysis. A transformation-based optimizer is responsible for converting scripts into efficient execution plans for the Cosmos distributed computing platform. In this paper, we describe how reasoning about data partitioning is incorporated into the SCOPE optimizer. We show how relational operators affect partitioning, sorting and grouping properties and describe how the optimizer reasons about and exploits such properties to avoid unnecessary operations. In most optimizers, consideration of parallel plans is an afterthought done in a postprocessing step. Reasoning about partitioning enables the SCOPE optimizer to fully integrate consideration of parallel, serial and mixed plans into the cost-based optimization. The benefits are illustrated by showing the variety of plans enabled by our approach.

The Rise of Bots: A Survey of Conversational Interfaces, Patterns, and Paradigms <=SEP=> This work documents the recent rise in popularity of messaging bots: chatterbot-like agents with simple, textual interfaces that allow users to access information, make use of services, or provide entertainment through online messaging platforms. Conversational interfaces have been often studied in their many facets, including natural language processing, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and usability. In this work we analyze the recent trends in chatterbots and provide a survey of major messaging platforms, reviewing their support for bots and their distinguishing features. We then argue for what we call "Botplication", a bot interface paradigm that makes use of context, history, and structured conversation elements for input and output in order to provide a conversational user experience while overcoming the limitations of text-only interfaces.

Outpatient approach to palpitations. <=SEP=> Palpitations are a common problem seen in family medicine; most are of cardiac origin, although an underlying psychiatric disorder, such as anxiety, is also common. Even if a psychiatric comorbidity does exist, it should not be assumed that palpitations are of a noncardiac etiology. Discerning cardiac from noncardiac causes is important given the potential risk of sudden death in those with an underlying cardiac etiology. History and physical examination followed by targeted diagnostic testing are necessary to distinguish a cardiac cause from other causes of palpitations. Standard 12-lead electrocardiography is an essential initial diagnostic test. Cardiac imaging is recommended if history, physical examination, or electrocardiography suggests structural heart disease. An intermittent event (loop) monitor is preferred for documenting cardiac arrhythmias, particularly when they occur infrequently. Ventricular and atrial premature contractions are common cardiac causes of palpitations; prognostic significance is dictated by the extent of underlying structural heart disease. Atrial fibrillation is the most common arrhythmia resulting in hospitalization; such patients are at increased risk of stroke. Patients with supraventricular tachycardia, long QT syndrome, ventricular tachycardia, or palpitations associated with syncope should be referred to a cardiologist.

Design and implementation of NN5 for Hong Kong stock price forecasting <=SEP=> A number of published techniques have emerged in the trading community for stock prediction tasks. Among them is neural network (NN). In this paper, the theoretical background of NNs and the backpropagation algorithm is reviewed. Subsequently, an attempt to build a stock buying/selling alert system using a backpropagation NN, NN5, is presented. The system is tested with data from one Hong Kong stock, The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) Holdings. The system is shown to achieve an overall hit rate of over 70%. A number of trading strategies are discussed. A best strategy for trading non-volatile stock like HSBC is recommended. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Rare case of isolated true complete diphallus – Case report and review of literature <=SEP=> Penile duplication is very rare anomaly. True complete diphallia is mostly associated with severe anomalies. Isolated complete diphallia is extremely rare. The case is being presented as true penile diphallia without associated anomalies. We are discussing diagnosis and management of such rare cases.

REMAINING LIFE PREDICTION OF ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS USING LIFE CONSUMPTION MONITORING APPROACH <=SEP=> Various kinds of failures may occur in electronic products because of their life cycle environmental conditions including temperature, humidity, shock and vibration. Failure mechanism models are available to estimate the time to failure for most of these failures. Hence if the life cycle environment of a product can be determined, it is possible to assess the amount of damage induced and predict when the product might fail. This paper presents a life consumption monitoring methodology to determine the remaining life of a product. A battery powered data recorder is used to monitor the temperature, shock and vibration loads on a printed circuit board assembly placed under the hood of an automobile. The recorded data is used in conjunction with physics-of-failure models to determine the damage accumulation in the solder joints due to temperature and vibration loading. The remaining life of the solder joints of the test board is then obtained from the damage accumulation information. 1. Reliability Prediction Reliability is defined as the ability of a product to perform as intended (i.e., without failure and within specified performance limits) for a specified time, in its life cycle application environment. Over time, technology improvements have lead to higher I/O counts in components and circuit cards of electronic products. This has resulted in significant downsizing of interconnect thicknesses, making them more vulnerable in field applications. At the same time, increase in warranties and severe liabilities of electronic product failure have compelled manufacturers to predict the reliability of their products in field applications. An efficient reliability prediction scheme can be used for many purposes including [1]: • Logistics support (e.g., forecast warranty and life cycle costs, spare parts provisioning, availability)

An ultra-low power capacitor-less LDO for always-on domain in NB-IoT applications <=SEP=> This paper presents an ultra-low power 55 nm CMOS capacitor-less Low-Dropout (LDO) voltage regulator for power management of an Always-On domain module for implementation of NB-IoT SoC applications. Compared with traditional IoT SoC, the power consumption specification of NB-IoT SoC is lower. One effective way to achieve low power application is to reduce the power of the Always-On domain module in the SoC, where the LDO plays a critical role. According to the tape-out, results are validated with a 0.89V output voltage from 1.8V to 3.3V supply voltage, delivering a load current of 100uA. The peak-peak variance of output voltage is less than 100mV from 1.8V to 3.3V supply voltage. The quiescent current is lower than 61.86nA, including a 2-Transistor reference voltage, which can implement NB-IoT SoC application, with yield as high as 87.88%.

Microscopy cell segmentation via adversarial neural networks <=SEP=> We present a novel method for cell segmentation in microscopy images which is inspired by the Generative Adversarial Neural Network (GAN) approach. Our framework is built on a pair of two competitive artificial neural networks, with a unique architecture, termed Rib Cage, which are trained simultaneously and together define a min-max game resulting in an accurate segmentation of a given image. Our approach has two main strengths, similar to the GAN, the method does not require a formulation of a loss function for the optimization process. This allows training on a limited amount of annotated data in a weakly supervised manner. Promising segmentation results on real fluorescent microscopy data are presented. The code is freely available at: https://github.com/arbellea/DeepCellSeg.git

Rethinking Spatiotemporal Feature Learning: Speed-Accuracy Trade-offs in Video Classification <=SEP=> Despite the steady progress in video analysis led by the adoption of convolutional neural networks (CNNs), the relative improvement has been less drastic as that in 2D static image classification. Three main challenges exist including spatial (image) feature representation, temporal information representation, and model/computation complexity. It was recently shown by Carreira and Zisserman that 3D CNNs, inflated from 2D networks and pretrained on ImageNet, could be a promising way for spatial and temporal representation learning. However, as for model/computation complexity, 3D CNNs are much more expensive than 2D CNNs and prone to overfit. We seek a balance between speed and accuracy by building an effective and efficient video classification system through systematic exploration of critical network design choices. In particular, we show that it is possible to replace many of the 3D convolutions by low-cost 2D convolutions. Rather surprisingly, best result (in both speed and accuracy) is achieved when replacing the 3D convolutions at the bottom of the network, suggesting that temporal representation learning on high-level “semantic” features is more useful. Our conclusion generalizes to datasets with very different properties. When combined with several other cost-effective designs including separable spatial/temporal convolution and feature gating, our system results in an effective video classification system that that produces very competitive results on several action classification benchmarks (Kinetics, Something-something, UCF101 and HMDB), as well as two action detection (localization) benchmarks (JHMDB and UCF101-24).

Towards Portable Learning Analytics Dashboards <=SEP=> This paper proposes a novel approach to build and deploy learning analytics dashboards in multiple learning environments. Existing learning dashboards are barely portable: once deployed on a learning platform, it requires considerable effort to deploy the dashboard elsewhere. We suggest constructing dashboards from lightweight web applications, namely widgets. Our approach allows to port dashboards with no additional cost between learning environments that implement open specifications (Open Social and Activity Streams) for data access and use widget APIs. We propose to facilitate reuse by sharing the dashboards and widgets via a centralized analytics repository.

A comparative study of elasticsearch and CouchDB document oriented databases <=SEP=> With the advent of large complex datasets, NOSQL databases have gained immense popularity for their efficiency to handle such datasets in comparison to relational databases. There are a number of NOSQL data stores for e.g. Mongo DB, Apache Couch DB etc. Operations in these data stores are executed quickly. In this paper we aim to get familiar with 2 most popular NoSQL databases: Elasticsearch and Apache CouchDB. This paper also aims to analyze the performance of Elasticsearch and CouchDB on image data sets. This analysis is based on the results carried out by instantiate, read, update and delete operations on both document-oriented stores and thus justifying how CouchDB is more efficient than Elasticsearch during insertion, updation and deletion operations but during selection operation Elasticsearch performs much better than CouchDB. The implementation has been done on LINUX platform.

"Is there anything else I can help you with?": Challenges in Deploying an On-Demand Crowd-Powered Conversational Agent <=SEP=> Intelligent conversational assistants, such as Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Amazon’s Echo, have quickly become a part of our digital life. However, these assistants have major limitations, which prevents users from conversing with them as they would with human dialog partners. This limits our ability to observe how users really want to interact with the underlying system. To address this problem, we developed a crowd-powered conversational assistant, Chorus, and deployed it to see how users and workers would interact together when mediated by the system. Chorus sophisticatedly converses with end users over time by recruiting workers on demand, which in turn decide what might be the best response for each user sentence. Up to the first month of our deployment, 59 users have held conversations with Chorus during 320 conversational sessions. In this paper, we present an account of Chorus’ deployment, with a focus on four challenges: (i) identifying when conversations are over, (ii) malicious users and workers, (iii) on-demand recruiting, and (iv) settings in which consensus is not enough. Our observations could assist the deployment of crowd-powered conversation systems and crowd-powered systems in general.

Kinematic-free position control of a 2-DOF planar robot arm <=SEP=> This paper challenges the well-established assumption in robotics that in order to control a robot it is necessary to know its kinematic information, that is, the arrangement of links and joints, the link dimensions and the joint positions. We propose a kinematic-free robot control concept that does not require any prior kinematic knowledge. The concept is based on our hypothesis that it is possible to control a robot without explicitly measuring its joint angles, by measuring instead the effects of the actuation on its end-effector. We implement a proof-of-concept encoderless robot controller and apply it for the position control of a physical 2-DOF planar robot arm. The prototype controller is able to successfully control the robot to reach a reference position, as well as to track a continuous reference trajectory. Notably, we demonstrate how this novel controller can cope with something that traditional control approaches fail to do: adapt to drastic kinematic changes such as 100% elongation of a link, 35-degree angular offset of a joint, and even a complete overhaul of the kinematics involving the addition of new joints and links.

Demand Queries with Preprocessing <=SEP=> Given a set of items and a submodular set-function f that determines the value of every subset of items, a demand query assigns prices to the items, and the desired answer is a set S of items that maximizes the pro t, namely, the value of S minus its price. The use of demand queries is well motivated in the context of combinatorial auctions. However, answering a demand query (even approximately) is NP-hard. We consider the question of whether exponential time preprocessing of f prior to receiving the demand query can help in later answering demand queries in polynomial time. We design a preprocessing algorithm that leads to approximation ratios that are NP-hard to achieve without preprocessing. We also prove that there are limitations to the approximation ratios achievable after preprocessing, unless NP ⊂ P/poly.

BotCensor: Detecting DGA-Based Botnet Using Two-Stage Anomaly Detection <=SEP=> Nowadays, most botnets utilize domain generation algorithms (DGAs) to build resilient and agile command and control (C&C) channels. Specifically, botmasters employ DGAs to dynamically produce a large number of random domains and only register a small subset for their actual C&C servers with the purpose to defend them from takeovers and blacklisting attempts. While many approaches and models have been developed to detect DGA-based botnets, they suffer from several limitations, such as difficulties of DNS traffic collection, low feasibility and scalability, and so forth. In this paper, we present BotCensor, a new system that can determine if a host is infected with certain DGA malware with two-stage anomaly detection. In the first stage, we preliminarily attempt to identify malicious domains using a Markov model, and in the second stage, we re-examine the hosts that requested aforementioned malicious domains using novelty detection algorithms. Our experimental results show that our approach performs very well on identifying previously unknown DGA-generated domains and detects DGA bots with high efficiency and efficacy. Our approach not only can be regarded as security forensics tools, but also can be used to prevent malware infections and spread.

Deep Learning in Radiology: Does One Size Fit All? <=SEP=> Deep learning (DL) is a popular method that is used to perform many important tasks in radiology and medical imaging. Some forms of DL are able to accurately segment organs (essentially, trace the boundaries, enabling volume measurements or calculation of other properties). Other DL networks are able to predict important properties from regions of an image-for instance, whether something is malignant, molecular markers for tissue in a region, even prognostic markers. DL is easier to train than traditional machine learning methods, but requires more data and much more care in analyzing results. It will automatically find the features of importance, but understanding what those features are can be a challenge. This article describes the basic concepts of DL systems and some of the traps that exist in building DL systems and how to identify those traps.

Knowledge transfer in learning to recognize visual objects classes <=SEP=> Learning to recognize of object classes is one of the most important functionalities of vision. It is estimated that humans are able to learn tens of thousands of visual categori es in their life. Given the photometric and geometric variabilities displayed by objects as well as the high degree of intra-clas s variabilities, we hypothesize that humans achieve such a fe at by using knowledge and information cumulated throughout the learning process. In recent years, a handful of pioneering p apers have applied various forms of knowledge transfer algorithms to the problem of learning object classes. We first review some o f these papers by loosely grouping them into three categories : transfer through prior parameters, transfer through shared features or parts, and transfer through contextual information. In the second half of the paper, we detail a recent algorithm proposed by the author. This incremental learning scheme us es information from object classes previously learned in the f orm of prior models to train a new object class model. Training images can be presented in an incremental way. We present experimental results tested with this model on a large numbe r of object categories.

Designing an annotation scheme for summarizing Japanese judgment documents <=SEP=> We propose an annotation scheme for the summarization of Japanese judgment documents. This paper reports the details of the development of our annotation scheme for this task. We also conduct a human study where we compare the annotation of independent annotators. The end goal of our work is summarization, and our categories and the link system is a consequence of this. We propose three types of generic summaries which are focused on specific legal issues relevant to a given legal case.

Interpretability and Informativeness of Clustering Methods for Exploratory Analysis of Clinical Data <=SEP=> Clustering methods are among the most commonly used tools for exploratory data analysis. However, using clustering to perform data analysis can be challenging for modern datasets that contain a large number of dimensions, are complex in nature, and lack a ground-truth labeling. Traditional tools, like summarization and plotting of clusters, are of limited benefit in a high-dimensional setting. On the other hand, while many clustering methods have been studied theoretically, such analysis often has limited instructive value for practical purposes due to unverifiable assumptions, oracle-dependent tuning parameters, or unquantified finite-sample effects.

Switched Reluctance Motor Modeling, Design, Simulation, and Analysis: A Comprehensive Review <=SEP=> Switched reluctance machines have emerged as an important technology in industrial automation; they represent a real alternative to conventional variable speed drives in many applications. This paper reviews the technology status and trends in switched reluctance machines. It covers the various aspects of modeling, design, simulation, analysis, and control. Finally, it discusses the impact of switched reluctance machines technology on intelligent motion control.

Mining term association patterns from search logs for effective query reformulation <=SEP=> Search engine logs are an emerging new type of data that offers interesting opportunities for data mining. Existing work on mining such data has mostly attempted to discover knowledge at the level of queries (e.g., query clusters). In this paper, we propose to mine search engine logs for patterns at the level of terms through analyzing the relations of terms inside a query. We define two novel term association patterns (i.e., context-sensitive term substitutions and term additions) and propose new methods for mining such patterns from search engine logs. These two patterns can be used to address the mis-specification and under-specification problems of ineffective queries. Experiment results on real search engine logs show that the mined context-sensitive term substitutions can be used to effectively reword queries and improve their accuracy, while the mined context-sensitive term addition patterns can be used to support query refinement in a more effective way.

Child-based personas: need, ability and experience <=SEP=> Interactive technologies are becoming ubiquitous in many children’s lives. From school to home, technologies are changing the way children live. However, current methods of designing these technologies do not adequately consider children’s needs and developmental abilities. This paper describes and illustrates a new approach for creating user abstractions of children called the child-persona technique. Child-personas integrate theoretical concepts, empirically generated data and experiential goals. An analysis of the utility of this technique provides insights about how this technique can benefit designers by generating realistic child-user abstractions through a process which supports designers in child-centric design.