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Knowledge transferred in the open market via a price mechanism enjoys the benefits of avoiding internal competition, learning from external competitors, and accumulating diversified knowledge. In the market, users can access a repository of knowledge for a single price (repository pricing) or knowledge items in the repository can be sold individually (knowledge pricing). However, users have been found to prefer repository pricing but not the knowledge in the repository. This irrationality can cause market failure because users derive a suboptimal level of utility from the knowledge repository, and vendors have contradictory pricing and knowledge strategies. We empirically examine a joint explanation from two competing theoretical perspectives that accounts for this inconsistency nicely: The mental accounting perspective endorses repository pricing because it entices users with the benefits of the whole repository, whereas the transaction decoupling perspective finds expression in individually priced knowledge because it prevents the discrete benefit of knowledge from becoming obscure. By integrating the two theoretical perspectives and considering price, knowledge, and user characteristics simultaneously, the results offer important implications for the market transfer of knowledge. Repository pricing attracts users and is essential to initiate the transfer process, whereas knowledge pricing generates knowledge preference and is thus an effective approach for learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Byline: Ming-Hui Huang In this article, I seek to provide a perspective concerning the study of electronic commerce (EC). EC can be viewed as primarily concerned with the phenomena of electronic transactions. Four properties of EC are elaborated on surrounding this core: 1. for EC actors to transact in IT enabled and constrained networked socio-technical markets; 2. for information-based assets that are priced on an equivalent value mechanism; 3. for maximisation of both aggregate welfare and voluntary transactions; 4. for modelling with a welfare analysis approach to balance allocation efficiency and equality.

The nature of marketing science is changing in a systematic, predictable, and irrevocable way. As information technology enables ubiquitous customer communication and big customer data, the fundamental nature of the firm's connection to the customer changes: better, more personalized service can be offered, from which service relationships are deepened, and consequently, more profitable customers grow the influence of service within the goods sector and expand the service sector in the economy. Marketing is becoming more personalized, and marketing science techniques that exploit customer heterogeneity are becoming more important. Information technology improvements also guarantee the increasing importance and usage of computationally intensive data processing and "big data." Most importantly, these trends have already lasted for more than a century, and they will become even more pronounced in the coming years as a result of the monotonic nature of technology improvement. These changes imply a transformation of marketing science in both the topics to be emphasized and the methods to be employed. Increasingly, and inevitably, all of marketing will come to resemble to a greater degree the formerly specialized area of service marketing, only with an increased emphasis on marketing analytics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of Value Fusion to describe how value can emerge from the use of mobile, networked technology by consumers, firms, and entities such as non- consumers, a firm's competitors, and others simultaneously. Design/methodology/approach -- The paper discusses the combination of characteristics of mobile devices that enable Value Fusion and discusses specific value and benefits to consumers and firms of being mobile and networked. Value Fusion is introduced and defined and set apart from related, other conceptualizations of value. Examples are provided of Value Fusion and the necessary conditions for Value Fusion to occur are discussed. Also discussed are the conditions under which the use of mobile, networked technology by consumers and firms may lead to Value Confusion instead of Value Fusion. Several research questions are proposed to further enhance the understanding and management of Value Fusion. Findings -- The combination of portable, personal, networked, textual/visual and converged characteristics of mobile devices enables firms and consumers to interact and communicate, produce and consume benefits, and create value in new ways that have not been captured by popular conceptualizations of value. These traditional conceptualizations include customer value, experiential value, customer lifetime value, and customer engagement value. Value Fusion is defined as value that can be achieved for the entire network of consumers and firms simultaneously, just by being on the mobile network. Value Fusion results from producers and consumers: individually or collectively; actively and passively; concurrently; interactively or in aggregation contributing to a mobile network; in real time; and just-in-time. Originality/value -- This paper synthesizes insights from the extant value literature that by and large has focused on either the customer's or the firm's perspective, but rarely blended the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To gain insight into the histopathological responses and molecular targets in the inhibition of growth of human gastric cancer treated with celecoxib (a cyclooxygenase [COX]-2 inhibitor) combined with octreotide. Methods: Seventy five patients with gastric cancer undergoing curative gastrectomy or extended resection were randomly divided into 3 groups. The apoptosis of tumor cells was measured by terminal deoxynucleotide transferase-mediated dUTP nick end-labeling (TUNEL) assay. Gastric cancer microvessel density (MVD) and the expression of COX-2 were evaluated by immunohistochemical staining. The expression of somatostatin receptor (SSTR)-2 was detected with the biomolecular interaction analysis system. The transcription of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug-activated gene (NAG)-1 was measured by RT-PCR. Results: Compared with the control and celecoxib groups, more necrosis in the combination group was observed. The apoptotic rate in the combination group (7.06%±0.67%) was significantly higher than that in the control group (6.23%±1.29%, P<0.05). The MVD decreased considerably in the combination group. The upregulation of NAG-1 was displayed both in the celecoxib and combination groups. The positive rate of SSTR-2 in gastric cancers treated with celecoxib (48%) was significantly higher than that of control group (12%) after surgery ( P<0.05). Conclusion: Celecoxib combined with octreotide significantly promoted necrosis in gastric adenocarci-noma through the induction of apoptosis and the reduction of MVD. NAG-1 and SSTR-2 might be the molecular targets for celecoxib or octreotide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface plasmon resonance biosensor technique was used to study the binding of Moloney murine leukemia virus reverse transcriptase without RNase H domain (MMLV RT-) with DNA in the absence and in the presence of inhibitors. Different DNA substrates, including single-stranded DNA (ssDNA), DNA template-primer (T-P) duplex and gapped DNA, were immobilized on the biosensor chip surface using streptavidin-biotin, and MMLV RT-DNA binding kinetics were analyzed by different models. MMLV RT- could bind with ssDNA and the binding was involved in conformation change. MMLV RT- binding DNA T-P duplex and gapped DNA could be analyzed using the simple 1:1 Langmuir model. The lack of RNase H domain reduced the affinity between MMLV RT- and T-P duplex. The effects of RT inhibitors, including efavirenz, nevirapine and quercetin, on the interaction between MMLV RT- and gapped DNA were analyzed according to recovered kinetics parameters. Efavirenz slightly interfered with the binding between RT and DNA and the affinity constant in the presence of the inhibitor (KA=1.21 × 106 M-1) was lower than in the absence of the inhibitor (KA=4.61 × 106 M-1). Nevirapine induced relatively tight binding between RT and DNA and the affinity constant in the presence of the inhibitor (KA=1.47 × 107 M-1) was approximately three folds higher than without nevirapine, mainly due to rapid association and slow dissociation. Quercetin, a flavonoid originating from plant which has previously shown strong inhibition of the activity of RT, was found to have minimal effect on the RT-DNA binding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an economic analysis of information good pricing and consumer welfare, and discusses the implications of price discrimination in the information economy. It argues that network externalities, coupled with information asymmetry, enable a dominant marketer to price unequally, extracting late adopters' surplus to compensate for the loss from early adopters. In the short term, the minority early adopters benefit by paying less, but in the long term, the majority late adopters suffer by paying more. Considering that late adopters are likely to be at a disadvantage in resources, this discriminatory pricing amounts to the poor subsidizing the rich. Based on this analysis, implications for consumer welfare are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

E-businesses using enterprise resource planning systems as the information infrastructure generate a tremendous amount of information, including information about customers, suppliers, markets, transaction costs, the prices at which products are bought and sold, and order-fulfillment rates, etc. To turn the information contained in these systems into marketable information goods would be a key to gaining a competitive advantage and optimizing market exchange efficiencies. Treating involved organizations as an end-to-end network and applying an economic analysis, five propositions are developed to capture this value-added process. Conditions for market equilibriums are specified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To determine whether a theory of emotions in marketing is needed, this article assesses the current theoretical status of emotions in marketing. The theoretical propositions and the characteristics of four major theories of emotions borrowed from psychology, as well as five marketing accounts for emotions are reviewed. The characteristics of emotions in marketing are specified and compared with the characteristics of emotions as seen by psychology. The article ends with four theoretical proposals on directions for future development of a theory of emotions in marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing a survival analysis approach, this study synthesizes 3 aspects of gift literature and suggests their effects on the timing of dissolution for a romantic relationship. Products or services can be consumed for the purpose of enhancing self-attractiveness (self-gift), expressing love to partners (other-gift), and announcing a relationship to the outer world (joint-gift). Results indicate that the distribution of time until dissolution for young students' romantic relationships is more likely to first fall and then rise. Gifts can delay the timing of dissolution, but not the probability of its final destination. For female students, self-enhancing gifts are found to delay the timing; for male students, love-expressive gifts speed up the timing; and for both male and female students, relationship-announcing gifts delay the timing of dissolution. Consumers, thus, are advised to use gifts to make their relationships endure, but not to attempt to alter a poor relationship into a successful one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the short form of the Love Attitudes Scale developed independently in Taiwan in two studies using 460 graduate and undergraduate students. Background on the original Love Attitudes Scale presented by Hendrick and Hendrick (1986); Cross-cultural similarity in the validation and response to the short form of the scale.

With the recent commissioning of a gas-filled recoil separator at Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) in Lanzhou, the decay properties of 271Ds (Z = 110) were studied via the 208Pb(64Ni, n) reaction at a beam energy of 313.3MeV. Based on the separator coupled with a position sensitive silicon strip detector, we carried out the energy-position-time correlation measurements for the implanted nucleus and its subsequent decay ??'s. One ??- decay chain for 271Ds was established. The α energy and decay time of the 271Ds nucleus were measured to be 10.644MeV and 96.8 ms, which are consistent with the values reported in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-performance polycrystalline-germanium (poly-Ge) thin-film transistors (TFTs) fabricated with lightly doped Ge thin films by excimer laser crystallization (ELC) and counter doping (CD) have been demonstrated. High-quality n-type Ge thin films with a grain size as large as 1 µm were fabricated by ELC in the super lateral-growth regime and CD at a dose of 1 × 1013 cm−2 or higher. Consequently, a superior field-effect mobility of 271 cm2 V−1 s−1 and a high on/off current ratio of 2.7 × 103 have been obtained for p-channel Ge TFTs with the channel width and length of both 0.5 µm fabricated by ELC at 300 mJ/cm2 and CD at a dose of 1 × 1013 cm−2. The effects of ELC conditions and CD dose on the electrical characteristics of p-channel Ge TFTs were also investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-quality polycrystalline-germanium (poly-Ge) thin films have been successfully fabricated by excimer laser crystallization (ELC). Grains as large as 1 µm were achieved by ELC at 300 mJ/cm2. Meanwhile, the defect-generated hole concentrations in Ge thin films were significantly reduced. Furthermore, the majority carriers could then be converted to n-type by counter doping (CD) with a suitable dose. Then, high-performance p-channel Ge thin-film transistors (TFTs) with a high on/off current ratio of up to 1.7 × 103 and a high field-effect mobility of up to 208 cm2 V−1 s−1 were demonstrated for a channel width and length both of 0.5 µm. It was revealed that ELC combined with CD is effective for attaining high-performance p-channel poly-Ge TFTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]