True Product Research Articles

Information on product quality, change agency and product adoption

Understanding the timing of adoption conditional on a quality signal is critically important for both managers and regulators. Facing uncertainty about true product quality, potential adopters typi...

Warranty pricing with consumer learning

We consider a problem in which a firm dynamically prices a product and its warranty service over time. Consumers can learn about the reliability of products based on warranty prices. A firm’s optimal product and warranty pricing policies are characterized. We find that a warranty should be priced lower than the marginal warranty service cost, which implies that warranty sales will not generate profits directly. However, offering a modest warranty still benefits the firm’s overall profits. We also show that consumers’ beliefs and the firm’s warranty policy converge in the long run. In a steady state, either a fraction of consumers will purchase a warranty or no consumer will purchase a warranty. Comparative statics analysis is conducted to show how factors such as a firm’s warranty service cost, consumers’ learning speed, and the heterogeneity of consumers’ handling costs determine consumers’ beliefs, the firm’s warranty policy and profitability in a steady state. Lastly, we note that a firm benefits from consumer learning by hiding the information about the true product reliability only when the true product failure rate is relatively high.

Ion and velocity map imaging for surface dynamics and kinetics.

We describe a new instrument that uses ion imaging to study molecular beam-surface scattering and surface desorption kinetics, allowing independent determination of both residence times on the surface and scattering velocities of desorbing molecules. This instrument thus provides the capability to derive true kinetic traces, i.e., product flux versus residence time, and allows dramatically accelerated data acquisition compared to previous molecular beam kinetics methods. The experiment exploits non-resonant multiphoton ionization in the near-IR using a powerful 150-fs laser pulse, making detection more general than previous experiments using resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization. We demonstrate the capabilities of the new instrument by examining the desorption kinetics of CO on Pd(111) and Pt(111) and obtain both pre-exponential factors and activation energies of desorption. We also show that the new approach is compatible with velocity map imaging.

Social Media in Accelerating Mobile Apps

Mobile application stores have become very popular, and the two most popular, Google Play and Apple App Store, both have over a million applications (apps) available. Social media is extensively used for marketing products and services; but, its true potential, in service and product acceleration, has not been researched much. This paper studies the differences in actions between successful and less successful app developers and especially their social media use in accelerating applications and its impact on success. In this study, a longitudinal analysis is performed on 682 applications, from four Google Play categories, at three data points. This study concludes that almost 50% of the analyzed applications use some form of social media to promote their app, and that successful apps use social media more actively than less successful ones. The qualitative analysis of the apps sheds some light as to why some apps succeed without social media use, and why some fail while using it.

On Self-Selection Biases in Online Product Reviews

Online product reviews help consumers infer product quality, and the mean (average) rating is often used as a proxy for product quality. However, two self-selection biases, acquisition bias (mostly consumers with a favorable predisposition acquire a product and hence write a product review) and underreporting bias (consumers with extreme, either positive or negative, ratings are more likely to write reviews than consumers with moderate product ratings), render the mean rating a biased estimator of product quality, and they result in the well-known J-shaped (positively skewed, asymmetric, bimodal) distribution of online product reviews. To better understand the nature and consequences of these two self-selection biases, we analytically model and empirically investigate how these two biases originate from consumers' purchasing and reviewing decisions, how these decisions shape the distribution of online product reviews over time, and how they affect the firm's product pricing strategy. Our empirical results reveal that consumers do realize both self-selection biases and attempt to correct for them by using other distributional parameters of online reviews, besides the mean rating. However, consumers cannot fully account for these two self-selection biases because of bounded rationality. We also find that firms can strategically respond to these self-selection biases by adjusting their prices. Still, since consumers cannot fully correct for these two self-selection biases, product demand, the firm's profit, and consumer surplus may all suffer from the two self-selection biases. This paper has implications for consumers to leverage online product reviews to infer true product quality, for commercial websites to improve the design of their online product review systems, and for product manufacturers to predict the success of their products.

Gasoline Preblending for Energy-Efficient Bioethanol Recovery

With over 20 billion gallons produced annually, ethanol is the world’s leading biofuel and a key contributor in the drive for sustainable energy. Studies into the effective net energy of ethanol usage have been inconclusive, with some indicating that the energy used to produce ethanol exceeds its energy content as a fuel. This matter is subject to rigorous debate in the scientific and public arenas, and considerable ongoing research has focused on improving the net energy outlook by optimizing the bioethanol production process. However, net energy calculations and optimization research have all been based on a flawed assumption: that it is necessary to obtain pure ethanol. The prevailing use of ethanol is as an additive to gasoline rather than as a fuel on its own, implying that the true end product of bioethanol production is not pure ethanol but rather a fuel blend containing ethanol. This paper shows that rethinking the necessity of the bioethanol purification step offers simple and practical improveme...

Culling the Herd: Using Real-World Randomized Experiments to Measure Social Bias with Known Costly Goods

Peer ratings have become increasingly important sources of product information, particularly in markets for information goods. However, in spite of the increasing prevalence of this information, there are relatively few academic studies that analyze the impact of peer ratings on consumers transacting in “real-world” marketplaces. In this paper, we partner with a major telecommunications company to analyze the impact of peer ratings in a real-world video-on-demand market where consumer participation is organic and where movies are costly and well known to consumers. After experimentally changing the initial conditions of product information displayed to consumers, we find that, consistent with the prior literature, peer ratings influence consumer behavior independently from underlying product quality. However, we also find that, in contrast to the prior literature, there is little evidence of long-term bias as a result of herding effects, at least in our setting. Specifically, when movies are artificially promoted or demoted in peer rating lists, subsequent reviews cause them to return to their true quality position relatively quickly. One explanation for this difference is that consumers in our empirical setting likely had more outside information about the true quality of the products they were evaluating than did consumers in the studies reported in prior literature. Although tentative, this explanation suggests that in real-world marketplaces where consumers have sufficient access to outside information about true product quality, peer ratings may be more robust to herding effects and thus provide more reliable signals of true product quality than previously thought. This paper was accepted by Lorin M. Hitt, information systems.

On Statistical Approaches for Demonstrating Analytical Similarity in the Presence of Correlation.

A biosimilar is a generic version of the original biological drug product. A key component of a biosimilar development is the demonstration of analytical similarity between the biosimilar and the reference product. Such demonstration relies on application of statistical methods to establish a similarity margin and appropriate test for equivalence between the two products. This paper discusses statistical issues with demonstration of analytical similarity and provides alternate approaches to potentially mitigate these problems.

Multi-Objective Optimization Problems in Taguchi Parameter Design – A Literature Review

With the advent of latest technology, manufacturing process becomes so sophisticated and complicated that a single response variable (quality characteristic) can not reflect the true product quality and there is intense competition between market participants for cost and delivery (productivity) as well. Any manufacturing process in the present state requires multi objective optimization model to optimize quality, cost and productivity simultaneously. Optimum prediction is critical as it requires lot of experiments for data capturing which involves time and cost. In the present manufacturing set up, it is essential to identify optimum parametric combination for multi objective function real time problems with lesser experiments and lesser effort with better accuracy. Taguchi method is a well known fraction factorial design, which requires minimum number of trials for Identifying optimum parametric combination in real time problems.In this paper an attempt is made to review the literatures of various methods used by researchers for multi - objective optimization problems using Taguchi methods.

Is phototridachiahydropyrone a true natural product?

The occurrence of (−)-phototridachiahydropyrone (5) in nature has been proven. This compound has been now identified as minor component of the extract of marine sacoglossan mollusk Elysia crispata from which the main (−)-tridachiahydropyrone (4) was previously described. Synthetic (±)-5 was formerly obtained by Moses’ group by biomimetic photochemical conversion of (±)-tridachiahydropyrone (4). The same authors suggested that compound 5 had to be a natural product derived from precursor 4 “yet to be discovered”. Comparison of CD profiles of natural (−)-4 and (−)-5 indicated the same absolute configuration for both compounds. This evidence is in agreement with the concerted mechanism proposed for the photochemical conversion.

Design and properties of novel gallium-doped injectable apatitic cements

Different possible options were investigated to combine an apatitic calcium phosphate cement with gallium ions, known as bone resorption inhibitors. Gallium can be either chemisorbed onto calcium-deficient apatite or inserted in the structure of β-tricalcium phosphate, and addition of these gallium-doped components into the cement formulation did not significantly affect the main properties of the biomaterial, in terms of injectability and setting time. Under in vitro conditions, the amount of gallium released from the resulting cement pellets was found to be low, but increased in the presence of osteoclastic cells. When implanted in rabbit bone critical defects, a remodeling process of the gallium-doped implant started and an excellent bone interface was observed. Statement of SignificanceThe integration of drugs and materials is a growing force in the medical industry. The incorporation of pharmaceutical products not only promises to expand the therapeutic scope of biomaterials technology but to design a new generation of true combination products whose therapeutic value stem equally from both the structural attributes of the material and the intrinsic therapy of the drug.In this context, for the first time an injectable calcium phosphate cement containing gallium was designed with properties suitable for practical application as a local delivery system, implantable by minimally invasive surgery. This important and original paper reports the design and in-depth chemical and physical characterization of this groundbreaking technology.

Tracer-based estimates of protein flux in cases of incomplete product renewal: evidence and implications of heterogeneity in collagen turnover.

The synthesis of various molecules can be estimated by measuring the incorporation of a labeled precursor into a product of interest. Unfortunately, a central problem in many studies has been an inability to estimate the intracellular dilution of the precursor and therein correctly calculate the synthesis of the product; it is generally assumed that measuring the true product labeling is straightforward. We initiated a study to examine liver collagen synthesis and identified an apparent problem with assumptions regarding measurements of the product labeling. Since it is well known that collagen production is relatively slow, we relied on the use of [(2)H]H2O labeling (analogous to a primed infusion) and sampled animals over the course of 16 days. Although the water labeling (the precursor) remained stable and we observed the incorporation of labeled amino acids into collagen, the asymptotic protein labeling was considerably lower than what would be expected based on the precursor labeling. Although this observation is not necessarily surprising (i.e., one might expect that a substantial fraction of the collagen pool would appear "inert" or turn over at a very slow rate), its implications are of interest in certain areas. Herein, we discuss a novel situation in which tracers are used to quantify rates of flux under conditions where a product may not undergo complete replacement. We demonstrate how heterogeneity in the product pool can lead one to the wrong conclusions regarding estimates of flux, and we outline an approach that may help to minimize errors surrounding data interpretation.

Insect-specific production of new GameXPeptides in photorhabdus luminescens TTO1, widespread natural products in entomopathogenic bacteria.

Discovery of new natural products by heterologous expression reaches its limits, especially when specific building blocks are missing in the heterologous host or the production medium. Here, we describe the insect-specific production of the new GameXPeptides E-H (5-8) from Photorhabdus luminescens TTO1, which can be produced heterologously from expression of the GameXPeptide synthetase GxpS only upon supplementation of the production media with the missing building blocks, and thus must be regarded as the true natural products under natural conditions.

Pep2Path: Automated Mass Spectrometry-Guided Genome Mining of Peptidic Natural Products

Nonribosomally and ribosomally synthesized bioactive peptides constitute a source of molecules of great biomedical importance, including antibiotics such as penicillin, immunosuppressants such as cyclosporine, and cytostatics such as bleomycin. Recently, an innovative mass-spectrometry-based strategy, peptidogenomics, has been pioneered to effectively mine microbial strains for novel peptidic metabolites. Even though mass-spectrometric peptide detection can be performed quite fast, true high-throughput natural product discovery approaches have still been limited by the inability to rapidly match the identified tandem mass spectra to the gene clusters responsible for the biosynthesis of the corresponding compounds. With Pep2Path, we introduce a software package to fully automate the peptidogenomics approach through the rapid Bayesian probabilistic matching of mass spectra to their corresponding biosynthetic gene clusters. Detailed benchmarking of the method shows that the approach is powerful enough to correctly identify gene clusters even in data sets that consist of hundreds of genomes, which also makes it possible to match compounds from unsequenced organisms to closely related biosynthetic gene clusters in other genomes. Applying Pep2Path to a data set of compounds without known biosynthesis routes, we were able to identify candidate gene clusters for the biosynthesis of five important compounds. Notably, one of these clusters was detected in a genome from a different subphylum of Proteobacteria than that in which the molecule had first been identified. All in all, our approach paves the way towards high-throughput discovery of novel peptidic natural products. Pep2Path is freely available from http://pep2path.sourceforge.net/, implemented in Python, licensed under the GNU General Public License v3 and supported on MS Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Mechanism of Polymorphic Transformations in the Chemical Elements

The prediction of a crystal structure at given composition and thermodynamic coupling parameters is a major challenge. Powerful methods have boosted progress in this field, recently, and have promoted this are of research into a multidisciplinary one. The capacity of anticipating the outcome of a synthetic effort, or the search for novel materials with distinct, improved properties greatly benefit from numerical methods able to efficiently scan for novel structural motifs. Several techniques based on evolutionary algorithms, metadynamics, random structure prediction, or transition path sampling are contributing important advances in the understanding of polymorphic transformation, and are enriching the catalogue of crystalline matter by surprising novel packings [1]. One of the central aspects to fully unfold the impact of crystal structure prediction is the elucidation of transformation mechanisms, which are productive towards a particular structural motif under experiment-relavant conditions. In the recent dispute on the structural identity of the product of graphite cold compression, the true product was confirmed to be Oganov's M-Carbon by applying transition path sampling [2]. While many carbon polymorphs can exist in principle, kinetic control will typically select a particular mechanism of formation of a distinct carbon. This proves that, while the enumeration of crystal structures is invaluable in discovering novel material with improved properties, and in exploring novel compositions, it is important to associate a mechanism with the formation of a particular structure, for a realistic crystal structure prediction, one that can be turned into a real material. The talk will have a review character, and will touch upon recent results in the filed of the polymorphism of the elements and binary semiconductors [3].

Natural products: Sponge symbionts play defense.

The gene cluster that produces the sponge-derived cytotoxin calyculin A has been located in an uncultivated bacterial symbiont. Biochemical analyses reveal a pyrophosphorylated protoxin as the true biosynthetic product and suggest that calyculins result from activated chemical defense.

Ti Dife Boule sou Istwa Ayiti as Haitian civic education

Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s scholarship examines the world economy in relation to structural alliances between state leaders and commodity traders. His work suggests that the majority of formerly enslaved agricultural producers in the Caribbean became a politically marginalized “reconstituted peasantry.” In Ti Dife Boule sou Istwa Ayiti, Trouillot employs narrative tools characteristic of oral storytelling and magical realism to analyze such relationships during the Haitian Revolution. The text, written in Haitian Creole, interjects on debates about the relationship between colonial economies and metropolitan governments, the historicity of uneven development, and the foundational rupture between the Haitian state and nation. This article argues that Trouillot selects Grenn Pwomennen, a true product of syncretism, an erudite scholar clothed in the uniform of Haiti’s ubiquitous peasant working class, to artfully demonstrate that the solution to Haiti’s challenges remains with its peasant classes. Published in 1977, within the context of his immigration and personal sense of responsibility for the Haiti he left behind, Ti Dife Boule sou Istwa Ayiti reveals itself to be an ideal text for civic education and politicization among Haitians who only understand Creole.

Can Online Word-of-Mouth Communication Reveal True Product Quality? Experimental Insights, Econometric Results, and Analytical Modeling

Online word-of-mouth (WOM) communication in the form of online product reviews, such as those provided by consumers that have previously purchased a product, has become a major information source for consumers and marketers about a product’s quality. The literature has thus used online product reviews to predict a product’s sales and future success, assuming that the average (mean) score of these reviews represents true product quality. However, using experimental and econometric data, this study empirically shows that single point estimation (e.g., the mean) may not be a sufficient predictor of true product quality due to under-reporting by consumers with moderate product reviews.To overcome this concern, this paper first tests the underlying distribution of online product reviews with secondary data from Amazon (www.amazon.com). The econometric results reveal that the reviews for the majority of the products have an asymmetric bimodal distribution. For these products, the mean of the online product reviews does not necessarily reveal the product’s true quality, resulting in misleading conclusions about the product’s future success. In contrast, results from a controlled experiment where all respondents reviewed a product show that their product reviews follow a unimodal (approximately normal) distribution. This confirms that consumers with extreme (positive or negative) views are more likely to review products than consumers with moderate views, resulting in a truncated sample.To identify when single point estimation can be used as a sufficient predictor considering the consumers’ incentive of leaving reviews, this paper develops an analytical model to derive the conditions of when the mean can serve as a valid proxy of a product’s true quality. Finally, we introduce a dual point estimation model using the lower and upper ends of the modal interval of the DIP test to predict true product quality, which is shown to be a superior predictor of future product sales versus the simple and weighted average. The paper concludes by discussing the study’s theoretical and managerial implications.

On-Line Mass Spectrometric Methods for the Determination of the Primary Products of Fast Pyrolysis of Carbohydrates and for Their Gas-Phase Manipulation

Mass spectrometric methodology was developed for the determination and manipulation of the primary products of fast pyrolysis of carbohydrates. To determine the true primary pyrolysis products, a very fast heating pyroprobe was coupled to a linear quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometer through a custom-built adaptor. A home-built flow tube that simulates pyrolysis reactor conditions was used to examine the secondary reactions of the primary products. Depending on the experiment, the pyrolysis products were either evaporated and quenched or allowed to react for a period of time. The quenched products were ionized in an atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) source infused with one of two ionization reagents, chloroform or ammonium hydroxide, to aid in ionization. During APCI in negative ion mode, chloroform produces chloride anions that are known to readily add to carbohydrates with little bias and little to no fragmentation. On the other hand, in positive ion mode APCI, ammonium hydroxide forms ammonium adducts with carbohydrates with little to no fragmentation. The latter method ionizes compounds that are not readily ionized upon negative ion mode APCI, such as furan derivatives. Six model compounds were studied to verify the ability of the ionization methods to ionize known pyrolysis products: glycolaldehyde, hydroxyacetone, furfural, 5-hydroxymethylfurfural, levoglucosan, and cellobiosan. The method was then used to examine fast pyrolysis of cellobiose. The primary fast pyrolysis products were determined to consist of only a handful of compounds that quickly polymerize to form anhydro-oligosaccharides when allowed to react at high temperatures for an extended period of time.

Extenuating Circumstances: Salvaged Landscape

AbstractBuilt outside legislative guidelines and established construction procedures in the derelict and feral environment of Detroit, Salvaged Landscapes is a true product of transgression. As Catie Newell, founding principal of *Alibi Studio, explains, its making and unmaking was as dependent on the intentions of the designers as the local propensity for arson.