Perception of scale is important to our activity within a space and to our experience of a landscape. This presents a problem if people cannot predict or convey the scale effects of large structures proposed in a landscape, as has been the case for recent wind turbine proposals in Scotland. To address this problem, this research explored how people perceive scale and scale effects in a landscape. It took wind turbines as an example structure and analysed how different scales of windfarm create different scale effects in different landscapes, as well as how to best assess and communicate these effects. The research applied three methods to address the research questions: Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment (LVIA), which is a standard, structured process applied by professional landscape architects; experiential landscape assessment, which included semi-structured interviews with local people in addition to site assessment; and public attitude and preference study, which included Adaptive Choice-Based Conjoint analysis (ACBC). These different methods allowed the research questions to be explored in different ways, while overlapping in some aspects and providing triangulation. The research findings revealed that our perception of scale and scale effects in a landscape is influenced by numerous attributes and depends on how these are experienced together. Building upon the theoretical background, an important difference between visual scale and spatial scale was highlighted, as well as alternative ways in which scale references are made. Throughout the research, the need for clear communication was emphasised and the findings included identifying the specific words that people use to describe scale effects in the most discriminating way. This research supported other studies in finding that consultation with local people (professionals and the public) was vital to understand in sufficient depth how a landscape was perceived, experienced and valued. In addition, the innovative development of Conjoint Analysis demonstrated how this method can reveal how people judge the relative importance of different attributes that influence landscape and visual effects and, by doing so, offer new possibilities as a tool in landscape research. Building upon the general findings concerning scale, specific findings regarding the scale effects of windfarms included: greater influence of the proximity of a windfarm than size or numbers of wind turbines; greater importance for being in private and/or fixed locations that offer a sense of refuge compared to public locations and/or when moving; the importance of collective effects perceived and experienced by a community; the importance of perceived spatial separation between a viewer and a windfarm (affecting sensitivity to scale effects within open settings); and differences in how people judge the importance of horizontal scale effects compared to vertical scale effects. The research findings contribute to the knowledge and understanding of people’s perception of scale and scale effects in a landscape and they counter some common assumptions and current practice in landscape architecture. They can be applied in practice and policy to help assess scale effects, convey more clearly to people the type of scale effects and how these will affect them, and minimise the adverse scale effects of windfarms through siting and design. The thesis also identifies how to build upon these findings in the future, including recommendations for additional research, new approaches to assessment (including the use of prompt lists) and thresholds for acceptability of scale effects.

This thesis is an autoethnography of an elementary art teacher who has transitioned from a traditional, teacher-led curriculum to a choice-based model where more freedom and responsibilities are given to the students. It is an account of the challenges and obstacles faced during the implementation of a choice-based curriculum and offers possible solutions, teaching strategies, and tips utilized to navigate the transition.

abstract: Revenue management is at the core of airline operations today; proprietary algorithms and heuristics are used to determine prices and availability of tickets on an almost-continuous basis. While initial developments in revenue management were motivated by industry practice, later developments overcoming fundamental omissions from earlier models show significant improvement, despite their focus on relatively esoteric aspects of the problem, and have limited potential for practical use due to computational requirements. This dissertation attempts to address various modeling and computational issues, introducing realistic choice-based demand revenue management models. In particular, this work introduces two optimization formulations alongside a choice-based demand modeling framework, improving on the methods that choice-based revenue management literature has created to date, by providing sensible models for airline implementation. The first model offers an alternative formulation to the traditional choice-based revenue management problem presented in the literature, and provides substantial gains in expected revenue while limiting the problem’s computational complexity. Making assumptions on passenger demand, the Choice-based Mixed Integer Program (CMIP) provides a significantly more compact formulation when compared to other choice-based revenue management models, and consistently outperforms previous models. Despite the prevalence of choice-based revenue management models in literature, the assumptions made on purchasing behavior inhibit researchers to create models that properly reflect passenger sensitivities to various ticket attributes, such as price, number of stops, and flexibility options. This dissertation introduces a general framework for airline choice-based demand modeling that takes into account various ticket attributes in addition to price, providing a framework for revenue management models to relate airline companies’ product design strategies to the practice of revenue management through decisions on ticket availability and price. Finally, this dissertation introduces a mixed integer non-linear programming formulation for airline revenue management that accommodates the possibility of simultaneously setting prices and availabilities on a network. Traditional revenue management models primarily focus on availability, only, forcing secondary models to optimize prices. The Price-dynamic Choice-based Mixed Integer Program (PCMIP) eliminates this two-step process, aligning passenger purchase behavior with revenue management policies, and is shown to outperform previously developed models, providing a new frontier of research in airline revenue management. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Industrial Engineering 2016

Diese Masterarbeit untersucht die Fragestellung, ob die Einwohner Deutschlands zukünftig E-Autos als Energiespeicher im Smart Grid akzeptieren und inwiefern variable Preise zur Vergütung der Fahrzeugbesitzer geeignet sind. Zu diesem Zweck wurde eine Stated Choice Befragung durchgeführt. Der ermittelte Datensatz wurde anhand drei verschiedener Conjoint-Analysen ausgewertet. Dazu wurde jeweils ein Teilwert-Modell als Nutzenmodell und ein multinomiales Logit-Choice-Modell formuliert. Der Top-Down-Ansatz wurde genutzt, um reduzierte Modelle zu bilden, welche ausschließlich signifikante Schätzer enthalten. Zur Überprüfung der Modelle wurden globale Gütemaße herangezogen. Bei der Auswertung der Modelle ergab sich, dass die Probanden ihre Wahl hauptsächlich von der Alternative selbst – Fixpreis oder variabler Preis – abhängig machen und weniger von der Ausgestaltung der Preise.

This research is an exploration of how the capabilities of the Internet may have influenced customer preference structures and how these influences may, in turn, have affected loyalty behaviours. These relationships are explored from both customers’ and companies’ perspectives. A theoretical model is developed which comprises four main components. These are (1) pre-purchase preference structures; (2) post-purchase preference structures (3) the Internet channel and (4) loyalty behaviours. The Internet channel is shown as having a modifying effect on pre- and post-purchase preference structures, which in turn relate to influences in loyalty behaviours. From the customer’s perspective the theoretical model was quantitatively tested by developing pre- and post-purchase preference structures from a choice-based conjoint experiment on a sample of online and offline grocery shoppers. The results showed that these preference structures differed significantly on a number of attributes. The theoretical model was further tested by linking the utility values from the choice-based conjoint experiment to loyalty variables in a structural equation model. The results showed that the theoretical model needed adjustment to fit the underlying data. The offline shoppers’ group model had a better fit to the data than did the online group. The company perspective was developed through a longitudinal study of four U.K. companies in different industries. The qualitative data collected in these studies was compared and contrasted with the theoretical model. The emergent pattern within this analysis showed that companies with a strong understanding of customer preference structures in a traditional marketing channel, was no guarantee that the capabilities of the Internet would be used to strengthen performance on those preferences. One common theme that emerged from interviews with companies was that those who rapidly developed new levels of performance on customer preferences using the capabilities of the Internet had made the Internet a major component of their business model. The qualitative data showed companies as either adopting a transactional or an informational approach to their Internet channel strategy with radically different implications for their business models.

O mercado de Educação Superior privado no Brasil apresenta altos índices de concentração, caracterizando-se como um oligopólio, podendo, portanto, ser estudado sob a ótica da Teoria dos Jogos. Uma das técnicas existentes para abordar este tipo de mercado é conhecida por Análise Conjunta Baseada em Escolhas (Choice Based Conjoint Analysis), que permite estimar as utilidades atribuídas para cada característica dos produtos, prevendo o desejo de cada produto gerado pela combinação dos seus atributos, possibilitando, assim, simular como as decisões de uma amostra de respondentes seriam distribuídas em um mercado simulado entre dois ou mais produtos competidores. Esses modelos, porém, limitam-se a maximizar a receita individual de cada produto, de forma isolada, não levando em conta a possibilidade das firmas terem interesses em maximizar a soma de dois ou mais produtos de forma conjunta. Isso se torna necessário, por exemplo, quando uma empresa comercializa dois produtos que competem no mesmo mercado. Com o objetivo de maximizar a receita conjunta de dois ou mais produtos, foi desenvolvido um método alternativo, baseado em Programação Não-Linar, que foi aplicado em uma cidade brasileira e em um país centro-americano. A comparação dos resultados do modelo desenvolvido com os do modelo tradicional evidencia que o modelo desenvolvido apresenta melhores resultados – soma das receitas das firmas de interesse – gerando uma taxa de crescimento na receita 3% maior, no caso brasileiro e 75% maior no estudo centro-americano. O modelo desenvolvido pode ser adaptado e utilizado em outros mercados oligopolistas ou para otimizar diferentes funções-objetivo. / The Brazilian Higher Education private market shows high levels of concentration and can be considered an oligopoly. Therefore, one can study it as a Game Theory problem. Choice Based Conjoint Analysis – a technic that can be used to approach this kind of market – can estimates the utilities of each products’ features and predict the desire of each product generated by the combination of its attributes. Such technic can simulate how the decisions of a sample of respondents would be distributed among the products of a market made of two or more competitor. These models, however, only maximize the revenues of individual products, not considering the possibility of firms wanting to maximize the sum of the revenue of two or more products. This is useful, for instance, when a company trends two or more products that compete in the same market. An alternative method, based on nonlinear programming, was developed, in order to maximize the conjoint revenue of two or more products and it was applied in a Brazilian city and in a Central American country. Comparing both models – the traditional versus the developed one –, we can see that the developed model shows better outcomes – ie, sum of both companies’ revenues – resulting in a revenue increase rate 3% higher in the Brazilian case and 75% higher in the Central American study. This model can be fitted to other oligopolistic markets or to optimize others objective functions.

Environment and its conservation is one of the key issues across the globe these days. It is even more important in the Scandinavian region.Swedenis one of the leading pro-environment nations in the world when it comes to environment-friendly or green automobiles. Introducing emissions tax, green car rebate, and congestion tax exemption for green cars on large cities have resulted in a surge of green car sales inSwedenover the past few years. The preferences of the Swedish green car consumers are examined in this study.   Consumer decision process and preferences related theories have been used for the theoretical understanding of this study and based on these understandings, the Adaptive Choice Based Conjoint Analysis has been selected to measure and understand the consumer preferences towards green cars. The Swedish green car market has been explained and understood as a prerequisite to conduct this study. Examinations of previous related studies, a small scale pre-screening survey, and expert interviews were carried out prior to formulating the conjoint experiment to ensure the inclusion of significant components into the study. The collected data were analyzed using advanced analysis software such as, SSI Web, SMRT, and SPSS, to understand and measure consumer preferences. The findings provide answers to the importance of different attributes in the purchase decision-making for green cars, the effect of each attribute to the decision-making process, the effect of prior purchase experience on the formation of preference, and the relationship between consumer’s green consciousness level and green decision-making process.   This study contributes to the theoretical field of green consumer behavior and to the practical field of marketing of green cars. The study also identifies and recommends key areas of interest that warrant further research.   Key Words: High Involvement Purchase, Green Consumer Behavior, Conjoint Analysis, Adaptive Choice Based Conjoint Analysis (ACBC), Green Preference, Green Car.

This research is the outcome of a preeminent interest in the topic of price perception. Pointedly, the perception of prices is part of the purchasing process, the same willingness to pay and the actual purchase behaviour, and is indubitably a perceptual construct. As such, perception is problematic to measure as it does not relate to an observable behaviour. On the other hand, pricing is regarded as an important variable in the marketing mix. This research contributes to theory by augmenting the current knowledge on the perception of prices including the methods used in the measurement of such perception. Moreover, this research addresses a gap in the understanding of how diverse ethnic groups perceive prices. The relationship set in this study between ethnicity and price perception is thought-provoking as it contributes to the current discussion around diversity in the marketplace. For example, the literature shows advances in areas such as multicultural and ethnic marketing and this research makes a significant contribution to these areas from price perception. Accordingly, this study involved a systematic review of the literature and presented a framework that suggested that the formation of price perception is affected by external factors such as culture and ethnicity. Furthermore, a qualitative study examined the formation of price perception around ethnic groups. Next, this research used a quantitative study that sought differences in price perception among ethnic groups. Thus, the quantitative study used a price perception scale (Lichtenstein et al., 1993) and a choice-based conjoint analysis. Also, the study adopted structural equation modelling (SEM) to measure differences among scales and the multinomial logit model to analyse the choice-based conjoint analysis. The findings of both the quantitative and the qualitative studies link to the systematic review and support the framework for the formation and measurement of price perception originally proposed.

O mercado de Educação Superior privado no Brasil apresenta altos índices de concentração, caracterizando-se como um oligopólio, podendo, portanto, ser estudado sob a ótica da Teoria dos Jogos. Uma das técnicas existentes para abordar este tipo de mercado é conhecida por Análise Conjunta Baseada em Escolhas (Choice Based Conjoint Analysis), que permite estimar as utilidades atribuídas para cada característica dos produtos, prevendo o desejo de cada produto gerado pela combinação dos seus atributos, possibilitando, assim, simular como as decisões de uma amostra de respondentes seriam distribuídas em um mercado simulado entre dois ou mais produtos competidores. Esses modelos, porém, limitam-se a maximizar a receita individual de cada produto, de forma isolada, não levando em conta a possibilidade das firmas terem interesses em maximizar a soma de dois ou mais produtos de forma conjunta. Isso se torna necessário, por exemplo, quando uma empresa comercializa dois produtos que competem no mesmo mercado. Com o objetivo de maximizar a receita conjunta de dois ou mais produtos, foi desenvolvido um método alternativo, baseado em Programação Não-Linar, que foi aplicado em uma cidade brasileira e em um país centro-americano. A comparação dos resultados do modelo desenvolvido com os do modelo tradicional evidencia que o modelo desenvolvido apresenta melhores resultados – soma das receitas das firmas de interesse – gerando uma taxa de crescimento na receita 3% maior, no caso brasileiro e 75% maior no estudo centro-americano. O modelo desenvolvido pode ser adaptado e utilizado em outros mercados oligopolistas ou para otimizar diferentes funções-objetivo. / The Brazilian Higher Education private market shows high levels of concentration and can be considered an oligopoly. Therefore, one can study it as a Game Theory problem. Choice Based Conjoint Analysis – a technic that can be used to approach this kind of market – can estimates the utilities of each products’ features and predict the desire of each product generated by the combination of its attributes. Such technic can simulate how the decisions of a sample of respondents would be distributed among the products of a market made of two or more competitor. These models, however, only maximize the revenues of individual products, not considering the possibility of firms wanting to maximize the sum of the revenue of two or more products. This is useful, for instance, when a company trends two or more products that compete in the same market. An alternative method, based on nonlinear programming, was developed, in order to maximize the conjoint revenue of two or more products and it was applied in a Brazilian city and in a Central American country. Comparing both models – the traditional versus the developed one –, we can see that the developed model shows better outcomes – ie, sum of both companies’ revenues – resulting in a revenue increase rate 3% higher in the Brazilian case and 75% higher in the Central American study. This model can be fitted to other oligopolistic markets or to optimize others objective functions.

O mercado de Educação Superior privado no Brasil apresenta altos índices de concentração, caracterizando-se como um oligopólio, podendo, portanto, ser estudado sob a ótica da Teoria dos Jogos. Uma das técnicas existentes para abordar este tipo de mercado é conhecida por Análise Conjunta Baseada em Escolhas (Choice Based Conjoint Analysis), que permite estimar as utilidades atribuídas para cada característica dos produtos, prevendo o desejo de cada produto gerado pela combinação dos seus atributos, possibilitando, assim, simular como as decisões de uma amostra de respondentes seriam distribuídas em um mercado simulado entre dois ou mais produtos competidores. Esses modelos, porém, limitam-se a maximizar a receita individual de cada produto, de forma isolada, não levando em conta a possibilidade das firmas terem interesses em maximizar a soma de dois ou mais produtos de forma conjunta. Isso se torna necessário, por exemplo, quando uma empresa comercializa dois produtos que competem no mesmo mercado. Com o objetivo de maximizar a receita conjunta de dois ou mais produtos, foi desenvolvido um método alternativo, baseado em Programação Não-Linar, que foi aplicado em uma cidade brasileira e em um país centro-americano. A comparação dos resultados do modelo desenvolvido com os do modelo tradicional evidencia que o modelo desenvolvido apresenta melhores resultados – soma das receitas das firmas de interesse – gerando uma taxa de crescimento na receita 3% maior, no caso brasileiro e 75% maior no estudo centro-americano. O modelo desenvolvido pode ser adaptado e utilizado em outros mercados oligopolistas ou para otimizar diferentes funções-objetivo. / The Brazilian Higher Education private market shows high levels of concentration and can be considered an oligopoly. Therefore, one can study it as a Game Theory problem. Choice Based Conjoint Analysis – a technic that can be used to approach this kind of market – can estimates the utilities of each products’ features and predict the desire of each product generated by the combination of its attributes. Such technic can simulate how the decisions of a sample of respondents would be distributed among the products of a market made of two or more competitor. These models, however, only maximize the revenues of individual products, not considering the possibility of firms wanting to maximize the sum of the revenue of two or more products. This is useful, for instance, when a company trends two or more products that compete in the same market. An alternative method, based on nonlinear programming, was developed, in order to maximize the conjoint revenue of two or more products and it was applied in a Brazilian city and in a Central American country. Comparing both models – the traditional versus the developed one –, we can see that the developed model shows better outcomes – ie, sum of both companies’ revenues – resulting in a revenue increase rate 3% higher in the Brazilian case and 75% higher in the Central American study. This model can be fitted to other oligopolistic markets or to optimize others objective functions.