The paper provides a model that assesses the set of complementary components of varying compatibility and its effect towards consumer adoption decisions. The smartphone market is a system good which utilizes the device and a set of compatible applications (apps). The amount of switching costs may vary depending upon the consumer’s decision to switch devices or across platforms. Analyzing the Android ecosystem, the process of custom ROMs (and rooting) and the large set of games, news, etc. apps justify the existence of device-specific and platform-specific apps. The model reinforces the findings of a survey conducted by UBS suggesting the retention rate (i.e. level of switch costs) of Apple users is higher than Android users. The retention among Android devices is much lower in comparison as well. The model observes that the product fragmentation and the interdependence of apps lead to the noticeably lower retention rates across Android devices and platforms.

Retail sales of container gardens have increased dramatically in the recent past and rose 8% from 2004 to 2005, to $1.295 billion. The objective of this study was to determine consumer preferences for three attributes of container gardens. A Web-based survey was conducted on 18 Oct. 2006 with 985 respondents. Survey participants invited from an independent garden center’s customer e- mail list were asked to complete a series of questions on a seven point Likert scale. Survey participants also answered questions about past experiences and future purchase intentions with container gardens, as well as demographics. A hierarchical set of levels were used to investigate three attributes of container gardens in a 3 X 3 X 3 factorial conjoint analysis including color harmony, price and care information level provided with the purchase. The surveys were analyzed using conjoint analysis which accounted for 99.8% of the variance in container garden preference. Relative importance decreased from price (70.7%), to care information level (22.9%), to color harmony (6.4%). Survey participants preferred a container garden with a price point of $24.99, extensive information and the complementary color harmony. A significant portion (77.5%) of participants in this study indicated that they would be more likely to purchase a container garden if extensive information was included with the purchase and 84.8% of participants said they would be willing to visit a Website that would provide more information on how to care for and maintain a container garden. Results of this study show that there is a potential to increase the value of a container garden through providing educational material with the purchase.

The electronic mail has become one of the most popular communication channels in the modern world. Due to its convenience and low cost, however, many business salesmen utilize this channel to promote their products by distributing e-mails to people as far as they can reach, which causes troubles to irrelevant e-mail receivers. As a result, many a research has been devoted to filtering irrelevant e-mails based on data mining techniques to alleviate users¡¦ mental loadings in processing e-mails they receive. Nevertheless, current approaches have their own drawbacks. Issues on what appropriate classifies to construct, how to endow such classifiers with the adaptive learning ability, and how to customize the e-mail management process for each user are still under investigation. The objective of this research is therefore to construct an e-mail classifier with learning ability to self-correct from erroneous outcomes. Furthermore, we propose a customized e-mail management process that can handle users¡¦ e-mails based on their own preferences. Ultimately, it can adapt itself to the changes of users¡¦ preferences when handling their e-mails. Several experiments are conducted to verify the performance of the constructed classifier. The results show that our proposed classifier possesses high accuracy and high precision with outstanding adaptive learning ability. We also illustrate a real application of the customized e-mail management process. It shows that our approach can detect the changes of users¡¦ preferences and learn to follow the changes. The feasibility of employing our approach to constructing e-mail classifiers is thus justified.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Alberta, 2010. / Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on Jan. 21, 2010). A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Food Science and Technology, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 261-219). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 261-219). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.(H.P.))--University of Queensland, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1983.