Developing a quality prioritization procedure for IPTV service

This study developed a procedure to determine the quality priorities of the internet protocol television (IPTV) service. First, a set of key elements of IPTV service quality was developed based on a literature review and a focus group interview. Second, analytic hierarchy process and the Kano model were applied to identify the requirements of experts and customers, respectively. The experts measured the importance and difficulty of management, whereas the customers measured the satisfaction level and importance of each quality element. Third, quality priorities were calculated through the entropy principle and scenario-based analysis. The proposed procedure is illustrated with a case study of a telecommunications company in Korea.     

未来城市:迈向可持续的垂直城市主义——“世界高层建筑与都市人居学会(CTBUH)2014全球大会”综述

地球上人类的生存依赖于我们对城市的革命性重塑。人们需要考虑每一座建筑是如何在和谐的城市整体中与其它建筑相互作用的,即最大化利用城市和建筑的基础设施、共享资源、生产并储存能源以及探索全新的方式来提升建筑在物质、环境、文化与社会方面为城市做出的贡献。     

Understanding repeat playing behavior in casual games using a Bayesian data augmentation approach

With an estimated market size of nearly $18 billion in 2016, casual games (games played over social networks or mobile devices) have become increasingly popular. Because most casual games are free to install, understanding repeat playing behavior is important for game developers as it directly drives advertising revenue. Game developers are keenly interested in benchmarking their game versus the market average, and understanding how genre and various game mechanics drive repeat playing behavior. Such cross-sectional analysis, however, is difficult to conduct because individual-level data on competitors’ games are not publicly available, and that the casual gaming industry is highly fragmented with each firm making only a handful of games.I develop a Bayesian approach, based on a parsimonious Hidden Markov Model at the individual level in conjunction with data augmentation, to study repeat playing behavior using only publicly available data. After applying the proposed approach to a sample of 379 casual games, I find that the average daily attrition rate across game is around 36.5%, with an average “play” rate of 47.9%, resulting in an average ARPU (average revenue per user) across games of around 20.5 cents. Certain genres are linked to higher attrition rates and play rates. In addition, giving out a “daily bonus” or limiting the amount of time that gamers can play each day are associated with a 17.7% and 16.4% higher ARPU, respectively.     

Financial market globalization,nonconvergence and credit cycles

This paper explores the dynamic consequences of variable investment-project size in a global economy consisting of many small open countries that are plagued with domestic credit market frictions. As is customary in the literature, borrowers provide some internal funds, but they also need external funds to implement their investment projects, which are subject to the costly-state-verification problem. Contrary to the literature, the investment-project size increases with the country’s own capital stock. We find that financial market globalization may lead to a process of oscillatory convergence, even in the absence of any exogenous shocks, if the investment-project size is very sensitive to the change in capital stock.     

Internal branding experiences in the financial services sector in South Africa

There is little doubt that employees are critical to the delivery of the service brand. Although existing models propose methods of internal branding, very little is known about the actual corporate experience. Academics around the world have spent decades probing internal marketing, its subset—internal branding—and the impact of internal branding on service delivery. This research focuses on how organisations execute internal branding, revealing critical success factors as well as obstacles encountered. The research was conducted in five large organisations in the financial services sector in South Africa. Each organisation is a highly recognisable consumer brand; the oldest of which is nearing 200 years of being in business and the youngest is just 20 years old. This research adds to the body of knowledge regarding organisational practice of internal branding. Key themes are identified, three of which are largely absent from extant models and literature.     

Stock markets fragmentation,volatility and final investors

The 2000s in equity markets are marked by two major regulatory shocks: RegNMS in the United States, and MiFID in the European Union. Simultaneously, there is a massive increase in the proportion of high-frequency trading, and market orders volume. However, trading volumes do not significantly increase. We propose a theoretical model describing the effects of stock markets fragmentation on two types of investors optimization problems: “intermediary” high-frequency and “final” investors. Volatility has a permanent and a transitory component, whose weights depend on market fragmentation via the share of non-marketable orders of intermediary investors. The trading volume of final investors depends on market fragmentation both directly via transaction costs, and indirectly via total volatility. Finally a shock in fragmentation may lead to a decrease in trading volume, enhanced in the case of an equity markets crisis by a rise in the components of volatility.     

研学结合教学理念在微观经济学课程中的应用

为了探索适合高职学生学习特点的教学方法，提高教学质量，本文就研学结合教学理念的内涵、实施路径、特征和目的进行了探索和研究，并在微观经济学课程中进行试验。结果显示教学效果良好，教学质量得到提升，学生的学习兴趣得以提高，主动参与的积极性增加，培养了学生分析问题和解决问题的能力，为专业训练和实践打好基础。论文最后就研学结合教学理念在微观经济学课程实施中存在的问题进行了剖析，并提出了进一步探索和努力地方向。