Physical appearance and peer effects in academic performance

A large literature examines the role of peer effects in shaping student academic outcomes. This article adds to that literature by introducing a new kind of peer effect – the effect of classmate physical appearance. We document that college students are assigned higher grades when in a classroom with peers who are rated as very attractive. This effect is strongest for female students and appears to be concentrated among the courses of younger and male instructors.     

Health clubs and body politics: aesthetics and the quest for physical capital

At present, the western world wrestles with an obesity epidemic whilst, paradoxically, maintaining a fascination for the aesthetic ideal body. With the Scottish health and fitness industry providing the empirical backdrop, and drawing on the work of Bourdieu, this paper critically reflects upon processes of embodied production and consumption and the quest for physical capital and its referential symbolism. Using a range of qualitative methods across three case study facilities it is argued that as consumers seek to attain desired forms of physical capital, health and fitness clubs serve both to capitalize on and perpetuate cycles of embodied dissatisfaction. Although willingly subjecting their bodies to constant ocularcentric and objectifying processes, consumers are constantly reminded of their failure to attain the physical capital they desire. These processes not only mirror modern consumerism but also highlight a process of self‐imposed domination. With external medical and media discourses exerting persistent pressure on the embodied state, desire for physical capital produces a self‐legitimating and regulatory regime perpetrated upon the self within the internal environment of the health and fitness club. Therefore, as a venue for playing out aesthetic politics, health and fitness club spaces are anything but healthy as they oil the desire and dreamscape of physical capital, maintaining an aesthetic masochism and thus keeping the treadmills literally and economically turning.     

The Influence of Appearance and the Number of People Viewed on Tourists’ Preferences for Seeing Other Tourists

This study examines tourists’ attitudes towards tourist-tourist encounters. The appearance and the number of observed tourists as well as the place of residence of the observing tourists were studied. The variables of tourist appearance and the number of people at the site were manipulated electronically in a set of rainforest photographic images. The data were collected through an on-site self-administered questionnaire. The results from 409 respondents suggested that there were different encounter preferences between Japanese and Western observers with respect to both appearance and the number of people encountered. Japanese have a preference for mixing with Westerners, at least in the rainforest setting studied. Westerners do not have marked appearance-related preferences. For the number of people in the setting, Westerners are inclined to favour few or no people while Japanese prefer some people and are tolerant of larger numbers. These findings, which contradict much of the existing North American recreation based work on people in contact, were examined from a number of theoretical perspectives, including in-group and out-group analyses, and dynamic encounter norms. Some potential management implications were outlined.     

农产品讨价还价行为：尼日利亚奥甘州牛肉零售定价案例研究

对市场上的商品缺乏标准的度量和分级是发展中国家（如尼日利亚）农产品市场的一个主要特征。由此导致价格标签很少被使用，事实上也很难实施。在尼日利亚的大部分地区，农产品和非农产品的批发和零售价格都是由激烈的讨价还价所决定的。分级和商品质量的随意性，意味着价格可能无意地被一些不相干的因素影响。在尼日利亚商品交换过程的研究方面，很少有对商品讨价还价行为进行实证研究的。本文的主要研究目的在于：①从市场期间、买方特征和性别等方面，比较牛肉零售价格的形成方式；②估计牛肉价格形成与所考虑的决定因素之间的关系。研究在四个独立的城市市场进行，研究结果表明，针对不同性别的买方，买方价格和卖方价格的形成方式没有差异；针对不同着装的买方（特征），在讨价还价中的方式也没有差异；但讨价还价的时间在统计上则显著影响。统计上来看，多数零售价格变量的平均值早晨比晚上较大。     

How can manufacturers make decisions on product appearance design? A research on optimal design based on customers’ emotional satisfaction

With changing customer attitudes toward consumption and function homogenization, product appearance designs have an increasing influence on the purchase decision. Customer characteristics and emotional factors play an important role here. This study proposes a novel approach for modelling satisfaction and accomplishing a configuration that overcomes the limitations of conventional methods to precisely predict satisfaction, provide optimal product recommendations, and advise manufacturers on product appearance design. The newly proposed approach considers satisfaction, clusters customers through the Kansei perspective, and constructs a satisfaction model for each cluster. Additionally, the study employs data mining to understand the basic design principles and conflicted combinations that must be followed and avoided, respectively. The bidirectional association rules-constrained genetic algorithm is presented to limit configuration freedom, ensuring that results are in the range of control. Comparing prediction errors and recommended sample votes between the novel and conventional approaches revealed the presented approach’s efficiency and accuracy, thereby providing suggestions for manufacturers to make precise decisions on launching new product appearance designs through predicting customer emotional satisfaction.     

Measurement of reciprocity in a village through social networks

This paper examines measuring of interdependency among households through their transactions by using information of individual villagers in a disadvantaged area in a developing country. To obtain the information, we created a village input–output table (VIOT) from household survey data conducted in a rural village in Lao PDR in 2015 and 2016. Because each household in the village is not only a producer but also a consumer who is trading products and consuming them, the VIOT is a simple but useful tool to know the economic transactions among villagers. The main findings are that four higher-income families, which mainly trade rice very frequently, are playing key roles in the village economy, and the interdependency among higher-income households is stronger than among lower/middle-income households. Additionally, this method can be used to form an economic policy such as poverty reduction because of informing households playing a key role in the village.     

国际反倾销报复表象分析

文章先从国际反倾销国别分布的总体情况出发分辨出可能存在反倾销报复行为的国家和地区,然后利用两两国家或地区之间的反倾销数据,以绝对数量、相对数量和实施最终措施比率三个指标来判断主要国家和地区之间的反倾销报复行为。分析表明,国际反倾销存在报复表象,这在印度、美国和欧盟等9个国际反倾销的主要国家和地区中得到较显著的反映。但总的来看,国际反倾销还只是存在一定程度且范围不太大的报复表象。     

Marketing the female politician: an exploration of gender and appearance

Abstract

This paper sheds light on issues of gender roles and gender hierarchies using Goffman’s theories on gender and performance as a starting point to explore modern-day manifestations of power structures in political marketing, particularly as related to female politicians. In-depth interviews with four female politicians, 17 aides, volunteers, PAC and media executives as well as two focus groups with registered voters reveal subordination of female politicians through hyper-ritualised displays of social relations. The findings showcase how appearance is used to facilitate the ongoing objectification of female politicians in political marketing and devalue their candidacies. This study is an important step in examining the role of gender and appearance in political marketing and its importance in building brand image for a female politician.     

一种融合遮挡分割的多目标跟踪算法

复杂环境下的多目标视频跟踪是计算机视觉领域的一个难点,有效处理目标间遮挡是 解决多目标跟踪问题的关键。提出了一种融合遮挡分割的多目标跟踪算法,计算每个目标 的光流速度概率直方图,反映其运动统计信息;综合使用外观、运动、颜色信息构造新的像 素距离表达,借助分阶段分类思想及K均值聚类技术进行遮挡分割,得到准确的运动前景 像素;在粒子滤波器跟踪框架下,使用概率外观模型进行多目标跟踪,更好地处理动态遮挡 问题。实验表明,所提算法解决了复杂环境下的多目标跟踪问题。     

浅析混凝土结构及其外观质量控制

混凝土结构质量控制包括对其强度、外观、密实度、耐久性等方面的控制,而结构外观质量控制对工程质量显得尤为重要。文章主要分析了现场混凝土浇筑施工质量存在的问题。