Lead users and the adoption and diffusion of new products: Insights from two extreme sports communities

Lead users are proposed as a valuable resource for marketers in terms of the (1) development, (2) adoption, and (3) diffusion of new products. We present the first consumer study to provide evidence that the latter two suggestions are justified. First, we find that lead users demonstrate stronger domain-specific innovativeness than more “ordinary” users. Second, lead users perceive new technologies as less “complex” and might therefore be better prepared to adopt them. Third, we find that lead users demonstrate stronger opinion leadership and weaker opinion seeking tendencies. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for the marketing of new products.     

ERP中固定采购提前期矛盾的一种管理解决方法

采购提前期的确定是确保ERP核心部分MRP有效运行的重要前提之一，也是MRP实施过程中比较棘手的问题。MRP固定提前期的使用，又带来各种问题和矛盾，使得ERP的运行结果无法应用。基于技术的柔性提前期的应用．也因提前期数据难以确定，而不能从根本上解决这些问题。本文作者通过深入研究和实践经历．提出一种通过管理变革的措施，使得这一问题得到有效解决。     

Small seeds for grand challenges—Exploring disregarded seeds of change in a foresight process for RTI policy

The recent turn in research, technology and innovation (RTI) policy towards challenge-led strategies is posing new demands to Foresight methodology. RTI Foresight practitioners need to complement their well developed set of technology oriented methods with equally sophisticated approaches tackling societal aspects of innovation. In this paper we aim to make a contribution to this requirement. Building on user innovation theory we argue that demand oriented RTI Foresight needs to systematically integrate voices and hypotheses from the fringes of the innovation system. In order to develop a sound approach for this we set out from well established Foresight theory on “weak signals” and “cognitive biases”. Adopting a constructivist stance towards such signals leads us to the need to set up a socially robust, diverse discourse on “seeds of change hypotheses”. We then outline a practical implementation of such a discourse in the context of the recent Foresight process of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in Germany. We describe and discuss the experience of this Foresight process and suggest avenues for further development of the approach.     

Consequences of competitive bidding in project-based production

This paper discusses the consequences competitive bidding have on lead time in project-based production, such as construction. Earlier studies argued that competitive bidding may significantly increase resource consumption and generate waste in the delivery process, which this paper supports. However, the relation between competitive bidding and lead time has been less discussed. Lead time reduction has long been considered a fundamental objective for overall business improvement. An objective of our study was to understand what contributes to long lead times. The reported findings are from a 4-year study on the delivery process of power distribution equipment, a type of engineered-to-order (ETO) product. The paper concludes by suggesting procurement practices that reduce lead times for ETO products.     

Design of a novel adaptive inventory control system based on the online identification of lead time

In this paper, an adaptation method for the online identification of lead time is incorporated in production–inventory control systems. Based on the lead time estimate, the tuning parameters are updated in real time to improve the efficiency of the system. Combination of the adaptive scheme with a proportional control law is able to eliminate the inventory drift that appears when the actual lead time is not known in advance or when it varies with time. A detailed analysis is provided for the proposed production–inventory system, including a stability analysis and the quantification of its bullwhip effect. Several examples and comparison with state-of-the-art alternative approaches illustrate the efficiency of the system.     

利用螯合树脂分离富集法消除鱼粉中氯化钠对铅、镉测定的干扰

本文通过螯合树脂吸附,将铅、镉和氯化钠基体分离,采用原子吸收法测定,彻底解决了鱼粉中高盐基体带来的背景干扰问题,可准确测出鱼粉中铅、镉含量。     

Venture capital firms’ lead orientation,network position,and selection of familiar syndicate partners

This study explores how a venture capital (VC) firm’s lead orientation (i.e., acting more as a lead investor rather than a follower investor in past syndication investments) influences its selection of familiar syndicate partners. By conducting empirical research that uses detailed information of 11,219 investment deals in China from January 1999 to June 2016, we find that a VC firm’s lead orientation has an inverted U-shaped relationship with its propensity to select familiar syndicate partners. In other words, as a VC firm’s lead orientation increases, its familiarity degree with the partners in the subsequent syndicated investment will first increase and then decrease. In addition, a VC firm’s network centrality and network constraint imposed by the VC network structure both weakens the inverted U-shaped relationship between its lead orientation and the selection of familiar partners. Robustness checks with different measures and samples, together with the instrumental variable approach and the Heckman selection model that address potential endogeneity problems, show the reliability of our findings.     

A DISPLACED POISSON PROCESS APPLIED TO SCREENING FOR BREAST CANCER EN STRATIFIED SAMPLES WITH FALSE NEGATIVES*

A displaced Poisson process model allowing for stratified populations and “false negatives” is presented for describing the progress of certain chronic diseases. This model, which builds on earlier work by the authors, allows for the simple estimation of various parameters and distributions of interest in screening. A Monte Carlo simulation study illustrating and partially verifying the model predictions is given.     

电子电气产品中铅、镉和铬测量的不确定度评定

本文对电子电气产品中铅、镉、铬测量的不确定度进行了评定。用火焰原子吸收光谱法测定电子电气产品中铅、镉、铬含量,通过对影响样品测量结果的不确定度分量的分析和量化,计算出被测量（铅、镉、铬含量）的标准不确定度和扩展不确定度,从而给出各分量对总测量不确定度的相对贡献,并对测量结果进行了表述。     

Does the relationship between small and large portfolios’ returns confirm the lead–lag effect? Evidence from the Athens Stock Exchange

This paper investigates whether lead–lag patterns exist between small and large size portfolios constructed from stocks traded in the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). We examine this relationship in both the short-run (by using the correlation-based approach of Lo and MacKinlay, 1990 and the generalised impulse response analysis by Pesaran and Shin, 1996, Pesaran and Shin, 1998) and the long-run by employing the cointegration-based methodology of Kanas and Kouretas (2005). Furthermore, upon identifying that cointegration exists we then use the estimated error correction models (ECMs) to obtain out-of-sample forecasts of small-firm portfolio returns and it is shown that these ECMs have superior forecasting performance relative to models without the error correction terms. Therefore, we were able to provide a richer exploration of the lead–lag relationships than the one obtained by standard autocorrelation and cross-correlation analysis and vector autoregression analysis. The main finding of our analysis is that a lead–lag effect between small and large size portfolios was established in both the short-run and the long-run for the Athens equity market.