Mohammad Saleh Torkestani, Zohreh Dehdashti Shahrokh, Kobra Bakhshizadeh Borj
et al.
Purpose - Diasporas of a country of origin are groups interested in country-of-origin scattered in host countries and familiar with markets of host countries. This paper aims to discourse analysis of diaspora marketing researches. Methodology - In judgmental sampling using selected keywords 24 researches in two eras before and after 2010 are selected for discourse analysis. Faircloughs critical discourse analysis model is used to analyze research data. Findings- Two different discourses can be distinguished in diaspora marketing researches. The diaspora niche marketing discourse is focused on penetrating into diaspora niche market. The diaspora marketing strategy discourse is focused on developing into international market using diaspora leverage. Research limitations and implications - Judgmental sampling and lived experience of researchers in a developing country which is usually considered as a diasporas country of origin rather than a diasporas host country limit the generalizability of research results. Practical implications - Understanding the extensions of diaspora marketing concept and diaspora marketing discourses is helpful for designing appropriate strategies for entering and developing in the international market. Originality - this paper investigates extensions of diaspora concept in previous research identifies diaspora marketing discourses and compares dominant diaspora marketing discourse with global marketing discourse.
Distribution Matching Distillation (DMD) facilitates efficient inference by distilling multi-step diffusion models into few-step variants. Concurrently, Reinforcement Learning (RL) has emerged as a vital tool for aligning generative models with human preferences. While both represent critical post-training stages for large-scale diffusion models, existing studies typically treat them as independent, sequential processes, leaving a systematic framework for their unification largely unexplored. In this work, we demonstrate that jointly optimizing these two objectives yields mutual benefits: RL enables more preference-aware and controllable distillation rather than uniformly compressing the full data distribution, while DMD serves as an effective regularizer to mitigate reward hacking during RL training. Building on these insights, we propose DMDR, a unified framework that incorporates Reward-Tilted Distribution Matching optimization alongside two dynamic distillation training strategies in the initial stage, followed by the joint DMD and RL optimization in the second stage. Extensive experiments demonstrate that DMDR achieves state-of-the-art visual quality and prompt adherence among few-step generation methods, even surpassing the performance of its multi-step teacher model.
María de los Angeles Rosales-Melgar, Omar Santana-Morales, Marian Rodríguez-Fuentes
et al.
Small-scale fishing (SSF) stands as a cornerstone of economic activity along Guatemala's coastlines. Fisheries products, including those derived from elasmobranchs, serve as vital sources of income for fishers and dealers. Despite their significance, there remains a paucity of economically characterizing information regarding this fishery. This study provides an overview of the socioeconomic facets and value chain of Guatemala's small-scale elasmobranch fishery, and the country's role in the international market for elasmobranchs listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Data were collected through surveys involving fishing actors from 10 coastal communities in the Caribbean and Pacific, and 32 fishing distribution centers and traditional markets across eight departments in Guatemala. CITES statistics were analyzed to assess the country's role in the international market. Fishers cited fishing as their primary source of employment, with an average tenure of 24 years in the activity. The study found that 25% of fishing actors economically depend on elasmobranchs, while 65% indicated that their income relies on finfish, shrimp, and lobster. The value chain was identified to encompass various actors and processes, spanning from capture and distribution (intermediaries) to marketing and retail sites. The average price increase of elasmobranchs along the value chain was USD 1.66/kg, with the highest increase observed for dried salted sharks (USD 2.65/kg) and the lowest for fresh rays (USD 1.12/kg). Guatemala accounts for 2.76% of CITES species exports from Central American countries, exporting skins (55 tons), fins (47.5 tons), and live specimens (1.9 tons) of Carcharhinus falciformis and Alopias pelagicus between 2018 and 2022, while also being the primary meat importer (65.1 tons), representing 99.78% of total imports in Central America. This suggests that sharks caught in Guatemala do not adequately meet the national demand for shark meat and that special attention is needed to avoid a potential increase in fishing pressure on elasmobranchs.
History of scholarship and learning. The humanities, Social sciences (General)
This paper explores the application of Shapley Value Regression in dissecting marketing performance at channel-partner level, complementing channel-level Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM). Utilizing real-world data from the financial services industry, we demonstrate the practicality of Shapley Value Regression in evaluating individual partner contributions. Although structured in-field testing along with cooperative game theory is most accurate, it can often be highly complex and expensive to conduct. Shapley Value Regression is thus a more feasible approach to disentangle the influence of each marketing partner within a marketing channel. We also propose a simple method to derive adjusted coefficients of Shapley Value Regression and compare it with alternative approaches.
We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the restricted wreath product $A\wr B$ to be $\mathcal{C}$-hereditarily conjugacy separable where $\mathcal{C}$ is an extension-closed pseudovariety of finite groups. Moreover, we prove that the Grigorchuk group is 2-hereditarily conjugacy separable. As an application, we demonstrate that the lamplighter groups and $\mathbb{Z} \wr \mathbb{Z}$ are hereditarily conjugacy separable (but not $p$-conjugacy separable for any prime $p$) which provides infinitely many new examples of solvable, non-polycyclic hereditarily conjugacy separable groups. Furthermore, we study wreath products of cyclic subgroup separable groups and the derived length of iterated wreath products of solvable groups with an abelian base group and, as an application, we give an explicit construction of non-polycyclic hereditarily conjugacy separable groups of arbitrary derived length as an iterated wreath products of abelian groups.
Purpose: The aim of this study is to analysis of the existing situation in the development of the competitiveness of agricultural products and the possibility of replacing imported products. Theoretical Framework: This analysis will be studied in the framework of the impact of marketing to increase the performance of local products in the market. Method: During the work, the quantitative method of data collection was used, mainly the questionnaire was used for data collection. A combination of primary and secondary data was used. We collect 50 data from companies. But we finalized 30 data for analysis. Research methods in this study include multivariable methods along with factor analysis, regression techniques, correlation, and forecasting techniques. Results and Conclusion: The agricultural sector has a fundamental importance in the social and economic development of the country. This sector contributes about 19% to the country's GDP (INSTAT, 2023a) and covers 36.4% of total employment (INSTAT, 2023b). The companies of the agri-food sector and agricultural farms in Albania, through the application of marketing, should identify their potential and opportunities, where in addition to these opportunities, good management based on development plans is required for each product or agricultural culture Research implications: It is a fact that Albania has not moved much in the direction of increasing production capacities, not meeting the demands and needs of consumers with local production and distribution of agri-food products. Originality/value: Part of this study shows that agricultural product manufacturing companies have well-integrated marketing components, especially promotion and distribution channels.
<p>As we spend our lives online, it's becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish the "real" life from a life that is lived virtually surrounded by digital devices. Today, a smartphone is not just a device we use, but it's become a place where we live. The real-life routines, interests and obsessions of consumers today are heavily imitated in the digital worlds: from driving cars in the virtual world, selecting outfits for digital avatars to wear, to cultivating virtual relationships and intimacy (New Trend Report: Into the Metaverse, Wunderman Thompson Intelligence, 2021). As technology progresses, humankind is rapidly moving from the age of social media and mobile devices to the world of web3 with mixed reality experiences. Historically, brands have always moved where consumers have been, to engage, promote and create enriching experiences for their consumers. Thus, this research paper highlights how brands and businesses will use the metaverse as another marketing tool and focuses on the use of the Metaverse by brands to promote their products or services for an eventual purchase in the real-life physical world.</p>
We propose a hierarchical local electricity market (LEM) at the primary and secondary feeder levels in a distribution grid, to optimally coordinate and schedule distributed energy resources (DER) and provide valuable grid services like voltage control. At the primary level, we use a current injection-based model that is valid for both radial and meshed, balanced and unbalanced, multi-phase systems. The primary and secondary markets leverage the flexibility offered by DERs to optimize grid operation and maximize social welfare. Numerical simulations on an IEEE-123 bus modified to include DERs, show that the LEM successfully achieves voltage control and reduces overall network costs, while also allowing us to decompose the price and value associated with different grid services so as to accurately compensate DERs.
Foundation models are a current focus of attention in both industry and academia. While they have shown their capabilities in a variety of tasks, in-depth research is required to determine their robustness to distribution shift when used as a basis for supervised machine learning. This is especially important in the context of clinical data, with particular limitations related to data accessibility, lack of pretraining materials, and limited availability of high-quality annotations. In this work, we examine the stability of models based on representations from foundation models under distribution shift. We focus on confounding by provenance, a form of distribution shift that emerges in the context of multi-institutional datasets when there are differences in source-specific language use and class distributions. Using a sampling strategy that synthetically induces varying degrees of distribution shift, we evaluate the extent to which representations from foundation models result in predictions that are inherently robust to confounding by provenance. Additionally, we examine the effectiveness of a straightforward confounding adjustment method inspired by Pearl's conception of backdoor adjustment. Results indicate that while foundation models do show some out-of-the-box robustness to confounding-by-provenance related distribution shifts, this can be considerably improved through adjustment. These findings suggest a need for deliberate adjustment of predictive models using representations from foundation models in the context of source-specific distributional differences.
Industrial electricity consumers with flexible demand can profit by adjusting their load to short-term prices and by providing balancing services to the grid. Markets which support this kind of short-term position adjustment are the day-ahead market and balancing markets. We propose a formulation for a combined optimization model that computes an optimal distribution of flexibility between the balancing and day-ahead markets. The optimal solution also includes the specific bids for the day-ahead and balancing markets. Besides the expected profits of each market and their individual bidding languages, our model also takes their different roles in a continuous marketing of flexibility into account. To prevent overrating short-term profits we introduce a variable penalty term that adds a cost to unfavorable load schedules. We evaluate the optimization model in a rolling horizon case study based on the setting of a virtual battery at TRIMET SE, which is derived from a flexible aluminum electrolysis process. For such a battery we compute a daily optimal split of flexibility and trading decisions based on data in the period 04/2021 - 03/2022. We show that the optimal split is more profitable than using only one market or a fixed split between the markets.
There are many beauty products circulating in the market, therefore good marketing management is needed so that it can improve optimal purchasing decisions to achieve company goals. To achieve maximum purchase decisions, it is necessary to pay attention to the importance of beauty influencers and product quality. The purpose of the study was to determine the influence of beauty influencers and product quality on purchasing decisions for Garnier facial wash products in Surabaya. The population used is consumers who use Garnier facial wash. Determination of the sample through purposive sampling technique, to obtain 77 respondents. Data was collected through the distribution of questionnaires through google forms, then processed using the Partial Least Square (PLS) analysis technique. The results showed that beauty influencers and product quality had a significant positive effect on purchasing decisions.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the factors and obstacles affecting the development of educational, public, championship and professional sport in Sistan and Baluchistan province.Methods: The method of the present study was applied in terms of purpose and qualitative research. The statistical population of this study was athletes, coaches, sport administrators, faculty members of universities in the province, sport experts and veterans of the province, among whom 43 people were selected as a sample through purposive sampling and snowball exercise. To analyze the data, data encoding method was used in grounded theory.Results: The results showed that the obstacles in sport in the province include 8 general categories. Factors affecting the development of sport in the province include; Professionalism factors, socio-cultural factors, infrastructure and facilities factors, economic factors, managerial and organizational factors, motivational factors, educational and scientific factors, human factors, event factors, media factors. In the present study, an attempt was made to create a sport policy framework for Sistan-Baluchestan province, which consists of various dimensions. One of these dimensions has been the study of development factors that help to design the policy model.Conclusion: By creating and facilitating this model and the final development steps, all the effective dimensions of the partnership can be achieved so that in the future, with the discretion of the officials, it will be closer to the implementation conditions.
Daniel Espinosa Sáez, Paola Andrea Ortiz-Rendón, José Luis Munuera Alemán
Purpose – This paper aims to examine the relationship between control mechanisms and marketing performance based on a sample of marketing managers. To that end, this paper focuses on the relationship between the types of controls used in marketing and the market and business results. Methodology – This study collected the data through a survey among marketing professionals with experience and decision-making capacity involving marketing budgets and plans, in practical terms a sample of 97 marketing managers and analyzed the data via a structural equation model using Smart PLS 3. Findings – The findings confirm that marketing control mechanisms have a significant impact on business results, demonstrating the relationship of formal controls with market results and the relationship between informal controls with financial results. Likewise, the authors were able to prove that there is a relationship between formal and informal control. Practical implications – The implementation of the control mechanisms should be based on the development of a detailed evaluation system of the activities carried out by the marketing employees and an analysis of their capabilities and abilities. In addition, managers should integrate formal control decisions into their marketing strategy to improve organizational results. Originality – The results of this study help explain the relationship between marketing control mechanisms and organizational results and allow to understand what the level of influence is that marketing control mechanisms have on market and financial results.
We determine the asymptotic distribution of Manin's iterated integrals of length at most 2. For all lengths we compute all the asymptotic moments. We show that if the length is at least 3 these moments do in general not determine a unique distribution.
This paper presents a market-based optimization framework wherein Aggregators can compete for nodal capacity across a distribution feeder and guarantee that allocated flexible capacity cannot cause overloads or congestion. This mechanism, thus, allows Aggregators with allocated capacity to pursue a number of services at the whole-sale market level to maximize revenue of flexible resources. Based on Aggregator bids of capacity (MW) and network access price ($/MW), the distribution system operator (DSO) formulates an optimization problem that prioritizes capacity to the different Aggregators across the network while implicitly considering AC network constraints. This grid-aware allocation is obtained by incorporating a convex inner approximation into the optimization framework that prioritizes hosting capacity to different Aggregators. We adapt concepts from transmission-level capacity market clearing, utility demand charges, and Internet-like bandwidth allocation rules to distribution system operations by incorporating nodal voltage and transformer constraints into the optimization framework. Simulation based results on IEEE distribution networks showcase the effectiveness of the approach.
Carlos Mougan, Klaus Broelemann, Gjergji Kasneci
et al.
As input data distributions evolve, the predictive performance of machine learning models tends to deteriorate. In the past, predictive performance was considered the key indicator to monitor. However, explanation aspects have come to attention within the last years. In this work, we investigate how model predictive performance and model explanation characteristics are affected under distribution shifts and how these key indicators are related to each other for tabular data. We find that the modeling of explanation shifts can be a better indicator for the detection of predictive performance changes than state-of-the-art techniques based on representations of distribution shifts. We provide a mathematical analysis of different types of distribution shifts as well as synthetic experimental examples.
The term ‘packaging’ refers to the technological intervention aimed at the protection of food from a variety of factors, which provokes the product detriment. Packaging is considered as one of the most interesting technological aspects and a constantly evolving issue in food production. This paper aims at the evaluation of the properties of packaging currently used in the meat industry and analyses the advantages, the disadvantages and the microbiota involved. Packaging is a coordinated system, which prepares the products for transportation, distribution, storage, marketing and consumption. Even if several packaging alternatives are proposed, the common purpose is to guarantee high standards, yet maintaining the required characteristics as long as possible. Meat is a dynamic system with a limited shelf-life and the nutritional and sensory properties may change during storage due to microbial activity and physical or chemical changes. Microbial spoilage, for instance, determines an impact in meat, producing unattractive odours, flavours, discolouration, gas and slime.
Traditional companies used to design products, evaluate marketing messages, and control product distribution channels with a low level of customer contribution. Nonetheless, with the advancements in communication and information technologies, the interaction between customers and company is much higher compared to the past, and it is no longer solely controlled by the companies; thus, users can now impact companies by simultaneously playing two roles as value creators and as consumers. The present study develops a conceptual framework for value co-creation in small- and medium-sized tourism agencies. The sample consisted of 23 purposefully selected employees and managers of small- and medium-sized tourism agencies. Data were extracted from semi-structured interviews and analyzed with open and axial coding. For validity, an eight-person panel of experts was asked to review the framework and to apply corrective comments. The reliability was tested using a re-test method, which confirmed the reliability of the coding with a re-test reliability of 79%. Based on the findings, the proposed framework contains eight components including value inception, value conception, value risk, resource planning, platform, actors, co-creation process, co-created value, and learning process, whose components were identified and encoded.
Marketing mix appeared to be one of the most influential approaches on the marketing plans in the organizations. The current study seeks to examine the influence of marketing mix (4Ps – promotion, price, place and product) on the efficiency of CRM (responsiveness, empathy, customer relations, assurance and reliability) within the organic products market in Jordan. The researcher employed the quantitative approach through distributing a questionnaire on total of 37 individuals who were involved in the marketing field of organic products. The results of the study indicated that marketing mix appeared to have an influence of the efficiency of CRM practices within the marketing of organic goods in Jordan. The most influential variable appeared to be the price, which is considered to be high for organic product in Jordan, and that is why customer tend to avoid such product. Following the price came the variable of product, which was important as customers tend to give much emphasis on the specifications of the product and the fact that it is healthy and organic tends to appeal them regardless of the price. The study recommended increasing the level of awareness regarding organic products marketing strategies among the marketing managers in Jordan.