Consumers' product evaluation: a study of the primary evaluative criteria in the precious jewellery market in the UK

It is normally argued that consumers make their purchase decisions on the basis of their evaluation of, and knowledge about, the product attributes. This paper reports findings from a research study, which was conducted to determine the nature and type of evaluative criteria used by an individual while purchasing a piece of precious jewellery. In doing so, the study looked into the significance of product category knowledge, brand familiarity and brand consciousness in product evaluation. A questionnaire was sent to 500 consumers of precious jewellery in five major cities of the UK. Results indicate that, in general, subjective attributes are more important for people buying precious jewellery than the objective attributes. The significance of specific attributes during product evaluation could vary according to one's level of product category knowledge, brand familiarity and brand consciousness. The paper discusses implications for the marketers. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications.     

A Bibliographic Survey of the Activities and International Nature of Multiple Criteria Decision Making

One of the fascinating things about multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) is the degree to which the contributions that have built the field have come from all over the world. In this paper the international nature of the authorships of the 1216 refereed journal articles published on MCDM between 1987 and 1992, and the journals in which they have appeared, is examined. Also, an analysis of the 217 books and 31 journal special issues that have been published on MCDM, and 143 conferences that have been held on MCDM since the inception of the field, is similarly conducted. The paper concludes with a conference organizer, author and special issue guest editor index.     

The coming changes in psychoanalytic education: Part II

This paper is the second part of a general analysis of problems in contemporary psychoanalytic education. Having proposed changes in the training analysis and supervisory systems in Part I, here the author focuses on concrete proposals regarding changes in the curriculum, seminars and classroom teaching; the governance of psychoanalytic institutes, relationship of institutes with their respective psychoanalytic society and the role of the university in the development of science and research; the admission, progression, and graduating processes; certifi cation and accreditation.     

Variability in response criteria affects estimates of conscious identification and unconscious semantic priming

Three experiments examined the role of response criteria in a masked semantic priming paradigm using an exclusion task. Experiment 1 used on-line prime-report (“report the prime if you saw it”) and exclusion instructions in which participants were told to avoid completing a word stem (e.g. mo—) with a word related to a prime (e.g. cash) flashed for 0, 38 or 212 ms. Semantic priming (i.e. exclusion failure) was significant in the items analysis, but was moderated by peoples’ ability to report the prime in the participant analysis. Prime-report thresholds in Experiment 2 were made more liberal by instructing participants to guess on every trial. Prime-report increased from Experiment 1 as exclusion failures were eliminated. Experiment 3 clarified the relationship between awareness and prime identification using an on-line measure of confidence and different liberal prime report instructions. The current findings suggest that the ability to act upon (via exclusion performance) and report information in a masked prime is determined by a variable response criterion, which can be manipulated as an independent variable.     

多发性硬化诊疗指南评析

我国无统一的多发性硬化（MS）诊断标准,MS的诊断依据Poser标准和McDonald标准。McDonald标准是建立在Poser标准基础上,但更注意利用包括MRI在内的相关实验室检查来证明多发性硬化在时间和空间上的多发性,有利于MS的早期诊断及治疗。对于没有MRI仪器的地方或不能承担MRI检查费用者,可用Poser标准进行诊断,但要注意行视觉诱发电位检查及脑脊液寡克隆IgG区带测定。     

Orthodoxy and Science

The Orthodox Church is uneasy about contemporary science. What causes its uneasiness is not exclusively its slow reception of modern culture. An important cause is the fact that contemporary research sidelines ethical and spiritual criteria. The practical application of scientific discoveries in the area of biotechnologies provides abundant evidence for this. That said, progress is being made in regard to the Orthodox appraisal of modern culture and contemporary science and toward self-assessment against current cultural trends. This progress cannot make an impact, however, without an authenticating framework. Fortunately, three documents of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church provide an implicit framework for addressing matters such as the Orthodox attitude toward science, especially biology and its related branches, in light of theological anthropology and traditional ethical and spiritual criteria. A shared particularity of these documents is that they consider modern culture and scientific research in a missional perspective.     

Quantifying false positives in simulated events using partial interval recording and momentary time sampling with dual‐criteria methods

The dual‐criteria (DC) and conservative dual‐criteria (CDC) methods allow clinicians and researchers to quantify the occurrence of false‐positive outcomes within single‐case experimental designs. The purpose of the current study was to use these DC and CDC methods to measure the incidence of false positives with simulated data collected via discontinuous interval methods (i.e., momentary time sampling, partial‐interval recording) as a function of data series length. We generated event data to create 316,800 unique simulated data series for analysis. In Experiment 1, we evaluated how changes in relevant parameters (i.e., interval sizes, event durations, IRT‐to‐event‐run ratios) produced false positives with momentary time sampling procedures. We also assessed the degree that the CDC method produced fewer false positives than the DC method with simulated interval data. In Experiment 2, we used similar procedures to quantify the occurrence of false positives with partial‐interval recording data. We successfully replicated outcomes from previous research in the current study, though such results only highlight the generality of the procedures relating to false positive (and not false negative) outcomes. That is, these results indicate MTS and PIR may adequately control for false positives, but our conclusions are limited by a lack of data on power.     

The application of correspondence analysis to multiple-criteria decision making

The aim of this paper is to show how correspondence analysis can be a useful aid in multiple-criteria decision making, particularly in the case of categorical criteria values. Under different types of input information, the technique is used to perform some preliminary analyses with a bonus of providing a simultaneous graphical representation of the alternatives and criteria. This picture can provide a better understanding of the structure of the two sets of variables to the decision maker before a decision is made.     

A test-theoretic approach to observed-score equating

Observed-score equating using the marginal distributions of two tests is not necessarily the universally best approach it has been claimed to be. On the other hand, equating using the conditional distributions given the ability level of the examinee is theoretically ideal. Possible ways of dealing with the requirement of known ability are discussed, including such methods as conditional observed-score equating at point estimates or posterior expected conditional equating. The methods are generalized to the problem of observed-score equating with a multivariate ability structure underlying the scores. This article is based on the author's Presidential Address given on July 7, 2000 at the 65th Annual Meeting of the Psychometric Society held at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. The author is most indebted to Wim M.M. Tielen for his computational assistance and Cees A.W. Glas for his comments on a draft of this paper.     

How Do Australian University Students Understand Adulthood?

The understanding of modern young people's conceptions of adulthood has largely been informed and constructed through the lens of the theory of emerging adulthood. As a consequence, a relatively unquestioned belief is that there has been a trend towards the gradual development of internal, subjective characteristics and away from the attainment of traditional adult roles in emerging adults' conceptions of adulthood. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, we surveyed Australian university students about their understanding of what it means to be an adult. Exploratory factor analysis of the Criteria for Adulthood Scale emphasised family capacities, demographic markers, norm compliance, and “novelty of adulthood,” while qualitative themes emphasised both personal and environmental characteristics. We suggest that rather than being independent, individual development and broad social‐environmental trends are likely to be interrelated, and to develop in response to each other over time.