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Commerce
Kinds of Commerce Terms modified by Commerce Selected AbstractsTHE MARRIAGE OF ART AND COMMERCE: PHILIPPE DE LASALLE'S SUCCESS IN SILKART HISTORY, Issue 2 2005Lesley Ellis Miller Since the eighteenth century Philippe Lasalle (1723,1804) has enjoyed a reputation as the most successful designer,manufacturer,inventor in the world-renowned silk manufacturing centre of Lyons during the ancien régime. This essay proposes that it was through the conscious marriage of art and commerce that Lasalle made his fortune and arrived at his technological inventions, that his efforts at turning painterly drawings into textiles acted as the springboard for his major commercial commissions and afforded him access to the taste leaders of eighteenth-century Europe. Armed with a clear understanding of contemporary institutions and practices in academic art and textile manufacture , the Académie Royale, the Manufacture Royale des Gobelins, and the Grande Fabrique at Lyons , Lasalle drew fully on state incentives to expand upon and market ranges of French luxury goods. This proposal problematizes existing views of Lasalle who has remained largely a local hero, nicely contextualized relative to Lyons and Lyonnais activities but somewhat underestimated relative to his manipulation of other worlds. The thesis derives from detailed examination of Lasalle's known textile output from when he formed his first partnership in 1751 until he fled from Lyons at the beginning of the French Revolution. [source] IRSS Psychology Theory: Telling Experiences Among Underrepresented IS DoctoratesDECISION SCIENCES JOURNAL OF INNOVATIVE EDUCATION, Issue 2 2006Fay Cobb Payton ABSTRACT With the changing demographics of the American workforce, the National Science Foundation, along with the U.S. Department of Commerce, has highlighted the shortage of minorities in information technology (IT) careers (http://www.ta.doc.gov/Reports/itsw/itsw.pdf). Using data from a 6-year period and the psychology Involvement-Regimen-Self Management-Social (IRSS) network theory as defined by Boice (1992), we discuss lessons learned from mentoring a group of Information Systems doctoral students who are members of a pipeline that can potentially increase the number of underrepresented faculty in business schools and who made conscious decisions to renounce the IT corporate domain. While our lessons speak to the need for more diversity awareness, we conclude that effective mentoring for underrepresented groups can and should include faculty of color (though limited in numbers) as well as majority faculty who are receptive to the needs and cultural differences of these student groups. Lastly, we draw on the work of Ethnic America to provide additional insight into our findings that are not offered by IRSS network theory. [source] Alternative Forms of Mixing Banking with Commerce: Evidence from American HistoryFINANCIAL MARKETS, INSTITUTIONS & INSTRUMENTS, Issue 2 2003Joseph G. Haubrich Much of the discussion about banking and commerce in America has failed to make several crucial distinctions and has not accounted for many arrangements that have promoted the mixing of these activities. We investigate the history of banking and commerce in the United States, looking both at bank control of commercial firms and commercial firms' control of banks. We trace how these controls have changed with shifting definitions of "bank" and changing methods of "control." Despite the regulations prohibiting some arrangements that promote financial control, we find evidence of extensive linkages between banking and commerce in the United States. These linkages usually build on devices that are very close substitutes to the arrangements prohibited by law. Altogether, our findings question the often made claim that traditionally banking in the United States has been separated from commerce. Furthermore, given that research on Japan and Germany has shown that the mixing of banking and commerce matters for a variety of issues, our evidence also raises some questions on similar research in the United States which makes the simplifying assumption that these industries are separated. [source] Tax Sensitivity in Electronic Commerce,FISCAL STUDIES, Issue 4 2007Mark A. Scanlan Empirical research into the impact of taxation on e-commerce has concluded that there is a significant positive relationship between local sales tax rates and the likelihood that a person will shop online. This paper finds that the tax sensitivity for online purchases at the local level is much lower than previously estimated and is not significant under previous general models. However, by using a splined tax-rate function, this paper finds that consumers living in counties with high sales tax rates are still sensitive to tax rates when deciding whether to shop online, while those in counties with low tax rates exhibit no significant sensitivity. [source] Evolution, revolution or nothing at all?INTERNATIONAL INSOLVENCY REVIEW, Issue 3 2006Recent reforms to Canadian bankruptcy, insolvency legislation On November 25, 2005, Canada's Parliament passed legislation to reform its bankruptcy and insolvency legislation (2005 Amendments). The 2005 Amendments were built from a report of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce (Senate Committee), although the Canadian Parliament did not adopt all of the recommendations contained in that report. As well, the 2005 Amendments adopted significantly revised versions of many of the Senate Committee's recommendations. As a result, stakeholders, including the Senate Committee itself, were not satisfied with the 2005 Amendments and sought to have Parliament delay the proclamation of them with a view to providing further commentary on the proposed changes. Thus, the 2005 Amendments are not yet in force, but the current government appears to be committed to proclaiming them, or some form of them, in the near future. This paper examines some of the issues contained in the 2005 Amendments, by providing a summary of the Senate Report, reviewing the amendments and determining whether Parliament responded to the Senate Committee's recommendations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Access to essential drugs in Guyana: a public health challenge,,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2010Enrique Seoane-Vazquez Abstract Guyana's pharmaceutical sector faces major challenges that limit access to essential drugs. This study analyzes Guyana's drug policy and regulation, public financing, and drug procurement and delivery. The study also identifies main barriers to drug access and proposes alternatives to strengthen the country's public health functions. Data were collected from the country's regulatory agencies, public procurement agency, pharmacies, wholesalers, and pharmaceutical companies. The information was supplemented with interviews with a convenient sample of Guyanese health authorities and stakeholders. Data were also compiled from scientific databases, and web pages of the country's Ministries of Health, Commerce and Finance, the Bureau of Statistics, and international organizations. Major barriers to drug access include: (1) lack of national drug policy and regulation, and limited role of the regulatory authority; (2) inefficient drug selection and irrational drug use; (3) insufficient financial resources and lack of drug pricing policy; (4) inefficient planning and managing public supply system; (5) deficient epidemiological and information systems; and (6) inadequate infrastructures and human resources shortage. Improving drug access in Guyana requires the strengthening of the country's public health functions and the implementation of a national drug policy and pricing policy, streamlining the drug financing, procurement, and planning and managing drug supply; and adequate infrastructures and human resources. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Commerce and Imagination: The Sources of Concern about International Human Rights in the US CongressINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2010Ellen A. Cutrone Do members of Congress put human rights concerns on the agenda in response to their constituents' demands for trade protection? Humanitarian concern may be an important motive, but the normative weight of these issues also makes them a potentially powerful tool for politicians with less elevated agendas. They may criticize the behavior of countries with whom their constituents must compete economically, while overlooking the actions of countries with which their constituents have more harmonious economic relations. This paper tests several hypotheses about the salience of human rights concerns in the politics of US foreign policy using data on congressional speeches during the late 1990s gathered from the Congressional Record. We find evidence that, while humanitarian interests remain an important motive for raising human rights issues, the economic interests of their constituents influence which members of Congress speak out on these questions, and the countries on which they focus their concern. [source] A Transaction Structure Approach to Assessing the Dynamics and Impacts of ,Business-to-Business' Electronic CommerceJOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, Issue 3 2002Dr Richard Hawkins This paper proposes some ways forward in stimulating and structuring interdisciplinary research on business-to-business electronic commerce. A ,commerce-centered' perspective is proposed that is grounded in concepts of commerce as a complex socio-economic institution. On this basis, a conceptual framework is developed for assessing the dynamics and impacts of electronic commerce in the value chains of products and services. The approach focuses on examining technical change in transaction structures, and how this relates to the evolution of electronically-mediated business relationships in the rapidly developing Internet environment. The approach is oriented towards critical research questions concerning the effects of electronic commerce on the ways various market participants exercise and/or respond to control over the organization and operation of value chains, and the implications for business, the public interest and policy. The practical research possibilities of the transaction structure approach are then discussed as oriented toward a comparative analytical framework. [source] The Evolution of the Digital Divide: How Gaps in Internet Access May Impact Electronic CommerceJOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, Issue 3 2000Donna L. Hoffman Enthusiasm for the anticipated social dividends of the Internet appears boundless. Indeed, the Internet is expected to do no less than virtually transform society. Yet even as the Internet races ambitiously toward critical mass, some social scientists are beginning to examine carefully the policy implications of current demographic patterns of Internet access and usage. Key demographic variables like income and education drive the policy questions surrounding the Internet because they are the most likely have a differential impact on the consequences of interactive electronic media for different segments in our society. Given these concerns, we set out to conduct a systematic investigation of the differences between whites and African Americans in the United States with respect to computer access, the primary current prerequisite for Internet access, and Web use. We wished to examine whether observed race differences in access and use can be accounted for by differences in income and education, how access influences use, and when race matters in the calculus of equal access. The particular emphasis of this research is on how such differences may be changing over time. We believe our results may be used as a window through which policymakers might view the job of ensuring access to the Internet for the next generation. [source] In the Interests of Clients or Commerce?JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY, Issue 4 2007Demand, Ethical Indeterminacy' in Criminal Defence Work, Legal Aid, Supply As a professional, a lawyer's first duty is to serve the client's best interests, before simple monetary gain. In criminal defence work, this duty has been questioned in the debate about the causes of growth in legal aid spending: is it driven by lawyers (suppliers) inducing unnecessary demand for their services or are they merely responding to increased demand? Research reported here found clear evidence of a change in the handling of cases in response to new payment structures, though in ways unexpected by the policy's proponents. The paper develops the concept of ,ethical indeterminacy' as a way of understanding how defence lawyers seek to reconcile the interests of commerce and clients. Ethical indeterminacy suggests that where different courses of action could each be said to benefit the client, the lawyer will tend to advise the client to decide in the lawyer's own interests. Ethical indeterminacy is mediated by a range of competing conceptions of ,quality' and ,need'. The paper goes on to question the very distinction between ,supply' and ,demand' in the provision of legal services. [source] The Supreme Court and the Interstate Slave Trade: A Study in Evasion, Anarchy, and ExtremismJOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY, Issue 3 2004DAVID L. LIGHTNER Opponents of slavery often argued that the federal government possessed the constitutional authority to outlaw the interstate slave trade. At its founding in 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society declared that Congress "has a right, and is solemnly bound, to suppress the domestic slave trade between the several States." The idea had been endorsed earlier, during the Missouri controversy of 1819,1820, by both John Jay and Daniel Webster. Later on, in the 1840s and 1850s, it was supported by such prominent politicians as John Quincy Adams, Salmon P. Chase, and Charles Sumner. Defenders of slavery were, of course, horrified by the suggestion that the South's peculiar institution might be attacked in this way, and they vehemently denied that the Constitution permitted any such action. The prolonged debate over the issue focused on two key provisions of the Constitution. One was the Commerce Clause (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3), which says that Congress has the power to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." The other was the 1808 Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 1), which says that the "Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight." Abolitionists held that the Constitution sanctioned congressional interference in the domestic slave trade both generally, by virtue of the Commerce Clause, and specifically, by virtue of the 1808 Clause. They argued that since slaves were routinely bought and sold, they obviously were articles of commerce, and therefore Congress had unlimited authority over interstate slave trafficking. Furthermore, they said, the words "migration or importation" in the 1808 Clause meant that as of January 1, 1808 Congress had acquired the right not only to ban the importation of slaves, but also to prohibit their migration from one state to another. Defenders of slavery replied that Congress could not interfere in property rights and that the power to regulate commerce did not include the power to destroy it. They also said that the word "migration" in the 1808 Clause referred, not to the domestic movement of slaves, but to the entry into the United States of white immigrants from abroad.1 [source] Invisible Business: The Unregulated World of Political Party CommercePOLITICS, Issue 2 2005Sue Granik This article explores an area of British political party funding that is overlooked, under-researched and under-regulated: party commerce. A comparison of the trading activities of five large and five small political party headquarters units is presented using audited political party accounts made public by the Electoral Commission in 2003, the first year in which such data became available. The anomalies in party funding transparency arising from the lack of regulation of political party commerce are discussed. The dangers of allowing party commerce to continue unregulated, or of inappropriate regulation, are debated. [source] Lillian Borrone: Weaving a Web to Revitalize Port Commerce in New York and New JerseyPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 1 2008Hindy Lauer Schachter In 1988, when Lillian Borrone became the director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's Port Commerce Department, she was the first woman in the world to head a major port. During her 12-year tenure, she revitalized the port's cargo trade. She spearheaded the recovery of a faltering entity through vision, astute marketing, and an inclusive, participatory management style. Her achievements contain valuable lessons for all managers who want to revitalize agency operations. Her career path also serves as a key information source for how women can advance in the male-dominated transportation field. [source] Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World Edited by Londa Schiebinger and Claudia SwanRENAISSANCE STUDIES, Issue 3 2006Patricia Fara No abstract is available for this article. [source] The Ties That Buy: Women and Commerce in Revolutionary America by Ellen Hartigan-O'ConnorTHE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE, Issue 4 2009Parley Ann Boswell No abstract is available for this article. [source] Producing Fashion: Commerce, Culture, and ConsumersTHE JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE, Issue 2 2009Joseph H. Hancock No abstract is available for this article. [source] Selling Goodwill: Peter Russo and the Promotion of Australia-Japan Relations, 1935-1941AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND HISTORY, Issue 3 2001Prue Torney-Parlicki This article examines the contribution of Dr Peter Russo (1908-1985) to Australia-Japan relations from 1935 to 1941. Born and educated in Australia, Russo went to Japan in 1931 as the recipient of a travelling scholarship, and in 1934 he was appointed to a lectureship in modern languages at the Tokyo University of Commerce. In 1935, acting in his capacity as delegate for Japan's principal organisation for international cultural relations, he undertook a successful lecture tour in Australia, and in the same year acted as adviser to Japanese diplomat, Katsuji Debuchi, on a goodwill tour of Australia and New Zealand. Over the next five years Russo worked to consolidate these efforts, but as the Pacific War drew closer his loyalty to Australia was increasingly brought into question. The article will trace the development of Russo's role in promoting Australia-Japan relations between 1935 and his return to Australia amid suspicion and controversy in 1941. [source] Informal Empire in Latin America: Culture, Commerce and CapitalBULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, Issue 2008MATTHEW BROWN No abstract is available for this article. [source] Responsibility for Harm: A Critical Look at the Protection of Commerce in Arms ActBUSINESS AND SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 3 2006RONALD J. ADAMS First page of article [source] Electronic Commerce and Consumer Privacy: Establishing Online Trust in the U.S. Digital EconomyBUSINESS AND SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 2 2002Thomas A. Hemphill First page of article [source] Commerce with a conscience: corporate control and academic investmentBUSINESS ETHICS: A EUROPEAN REVIEW, Issue 4 2001Diane Huberman-Arnold Corporations have been investing in academia to an extent that could be classified as a corporate takeover of universities. Intra-university critics see this as an ethical problem, because of the degree of business control over university policies and decisions which accompanies the funding. University critics rarely suggest that the corporate funding be given up, returned, or even limited. What they protest against is corporate control, which they see as threatening university autonomy, and as inimical to the public good. Multi-university conferences have been held focusing on this problem, and the most serious solution proposed thus far is to construct a relevant code of ethics regulating and limiting corporate involvement, through standards and guidelines which corporations will then have to subscribe to, in order to fund universities. However, there is a conflict of interest here. Universities have a public trust and a fiduciary duty not to compromise education. This implies a covenant not to cede power to outside interests, not to use university resources, or faculty and students, as a means to an educationally irrelevant end. Universities cannot sell out. However, it seems equally dishonest not to offer their students a well-funded first-rate, quality education in applied fields with current skills, maximum research opportunity, and the corporate ties that would allow them to obtain jobs. We examine three cases showing errors made by universities in ceding control to corporate investment, and draw some policy conclusions. [source] Trade in the Triad: how easy is the access to large markets?,CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2005Lionel Fontagné We investigate overall and industry-level trends of bilateral trade openness and provide explanations for those using proxies for bilateral observed protection (tariffs and NTBs), home bias of consumers, product differentiation, and levels of FDI. The explanations related to actual protection, home bias and substitutability of goods put together explain a large part of the border effect between blocs of the Triad, although they do not explain the whole of the border effect puzzle. JEL classification: F12, F15 Commerce dans la Triade : jusqu'à quel point l'accès aux grands marchés est il facile?, Cet article mesure le niveau d'intégration commerciale entre les pays de l'UE, le Japon et les Etats-Unis (la Triade) en utilisant l'effet des frontières nationales sur le commerce international. Nous étudions le niveau et l'évolution du degré d'ouverture bilatéral ainsi que les différentes explications possibles des effets frontière estimés qui sont testées à l'aide de variables capturant la protection (tarifs et BNTs), le biais domestique des consommateurs, le degré de différenciation des produits et les niveaux d'IDE bilatéraux. Les explications liées à la protection, au biais domestique et à la substituabilité entre produits, considérées ensemble, expliquent une bonne partie de l'effet frontière entre pays de la Triade, même si elles n'expliquent pas la totalité de l'énigme. [source] A welfare analysis of Canadian chartered bank mergersCANADIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2002James McIntosh An econometric model of Canada's five largest banks is estimated using time series data from 1976 to 1996. The principal findings are that chartered bank technology is characterized by increasing returns to scale. Scale efficiency is sufficiently large to offset the consequences of reduced competition that might have arisen from a merger between Bank of Montreal and Royal Bank of Canada, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Toronto Dominion Bank, or both. The estimated model predicts that all the mergers proposed in 1998 would have led to slightly lower prices and, consequently, to an increase in consumer welfare. Une analyse de bien,être des fusions des banques à charte canadiennes. L'auteur calibre un modèle économétrique des cinq plus grandes banques à charte au Canada à l'aide de séries chronologiques de 1976 à 1996. Les principaux résultats montrent que la technologie des banques à charte a des rendements croissants à l'échelle. Ces rendements à l'échelle sont suffisamment importants pour compenser les effets de réduction de la concurrence qui auraient pu se produire en conséquence de la fusion de la Banque de Montréal et la Banque Royale, de la Banque Impériale de Commerce et de la Banque Toronto,Dominion, ou des deux. Le modèle suggère que toutes les fusions proposées en 1998 auraient entraîné des prix légèrement plus bas, et en conséquence un accroissement dans le niveau de bien,être des consommateurs. [source] WAL-MART AND BANKS: SHOULD THE TWAIN MEET?CONTEMPORARY ECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 4 2009A PRINCIPLES-BASED APPROACH TO THE ISSUES OF THE SEPARATION OF BANKING AND COMMERCE The application in July 2005 by Wal-Mart to obtain a specialized bank charter from the state of Utah and to obtain federal deposit insurance reopened a national debate concerning the separation of banking and commerce. Though Wal-Mart withdrew its application in March 2007, the issue and the debate continue. This article offers a principles-based approach to this issue that begins with the recognition that banks are special and that safety and soundness regulation of banks is therefore warranted. Building on that recognition, the article lays out the principle that the "examinability and supervisability" of an activity should determine if that activity should be undertaken by a bank. Even if an otherwise legitimate activity is not suitable for a bank, it should be allowed for a bank's owners (whether the owners are individuals or a holding company), so long as the financial transactions between the bank and its owners are closely monitored by bank regulators. The implications of this set of ideas for the Wal-Mart case and for banking and commerce generally are then discussed. (JEL G21, G28) [source] Optimal Design of the Online Auction Channel: Analytical, Empirical, and Computational Insights,DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 4 2002Ravi Bapna ABSTRACT The focus of this study is on business-to-consumer (B2C) online auctions made possible by the advent of electronic commerce over an open-source, ubiquitous Internet Protocol (IP) computer network. This work presents an analytical model that characterizes the revenue generation process for a popular B2C online auction, namely, Yankee auctions. Such auctions sell multiple identical units of a good to multiple buyers using an ascending and open auction mechanism. The methodologies used to validate the analytical model range from empirical analysis to simulation. A key contribution of this study is the design of a partitioning scheme of the discrete valuation space of the bidders such that equilibrium points with higher revenue structures become identifiable and feasible. Our analysis indicates that the auctioneers are, most of the time, far away from the optimal choice of key control factors such as the bid increment, resulting in substantial losses in a market with already tight margins. With this in mind, we put forward a portfolio of tools, varying in their level of abstraction and information intensity requirements, which help auctioneers maximize their revenues. [source] Complementary and integrative medical therapies, the FDA, and the NIH: definitions and regulationDERMATOLOGIC THERAPY, Issue 2 2003Michael H. Cohen ABSTRACT: ,,The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) presently defines complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as covering "a broad range of healing philosophies (schools of thought), approaches, and therapies that mainstream Western (conventional) medicine does not commonly use, accept, study, understand, or make available. The research landscape, including NCCAM-funded research, is continually changing and subject to vigorous methodologic and interpretive debates. Part of the impetus for greater research dollars in this arena has been increasing consumer reliance on CAM to dramatically expand. State (not federal) law controls much of CAM practice. However, a significant federal role exists in the regulation of dietary supplements. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates foods, drugs, and cosmetics in interstate commerce. No new "drug" may be introduced into interstate commerce unless proven "safe" and "effective" for its intended use, as determined by FDA regulations. "Foods", however, are subject to different regulatory requirements, and need not go through trials proving safety and efficacy. The growing phenomenon of consumer use of vitamins, minerals, herbs, and other "dietary supplements" challenged the historical divide between drugs and foods. The federal Dietary Supplements Health Education Act (DSHEA) allows manufacturers to distribute dietary supplements without having to prove safety and efficacy, so long as the manufacturers make no claims linking the supplements to a specific disease. State law regulates the use of CAM therapies through a variety of legal rules. Of these, several major areas of concern for clinicians are professional licensure, scope of practice, and malpractice. Regarding licensure, each state has enacted medical licensing that prohibits the unlicensed practice of medicine and thereby criminalizes activity by unlicensed CAM providers who offer health care services to patients. Malpractice is defined as unskillful practice which fails to conform to a standard of care in the profession and results in injury. The definition is no different in CAM than in general medicine; its application to CAM, however, raises novel questions. Courts rely on medical consensus regarding the appropriateness of a given therapy. A framework for assessing potential liability risk involves assessing the medical evidence concerning safety and efficacy, and then aligning clinical decisions with liability concerns. Ultimately research will or will not establish a specific CAM therapy as an important part of the standard of care for the condition in question. Legal rules governing CAM providers and practices are, in many cases, new and evolving. Further, laws vary by state and their application depends on the specific clinical scenario in question. New research is constantly emerging, as are federal and state legislative developments and judicial opinions resulting from litigation. [source] The business, life and letters of Frederick Cornes: aspects of the evolution of commerce in modern Japan, 1861,1910 , By Peter N. DaviesECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 4 2009S. SUGIYAMA No abstract is available for this article. [source] Progress and poverty in early modern EuropeECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 3 2003Robert C. Allen An econometric model of economic development is estimated with data from leading European countries between 1300 and 1800. The model explores the impact of population, enclosure, empire, representative government, technology, and literacy on urbanization, agricultural productivity, proto-industry, and the real wage. Simulations show that the main factors leading to economic success in north-western Europe were the growth of American and Asian commerce and, especially, the innovations underlying the export of the new draperies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The enclosure of the open fields, representative government, and the spread of literacy did not play major roles. [source] Applying domain knowledge and social information to product analysis and recommendations: an agent-based decision support systemEXPERT SYSTEMS, Issue 3 2004Wei-Po LeeArticle first published online: 24 JUN 200 Abstract: The advance of Internet and Web technologies has boosted the development of electronic commerce. More and more people have changed their traditional trading behaviors and started to conduct Internet shopping. However, the exponentially increasing product information provided by Internet enterprises causes the problem of information overload, and this inevitably reduces the customer's satisfaction and loyalty. To overcome this problem, in this paper we propose a multi-agent system that is capable of eliciting expert knowledge and of recommending optimal products for individual consumers. The recommendations are based on both product knowledge from domain experts and the customer's preferences from system,consumer interactions. In addition, the system also uses behavior patterns collected from previous consumers to predict what the current consumer may expect. Experiments have been conducted and the results show that our system can give sensible recommendations, and it is able to adapt to the most up-to-date preferences for the customers. [source] Alternative Forms of Mixing Banking with Commerce: Evidence from American HistoryFINANCIAL MARKETS, INSTITUTIONS & INSTRUMENTS, Issue 2 2003Joseph G. Haubrich Much of the discussion about banking and commerce in America has failed to make several crucial distinctions and has not accounted for many arrangements that have promoted the mixing of these activities. We investigate the history of banking and commerce in the United States, looking both at bank control of commercial firms and commercial firms' control of banks. We trace how these controls have changed with shifting definitions of "bank" and changing methods of "control." Despite the regulations prohibiting some arrangements that promote financial control, we find evidence of extensive linkages between banking and commerce in the United States. These linkages usually build on devices that are very close substitutes to the arrangements prohibited by law. Altogether, our findings question the often made claim that traditionally banking in the United States has been separated from commerce. Furthermore, given that research on Japan and Germany has shown that the mixing of banking and commerce matters for a variety of issues, our evidence also raises some questions on similar research in the United States which makes the simplifying assumption that these industries are separated. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||