The Internet allows for A2A commerce at an unprecedented scale; anyone can do business with anyone. The new markets made possible by the Internet bring with them new challenges. This paper presents a system for buyers in electronic markets to avoid bad sellers by modeling the reputation of a seller. The model proposed by Cohen and Tran [6] is extended to provide a method for the exchange of ind...

We model the availability of product information in Internet-based markets, and explain the underlying causes for the phenomenon of less than perfect information available to consumers of products and services in these markets. We use Salop’s model of product differentiation and explore the conditions under which sellers make horizontal information available to buyers. We demonstrate that under...

The Internet revolution brought about significant changes in the availability of market information to consumers in many industries. This research examines technology-driven changes in market transparency, defined as the ability of market participants to observe information about products and prices. The objective is to develop a modeling and empirical basis for a theory of market transparency ...

A variety of elements are present in honey at different concentrations. Although some of these heavy metals and trace elements are useful nutrition, at higher levels they could cause health problems. In order to achieve confidence about food safety, regular monitoring of food quality is necessary. In this study, heavy metals and trace element contents were determined by inductively coupled plas...

BACKGROUND Iran is one of two main target markets for tobacco smuggling in the WHO's Eastern Mediterranean Region. The Iranian government has a local tobacco monopoly but there is high demand for international brands. Informal reports show about 20% of cigarette consumption is smuggled brands. This pack survey study is the first in Iran to gather validated information on use of smuggled cigaret...

BACKGROUND Anthropological studies based on highly polymorphic HLA genes provide useful information for bone marrow donor registry, forensic medicine, disease association studies, as well as designing peptide vaccines against tumors, and infectious or autoimmune diseases. OBJECTIVE This study was designed to investigate the genetic relationship of Iranian Arabs and Jews using HLA-class II gen...

The Trading Agent Competition (TAC) is an open-invitation forum designed to encourage research into electronic markets and trading agents. In this paper we present the Socrates trading agent and the strategies that were developed for and used in the TAC Supply Chain Management game as part of the 2004 competition. The resulting behaviour and performance in the TAC competition as well as in a se...

In this paper, we extend field experiments of real money prediction markets to the problem of forecasting the success of a new product. We collect forecasts using a traditional survey mechanism and a market mechanism. Our results suggest that market prices summarize the information contained in survey forecasts and improve those forecasts by reducing the variability of the forecast. However, we...

Abstract This paper presents and discusses a number of criteria for the design and implementation of electronic market servers. It first briefly reviews a number of electronic markets currently operational over the internet then offers some ideas on the types of new markets that may become successful. It then presents the design criteria for market servers, necessary to support these virtual ma...