In biparental birds, the relative contribution of the sexes to feeding their brood (provisioning share) is sometimes reported to vary with brood size. However, the explanation for changes in provisioning share are often ambiguous (particularly in correlational studies), while the variation in findings between studies remains poorly understood. In this study we examined how short-term, within-pa...

The philosophy of simplicity as a key value, underlying and driving design and decisions, is strategically important yet poorly understood and rarely systematically applied in IT. Instead, design principles attempt to focus predominantly on increased functionality within thinly disguised complexity, often at the expense of life cycle costs and total cost of ownership issues (e.g., training, sys...

I compare the incentives firms have to produce individual components compatible with components of other manufacturers instead of "systems" composed of components that are incompatible with components of competing manufacturers. I show that, even in the absence of positive consumption externalities ("network" externalities), prices and projits will be higher in the regime of compatibility. Equi...

The software development process is described in terms of cost or effort via cost drivers. Some scenarios are inadequately addressed because the available elements to describe them become inappropriate. Those scenarios comprise a great amount of effort at the conception stage and at managing perspectives and relationships. This work explores several aspects not considered as cost drivers that c...

Data centers are the backend for a large number of services that we take for granted today. A significant fraction of the total cost of ownership of these large-scale storage systems is the cost of keeping hundreds of thousands of disks spinning. We present a simple idea that allows the storage system to turn off a large fraction of its disks, without incurring unacceptable performance penaltie...

This study develops a joint optimal inventory strategy for both the buyer and the vendor when the expired stocks have salvage value, and are subject to constant rate of deterioration. It is shown numerically that the joint approach results in a significant cost reduction when compared with an individual decision by the buyer. We also observed that although the joint total cost decreases, the bu...

Some leading e-Commerce sites (B2C) provide customers with over-personalized spaces which do not seem to be necessary. Why do the site providers provide such unnecessary capabilities for customers? Is it an effective marketing strategy? This study proposes the concept of “psychological ownership” for examining the impact of e-Commerce sites’ personalized spaces on customer perception and behavi...

We are increasingly dependent on information systems for business as well as for personal usage. However, for information systems to provide value to their customers, we must reduce the complexity associated with their deployment and usage. While the cost of hardware and software in such systems continue to decrease dramatically through technological advances and competition, the total cost of ...

Merger simulations focus on the price changes that may occur once previously independent competitors set prices jointly and other market participants respond. This paper considers an additional effect – the possibility that market participants will choose to change their product offerings after a merger. Using a model that endogenizes both product choice and pricing, we conduct equilibrium mark...

The proliferation of Native American casino (NAC) gambling over the past few decades has generated a concern over the social, economic. and environmental impacts. This study examined the local resident perceptions of casino gambling impacts and their subsequent support for the NACs within the Social Exchange Theory (SET) framework. It further applied a similar framework to the non-NAC settings....