This book describes the creation of a simulation model that is designed to serve as an artificial test market. The market is sufficiently realistic to permit it to be used for experimenting with a wide range of alternative marketing programs for a manufacturer of a branded, frequently purchased food product.The simulator includes characterizations by brand and size of: (1) the rates of retailer promotions (such as retail price discounts, newspaper advertising, displays, signs and banners, special offers, and premiums) as a function of the promotional allowances offered by competing...

The 63 articles collected in this book appeared in the news and reviews section of Nature between January 1969 and August 1970. These short essays, written by the journal's specialist correspondents, summarize the most important and interesting pieces of research in molecular and cell biology, virology, and biochemistry. They represent a completely new genre, which has grown out of Nature's unique amalgam of learned journal and weekend magazine for scientists.The book is therefore neither a catalogue of facts nor a review of research, but rather a unique journalistic approach to an...

From Malthus to Becker, the economic approach to population growth and its interactions with the surrounding economic environment has undergone a major transformation. Population Economics elucidates the theory behind this shift and the consequences for economic policy.Razin and Sadka systematically examine the microeconomic implications of people's decisions about how many children to have and how to provide for them on population trends and social issues of population policy. The authors analyze how these decisions affect labor supply, consumption, savings and bequests, investments in...

The late J. D. Bernal's lectures given to first-year students in physics at Birkbeck College, University of London, are presented here in their entirety, tracing the history of physics up to the end of the classical era at the end of 19th century, just before the discoveries of the subatom and relativity were made. In view of the prestige and profundity of the newer discoveries, Bernal felt that the classical era was being largely forgotten. In this book, he attributes a greater relevance to the work of men from the distant past than is usually given. For instance, the idea of "atom" not...

This is a complete presentation of all important theoretical and experimental work done on low-density codes. Low-density coding is one of the three techniques thus far developed for efficient communication over noisy channels with an arbitrarily low probability of error.A principal result of information theory is that if properly coded information is transmitted over a noisy channel at a rate below channel capacity, the probability of error can be made to approach zero exponentially with the code length. Any practical use of this theorem, however, requires a coding scheme in which the...

A guide to first purchases in science and engineering undergraduate libraries.

Banking on the Poor traces the evolution of Robert McNamara's poverty-oriented redirections at the World Bank from 1968 to 1981.

Elihu Thomson (1853-1937) was one of the most inventive scientists of his time and one of the few truly scientific inventors. Because he saw no reason for making sharp separations between the pure and the applied, between science and technology, he was able to illuminate each aspect of his work with the light of his experience in the other. The result, as his correspondence confirms, was a progressive reaching out into numerous areas, some far removed from the electrical studies on which his fame has chiefly rested.This collection of letters on scientific topics, both to and from Thomson,...

It is generally known that the United States, a large country, has spawned business corporations that transcend international boundaries--"multinationals." What is not generally known is that many smaller countries are rapidly following suit--they too are opening and expanding international operations for their own local firms. This book is the first organized effort by scholars to deal with non-American international corporations as a general phenomenon.Initially presented at a colloquium devoted to the subject held at MIT in January 1976, these seven essays bring to light the relatively...

A case study that explains the present location pattern of the synthetic-fiber industry, forecasts the regional distribution of future growth in terms of employment and capital investment, and evaluates the advantages of Puerto Rico as a site for fiber production.