When consumers must make a decision but are uncertain of their preferences, they often select a compromise choice. Early studies emphasized the relational properties of choice alternatives and indicated that the middle option, whose attribute values fall between the values of other alternatives, is always the compromise option. More recent studies have suggested that when consumers rate two attributes with the same metrics, the attribute-balance choice whose two attributes have equal ratings, might represent the compromise choice. We propose that the different characteristics of the middle and attribute-balance options-which may be compatible with certain determinants such as information and task formats-might be more salient and affect the relative attractiveness of each option. The results of three experiments confirmed this prediction: the middle option was more attractive in list-by-attributes and rejecting conditions, whereas the attribute-balance option was more attractive in list-by-alternatives and choosing conditions.

A healthy diet and lifestyle are the most effective approaches to prevent disease. Good eating habits are central to a healthy lifestyle. When a person eats too much or too little on a continual basis, the risk of disease will increase. Therefore, developing healthy and balanced eating habits is essential to disease prevention. This paper proposes an ontology-based multi-agents (OMAS), including a personal knowledge agent, a fuzzy inference agent, and a semantic generation agent, for evaluating the health of diets. Using the proposed approach, domain experts can create nutritional facts for common Taiwanese foods. Next, the users are requested to input foods eaten. Finally, the food ontology and personal profile ontology are constructed by domain experts. Fuzzy markup language (FML) is used to describe the knowledge base and rule base of the OMAS. Additionally, web ontology language (OWL) is employed to describe the food ontology and personal profile ontology. Finally, the OMAS semantically analyzes dietary status for users based on the pre-constructed ontology and fuzzy inference results. Using the generated semantic analysis, people can obtain health information about what they eat, which can lead to a healthy lifestyle and healthy diet. Experimental results show that the proposed approach works effectively and diet health status can be provided as a reference to promote healthy living. © Springer-Verlag 2010

Most research into the compromise effect focuses on cognitive factors related to choosing for oneself. However, there are daily opportunities to make choices for others, from helping friends to buy merchandise to choosing souvenirs for relatives. Although it is a common practice, choosing for others is rarely discussed in the literature. Hence, this research is directed to determine whether (i) the compromise effect is greater for people choosing for others with whom one has a distant relationship compared to choosing for themselves, (ii) the decision maker's susceptibility to interpersonal relationships, accountability, and anticipated regret moderate the relationship between choosing for others versus choosing for themselves and the compromise effect, and (iii) the confidence of the decision maker mediates the relationship between deciding for others and the compromise effect. Five hypotheses are proposed and they are supported by the results from four experiments.

Fixed dental restoration by conventional methods greatly relies on the skill and experience of the dental technician. The quality and accuracy of the final product depends mostly on the technician's subjective judgment. In addition, the traditional manual operation involves many complex procedures, and is a time-consuming and labour-intensive job. Most importantly, no quantitative design and manufacturing information is preserved for future retrieval. In this paper, a new device for scanning the dental profile and reconstructing 3D digital information of a dental model based on a layer-based imaging technique, called abrasive computer tomography (ACT) was designed in-house and proposed for the design of custom dental restoration. The fixed partial dental restoration was then produced by rapid prototyping (RP) and computer numerical control (CNC) machining methods based on the ACT scanned digital information. A force feedback sculptor (FreeForm system, Sensible Technologies, Inc., Cambridge MA, USA), which comprises 3D Touch technology, was applied to modify the morphology and design of the fixed dental restoration. In addition, a comparison of conventional manual operation and digital manufacture using both RP and CNC machining technologies for fixed dental restoration production is presented. Finally, a digital custom fixed restoration manufacturing protocol integrating proposed layer-based dental profile scanning, computer-aided design, 3D force feedback feature modification and advanced fixed restoration manufacturing techniques is illustrated. The proposed method provides solid evidence that computer-aided design and manufacturing technologies may become a new avenue for custom-made fixed restoration design, analysis, and production in the 21st century.

When consumers make a decision under preference uncertainty, they often select the compromise choice. Since the compromise effect of the middle option stems from the relational properties of the choice alternatives, an information format compatible with their characteristics makes the middle option more salient and attractive. Focusing on three studies, this article demonstrates that the middle option is (1) more attractive when presented in the middle position; (2) more attractive when information is presented jointly rather than separately; and (3) most attractive when presented in an information display board format, less attractive in a list by attribute condition, and least attractive in a list by alternative condition. These findings imply that information processing strategies and information format-option characteristics compatibility work in tandem. These three studies thereby show that the information format-option characteristics compatibility effect is robust and that such compatibility effect is not due to different information processing strategies, which makes these results meaningful for marketing practice.