Traditionally, the vehicle has been the extension of the man's ambulatory system, docile to the driver's commands. Recent advances in communications, controls and embedded systems have changed this model, paving the way to the Intelligent Vehicle Grid. The car is now a formidable sensor platform, absorbing information from the environment (and from other cars) and feeding it to drivers and infrastructure to assist in safe navigation, pollution control and traffic management. The next step in this evolution is just around the corner: the Internet of Autonomous Vehicles. Pioneered by the Google car, the Internet of Vehicles will be a distributed transport fabric capable to make its own decisions about driving customers to their destinations. Like other important instantiations of the Internet of Things (e.g., the smart building), the Internet of Vehicles will have communications, storage, intelligence, and learning capabilities to anticipate the customers' intentions. The concept that will help transition to the Internet of Vehicles is the Vehicular Cloud, the equivalent of Internet cloud for vehicles, providing all the services required by the autonomous vehicles. In this article, we discuss the evolution from Intelligent Vehicle Grid to Autonomous, Internet-connected Vehicles, and Vehicular Cloud.

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This paper examines two strategic pricing decisions within channels: using foresight (i.e., price leadership) and considering category implications (i.e., product line pricing). Are price leadership and product line pricing always the best pricing strategies for a channel member? If not, when does this occur and why? By investigating these questions, we address some major concerns of both marketing practitioners and scholars interested in channel management issues. In addition, this study provides an indepth discussion on why previous analytic studies produced answers to these questions that depend upon the choice of the form of demand functions. As such, this study should significantly resolve the debate among analytic marketing modelers about the “right” demand specification. At the core of our discussion lies the concept of , which is defined in terms of the direction of a channel member's reaction to the actions of its channel partner within a given demand structure. Specifically, if a channel member's best reaction is to reduce its margin when its channel partner increases its margin, the type of vertical strategic interaction is referred to as (VSS). If the best reaction is to increase the margin, the environment is referred to as (VSC). If the best reaction is no margin change, it is referred to as (VSI). Using a game theoretic approach, we demonstrate that these three types of vertical strategic interactions represent a key driving force for optimal decisions on channel price leadership and product line pricing. Our investigation involves mathematical analyses of an industry model composed of two manufacturers selling competing products, both carried by two competing retailers. As such, the model allows for retailer product line pricing as well as manufacturer and retailer level competition. In addition, this general model can be used to analyze three more restrictive industry settings often found in the channels literature, i.e., a bilateral monopoly (Jeuland and Shugan [Jeuland, Abel, Steven M. Shugan. 1983. Managing channel profits. (Summer) 239–72.]), two competing manufacturers selling through competing franchised retailers (McGuire and Staelin [McGuire, Timothy W., Richard Staelin. 1983. An industry equilibrium analysis of downstream vertical integration. (Spring) 161–92.]), and two competing manufacturers selling through one common retailer using product line pricing (Choi [Choi, S. Chan. 1991. Price competition in a channel structure with a common retailer. (Fall) 271–96.]). Unlike many other channel studies, most of our analyses are performed without assuming particular functional forms of demand curves. Thus, this paper provides greater assurance that the insights from this stream of research are broadly applicable, not only across industry structures but also across demand conditions. The paper starts out by defining three different rules for how prices are set: The manufacturer uses foresight, the retailer uses foresight, and neither channel member uses foresight. We then show a one-to-one map...

The practical use of graphene in consumer electronics has not been demonstrated since the size, uniformity, and reliability problems are yet to be solved to satisfy industrial standards. Here we report mass-produced graphene films synthesized by hydrogen-free rapid thermal chemical vapor deposition (RT-CVD), roll-to-roll etching, and transfer methods, which enabled faster and larger production of homogeneous graphene films over 400 × 300 mm(2) area with a sheet resistance of 249 ± 17 Ω/sq without additional doping. The properties of RT-CVD graphene have been carefully characterized by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, chemical grain boundary analysis, and various electrical device measurements, showing excellent uniformity and stability. In particular, we found no significant correlation between graphene domain sizes and electrical conductivity, unlike previous theoretical expectations for nanoscale graphene domains. Finally, the actual application of the RT-CVD films to capacitive multitouch devices installed in the most sophisticated mobile phone was demonstrated.

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