Korean ginseng (Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer) contains several types of ginsenosides, which are considered the major active medicinal components of ginseng. The types and quantities of ginsenosides found in ginseng may differ, depending on the location of cultivation, making it necessary to establish a reliable method for distinguishing cultivation locations of ginseng roots. P. ginseng roots produ...

Herba Cistanches is a common traditional Chinese medicine that has been used to reinforce the vital function of kidney and induce laxation for more than two thousands years. Four Cistanche species were found as Herba Cistanches in China herbal markets, including C. deserticola, C. tubulosa, C. salsa and C. sinensis. Phenylethanoid glycosides, particularly echinacoside and acteoside, are conside...

Adulterant herbal materials are a threat to consumer safety. In this study, we used DNA barcoding to investigate the proportions and varieties of adulterant species in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) markets. We used a DNA barcode database of TCM (TCMD) that was established by our group to investigate 1436 samples representing 295 medicinal species from 7 primary TCM markets in China. The re...

Local markets provide a rapid insight into the medicinal plants growing in a region as well as local traditional health concerns. Identification of market plant material can be challenging as plants are often sold in dried or processed forms. In this study, three approaches of DNA barcoding-based molecular identification of market samples are evaluated, two objective sequence matching approache...

We describe MARI (Multi-Attribute Resource Intermediary), a project being conducted in the Software Agents group at the MIT Media Lab, and the challenges and issues we are facing in its design and implementation. MARI is an intermediary architecture intended as a generalized platform for the specification and brokering of heterogeneous goods and services. The project reflects our vision of how ...

Michael Conrad earned his PhD at 2 November, 2009 with his work about mechanisms and protocols for secure legal relations in distributed and spontaneous electronic markets (Fig. 1). At the Institute of Telematics he mainly worked on the projects SESAM and KAI. Meanwhile he meets new challenges at its new employer IDS GmbH working on the development of smart grids. We wish Dr. Conrad all the best!

Abstract—In this contribution we transfer a customer purchase incidence model for consumer products which is based on Ehrenberg’s repeat-buying theory to Web-based information products. Ehrenberg’s repeat-buying theory successfully describes regularities on a large number of consumer product markets. We show that these regularities exist in electronic markets for information goods too, and that...

Electronic markets have a short but dynamic history. How an electronic market can be successfully developed remains in dispute. There is a clear need to better understand the nature of electronic markets themselves and, in particular, to review important developments in their conceptualisation. To enable a deeper understanding of these issues, we decided to restrict our investigation to electro...

W examine the impact of reduced search costs on prices of commodity products in electronic marketplaces. Conventionally, reduced consumer search costs may be expected to engender stronger price competition between firms, resulting in lower prices and improved consumer welfare. This notion was formalized in Stahl (1989, “Oligopolistic pricing with sequential consumer search,” American Economic R...

Standardized product classification systems play a major role for searching and comparing offered products on electronic markets. Especially in case of large multivendor product catalogs classified data becomes an important asset and success factor. The most known systems are UNSPSC and eCl@ss, however they are still developing, and new systems are emerging as well. Classification systems diffe...