Augmented reality adoption intention among travel and tour operators in Malaysia: mediation effect of value alignment

PurposeThis study evaluated the determinants of augmented reality (AR) adoption in Malaysia's travel and tour operator sectors through an integrated technology-organization-environmental (TOE) and diffusion of innovation (DOI) model.Design/methodology/approachThe TOE and DOI were considered the primary theoretical models but are combined and extended by including few additional variables. Data were collected from 220 respondents of travel and tour operating businesses in Malaysia and analyzed by applying PLS structural equation model technique.FindingsThe empirical results established that perceived cost, relative advantages, complexity and compatibility, observability, competitor pressure, value alignment, customer pressure, and trialability are positively connected with the behavioral intention except for external support. The results reveal that value alignment partially mediates the association between relative advantages and behavioral intention, complexity and behavioral intention, compatibility and behavioral intention, perceived cost and behavioral intention except in between trialability and observability.Originality/valueThis research is unique as the value alignment construct is included in the model, and thus it fulfills the literature gap by adding the mediation construct. This study contributes to enhancing AR's understanding of the Malaysian travel and tour operator industry through the lenses of owners or managers. It offers an integrated model that combines the TOE and DOI models, rare in this sector, and can be replicated or extended with validated scales.

Negative self-feedback induces enhancement and transition of spiking activity for class 3 excitability

Post-inhibitory rebound (PIR) spike, which has been widely observed in diverse nervous systems with different physiological functions and simulated in theoretical models with class 2 excitability, presents a counterintuitive nonlinear phenomenon in that the inhibitory effect can facilitate neural firing behavior. In this study, a PIR spike induced by inhibitory stimulation from the resting state corresponding to class 3 excitability that is not related to bifurcation is simulated in the Morris-Lecar neuron. Additionally, the inhibitory self-feedback mediated by an autapse with time delay can evoke tonic/repetitive spiking from phasic/transient spiking. The dynamical mechanism for the PIR spike and the tonic/repetitive spiking is acquired with the phase plane analysis and the shape of the quasi-separatrix curve. The result extends the counterintuitive phenomenon induced by inhibition to class 3 excitability, which presents a potential function of inhibitory autapse and class 3 neuron in many neuronal systems such as the auditory system.

Integrated Design in Load Carrying and Energy Absorption of Composite Tube

In this study, a type of tube with an open-hole AL alloy tube nested outside the CFRP tube is designed and fabricated, and the energy absorbing characteristics and failure mechanism under quasi-static axial compression are discussed. It is found that the summing tube composed of two single tubes has less energy absorption than the hybrid tube. Numerical simulation and theoretical models are used to evaluate the influence of the hybrid tube in terms of cost and weight, and it is found that under the same energy absorption, the hybrid tube has a weight reduction of 39.2% compared to the open-hole AL tube, which was 25.7% of the cost of the CFRP tube. This hybrid structure has potential as the load-carrying and energy absorption tube.

Oropharyngeal Dysphagia: A Proposal for an Ecological Theoretical Model

Background: The exponential growth in epidemiological studies has been reflected in an increase in analytical studies. Thus, theoretical models are required to guide the definition of data analysis, although so far, they are seldom used in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. Objective: To propose a multicausal model for oropharyngeal dysphagia using directed acyclic graphs showing mediating variables, confounding variables, and variables connected by direct causation. Design: This integrative literature review. Setting: This was carried out until January 4, 2021, and searches were performed with the MEDLINE, EMBASE,and other bases.

Assessing the Antecedents and Consequence of Enterprise Transformation: A Quantitative Approach

With the negative impact of COVID-19, the continuous recession of economic globalization, and the increasing market competition, enterprise transformation gradually becomes the theme of enterprise management. Although more and more scholars and companies have paid attention to the importance of enterprise transformation, most of the research on it is still at the qualitative level of theoretical descriptions and lacks a comprehensive consideration and empirical research on its motivation and performance. In view of this, this study analyzes the overall driving effect of technological innovation and the internal and external environment on enterprise transformation from the perspective of its drivers and analyzes in depth its causes and consequences for different industries (construction and real estate industries). The study also analyzes the antecedents and consequences of enterprise transformation and its differences in different industries (construction and real estate). In this study, a sample of middle and senior management of 10 companies with a valid sample of 401 is collected. Structural equation modeling results indicate that competitive advantage, technological innovation, and market pressure significantly affect enterprise transformation, which is an antecedent of corporate performance. Further, the results of the multiple-group analysis also reveal some significant differences between the theoretical models of the construction and real estate communities. Finally, suggestions are made based on the findings.

The Specificity and Reliability of Conflict Adaptation: A Mouse-Tracking Study

Researchers have recently begun to question the specificity and reliability of conflict adaptation effects, also known as sequential congruency effects (SCEs), a highly cited effect in cognitive psychology. Some have even used the lack of reliability across tasks (e.g., Flanker, and Stroop) to argue against models of cognitive control that have dominated the field for decades. The present study tested the possibility that domain-general processes across tasks might appear on more sensitive mouse-tracking metrics rather than overall reaction times. The relationship between SCE effects on the Stroop and Flanker tasks were examined for the first time using a mouse-tracking paradigm. Three main findings emerged: (1) Robust SCEs were observed for both the Stroop and Flanker tasks at the group level, (2) Within-task split-half reliabilities for the SCE across dependent variables were weak at best and non-existent in many cases, and (3) SCEs for the Flanker and Stroop tasks did not correlate with each other for overall reaction times, but did show significant correlations between tasks on more dynamic measures that captured processes before response execution. These findings contribute to the literature by highlighting how mouse-tracking may be a fruitful avenue by which future studies can examine the specificity and reliability of conflict adaptation and tease apart different theoretical models producing the effects.

Impact of the Coriolis interaction on the potential landscape evolution across the nuclide chart: Systematic total-Routhian-surface calculations

Rotational structure properties along the yrast line for 766 observed even-even nuclei with Z ≥ 20 in the nuclide chart have been systematically studied by means of the approach of pairing-deformation self-consistent total Routhian surface calculations in three-dimensional deformation space (β 2, γ, β 4). Typical two-dimensional maps of the total nuclear energy are presented as functions of rotational frequency ̄hω. Various types of physical quantities (including nuclear shapes, aligned angular momenta, pairing gaps and excitation energies) are presented in the (Z, N) plane, indicating the overall characteristics. The ground-state deformations are compared with experimental data and other theoretical results. The present investigation shows that the Coriolis coupling may affect the overall properties systematically, for instance, enforcing regular drifts of the different deformation ‘islands’. We believe that the synthetic presentation will be helpful when planning high-spin experiments, especially in the data-scarce drip-line or superheavy regions. Moreover, such systematic and large-scale calculation and analysis can help overcoming and eliminating the bias among different theoretical models and be useful for checking and developing them.

Biotite supports long-range diffusive transport in dissolution–precipitation creep in halite through small porosity fluctuations

Phyllosilicates are generally regarded to have a reinforcing effect on chemical compaction by dissolution–precipitation creep (DPC) and thereby influence the evolution of hydraulic rock properties relevant to groundwater resources and geological repositories as well as fossil fuel reservoirs. We conducted oedometric compaction experiments on layered NaCl–biotite samples to test this assumption. In particular, we aim to analyse slow chemical compaction processes in the presence of biotite on the grain scale and determine the effects of chemical and mechanical feedbacks. We used time-resolved (4-D) microtomographic data to capture the dynamic evolution of the porosity in layered NaCl–NaCl/biotite samples over 1619 and 1932 h of compaction. Percolation analysis in combination with advanced digital volume correlation techniques showed that biotite grains influence the dynamic evolution of porosity in the sample by promoting a reduction of porosity in their vicinity. However, the lack of preferential strain localisation around phyllosilicates and a homogeneous distribution of axial shortening across the sample suggests that the porosity reduction is not achieved by pore collapse but by the precipitation of NaCl sourced from outside the NaCl–biotite layer. Our observations invite a renewed discussion of the effect of phyllosilicates on DPC, with a particular emphasis on the length scales of the processes involved. We propose that, in our experiments, the diffusive transport processes invoked in classical theoretical models of DPC are complemented by chemo-mechanical feedbacks that arise on longer length scales. These feedbacks drive NaCl diffusion from the marginal pure NaCl layers into the central NaCl–biotite mixture over distances of several hundred micrometres and several grain diameters. Such a mechanism was first postulated by Merino et al. (1983).

Mechanism of hopping conduction in Be–Fe–Al–Te–O semiconducting glasses and glass–ceramics

Electrical properties of beryllium-alumino-tellurite glasses and glass–ceramics doped with iron ions were studied using impedance spectroscopy. The conductivity was measured over a wide frequency range from 10 mHz to 1 MHz and the temperature range from 213 to 473 K. The D.C. conductivity values showed a correlation with the Fe-ion concentration and ratio of iron ions on different valence states in the samples. On the basis of Jonscher universal dielectric response the temperature dependence of conductivity parameters were determined and compared to theoretical models collected by Elliott. In glasses, the conduction process was found to be due to the overlap polaron tunneling while in glass–ceramics the quantum mechanical tunneling between semiconducting crystallites of iron oxides is proposed. The D.C. conductivity was found not to follow Arrhenius relation. The Schnakenberg model was used to analyze the conductivity behavior and the polaron hopping energy and disorder energy were estimated. Additionally, the correlation between alumina dissolution and basicity of the melts was observed.

Optimization models of investment management in logistics

The textbook is devoted to planning and modeling of investment projects for the development of logistics infrastructure and supply chain management. Both theoretical models of investment management in logistics and practical examples of the use of the proposed methodology in the selection of optimal production programs of the enterprise, management of wholesale purchases of trading firms, analysis of the effectiveness of projects for the creation of warehouse infrastructure, working capital management in the procurement of material resources in industrial logistics are presented. For undergraduate and graduate students specializing in logistics and supply chain management.