What drives purchase intention on Airbnb? Perspectives of consumer reviews,information quality,and media richness

The owners of idle assets and their potential users create economic benefits through providing or sharing idle assets or skills, and this process has been formalized and monetized at large scales by companies such as Uber, Airbnb, USpace and others. This research seeks to understand the factors affecting the purchase intention on Airbnb users in terms of five key factors: rating, rating volume, review, information quality, and media richness. ANOVA and path analysis are used to test the relationships of these factors with perceived value, satisfaction and purchase intention. Results indicate that perceived value and satisfaction are key determinants of intention to buy, while rating volume, review, information quality, and media richness are important precursors. In addition, gender and usage experiences with Airbnb are also used to classify the sample to assess the difference between each classification. The results of this study can provide a useful reference to researchers and firms and individuals working in the sharing economy.     

What drives live-stream usage intention? The perspectives of flow,entertainment, social interaction,and endorsement

Live-stream is the real-time audio and video transmission of an event over the Internet. Since a live-stream can also be interactive, it has some of the characteristics of a small community. People often become addicted to television, movies, or video blogs for the sake of entertainment. They can also become blind and obsessive about worshiping popular idols. Moreover, their willingness to use media is affected by their own perception of the media or their expectation of the benefits. This study therefore proposes four key factors: flow, entertainment, social interaction, and endorsement. We use path analysis to test their relationships with attitude, perceived value and watching intention to understand the influential factors and channels that induce audiences to watch live-streaming events.Analysis of 313 valid responses to a survey questionnaire indicate that approximately 65% of Taiwanese people watch live-streams via social network sites. In general, they watched live-streams simply because they liked to do so. The main reason behind their favorable impression of live-streaming was that live-streams made people happy and relieved stress. Secondly, people were attracted by the charm of the streamers, but the attraction differs slightly by gender. Females developed a more favorable impression of a live-stream when they admired the streamer. Males, on the other hand, developed a more favorable impression of a live-stream when they interacted with the streamer or other audience members. Young people tended to like live-streaming because it gave them a sense of flow, while older people were not affected by flow. This study contributes to the development of live-stream services and future studies on live-streaming.     

Risk and opportunity for online purchase intention – A moderated mediation model investigation

What is the risk and opportunity for online purchase intention? This study focused on online purchase intention to explore the relationships on the proposed theoretical model for an electronic commerce environment in Taiwan. This study found electronic word-of-mouth plays a fully mediated role between perceived risk and online purchase intention. Online involvement plays a moderated mediating role in the proposed theoretical model. Perceived risk of online purchase intention through electronic word-of-mouth is stronger at low degrees of online involvement than at higher degrees of online involvement for Taiwan’s online consumers. This study concludes online operators might consider encouraging online consumers to participate in online information with a high degree of involvement. Thus, although perceived risk is a risk for online consumers and is harmful to online purchase intention, online operators should turn risks into opportunities for electronic commerce by effectively using the power of online involvement and e-WOM.     

What drives stickiness in location-based AR games? An examination of flow and satisfaction

Although location-based augmented reality (AR) games are popular in recent years, the motivates of the game’s stickiness still need further investigation. The main goal of this research is to investigate the antecedents of the game’s stickiness. This research develops a conceptual model and hypotheses based on the theory of flow and satisfaction to investigate the antecedents. An online questionnaire was developed and distributed on popular websites to collect data, and 1028 usable responses are collected from the players of Pokémon Go in Taiwan. The eleven hypotheses and control variables were validated by using structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques. Among the antecedents of the game’s stickiness in the model, the flow and satisfaction were found to have strong direct effects. The effects of control variables (age, gender, platform, game experience, and in-app expense) on the stickiness were significant as well. Moreover, telepresence, challenge, perceived control, curiosity, and concentration all have direct influences on the flow. Only perceived currency and responsiveness were found to have a direct impact on players’ satisfaction. The model demonstrated good explanatory power for flow and stickiness in the context of location-based AR game. The proposed model can provide insights to location-based AR game developers to design their games and marketing strategies.     

Should I scan my face? The influence of perceived value and trust on Chinese users’ intention to use facial recognition payment

While China has seen the widespread adoption of facial recognition payment, concerns over the potential risks impede the further growth of user acceptance. Drawing on the perspectives of perceived value and trust, we developed a research model to explore how the Chinese users’ trade-off between perceived benefits (perceived convenience and perceived novelty) and perceived risks (perceived privacy risk and perceived financial risk) influences their usage intention. Based on survey data from 1,200 Chinese mobile payment users, this study uses structural equation modeling to examine the hypotheses. Our results show that perceived convenience positively influences perceived value, while privacy risk and financial risk negatively influence perceived value and trust. Although perceived novelty has no significant effect on perceived value and trust, perceived value positively influences trust, and both of them have a positive effect on the intention to use. Furthermore, our moderation analysis indicates that the influence of perceived value on the intention to use is stronger among users who consider facial information to be more sensitive. The theoretical implications for research as well as the practical implications for practitioners are also discussed.     

What is Electrical Overstress? - Analysis and Conclusions

In order to analyse the reasons for continuously high failure rates due to electrical overstress (EOS) a large number of publications published over the past 40 years in the field of EOS is investigated and evaluated. It is found that there is no common understanding on EOS. To resolve this problem criteria for a suitable EOS definition are introduced and a corresponding definition is proposed.     

Millennials’ socio-psychology and blood donation intention developed from social media communications: A survey of university students

Less than 1% of South-Africans donate blood annually. New donors are required, especially from Millennials, who are large in numbers and influential. Being more receptive to social media communications and altruistic, millennials are the hope of safe blood supply. However, the drivers of millennials’ positive attitude and behavioural intentions (BI) towards donating blood need examination. This study used ideas from Social Cognition Theory, Health Belief Model and Theory of Planned Behaviour to examine how social media communications impact blood donation attitudes and behavioural intention through some socio-psychological outcomes among young adult Millennials at a university in South-Africa. Quantitative data was collected from 650 respondents. Structural equation modelling results revealed that social media communications positively impacted awareness, perception, peers, family, and behavioural intention. Motivation, awareness, peers and family positively influenced attitudes, which in turn, predicted blood donation intention. Blood donations agencies and public policy-makers should seek ways to convert Millennials’ positive attitudes and BI into actual blood donation.     

Do information and service quality affect perceived privacy protection,satisfaction, and loyalty? Evidence from a Chinese O2O-based mobile shopping application

As the mobile application market rapidly expands, the mobile shopping market is also expected to follow suit. Further, a new form of online-to-offline (O2O) services available in mobile shopping applications, which helps users instantly search for what they want online, try them in the offline stores nearby, and pay online, is becoming increasingly popular. Thus, our study investigates the effects of O2O-based mobile shopping application (MSA)’s information and service quality on the user’s perceived privacy protection, satisfaction, and loyalty. In this study, we collected 1063 questionnaire responses, out of which 969 were used to estimate the structural paths using PLS-SEM (partial least-square structural equation model) for the hypothesis test. Our empirical findings are drawn from Chinese respondents who use Chinese leading MSAs, such as Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent. We confirm that qualified information and services of O2O MSAs positively affect both perceived privacy protection and customer satisfaction, which finally lead to customer loyalty through the lens of the information systems success model. Further, we present effective practical implications for business strategy and application characteristics suitable for users in the O2O-based mobile shopping industry.     

Who finds value in news comment communities? An analysis of the influence of individual user,perceived news site quality,and site type factors

User commenting forums are a ubiquitous interactive feature offered by news organizations. Despite their popularity, research has generally failed to investigate extent to which news readers themselves find any redeeming value in news comment communities and, therein, the factors that serve as antecedents to such value perceptions. In light of this gap in the literature, this study set out to determine the factors associated with news community value. Using a sample of over 500 news consumers, we explored the impact of individual user, site quality, and site type factors. The results suggested that perceived news community value was highest among those with high levels of self-efficacy and those who use the Internet for civic purposes. The data indicated also that value perceptions were highest for those news sites that were understood to be interactive and aesthetically pleasing. Finally, perceived news community value was highest on sites that were both non-traditional and non-partisan in nature.     

High tech toys,part 2 “What if we picked up our toys and went home?”

Americans enthusiastically disarmed after WWI and were suprised by WWII. We disarmed again and were surprised in Korea and Southeast Asia. Unilateral restraint following the Vietman fiasco resulted in seized embassies and a decade of terrorism that went virtually unanswered. Yet today, following dubious victories in the Cold and Gulf Wars, Americans again yearn to pick up toys and go home.     

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What makes people more polarized? The effects of anonymity,being with like-minded others,and the moderating role of need for approval

Many scholars have argued that anonymity is the main factor in opinion polarization. In recent studies, scholars have found that being with like-minded others can lead people to adopt extreme opinions. The aim of the current study was to explore how these two online environmental factors impact people to move their opinions toward an extreme position (polarize). In addition to environmental factors, we investigated how an individual trait (i.e., need for approval) influenced people to take pre-existing opinions to an extreme position (polarize). We conducted an online experiment (2 [anonymity vs non-anonymity] by 2 [like-minded others vs different-minded others]) using Amazon Mechanical Turk workers (n = 476). Findings showed that being with like-minded others led individuals to move their opinions toward extremity. Furthermore, we found that among participants who were with like-minded others, those in the anonymous condition were most likely to move their opinions toward an extreme end. However, the need for approval did not play a significant moderating role in this process.     

Virtual gifting and danmaku: What motivates people to interact in game live streaming?

Virtual gifting and danmaku are important interactive behaviors in the course of game live streaming. Viewers send both gifts and danmaku enthusiastically while watching a game live stream. This study aimed to explore why viewers send danmaku or virtual gifts in the course of game live streaming. Five possible motivations and two types of behavioral patterns were identified. An online survey of game live streaming viewers in China was used to verify whether these motivations had an impact on their interactive behaviors. The results from 352 respondents showed that there were differences in the factors affecting danmaku and gifting interactions. Both the motivations and behavioral patterns had impacts on interactive behaviors such as virtual gifting and danmaku, but the nature of the impact differed.     

At Odds: Laughing and Thinking? The Appreciation,Processing, and Persuasiveness of Political Satire

This study constructs and tests a conceptual model of how and for whom political satire affects political attitudes. With an experiment, we show that young adults compared to older people are more absorbed in satirical items than in regular news. Subsequently, absorption decreased counterarguing such that the attitude toward the satirized object was affected negatively. By contrast, we show that political satire positively affects the attitude toward the satirized subject via perceived funniness; this was particularly strong among those who held views congruent with the satire or lacked background knowledge, which follows disposition theory. Investigating the underlying and conditional processes gave insight into mechanisms through which satire influences attitudes and pinpointed possible reasons for mixed effects of this infotainment genre.     

Analog image recognition arrays design by using co-fabricated MOSFET and MESFETs on a 0.25?μm SOS process

This paper presents an analog image recognition system with a novel MESFET device fabricated on a fully depleted (FD) CMOS process. An analog image recognition system with a power consumption of 2.4?mW/cell and a settling time of 6.5???s was designed, fabricated and characterized. A CNN is employed to realize a core cell of the proposed image recognition system. While a CNN benefits from its regular structure, it faces challenges due to its power consumption, speed, and size in their CMOS implementations. SOS MESFETs can deal with the challenges associated with CMOS-based CNNs. Advantages of SOS MESFETs associated with nonlinear signal processing include lower power consumption and higher operating speeds compared to similar geometry MOSFETs carrying the same current. SOS MESFET-based analog image recognition systems were fabricated and the transient response is characterized in both simulation using a TOM3 SPICE model extracted from SOS MESFETs and in experiment using image testing lab equipment. Settling times of 3.5 and 6.5???s for one-by-four and one-by-eight arrays, respectively, were achieved with line recognition template. The corresponding power consumption for the two arrays was 9.6 and 19.2?mW, respectively.     

Does Media Violence Predict Societal Violence? It Depends on What You Look at and When

This article presents 2 studies of the association of media violence rates with societal violence rates. In the first study, movie violence and homicide rates are examined across the 20th century and into the 21st (1920–2005). Throughout the mid‐20th century small‐to‐moderate correlational relationships can be observed between movie violence and homicide rates in the United States. This trend reversed in the early and latter 20th century, with movie violence rates inversely related to homicide rates. In the second study, videogame violence consumption is examined against youth violence rates in the previous 2 decades. Videogame consumption is associated with a decline in youth violence rates. Results suggest that societal consumption of media violence is not predictive of increased societal violence rates.     

Cloud service performance evaluation: status,challenges, and opportunities – a survey from the system modeling perspective

With rapid advancement of Cloud computing and networking technologies, a wide spectrum of Cloud services have been developed by various providers and utilized by numerous organizations as indispensable ingredients of their information systems. Cloud service performance has a significant impact on performance of the future information infrastructure. Thorough evaluation on Cloud service performance is crucial and beneficial to both service providers and consumers; thus forming an active research area. Some key technologies for Cloud computing, such as virtualization and the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), bring in special challenges to service performance evaluation. A tremendous amount of effort has been put by the research community to address these challenges and exciting progress has been made. Among the work on Cloud performance analysis, evaluation approaches developed with a system modeling perspective play an important role. However, related works have been reported in different sections of the literature; thus lacking a big picture that shows the latest status of this area. The objectives of this article is to present a survey that reflects the state of the art of Cloud service performance evaluation from the system modeling perspective. This articles also examines open issues and challenges to the surveyed evaluation approaches and identifies possible opportunities for future research in this important field.