Classification of design parameters for E-commerce websites: A novel fuzzy Kano approach

Websites have gained vital importance for organizations along with the growing competition in the world market. It is known that usability requirements heavily depend on the type, audience and purpose of websites. For the e-commerce environment, usability assessment of a website is required to figure out the impact of website design on customer purchases. Thus, usability assessment and design of online pages have become the subject of many scientific studies. However, in any of these studies, design parameters were not identified in such a detailed way, and they were not classified in line with customer expectations to assess the overall usability of an e-commerce website. This study therefore aims to analyze and classify design parameters according to customer expectations in order to evaluate the usability of e-commerce websites in a more comprehensive manner. Four websites are assessed using the proposed novel approach with respect to the identified design parameters and the usability scores of the websites are examined. It is revealed that the websites with high usability score are more preferred by customers. Therefore, it is indicated that usability of e-commerce websites affects customer purchases.     

Real-Time FFT Computation Using GPGPU for OFDM-Based Systems

In optical and wireless communications systems, the goal is to reach 10 Gbps or above data rates. In order to support such extremely high data rates, the physical layer generally uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation. Unlike serial transmission of symbols, the OFDM modulation transmits data with many parallel sub-carriers, which help to provide high bandwidth. Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and digital signal processors (DSPs) are usually employed to process OFDM blocks in real time. However, FPGAs and DSPs are not cost effective, and they are difficult to adapt to new standards. One of the most computationally intensive functions in OFDM systems is the fast Fourier transform (FFT) computation process. This paper aims to accelerate the FFT process to achieve high communication throughput in real time. Two parallel approaches are implemented for two different NVIDIA graphics processing unit (GPU) architectures. To obtain the best performance values, several optimizations are implemented. Our general purpose graphics processing unit (GPGPU)-based FFT computation achieves up to 24 Gbps throughput in real time.     

Surface roughness and color characteristics of wood treated with preservatives after accelerated weathering test

Wood samples treated with ammonium copper quat (ACQ 1900 and ACQ 2200), chromated copper arsenate (CCA), Tanalith E 3491 and Wolmanit CX-8 have been studied in accelerated weathering experiments. The weathering experiment was performed by cycles of 2 h UV-light irradiation followed by water spray for 18 min. The changes on the surface of the weathered samples were characterized by roughness and color measurements on the samples with 0, 200, 400 and 600 h of total weathering.

The objective of this study was to investigate the changes created by weathering on impregnated wood with several different wood preservatives. This study was performed on the accelerated weathering test cycle, using UV irradiation and water spray in order to simulate natural weathering.

Surface roughness and color measurement was used to investigate the changes after several intervals (0–200–400–600 h) in artificial weathering of treated and untreated wood.     

Identification of Phenolic Compounds by LC-MS/MS and Evaluation of Bioactive Properties of Two Edible Halophytes: Limonium effusum and L. sinuatum

This work aimed to evaluate the phenolic content and in vitro antioxidant, antimicrobial and enzyme inhibitory activities of the methanol extracts and their fractions of two edible halophytic Limonium species, L. effusum (LE) and L. sinuatum (LS). The total phenolic content resulted about two-fold higher in the ethyl acetate fraction of LE (522.82 ± 5.67 mg GAE/g extract) than in that of LS (274.87 ± 1.87 mg GAE/g extract). LC-MS/MS analysis indicated that tannic acid was the most abundant phenolic acid in both species (71,439.56 ± 3643.3 µg/g extract in LE and 105,453.5 ± 5328.1 µg/g extract in LS), whereas hyperoside was the most abundant flavonoid (14,006.90 ± 686.1 µg/g extract in LE and 1708.51 ± 83.6 µg/g extract in LS). The antioxidant capacity was evaluated by DPPH and TAC assays, and the stronger antioxidant activity in ethyl acetate fractions was highlighted. Both species were more active against Gram-positive bacteria than Gram negatives and showed considerable growth inhibitions against tested fungi. Interestingly, selective acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity was observed with LE and LS. Particularly, the water fraction of LS strongly inhibited AChE (IC₅₀ = 0.199 ± 0.009 µg/mL). The ethyl acetate fractions of LE and LS, as well as the n-hexane fraction of LE, exhibited significant antityrosinase activity (IC₅₀ = 245.56 ± 3.6, 295.18 ± 10.57 and 148.27 ± 3.33 µg/mL, respectively). The ethyl acetate fraction and methanol extract of LS also significantly inhibited pancreatic lipase (IC₅₀ = 83.76 ± 4.19 and 162.2 ± 7.29 µg/mL, respectively). Taken together, these findings warrant further investigations to assess the potential of LE and LS as a bioactive source that can be exploited in pharmaceutical, cosmetics and food industries.     

Electroanalytical Investigation and Simultaneous Determination of Etodolac and Thiocolchicoside at a Non-modified Glassy Carbon Electrode in Anionic Surfactant Media

In this study, a differential pulse voltammetry method was designed for the simultaneous determination of etodolac and thiocolchicoside in a tablet dosage form. This method is a sensitive, costless and reproducible one initially designed for the simultaneous determination of etodolac and thiocolchicoside using bare/unmodified glassy carbon electrode in the presence of sodium dodecyl sulfate. At optimized conditions, the method showed linear responses with etodolac and thiocolchicoside concentration in the range of 1 μM to 80 μM. The limits of detection and quantification were calculated as 0.11 μM and 0.38 μM for etodolac and 0.20 μM and 0.67 μM for thiocolchicoside, respectively.     

Quantum theory of a free electron in a tapered wiggler field

It is pointed out that a slight modification of the relativistic quantum theory of a free electron in a uniform wiggler field enables the study of motion in a tapered wiggler field of the form $\text{k}{}_{\mathrm{w}}{}^1\text{= k}{}_{\mathrm{w}}\text{?}\text{b}\text{z}$ which merits attention. The lower limit of z is 800 cm. The exact relativistic quantum mechanical calculation shows an enhancement in the gain for single pass. The frequencies are up-shifted by amounts depending on the parameter b.     

N‐(2‐Hydroxyethyl)ethylenediammonium hydrogenphosphate monohydrate

The title compound, C₄H₁₄N₂O²⁺·HPO₄^2?·H₂O, contains alternating interleaved layers of hydrogenphosphate and N‐(2‐hydroxyethyl)ethyl­enedi­ammonium moieties. The water mol­ecules are associated with channel‐like voids in the structure and a network of hydrogen bonds stabilizes the crystal packing.     

Synthesis, structure, and metalation of two new highly porous zirconium metal-organic frameworks

Three new metal-organic frameworks [MOF-525, Zr(6)O(4)(OH)(4)(TCPP-H(2))(3); MOF-535, Zr(6)O(4)(OH)(4)(XF)(3); MOF-545, Zr(6)O(8)(H(2)O)(8)(TCPP-H(2))(2), where porphyrin H(4)-TCPP-H(2) = (C(48)H(24)O(8)N(4)) and cruciform H(4)-XF = (C(42)O(8)H(22))] based on two new topologies, ftw and csq, have been synthesized and structurally characterized. MOF-525 and -535 are composed of Zr(6)O(4)(OH)(4) cuboctahedral units linked by either porphyrin (MOF-525) or cruciform (MOF-535). Another zirconium-containing unit, Zr(6)O(8)(H(2)O)(8), is linked by porphyrin to give the MOF-545 structure. The structure of MOF-525 was obtained by analysis of powder X-ray diffraction data. The structures of MOF-535 and -545 were resolved from synchrotron single-crystal data. MOF-525, -535, and -545 have Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface areas of 2620, 1120, and 2260 m(2)/g, respectively. In addition to their large surface areas, both porphyrin-containing MOFs are exceptionally chemically stable, maintaining their structures under aqueous and organic conditions. MOF-525 and -545 were metalated with iron(III) and copper(II) to yield the metalated analogues without losing their high surface area and chemical stability.     

Poptube approach for ultrafast carbon nanotube growth

Microwave irradiation can be used to heat conductive materials and metallocene precursors to initiate ultrafast CNT growth. It takes only 15-30 seconds to grow CNTs at room temperature in air, without the need for any inert gas protection and additional feed stock gases.