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The motel industry in Taiwan is a highly competitive industry, which requires considerable investment and demands innovative services. This paper aims to identify the competitive qualities that urgently require improvement to enhance the service quality of motels using the two-phase method of importance-performance and gap analysis (IPGA) and the Kano model, and develops specific improvement strategies.

By questionnaire survey, this study collects 562 valid questionnaires from motels in Taipei City. The IPGA and Kano model are used to identify the service attributes of market competitiveness that urgently require improvement.

The results show there are 14 attributes that should be urgently improved, of which four are the attractive qualities of market competitiveness (competitive qualities). This study develops ten improvement strategies, as based on the four competitive qualities, for the reference of the motel industry.

The results can identify the competitive qualities that require urgent improvement to address the development of improvement strategies for motels. The managers of motels can refer to the ten improvement strategies to create excellent and competitive motel services.

The results combine “customers’ needs” with “the competitive meanings of quality attributes in the market” under limited resources, to upgrade motel service quality, customers’ willingness to purchase and motel competitiveness.

This study aims to develop a comprehensive LOHAS (lifestyles of health and sustainability) restaurant service quality scale by using a rigorous qualitative and quantitative research process to effectively measure the service quality of LOHAS restaurants. Moreover, this study aims to further identify the Kano quality characteristics and strategic meanings of service attributes in LOHAS restaurants.

This study designed the preliminary items of the service quality scale for LOHAS restaurants (LORSERV scale) based on relevant literatures and expert interview procedures. This study identified the goodness of fit of the questionnaire content, construct validity and validity of the LORSERV scale using exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. The moderated regression was conducted to identify the Kano quality characteristics and strategic meanings of each service attribute in LOHAS restaurants.

The results indicated that the LORSERV scale included seven dimensions (internal sense of happiness, transitiveness, environment, healthy catering, service commitment, green practicability and thoughtfulness), for a total of 33 items. According to the results of the Kano model, the seven service attributes were categorized into the attractive quality. A total of 25 service attributes were categorized into the one-dimensional quality, and one service attribute was categorized into the must-be quality.

The contribution of this study is that the scale could facilitate operators of LOHAS restaurants to effectively understand customer perceptions of service quality and serve as a reference to upgrade and improve service quality. The identification of Kano quality characteristics for each service attribute is conducive for LOHAS restaurants to understand the strategic meanings of each service attribute and can serve as a reference to make distinctive service strategies to reach sustainable operations.

In the tide of the sharing economy, food and beverage sharing services (FBSS) are gradually drawing public attention. Many comments about FBSS are posted and discussed online, and this information may suggest the key factors in the operation of FBSS. This study aims to identify the key success factors (KSFs) of FBSS from online communities and media, potential consumers, customers and experts.

This study utilizes Internet big data analytics (IBDA) to identify the key FBSS factors and then examines the KSFs of FBSS through conducting an analysis of the importance of key factors for potential consumers, confirmatory factor analysis of customer satisfaction of key factors, multiple regression analysis of customer satisfaction of key factors influencing the customers' intentions to continue participating in FBSS and a decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory of experts' opinions.

The results showed that the 15 key FBSS factors through IBDA were screened out. Among them, four KSFs that influence the operation of FBSS were identified. These four KSFs are discussed in detail in the text.

The findings of this study provide references for FBSS providers in the future to enhance customer value, service quality and business competitive advantages of FBSS.

This study aims to extract determinants of customers' choice of dining-related services (CDS) to understand their attitudes and habits for dining-related services. Moreover, it classifies restaurant customers into several clusters based on their CDS factors and further analyzes the differences in the preferences and habits for dining-related services among various clusters.

This study extracts the CDS factors using principal component analysis and identifies construct validity of the CDS factors through the results of confirmatory factor analysis. Then, it divides the restaurant customers in Taipei City into different clusters through cluster analysis to explore the habits and preferences for dining-related services in each cluster.

The study results show that the extracted six CDS factors, including service commitment, dietary preferences, design styles, additional value, delicate information collection, and dining environments. Dietary preferences, service commitment and additional value factor are the most important CDS factors for restaurant customers in Taipei City. This study divides 1,029 restaurant customers in Taipei City into three clusters based on the CDS factors through cluster analysis. The differences in the preferences and habits for dining services among three clusters have been discussed in the context in detail. Finally, this study develops eight service strategies and determines the order of execution of the eight service strategies for each cluster of customers.

The findings will help restaurant operators segment the market, target market customers, carry out service positioning and develop marketing strategies to respond to the highly competitive restaurant market and achieve sustainable restaurant operations.

The categorization response model through gene expression patterns turns into one of the most favorable utilizations of the microarray technology. In this study, the aim is to propose a grid computing-based meta-evolutionary mining approach as a categorization response model for gene selection and cancer classification.

The proposed approach is based on the grid computing infrastructure for establishing the best attributes set selected from a big microarray data. The novel discriminant analysis is based on vector distant of median method as the evaluation function of meta-evolutionary mining approach. In this study, the proposed approach lays stress on finding the best attributes set for constructing a categorization response model with highest categorization accuracy.

Examples for several benchmarking cancer microarray data sets were used to evaluate the proposed approach, whose results are also compared with other approaches in literatures. Experimental results from four benchmarking problems indicate that the proposed approach works effectively and efficiently, and the results of the proposed methods are superior to or as well as other existing methods in literatures.

The novel discriminant analysis is based on vector distant of median method as the evaluation function of meta-evolutionary mining approach to discover the best feature subset automatically from the microarray tumor database. In this study, the proposed approach lays stress on finding the best attributes set for constructing a categorization response model with highest categorization accuracy.

Extensive efforts have been conducted on the real-time strategy (RTS) games. The purpose of this paper is the specific artificial intelligence (AI) challenges posed by RTS games; non-player character (NPC) is started out by collecting game-map resources to build up defenses and attack forces, to upgrade combat deployment.

The authors used weak AI fuzzy theory as the foundation for tunable development. With the fuzzy theory, the AI was more humanistic in its judgment process.

Well-developed AIs have been used brilliantly in various aspects in RTS games, especially in those developed by large production teams. For small production teams, how to develop an AI system in less time and at a lower cost is extremely important.

This study aimed to develop a system using player unit threat levels for NPC deployment and arrangement so that the further strategy would be adopted for NPCs in response to player actions.

The RTS games would become more challenging for players to play.

The research indicates that relatively powerful firms exploit their advantages to damage their weaker partners. However, how power can be abused by advantaged firms remains unclear. This study aims to examine the relationship between power advantage and abuse of power and whether the power advantage mediates the relationship between dependence and personal interests and between trust and company performance.

A total of 130 retailers in Taiwan were investigated. Partial least squares regression was performed to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results of this study show that power-advantaged firms are more likely to abuse their power; however, the purposes are more for their company performance than for personal interests. Power advantage has different mediating effects on the dependence–personal interests and trust–company performance relationships.

Considering both time and cost limitations, this study investigated one aspect of the retailer–supplier dyad in northern Taiwan. The samples collected may be influenced by the nature of the industry and sampling method, possibly limiting the generalizability of the research results.

This study can help channel managers with a power advantage to have an improved understanding of their salespersons’ behavioral patterns, particularly gaining personal interests from customers.

This study expands the understanding of the antecedents and consequences of power advantages in supplier–retailer relationships. It also highlights in specific institutional arrangements, the weaker parties’ efforts to endure their counterparts’ use of their power advantage to serve their personal interests. Future research may analyze abuse of power by expanding research to other industries and different cultural contexts.

The ‘managed stock’ market in Taiwan is neglected by the authorities and general investors. In this paper, we explore the link between financial trait and stock price changes in this special market.

Overall, we analyze and discuss managerial implications for institutional investors, general investors and the authorities as well.