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TikTok, a social media application (app), was originally positioned as a short music video community suitable for young users, and the app is user-generated content (UGC) short video of vertical music. Users can make their own creative videos. Following the rhythm of the music, users can shoot various video content, personal talents, life records, performances, dances, plot interpretations, etc. However, what are the profiles and preferences of TikTok users, whereby the social media app is mainly developed by UGC? What is the impact of TikTok on the development of social media? In addition, what is UGC's social media model for user interactions in social networks? The purpose of this paper is to address and study these proposed issues.

All questionnaire items are designed as nominal and ordinal scales (not Likert scale). The obtained data from questionnaires are put into the relational database (N = 2,011). This empirical study takes Taiwan TikTok users as the research object, implements data mining analytics to generate user profiles through clustering analysis and further uses association rules’ analysis to analyze social media apps in social network interaction and social apps’ development by proposing two patterns and several meaningful rules.

This study finds that social media apps is a valuable practical research topic on online social media development. In addition, besides the TikTok, the authors eagerly await subsequent research to provide more valuable findings of social media apps in both theory and practice.

This study presents the research evidences that social media apps such as TikTok will be able to transcend the current development pattern of social media and make good use of the media and technology innovation of apps in social development and social informatics.

Project bundling is an innovative practice that groups or bundles several infrastructure projects into a single contract. While project bundling has various benefits, agencies are facing some challenges when bundling their projects, including properly assessing the feasibility (or infeasibility) of project delivery methods (PDMs) of interest. More specifically, project owners face the challenge of properly selecting between traditional and alternative PDMs for their bundled projects. Although some research efforts were devoted to providing guidelines in relation to different aspects related to project bundling, no previous study was conducted to help project owners performing PDMs-related feasibility analysis for bundled projects, which differ from normal, singly delivered projects. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper develops a decision-support tool that assists agencies in deciding whether they should select a traditional or alternative PDM (i.e. whether to go with the Design-Bid-Build (DBB) PDM or not) for their bundled projects.

An analytical methodology comprised of four main steps was followed in this paper. First, an expert survey was developed and distributed to industry experts to quantify the importance of 25 project bundling objectives. Second, principal component analysis was used to determine the weights for the different project bundling objectives. Third, a series of statistical tests was implemented to identify different feasibility tiers. Fourth, a user-friendly decision-support tool was developed, and its capabilities were demonstrated.

The results showed that six tiers exist to classify the feasibility (or infeasibility) of traditional PDMs (i.e. the DBB method) for bundled projects. The research outcomes have also reflected that the following five project bundling objectives contribute the most to making traditional PDMs (i.e. the DBB method) more feasible for bundled projects: (1) Having well-defined design features; (2) Requiring prior knowledge or experience with similar project size and scope; (3) Completing the overall project on schedule; (4) Keeping rate of expenditures within cash flow plan; and (5) Acquiring specific legislative, regulatory and jurisdictional requirements early on.

This research adds to the body of knowledge by equipping agencies and project owners with a decision-support system that helps them identify whether traditional or alternative PDMs are more appropriate for the specific objectives of their bundling program(s). By making the right PDM decision, project owners can enhance their bundling practices (especially in relation to the PDM proper selection) and ultimately the performance of their bundled projects.

This chapter discusses how immigrants adopt translanguaging practices (i.e., the flexible use of linguistic resources by bilinguals or multilinguals to make sense of their worlds inside and outside classrooms) to scaffold learning, clarify concepts, facilitate communication, and promote academic understanding. Even inside the campus, outside the classroom discourse, translanguaging can be used to navigate bureaucratic systems, such as filling out forms, engaging in social gatherings, or accessing library services, that require proficiency in the language of the host country. Whereas the academic context is not always a positive space for translanguaging practices, everyday communications usually create a positive space for translanguaging. This chapter discusses translanguaging practices in academic and nonacademic contexts. We also provide an overview of the negative pedagogical attitudes toward translanguaging in higher education institutions, where challenges commonly faced by mobile and immobile non-native English scholars pertain to strict strategies. Reflections on the restrictive publishing policies that constitute a negative translanguaging space, acceptable and nonacceptable translanguaging practices in academic publications and the role of translanguaging facilitators, such as artificial intelligence (AI) applications, are also deliberated based on the field experience of a professional copy editor.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between prudence in risk attitudes and patience of time preference of Chinese apple growers regarding off-farm cold storage of production and marketing in non-harvest seasons. The authors also consider the effect of farmer participation in cooperative-like organizations known as Farm Bases (FBs).

The authors use multiple list methods and elicitation strategies to measure Chinese apple farmers' risk attitudes and time preferences. Because these farmers can either sell their apples immediately to supermarkets or intermediaries or place them in storage, the authors assess correlations between their storage decisions and their preferences regarding risk and time. The authors also differentiate risks involving gains and losses and empirically examine individual risk attitudes in different scenarios.

Marketing decisions are moderately associated with risk attitudes but not time preference. Farmers with memberships in local farmer cooperatives are likely to speculate more in cold storage. Thus, risk aversion behavioral and psychological motives affect farmers' decision-making of cold storage and intertemporal marketing activities. However, membership in cooperatives does not always result in improved income and welfare for farmers.

The research confirms that behavioral factors may strongly drive vulnerable smallholder farmers to speculate into storage even under seasonal and uncertain marketing volatility. There is the need to think deeper about the rationale of promoting cooperatives and other agricultural forms, because imposing these without careful consideration can have negative impacts.

Do risk and time preferences affect the decision of farmers to utilize storage facilities? This question is important because it is not clear if and how risk preferences affect the tradeoff between consuming today and saving for tomorrow, especially for farmers in developing countries.

This exploratory, descriptive study examines the factors that might influence the success or failure of online peer production communities during their inception stage. It focuses on community-building activities, the roles of users and the dynamics of user interaction, aiming to shed light on practices that could contribute to a community's success at the inception stage.

By comparing two Stack Exchange Q&A communities with the same timelines but opposite outcomes during their beta testing phases, the research utilizes quantitative methods to categorize community activities, define user roles via k-means cluster analysis and examine interaction networks using social network analysis.

Our findings suggest the successful Mathematics Q&A community exhibited several distinct practices during its inception, such as the utilization of both external and internal tools, the development of community-specific tutorials and the strategic use of flagging functions for moderation. Eight user roles were discerned, with roles like content editors, metadata curators and gatekeepers being particularly prominent in the successful community. Additionally, a more densely interconnected user network characterized by active participation was observed in the successful community.

Concentrating on the inception stage of online communities, this study uncovers insights into the dynamics at play in the early life of peer production environments and provides empirical observations that may assist in shaping strategies for new online communities. It stands out by comparing communities within the same period to understand factors that may influence their early success.

Images and caption descriptions serve as important visual stimuli that influence consumer preferences; therefore, the current study focuses on property images and captions illustrated on the home pages of accommodation-sharing platforms. Specifically, this study investigates the relative importance of hue, brightness and saturation of a property image and caption description styles on potential consumers’ preferences.

A mixed-method approach was used, and a total of 293 valid responses were collected through a discrete choice experiment approach. Interviews were conducted for additional analyses to explore the detailed explanations.

The utility model demonstrated that the image’s saturation was the most critical attribute perceived by the respondents, followed by caption description style, hue and brightness.

This is one of the first studies to investigate the display of attributes on a digital accommodation platform by exploring potential customers’ stated preferences. This study focuses explicitly on images and captions illustrated on the home page of an accommodation booking platform. Detailed image investigation is also a new research area in sharing economy-related research.

Current knowledge and research on students’ utilization and interaction with generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools in their academic work is limited. This study aims to investigate students’ engagement with these tools.

This research used survey-based research to investigate generative AI literacy (utilization, interaction, evaluation of output and ethics) among students enrolled in a four-year public university in the southeastern USA. This article focuses on the respondents who have used generative AI (218; 47.2%).

Most respondents used generative AI to generate ideas for papers, projects or assignments, and they also used AI to assist with their original ideas. Despite their use of AI assistance, most students were critical of generative AI output, and this mindset was reflected in their reported interactions with ChatGPT. Respondents expressed a need for explicit guidance from course syllabi and university policies regarding generative AI’s ethical and appropriate use.

Literature related to generative AI use in higher education specific to ChatGPT is predominantly from educators’ viewpoints. This study provides empirical evidence about how university students report using generative AI in the context of generative AI literacy.