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To modify a conventional evacuated tube, an improved asymmetric U-type evacuated tube (AUET) is proposed. This study aims to investigate the thermal and hydrodynamic performances of a modified tube and determine the optimal structural form.

Based on the variation of fluid proprieties with temperature, the formulated numerical model was validated and then deployed to investigate the natural circulation in the evacuated tubes. A dimensionless number was proposed to quantify the stratification effect. The influence of the degree of asymmetry of U-type evacuated tubes on the flow patterns, mass flow rate, temperature distribution, thermal stratification and energy conversion efficiency was studied.

When the degree of asymmetry is large, a higher velocity and better thermal stratification are achieved, thereby avoiding stagnant water at the bottom of the tubes simultaneously. Compared with the conventional evacuated tube, the improved evacuated tube exhibited a higher thermal efficiency.

The originally proposed AUET was proven to have better performance in avoiding stagnant water, reducing fluid mixing and improving the heat transfer efficiency.

Purpose — In this paper we describe a total design data collection method (expanding the definition of the usual “total design” terminology used in typical household travel surveys) to emphasize the need to describe individual and group behaviors embedded within their spatial, temporal, and social contexts.

Methodology/approach — We first offer an overview of recently developed modeling and simulation applications predominantly in North America followed by a summary of the data needs in typical modeling and simulation modules for statewide and regional travel demand forecasting. We then proceed to describe an ideal data collection scheme with core and satellite survey components that can inform current and future model building. Mention is also made to the currently implemented California Household Travel Survey that brings together multiple agencies, modeling goals, and data collection component surveys.

Findings — The preparation of this paper involved reviewing emerging transportation modeling approaches and paradigms, policy questions, and behavioral issues and considerations that are important in the multimodal transportation planning context. It was found that many of the questions being asked of policy makers in the transportation domain require a deep understanding of the interactions and constraints under which individuals make activity-travel choices, the learning processes at play, and the attitudes and perceptions that shape ways in which people adjust their travel behavior in response to policy interventions. Based on the work, it was found that many of the traditional travel survey designs are not able to provide the comprehensive data needed to estimate activity-based model systems that truly capture the full range of behavioral considerations and phenomena of importance.

Originality/value of paper — This paper offers a review of the emerging transportation modeling approaches and behavioral paradigms of importance in activity-based travel demand forecasting. The paper discusses how traditional travel survey designs are inadequate to meet the data needs of emerging modeling approaches. Based on a review of all of the data needs and new data collection methods that are making it possible to observe a full range of human behaviors, the paper offers a total survey data collection design that brings together many different surveys and data collection protocols. The core household travel survey is augmented by a full slate of special purpose surveys that together yield a rich behavioral database for activity-based microsimulation modeling. The paper is a valuable reference for transportation planners and modelers interested in developing data collection enterprises that will feed the next generation of transportation models.

The products of some firms emerge neither from new technology developments nor from attempting to address articulated consumers’ needs, but from a company-internal design-driven approach. To explore this design-driven approach, we propose a construct, design orientation, as a firm’s ability to integrate functionality, aesthetics, and meaning in its new products. We hypothesize relationships between a firm’s design orientation, customer orientation, technological orientation, and willingness to cannibalize on its new product performance.

We use data from surveys of senior marketing executives entrusted with design in 252 US firms, we validate the construct of design orientation and establish its distinctiveness from related constructs of creativity, technological orientation, and customer orientation. Using a structural equation modeling approach, we test the hypotheses and find support for them.

Individually, design orientation, technological orientation, and customer orientation improve new product performance. In addition, customer orientation decreases the positive effect of design orientation while willingness to cannibalize increases the positive effect of design orientation on new product performance.

More than two-thirds of respondents (69%) perceive that their firm can improve its new product performance by increasing its design orientation, an overlooked organizational capability.

Although practitioners have acknowledged the importance of design as a strategic marketing issue, there is little in the literature on how firms can benefit from building capabilities in the design domain, the issue we focus on in this research.

There is clear benefit in designing and sending notifications to users that persuade them to interact with an app and marketer goals. The purpose of this study is to examine how different motivational affordances in notifications affects subsequent app use.

The authors designed three studies to address the purpose: (1) an online experiment to test how individuals perceived notifications, which contained social affordances, progression-based affordances, and a combination of social and progression affordances; (2) a survey to gain a deeper understanding of why certain notification characteristics were effective and to unearth factors that jointly affected notification effectiveness; and (3) an in-app field experiment to test if the findings from studies 1 and 2 held up in a “real world” setting.

The analysis revealed that progression incentives yielded the greatest increases in user behavior. Neither a social incentive, nor a combination of social and progression affordances was more effective than one progression affordance. This effect was heightened by consumers’ involvement with the focal brand.

The contribution extends knowledge about the use of motivational affordances to gamify push notifications in high-involvement contexts. This implies that greater attention should be paid to how the: length of push notifications, affordances communicated and degree of consumers’ relationship with a focal brand (i.e. involvement) impact notification effectiveness. These findings set out new avenues to investigate the uses of gamification and services marketing in future research.

The authors provide marketers with insights into the most effective ways to gamify, structure and time the delivery of notifications. In high-involvement contexts where consumers decide whether to act on a gamified marketing affordance quickly, it pays to use push notifications that feature visible, immediate and tangible rewards. Understanding consumers’ involvement with the brand allows marketers to turn notifications from a potential annoyance into a viable conduit for engagement.

This research extends knowledge on gamification to the domain of push notifications. In doing so, the authors have demonstrated the communicated affordances and wording of the push notifications organizations send affect user behavior. The authors further expand knowledge of the role of consumer involvement on push notification effectiveness while controlling for app usage patterns.

The purpose of this research is to review empirical research on customer involvement in innovation and identify future research directions that can better connect this research with marketing strategy literatures and offer opportunities for further theoretical development.

We conduct a review of empirical articles published in eight leading marketing and innovation journals between 2001 and 2017.

The review shows that the literature on customer involvement in innovation is highly diverse and fragmented, lacking a common understanding of what constitutes customer involvement in innovation and its theoretical underpinnings. There exists a multitude of conceptualizations of customer involvement in innovation, which limits effective accumulation of domain knowledge. A large number of studies have taken the customer’s perspective to examine their motivation to participate and ability to contribute, whereas less research has been done from the firm’s perspective to understand how firms may effectively manage the well-recognized challenges of customer involvement as well as the implications of customer involvement for long-term innovation strategy and overall performance. Based on the review, we offer recommendations for future research.

We identify important questions for future research that are highly relevant for the practice of customer involvement in innovation.

We provide a systematic review of the rapidly growing empirical research on customer involvement in innovation. We evaluate key points of differences in the literature and offer a synthesis that helps identify opportunities for future research.

Firms with market foresight – knowledge of market changes ahead of competitors – can convert that knowledge into creative and timely new product offerings. Based on a discovery-oriented process, working closely with managers throughout the research process, we develop and test a framework delineating market information determinants and new product outcomes of market foresight.

Using data collected primarily from senior executives of industrial manufacturers, the hypotheses were tested using partial least squares.

The results indicate that external (active scanning, lead user collaboration, and market experiments) and internal sources (boundary spanner input and interdepartmental connectedness) of market information positively affect market foresight. Further, the effects of active scanning, market experiments, and interdepartmental connectedness on market foresight are positively moderated by the organization’s open-mindedness. These findings also provide evidence that firms with superior market foresight develop more creative products, introduce them to the market faster, and introduce them at a more opportune time.

Our findings demonstrate that managers’ knowledge of market changes ahead of competitors is enhanced through acquiring both external and internal sources of market information. Furthermore, market foresight is significantly enhanced by managers being open-minded to the information gained from these sources as it may challenge long-held assumptions.

This chapter introduces a new construct, market foresight capability, to the literature that will aid managers in developing greater insight into emerging shifts in the market. For researchers, this new line of inquiry expands our understanding as to the critical sources and new product outcomes of obtaining future-focused market information.

A numerical model of the inclined open thermosyphon has been developed using a finite difference algorithm to solve the vorticity vector potential form of the Navier‐Stokes equations. The model simulates flow in an inclined cylinder whose bottom end is sealed and whose top is connected to uniform temperature reservoir, a configuration typical of evacuated tubular solar absorbers. The solution domain includes the cylinder only without the reservoir; therefore a special set of boundary conditions has been derived for the vector potential at the top end which is a flow‐through surface. Steady flow is simulated at various combinations of Rayleigh number, aspect ratio and mode of heating. An experimental set‐up has also been developed in order to investigate the development of different flow patterns previously predicted by analytical and numerical workers, as well as to observe more closely the behaviour of the fluid at the orifice. Velocity profiles were measured at the orifice using laser doppler anemometry, and compared with predictions from the numerical model.

The aim of any research is to create knowledge and to generate new insights. For insights from empirical research to be valid, the data from which insights are derived must be valid. Empirical data in tourism and hospitality research is predominantly collected by means of surveys. The chapter discusses a range of dangers to data validity associated with survey research; explains under which circumstances surveys represent a suitable or unsuitable method of data collection; and offers practical recommendations that can easily be adopted by survey researchers to ensure maximum validity of their data.

Ecotourism is a burgeoning sector of the tourism industry offering a relatively guilt-free environment in which to satisfy the desire for travel and adventure. The discourse is firmly entrenched within the dominant conception of sustainability where nature is seen as a privileged ‘other’, untouched by humans. This ideology is also prevalent in the design of ecotourism facilities, which are generally predicated on a model of minimal intervention. This low-impact approach is not problematic in itself, but it misses the opportunity to engage in a more productive and ‘regenerative’ relationship with place. Conversely, Philip Cox Richardson Taylor's design for the resort town of Yulara in central Australia sought a more constructive relationship with place and questioned the conventional notion of ‘resort’. Although this resort, constructed in 1984, predates the current ecotourism industry and certification programs, it remains an early exemplar of innovations in this area and offers the benefits of hindsight. Through an exploration of the ideals and realities of the design and subsequent occupation of Yulara, this paper questions the potential challenges and opportunities of the design of ecotourism facilities to engage in a more ‘regenerative’ agenda. In particular, it identifies the social context and consideration of spatial practice as a key area of opportunity for the built environment to contribute to the ecotourism goal of interpretation and education through a more reflexive form of environmental awareness.