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The purpose of this paper is to extend two‐dimensional sequential uniform design and present three‐dimensional sequential uniform design which can optimize the problem of determining the extreme value of three‐factor polynomial.

Since there are limitations in two‐dimensional sequential uniform design, three‐dimensional sequential uniform design introduced in this paper is to arrange the experimental points by U₉(9³) uniform design table and to determine the maximum of the experimental values according to the demand. It is proven that the convergence of the experimental central point's sequence and that it can optimize the problem of determining the extreme value of no‐cross term quadratic polynomial monotone function class and the corresponding conditions are also proven. Taking the no‐cross term quadratic polynomial monotone function as an example, the superiority of it is testified.

Three‐dimensional sequential uniform design can optimize the problem of determining the extreme value of three‐factor polynomial. It can get higher precision and better convergence but do fewer experiments than general uniform design.

A very effective method in resolving the problem of selecting optimum on multi‐dimensional space.

A new method of three‐dimensional sequential uniform design which can get higher precision and better convergence is presented.

Purpose: The purpose is to introduce the fundamental economic concepts that must be wrestled with the incorporation of robots, artificial intelligence and service automation (RAISA) into the travel, tourism and hospitality industries.

Design/methodology/approach: This chapter uses cost-benefit analytical framework of the incorporation of RAISA technologies into travel, tourism and hospitality industries.

Findings: The chapter elaborates on the economic fundamentals of RAISA adoption into the travel, tourism and hospitality industries. The analysis reveals that many financial and non-financial costs and benefits need to be considered when taking a decision to use RAISA technologies. Automation of tasks leads to simultaneous substitution and enhancement of human employees. Introduction of RAISA technologies results on inevitable deskilling of some and upskilling of other tourism and hospitality jobs.

Research limitations/implications: The chapter is conceptual and conclusions are limited by the views and interpretations of the authors.

Practical implications: RAISA technologies will become increasingly omnipresent in the travel, tourism and hospitality industries. That is why an understanding of the costs and benefits and many of the practical impediments to the incursion of RAISA into the workplace should be understood to make a transition from human-performed tasks to technology-performed tasks.

Social implications: Replacement of human labour will have significant social implications for the workforce and employers.

Originality/value: This is one of the few publications that discuss the economic aspects of the incorporation of RAISA technologies into travel, tourism and hospitality industries.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive research model that can explain customers’ continuance intentions to adopt and use intelligent personal assistants (IPAs).

This study proposes and validates a new theoretical model that extends the parasocial relationship (PSR) theory. Partial least squares analysis is employed to test the research model and corresponding hypotheses on data collected from 304 survey samples.

Interpersonal attraction (task attraction, social attraction, and physical attraction) and security/privacy risk are important factors affecting the adoption of IPAs.

First, this is the first empirical study to examine user acceptance of IPAs. Second, to the authors’ knowledge, no research has been conducted to test the role of PSR in the context of IPAs. Third, this study verified the robustness of the proposed model by introducing new antecedents reflecting risk-related attributes, which has not been investigated in prior PSR research. But this study has limitations that future research may address. First, key findings of this research are based only on data from users in the USA. Second, individual differences among the survey respondents were not examined.

To increase the adoption of IPAs, manufacturers should focus on developing “human-like” and “professional” assistants, in consideration of the important role of PSR and task attraction. R&D should continuously strive to realize artificial intelligence technology advances so that IPAs can better recognize the user’s voice and speak naturally like a person. Collaboration with third-party companies or individual developers is essential in this field, as manufacturers are unable to independently develop applications that support the specific tasks of various industries. It is also necessary to enhance IPA device design and its user interface to enhance physical attraction.

This study is the first empirical attempt to examine user acceptance of IPAs, as most of the prior literature has concerned analysis of usage patterns or technical features.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential roles for service robots (i.e. socially assistive robots) in value networks of elderly care. Taking an elderly person’s perspective, it defines robot roles according to their value co-creating/destroying potential for the elderly user (i.e. focal actor), while acknowledging consequences for a network of users around the elderly (i.e. network actors).

This qualitative, interpretative study employs in-depth phenomenographic interviews, supported by generative cards activities (i.e. Contextual Value Network Mapping), to elicit an elderly person’s tacit knowledge and anticipate the effects of introducing an automated actor on institutionalized value co-creation practices.

The proposed typology identifies six roles of socially assistive robots in an elderly person’s value network (enabler, intruder, ally, replacement, extended self, and deactivator) and links them to three health-supporting functions by robots: safeguarding, social contact, and cognitive support.

Elderly people have notable expectations about the inclusion of a socially assistive robot as a new actor in their value networks. The identified robot roles inform service scholars and managers about both the value co-destruction potential that needs to be avoided through careful designs and the value co-creation potential that should be leveraged.

Using network-conscious phenomenographic interviews before the introduction of a novel value proposition sheds new light on the shifting value co-creation interplay among value network actors (i.e. elderly people, formal and informal caregivers). The value co-creation/destruction potential of socially assistive robots and their corresponding roles in care-based value networks offer insights for the design of meaningful robotic technology and its introduction into the existing service networks.

Exploratory search activities are ubiquitous in various information systems. Much potentially useful or even serendipitous information is discovered during the exploratory search process. Given its irreplaceable role in information systems, exploratory search has attracted growing attention from the information system community. Since few studies have methodically reviewed current publications, researchers and practitioners are unable to take full advantage of existing achievements, which, in turn, limits their progress in this field. Through a literature review, this study aims to recapitulate important research topics of exploratory search in information systems, providing a research landscape of exploratory search.

Automatic and manual searches were performed on seven reputable databases to collect relevant literature published between January 2005 and July 2023. The literature pool contains 146 primary studies on exploratory search in information system research.

This study recapitulated five important topics of exploratory search, namely, conceptual frameworks, theoretical frameworks, influencing factors, design features and evaluation metrics. Moreover, this review revealed research gaps in current studies and proposed a knowledge framework and a research agenda for future studies.

This study has important implications for beginners to quickly get a snapshot of exploratory search studies, for researchers to re-align current research or discover new interesting issues, and for practitioners to design information systems that support exploratory search.

The conflicting results on the corrosion characteristics of aluminium matrix composites reinforced with agrarian waste have stimulated an investigation on the hardness and corrosion rate of sugar palm fibre ash (SPFA) reinforced LM26 Al/alloy composite by varying the SPFA from 0 to 10 wt% in an interval of 2 wt%. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned issue.

The composites were produced via stir-casting and the hardness was determined using a Vickers hardness testing machine, corrosion rate was examined through the weight loss method by immersion in 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 M hydrochloric acid (HCl) at temperatures of 303, 318, and 333 K for the maximum duration of 120 h. The morphological study was conducted using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) on the samples before and after immersion in HCl.

The incorporation of SPFA improved the hardness of the alloy from 58.22 to 93.62 VH after 10 wt% addition. The corrosion rate increases with increased content of SPFA, the concentration of HCl and temperature. The least corrosion rate of 0.0272 mpy was observed for the LM26 Al alloy in 0.5 M after 24 h while the highest corrosion rate of 0.8511 mpy was recorded for LM26 Al/10 wt% SPFA in 1.5 M HCl acid after 120 h. The SEM image of corroded samples revealed an increased number of pits with increased SPFA content.

The work is limited to SPFA up to 10 wt% as reinforcement in LM26 Al alloy, the use of HCl as corrosion medium, temperatures in the range of 303–333 K, and a weight loss method were used to evaluate the corrosion rate.

The corrosion rate was determined for LM26 Al/SPFA composites with various amounts of SPFA in 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 M HCl at 303, 318 and 333 K and compared with the matrix alloy.