Search results

This study aims to explore the recovery performances of chatbots (vs human employees) and help firms use chatbots to carry out effective service recovery.

Two experiments were conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results show that compared with human employees’ recovery, chatbots’ recovery leads to lower customer satisfaction and revisit intention. This effect is more significant for symbolic recovery instead of economic recovery. Perceived distributive and interactional justice mediate the interaction effect of recovery provider and recovery strategy on recovery performance. Using immediate recovery rather than delayed recovery can attenuate chatbots’ poor performances in symbolic recovery.

This study enriches the chatbot research and the service recovery literature by deploying chatbots into the service recovery setting. Using an integrated theoretical model including recovery strategy and recovery timing, this study provides substantive insight into how firms can enhance chatbots’ recovery performances.

本研究旨在探索聊天机器人（与人类员工相比）的服务补救表现, 并帮助公司使用聊天机器人进行有效的服务补救。

本研究进行了两个实验来检验提出的理论假设

结果表明, 与人类员工的服务补救相比, 聊天机器人的服务补救导致顾客满意度和再惠顾意愿降低。 这种效应对于象征补救而非功利补救更为显著。 分配公平和互动公平在服务补救提供者和补救策略的交互作用对补救表现的影响中起到了中介作用。 使用立即补救而不是延迟补救可以减轻聊天机器人象征补救方面的不良表现。

本研究通过将聊天机器人部署到服务补救环境中丰富了聊天机器人研究和服务补救文献。 本研究通过构建包括服务补救策略和补救时机在内的综合理论模型, 为企业如何提高聊天机器人的服务补救表现提供了实质性的见解。

Drawing on self-determination theory, this paper compares the effects of QR code payment method (autonomous vs dependent payment) on payment pleasure, its mechanism and the boundary condition in the mobile payment setting.

Four studies were conducted to examine the effect of QR code payment method on payment pleasure. In study 1, 108 undergraduate students were asked to recall a recent experience when they made either autonomous payment or dependent payment. Study 2 assigned 74 undergraduate students to either the autonomous or dependent payment. Study 3 replicated study 2, but recruited 75 customers in the field. For study 4, a total of 134 undergraduate students participated in a 2 (payment method: autonomous payment vs dependent payment) × 2 (product involvement: high vs low) between-subjects design.

The results of these four studies demonstrate that (1) customers derive more payment pleasure from autonomous payment, compared with dependent payments (study 1); (2) the sense of control mediates the effect of the payment method on payment pleasure (study 2 and study 3); and (3) product involvement moderates the mediating effect of the sense of control (study 4).

These findings contribute to the literature on mobile payment and payment experience. These findings also provide insight to merchants when they select an appropriate payment method and manage the customer payment experience.

Variable stiffness structure can significantly improve the interactive capabilities of grippers. Shape memory alloys have become a popular option for materials with variable stiffness structures. However, its variable stiffness range is limited by its stiffness in two phases. The purpose of this paper is to enhance the manipulation capabilities of tendon-driven flexible grippers by designing a wide-range variable stiffness structure.

Constitutive models of shape memory alloy and mechanical models are used to analyze the performance of the variable stiffness structure. A separated solution was used to combine the tendon-driven gripper and the variable stiffness structure. The feed-forward control algorithm is used to enhance the control stability of the variable stiffness structure.

The stiffness variable capability of the proposed variable stiffness structure is verified by experiments. The stability of the feedback control algorithm was verified by sinusoidal tracking experiments. The variable stiffness range of 8.41 times of the flexible gripper was tested experimentally. The interaction capability of the variable stiffness flexible gripper is verified by the object grasping experiments.

A new wide-range variable stiffness structure is proposed and validated. The new variable stiffness structure has a larger range of stiffness variation and better control stability. The new flexible structure can be applied to conventional grippers to help them gain stiffness variable capability and improve their interaction ability.

Previous publications were mainly focused on the effect of textures under lubrication. Under dry sliding, area ratio of surface texturing (pit area ratio) and diameter of pit affect the tribological behavior. This paper aims to investigate the effect of laser surface texturing on tribological behavior of nodular cast iron under dry sliding.

Pit-like textures with different diameters and spaces were fabricated by laser on nodular cast iron (QT600-3). Using nodular cast iron (QT600-3) as the disc specimen and resin matrix composites (UCV018) as the pad specimen, the tribological test was performed with pin-on-disk reciprocating tribo-tester.

The coefficient of friction (COF) of the non-textured specimen was larger than that of the textured one. For the same pit diameter, a larger pit area ratio induced a slight decrease of COF, while wear volume decreased significantly. The pit diameter induced a slight decrease of COF as the pit area ratio, but its effect was weaker.

The experimental studies will help to improve the brake system such as structure modeling of brake disc. Predicting the performance and life of the brake disc in vehicle based on tribological behavior checked in test, it was proved that pit-like texture had application value in vehicle brake system.

This paper showed that the effect of pit area ratio on friction and wear was greater than that of pit diameter. The experimental results will be useful to the design on safety brake disc.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the accuracy and signal-to-noise ratio (SN) of a crop nitrogen sensor.

The accuracy and wide adaptability of two spectral calibration methods for a crop nitrogen sensor based on standard reflectivity gray plates and standard detector, respectively, were compared.

The calibration method based on standard detector could significantly improve the measurement accuracy and the SN of this crop nitrogen sensor. When compared with the method based on standard gray plates, the measurement accuracy and the SN of the crop nitrogen sensor calibrated based on the standard detector method improved by 50 and 10 per cent, respectively.

This research analysed the calibration problems faced by the crop nitrogen sensor (type CGMD302) based on standard gray plates, and proposed a sensor calibration method based on a standard detector. Finally, the results of the two calibration methods were compared in terms of measurement accuracy and the SN of the crop nitrogen sensor.