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This study aims to reveal the decision-making process that micro and small merchants (MSMs) may go through when deciding on the mobile payment system (MPS) adoption and usage and explore how relevant factors may impact this process.

This paper uses the grounded theory approach. Specifically, this paper conducts individual, semi-structured interviews with MSMs in China. Each interview was focused on an MSM’s decisions on initial adoption and continued use of MPSs. The paper then coded the interviews to derive conceptual categories and integrated the categories to form a cohesive framework to explain how MSMs make decisions on MPS adoption and usage.

MSMs make decisions on MPS adoption and usage in three phases: first, due to variations in social and economic surroundings, some merchants develop intentions to adopt MPSs, whereas others do not. Second, merchants developing adoption intentions in phase one have to select which MPS brands to adopt and then begin using them. The brand value affects their selection. Finally, the use of MPSs of their initial choice has consequences for business operations. Merchants with different levels of personal innovativeness evaluate the consequences differently. Satisfied merchants continue using the initial MPSs, while dissatisfied merchants switch to other brands.

The findings first give a more complete depiction of how MSMs make MPS adoption and usage decisions; second show that MSMs’ MPS adoption intention is solely influenced by pro-mobile-payment surroundings and explain what constitutes pro-mobile-payment surroundings and through what mechanisms the surroundings influence adoption intentions; third reveals that selecting which MPS brand to adopt is an important decision phase; fourth explain both why merchants may continue using MPSs and why they may switch from one MPS brand to another.

Online health question-and-answer (Q&A) forums have developed a new business model whereby listeners (peer patients) can pay to read health information derived from consultations between askers (focal patients) and answerers (physicians). However, research exploring the mechanism behind peer patients' purchase decisions and the specific nature of the information driving these decisions has remained limited. This study aims to develop a theoretical model for understanding how peer patients make such decisions based on limited information, i.e. the first question displayed in each focal patient-physician interaction record, considering argument quality (interrogative form and information details) and source credibility (patient experience of focal patients), including the contingent role of urgency.

The model was tested by text mining 1,960 consultation records from a popular Chinese online health Q&A forum on the Yilu App. These records involved interactions between focal patients and physicians and were purchased by 447,718 peer patients seeking health-related information until this research.

Patient experience embedded in focal patients' questions plays a significant role in inducing peer patients to purchase previous consultation records featuring exchanges between focal patients and physicians; in particular, increasingly detailed information is associated with a reduced probability of making a purchase. When focal patients demonstrate a high level of urgency, the effect of information details is weakened, while the interrogative form is strengthened.

The originality of this study lies in its exploration of the monetization mechanism forming the trilateral relationship between askers (focal patients), answerers (physicians) and listeners (peer patients) in the business model “paying to view others' answers” in the online health Q&A forum and the moderating role of urgency in explaining the mechanism of how first questions influence peer patients' purchasing behavior.

The aim of this study is to explore the host–guest relationship at a macro level, investigating the sociopsychological relationship between a destination and its markets.

This study adopted netnography to fulfill the research purpose. Data were collected from Sina Microblog, the predominant social media platform in China, focused on bloggers responses to a fatal conflict between a tour participant and the guide during a shopping tour.

Bloggers' attributional discussions help to understand the nature of the host–guest relations. Responses from Chinese and Hong Kong bloggers showcased criticism toward the other community and criticism of one's own community. These were reflected in three themes: concerns with the place of conflict or the identities of the perpetrators, hospitableness or discrimination and the Chinese and Hong Kong cultures.

The major limitation is that the subject of this study (young bloggers) does not represent a complete cross section of the residents of China and Hong Kong. This study suggests a need for a broader theoretical perspective of the host–guest encounter. The study results have practical implications for destinations receiving Chinese group package tours.

The study results have practical implications for destinations receiving Chinese group package tours.

On-site interaction has been the focus of previous studies of the host–guest relationship, and off-site interactions were seldom explored. This study bridges the gap and extends the discourse on the host–guest relationship to a wider temporal (by taking a post event view) and spatial (by assessing the issue off-site) scale.

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a qualitative study exploring the conditions associated with the creation, preservation and transmission of Shuishu archives in China, and the crises today in their preservation and transmission and the reasons behind them. It also proposes activation mechanisms to shift Shuishu archives from jeopardized collective memory to preservable cultural memory.

Semi-structured interviews and ethnographic fieldwork were conducted over the course of a month in 2015.

The creation, preservation and transmission of Shuishu archives in the community of the Shui rely upon the community’s closed system. But this system has been broken as a result of modernization and wide use of new media in China. To preserve and transmit Shuishu archives to future generations, there needs to be mutual trust and equitable cooperation between government archives and the Shuishushi. The “cultural consciousness” of the Shui needs to be stimulated, and more members of the Shui and the whole of society need to participate in the preservation and transmission of this distinctive memory.

The study can provide a provocative example for education in preservation and LIS about community culture and archiving, and the preservation of social memory, identity and culture. The activation mechanisms seek to aid in the preservation and transmission of Shuishu archives and other similar community memory.

The study uses semi-structured interviews and ethnographic methodology to develop a rich understanding of the history and the status quo of the preservation and transmission of Shuishu archives. It redefines Shuishu archives and sheds light on the roles government archives should play in the preservation and transmission of Shuishu archives.

This paper aims to explore the adsorption kinetics of syringin from Syringa oblata Lindl. leaves on macroporous resin and develop an efficient, simple and recyclable technology for the separation and purification of syringin.

Static adsorption and desorption properties of six resins were tested to select a suitable resin for the purification of syringin. Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models were used to estimate the adsorption behavior of syringin on AB-8 resin. Breakthrough point and eluent volume were determined by dynamic adsorption and desorption tests. High-performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry was applied to identify the syringin in the purified product [syringin product (SP)]. Antioxidant and antibacterial activities of SP in vitro were evaluated by free radical scavenging ability and biofilm formation inhibitory tests.

AB-8 exhibited the most suitable adsorption and desorption capacity. Adsorption isotherm parameters indicated favorable adsorption between AB-8 and syringin. The optimal results were as follows: for adsorption, the sample concentration was 1.85 mg/mL, the sample volume was 3.5 bed volume (BV), the flow rate was 0.5 mL/min; for desorption, the ethanol concentration was 70%, the elution volume was 2.5 BV, the elution velocity was 1.0 mL/min. SP with 80.28% syringin displayed the potent antioxidant activities and inhibitory effects on biofilm formation of Streptococcus suis.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, there are no reports on purifying syringin from Syringa oblata Lindl. leaves using macroporous resins. This paper may also provide a theoretical reference for the purification of other phenylpropanoid glucosides.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how individuals form microblogging habits and why they continue to use microblogs from the perspective of direction social networks.

Drawing on the social network theory and the social presence theory, the authors develop a theoretical framework to explain how individuals form microblogging habits and why they continue to use microblogs. To test the proposed model and examine its external validity, the authors collected data from two microblogs: Twitter and Sina Weibo.

Satisfaction and habit have a significant influence on microblogging continuance intention. Whereas, users’ microblogging habits are developed by two key factors – satisfaction and frequency of past behavior – that are further determined by social presence and social network centrality.

Larger sample size with diverse populations is highly recommended for future studies. In addition, exploring the distinct technical functionalities of microblogs when conceptualizing habit formation would be of benefit in future studies.

In this study, it was found that social presence increases both the satisfaction of users and the frequency of past use behavior. Hence, microblog designers should provide users with greater freedom to modify the form and content of their interface, and enable these modifications to be visible in real time to increase the interactivity of microblogs.

In contrast to past studies that have largely neglected the impacts of the directed social network structure, this study aims to focus on microblogging continuance intention from the directed social network perspective. The results from two independent data sets converge on the conclusion that users’ continuance intention to use is affected by both their conscious evaluations (i.e. satisfaction) and unconscious reactions (i.e. habit).

Supply chain finance (SCF), which is able to manage financial flows along the supply chains effectively, has received wide attention from all over the world. Faced with the increasing number of outputs, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the SCF development over the past decades effectively, including the hot topics, knowledge diffusion trajectories and structure.

This paper adopts the keyword co-occurrence cluster and main path analysis (MPA) including four types of main paths, studying the historical development of SCF based on 2,233 papers retrieved from Web of Science during 1970–2019.

The results show that: (1) the research focuses on several aspects, including trade credit, supply chain management, procurement, health financing and sustainability, etc. and (2) trade credit financing has been the mainstream and the research focus has shifted from one-level trade credit to two-level trade credit. Recently, there is a trend to use game-theoretic models to find the best solutions for members in the supply chain.

This paper addresses the need to investigate the knowledge evolution in the SCF domain. It provides a framework to study the knowledge diffusion trajectories and structure, which helps scholars to handle thousands of papers effectively and deepen their understanding of the history, present and future trends of SCF development.

The purpose of this paper is to solve the common problems that traditional optimization methods cannot fully improve the performance of electromagnetic linear actuators (EMLAs).

In this paper, a multidisciplinary optimization (MDO) method based on the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II) algorithm was proposed. An electromagnetic-mechanical coupled actuator analysis model of EMLAs was established, and the coupling relationship between static/dynamic performance of the actuator was analyzed. Suitable optimization variables were designed based on fuzzy grayscale theory to address the incompleteness of the actuator data and the uncertainty of the coupling relationship. A multiobjective genetic algorithm was used to obtain the optimal solution set of Pareto with the maximum electromagnetic force, electromagnetic force fluctuation rate, time constant and efficiency as the optimization objectives, the final optimization results were then obtained through a multicriteria decision-making method.

The experimental results show that the maximum electromagnetic force, electromagnetic force fluctuation rate, time constants and efficiency are improved by 18.1%, 38.5%, 8.5% and 12%, respectively. Compared with single-discipline optimization, the effectiveness of the multidiscipline optimization method was verified.

This paper proposes a MDO method for EMLAs that takes into account static/dynamic performance, the proposed method is also applicable to the design and analysis of various electromagnetic actuators.

The purpose of this study is to prepare a polydopamine (PDA)–palygorskite (Pal) hybrid-reinforced epoxy coating with high adhesion strength on wet concrete surface.

One synthetic step was adopted to prepare novel PDA–Pal hybrid epoxy coating. The process and product were analyzed and confirmed by FIRT, thermogravimetric analysis and scanning electron microscopy. The mass fraction of PDA–Pal hybrid affecting the adhesion strength of epoxy coating was analyzed and confirmed by pull-off test.

PDA–Pal hybrid mass fractions of 0, 1, 3 and 5 were added to the coatings. For a 5 Wt.% PDA–Pal hybrid content, the adhesive strengths on the saturated or underwater concrete surfaces increased to 4.0 and 2.5 MPa, respectively. In addition, the tensile mechanical property of the epoxy coating improved significantly after PDA–Pal addition.

This new epoxy coating hybrid by PDA–Pal could be applied as a concrete protective layer near water or in wet or damp environments.

Introduction of PDA–Pal hybrid to prepare epoxy coating with high adhesion strength on wet concrete surface has not been systematically studied previously.