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This paper aims to present two hysteresis-control algorithms designed for medium-frequency, direct-current, resistance-spot-welding (MFDC RSW) systems. The first proposed control algorithm (MSCHC) eliminates the short switching cycles that can occur when using the existing hysteresis-control algorithms. This control minimises the number of switching cycles that are needed to generate the selected welding current. The welding-current ripple can be high when using this control algorithm. Therefore, a second algorithm (HCRR) is presented that reduces the welding-current ripple by half.

The proposed hysteresis controllers consist of the transformer’s magnetic-flux-density hysteresis regulator and a welding-current hysteresis regulator. Therefore, the welding current must be measured and the saturation of the iron core must be detected. The proposed hysteresis controller supplies the inverter with the signals needed to generate the supply voltage for the RSW transformer, which then generates the selected welding current.

The proposed MSCHC algorithm produces the smallest possible number of switching cycles needed to generate the selected welding current. The high welding-current ripple can be reduced if the number of switching cycles is increased. The observed number of switching cycles and the welding-current ripple change if the welding resistance and/or inductance change.

The number of switching cycles can be minimised when using the first proposed control algorithm (MSCHC), and so the switching power losses can be minimised. If the welding-current ripple produced by the first control algorithm is unacceptable, the second control algorithm (HCRR) can reduce it by increasing the number of switching cycles.

It is generally recognised that companies spend approximately 50% of their marketing budget on promotional activities. Advertising belongs to the most visible areas of a company’s activity. Therefore, it should not be surprising that the average recipient associates marketing with advertising, competitions and leaflets about new promotions delivered to houses or offices. Advertising, especially Internet advertising, is one of the most effective forms of marketing and one of the fastest developing areas of business. New channels of communication are emerging all the time – the Internet, digital television, mobile telephony; accompanied by new forms, such as the so-called ambient media. Advertising benefits from the achievements of many fields of science, that is, psychology, sociology, statistics, medicine and economics. At the same time, it combines science and the arts – it requires both knowledge and intuition. Contemporary advertising has different forms and areas of activity; yet it is always closely linked with the operations of a company – it is a form of marketing communication.

The indices of marketing communication presented in this chapter are generally known and used not only by advertising agencies but also by the marketing departments of many organisations. Brand awareness, advertising scope and frequency, the penetration index or the response rate belong to the most widely used indices; others, like the conversion rate or the affinity index, will get increasingly more significant along with the process of professionalisation of the environment of marketing specialists in Poland and with increased pressure on measuring marketing activities. Marketing indices are used for not only planning activities, but also their evaluation; some of them, such as telemarketing, mailing and coupons, provide an extensive array of possibilities of performance evaluation.

Gives introductory remarks about chapter 1 of this group of 31 papers, from ISEF 1999 Proceedings, in the methodologies for field analysis, in the electromagnetic community. Observes that computer package implementation theory contributes to clarification. Discusses the areas covered by some of the papers ‐ such as artificial intelligence using fuzzy logic. Includes applications such as permanent magnets and looks at eddy current problems. States the finite element method is currently the most popular method used for field computation. Closes by pointing out the amalgam of topics.

To achieve a full understanding of the role of marketing from plan to profit requires a knowledge of the basic building blocks. This textbook introduces the key concepts in the art or science of marketing to practising managers. Understanding your customers and consumers, the 4 Ps (Product, Place, Price and Promotion) provides the basic tools for effective marketing. Deploying your resources and informing your managerial decision making is dealt with in Unit VII introducing marketing intelligence, competition, budgeting and organisational issues. The logical conclusion of this effort is achieving sales and the particular techniques involved are explored in the final section.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the frequency with which Internet-based social media (namely, wikis, blogs, forums and electronic mailing lists) are used by cataloguers to seek what Judith Hopkins (2002) defines as “specific (and immediate) current awareness” and “general current awareness”. The aim is to provide some insight into whether social media play a part in day-to-day practice and on-the-job learning of cataloguers.

A survey research was conducted. An online questionnaire was made available to self-selecting respondents via electronic mailing lists (AUTOCAT, CatSIG listserv, NZLibs listserv) and 176 responses were received.

The study found that general current awareness information was more frequently sought via Internet-based social media than specific (and immediate) current awareness. A statistically significant, weak positive correlation was found between the variables of “number of cataloguers working in an organization” and “frequency of accessing social media to seek out cataloguing-specific information”. A weak positive correlation was also found within the sample between the variables of “number of cataloguers working in an organization” and “frequency of accessing social media to seek general current awareness information”. Qualitative data were also gathered concerning the reasons respondents sought both specific and general current awareness information.

This research examines the assumption that cataloguers use social media tools to access what Hopkins has dubbed a “community of cataloguers” as one means of accessing informal continuing education.

This work is a continuation of our former investigations in the field of corrosion of steel by alternating currents. In‐vestigations of corrosion of construction ship steels by alternating currents in seawater have been made. Investigations were performed within the range of alternating current densities from 20 up to 1500 mA/dm2 at frequencies from 18 up to 20000 Hz. Investigations have shown that the corrosion rate increases with the increase of current density at constant frequency. Besides, it has been established that at constant current density the corrosion rate decreases with the frequency increase up to 2000 Hz, and with the further increase of frequency up to 20000 Hz the rate of corrosion is increased. The material effect of corrosion by alternating currents in our investigations amount to 4.35–17.57% of the corrosion by equivalent densities of direct current.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.

It seems that the Internet boom, which started at the end of the 1990s and finished with the spectacular collapse of the so-called dotcoms, is probably over. We are currently enjoying a period of fast and stable growth. This is manifested by the growing number of both Internet users and companies which – to an ever-increasing extent – use the Internet as a form of communication (both internal and external), promotion, sales etc. Expenditures on Internet advertising are growing continuously and now constitute more than 25% of all advertising expenditure. A natural consequence of this development is the need for the standardisation and organisation of the world of the Internet. These activities will result in a greater awareness of the benefits which this medium provides, increasing the possibilities of its use, and – most importantly – the opportunity to evaluate the return on investments made on the Internet. Nowadays, it is clear that many companies are striving to increase the quality of their activities on the Internet or to improve the effectiveness of such activities. As a consequence, the number of companies that look for indices which would enable the making of more precise and effective decisions in the scope of online operations is growing.

This chapter is dedicated to the phenomenon of the increasing role of the Internet in business, including the scale of its use by Polish and international companies. We present the most commonly used measures of marketing activities on the Internet and in social media. This group includes the indices which make it possible to determine whether a company actually needs a website. Other measures allow for the improvement in the effectiveness of the activity on the Internet, whereas others specify the costs of activities on the Internet and often serve as the basis for settlements between a company and advertising agencies or companies specialising in website design. It is worth emphasising that the Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned (PESO) model, worked out by Don Bartholomew,¹ is the basis for creation and description of indices concerning social media. This model has gained certain popularity in the social media industry. It does not, however, specify how individual indices should be named and calculated. It maps already existing indices and adapts them to specific levels of marketing communication measurement. All the measures indicated by the author of the model have been grouped into five major areas: exposure, engagement, brand awareness, action and recommendations. This model– similarly to all models of performance measurement – inspired by the sales funnel concept, adjusts certain standard indices and proposals of measurements for specific levels. Additionally, the measures are divided into four types, depending on who the owner of the content is: Paid (P) – refers to all forms of paid content; Owned (O) – all websites and web properties controlled by a company or brand; Earned (E) – the contents about a given brand created spontaneously by Internet users; and Shared (S) – the contents shared by Internet users.

The British North American colonies were the first western economies to rely on legislature-issued paper monies as an important internal media of exchange. This system arose piecemeal. In the absence of banks and treasuries that exchanged paper monies at face value for specie monies on demand, colonial governments experimented with other ways to anchor their paper monies to real values in the economy. These mechanisms included tax-redemption, land-backed loans, sinking funds, interest-bearing notes, and legal tender laws. I assess and explain the structure and performance of these mechanisms. This was monetary experimentation on a grand scale.