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This paper aims to investigate the effect of chronological age on the likelihood to choose a service provider with technological machines versus humans in the context of services.

Two experimental studies were used to collect data. In both experiments, scripts were devised to depict a food ordering situation. The studies, each of which represents two between-subject conditions, were presented to a total of 312 participants.

The results of studies show that as age increases, consumers show a higher visit likelihood with human servers as compared to self-ordering machines. This effect emerges because as age increases, people find it more comfortable and convenient to order from human servers. Nevertheless, when a self-ordering machine is the only option, older and younger people find it equally comfortable and convenient.

This research indicates that as age increases, consumers tend to choose human servers. However, age does not impact willingness to use technology when human service is not available. A limitation of our research is that we look at food ordering contexts only. Another limitation is that most participants were between 18 and 60 years of age.

With a better understanding of the effect of age on preference for service types and the reason behind it, this research helps implement and manage service technologies that may elicit favorable judgments and decisions from consumers.

It demonstrates how, when and why age affects the intention to visit service providers that adopt self-service technologies. This research suggests that as age increases, consumers like human service better, but they do not resist self-service technology.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and demonstrate a new additive manufacturing approach that breaks the layer-based point scanning limitations to increase fabrication speed, obtain better surface finish, achieve material flexibility and reduce equipment costs.

The freeform additive manufacturing approach conceptually views a 3D article as an assembly of freeform elements distributed spatially following a flexible 3D assembly structure, which conforms to the surface of the article and physically builds the article by sequentially forming the freeform elements by a vari-directional vari-dimensional capable material deposition mechanism. Vari-directional building along tangential directions of part surface gives surface smoothness. Vari-dimensional deposition maximizes material output to increase build rate wherever allowed and minimizes deposition sizes for resolution whenever needed.

Process steps based on geometric and data processing considerations were described. Dispensing and forming of basic vari-directional and vari-dimensional freeform elements and basic operations of joining them were developed using thermoplastics. Forming of 3D articles at build rates of 2-5 times the fused deposition modeling (FDM) rate was demonstrated and improvement over ten times was shown to be feasible. FDM compatible operations using 0.7 mm wire depositions from a variable exit-dispensing unit were demonstrated. Preliminary tests of a surface finishing process showed a result of 0.8-1.9 um Ra. Initial results of dispensing wax, tin alloy and steel were also shown.

This is the first time that both vari-directional and vari-dimensional material depositions are combined in a new freeform building method, which has potential impact on the FDM and other additive manufacturing methods.

Cavitation inside pumps affects not only the steady state fluid flow, but also the unsteady or transient characteristic of the flow. However, cavitation inside pumps under transient processes is difficult to predict when the influence of the pipelines system is considered. In this paper we present a simulation method applied to a centrifugal pump and its related pipeline to analyze the induced unsteady cavitation phenomenon during the startup process.

In order to effectively predict transient processes of a pump and its pipeline system, the simulation method uses a coupled 1D and 3D scheme, which reduces the simulation cost. The simulation of the startup process of a centrifugal pump in a closed-loop pipeline system with and without cavitation has been performed to verify the proposed method.

The evolution of the pressure and flow rate obtained with the simulation method agrees well with the experimental results. It is found that the mass flow rate at the pump inlet and outlet is highly related to the cavitation vapor volume and that the pressure at the outlet of the impeller is greatly influenced by the discharge.

The 1D-3D coupling simulation method used in this paper is proven to be highly accurate, efficient and can be used to solve transient processes combined with cavitation or other complex phenomena.

This study analyzes the blade channel vortices inside Francis runner with a particular focus on the identification of different types of vortices and their causes.

A single-flow passage of the Francis runner with refined mesh and periodic boundary conditions was used for the numerical simulation to reduce the computational resource. The steady-state Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations closed with the k-ω shear–stress transport (SST) turbulence model were solved by ANSYS CFX to determine the flow field. The vortices were identified by the second largest eigenvalue of velocity.

Four types of vortices were identified inside the runner. Three types were related to the inlet flow. The last one (Type 4) was caused by the reversed flow near the runner crown and had the lowest pressure inside the core near the runner outlet. Thus, in the blade channel vortex inception line, Type 4 vortex would appear earlier than the other three ones. Besides, the Type 4 vortex emerged from the crown and shed toward the blade-trailing edge. And its location moved from near the crown down to near the band when the unit speed increased or unit discharge decreased.

Although the refined mesh was used and the main vortices in the Francis runner were well predicted, the current mesh is not enough to accurately predict the lowest pressure in the channel vortex core.

This knowledge is instructive in the runner blade design and troubleshooting related to the channel vortex.

This study gives an overview of the main observed blade channel vortices and their causes, and points out the important role the reversed flow plays in the formation of blade channel vortices. This knowledge is instructive in the runner blade design and troubleshooting related to blade channel vortices.

The purpose of this article is to conduct a main path analysis of 627 articles on the theme of Pythagorean fuzzy sets (PFSs) in the Web of Science (WoS) from 2013 to 2020, to provide a conclusive and comprehensive analysis for researchers in this field, and to provide a study on preliminary understanding of PFSs.

The research topic of Pythagorean fuzzy fields, through keyword extraction and describing the changes in characteristic themes over the past eight years, are firstly examined. Main path analysis, including local and global main paths and key route paths, is then used to reveal the most influential relationships between papers and to explore the trajectory and structure of knowledge transmission.

The application of Pythagorean fuzzy theory to the field of decision-making has been popular, and combinations of the traditional Pythagorean fuzzy decision-making method with other fuzzy sets have attracted widespread attention in recent years. In addition, over the past eight years, research interest has shifted to different types of PFSs, such as interval-valued PFSs.

This paper implicates to investigate the growth in certain trends in the literature and to explore the main paths of knowledge dissemination in the domain of PFSs in recent years.

This paper aims to identify the topics in which researchers are currently interested, to help scholars to keep abreast of the latest research on PFSs.

The purpose of this research paper is to explore the determinants of patients' service choices between telephone consultation and text consultation in online health communities (OHCs).

This study utilized an empirical model based on the elaboration likelihood model and examined the effect of information, regarding service quality (the central route) and service price (the peripheral route), using online health consultation data from one of the largest OHCs in China.

The logistic regression results indicated that both physician- and patient-generated information can influence the patients' service choices; service price signals will lead patients to cheaper options. However, individual motivations, disease risk and consulting experience change a patients' information processing regarding central and peripheral cues.

Previous researchers have investigated the mechanism of patient behavior in OHCs; however, the researchers have not focused on the patients' choices regarding the multiple health services provided in OHCs. The findings of this study have theoretical and practical implications for future researchers, OHC designers and physicians.

As an advanced calculation methodology, reliability-based multidisciplinary design optimization (RBMDO) has been widely acknowledged for the design problems of modern complex engineering systems, not only because of the accurate evaluation of the impact of uncertain factors but also the relatively good balance between economy and safety of performance. However, with the increasing complexity of engineering technology, the proposed RBMDO method gradually cannot effectively solve the higher nonlinear coupled multidisciplinary uncertainty design optimization problems, which limits the engineering application of RBMDO. Many valuable works have been done in the RBMDO field in recent decades to tackle the above challenges. This study is to review these studies systematically, highlight the research opportunities and challenges, and attempt to guide future research efforts.

This study presents a comprehensive review of the RBMDO theory, mainly including the reliability analysis methods of different uncertainties and the decoupling strategies of RBMDO.

First, the multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) preliminaries are given. The basic MDO concepts and the corresponding mathematical formulas are illustrated. Then, the procedures of three RBMDO methods with different reliability analysis strategies are introduced in detail. These RBMDO methods were proposed for the design optimization problems under different uncertainty types. Furtherly, an optimization problem for a certain operating condition of a turbine runner blade is introduced to illustrate the engineering application of the above method. Finally, three aspects of future challenges for RBMDO, namely, time-varying uncertainty analysis; high-precision surrogate models, and verification, validation and accreditation (VVA) for the model, are discussed followed by the conclusion.

The scope of this study is to introduce the RBMDO theory systematically. Three commonly used RBMDO-SORA methods are reviewed comprehensively, including the methods' general procedures and mathematical models.

Globally, higher education institutions have become reliant on a quality assurance (QA) system over the past four decades. QA is considered to be one of the most important drivers of continuous improvement and an essential tool for promoting excellence in teaching, learning, and research. It provides a framework for establishing and maintaining standards, and for assuring stakeholders that programs and services meet or exceed these standards. Despite the wide range of quality assurance models available to higher education institutions, there remains considerable debate over which model is the most effective, as well as what criteria should be used for evaluating the effectiveness of these models. Universities in the Middle East have tried to adopt different models of QA that can meet their needs and expectations and provide a framework for continuous improvement. A major objective of this book is to provide an overview account of the QA process as implemented in the higher education systems of a number of Middle East countries, including Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. This book lays out essential theoretical and practical insights into the role of QA policies and practices in higher education in the Middle East countries and builds upon this idea to provide a blueprint for future academic leaders in these countries and other Middle Eastern countries to enhance their QA policies and practices and drive higher education in those countries forward.

The impacts of COVID-19 on construction projects have attracted much attention in the construction management research community. Nevertheless, a systematic review of these studies is still lacking. The purpose of this paper is to systematically analyze the impacts of COVID-19 on the different stages of a project life-cycle, and comprehensively sort out the epidemic response measures adopted by project participants. In addition, the study also attempts to explore the challenges and opportunities faced by project management practitioners under the context of COVID-19.

This study comprehensively demonstrates the systematic review process of COVID-19 related research in the construction industry, systematically summarizes the research status of the impact of COVID-19 on construction projects, and defines the strategies to deal with COVID-19 in project management; and through the visualization research, determines the current key research topics and future research trends.

This study identifies 11 construction activities in the project management life cycle that are affected by COVID-19 and finds that the COVID-19 epidemic has the greatest impact on construction workers, construction standards, construction contracts and construction performance. The study further summarizes the six main epidemic countermeasures and mitigation measures taken within the construction industry following the arrival of the epidemic. In addition, the results of this study identify opportunities and future trends in intelligent construction technology, rapid manufacturing engineering and project management in the construction industry in the post-epidemic era through literature results, which also provide ideas for related research.

COVID-19 has brought severe challenges to society. It is of great significance for the future sustainable development of the construction industry to identify the impact of COVID-19 on all phases of the project and to promote the development of coping strategies by project stakeholders.

First of all, there is little study comprehensively reviewing the impacts of COVID-19 on the different stages of construction projects and the strategies to deal with the negative impacts. In addition, from a life cycle perspective, the used articles in this study were grouped into different categories based on project stages. This promotes an integrated and comprehensive understanding of historical studies. Moreover, on the basis of a comprehensive review, this paper puts forward future research directions to promote the sustainable development of the construction sector.

Due to the limitation of experimental conditions and budget, fatigue data of mechanical components are often scarce in practical engineering, which leads to low reliability of fatigue data and reduces the accuracy of fatigue life prediction. Therefore, this study aims to expand the available fatigue data and verify its reliability, enabling the achievement of life prediction analysis at different stress levels.

First, the principle of fatigue life probability percentiles consistency and the perturbation optimization technique is used to realize the equivalent conversion of small samples fatigue life test data at different stress levels. Meanwhile, checking failure model by fitting the goodness of fit test and proposing a Monte Carlo method based on the data distribution characteristics and a numerical simulation strategy of directional sampling is used to extend equivalent data. Furthermore, the relationship between effective stress and characteristic life is analyzed using a combination of the Weibull distribution and the Stromeyer equation. An iterative sequence is established to obtain predicted life.

The TC4–DT titanium alloy is selected to assess the accuracy and reliability of the proposed method and the results show that predicted life obtained with the proposed method is within the double dispersion band, indicating high accuracy.

The purpose of this study is to provide a reference for the expansion of small sample fatigue test data, verification of data reliability and prediction of fatigue life data. In addition, the proposed method provides a theoretical basis for engineering applications.