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The purpose of this study is to explain the impact of innovation characteristics (relative advantage, compatibility, complexity and perceived risk) and individual differences (inertia, technology anxiety, need for interaction and previous experience) on customer intentions to adopt tablet-based menus in various restaurants settings.

An experimental design was used in this study to explore tablet-based menu acceptance intentions across three restaurant settings: quick-service, midscale and upscale. A total of 415 participants were randomly assigned to one of the three scenarios describing a dining experience. Each scenario placed participants in a restaurant setting where a tablet-based menu was a part of the guests’ dining experience.

The study results indicated that out of the four innovation characteristics, compatibility and relative advantage are strong predictors of adoption intention of tablet-based menus. Among customer individual differences, technology anxiety and need for interaction were not found to have a statistically significant impact on intentions to adopt tablet-based menus. It was also found that customers dining at quick-service and midscale restaurants are more likely to adopt tablet-based menus than customers dining at upscale restaurants.

Managers in quick-service and midscale restaurants may consider investing in tablet-based menus, as customers of these restaurant types demonstrate higher adoption intentions compared to the customers of upscale dining establishments. The results of this study suggest that upscale restaurants should plan carefully before switching to table-based menus.

The findings of this study may assist restaurant managers in recognizing the importance of customer acceptance of new technologies such as tablet-based menus, which will lead to informed decisions about implementing tablet-based menus in their establishments.

Purpose: To describe some of the tensions that both unaccompanied and accompanied immigrant children and youth face when reuniting with family members living abroad after years of living apart, separated by borders and anti-immigrant policies are described.

Methods: Fifty-eight interviews with immigrant minors from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala and the tensions they reported having after moving in with their biological parents or legal sponsors in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area are drawn upon.

Findings: Youth reported that getting used to cohabitation and in-person relationships with their parents or other sponsor was difficult at first, though it improved over time. Despite the biological, emotional, and financial bonds, minors had to learn how to relate to new authority figures and follow their rules. Many reported feeling lonely and missing grandmothers and other family members and friends left behind in the country of birth.

Research implications: Interviews with counselors and local authorities that interface with these families show that parenting and youth programs in the places of settlement can become effective interventions to improve relations between children and parents recently reunited, which can indeed help with scholastic achievement and socio-economic advancement.

Value: The interview extracts bring a window into intrafamily dynamics, often overlooked in discussions of the integration of immigrant children and youth into their new homes and communities.

This work provides a generic review of the existing data mining ontologies (DMOs) and also provides a base platform for ontology developers and researchers for gauging the ontologies for satisfactory coverage and usage.

The study uses a systematic literature review approach to identify 35 DMOs in the domain between the years 2003 and 2021. Various parameters, like purpose, design methodology, operations used, language representation, etc. are available in the literature to review ontologies. Accompanying the existing parameters, a few parameters, like semantic reasoner used, knowledge representation formalism was added and a list of 20 parameters was prepared. It was then segregated into two groups as generic parameters and core parameters to review DMOs.

It was observed that among the 35 papers under the study, 26 papers were published between the years 2006 and 2016. Larisa Soldatova, Saso Dzeroski and Pance Panov were the most productive authors of these DMO-related publications. The ontological review indicated that most of the DMOs were domain and task ontologies. Majority of ontologies were formal, modular and represented using web ontology language (OWL). The data revealed that Ontology development 101, METHONTOLOGY was the preferred design methodology, and application-based approaches were preferred for evaluation. It was also observed that around eight ontologies were accessible, and among them, three were available in ontology libraries as well. The most reused ontologies were OntoDM, BFO, OBO-RO, OBI, IAO, OntoDT, SWO and DMOP. The most preferred ontology editor was Protégé, whereas the most used semantic reasoner was Pellet. Even ontology metrics for 16 DMOs were also available.

This paper carries out a basic level review of DMOs employing a parametric approach, which makes this study the first of a kind for the review of DMOs.

In times of vivid debates on the inclusion of women on boards, the purpose of this paper is to shed a new light on the composition of boardrooms in emerging market firms by investigating how family and state ownership affect board-gender diversity in the emerging economies.

This study uses Tobit regression to examine the effect of firm ownership on board-gender diversity. A panel data set of Chinese and Indian firms for the period 2004-2013 is used to conduct this study.

The results show a negative and significant impact of family and state ownership on the proportion of women directors. However, this relationship is seen to be reverse if the firm is operating in international markets. Notably, a negative relationship was seen to persist between ownership structure and board-gender diversity for both female executive and independent board members, whereas a positive impact of internationalization was observed only for independent female directors.

This research addresses the board-gender diversity issue in emerging economies by focusing on firm characteristics which are unique to their business context. Further, this study identifies the conditions under which emerging market firms assimilate or proscribe women on their boards by recognizing the salient features of firms from emerging markets. Hence, in doing so, new evidence is added to the studies on the determinants of board-gender diversity. Lastly, it advances the earlier literature based on resource dependency and agency views and demonstrates the importance of internationalization for the inclusion of women on corporate boards.

In a village of Eastern Yucatan, Mexico, cargo or kuuch sponsors compare their ritual tasks to “buying life” from crosses, Catholic saints, and Mayan deities or “owners.” The local notion of compromiso, engagement, or commitment, helps these festival participants express the condition of possibility to successfully perform such exchanges. Decisive for these life renewals, promises, and compromisos depend upon empathy to authorize ritualists and subsume social and natural phenomena under exchange paradigms. By defining, critiquing and using the concept of “disposition” as an inherently self-other stance through which economy transforms into religiosity and vice versa, this chapter analyzes this particular regime of engagement and the temporalities it implies. Through a commitment to the past and the practice of promissory exchange, sponsors develop a new perceptual scheme in which the ritual cultivation of discipline, awareness, expectation, and responsibility are expressed.

Recently, several areas are successfully applying the Lean Six Sigma methodology, specifically in healthcare, public services, higher education institutions and manufacturing industries. This study aims to present an extensive literature review involving Lean Six Sigma practical applications in the last five years, described in a case studies format.

A systematic literature review was conducted, and 39 articles were selected and analyzed.

An increase in Lean Six Sigma applications in healthcare and higher education institutions was identified. Furthermore, Lean Six Sigma is effectively applied in several areas and is continuously used in traditional industries. The main critical success factor identified was leadership and management involvement, project management and organizational infrastructure, as well as training and education. Also, the main difficulties found are related to the organization's culture and developing communication with leaders and managers.

The main difficulties found in this research are related to the lack of data presented in some articles analyzed, where only information about how the Lean Six Sigma application was conducted is shown, not mentioning difficulties or success factors identified.

Case studies are fundamental to help popularize Lean Six Sigma applications, showing a real-life scenario of how the methodology is implemented, the main difficulties encountered and critical success factors found. Thus, the value of this study is promoting and developing research involving Lean Six Sigma case study applications to guide new researchers and practitioners on the subject.

This research intended the utilization of Javanese turmeric (0.4% w/v) as a kombucha substrate and analysis of its hepatoprotective activity, in comparison against nonfermented Javanese turmeric beverage (JTB) and black tea kombucha.

Forty-two healthy male Balb/c mice (two- to three-week-old, 20–30 g) were divided into six groups with seven replicates each. The treatments were normal diet, normal diet + Javanese turmeric kombucha (JTK), normal diet + diethylnitrosamine (DEN), DEN + JTB, DEN + JTK, DEN + black tea kombucha. Kombuchas and JTB were given at 0.3 mL/20 g BW/d. DEN was induced intraperitoneally at a dose of 100 mg/kg. Observed biomarkers were blood serum glutamate pyruvate transaminase (SGPT) and serum glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (SGOT) activity, serum malonaldehyde (MDA), as well as liver histology. Data were analyzed using analysis of variance.

Among DEN-induced groups, JTK significantly (p < 0.05) diminished the level of blood SGPT, SGOT and serum MDA. JTK also had lower blood SGPT (8.604 ± 2.195 U/L) and serum MDA levels (2.884 ± 0.083 nM/mL) compared to the normal group (8.604 ± 2.195 U/L and 5.050 ± 0.998 nM/mL, respectively). JTK also produced the least damaged liver-cell numbers.

JTK demonstrated better hepatoprotective activity compared to JTB.

This paper aims to formalize long-term trajectories of human civilization as a scientific and ethical field of study. The long-term trajectory of human civilization can be defined as the path that human civilization takes during the entire future time period in which human civilization could continue to exist.

This paper focuses on four types of trajectories: status quo trajectories, in which human civilization persists in a state broadly similar to its current state into the distant future; catastrophe trajectories, in which one or more events cause significant harm to human civilization; technological transformation trajectories, in which radical technological breakthroughs put human civilization on a fundamentally different course; and astronomical trajectories, in which human civilization expands beyond its home planet and into the accessible portions of the cosmos.

Status quo trajectories appear unlikely to persist into the distant future, especially in light of long-term astronomical processes. Several catastrophe, technological transformation and astronomical trajectories appear possible.

Some current actions may be able to affect the long-term trajectory. Whether these actions should be pursued depends on a mix of empirical and ethical factors. For some ethical frameworks, these actions may be especially important to pursue.