Search results

The purpose of this paper is to report the development and implementation of a Remotely Accessible Rapid Prototyping Laboratory (RRPL) established at Tennessee Tech University. Instructional materials and best practices are also reported.

The Rapid Prototyping (RP) Laboratory reported in this paper was established in Fall 2003 and funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant and Tennessee Tech University (TTU) matching funds. Since that time, over a thousand high school students and students studying computer aided design and manufacturing at Tennessee Tech University have practiced with the RP technology. In order to further extend a remote access capability to this current laboratory and let more engineering and technology students learn this technology via online access tools and resources, a new NSF grant was awarded in late 2006. Since that time, the remote RP laboratory development has been practiced by over 50 higher education institutions. In early 2009, another NSF grant was awarded to allow Metro Nashville Public School students to practice in the remote RP laboratory and choose Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) career academies for their future profession pathways. This paper will report the development and implementation of a remotely accessible laboratory for RP practices. The topics highlighted are the design of the laboratory, its remote delivery implementation to P16 (integrated system of education stretching from early childhood through a four‐year college degree) education systems and web‐based access statistics collected from counting resources.

Although on‐ground RP systems are commonly practiced by many institutions; such a unique application as reported in this paper was a pioneering effort, since RRPL was used by many educational institutions as part of their curricular practices.

The paper shows how the online accessible laboratory and its instructional materials provide a number of unique features in cost saving and sharing of the RP resources.

Informed by the concept of well-being in Islam and the eudaimonic view of psychological well-being (PWB), and drawing on resilience theory, this study aims to understand (1) the implications of residing in conflict areas for entrepreneurs’ PWB, (2) the barriers facing entrepreneurs in these areas and (3) the implications of their religiosity for their PWB.

Utilizing an interpretative qualitative method, this study employed 22 entrepreneurs residing in conflict areas (Palestine and Libya). Thematic analysis was used to explore the participants’ experiences and insights.

The findings show that living in conflict areas enhances certain components of entrepreneurs’ PWB, such as self-acceptance and having a purpose in life and diminishes other components of their PWB, including environmental mastery, personal growth, the presence of autonomy and positive relations with others. Additionally, the findings suggest that religiosity, viewed through an Islamic lens, positively contributes to entrepreneurs’ PWB and identify societal (macro level) barriers faced by entrepreneurs in these areas.

The study is theoretically and contextually relevant and offers novel insights into the interplay between religion and well-being in conflict areas. It presents a reinvigorated awareness, opens specific research directions and permits the contextual applicability and possible extension of resilience theory.

This study aims to investigate how undergraduate students are influenced by instructors and peers in the ways that they use and think about Wikipedia for academic work. It examines the positive (encouraging the use of Wikipedia) and negative (discouraging the use of Wikipedia) influences of others and how these affect student behavior and attitudes.

Sixteen undergraduates participated in two meetings each with the principal investigator, each meeting consisting of a structured interview and a brief survey. Recorded interviews were analyzed by the investigator for patterns to compare participants’ responses.

Participants were more frequently and strongly influenced by instructors than by peers about Wikipedia, and this influence was for the most part perceived to be negative. However, the ways in which student behaviors and attitudes changed in response to this influence varied. Three categories or “influence types” emerged in the ways influence was manifested: receptive, independent and conflicted.

The findings of this study will aid instructors of undergraduate students by describing the likely reactions of those students to various ways of talking about Wikipedia. This information can help inform methods for teaching different kinds of students about the website.

Previous studies have shown how students use Wikipedia, as well as the attitudes of faculty toward Wikipedia. This study serves to bridge the gap between these areas, providing insight into how faculty and classmates’ attitudes influence student use of Wikipedia.

Recent advancements in wearable computing offer opportunities for art galleries to provide a unique experience. However, to ensure successful implementation of this new technology in the visitor industry, it is essential to understand user requirements from a visitor’s point of view. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate visitors’ requirements for the development of a wearable smart glasses augmented reality (AR) application in the museum and art gallery context.

Interviews with 28 art gallery visitors were conducted and an affinity diagram technique was used to analyze the interviews.

The findings reveal that wearable AR is in its infancy and that technical and design issues have to be overcome for a full adoption. It reveals that content requirement, functional requirement, comfort, experience and resistance are important when developing and implementing the wearable AR application in the museum and art gallery contexts.

Mapping user requirements in the wearable smart glasses AR context using an affinity diagram is a new approach and therefore contributes to the creation of knowledge in the tourism domain. Practically, the area of wearable technologies and AR within the tourism and visitor industry context is still relatively unexplored, and the present paper provides a first foundation for the implementation of wearable smart glasses AR applications in the museum and art gallery context.

Parallel two-sided assembly lines are usually designed to produce large-sized products such as trucks and buses. In parallel two-sided assembly lines, both left and right sides of the line are used for manufacturing one or more products on two or more assembly lines located parallel to each other. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new mathematical model for the parallel two-sided assembly line balancing problem that helps to evaluate and validate the balancing operations of the machines such as removal of tools and fixtures and reallocating the operators.

The proposed approach is explained with the help of an example problem. In all, 22 test problems are formed using the benchmark problems P9, P12, P16 and P24. The results obtained are compared among approaches of the task(s) shared, tool(s) shared and both tool(s) and task(s) shared for effect on efficiency as the performance measure. The solution presented here follows the exact solution procedure that is solved by Lingo 16 solver.

Based on the experiments, line efficiency decreases when only tools are shared and increases when only tasks are shared. Results indicate that by sharing tasks and tools together, better line efficiency is obtained with less cost of tools and fixtures.

According to the industrial aspect, the result of the study can be beneficial for assembly of the products, where tools and tasks are shared between parallel workstations of two or more parallel lines.

According to the author’s best knowledge, this paper is the first to address the tools and tasks sharing between any pair of parallel workstations.

Analyses the economic system slice‐wise, taking the main economic activities for a year together. Within this slice the development of the economic activities is characterized by plus or minus signs according to an increase or decrease of the activities. This yearly sequence of plus and minus signs is taken as a pattern. Analyses these economic patterns according to cybernetic and economic criteria. Sign‐equivalent patterns are taken together as groups. The chronological development of these groups gives the profiles of the economy. The development of profiles is quite concordant with the business cycle of the economy in question.

Various ink formulations for inkjet printing on nylon66 carpet are prepared by using CI Acid Red 57, Natrosol and sodium alginate thickeners, ethylene glycol, diethylene glycol, and isopropanol with auxiliaries. The inks are characterised for their rheological, wetting, and storage stability properties. They were jetted by using a Printos P16 drop-on-demand jet print-head onto the nylon66 carpet materials, and the printed images were characterised by using an Image Xpert system.

The inks that contained the synthetic thickeners at the optimum ratio provide good printing and imaging properties, such as optical density, drop size, and depth of penetration into the substrate at pH 4-5. The optimised ink formulation is found to have good storage stability. The study has focused on ink formulations based on CI Acid Red 57. Ink formulations based on other colorants could also be studied in order to assess the applicability of the ink formulation system found for other colorants. The ink formulations developed could find both uses in industrial scale printing and low cost ink formulations for printing of nylon66 carpets.

The purpose of this study is to explore the views of practicing negotiators on their experiences of deception and their strategies for detecting deceptive behavior. A thematic analysis of interview data complements the existing experimental literature on deception and negotiation. The authors compare the experiences of practicing negotiators with the results found in experimental studies and provide practical recommendations for negotiators and managers regarding the detection of deception.

Data was collected from 19 practicing commercial negotiators in France by way of semi-structured interviews. The transcribed data was analyzed by way of thematic analysis using the software NVivo 12. Experiences and behaviors identified in the negotiation literature as key factors for the detection of deception acted as a coding framework.

A thematic analysis of the data revealed four themes related to the experience of deception that negotiators perceived as particularly important: the frequency, form, interpretation and consequences of deception. Further, the analysis revealed four factors that negotiators believed influenced their ability to detect deceptive communication: physical cues, such as body language and micro-expressions, and verbal cues, including contradictions and inconsistencies, emotional cues and environmental cues. Finally, the strategies described by negotiators to detect deception could be classified according to six themes: careful listening, asking questions, emotional intelligence, intuition, checking consistency and requesting evidence.

This study elicited the views of commercial negotiators without collecting information from their negotiation counterparts. Hence, it was not possible to verify whether the reported detection of deceptive communication was accurate. Because of optimism bias, the participants in the sample were likely to overrate their ability to detect deception. In part, this was helpful because the negotiators spoke freely about their strategies for dealing with deceptive counterparts allowing the identification of techniques to improve the efficacy of detecting deceptive communication.

Participants overwhelmingly expressed that there is a lack of training on deception in negotiation. It is suggested that the results of this study inform the development of training courses on the detection of deception. In particular, it is recommended that training courses should cover the following topics: how to anticipate and avoid deceptive behavior; how to effectively respond to deceptive behavior; the role of emotional intelligence in detecting deceptive behavior; careful listening and asking questions; and the role of intuition in detecting deception.

Prior empirical studies on the detection of deception have not specifically investigated the range of self-reported strategies used by practicing negotiators to detect deceptive communication. This study addresses this gap. This study complements existing experimental works by widening the spectrum of potential variables that play a role in the effective detection of deceptive communication.

The purpose of this study is to investigate existing and emerging technology-driven stressors using the transactional model of stress and coping (TMSC).

In-depth semi-structured interviews with 36 professionals were performed to obtain qualitative data to explore emerging techno-stressors. The findings were validated a year into the pandemic with human resource (HR) professionals.

The authors identify a previously unreported techno-stressor, Techno-Isolation (TIS), which arises from a heavy dependence on information communication technologies for professional social interactions. Additionally, several considerations of interaction characteristics are identified that, based on the platform used, affect the experience of TIS, further expanding the TMSC with the addition of medium-interaction compatibility. The authors present a testable model and discuss implications.

This study identifies three new information communication technology (ICT)-based antecedents leading to a new techno-stressor, as well as the importance of medium-interaction compatibility in the experiences of stressors as strains. The authors discuss how these elements fit with and extend the existing stress literature.

This paper aims to propose a set of principles for implementation of successful post-disaster social recovery in-line with the concept of “building back better” (BBB).

A set of preliminary principles for post-disaster social recovery was established from literature review. The 2009 Victorian Bushfires was chosen as a case study to examine the implemented social recovery approaches and impacts.

Analysis of the literature and case study have led to the creation of a set of modified BBB principles for social recovery under two categories, first, community support and, second, community involvement. Key principles under first category include: providing personalized support for affected families, specialized support for vulnerable groups and improved psychological support; building community cohesion; and keeping the community informed. Key principles under second category include: involving the community in designing and implementing recovery projects; providing support to the community; and maintaining full transparency.

This study focusses on one case study. The appropriateness and applicability of the proposed principles can be further tested using a range of different case studies in both developed and developing countries.

The principles presented should be incorporated into post-disaster social recovery programmes implemented by governments.

This research takes a unique look at drawing from international experiences to form a set of practical and universal principles to aid post-disaster social recovery as an important part of BBB.