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This study aims to investigate barriers and enablers of social media usage by zooming on one specific type of domain: disaster management. First, by systematically reviewing previous studies using a typology to social media usage, this study identifies the challenges often faced. Second, the results are visualized by qualitatively analyzing the focus group discussion data.

This paper opted for an inductive thematic approach of grounded theory, including focus group discussion with ten participants from diverse backgrounds working in the disaster domain. The data is transcribed verbatim and coded using Atlas.ti software.

The findings suggest that the vogue of social media significantly ascends its usage in disaster management. Regulatory, software, physical, authenticity, cultural and demographic rose as challenges for social media usage in disaster management. Findings further indicate enablers as the rise in mobile penetration, democratic participation, increase in living standards, two-way real-time communication, global reach, expeditious decision-making, no space-time constraint and cheaper source of information. Social media, compared to traditional media, is explored. This study has practical implications in helping authorities understand the barriers and enablers for social media usage in disaster management.

Qualitative data analysis of social media usage for disaster management has received scant attention. The main takeaway of this research is to offer clear findings of the purview of social media usage for disaster management. It demonstrates the challenges and enablers of disaster management using social media in the Indian context. Results indicate that leveraging social media for disaster management can extend decision-making for effective disaster management.

Wireless sensor networks (WSN), as a solution for buried water pipe monitoring, face a new set of challenges compared to traditional application for above-ground infrastructure monitoring. One of the main challenges for underground WSN deployment is the limited range (less than 3 m) at which reliable wireless underground communication can be achieved using radio signal propagation through the soil. To overcome this challenge, the purpose of this paper is to investigate a new approach for wireless underground communication using acoustic signal propagation along a buried water pipe.

An acoustic communication system was developed based on the requirements of low cost (tens of pounds at most), low power supply capacity (in the order of 1 W-h) and miniature (centimetre scale) size for a wireless communication node. The developed system was further tested along a buried steel pipe in poorly graded SAND and a buried medium density polyethylene (MDPE) pipe in well graded SAND.

With predicted acoustic attenuation of 1.3 dB/m and 2.1 dB/m along the buried steel and MDPE pipes, respectively, reliable acoustic communication is possible up to 17 m for the buried steel pipe and 11 m for the buried MDPE pipe.

Although an important first step, more research is needed to validate the acoustic communication system along a wider water distribution pipe network.

This paper shows the possibility of achieving reliable wireless underground communication along a buried water pipe (especially non-metallic material ones) using low-frequency acoustic propagation along the pipe wall.

This study develops and validates a theoretical model of real-time mobile connectivity, examining how employees' perceptions of their relationship with supervisors influence their emotional experiences. Through quasi-experiments, the authors investigate the behavioral patterns and emotional responses associated with real-time mobile connectivity in organizations, with a focus on messaging apps that indicate message read status. Specifically, they explore how supervisors' attentiveness or inattentiveness in mobile connectivity impacts emotional ambivalence (anxiety and pride) among subordinates. Additionally, they examine the downstream effects of this emotional ambivalence on employees' workplace thriving and job performance across various dimensions.

To address the paradox of real-time mobile connectivity, a quasi-experimental design involving 320 team members from 46 teams was implemented. Multi-level structural equation modeling was employed to analyze within-person variance and evaluate the proposed hypotheses.

The findings indicate that employees who do not receive timely indications from their supervisors are more likely to experience elevated levels of anxiety, while those who receive prompt indications experience a sense of pride. Moreover, the indirect effects of the real-time mobile connectivity paradox on employee performance, mediated by anxiety (negatively) and pride (positively), are fully explained through workplace thriving.

This study provides insights into the emotional ambivalence experienced in the workplace due to real-time mobile connectivity, highlighting its implications for organizational competitiveness. Integrating resource conservation theory and cognitive appraisal theory of emotion, the study explores the mediating role of workplace thriving and the impact on employee performance through pride and anxiety. Generalizability requires considering organizational settings and cultural contexts while acknowledging limitations such as a focus on messaging apps and specific samples. Future research should explore these dynamics in diverse contexts and identify additional factors influencing the relationship between real-time mobile connectivity and employee outcomes.

This study provides valuable insights for managers regarding the significance of message indications, as their attentiveness can elicit emotional reactions from employees that subsequently impact workplace thriving and job performance.

This study pioneers the exploration of the paradox of real-time mobile connectivity in the workplace, uncovering the discrete emotions experienced by employees. Furthermore, it elucidates the subsequent opposing effects on workplace thriving and job performance, contributing to the existing literature and knowledge in this area.

This research aims to gain a holistic understanding of how video conferencing (VC) apps' media characteristics influence individuals' perceptions of VC apps and, ultimately, their use and continued use in professional settings.

A conceptual research model is developed by integrating constructs from media synchronicity theory (MST), social presence theory and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) model, as well as ubiquity, technicality and perceived fees. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to empirically test the conceptual model using data collected from 252 working professionals from the European Union.

The results reveal that while performance expectancy (PE) and facilitating conditions (FC) are fundamental to VC app use, these factors alone do not explain the use and continuing use of VC apps in the professional context. Media characteristics that include synchronicity, social presence, and ubiquity are equally crucial to professionals using VC apps. It also confirms the moderating effect of convergence on the relationship between synchronicity and PE and the moderating effect of technicality and perceived fees on the relationship between ubiquity and FC.

For researchers, the study offers insights into the extent to which technological and socially derived characteristics of VC apps influence the routine tasks undertaken by professionals in virtual work settings. For practitioners, recommendations pivotal to the use of VC apps are presented to promote higher acceptance and improved well-being of the professional workforce.

Although user stickiness has been studied for several years in the field of live e-commerce, little attention has been paid to the effects of streamer attributes on user stickiness in this field. Rooted in the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) theory, this study investigated how streamer attributes influence user stickiness.

The authors obtained 496 valid samples from Chinese live e-commerce users and explored the formation of user stickiness using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Artificial neural network (ANN) was used to capture linear and non-linear relationships and analyze the normalized importance ranking of significant variables, supplementing the PLS-SEM results.

The authors found that attractiveness and similarity positively impacted parasocial interaction (PSI). Expertise and trustworthiness positively impacted perceived information quality. Moreover, streamer-brand preference mediated the relationship between PSI and user stickiness, as well as the relationship between perceived information quality and user stickiness. Compared to PLS-SEM, the predictive ability of ANN was more robust. Further, the results of PLS-SEM and ANN both showed that attractiveness was the strongest predictor of user stickiness.

This study explained how streamer attributes affect user stickiness and provided a reference value for future research on user behavior in live e-commerce. The exploration of the linear and non-linear relationships between variables based on ANN supplements existing research. Moreover, the results of this study have implications for practitioners on how to improve user stickiness and contribute to the development of the livestreaming industry.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how robots are being used in libraries and information centers to transform their services and what are the future possibilities and trends in the application of robots in libraries.

Through a review of the literature, this paper analyzes various library websites and consults literature relating to the use of telepresence robots in libraries; the current application of robots in libraries has been enumerated along with case studies of libraries currently adopting telepresence robots.

With the practical examples of libraries using different types of robots, this study summarizes diverse activities of artificial intelligence-mediated robots. The uses of telepresence technology in libraries help to enhance library services, reach new users and provide a more inclusive and accessible library experience. Telepresence robots enhance the quality and accessibility of library services, expand library outreach and provide new opportunities for virtual engagement and programming. The application of telepresence robots in libraries can offer many benefits, but there are also several challenges that libraries must address to ensure successful implementation.

This study will motivate libraries and library professionals to take advantage of adopting telepresence robots in library and information center services and further accelerate library operations in the right direction.

This paper highlights how the introduction of telepresence robots in libraries improves services and productivity and creates a more engaging environment for the user group. The benefits and challenges of using robots in the library and the future trend in the application of telepresence robots in libraries are also discussed.

Digital twins provide enormous opportunities for smart buildings. However, an up-to-date intellectual landscape to understand and identify the major opportunities of digital twins for smart buildings is still not enough. This study, therefore, performs an up-to-date comprehensive literature review to identify the major opportunities of digital twins for smart buildings.

Scientometric and content analysis are utilised to comprehensively evaluate the intellectual landscape of the general knowledge of digital twins for smart buildings.

The study uncovered 24 opportunities that were further categorised into four major opportunities: efficient building performance (smart “building” environment), efficient building process (smart construction site environment), information efficiency and effective user interactions. The study further identified the limitations of the existing studies and made recommendations for future research in the methodology adopted and the research domain. Five research domains were considered for future research, namely “real-time data acquisition, processing and storage”, “security and privacy issues”, “standardised and domain modelling”, “collaboration between the building industry and the digital twin developers” and “skilled workforce to enable a seamless transition from theory to practice”.

All stakeholders, including practitioners, policymakers and researchers in the field of “architecture, engineering, construction and operations” (AECO), may benefit from the findings of this study by gaining an in-depth understanding of the opportunities of digital twins and their implementation in smart buildings in the AECO industry. The limitations and the possible research directions may serve as guidelines for streamlining the practical adoption and implementation of digital twins for smart buildings.

This study adopted scientometric and content analysis to comprehensively assess the intellectual landscape of relevant literature and identify four major opportunities of digital twins for smart building, to which scholars have given limited attention. Finally, a research direction framework is presented to address the identified limitations of existing studies and help envision the ideal state of digital twins for smart buildings.

Intelligent real-time systems are significantly impacting several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by revolutionising processes in several areas such as Industry 4.0, smart cities, transportation, agriculture, renewable energy, climate change and other economic activities. Given that much of the work to achieve the SDGs relies on information and communication technology, cybersecurity has a potentially immense role to play towards achieving these outcomes. Moreover, cyberattacks have emerged as a new functional threat for interconnected, smart manufacturers and digital supply networks, employed in intelligent real-time systems for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The effects of cyberattacks can be much more widespread than ever before due to the interconnected nature of Industry 4.0-driven operations. Blockchain can be really useful in such situations as it provides edge protection and allows authentication of the machine-to-machine and human–machine operations, stable data share, life cycle management, access control compliance of devices and self-sustaining operations. Moreover, blockchain can be applied for tracking and tracing transactions through devices, which are performed during the operation, as well as to encrypt and transmit data securely. It is vital to establish complete trust in a technology that is being adopted so that its full potential can be exploited. It is consequently critical that the organisational and information technology strategy fully integrates secure, vigilant and resilient cybersecurity strategies such as blockchain. This will ensure that cyber risks are properly managed in the age of Industry 4.0. This chapter, therefore, analyses the application of blockchain in intelligent real-time systems such as Industry 4.0 so that the opportunities these systems present for the SDGs can be exploited safely with minimum risks to society.

This study aims to propose and develop a new digital collaborative supply chain (CSC) model completely based on the emerging Industry 4.0 technologies. The digital model aims to support the main factors likely to affect CSC. This proposed model combines the most well-known digital tools such as blockchain technology, Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing (CC).

Motivated by its effective solution to enhance trust, traceability, transparency and minimize costs and risks, the combination of the most well-known digital tools such as blockchain technology, IoT and CC to develop a new digital CSC model is addressed in this research. This study first investigates and conducts a deep review analysis that explores how Industry 4.0 technologies can enable collaboration mechanisms. Second, based on an analysis of literature review, the main factors likely to affect CSC have been identified and analysed. Finally, the authors combine digital tools to support the identified factors to enhance transparency, traceability and trust by proposing a new digital CSC model. This proposed model will be used as a referential guide to encourage and motivate SC actors to collaborate in digital CSC.

This work provides many important contributions to theory and practice. First, role and impacts of the most well-known digital tools such as blockchain technology, IoT and CC for digitizing CSC have separately presented and developed. Second, the authors conceptualized a framework by developing a new digital CSC model. This conceptual digital model can be used as a referential guide for all SC actors in order to motivate them to collaborate in a modern, intelligent, secure and reliable SC. It can also support all factors affecting CSC.

The originality of this study is first investigating separately the roles and impacts of each digital tool on CSC performance. Second, the authors combine the most well-known digital tools such as blockchain technology, IoT and CC in order to develop an efficient, smart, modern and new digital CSC model. In this combination, CC is used as platform as a service enabling to link and connect the blockchain and IoT to support the main factors affecting CSC. Unlike to digital CSC model with only one digital tool, the proposed model is more realistic since depending on the information to be shared with other actors, the most appropriate tool will be automatically detected and used. This solution offers a large choice to SC actors for real time data and information sharing. In addition, the proposed model will largely enhance traceability, transparency and trust in CSC.

The purpose of this study is to design a wearable medical device as a human care platform and to introduce the design details, key technologies and practical implementation methods of the system.

A multi-channel data acquisition scheme based on PCI-E (rapid interconnection of peripheral components) was proposed. The flexible biosensor is integrated with the flexible data acquisition card with monitoring capability, and the embedded (device that can operate independently) chip STM32F103VET6 is used to realize the simultaneous processing of multi-channel human health parameters. The human health parameters were transferred to the upper computer LabVIEW by intelligent clothing through USB or wireless Bluetooth to complete the transmission and processing of clinical data, which facilitates the analysis of medical data.

The smart clothing provides a mobile medical cloud platform for wearable medical through cloud computing, which can continuously monitor the body's wrist movement, body temperature and perspiration for 24 h. The result shows that each channel is completely accurate to the top computer display, which can meet the expected requirements, and the wearable instant care system can be applied to healthcare.

The smart clothing in this study is based on the monitoring and diagnosis of textiles, and the electronic communication devices can cooperate and interact to form a wearable textile system that provides medical monitoring and prevention services to individuals in the fastest and most accurate way. Each channel of the system is precisely matched to the display screen of the host computer and meets the expected requirements. As a real-time human health protection platform technology, continuous monitoring of human vital signs can complete the application of human motion detection, medical health monitoring and human–computer interaction. Ultimately, such an intelligent garment will become an integral part of our everyday clothing.