Search results

The purpose of this paper is to theoretically using two new models to analyze the effect of respondents’ uncertainty about their stated willingness to pay (WTP) on welfare estimates in the contingent valuation method (CVM) theoretically using two new models, and empirically to reveal consumers’ WTP to improve drinking water supply safety (WSS) in China.

In this paper, two alternative preference uncertainty treatment approaches are proposed to estimate consumers’ WTP theoretically and they are applied to China’s WSS improvement program from a payment card method, which depends on how consumers’ certainty level about their valuation is. Furthermore, four regression models are presented to investigate the determinants of consumers’ WTP.

Theoretically, the alternative approaches that proposed in this research can remove overestimation bias from traditional CVM method but with lower estimation efficiency. In addition, the empirical results of the uncertainty adjusted models show that the expected WTP to improve drinking WSS is from 0.55 to 0.56 Renminbi yuan/ton, which are lower than the estimates from the conventional standard CVM models. Consumers’ preferences for their concerns about WSS, attitudes toward WSS improvement programs, trusts in implement authorities and their knowledge of WSS have significant effects on the WTP for improving drinking WSS and on respondents’ uncertainty too.

Theoretically to the authors’ knowledge, it is the first attempt to compare alternative approaches to treat respondent uncertainty using numerical certainty scale combined with payment card format valuation questions in CVM. Empirically it is the first study at this large scale that investigates consumers’ WTP for improving drinking WSS incorporating with respondent uncertainty in China. In addition, to assess consumer preferences for improved drinking water safety and the sources of uncertainty, information on consumers’ attitudes toward WSS are considered at the first time.

The lack of conceptual approaches for organizing and expressing capabilities, usage and impact of intelligent machines (IMs) in work settings is an obstacle to moving beyond isolated case examples, domain-specific studies, 2 × 2 frameworks and expert opinion in discussions of IMs and work. This paper's purpose is to illuminate many issues that often are not addressed directly in research, practice or punditry related to IMs. It pursues that purpose by presenting an integrated approach for identifying and organizing important aspects of analysis and evaluation related to IMs in work settings. 

This paper integrates previously published ideas related to work systems (WSs), smart devices and systems, facets of work, roles and responsibilities of information systems, interactions between people and machines and a range of criteria for evaluating system performance.

Eight principles outline a straightforward and flexible approach for analyzing and evaluating IMs and the WSs that use them. Those principles are based on the above ideas.

This paper provides a novel approach for identifying design choices for situated use of IMs. The breadth, depth and integration of this approach address a gap in existing literature, which rarely aspires to this paper’s thoroughness in combining ideas that support the description, analysis, design and evaluation of situated uses of IMs.

Service-oriented architecture is an emerging software architecture, in which web service (WS) plays a crucial role. In this architecture, the task of WS composition and verification is required when handling complex requirement of services from users. When the number of WS becomes very huge in practice, the complexity of the composition and verification is also correspondingly high. In this paper, the authors aim to propose a logic-based clustering approach to solve this problem by separating the original repository of WS into clusters. Moreover, they also propose a so-called quality-controlled clustering approach to ensure the quality of generated clusters in a reasonable execution time.

The approach represents WSs as logical formulas on which the authors conduct the clustering task. They also combine two most popular clustering approaches of hierarchical agglomerative clustering (HAC) and k-means to ensure the quality of generated clusters.

This logic-based clustering approach really helps to increase the performance of the WS composition and verification significantly. Furthermore, the logic-based approach helps us to maintain the soundness and completeness of the composition solution. Eventually, the quality-controlled strategy can ensure the quality of generated clusters in low complexity time.

The work discussed in this paper is just implemented as a research tool known as WSCOVER. More work is needed to make it a practical and usable system for real life applications.

In this paper, the authors propose a logic-based paradigm to represent and cluster WSs. Moreover, they also propose an approach of quality-controlled clustering which combines and takes advantages of two most popular clustering approaches of HAC and k-means.

The purpose of this paper is to numerically study blood flow through a subject‐specific carotid artery with a moderately severe stenosis, also to thoroughly analyse the wall shear stress (WSS), oscillatory shear index (OSI) and WSS angular deviation (WSSAD). One of the important aspects of this study is the investigation on the influence of the extensions attached to the domain outlets.

The segmentation of the carotid artery is carried out using a deformable model based on a level set method. A geometric potential force (GPF) is employed to deform the level set to obtain the carotid artery geometry. The initial surface meshing is generated using an advanced marching cubes (MC) method, before improving the quality of the surface mesh via a number of mesh cosmetic steps. The volume mesh generation has two parts. In the first part, a quasi‐structured, boundary layer mesh is generated in the vicinity of the geometry walls. The second part of the meshing involves unstructured tetrahedral meshing of the inner part of the geometry. After the meshing stage, the flow boundary conditions are generated by numerically solving the Helmholtz equation in both space and time. Finally, the explicit characteristic‐based split (CBS) method is employed in a parallel environment to produce a detailed analysis of wall quantities.

In general, WSS is very high in the vicinity of the carotid artery apex and in the proximity of the stenosis. From the results obtained, it is clear that the influence of outlet domain extension is marginal. While the peak instantaneous WSS differs by a maximum of 5.7 per cent, the time‐averaged WSS difference due to extended domain is only 1.3 per cent. Two other derived parameters are also examined in the paper, the oscillating shear index and the WSSAD. Both these quantities also display minor or negligible differences due to domain extension.

It has been perceived that domain extension is essential to avoid wrong application of boundary conditions. The results obtained, however, conclusively show that the outlet domain extension has only a moderate influence on WSS. Thus, outlet extension to the domains may not be essential for arterial blood flows. It is also observed that the dramatic values of peak WSS obtained near the stenosis is the result of high resolution mesh along with boundary layers used in this study. Both the outcomes represent the originality of this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and test a research model that examines whether job embeddedness mediates the effects of high‐performance work practices and work social support on turnover intentions.

Based on data gathered from 174 full‐time frontline employees in the four‐ and five‐star hotels, with a time lag of two weeks in Iran, the relationships were tested using LISREL 8.30 through structural equation modeling.

Results suggest that job embeddedness fully mediates the effects of high‐performance work practices and work social support on turnover intentions. Specifically, frontline employees with high‐performance work practices and work social support are more embedded in their jobs, and therefore, are unlikely to display intentions to leave the organization.

Testing hope as a moderator of the effects of high‐performance work practices and work social support on job embeddedness in future studies would add to the existing knowledge base. The time lag used in this study provides limited support for causal inferences. Therefore, future studies should use a longer time lag than it was done in this study.

The present study adds to the current literature by investigating the antecedents of job embeddedness. This study also adds to the current knowledge base by examining job embeddedness as a mediator of the effects of high‐performance work practices and work social support on turnover intentions through data collected in the hotel industry in Iran, a developing non‐Western country.

The purpose of this study was to examine a moderated mediation model of job dissatisfaction and workplace social support in the relationship between work–life conflict and turnover intentions.

Data were collected in a cross-sectional survey of 220 police investigation officers. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was applied for data analysis.

Empirical findings of study indicate that work–life conflict enhances employee turnover intentions by creating job dissatisfaction. However, workplace social support buffers this effect and reduces turnover intentions by weakening the effect of work–life conflict on job dissatisfaction.

This study contributes to personnel management and organizational psychology literature by explaining how workplace social support can affect the mediating process of job dissatisfaction through which the relationship between work–life conflict and turnover intentions is determined. The limitations are related to external validity, single source data and cross-sectional nature of data.

Organizational leaders and practitioners can take insights from the findings of this study that if workplace social support prevails at a level greater than work–life conflict, it will nullify or suppress the effect of work–life conflict on turnover intentions by reducing job dissatisfaction.

The originality value of this study is that it has addressed the scarcity of testing boundary conditions of the indirect effect of work–life conflict on turnover intentions through job dissatisfaction.

Atherosclerosis tends to occur in the distinctive carotid sinus, leading to vascular stenosis and then causing death. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of sinus sizes, positions and hematocrit on blood flow dynamics and heat transfer by different numerical approaches.

The fluid flow and heat transfer in the carotid artery with three different sinus sizes, three different sinus locations and four different hematocrits are studied by both computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and fluid-structure interaction (FSI) methods. An ideal geometric model and temperature-dependent non-Newtonian viscosity are adopted, while the wall heat flux concerning convection, radiation and evaporation is used.

With increasing sinus size, the average velocity and temperature of the blood fluid decrease, and the area of time average wall shear stress (TAWSS)with small values decreases. As the distances between sinuses and bifurcation points increase, the average temperature and the maximum TAWSS decrease. Atherosclerosis is more likely to develop when the sinuses are enlarged, when the sinuses are far from bifurcation points, or when the hematocrit is relatively large or small. The probability of thrombosis forming and developing becomes larger when the sinus becomes larger and the hematocrit is small enough. The movement of the arterial wall obviously reduces the velocity of blood flow, blood temperature and WSS. This study also suggests that the elastic role of arterial walls cannot be ignored.

The hemodynamics of the internal carotid artery sinus in a carotid artery with a bifurcation structure have been investigated thoroughly, on which the impacts of many factors have been considered, including the non-Newtonian behavior of blood and empirical boundary conditions. The results when the FSI is considered and absent are compared.

This paper aims to address the issue of long-term stability of services and systems depending on service-oriented architecture that has become a popular architecture in systems development and is often implemented using Web services. However, the dependency, especially on externally provided services, can impact the reliability of a system. This is often caused by the loose coupling also implying a less stringent policy for change management and notifications. Therefore, the authors characterise the types of changes that can happen in remote services and propose the concept of resilient web services (RWSs) as an example on how to upgrade existing services to better support the long-term stability of services and systems.

Having analysed several use cases where systems broke because of external dependencies not correctly maintained, the authors derived requirements for RWSs.

By means of a prototype implementation and evaluation of this solution in a case study, the feasibility of the approach was verified. Several scenarios of changes in WSs were simulated, correctly identified and responded to.

The authors propose a set of extensions to existing standards such as Web Services Description Language to improve the long-term availability of services in SOAs. A prototype implementation was developed for service monitoring and RWSs.

To provide the secure web services framework in an environment designed to integrate RFID system into the EPCglobal Network.

Utilizing web services helps maximize the value of information generated from RFID systems and, taking advantage of web services security (WSS) technology, to provide an XML‐based abstraction layer for established security technologies that delivers confidentiality, integrity, authentication, authorization, and non‐repudiation in EPCglobal Network.

This paper inspects four cases of trust relationships in one‐to‐one and one‐to‐many teamwork models that exemplify how the proposed WSS specifications being used in industry‐wide EPCglobal Network are envisioned. For each of these cases the different security strategies were proposed. Also a comparative view is given, of discussed security strategies which businesses may wish to consult.

This first proposed secure framework integrating web services and WSS technology to industry‐wide EPCglobal Network will provide business an integration and collaboration capabilities, which make it easier for trading partners to electronically share real‐time RFID data and conduct transactions in an accurate, complete, highly controlled, and secure environment.

This paper aims to illustrate relationships between stakeholders in the conceptualisation and implementation of water and sanitation services (WSS) projects in marginalised settings of Nairobi and Kiambu Counties. It outlines these relationships in a flow diagram that shows a pathway analysis in which social innovation strategies are used as markers in the program of inclusive water provision. The study’s objective is to map the processes of social innovation in an effort to highlight the role of marginalised communities in their access to the right to water.

The paper approached the study using a case study design, and thereafter, constructivist grounded theory was used to further delve into the comparative cases. To map the processes of social innovation, the case study design was seen to be appropriate, as it sequenced activities in a time-series analysis. From these two case studies, four comparative cases were used to pinpoint path-breaking transition in the pathway analysis. The methods used in both phases were, namely, in-depth interviews, observations and document analysis, and these were complemented by field notes.

The paper indicates an opportunity to use emergent patterns for a more context-specific analysis of WSS projects in marginalised communities. It advances the role of marginalised communities as vital stakeholders in the approach described as “the right to the city”. The model of spatial appropriation brings to the fore the binary yet separate processes that stakeholders engage in.

Owing to the use of a grounded theory model, the results may not be transferable to other contexts. Therefore, further testing of the proposed pathway analysis and model is encouraged, as this model suggests ways of ensuring full community engagement which would result in greater success in projects involving marginalised communities.

The paper has implications for both the government and communities, in that more deliberate roles for the community-based organisation in the conceptualisation of WSS projects can lead to social learning opportunities for government institutions and greater success in implementation.

The paper justifies the need for government institutions to map and evaluate WSS projects using emergent patterns to highlight the role of marginalised communities as their right to the city.