Searches for Gauge Mediated SUSY Breaking at LEP

Searches for neutralinos and sleptons with arbitrary lifetimes, as predicted in the framework of the Gauge Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking (GMSB) model, have been performed by the four LEP collaborations. No evidence for these particles has been found in the data recorded at center-of-mass energies up to sqrt(s)=209GeV. Therefore constraints on the production cross-sections and particle masses as well as interpretations in the framework of the GMSB model are presented.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, To appear in the proceedings of the 37th Rencontres de Moriond, Electroweak Interactions and Unified Theories, Les Arcs, France, 9-16 March 200

The CMS Silicon Strip Tracker: System Tests and Test Beam Results

With a total area of 210 squaremeters and about 15000 single silicon modules the silicon strip tracker of the CMS experiment at the LHC will be the largest silicon strip detector ever built. While the performance of the individual mechanical and electronic components has already been tested extensively, their interplay in larger integrated substructures also has to be studied before mass production can be launched, in order to ensure the envisaged performance of the overall system. This is the main purpose of the system tests, during which hardware components as final as possible are being integrated into substructures of the tracker subsystems. System tests are currently being carried out for all subsystems of the tracker. In addition, silicon modules and electronic components have been operated and studied in a particle beam environment. In this report results from the CMS silicon tracker system tests and a test beam experiment at CERN are presented.Comment: 5 pages; presented at the 8th ICATPP Conference, Como, Italy, October 6-10, 2003; to be published by World Scientifi

Is It Human? The Role of Anthropomorphism as a Driver for the Successful Acceptance of Digital Voice Assistants

The market of digital voice has grown significantly over the recent years. Big players like Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung are focusing on the development and expansion of their assistants. Especially smart speakers are on the rise but also in smartphone integrated voice applications are getting more popular. The main characteristics of this new technology are both elements of human-computer-interaction and especially the attribution of human characteristics. Although there is an increase of the number of current users as well as of consumers intending to use digital voice assistants in the future, drivers and barriers of digital voice assistants have not yet been sufficiently empirically investigated, especially concerning the phenomenon of anthropomorphism. This study points to additional key factors that are important to foster broader acceptance. Our empirical study is based on the UTAUT2 and highlights the importance of anthropomorphism in relation to other determinants known from the literature

WILL RENTING SUBSTITUTE BUYING? DRIVERS OF USER INTENTION TO PARTICIPATE IN RENTAL-COMMERCE

In recent years, consumer consumption has undergone massive change. Different consumption forms, such as collaborative consumption or access-based consumption, are on the rise in the environment of the sharing economy. A relatively new field is rental-commerce, in which users rent everyday products via an online website for a fixed period of time and a fixed (e.g. daily or monthly) price. To investigate this new phenomenon, we examined what drives inexperienced users to take part in rental-commerce. Our results showed that sustainability, economic benefits, trust, safety, complexity, and knowledge of rental-commerce serve as predictors of the intention to rent products via a rental-commerce website. Surprisingly, knowledge of terms of use has no significant influence on this behavioral intention. As such, rental-commerce retailers should pay special attention to these results and highlight the advantages to determine users’ willingness to take part in this business model

Ethics and Morality in AI - A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an integral part of our daily lives in recent years. At the same time, the topic of ethics and morality in the context of AI has been discussed in both practical and scientific discourse. Either it deals with ethical concerns, concrete application areas, the programming of AI or its moral status. However, no article can be found that provides an overview of the combination of ethics, morality and AI and systematizes them. Thus, this paper provides a systematic literature review on ethics and morality in the context of AI examining the scientific literature between the years 2017 and 2021. The search resulted in 1,641 articles across five databases of which 224 articles were included in the evaluation. Literature was systematized into seven topics presented in this paper. Implications of this review can be valuable not only for academia, but also for practitioners

“Help! I Have a Problem” – Differences between a Humanlike and Robot-like Chatbot Avatar in Complaint Management

To distinguish from other competitors, companies have to establish good quality and price but also an excellent service policy. Especially the after-sales service should guarantee that customers having problems are supported and satisfied. Following, good complaint management is important. With the increase of economically profitable chatbots, there is a possibility to provide a 24/7 online service to the customers. To investigate what kind of chatbot avatar, which compensation, and what kind of reaction lead to a higher behavioral intention, a 2x2x2 between-subject design was conducted (N=389). The results show that the choice of the avatar, the reaction, as well as the compensation, play a decisive role in influencing user behavior and, thus, increase the probability that the customer, despite a complaint, returns and buys again from the retailer. Further, the behavioral intention can be explained by the mediating influences of anthropomorphism and the evaluation of redress

Differences and Similarities in Motivation for Offline and Online eSports Event Consumption

ESports is a rising phenomenon that attracts followers worldwide. Recently, big eSports events are hosted regularly as a counterpart to the “traditional” online streams. However, the differences between offline and online consumption have not been scientifically addressed. Based on the Motivation Scale for Sports Consumption (MSSC), on-site visitors and stream followers (N = 637) of a big eSports event were surveyed. By analyzing the motives for eSports consumption of these two groups, insights about users following one specific broadcast form were derived and success factors (e.g. intention to visit) were assessed. While on-site attendees are motivated by social aspects, online participants seek knowledge gain and are interested in details of the gameplay. Escape and drama motivation are equally important for both groups. The findings give new insights in the field of eSports and help practitioners develop live experiences of eSports online as well as offline