Understanding Seller Opportunism in Online Transaction Platforms

Background: Seller opportunism is quite prevalent online and raises the overall cost of the transaction. Online transaction platforms are more vulnerable to seller opportunism than traditional businesses. The few studies on online opportunism are quite fragmented. This study synthesizes the existing literature and presents an integrated framework for understanding seller opportunism on online platforms. Method: We use a structured literature review approach following Schryen’s guidelines and Webster and Watson’s suggestions to identify relevant articles on opportunism from the Web of Science and Scopus databases published between 2003 and 2023. We derive additional articles from Google Scholar and AISeL and finally have 61 articles. We use a thematic analysis approach to analyze the articles. Results: We synthesize the findings into a comprehensive seller-opportunism framework that elucidates the three essential themes of seller opportunism: the rationale and favorable conditions for opportunistic behaviors, the impact of opportunism, and measures to counter opportunism. The study identifies transaction-specific investments, behavioral uncertainty (platform uncertainty, seller pseudonymity, and product uncertainty), and environmental uncertainty (high competitiveness, nature of e-commerce transactions) as causes of seller opportunism. Platforms can counter such opportunism by building pre-purchase trust (such as improving product informativeness, building online communities, integrating escrow accounts, implementing sellers’ reputation system, improving contract design, and enabling AI-based tools to identify copied images) and implementing post-purchase regulations (formal and informal agreements). Conclusion: The comprehensive literature presents a holistic understanding of seller opportunism on online platforms. The seller-opportunism framework enhances the transaction cost economics theory online, especially identifying transaction-specific assets and uncertainty as significant causes of seller opportunism. The framework will be helpful for online transaction platforms for better governance. It will also be useful for regulators to develop better regulatory policies governing online transaction platforms

Review Manipulation: Literature Review, and Future Research Agenda

Background: The phenomenon of review manipulation and fake reviews has gained Information Systems (IS) scholars’ attention during recent years. Scholarly research in this domain has delved into the causes and consequences of review manipulation. However, we find that the findings are diverse, and the studies do not portray a systematic approach. This study synthesizes the findings from a multidisciplinary perspective and presents an integrated framework to understand the mechanism of review manipulation. Method: The study reviews 88 relevant articles on review manipulation spanning a decade and a half. We adopted an iterative coding approach to synthesizing the literature on concepts and categorized them independently into potential themes. Results: We present an integrated framework that shows the linkages between the different themes, namely, the prevalence of manipulation, impact of manipulation, conditions and choice for manipulation decision, characteristics of fake reviews, models for detecting spam reviews, and strategies to deal with manipulation. We also present the characteristics of review manipulation and cover both operational and conceptual issues associated with the research on this topic. Conclusions: Insights from the study will guide future research on review manipulation and fake reviews. The study presents a holistic view of the phenomenon of review manipulation. It informs various online platforms to address fake reviews towards building a healthy and sustainable environment

FAKE REVIEWS AND MANIPULATION: DO CUSTOMER REVIEWS MATTER?

With the prevalence of fake reviews across web and e-commerce platforms it has become difficult for the customers to make an informed purchase decision. Considering this we examine the influence of review manipulation on customer’s purchase decision. A qualitative approach employing interviews with frequent online shoppers was employed to explore the phenomenon. The results of the study suggest that customers accord recommendations from their social network more weightage than the reviews available on an e-commerce platform. Further, we found that customers apply either or both interactive and extractive strategies to deal with review manipulation. Keywords: information processing, review manipulation, fake reviews, grounded theory

Spatially Resolved Conductivity of Rectangular Interconnects considering Surface Scattering -- Part II: Circuit-Compatible Modeling

Interconnect conductivity modeling is a critical aspect for modern chip design. Surface scattering -- an important scattering mechanism in scaled interconnects is usually captured using Fuchs-Sondheimer (FS) model which offers the average behavior of the interconnect. However, to support the modern interconnect structures (such as tapered geometries), modeling spatial dependency of conductivity becomes important. In Part I of this work, we presented a spatially resolved FS (SRFS) model for rectangular interconnects derived from the fundamental FS approach. While the proposed SRFS model offers both spatial-dependency of conductivity and its direct relationship with the physical parameters, its complex expression is not suitable for incorporation in circuit simulations. In this part, we build upon our SRFS model to propose a circuit-compatible conductivity model for rectangular interconnects accounting for 2D surface scattering. The proposed circuit-compatible model offers spatial resolution of conductivity as well as explicit dependence on the physical parameters such as electron mean free path (${\lambda}_0$), specularity ($p$) and interconnect geometry. We validate our circuit-compatible model over a range of interconnect width/height (and ${\lambda}_0$) and p values and show a close match with the physical SRFS model proposed in Part I (with error < 0.7%). We also compare our circuit-compatible model with a previous spatially resolved analytical model (appropriately modified for a fair comparison) and show that our model captures the spatial resolution of conductivity and the dependence on physical parameters more accurately. Finally, we present a semi-analytical equation for the average conductivity based on our circuit-compatible model.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures in process to submit to IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (TCAD

Valley-Spin Hall Effect-based Nonvolatile Memory with Exchange-Coupling-Enabled Electrical Isolation of Read and Write Paths

Valley-spin hall (VSH) effect in monolayer WSe2 has been shown to exhibit highly beneficial features for nonvolatile memory (NVM) design. Key advantages of VSH-based magnetic random-access memory (VSH-MRAM) over spin orbit torque (SOT)-MRAM include access transistor-less compact bit-cell and low power switching of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) magnets. Nevertheless, large device resistance in the read path (RS) due to low mobility of WSe2 and Schottky contacts deteriorates sense margin, offsetting the benefits of VSH-MRAM. To address this limitation, we propose another flavor of VSH-based MRAM that (while inheriting most of the benefits of VSH-MRAM) achieves lower RS in the read path by electrically isolating the read and write terminals. This is enabled by coupling VSH with electrically-isolated but magnetically-coupled PMA magnets via interlayer exchange-coupling. Designing the proposed devices using object oriented micro magnetic framework (OOMMF) simulation, we ensure the robustness of the exchange-coupled PMA system under process variations. To maintain a compact memory footprint, we share the read access transistor across multiple bit-cells. Compared to the existing VSH-MRAMs, our design achieves 39%-42% and 36%-46% reduction in read time and energy, respectively, along with 1.1X-1.3X larger sense margin at a comparable area. This comes at the cost of 1.7X and 2.0X increase in write time and energy, respectively. Thus, the proposed design is suitable for applications in which reads are more dominant than writes

XNOR-VSH: A Valley-Spin Hall Effect-based Compact and Energy-Efficient Synaptic Crossbar Array for Binary Neural Networks

Binary neural networks (BNNs) have shown an immense promise for resource-constrained edge artificial intelligence (AI) platforms as their binarized weights and inputs can significantly reduce the compute, storage and communication costs. Several works have explored XNOR-based BNNs using SRAMs and nonvolatile memories (NVMs). However, these designs typically need two bit-cells to encode signed weights leading to an area overhead. In this paper, we address this issue by proposing a compact and low power in-memory computing (IMC) of XNOR-based dot products featuring signed weight encoding in a single bit-cell. Our approach utilizes valley-spin Hall (VSH) effect in monolayer tungsten di-selenide to design an XNOR bit-cell (named 'XNOR-VSH') with differential storage and access-transistor-less topology. We co-optimize the proposed VSH device and a memory array to enable robust in-memory dot product computations between signed binary inputs and signed binary weights with sense margin (SM) > 1 micro-amps. Our results show that the proposed XNOR-VSH array achieves 4.8% ~ 9.0% and 37% ~ 63% lower IMC latency and energy, respectively, with 4 % ~ 64% smaller area compared to spin-transfer-torque (STT)-MRAM and spin-orbit-torque (SOT)-MRAM based XNOR-arrays

Review Based Study On Risk Management Model For High Speed Indian Railway System

In this paper, a framework for risk management at railways has been studied and integrated into global safety management system of railways. Furthermore we studied how it was applied to a manually controlled full barrier road rail level crossing in Morocco. We studied different aspects that should be considered during the system definition phase where we suggested using functional diagrams for modeling operations at LC from the perspective of LC actors. It is a critical part for risk management and specifically for hazard identification where we provided different techniques that can be used; our experience shows that involvement of all stakeholders is a prerequisite to the success to this phase. Initiating events can be unveiled through brainstorming sessions and FTA can model complex interactions of events that have the potential to lead to accidents. Risk analysis can then be carried out provided that historical LC accident and incident data is available to estimate frequencies and consequences; ETA is the ideal tool for estimating consequences of hazards due to multiple causes. The existing risks are then classified and decisions are made regarding their tolerability, the ALARP principle can serve this purpose. A cost benefit analysis then helps prioritize risk treatment actions that should target intolerable risks. Control mechanisms should be also put in place to assess, monitor and review the risk control actions put in place. Finally, it is emphasized on the importance of having a database of historical accidents and incidents at LC for the success and efficiency for the suggested framework. Accidents at level crossings are the result of complex interactions between factors arising from the design and operations of level crossings. An important first step towards eliminating the causes of these accidents is thru understanding and assessing the risks associated with a given level crossing and acting on them. This paper presents review based study on risk management framework that serves this purpose

High Speed Railway (HSR): India And The World

India has one of the largest rail networks in the world but has no line which can be classified as HSR allowing operational speed of 125mph. The current fastest train runs at 100 mph over a distance of only around 100 miles. However, supported by a robust political willingness, a new HSR corporation has been set up to kick-start the HSR projects from ideation to reality. Four major corridors have been identified and pre-feasibility studies have been commissioned. The first in this ambitious program is the HSR between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, two major population and commercial centers in the west of India. The success or failure of this project could show the way for future road map of HSR in India. This paper identifies and analyses the countries where HSR systems are in operation – their political, economic and social conditions relevant to HSR systems and then the features of HSR systems themselves to understand the commonalities between the nations that have opted for HSR. The objective is to identify if there is a common character or a baseline characteristic in terms of geographical, economic, political and social conditions which are essential to be a member of this exclusive club? Is there a standard financial and business model that has been adopted by these countries?Theattempt is also to compare these baseline benchmarks with those in India, to assess its strengths and weaknesses and reaffirm the chances of its success in taking up this project, one of the biggestever in its history. The results would be relevant not only for India but for all countries who aspire to be HSR countries in near future