An empirical study of e-service quality and user satisfaction of public service centers in China

This article describes how as part of the reform of the administrative system of China, most local governments have set up public service centers; meanwhile, ICT (Information and Communication Technology) has been commonly applied to make e-services more convenient, efficient and transparent. However, the existing studies in the Chinese context are mostly qualitative and the relationship between service quality and citizen satisfaction has not been tested. This article adopted the D&M model to develop an e-service quality model and tested the impact of service quality on citizen satisfaction. A survey was conducted and 364 valid questionnaires were analyzed. The results showed that the data fit the model well. Most of the hypotheses formulated in this article was proven. Additionally, an important finding was that the impact of service quality on specific satisfaction is stronger than that of information quality and system quality, which indicates that face-to-face services cannot simply be substituted by electronic systems. Both the theoretical and practical implications of the findings were discussed

Internet of things in tourism: A proposal of the information system for Cappadocia hot-air ballooning

With the revolution of Industry 4.0, the technologies that enter our daily lives are based on smart devices, applications and platforms with internet connection. A wide range of these technologies, collecting under one umbrella is known as IoT (internet of things). In this context, the study will consist of three parts. In the first part of the study, the stages of a touristic travel in smart tourism destinations are evaluated by considering IoT architecture. The technologies used in these phases and their contributions to the tourism sector and tourists are examined. In the implementation section, an IoT-based information system is proposed for Cappadocia hot air balloon tours. The main purpose of the system is to determine whether the appropriate weather conditions are formed before the flight in hot air balloon flights. The proposed system will allow for the automation and evaluation of data already collected using traditional methods. With the implementation of the system; work and time savings can be achieved, and more accurate measurements will make safe flights

Thermoplasmatales andMethanogens: Potential Associationwith the Crenarchaeol Productionin Chinese Soils

Crenarchaeol is a unique isoprenoid glycerol dibiphytanyl glycerol tetraether (iGDGT) lipid, which is only identified in cultures of ammonia-oxidizing Thaumarchaeota. However, the taxonomic origins of crenarchaeol have been debated recently. The archaeal populations, other than Thaumarchaeota, may have associations with the production of crenarchaeol in ecosystems characterized by non-thaumarchaeotal microorganisms. To this end, we investigated 47 surface soils from upland and wetland soils and rice fields and another three surface sediments from river banks. The goal was to examine the archaeal community compositions in comparison with patterns of iGDGTs in four fractional forms (intact polar-, core-, monoglycosidic- and diglycosidic-lipid fractions) along gradients of environments. The DistLM analysis identified that Group I.1b Thaumarchaeota were mainly responsible for changes in crenarchaeol in the overall soil samples; however, Thermoplasmatales may also contribute to it. This is further supported by the comparison of crenarchaeol between samples characterized by methanogens, Thermoplasmatales or Group I.1b Thaumarchaeota, which suggests that the former two may contribute to the crenarchaeol pool. Last, when samples containing enhanced abundance of Thermoplasmatales and methanogens were considered, crenarchaeol was observed to correlate positively with Thermoplasmatales and archaeol, respectively. Collectively, our data suggest that the crenarchaeol production is mainly derived from Thaumarchaeota and partly associated with uncultured representatives of Thermoplasmatales and archaeol-producing methanogens in soil environments that may be in favor of their growth. Our finding supports the notion that Thaumarchaeota may not be the sole source of crenarchaeol in the natural environment, which may have implication for the evolution of lipid synthesis among different types of archaea