Promoting hotel innovation with social media use

Service innovation has turned to be essential for hotels, to cope with current turbulent environment and quickly adapt to customers changing needs. To maintain competitiveness, hotels need to differentiate from competitors, improving existing services or offering new ones, creating memorable experiences for customers. To enhance innovation, hospitality firms are increasingly engaging customers in co-creation activities, to capture valuable knowledge, and crowdsource ideas. Additionally, absorptive capacity is emphasized as a significant antecedent of innovation activity in the tourism and hospitality industry. It is defined as the firm’s ability to identify, acquire, and use external knowledge to generate competitive products. Consequently, this organizational capability is emphasized as a key driver of service innovation. Moreover, today travel has become inherently technological, and tourism activity is powered by social media tools. These platforms facilitate connectivity, information sharing, and consumer generated content. The emergence of social media not only has transformed customer relations but is also changing internal firm processes such as innovation. However, despite the relevance of the topic, as tourism is one of the main economic activities in Spain, empirical evidence about the main antecedents of service innovation in hotels remain scarce. To extend knowledge on the issue, in the current study we empirically examine how social media use can foster service innovation, analysing also the role of customer co-creation and absorptive capacity in this phenomenon. Results confirm how service innovation has become a strategic priority for hotels to face current changing markets. Findings provide a holistic understanding of the chain of effects that leads to innovativeness when using social media, and offer relevant implications for academics and hotel managers.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

J. H. Newman, hoy

Documentos del Instituto de Antropología y Ética, número 1

The key role of innovation and organizational resilience in improving business performance: A mixed-methods approach

Funding for open access charge; Universidad de Málaga / CBU

SANS study of hybrid silica aerogels under "in situ" uniaxial compression

We have modified the inorganic silica network of aerogels with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), a hydroxyl-terminated polymer, to obtain an organic modified silicate (ORMOSIL). Reactions were assisted by high-power ultrasounds. The resulting gels were dried under supercritical conditions of the solvent to obtain a monolithic sono-aerogel. The mechanical behaviour of these aerogels can be tuned from brittle to rubbery as a function of the organic polymer content. In order to determine the links between the mechanical behaviour and modifications made to the microstructure, SANS (small-angle neutron scattering) experiments were carried out. To measure the intensities under "in situ" uniaxial compression of the aerogel, a specific sample-holder was built. Under uniaxial compression the 2D-diagrams were significantly anisotropic (butterfly pattern), indicating the rearrangement of the polymer. The form factor of these aerogels is described well by two correlation lengths, small microporous silica clusters surrounded by entangled polymer chains of 6 nm average size (blobs), which form a larger secondary level of agglomerates governed by the "frozen-in" elastic constraints.Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología MAT2005-1583European Commission CT-2003-50592

Flue gas adsorption by single-wall carbon nanotubes: A Monte Carlo study

Adsorption of flue gases by single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) has been studied by means of Monte Carlo simulations. The flue gas is modeled as a ternary mixture of N2, CO2, and O2, emulating realistic compositions of the emissions from power plants. The adsorbed flue gas is in equilibrium with a bulk gas characterized by temperature T, pressure p, and mixture composition.We have considered different SWCNTs with different chiralities and diameters in a range between 7 and 20 Å. Our results show that the CO2 adsorption properties depend mainly on the bulk flue gas thermodynamic conditions and the SWCNT diameter. Narrow SWCNTs with diameter around 7 Å show high CO2 adsorption capacity and selectivity, but they decrease abruptly as the SWCNT diameter is increased. For wide SWCNT, CO2 adsorption capacity and selectivity, much smaller in value than for the narrow case, decrease mildly with the SWCNT diameter. In the intermediate range of SWCNT diameters, the CO2 adsorption properties may show a peculiar behavior, which depend strongly on the bulk flue gas conditions. Thus, for high bulk CO2 concentrations and low temperatures, the CO2 adsorption capacity remains high in a wide range of SWCNT diameters, although the corresponding selectivity is moderate.We correlate these findings with the microscopic structure of the adsorbed gas inside the SWCNTs.Peer reviewe

Bioactivity of wollastonite/aerogels composites obtained from a TEOS-MTES matrix

Organic-inorganic hybrid materials were synthesized by controlled hydrolysis of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS), methyltrimethoxysilane (MTES), synthetic wollastonite powders and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) in an ethanol solution. Aerogels were prepared from acid hydrolysis of TEOS and MTES with different volume ratio in ethanol, followed by addition of wollastonite powder and PDMS in order to obtain aerogels with 20 wt% of PDMS and 5 wt% of CaO of the total silica. Finally, when the wet gels were obtained, they were supercritically dried at 260°C and 90 bar, in ethanol. In order to obtain its bioactivity, one method for surface activation is based on a wet chemical alkaline treatment. The particular interest of this study is that we introduce hybrid aerogels, in a 1 M solution of NaOH, for 30 s at room temperature. We evaluate the bioactivity of TEOS-MTES aerogel when immersed in a static volume of simulated body fluid (SBF). An apatite layer of spherical-shaped particles of uniform size smaller than 5 microns is observed to form on the surface of the aerogels after 25 days soaking in SBF.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación MAT2005-01583Junta de Andalucía TEP 79

Tailoring Organic-Organic Poly(vinylpyrrolidone) Microparticles and Fibers with Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes for Reinforced Composites

Polymeric-based microparticles and fibers are tailorable for a wide range of common industrial and biomedical applications, while multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) are among the most useful macromolecules based on their outstanding electronic, mechanical, and optical properties at the nanoscale. If one combines these nanostructures with various polymeric precursors, their range of potential applications becomes even greater. One of the simplest and most affordable methods for fabricating micro- and nanostructures is electrospinning. Herein we demonstrate how MWCNTs may be used to produce tailor-made organic-organic poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) microparticles and fibers via electrospinning by studying their structural, vibrational, rheological, and mechanical properties' dependence on their solvent (ethanol (EtOH) or dimethylformamide (DMF)) and resulting morphology. Specifically, we find clear differences in morphologies from perfectly spherical and isolated microparticles to fibers mats, or a combination of fibers with entangled beads, with solvent type and concentration. On the basis of our findings, we propose that the mechanism governing the shape and size of the particles is a competition between the solvent's surface tension, dielectric constant, and viscoelastic properties. We show, based on both our experimental results and density functional theory (DFT) calculations, that OH functionalization of the MWCNTs is essential for achieving high PVP coverages and promoting the stability of the resulting PVP/MWCNT nanocomposite. Finally, by fabricating PVP/MWCNT fiber mats, we demonstrate that low concentrations (0.01-0.1 wt %) of MWCNTs led to a qualitative improvement (â250%) in the resulting mechanical properties, i.e., a reinforced composite. These results show how by controlling the solvent's dielectric constant, surface tension, and polymer concentration, one may produce tailor-made polymeric nanomaterials in combination with other organic/inorganic nanoparticles, i.e., silver, gold, or carbon allotropes, for next-generation applications

Stability of excited states of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an anharmonic trap

We analyze the stability of non-ground nonlinear states of a Bose-Einstein condensate in the mean field limit in effectively 1D (``cigar-shape'') traps for various types of confining potentials. We find that nonlinear states become, in general, more stable when switching from a harmonic potential to an anharmonic one. We discuss the relation between this fact and the specifics of the harmonic potential which has an equidistant spectrum

Cost-effectiveness analysis of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines in preventing pneumonia in Peruvian children

Pneumococcal pneumonia (PP) has a high burden of morbimortality in children. Use of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) is an effective preventive measure. After PCV 7-valent (PCV7) withdrawal, PCV 10-valent (PCV10) and PCV 13-valent (PCV13) are the alternatives in Peru. This study aimed to evaluate cost effectiveness of these vaccines in preventing PP in Peruvian children <5 years-old

Antimicrobial Effect of Silk and Catgut Suture Threads Coated with Biogenic Silver Nanoparticles

Two bionanocomposites based on suture threads, silk-silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) and catgut-Ag NPs, were prepared through a green chemistry methodology using Chenopodium ambrosioides (Mexican Epazote) as reducing agent. UV-Vis spectrophotometry (UV-Vis), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), were used for their characterization. UV-Vis confirmed the synthesis of silver nanoparticles. Micrographs showed polydisperse, mostly spherical, Ag NPs attached to both suture threads. The bionanocomposites antimicrobial properties were evaluated through cultures and inhibition zones tests. The Chenopodium ambrosioides-assisted synthesized bionanocomposites have proved antibacterial effect against S. aureus and E. coli in both sutures (silk and catgut) and could be potentially useful for oral or periodontal surgery. There was no significant difference statistically in inhibition of Staphylococcus aureus versus Escherichia coli