Role of Interpersonal Trust on the Relationship Between Employee Innovative Behaviour and Customer Participation: Evidence from The Hospitality Industry in Sri Lanka

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to assess how the customers’ contribution impels employee innovative behavior in hospitality services with respect to the mediating role of interpersonal trust in selected hotels in Sri Lanka. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the existing literature, conceptual model is created with the dependent variable of employee innovative behavior, independent variable of customer participation and the mediating variable of interpersonal trust. A total of 391 acceptable questionnaires were obtained out of 500 questionnaires distributed comprisesing 198 and 193 frontline employees and customers respectively (convenient sampling was used) in three to five star hotels in Sri Lanka. The collected data were analyzed using inferential statistics. Findings: The quantitative survey divulges that there is a significant positive effect between customer participation and employee innovative behavior and interpersonal trust. In addition, a study reveals that increasing the level of interpersonal trust between customers and employees may boost employee innovative capacity. Hence it is proved that customer participation has an indirect significant effect on employee innovative behavior through interpersonal trust. Originality: This study contributes to fill out the existing knowledge gap and it helps to improve the innovations in the service sector with the appropriate climate of information exchange.   Implications: According to the results, increasing consumer involvement in service design and delivery improves employee novelty. Meanwhile developing trust between the parties enhances the relationship as well as it will enhance the creative power of employees in hospitality services. This study contributed to the hospitality industry on innovative ideas which makes customer participation as a tool for their novelty in the Sri Lankan context. Keywords: Customer Participation, Interpersonal Trust, Employee Innovative Behavior, Services, Hotels, Tourism &nbsp

Near-infrared, mode-locked waveguide lasers with multi-GHz repetition rates

In this work, we discuss mode-locking results obtained with low-loss, ion-exchanged waveguide lasers. With Yb3+-doped phosphate glass waveguide lasers, a repetition rate of up to 15.2 GHz was achieved at a wavelength of 1047 nm with an average power of 27 mW and pulse duration of 811 fs. The gap between the waveguide and the SESAM introduced negative group velocity dispersion via the Gires Tournois Interferometer (GTI) effect which allowed the soliton mode-locking of the device. A novel quantum dot SESAM was used to mode-lock Er3+, Yb3+-doped phosphate glass waveguide lasers around 1500 nm. Picosecond pulses were achieved at a maximum repetition rate of 6.8 GHz and an average output power of 30 mW. The repetition rate was tuned by more than 1 MHz by varying the pump power

Design and Development of an Ontology based Personal Web Search Engine

AbstractAs a model for knowledge description and formalization, ontologies are widely used to represent user profiles in personalized web information gathering. However, when representing user profiles, many models have utilized only knowledge from either a global knowledge base or user local information. A personalized search engine which is a hybrid system has been proposed for personalized search and reasoning over user profiles. The hybrid system contains both the global knowledge base and the user local information. User profiles are created for every users to gather their interest and relevance. This system also learns user profiles based on which the user is provided with candidates in Ontology Learning Environment (OLE) tool. The search results are personalized and have topic specificity. The efficiency of a search application is defined by the accuracy by which the search results match the user interests. The efficiency improvement in our application can be defined by the reduction in the number of pages which a particular user who searches for a string. This search engine is evaluated by getting feedback from three kinds of users. The results show that this ontology model is successful

Fundamentally mode-locked, femtosecond waveguide oscillators with multi-gigahertz repetition frequencies up to 15 GHz

We demonstrate passively mode-locked Yb3+-doped glass waveguide lasers in a quasi-monolithic configuration with a maximum pulse repetition frequency up to 15.2 GHz. A semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) is used to achieve stable mode-locking around 1050 nm with pulse durations as short as 811 fs and an average power up to 27 mW. Different waveguide samples are also employed to deliver pulses with repetition rates of 4.9 GHz, 10.4 GHz and 12 GHz with an average power of 32 mW, 60 mW and 45 mW, respectively. The group velocity dispersion control in the cavity is provided by changing the gap between the SESAM and the waveguide end-face to facilitate a soliton mode-locking regime

Ion-exchanged Tm³⁺:glass channel waveguide laser

Continuous wave laser action around 1.9 µm has been demonstrated in a Tm3+ - doped germanate glass channel waveguide laser fabricated by ion-exchange. Laser action was observed with an absorbed power threshold of only 44 mW and a slope efficiency of up to 6.8% was achieved. Propagation loss at the lasing wavelength was measured and found to be 0.3 dB/cm. We believe this to be the first ion-exchanged Tm3+-doped-glass waveguide laser

Growth of PbSe quantum dots within high-index lead-phosphate glass for infrared saturable absorbers

PbSe quantum dots (QDs) were grown in high-refractive-index low-melting-temperature lead-phosphate glass. The lowest energy exciton transition of the QDs was tuned over a wide range within the infrared spectral region (0.93-2.75µm) by a controlled heat treatment. The measured QD radius ranged between 2 and 5.3nm, with a time (t) dependence of t0.29 for long dwelling times during the heat treatment, indicating that the QD growth mechanism tends to follow Lifshitz-Slyozov-Wagner theory. The QD saturable absorber behavior at 1.2µm had a measured saturation fluence of ~2.1µJ/cm2

Graphene Q-switched mode-locked and Q-switched ion-exchanged waveguide lasers

In this paper, we present the use of mono-layer graphene saturable absorbers to produce Q-switched and Q-switched mode-locked operation of Yb and Yb:Er-doped phosphate glass waveguide lasers, respectively. For the 1535-nm wavelength Yb:Er laser, the Q-switched pulses have repetition rates up to 526 kHz and contain mode-locked pulses at a repetition frequency of 6.8 GHz. The measured 0.44 nm bandwidth should allow pulses as short as ~6ps to be generated. Maximum average output powers of 27 mW are obtained at a slope efficiency of 5% in this mode of operation. For the 1057-nm-wavelength Yb laser, Q-switched pulses are obtained with a repetition rate of up to 833 kHz and a maximum average output power of 21 mW. The pulse duration is found to decrease from 292 ns to 140 ns and the pulse energy increase from 17 nJ to 27 nJ as the incident pump power increases from 220 to 652 mW