Is checkout- free store a flash in the pan? Factors influencing Hong Kong people’s adoption intention of checkout-free stores

Last year, two checkout-free flash stores made their debut in Hong Kong. After the initial try, several companies followed up, and opened their own checkout-free stores or exhibitions, e.g., Sinopec’s easy joy, Watsons, and AlipayHK Futureland. The trial of these stores has aroused wide attentions and discussions on the possibility of new retailing format and experience in Hong Kong. From the consumers’ perspective, this study aims to understand whether the concept of checkout-free store is welcomed by the local people, and what are the factors influencing Hongkongers’ adoption intention toward checkout-free technologies and stores. To realize the above research objectives, we used theory of technology acceptance, UTAUT2, and their extension to build a theoretical model, and empirically tested it by focus groups. The qualitative study shows some initial results to address the research questions

Void Generation Between Shell and Charge ofWarhead under the Projection Load

In the process of projecting, the coupled property of warhead shell and charge is an  important issueof the launching safety study. To maintain charge in close contact with the shell is one of the requirementsfor quality. For solid-liquid mixed charge , its tensile strength is very small, the dynamic response characteristicbetween warhead shell and charge make it possible to form instantaneous void between the shell and charge.his paper studies the impact of factors of instantaneous void and its development law by numerical simulation.This work lays foundation for warhead charge quality control and projection safety.Defence Science Journal, 2008, 58(6), pp.715-720, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.58.169

Apparent horizon and gravitational thermodynamics of Universe in the Eddington-Born-Infeld theory

The thermodynamics of Universe in the Eddington-Born-Infeld (EBI) theory was restudied by utilizing the holographic-style gravitational equations that dominate the dynamics of the cosmical apparent horizon $\Upsilon_{A}$ and the evolution of Universe. We started in rewriting the EBI action of the Palatini approach into the Bigravity-type action with an extra metric $q_{\mu\nu}$. With the help of the holographic-style dynamical equations, we discussed the property of the cosmical apparent horizon $\Upsilon_{A}$ including timelike, spacelike and null characters, which depends on the value of the parameter of state $w_{m}$ in EBI Universe. The unified first law for the gravitational thermodynamics and the total energy differential for the open system enveloped by $\Upsilon_{A}$ in EBI Universe were obtained. Finally, applying the positive-heat-out sign convention, we derived the generalized second law of gravitational thermodynamics in EBI universe.Comment: 23 pages, 0 figure

Properties of wire+ arc additively manufactured 2024 aluminum alloy with different solution treatment temperature

2024 aluminum alloy deposits were produced with wire + arc additive manufacturing procedure. Solution treatment + natural aging processes with different solution treatment temperature were conducted to improve the properties. The microstructure and mechanical properties were investigated. After heat treatment the distributing characteristic of the second phase changed to be dispersive from continuous in as-deposited condition. Solution treatment + natural aging process can significantly improve the properties of WAAM 2024 aluminum alloy. With higher solution treatment temperature, the micro hardness, tensile properties and elongation presented an increasing trend. After 503 °C solution treatment + natural aging process, the micro hardness, ultimate tensile strength, yield strength and elongation were 143HV, 497 MPa, 330 MPa and 16%, respectively, which can nearly meet the applying requirement

Relationship and Contract Issues of IT Outsourcing – Descriptive Case Studies in China Regions

In spite of the continuous increase in IT outsourcing activities globally, a major percentage of outsourcing deals failed or suffered from serious problems. In China regions where IT outsourcing practice is still at its initial stage, the situation is even serious: there lacks systematic guidance in terms of how to negotiate decent contracts and how to develop sound relationships. In view of this, the current research develops a research framework based on the theories in Economics, Management and Marketing fields, and investigates the effects of both relationship and contract on IT outsourcing success. To support the research framework, evidence was collected from two descriptive case studies conducted in Hong Kong and Mainland China. The case analysis implies the dimensionalities of relationship and contract. What is more, IT outsourcing success is mainly evaluated from the technological benefits client company could gain. A significant contribution of this study to theory is to look into IT outsourcing phenomenon with a balanced view and through an integrated theoretical lens. For practitioners, this research removes executives’ doubts about simultaneously employing both relationship (soft side) and contract (hard side) as governance mechanisms in managing IT outsourcing deals

Λc \Lambda_c semileptonic decays

Motivated by the recent experimental progress in the $\Lambda_c$ decay that contains a neutron in the final state, we analyze the semileptonic decay $\Lambda_c \rightarrow n \ell \nu_\ell$ in the framework of QCD sum rules. The transition form factors are analytically computed using three-point correlation functions and the Cutkosky cutting rules, which can be extrapolated into the physical region by employing the dipole parametrization. The branching fractions of $\Lambda_c \rightarrow n e^+ \nu_e$ and $\Lambda_c \rightarrow n \mu^+ \nu_{\mu}$ are estimated to be $(0.280\pm 0.031)\%$ and $(0.274\pm 0.030)\%$, respectively. Furthermore, we calculate as well the relevant decay asymmetry observables sensitive to new physics beyond the standard model. The numerical results of semileptonic decays $\Lambda_c \rightarrow \Lambda \ell \nu_\ell$ are also given and confronted to the latest experimental data.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, 3 table

Fusion of the Power from Citations: Enhance your Influence by Integrating Information from References

Influence prediction plays a crucial role in the academic community. The amount of scholars' influence determines whether their work will be accepted by others. Most existing research focuses on predicting one paper's citation count after a period or identifying the most influential papers among the massive candidates, without concentrating on an individual paper's negative or positive impact on its authors. Thus, this study aims to formulate the prediction problem to identify whether one paper can increase scholars' influence or not, which can provide feedback to the authors before they publish their papers. First, we presented the self-adapted ACC (Average Annual Citation Counts) metric to measure authors' impact yearly based on their annual published papers, paper citation counts, and contributions in each paper. Then, we proposed the RD-GAT (Reference-Depth Graph Attention Network) model to integrate heterogeneous graph information from different depth of references by assigning attention coefficients on them. Experiments on AMiner dataset demonstrated that the proposed ACC metrics could represent the authors influence effectively, and the RD-GAT model is more efficiently on the academic citation network, and have stronger robustness against the overfitting problem compared with the baseline models. By applying the framework in this work, scholars can identify whether their papers can improve their influence in the future

Review Helpfulness as a Function of discrete negative emotions and image colorfulness

Given that helpful reviews are valuable to both customers and e-commerce platforms, a better understanding of the antecedents for review helpfulness offers clear benefits to review writers and online vendors. This paper proposes two research questions: How will negative discrete emotions expressed through review text (i.e., fear, anger, sadness, and disgust) influence review helpfulness? And how will review textual emotions and image colorfulness of review interactively influence review helpfulness? Using online review of computer related products sold via Amazon in the past five years, we found that anger increase online review helpfulness, while sadness and disgust decrease the helpfulness. We also found the moderating effects of review image colorfulness on the relationship between discrete emotions and online review helpfulness. Our research advances the existing online review literature by proposing the importance of discrete emotions and its interactive effect with review image colorfulness in review helpfulness