A Dual-Process Model to Assess User Attitudes and the Likelihood of Electronic Word-Of-Mouth Adoption

The likelihood of electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) adoption is useful for academics and practitioners to understand the persuasion. To address this issue, the attitude-intention link was often assumed in information systems (IS) literature without further examinations in the persuasion contexts. This study develops a theoretical model, grounded in the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), to assess how recipients use central and peripheral routes to elaborate e-WOM. This study tests the theoretical model by surveying 395 users with viewing or posting experience in an online discussion forum. The empirical results of this study verify that the central variable (argument quality) directly and indirectly drives the likelihood of e-WOM adoption via cognitive and affective attitudes, whereas the peripheral cue (source credibility) directly and indirectly drives the likelihood of e-WOM adoption via cognitive attitudes only. However, affective attitudes rather than cognitive attitudes significantly determine the likelihood of e-WOM adoption, implying the attitude-intention link is valid in the central route to persuasion. Additionally, the use of central and peripheral routes to form attitudes is influenced by perceived control in online searching. This study also contributes to verify that argument quality acts as the diagnostic input, whereas source credibility acts as the accessible input in the elaboration of e-WOM

Young women's perceptions of replaceable upper shoes before and after the upper interchange

This study tries to investigate the visual perception of casual and formal leather shoe uppers, by conducting semantic differential evaluations. Twelve upper design renderings were generated based on six ideations with casual uppers converted into formal leather uppers. Based on a seven-point Likert scale, twelve renderings were evaluated using fifteen Kansei adjective pairs and young women's willingness to purchase. Factor analyses were performed to analyze the differences and factors between casual and formal leather uppers. In the factor analysis of upper styles, five factors were identified for casual uppers: evaluation, attention, fashion, protection, and temperament; and five factors for formal leather uppers: attention, formality, fashion, weight, and protection. Whether a young woman is looking for formal leather uppers or casual shoe uppers, fashion plays a crucial role in her decision to purchase shoes

MATEX: A Distributed Framework for Transient Simulation of Power Distribution Networks

We proposed MATEX, a distributed framework for transient simulation of power distribution networks (PDNs). MATEX utilizes matrix exponential kernel with Krylov subspace approximations to solve differential equations of linear circuit. First, the whole simulation task is divided into subtasks based on decompositions of current sources, in order to reduce the computational overheads. Then these subtasks are distributed to different computing nodes and processed in parallel. Within each node, after the matrix factorization at the beginning of simulation, the adaptive time stepping solver is performed without extra matrix re-factorizations. MATEX overcomes the stiff-ness hinder of previous matrix exponential-based circuit simulator by rational Krylov subspace method, which leads to larger step sizes with smaller dimensions of Krylov subspace bases and highly accelerates the whole computation. MATEX outperforms both traditional fixed and adaptive time stepping methods, e.g., achieving around 13X over the trapezoidal framework with fixed time step for the IBM power grid benchmarks.Comment: ACM/IEEE DAC 2014. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1505.0669

Comparison of the Prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome Between the Criteria for Taiwanese and Japanese and the Projected Probability of Stroke in Elderly Hypertensive Taiwanese

SummaryBackgroundThe cutoff of abdominal circumference for metabolic syndrome (MS) defined by the Bureau of Health Promotion (BHP) of Taiwan for Taiwanese (men, 90cm; women, 80cm) and by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) for Japanese (men, 85cm; women, 90cm) differs. This study aimed to examine the impact of this difference on the prevalence of MS and the impact of an MS diagnosis on the projected risk of stroke in hypertensive Taiwanese.MethodsMS was examined in a sample of 3,472 hypertensive patients (aged 55–80 years; 1,709 women) across Taiwan. The 10-year probability of stroke estimated from the Framingham equation was compared between MS and non-MS patients.ResultsThe prevalence of MS using the BHP criteria was 59.2% using the BHP criteria (95% confidence interval, CI, 57.6–60.8%; men, 52.5%; women, 66.1%) and 48.9% by the IDF criteria (95% CI, 47.2–50.5%; men, 61.3%; women, 36.1%). Both criteria showed that, compared with non-MS, MS has higher predicted 10-year probability of stroke (BHP, 0.153 ± 0.115 vs. 0.133 ± 0.105; IDF, 0.159 ± 0.109 vs. 0.132 ± 0.112; both p < 0.001) because of the difference in women (BHP, 0.143 ± 0.124 vs. 0.102 ± 0.091; IDF, 0.147 ± 0.121 vs. 0.118 ± 0.110; both p < 0.001) rather than men (BHP, p = 0.21; IDF, p = 0.29).ConclusionBoth criteria demonstrate that MS is highly prevalent in elderly hypertensive patients in Taiwan. Additionally in women, but not men, the predicted probability of stroke is higher in MS than in non-MS patients. The diagnosis of MS is potentially useful for identifying elderly hypertensive females with an elevated risk of stroke in Taiwan

Earthquake-Resistant Squat Walls Reinforced with High- Strength Steel

Results are reported from reversed cyclic tests of five large-scale squat wall specimens reinforced with steel bars having a specified yield strength of either 60 or 115 ksi (413 or 792 MPa). Two specimens were designed for a shear stress of 5√fc′ psi (0.42√fc′ MPa) and the other three 9√fc′ psi (0.75√fc′ MPa). Boundary element confining reinforcement complied with the requirements of Chapter 18 of ACI 318-14 in all but one specimen, which had 50% of the required transverse boundary element reinforcement. Specimens constructed with Grade 115 steel had similar strength and exhibited 20% greater drift capacity than those with Grade 60 steel. Use of Grade 115 steel tended to control the softening effect of sliding at the base of the wall and to increase the component of drift due to reinforcement strain penetration into the foundation