An Electronic Marketing Paradigm for the Information Service Industry

Broadly defined, EC is a modern business methodology that addresses the needs of organizations, merchants, and consumers to cut costs while improving the quality of goods and services and increasing the speed of service delivery (Kalakota & Whinston, 1996). How EC influences the strategies of international marketing is of great importance for practical applications and academic research. Therefore, this study analyzes the impact of EC on the international marketing environment, strategies, and future trends in the information service industry

Zentropy Theory for Positive and Negative Thermal Expansions

It has been observed in both natural and man-made materials that volume sometimes decreases with increasing temperature. Though mechanistic understanding has been gained for some individual materials, a general answer to the question "Why does volume sometimes decrease with the increase of temperature?" remains lacking. Based on the thermodynamic relation that the derivative of volume with respect to temperature, i.e., thermal expansion, is equal to the negative derivative of entropy with respect to pressure, we developed a general theory in terms of multiscale entropy to understand and predict the change of volume as a function of temperature, which is termed as zentropy theory in the present work. It is shown that a phase at high temperatures is a statistical representation of the ground-state stable and multiple nonground-state metastable configurations. It is demonstrated that when the volumes of the major nonground-state configurations are smaller than that of the ground-state configuration, the volume of the phase may decrease with the increase of temperature in certain ranges of temperature-pressure combinations, depicting the negative divergency of thermal expansion at the critical point. As examples, positive and negative divergencies of thermal expansion are predicted at the critical points of Ce and Fe3Pt, respectively, along with the temperature and pressure ranges for abnormally positive and negative thermal expansion. The authors believe that the zentropy theory is applicable to predict anomalies of other physical properties of phases because the change of entropy drives the responses of a system to external stimuli

Assessing Customer Perceptions of Website Service Quality in Digital Marketing Environments

[[abstract]]The e-commerce literature has rarely addressed the measurement of customer perceptions of website service quality in digital marketing environments. It is argued that the current SERVQUAL and IS-SERVQUAL instruments need to be refined and validated to fit the digital marketing environment, as they are targeted primarily towards either traditional retailing or information systems contexts. This article validates and refines a comprehensive model and instrument for measuring customer-perceived service quality of websites that market digital products and services. After a discussion of the conceptualization and operationalization of the service quality construct, the procedure used in modifying items, collecting data, and validating a multiple-item scale is described. Subsequently, evidence of reliability and validity on the basis of analyzing data from a quota sample of 260 adult respondents is presented. Implications for practice and research are then explored. Finally, this paper concludes by discussing limitations that could be addressed in future studies. The final EC-SERVQUAL instrument with good reliability and validity will be essential to the development and testing of e-business theories, and provide researchers with a common framework for explaining, justifying, and comparing differences across results

Exploring the interfacial coupling between graphene and the antiferromagnetic insulator MnPSe3_3

Interfacial coupling between graphene and other 2D materials can give rise to intriguing physical phenomena. In particular, several theoretical studies predict that the interplay between graphene and an antiferromagnetic insulator could lead to the emergence of quantum anomalous Hall phases. However, such phases have not been observed experimentally yet, and further experimental studies are needed to reveal the interaction between graphene and antiferromagnetic insulators. Here, we report the study in heterostructures composed of graphene and the antiferromagnetic insulator MnPSe$_3$. It is found that the MnPSe$_3$ has little impact on the quantum Hall phases apart from doping graphene via interfacial charge transfer. However, the magnetic order can contribute indirectly via process like Kondo effect, as evidenced by the observed minimum in the temperature-resistance curve between 20-40 K, far below the N\'eel temperature (70 K)

A new impedance matching method for an ultra-wide band and dual circularly polarised feed

In traditional antenna design, metal components are not placed in the central part of the antenna as they change the characteristics of near field radiation. However, we show that placing a metal ring in the centre of the strip lines, which connect the ends of folded high-frequency dipoles, does not damage the performance of the feed. Instead it significantly improves the voltage standing wave ratio of the feed whilst other performance indicators are not compromised. Thus, our findings show an excellent way of improving the wide band feed. Based on this foundation, a new circularly polarised feed for operation between 0.4 to 2 GHz is introduced for the Chinese Spectral Radioheliograph in this paper. The issue of a feed impedance matching network is investigated. By optimising the impedance matching, the performance of the feed is enhanced with respect to the previous realisations of the Eleven feed. The simulation and experimental results show that the gain of the feed is about 10 dBi, and the VSWR is less than 2:1. In addition, the feed has a low axial ratio, fixed phase centre location, and constant beam width in the range of 0.4 to 2 GHz

User Acceptance of E-Government Services

In order to provide more accessible, accurate, real-time information for citizens, government E-services, such as information kiosks, have been set up in many public places. Although the public sector has promoted this E-Government service for many years, its uses and achievements are few. Therefore, this paper explores the key factors of user acceptance through a research survey and by gathering empirical evidence based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and the Use of Technology (UTAUT). Data collected from 244 respondents was tested against the research model. The results lead us to make several recommendations for the public sector and policy-makers to use as guidelines for the future development of this service

Parameter-free prediction of phase transition in PbTiO3 through combination of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics

Thermodynamics of ferroelectric materials and their ferroelectric to paraelectric (FE-PE) transitions including those in PbTiO3 is commonly described by the phenomenological Landau theory and more recently by effective Hamiltonian and various potentials, all with model parameters fitted to experimental or theoretical data. Here we show that the zentropy theory, which considers the total entropy of a system as a weighted sum of entropies of configurations that the system may experience and the statistical entropy among the configurations, can predict the FE-PE transition without fitting parameters. For PbTiO3, the configurations are identified as the FE configurations with 90- or 180-degree domain walls in addition to the ground state of the FE configuration without domain wall. With the domain wall energies predicted from first-principles calculations based on the density functional theory in the literature as the only inputs, the FE-PE transition for PbTiO3 is predicted showing remarkable agreement with experiments, unveiling the microscopic fundamentals of the transition

Isolation, identification and complete genome sequence analysis of a strain of foot-and-mouth disease virus serotype Asia1 from pigs in southwest of China

Abstract Backgroud Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) serotype Asia1 generally infects cattle and sheep, while its infection of pigs is rarely reported. In 2005-2007, FMD outbreaks caused by Asia1 type occurred in many regions of China, as well as some parts of East Asia countries. During the outbreaks, there was not any report that pigs were found to be clinically infected. Results In this study, a strain of FMDV that isolated from pigs was identified as serotype Asia1, and designated as "Asia1/WHN/CHA/06". To investigate the genomic feature of the strain, complete genome of Asia1/WHN/CHA/06 was sequenced and compared with sequences of other FMDVs by phylogenetic and recombination analysis. The complete genome of Asia1/WHN/CHA/06 was 8161 nucleotides (nt) in length, and was closer to JS/CHA/05 than to all other strains. Potential recombination events associated with Asia1/WHN/CHA/06 were found between JS/CHA/05 and HNK/CHA/05 strains with partial 3B and 3C fragments. Conclusion This is the first report of the isolation and identification of a strain of FMDV type Asia1 from naturally infected pigs. The Asia1/WHN/CHA/06 strain may evolve from the recombination of JS/CHA/05 and HNK/CHA/05 strains.</p