Examining emerging ICT's adoption in SMEs from a dynamic process approach

Purpose – This paper aims to advance information and communication technologies (ICT) adoption research and practice by examining and understanding the emerging ICT adoption in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from a dynamic process perspective using actor-network theory (ANT). Design/methodology/approach – This study employs a qualitative approach to investigate how services SMEs are constantly engaging in ICT adoption for improving business performance. Two rounds of interviews were conducted with 26 interviewees. Data collected from the unstructured and semi-structured interviews were analysed to understand the dynamic adoption process, actors involved and their interactions. Findings – The findings reveal the recursive and dynamic nature of the emerging ICT adoption process and the constant interactions and negotiations of various actors. Underpinned by the key concepts of ANTand validated by the empirical data, a framework is developed to depict the stages of dynamic process of emerging ICT adoption, the actors involved and the associated key activities. Research limitations/implications – Qualitative research is interpretive in nature and the size of the sample used is limited. These limitations require caution for the generalization of the findings. The framework can be further validated across a wider population using mixed methods combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. Practical implications – Emerging ICT adoption has moved from a simple adopters’ participation process to involving various actors that constantly interact and influence the process. SMEs manager can be influenced by and influence the technology advancement. As a result, SMEs need constantly interact with various human and non-human actors to keep up with the new ICT development and benefit from the emerging opportunities. Originality/value – The research focuses on the emerging ICT adoption in SMEs from the dynamic process perspective using ANT. It advances ICT adoption research and practice by developing a framework to depict the dynamic and interactive nature of ICT adoption process, and the actors involved and their interactions in the adoption process. Keywords Adoption, Technology adoption, Actor-network theory, Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) Paper type Research pape

元明愛情悲喜劇比較 :《西廂記》與《拜月亭記》

元代乃中國戲曲藝術發展的黃金時期，其中雜劇更是人材輩出，佳作空前。而王實甫 (? - ?) 的《崔鶯鶯待月西廂記》(以下簡稱《西廂記》)。在當時已備受推崇。近代學者亦視之為愛情悲喜劇中的 著名作品 。[1] 下迄明代，無論劇作、舞台技巧、劇評則更見成熟。四大南戲――《荊釵記》、《劉知遠》、《拜月亭記》和《殺狗記》均是此時的顯世作品。其中，傳為施惠 (? - ?) 所作的《拜月亭記更被譽為四大之首。[2] 恰巧，它跟《西廂記》一樣是愛情悲喜劇。對於兩齣同是改編前人作品，而在思想、內容、技巧均有繼承和創新的戲劇，前人有不少論述。清人沈德潛 (1673 -1769) 在《顧曲雜言》謂元明劇壇 北有西廂，南有幽閏 (《拜月亭記》之別名) 。[3] 明代思想家李贄(1527 - 1602) 於《雜說》中道： 《西廂》、《拜月》化工也 又指《拜月亭記》之關目 以配《西廂》不妨相追逐。 [4] 近代劇論家王季恩將兩劇納入《中國十六古典戲劇集》之中，認定兩劇 有別於歌功頌德，而又流行民間的優秀作品。 [5] 本論文是繼承以往學者之批評而在論述其戲劇史上的地位及文詞之優美外，對於內容結構、悲喜劇情佈局及語言嘗試作進一步分析

Exploring the commercial value of social networks: enhancing consumers’ brand experience through Facebook pages

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the factors which impact upon the consumers’ willingness to utilise company Facebook pages and e-word-of mouth by proposing and testing a conceptual framework which is inspired by theories in marketing and information systems fields. The authors believe that only by applying both theories will provide a more complete understanding of the relationship between brand experience and Facebook. The research model attempts to illustrate the factors according to customers’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and their impact on brand experience, brand Facebook page loyalty and e-word-of-mouth (E-WOM). Design/methodology/approach – The authors adopted an online survey method for data collection. The subjects the authors used were Facebook users. The data were collected in Taiwan over spring 2011. The authors then used the structural equation model to analyse the data collected. Findings – The findings suggest that users are influenced by the technical characterises of a brand Facebook page, such as ease of use and usefulness, which might be combated by attempting to reduce customer effort when accessing Facebook pages. The authors conclude that customer effort influenced brand experience and consequently loyalty to brand Facebook pages and E-WOM. Research limitations/implications – The limitations of this study relate to the investigation of consumer perspectives in a specific geographical context and time frame. Originality/value – The study’s contributions are both theoretical and practical, as it offers new insights into brand experience attitudes in an online environment and useful insights to companies willing to market themselves on Facebook. Keywords Marketing, Facebook, Virtual community, Extrinsic motivations, Intrinsic motivations Paper type Research pape

The Expressive Power of Word Embeddings

We seek to better understand the difference in quality of the several publicly released embeddings. We propose several tasks that help to distinguish the characteristics of different embeddings. Our evaluation of sentiment polarity and synonym/antonym relations shows that embeddings are able to capture surprisingly nuanced semantics even in the absence of sentence structure. Moreover, benchmarking the embeddings shows great variance in quality and characteristics of the semantics captured by the tested embeddings. Finally, we show the impact of varying the number of dimensions and the resolution of each dimension on the effective useful features captured by the embedding space. Our contributions highlight the importance of embeddings for NLP tasks and the effect of their quality on the final results.Comment: submitted to ICML 2013, Deep Learning for Audio, Speech and Language Processing Workshop. 8 pages, 8 figure

On Schr\"odinger equations involving the regional fractional Laplacian in a ball with the zero boundary condition

Our purpose in this article to show the existence of positive classical solutions of $$( - \Delta )_{B_1}^s u +u=h_1 u^p+\epsilon h_2 \quad {\rm in} \ \, B_1,\qquad u = 0 \quad {\rm on}\ \partial B_1$$ for $\epsilon>0$ small enough, where $( - \Delta )_{B_1}^s$ is the regional fractional Laplacian, $p>1$, $h_i$ with $i=1,2$ are H\"older continuous and satisfy some additional conditions. Our existence is based on the solution of $$( - \Delta )_{B_1}^s u +u=1 \quad {\rm in} \ \, B_1,\qquad u = 0 \quad {\rm on}\ \partial B_1.$$Comment: 2

MiR-10b alleviates high glucose-induced human retinal endothelial cell injury by regulating TIAM1 signaling

Purpose: To investigate the effects of microRNA (miR)-10b on high glucose (HG)-induced human retinal endothelial cell (HREC) injury and the mechanisms involved.Methods: Levels of miR-10b were measured in HRECs using quantitative reverse transcriptasepolymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) after the addition of glucose (5.5 and 30 mM). Cell viability was measured using Cell Counting Kit-8 assay, while levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) weredetermined using fluorimetry. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to measure cellular apoptosis. Luciferase reporter assay was used to validate the miR-10b-binding sites of target genes. The levels of T-cell lymphoma invasion and metastasis (TIAM1) and NADPH oxidase-2 (NOX2) were determined using qRT-PCR. Ras-related C3 botulinum toxin substrate 1 (Rac1) activation was evaluated using a pull-down assay. The protein levels of TIAM1 and Rac1 were assayed by western blotting.Results: After HG stimulation, miR-10b expression was downregulated. Viability of HRECs decreased, whereas ROS production increased. However, the overexpression of miR-10b inhibited apoptosis and ROS production in HG-treated HRECs (p < 0.05), while luciferase reporter analysis revealed a possible binding site for miR-10b to target the 3'-untranslated region (UTR) of TIAM1. In addition, the overexpression of miR-10b distinctly reduced the expression levels of TIAM1 and NOX2, but decreased the activation of Rac1 in HG-treated HRECs (p < 0.05); these inhibitory effects of miR-10b were significantly reversed after TIAM1 application.Conclusion: MiR-10b alleviates HG-induced HREC injury by regulating TIAM1 signaling. MiR-10b therapy is a potential therapeutic strategy for patients suffering from diabetic retinopathy. Keywords: MicroRNA-10b, Human retinal endothelial cells, High glucose, TIAM1-Rac1 axi