Measuring The Flow Experience Of Players Playing Online Games

Nowadays, online games have become a highly profitable e-commerce application. Therefore, researchers increasingly believe that understanding online game player behavior is critical to the success of online game practitioners.The factors influencing the flow of online games are of major concern to academic researchers and online games practitioners. Drawing on the theory of flow, this study empirically explores how the interactivity and intrinsic beliefs impact flow experience, and how flow experience is related to replay intention. Then, confirmatory factor analysis is applied to test and the proposed research model is evaluated with partial least squares (SmartPLS 2.0). The results show that flow experience is a significant predictor ofreplay intention. Four antecedents to flow (telepresence, focused attention, skills and challenges) have positive influence on flow experience. Interactivity (social interactivity and human-machine interactivity) and intrinsic beliefs (perceived attractiveness, personal involvement) influence the antecedents of flow experience. Moreover, social interactivity has a stronger impact on the antecedents of flow experience than human-machine interactivity. This study finds that social interactivity is most crucial to online game success

An Overall Purchasing Process Model of Internet Buyers: The Role of Regret in Electronic Commerce

This study focuses on the antecedents and consequences of Internet buyer regret in the overall purchasing process. We examine the roles that search effort, service-attribute evaluations, product-attribute evaluations and post-purchase price perceptions play in determining buyer regret and satisfaction in e-commerce. Furthermore, the study examines the consequences of regret and satisfaction in regard to purchasing intention. Survey data collected from 422 respondents were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) with partial least squares (PLS-Graph 3.0) and support provided for the hypothesized links. These results show that greater search effort and lower evaluations of service, product and price lead to greater buyer regret and dissatisfaction; the consequences of regret include reduced satisfaction and less intention to repurchase. Based on the results, implications for online retailers, as well as suggestions for future research relating to Internet buyer regret, are discussed

A Study of the Impact of the e-CRM Perspective on Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty-Exemplified by Bank Sinopac

As the Taiwanese government gradually opens up the country’s banking sector in recent years, the number of financial institutions of Taiwan has increased rapidly. Until the end of January 2010, the number of the domestic banks is up to 37, the average number of the customers served in each branch is less than 4,000. As all banks wish to be more competitive in such an environment, new advertising and marketing skills are taken. New banking services and technology are also provided in order to attract more customers. The study aims to discuss the relationship among three aspects including the Electronic Customer Relationship Management, Customer Satisfaction, Customer Loyalty, and we choose Bank Sinopac users as subject. In addition, the following results are concluded by statistics and analysis: 1. Using e-CRM had obvious on the customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. 2. Customer satisfaction had obvious on the customer loyalty

Control Design for Signal Transduction Networks

Signal transduction networks of biological systems are highly complex. How to mathematically describe a signal transduction network by systematic approaches to further develop an appropriate and effective control strategy is attractive to control engineers. In this paper, the synergism and saturation system (S-systems) representations are used to describe signal transduction networks and a control design idea is presented. For constructing mathematical models, a cascaded analysis model is first proposed. Dynamic analysis and controller design are simulated and verified

PHYSICAL OR DIGITAL? FACTORS DRIVE CONSUMERS TO PURCHASE DIGITAL MUSIC

The development of digital products is booming in recent years because of the mature of entire environment. Among them, digital music should be the spotlight with unexpectedly expending speed. However, most studies of electronic commerce still focus on the field of physical products, but missing the value of digital wave. The purpose here is to explore and complements digital parts. In this study, we constructed the research model based on TRA and extended it with the advantage and disadvantage of intangibility (convenience, perceived risk), some characteristics of digital product (price, variety, trialability), and the factor related to entertainment (perceived playfulness) to predict what are consumer really concerned when they buy digital music.8 hypotheses were supported. Finally, we proved TRA is still a useful theory in the field of digital product

An Empirical Study of Factors Influencing the Adoption of Internet Banking

With rapid development of information technology, the banking industry has undergone significant operation changes over the last decade. Owing to few studies have examined the role of privacy concerns, trust and their antecedents in this issue, we consider that it is essential to identify the factors affect the adoption of Internet banking. Therefore, an empirical study was undertaken and the data of 670 responses was collected. In our attempt to bridge this gap, we found that perceived vulnerability and social awareness can significantly affect privacy concerns. In addition, perceived reputation and perceived similarity are also significant antecedents of trust, and it is consistent as prior studies in other fields. Furthermore, we found no support for the hypothesized effect of perceived size on trust as physical e-commerce. Finally, to our surprise, the negative relationship between privacy concerns and behavioral intention does not support. Therefore, bank managers can take these hypotheses into strategic considerations when they popularize the internet banking services to their customers. Since social awareness and perceived vulnerability are the personalities of the customer, banks can enhance their trust by not only reinforcing the physical reputation but also building up more similarity between physical bank and website style of internet banking. In sum, our research provide a different perspective on this critical, and we can reconsider other related factors in the further research

Controllable Majorana vortex states in iron-based superconducting nanowires

There has been experimental evidence for the Majorana zero modes (MZMs) in solid state systems, which are building blocks for potential topological quantum computing. It is important to design devices, in which MZMs are easy to manipulate and possess a broad topological non-trivial parameter space for fusion and braiding. Here, we propose that the Majorana vortex states in iron-based superconducting nanowires fulfill these desirable conditions. This system has a radius-induced topological phase transition, giving a lower limit to the radius of the nanowire. In the topological phase, there is only one pair of MZMs in the nanowire over a wide range of radius, chemical potential, and external magnetic field. The wavefunction of the MZM has a sizable distribution at the side edge of the nanowire. This property enables one to control the interaction of the MZMs in neighboring vortex nanowires, and paves the way for Majorana fusion and braiding.Comment: 13 pages and 7 figure

Strong Majorana evidence of a vortex from scanning tunneling microscopy with a dissipative environment

It is predicted that a vortex in a topological superconductor contains a Majorana zero mode (MZM). The confirmative Majorana signature, i.e., the $2e^2/h$ quantized conductance, however is easily sabotaged by unavoidable interruptions, e.g. instrument broadening, non-Majorana signal, and extra particle channels. We propose to avoid the signal interruption by introducing disorder-induced dissipation that couples to the tip-sample tunneling. With dissipation involved, we highlight three features, each of which alone can provide a strong evidence to identify MZM. Firstly, dissipation suppresses a finite-energy Caroli-de Gennes-Matricon (CdGM) conductance peak into a valley, while it does not split MZM zero-bias conductance peak. Secondly, we predict a dissipation-dependent scaling feature of the zero-bias conductance peak. Thirdly, the introduced dissipation manifests the MZM signal by suppressing non-topological CdGM modes. Importantly, the observation of these features does not require a quantized conductance value $2e^2/h$.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures with reference list update

Observation of Majorana fermions with spin selective Andreev reflection in the vortex of topological superconductor

Majorana fermion (MF) whose antiparticle is itself has been predicted in condensed matter systems. Signatures of the MFs have been reported as zero energy modes in various systems. More definitive evidences are highly desired to verify the existence of the MF. Very recently, theory has predicted MFs to induce spin selective Andreev reflection (SSAR), a novel magnetic property which can be used to detect the MFs. Here we report the first observation of the SSAR from MFs inside vortices in Bi2Te3/NbSe2 hetero-structure, in which topological superconductivity was previously established. By using spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS), we show that the zero-bias peak of the tunneling differential conductance at the vortex center is substantially higher when the tip polarization and the external magnetic field are parallel than anti-parallel to each other. Such strong spin dependence of the tunneling is absent away from the vortex center, or in a conventional superconductor. The observed spin dependent tunneling effect is a direct evidence for the SSAR from MFs, fully consistent with theoretical analyses. Our work provides definitive evidences of MFs and will stimulate the MFs research on their novel physical properties, hence a step towards their statistics and application in quantum computing.Comment: 4 figures 15 page

Vibrio vulnificus in Taiwan

Clinical features of 84 patients with V. vulnificus infection are analyzed and molecular features of isolates are described