SOCIAL PRESENCE, TRUST, AND SOCIAL COMMERCE PURCHASE INTENTION: AN EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

Lacking the presence of human and social elements is claimed one major weakness that is hindering the growth of e-commerce. The emergence of social commerce (SC) might help ameliorate this situation. Social commerce is a new evolution of e-commerce that combines the commercial and social activities by deploying social technologies into e-commerce sites. Social commerce reintroduces the social aspect of shopping to e-commerce, increasing the degree of social presences in online environment. Drawing upon the social presence theory, this study theorizes the nature of social aspect in online SC marketplace by proposing a set of three social presence variables. These variables are then hypothesized to have positive impacts on trusting beliefs which in turn result in online purchase behaviors. The research model is examined via data collected from a typical ecommerce site in China. Our findings suggest that social presence factors grounded in social technologies contribute significantly to the building of the trustworthy online exchanging relationships. In doing so, this paper confirms the positive role of social aspect in shaping online purchase behaviors, providing a theoretical evidence for the fusion of social and commercial activities. Finally, this paper introduces a new perspective of e-commerce and calls more attention to this new phenomenon

Fibre substitution in the Chinese textile industry

This thesis examines the dramatic changes that have taken place in fibre substitution trends in China's rapidly growing textile industry. It presents a systematic analysis of a wide range of factors that may have affected textile mills' choice of fibre inputs. The empirical study is greatly faciUtated by a survey of Chinese textile manufacturers conducted by the author in 1992. Mills' demand for fibres is derived from domestic and foreign demand for textile and clothing products. The thesis uses both descriptive and statistical tools to define the fibre substitution path at end-use level as the Chinese economy grows. It is shown that demand for wool products, especially in the textile and clothing markets, is highly responsive to income growth, and that the changes that have taken place in the fibre composition of exported products conform closely with the relative strength of comparative advantage developed by China since the adoption of an open door policy. Technological change affects fibre substitution mainly through diffusion. Application of the standard logistic diffusion model to data on aggregate wool and cotton shares indicates that chemical fibres have already gained most of their potential market share in the wool sector, while cotton may be subject to tougher competition from synthetics in the years ahead. Once the impact of technological diffusion loses its momentum, price competition becomes important, especially as Chinese firms have indeed become more profit- and market-oriented as a resuh of economic reform. With behavioural change in state firms, the development of fibre markets and the hardening of firms' budget constraint, neoclassical demand models can be applied to the measurement of price responsiveness and competition between fibres in the Chinese textile industry. A dynamic translog cost model is applied to mills' consumpfion data to analyse price-induced fibre substitution in the Chinese wool textile industry. The results indicate that mills' demand for wool is responsive to a change in prices. The price elasticity of demand for wool is found to be -0.2 in the short run, but higher in the long run (-0.52). There is also heavy price compefition between wool and chemical fibres, with cross-price elasticity of demand for chemical fibres estimated at 0.53 in the short run and 1.37 in the long run. Attention is also given to the impact of policy on fibre demand and substitution. The focus is on the fibre self-sufficiency policy, from which many other policies are derived. Analysis has shown that fibre self-sufficiency inevitably falls as an economy grows in the case of a resource-poor and/or densely populated country such as China. The faster decline in China's wool than cotton self-sufficiency increased the government's determination to impose a fibre substitution policy on the wool textile industry, thereby contributing to a heavier substitution of chemical fibres into wool than cotton. The study also shows that the relative importance of various trade and foreign exchange restrictions has varied over time and that wool has bome the brunt of these restrictions. In an attempt to gain a fuller understanding of fibre substitution in the Chinese textile industry, the dissertation takes a further step: identifying all the factors that could possibly be considered influential in manufacturers' choice of fibres. This is achieved mainly through a survey of selected Chinese textile manufacturers. Although some of the survey results merely confirm previous empirical findings, others provide fresh information of value to foreign supplying countries. Some important strategic implications can be drawn from the study for fibre supplying countries, and especially for Austraha as a major wool supplier. Both challenges and opportunities exist. If appropriate action is taken at this critical time, it may be possible for wool to realise its market potential in China

Random Asynchronous Iterations in Distributed Coordination Algorithms

Distributed coordination algorithms (DCA) carry out information processing processes among a group of networked agents without centralized information fusion. Though it is well known that DCA characterized by an SIA (stochastic, indecomposable, aperiodic) matrix generate consensus asymptotically via synchronous iterations, the dynamics of DCA with asynchronous iterations have not been studied extensively, especially when viewed as stochastic processes. This paper aims to show that for any given irreducible stochastic matrix, even non-SIA, the corresponding DCA lead to consensus successfully via random asynchronous iterations under a wide range of conditions on the transition probability. Particularly, the transition probability is neither required to be independent and identically distributed, nor characterized by a Markov chain

An Efficient 1 Iteration Learning Algorithm for Gaussian Mixture Model And Gaussian Mixture Embedding For Neural Network

We propose an Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) learning algorithm, based on our previous work of GMM expansion idea. The new algorithm brings more robustness and simplicity than classic Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm. It also improves the accuracy and only take 1 iteration for learning. We theoretically proof that this new algorithm is guarantee to converge regardless the parameters initialisation. We compare our GMM expansion method with classic probability layers in neural network leads to demonstrably better capability to overcome data uncertainty and inverse problem. Finally, we test GMM based generator which shows a potential to build further application that able to utilized distribution random sampling for stochastic variation as well as variation control

Biología pesquera de la pota gigante Dosidicus gigas en aguas exteriores a la Zona Económica Exclusiva de Chile

The jumbo flying squid Dosidicus gigas is widely distributed in the eastern Pacific Ocean and supports an important fishery. Although many studies have been carried out on the biology of this species, limited biological information is available in the waters outside the Exclusive Economic Zone of Chile (EEZ) (20°S-41°S and 74°30’W-84°W). Three surveys were conducted in this area by the Chinese squid jigging vessels during the period from April 2006 to May 2008. The majority of the catch in the survey was from the two areas defined by 37°30’-41°S and 78°30’-80°W and by 25°-30°S and 76°-77°30’W. The sex ratio (M: F) of the catch was 1: 2.48. The mean mantle length (ML) was 376 mm for males with a range of 257-721 mm and 388.7 mm for females with a range of 236-837 mm. Two distinguished size classes, medium- and large-sized groups, were identified in this study with the medium-sized group (350-450 mm ML) consisting of 89% of the total catch. The sizes at first sexual maturity were 638 mm ML for females and 565 mm ML for males. This study suggests that all the individuals examined were hatched from March 2007 to February 2008, indicating that D. gigas might spawn all year around with a peak spawning time from November 2007 to January 2008. Most of the stomachs analyzed had food remains. The preys included three major groups: fish (mainly lanternfish), cephalopods and crustaceans, but D. gigas was the dominant species in the stomach contents, showing strong evidence of cannibalism. The information obtained from this study improves our understanding of the fishery biology of D. gigas off Chile.La pota gigante Dosidicus gigas está ampliamente distribuida en el océano Pacífico oriental y soporta una pesquería importante. Aunque se han realizado muchos estudios sobre la biología de esta especie, la información existente para aguas externas a la Zona Económica Exclusiva (ZEE) de Chile (20ºS-41ºS y 74º30’W-84ºW) es muy limitada. Los barcos poteros chinos realizaron tres campañas en esta área entre abril de 2006 y mayo de 2008. La mayoría de las capturas en esas campañas proceden de dos áreas definidas por las coordenadas 37º31’S-41ºS 78º30’W-80ºW y 25ºS-30ºS 76ºW-77º30’W, respectivamente. La relación sexual (M:H) en las capturas fue de 1:2.48. La longitud media del manto (LM) fue de 376 mm para los machos con un rango que varió entre 257 y 721 mm, y de 388.7 mm para las hembras (236-837 mm). Se diferenciaron dos clases de tamaño: un grupo medio, cuya LM varió entre 350 y 450 mm representando un 89% de la captura total, y un grupo grande. La talla de primera maduración sexual fue de 638 mm para las hembras y de 565 mm para los machos. Este trabajo sugiere que todos los individuos examinados habían nacido entre marzo de 2007 y febrero de 2008, lo cual indica que D. gigas puede frezar durante todo el año, habiendo existido un pico de puesta desde noviembre de 2007 hasta enero de 2008. La mayoría de los estómagos analizados contenían restos. Las presas incluyen tres grandes grupos de organismos: peces (principalmente mictófidos), cefalópodos y crustáceos. Sin embargo, D. gigas fue la presa dominate en los contenidos estomacales, lo cual es una evidencia del fuerte canibalismo existente en esta especie. La información que se deriva de este trabajo mejora nuestro conocimiento sobre la biología de D. gigas frente a Chile