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The purpose of this paper is to determine the physicochemical and sensory properties of fish patties added with banana peel powder (BPP), Musa balbisiana.

Four different fish patty formulations were produced containing 0 per cent (BPP0) (Control), 2 per cent (BPP2), 4 per cent (BPP4) and 6 per cent (BPP6) of BPP (M. balbisiana).

The addition of BPP was shown to improve the hardness, cooking yield, water holding capacity (WHC) and redness (a* value) as well as the dietary fibre (DF) content (p<0.05). The BPP, however, also turned the fish patties darker (lower L*) (p<0.05). Sensory evaluation showed that fish patties with a concentration of 2 per cent BPP had the highest overall acceptability, whereas the concentration of 6 per cent BPP was found to be unacceptable compared to that of control sample (p<0.05). The declining sensory acceptability of fish patty with 6 per cent BPP is related to the harder texture and the darker color of the patties compared to the control sample (BPP0).

The addition of BPP can potentially improve the quality of fish patties in terms of textural properties (hardness) by increasing their WHC, reducing the cooking loss and enhancing the DF content.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

Suggests that misunderstandings frequently occur when trying to understand Chinese language and culture, and so gives the implied meaning of various Chinese expressions and sayings such as greetings, thanks, respect, age, congratulations and taboo subjects.

To better understand the online reviews and help potential consumers, businessmen and product manufacturers effectively obtain users’ evaluation on product aspects, this paper aims to explore the distribution regularities of users’ attention and sentiment on product aspects from the temporal perspective of online reviews.

Temporal characteristics of online reviews (purchase time, review time and time intervals between purchase time and review time), similar attributes clustering and attribute-level sentiment computing technologies are used based on more than 340k smartphone reviews of three products from JD.COM (a famous online shopping platform in China) to explore the distribution regularities of users’ attention and sentiment on product aspects in this paper.

The empirical results show that a power-law distribution can fit users’ attention on product aspects, and the reviews posted in short time intervals contain more product aspects. Besides, the results show that the values of users’ sentiment on product aspects are significantly higher/lower in short time intervals which contribute to judging the advantages and weaknesses of a product.

This paper cannot acquire online reviews for more products with temporal characteristics to verify the findings because of the restriction on reviews crawling by the shopping platforms.

This work reveals the distribution regularities of users’ attention and sentiment on product aspects, which is of great significance in assisting decision-making, optimizing review presentation and improving the shopping experience.

A new integrated method based on the means‐end chain (MEC) analysis and factor analysis is proposed for developing intangible product‐mix strategies for convenience store (CVS) chains. With variables obtained from a survey on CVS service items, both analyses were used to derive the hierarchical value factor map (HVFM). The new map can handle and develop strategies for product differentiation, advertising and market segmentation. The purpose of this article is two‐fold: to propose improvements for the traditional MEC method of constructing the service hierarchical value map (HVM) and to formulate effective intangible‐product strategies.

Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate an optical‐based scanning modality for the real‐time measurements of automotive interior gaps.

The hardware is based on a charge‐coupled device detector acquiring a laser illumination. The laser is projected on multitude of substrates with different reflectivities and surface profiles; while the scanning is progressed manually through a hand‐held setup.

The proposed software identifies the optical gap location automatically and establishes a dynamic field of view.

The study conducts a tool reliability and repeatability study that yield an accuracy of 0.08 mm and a repeatability of less than 6.5 percent as user bias. The developed hardware/software combination, when compared with two commercial systems; a 3D scanner and an industrially packaged sensor unit used for exterior gaps, which provided repeatability values of 24 and 17 percent, respectively, with accuracies of 1.5 and 0.34 mm.

New hardware and software are developed in combination to operate effectively on different deco finish and gap separations.

Examines the ninth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

The purpose of this paper is to construct a multi-relational network for an online sharing platform in the age of the sharing economy, to identify the factors impacting users’ product adoption behavior and to predict consumers’ purchases of user-generated products on the platform.

The study conducted multi-relational network analyses of five different sub-networks in identifying influential factors for e-book adoption. Meanwhile, the study adopted machine learning methods with different classification algorithms and feature sets to predict users’ purchasing behaviors.

The authors found that an individual’s adoption of a product was correlated with his or her purchasing habits and collaboration with others on the online sharing platform. Through the inclusion of network features, the authors were able to build a predictive model that forecasted consumers’ purchases of user-generated e-books with reasonable accuracy.

The interdisciplinary approach used in the study can serve as a good reference for identifying factors impacting the product adoption behavior of users in the online sharing platform, through employing different sociological and computational methods.

The outcome of the study has provided important managerial implications, especially for the design of social commerce platform in the age of the sharing economy.

The authors verified the social influence impacting consumers’ product adoption behavior and shed light on the value of collaboration in the age of the sharing economy.

The study was the first to identify user-generated e-book adoption on an online sharing platform from a multi-relational network perspective. The idea and the approach supplied a new method of behavioral analysis in the context of a sharing economy.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of quality loss in transit on e-commerce supply chain pricing, production and financing decisions.

The authors consider a Stackelberg game model with a supplier, logistics firm and e-commerce platform. The logistics firm is capital-constrained and obtains funding from the e-commerce platform by debt financing or equity financing. Through backward induction, this paper first solves the equilibrium results under the two financing schemes and then reveals the financing preferences of all parties.

The results demonstrate that equity financing reduces financing costs and promotes production significantly. However, it may also lead to overproduction, particularly in markets with poor profitability and high cost factors. When the percentage of product quality loss is large, equity financing is preferable. With the increasing of transportation level, the benefits of debt finance are steadily growing. In addition, equity financing is the Pareto dominant scheme for all firms under certain circumstances. The extensions consider hybrid financing and another quality loss type.

The paper derives the equilibrium solutions and financing preferences, then specifies the threshold for applying financing schemes. Provide guidance for logistics firms’ finance model innovation and core enterprise involvement in the logistics industry.

The paper investigates how logistics firms’ financing strategies are impacted by product quality loss.