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Smartphone multitasking behavior has become prevalent in our daily lives, yet factors influencing smartphone multitasking behavior have not been fully investigated. This study aimed to examine the roles of a set of demographic, personality and motivational factors on smartphone multitasking behavior, and how these factors were related to general and application-specific types of smartphone multitasking behavior.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in which 2,659 smartphone users were invited to complete an online survey on smartphone multitasking behavior. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to examine the roles of demographic, personality and motivational factors on smartphone multitasking behavior.

The results showed that, in general, demographic factors, such as gender, age, occupation status, education and smartphone usage time significantly predicted smartphone multitasking behavior. People characterized by agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness to experience were more likely to multitask with smartphones. Information seeking, efficiency and habit motivations were identified as major motivational factors for smartphone multitasking behavior. The roles of demographic, personality and motivational factors differed much across varied types of application-specific smartphone multitasking behavior.

This study extends and advances the literature on media multitasking, smartphone multitasking in particular, by identifying a set of demographic, personality and motivational factors as antecedents of smartphone multitasking behavior. In addition, this study revealed the differentiated roles of the above-mentioned factors across varied types of smartphone application usages. The findings provide important implications for practitioners to tailor smartphone applications and services to different target smartphone users and use situations.

Flexible pressure sensor arrays have promising applications in analog haptics, reconfiguration of sensory functions, artificial intelligence, wearable devices and human-computer interaction. The force disturbance generated by the connecting material between the sensor array units will reduce the detection accuracy of the unit. The purpose of this paper is to propose a flexible pressure sensor with interference immunity capability. A C-type bridge flexible piezoelectric structure is used to improve the pressure perturbation. The interference immunity capability of the sensor has been improved.

In this paper, a C-type pressure sensor array structure by rapid injection moulding is manufactured through the positive piezoelectric effect of a piezoelectric material. The feasibility of C-type interference immunity structure in a flexible sensor array is verified by further analysis and experiment. A flexible pressure sensor array with C-type interference immunity structure has been proposed.

In this paper, we present the results of the perturbation experiment results of the C-type pressure sensor array, showing that the perturbation error is less than 8%. The test of the flexible sensor array show that the sensor can identify the curved angle of up to 120 °, and the output sensitivity of the sensor in the horizontal state reaches 0.12 V/N, and the sensor can withstand the pressure of 80 N. The flexible sensor can work stably in the stretch rate range of 0–8.6% and the stretch length range of 0–6 mm.

In this paper, C-type pressure sensor array structure is fabricated by rapid injection moulding for the first time. The research in this paper can effectively reduce the disturbance of input pressure on the sensor’s internal array and improve the output accuracy. The sensor can intuitively reflect the number of fingers sliding on the sensor by the order in which the maximum voltage appears. Due to the strong interference immunity capability and flexibility of the flexible sensor array mechanism, it has a broad application prospect in the practical fields of haptic simulation, perceptual function reconstruction, artificial intelligence, wearable devices and human–computer interaction.

This study aims to explore the impact of firm-generated content (FGC) on viral marketing on multiple social media platforms, and how social ties embedded in different social media platforms affect the motives for social dissemination.

Three studies were conducted to test the model. A quasi-field experiment (Study 1) supported this main effect. Studies 2 and 3 examined the underlying mechanism and enhanced the internal and external validity of the findings.

The findings revealed that warmth (vs competence)-oriented FGC is consistent with the communion (vs agency) mode and elicits greater social dissemination on social media embedded with strong (vs weak) ties.

This study illustrates that FGC that matches communication modes on multiple social media platforms embedded with different social ties will trigger viral marketing and being aware of this match is crucial for policymakers.

This research sheds light on the effects of FGC on viral marketing on multiple social media platforms embedded in different social ties.

The purpose of this study is to provide a micro-nano chip automatic alignment system. Used for micron and nanometer channel alignment of microfluidic chip.

In this paper, combined with the reconstructed micro–nanoscale Hough transform theory, a “clamp–adsorb–rotate” chip alignment method is proposed. The designed alignment system includes a microscopic identification device, a clamping device and a suction device. After assembly, the straightness of the linear slide rail in the horizontal and vertical directions was tested, respectively. The results show that in the horizontal and vertical directions, the linearity error of the linear slide is +0.29 and 0.30 µm, respectively, which meets the requirement of chip alignment accuracy of 15 µm. In the direction of rotation, the angular error between the microchannel and the nanochannel is ±0.5°. In addition, an alignment flow experiment of the chip is designed. The results demonstrate that the closer the angle between the microchannel and the nanochannel is to 90°, the fluid fills the entire channel. Compared with the conventional method, the method and the assembly system realize fully automatic double-layer chip alignment.

A mechanical device designed by Hough transform theory can realize microfluidic chip alignment at nanometer and micron level.

The automatic alignment device adopts Hough transform principle and can be used for microfluidic chip alignment.

The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a concurrent outbreak of false information online. Debunking false information about a health crisis is critical as misinformation can trigger protests or panic, which necessitates a better understanding of it. This exploratory study examined the effects of debunking messages on a COVID-19-related public chat on WhatsApp in Singapore.

To understand the effects of debunking messages about COVID-19 on WhatsApp conversations, the following was studied. The relationship between source credibility (i.e. characteristics of a communicator that affect the receiver's acceptance of the message) of different debunking message types and their effects on the length of the conversation, sentiments towards various aspects of a crisis, and the information distortions in a message thread were studied. Deep learning techniques, knowledge graphs (KG), and content analyses were used to perform aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) of the messages and measure information distortion.

Debunking messages with higher source credibility (e.g. providing evidence from authoritative sources like health authorities) help close a discussion thread earlier. Shifts in sentiments towards some aspects of the crisis highlight the value of ABSA in monitoring the effectiveness of debunking messages. Finally, debunking messages with lower source credibility (e.g. stating that the information is false without any substantiation) are likely to increase information distortion in conversation threads.

The study supports the importance of source credibility in debunking and an ABSA approach in analysing the effect of debunking messages during a health crisis, which have practical value for public agencies during a health crisis. Studying differences in the source credibility of debunking messages on WhatsApp is a novel shift from the existing approaches. Additionally, a novel approach to measuring information distortion using KGs was used to shed insights on how debunking can reduce information distortions.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the mechanical and tribological properties of Si₃N₄ ceramics and to make the application of Si₃N₄ ceramics as tribological materials more extensive.

Si₃N₄-based composite ceramics (SN-2L) containing nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (N-GQDs) were prepared by hot press sintering process through adding 2 Wt.% nanolignin as precursor to the Si₃N₄ matrix, and the dry friction and wear behaviors of Si₃N₄-based composite against TC4 disc were performed at the different loads by using pin-on-disc tester.

The friction coefficients and wear rates of SN-2L composite against TC4 were significantly lower than those of the single-phase Si₃N₄ against TC4 at the load range from 15 to 45 N. At higher load of 45 N, SN-2L/TC4 pair presented the lowest friction coefficient of 0.25, and the wear rates of the pins and discs were as low as 1.76 × 10⁻⁶ and 2.59 × 10⁻⁴mm³/N·m. The low friction and wear behavior could be attributed to the detachment of N-GQDs from the ceramic matrix to the worn surface at the load of 30 N or higher, and then an effective lubricating film containing N-GQDs, SiO₂, TiO₂ and Al₂SiO₅ formed in the worn surface. While, at the same test condition, the friction coefficient of the single-phase Si₃N₄ against TC4 was at a range from 0.45 to 0.58. The spalling and cracking morphology formed on the worn surface of single-phase Si3N4, and the wear mechanism was mainly dominated by adhesive and abrasive wear.

Overall, a high-performance green ceramic composite was prepared, and the composite had a good potential for application in engineering tribology fields (such as aerospace bearings).

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-05-2024-0161/

In response to the severe lag in tracking the response of the Stewart stability platform after adding overload, as well as the impact of nonlinear factors such as load and friction on stability accuracy, a new error attenuation function and a parallel stable platform active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) strategy combining cascade extended state observer (ESO) are proposed.

First, through kinematic modeling of the Stewart platform, the relationship between the desired pose and the control quantities of the six hydraulic cylinders is obtained. Then, a linear nonlinear disturbance observer was established to observe noise and load, to enhance the system’s anti-interference ability. Finally, verification was conducted through simulation.

Finally, stability analysis was conducted on the cascaded observer. Experiments were carried out on a parallel stable platform with six degrees of freedom involving rotation and translation. In comparison to traditional PID and ADRC control methods, the proposed control strategy not only endows the stable platform with strong antiload disturbance capability but also exhibits faster response speed and higher stability accuracy.

A new error attenuation function is designed to address the lack of smoothness at d in the error attenuation function of the ADRC controller, reducing the system ripple caused by it. Finally, a combination of linear and nonlinear ESOs is introduced to enhance the system's response speed and its ability to observe noise and load disturbances. Stability analysis of the cascade observer is carried out, and experiments are conducted on a six-degree-of-freedom parallel stable platform with both rotational and translational motion.

The purpose of this paper is to search for the critical-scenarios of autonomous vehicles (AVs) quickly and comprehensively, which is essential for verification and validation (V&V).

The author adopted the index F1 to quantitative critical-scenarios' coverage of the search space and proposed the improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO) to enhance exploration ability for higher coverage. Compared with the particle swarm optimization (PSO), there were three improvements. In the initial phase, the Latin hypercube sampling method was introduced for a uniform distribution of particles. In the iteration phase, the neighborhood operator was adapted to explore more modals with the particles divided into groups. In the convergence phase, the convergence judgment and restart strategy were used to explore the search space by avoiding local convergence. Compared with the Monte Carlo method (MC) and PSO, experiments on the artificial function and critical-scenarios search were carried out to verify the efficiency and the application effect of the method.

Results show that IPSO can search for multimodal critical-scenarios comprehensively, with a stricter threshold and fewer samples in the experiment on critical-scenario search, the coverage of IPSO is 14% higher than PSO and 40% higher than MC.

The critical-scenarios' coverage of the search space is firstly quantified by the index F1, and the proposed method has higher search efficiency and coverage for the critical-scenarios search of AVs, which shows application potential for V&V.

This paper aims to understand the influences of tris (2-hydroxyethyl) isocyanurate oleate and oleic acid tris (2-hydroxyethyl) isocyanurate phosphate ester on biodegradability and tribological performances of mineral lubricating oil.

Tris (2-hydroxyethyl) isocyanurate oleate and oleic acid tris (2-hydroxyethyl) isocyanurate phosphate ester were prepared and characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. The biodegradability and tribological properties of neat oil and its formulations were studied on a tester for fast evaluating biodegradability of lubricants and a four-ball tester, respectively. The worn surfaces were investigated by scanning electron microscope and X-ray photoelectron spectroscope.

Tris (2-hydroxyethyl) isocyanurate oleate and oleic acid tris (2-hydroxyethyl) isocyanurate phosphate ester both improved markedly the biodegradability, the anti-wear properties, friction-reducing properties and extreme pressure properties of base oil. The effect of oleic acid tris (2-hydroxyethyl) isocyanurate phosphate ester was better than tris (2-hydroxyethyl) isocyanurate oleate. The improvement of tribological performances was mainly ascribed to the formation of a complicated boundary lubrication film of tris (2-hydroxyethyl) isocyanurate oleate and oleic acid tris (2-hydroxyethyl) isocyanurate phosphate ester on the friction surfaces.

This paper has indicated that tris (2-hydroxyethyl) isocyanurate oleate and oleic acid tris (2-hydroxyethyl) isocyanurate phosphate ester effectively improve the biodegradability and tribological performances of mineral lubricating oil. Promoting biodegradation of mineral lubricant by additives is very significant for the development of petroleum-based biodegradable lubricants. These two additives not merely improve the tribological performances; more importantly, they improve the ecological performances.

This systematic review synthesizes the recent literature (2010–2020) on hospitality employees’ emotions, affect and moods. This study has three objectives: to clarify the definitions of emotions, affect and moods; to explain how theories are integrated into understanding hospitality employees’ emotions, affect and moods; and to assess how emotions, affect and moods are measured.

Using seven major databases, the authors selected 61 peer-reviewed academic journal articles published in hospitality outlets for review. We based our study on five stages of conducting a systematic review: scoping, planning, identification, screening and eligibility.

Affect is an umbrella term encompassing moods and emotions. Emotions are distinct from emotion-laden constructs, such as emotional labor and emotional intelligence. Theories on conservation of resources, emotional labor and social exchange have been most frequently used to understand hospitality employees’ emotions. However, they overlooked the dynamic nature of emotions when using these theories. Hospitality researchers often used a subset of the positive and negative affect scale and did not discuss back-translation.

Hospitality employees’ emotions lead to far-reaching consequences in attitudes, intentions and behaviors in work and non-work domains. Effective practices (e.g. creating a supportive climate) that help evoke positive employee emotions and reduce negative employee emotions are thus desirable.

Our findings crystallize the understanding of emotions, affect and moods of hospitality employees. We further provide a roadmap for future research on hospitality employees’ emotions. Data triangulation, cross-cultural research and mixed emotions are novel opportunities for future research.