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The purpose of this paper is to detail the development of a multimedia courseware that enhances the learning of rapid prototyping (RP) among professionals, senior year and graduate students.

The design and development of the multimedia courseware is based on a “visit a science museum” concept where each topic can be accessed depending on the interests or the needs of users. Factors that influence learning curve such as structure of information, application of visual and auditory components and human‐computer interface are addressed and discussed.

Instructions using multimedia significantly enhances the education process of RP technology. Methods to produce a good multimedia courseware have been introduced.

This paper describes the latest version of the multimedia courseware which is an accompaniment to the third edition of the book entitled Rapid Prototyping: Principles & Applications published in 2009.

This chapter offers a case study of the distinctive political activism in Taiwanese metal by analysing the intertextuality of Just Not Meant to Be (還君明珠) (2015) by Crescent Lament (恆月三途). From the perspective of a cultural insider, the author examine the socio-cultural dynamics underlying this activism and explain how Taiwanese metal attempts to tackle the troubled past of Taiwan. The author brings attention to Just Not Meant to Be's commentary about the activism it takes part in, and reflect on problematics inherent to political activism in Taiwanese metal. Finally, the author explicates the problematics in the context of metal subculture in general. Pivotal throughout this chapter are the questions: Why does Taiwanese metal replicate forms of domination it seeks to counter? What can metal subculture in general learn from Taiwanese metal and its political activism?

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

Hong Kong and Singapore are economically similar and rival international financial centers. Banks in both Hong Kong and Singapore operate in very similar environments: internationally oriented with protected domestic banking market and firm regulators. With liberalization under the Financial Services Accord of the World Trade Organization (WTO), comes more competition and the growing importance for banks to ensure that they are X‐efficient so as to compete successfully or risk being marginalized. This paper uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess X‐efficiency of banks in Hong Kong and Singapore via a two‐stage (combining both the intermediation and production stages) banking model. Changes in X‐efficiency over time are computed to determine if policy initiatives have facilitated improvements in efficiency. Our results on X‐efficiency of banks demarcated by size and ownership provide valuable insights into the issues of scale economies and the impact of family ownership on X‐efficiency.

Gives an in depth view of the strategies pursued by the world’s leading chief executive officers in an attempt to provide guidance to new chief executives of today. Considers the marketing strategies employed, together with the organizational structures used and looks at the universal concepts that can be applied to any product. Uses anecdotal evidence to formulate a number of theories which can be used to compare your company with the best in the world. Presents initial survival strategies and then looks at ways companies can broaden their boundaries through manipulation and choice. Covers a huge variety of case studies and examples together with a substantial question and answer section.

The role of logistics service provider (LSP) is essential for efficient logistics service quality (LSQ) and supply chain management, especially in multimodal transport. Multimodal transport routes that use the Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR) play an important role in the supply chains of Northeast Asia. This paper aims to identify current conditions of TSR LSQ and propose improvements to enhance the competitiveness of traditional routes. Therefore, this study sheds light on and provides recommendations for various managerial strategies to LSPs in the context of the TSR. This study utilizes Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) to measure levels of importance and performance of the logistics service of LSPs that provide multimodal transport services via the TSR from South Korea to Europe. This study identifies capabilities on the basis of five criteria (price, timeliness, reliability, equipment systems, and customer service) from a customers’ perspective. The results of the research indicate that operational improvements should be considered to activate TSR multimodal transport for northern logistics routes from the perspective of Korean shippers. Specific findings show that balanced development strategies are needed for logistics routes that have not yet been significantly activated, while implying that logistics costs could be reduced initially to satisfy shippers. This study presents an operational strategy for LSPs using the TSR in northern logistics through IPA methods. Furthermore, this research can help policymakers propose specific policies to revitalize the northern logistics of Korean logistics companies and to provide incentive supports for shippers.

Based on the Mehrabian–Russell theory, the purpose of this paper is to view the attributes of advertorial information as a stimulus in an online environment to examine the emotional states of consumers and their sequential behavioral responses. Moreover, materialism is proposed as a moderator in the relationship between advertorial attributions and emotion.

By adopting a quantitative approach, 421 consumers with browsing forums or blog experience participated in the study. SEM techniques were adopted for the formal data analysis.

There was a causation found among control, arousal and pleasure. Advertorial attributes influenced the consumers’ emotional states via control, and emotional states directly affected the information acceptance and purchase intention. Materialism partially moderated the relationship between the advertorial information attributions and emotional states.

Advertorial editors should provide detailed product information with credible sources in a positive manner and should attach videos or interesting pictures to avoid boredom and attract reader attention, especially in the case of materialists. In addition, editors should also provide some related hyperlinks for consumers to stimulate their further reading and then should observe the number of clicks and shares to estimate the popularity of the advertorial, so adjustments can be made if necessary.

This paper confirmed the causation of pleasure, arousal and the validity of the dominance (PAD) emotional model and found a partially moderating effect of materialism on the relationship between the attributes of advertorials and the emotional states of consumers.

Considers the effects on the mass media of China’s transition to a more open economy and the strategies which advertisers might use to overcome the problems it presents. Describes the media available (including the unofficial “black route”, the official but restricted private sector “white route”, and the state “red route”) and lists the challenges which advertisers face in using them. Suggests some strategies and practices which can help to overcome them and some hypotheses on future media use. Calls for further research in this area.

The purpose is to bring together all bibliographic references of the published literature on electronic books (e‐books) and related technologies in one source so that it will save time for others in conducting literature searches and reviewing the developments.

The information included in this bibliography is collected systematically from all the published sources in the world such as journal articles, conference papers, conference proceedings, books, reports and PhD theses on e‐books until the last quarter of 2004. Mainly it covers e‐books, e‐books publishing, the impact of e‐books on different types of users, e‐book publishing techniques and trends, e‐book user interfaces and other technologies related to e‐publications.

As computer usage continues to grow exponentially, the desire of users to use electronic publications (e‐publications) has also increased tremendously. This has led to the publication of materials in electronic form as e‐publications on both CD‐ROMs and web. The e‐book is one of the several forms of e‐publications and its popularity has been growing steadily for the past decade.

This bibliography will be useful to all researchers conducting research in any areas related to e‐books and e‐book publishing.