Search results

From the solution of full Navier—Stokes and energy equations, the development of the flow field and heat transfer characteristics in a radial jet reattachment flow have been analysed. The influence of Reynolds number of re‐attachment length for the case of steady laminar flows has been determined. However, beyond a Reynolds number of 250, the flow field becomes unsteady and has been found to have a periodic nature. This periodic flow has been found to persist up to a Reynolds number of 750. The periodicity has been characterized by the Strouhal number which shows a slight but continuous variation with Reynolds number around a value of 0.12. The point of maximum heat transfer is within the re‐attachment zone in the range of Reynolds numbers studied.

This study aims to integrate research on multimodal congruency with the stereotype-content model to offer a novel explanation of why and when consumers respond favorably to vision-sound congruency in online service settings.

A mixed methods approach included a field study (360° panoramic desktop-virtual tour of a winery) and a laboratory study (fully immersive virtual realtiy (VR) tour of a pub). The explanatory mechanism was tested through conditional process analyses, specifically, a custom-made serial mediation model where effects of cross-modal congruency were channeled through telepresence and warmth/competence with familiarity with the service provider included as a moderator. Category knowledge and involvement were included as controls. Study 2 additionally accounted for sensory olfactory and haptic information present in the consumer’s physical location.

Congruency between vision and sound positively influences consumer intention to visit the environment in person, to purchase online and to engage in positive word-of-mouth. These effects are channeled through enhanced feelings of telepresence as well as more favorable perceptions of service provider warmth. Congruency effects are robust in the presence of additional sensory input in the offline environment and across levels of involvement and knowledge but may depend on a consumer’s familiarity with the setting.

The study offers a novel process explanation for how cross-modal congruency in online service settings influences consumer intention. Examining two specific sensory modalities and two service settings presents limitations.

The findings help service providers to better understand how perceptions of warmth and competence transmit cross-modal congruency effects, resulting in more favorable responses.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is among the first to adopt a stereotype-content and multimodal congruency perspective on consumer response to online service settings.

The purpose of this paper is to present a numerical approach for investigating different phenomena during multiple liquid drop impact on air‐water interface.

The authors have used the coupled level‐set and volume‐of‐fluid (CLSVOF) method to explore the different phenomena during multi‐drop impact on liquid‐liquid interface. Complete numerical simulation is performed for two‐dimensional incompressible flow, which is described in axisymmetric coordinates.

During drop pair impact at very low impact velocities, the process of partial coalescence is observed where the process of pinch off is different than single drop impact. At higher impact velocities, phenomena such as bubble entrapment are observed.

In this paper, a new approach has been developed to simulate consecutive drop impact on a liquid pool.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how a product‐related variable like digitalization and a market‐related variable like price dispersion might differentially influence consumer search intentions across offline versus online shopping interfaces, and how this relationship might be mediated by consumers' perceived risks. Prior research findings are extended and examines how the perceived risk – search intention relationship might be different in online contexts. The distinction is drawn between perceived performance risk versus perceived transaction risk and examines how each of these risks would differentially influence search intentions across the two shopping interfaces (offline versus online).

Two experimental studies are conducted.

Study 1 shows that under conditions when perceived performance risks are enhanced, such as for non‐digitalized (versus digitalized) products, consumers' search intentions are enhanced, with the effects getting magnified in online shopping interfaces. In Study 2, the effects of a condition are examined when instead of performance risks, transaction risks are enhanced by a market‐related variable – price dispersion. The results of Study 2 show that when there is higher price dispersion in the marketplace, in the offline environment, participants have higher search intentions, while in the online environment, participants have lower search intentions. In addition, the effects of price dispersion on search intention in the online environment are mediated by perceived transaction risk.

Limitations of the studies suggest that future research may extend these findings to include non‐student samples, differential search costs, customer‐related factors like trust and involvement, other types of risks like social and psychological, social networking sites, and multichannel search behaviors.

The purpose of this study is to perform a detailed review on the numerical modeling of multiphase and multicomponent flows in microfluidic system using phase-field method. The phase-field method is of emerging importance in numerical computation of transport phenomena involving multiple phases and/or components. This method is not only used to model interfacial phenomena typical to multiphase flows encountered in engineering and nature but also turns out to be a promising tool in modeling the dynamics of complex fluid-fluid interfaces encountered in physiological systems such as dynamics of vesicles and red blood cells). Intrinsically, a priori unknown topological evolution of interfaces offers to be the most concerning challenge toward accurate modeling of moving boundary problems. However, the numerical difficulties can be tackled simultaneously with numerical convenience and thermodynamic rigor in the paradigm of the phase field method.

The phase-field method replaces the macroscopically sharp interfaces separating the fluids by a diffuse transition layer where the interfacial forces are smoothly distributed. As against the moving mesh methods (Lagrangian) for the explicit tracking of interfaces, the phase-field method implicitly captures the same through the evolution of a phase-field function (Eulerian). In contrast to the deployment of an artificially smoothing function for the interface as used in the volume of a fluid or level set method, however, the phase-field method uses mixing free energy for describing the interface. This needs the consideration of an additional equation for an order parameter. The dynamic evolution of the system (equation for order parameter) can be described by Allen–Cahn or Cahn–Hilliard formulation, which couples with the Navier–Stokes equation with the aid of a forcing function that depends on the chemical potential and the gradient of the order parameter.

In this review, first, the authors discuss the broad motivation and the fundamental theoretical foundation associated with phase-field modeling from the perspective of computational microfluidics. They subsequently pinpoint the outstanding numerical challenges, including estimations of the model-free parameters. They outline some numerical examples, including electrohydrodynamic flows, to demonstrate the efficacy of the method. Finally, they pinpoint various emerging issues and futuristic perspectives connecting the phase-field method and computational microfluidics.

This paper gives unique perspectives to future directions of research on this topic.

The contact behaviors of droplets on confined surfaces influence significantly their dynamics and morphological transition induced by the electric field. This paper aims to delve into the electric stress, electric field distribution, flow field and evolution of droplet neck to understand the underlying mechanisms.

Electrohydrodynamics of droplets in confined environment is numerically analyzed based on finite volume method (FVM) combining with volume-of-fluid (VOF) method for two-phase interface capturing. Numerical solutions are obtained through solving electrohydrodynamics model coupling fluid dynamics with electrostatics.

It was found that the droplet neck with high interfacial curvature undergoes different transition depending on the contact angle. At large domain height, the droplets on the surfaces with the contact angle of θ < 90° tend to break up into smaller droplets adhered on top and bottom surfaces. The detachment of droplets is identified when the contact angle is much greater than 90°. Notably, the droplets at θ = 90° exhibit asymmetrical shape evolution, but for other cases there is symmetrical shape of droplets during transition process. With decreasing the domain height, no obvious deformation through driving the contraction of the droplet neck is observed.

It remains unclear how the electric field parallel to the surfaces affects the shape transition and electrohydrodynamics of confined droplets when changing the contact angle. In this paper, the authors study the electrohydrodynamics of droplets in confined space when the electric field is exerted parallel to contact surfaces. In particular, the authors consider the effect of the surface wettability on the droplet deformation. The problem is solved through FVM combining with the VOF method to implement the capturing of two-phase interfaces. The results indicate that the electrohydrodynamic behaviors of droplets are sensitive to the contact properties of droplets on the surfaces, which has not been reported in previous works.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine consumer perceptions of “scratch and save” (SAS) promotions, which are popular store‐level promotional tools. This paper particularly focuses on investigating the moderating effects of consumers' price consciousness and savings expectations.

Two laboratory experimental studies were employed to examine consumer responses to SAS promotions.

The results of two experiments show that SAS promotions positively affect consumer perceptions of offer value and store prices, and consumers' intentions to shop and spread positive word‐of‐mouth. In particular, the effects of SAS promotions are moderated by consumer price consciousness and expected savings. Furthermore, the first study shows that the level of claimed savings of SAS promotions does not favorably affect consumer reactions. The second study also shows that consumers' discounting of expected savings increases as the level of claimed savings of SAS promotions increases.

Although SAS promotions are widely used by various types of retailers, there really is little known as to how consumers respond to SAS promotions. By providing evidence of the effectiveness of SAS promotions, this paper enables pricing researchers to extend issues related to such promotional tools.

For retailers, the most distinctive finding of this paper is that the level of claimed savings may not significantly affect consumer perceptions and shopping intentions, although an SAS promotion would be an effective promotional tool.

As a preliminary effort to examine the effects of SAS promotions, this paper offers a discussion of the future research opportunities.

The purpose of this study is to investigate Chilean consumers’ online purchase behaviour with a specific focus on the influence of perceived risk and trust. Studies of this nature have been conducted quite extensively in developed countries and in cross‐cultural comparative studies most noticeably comparing the USA with Asian countries. However, examining consumers’ perceived risk and trust with online purchasing in a Latin American context is very limited. While not a cross‐cultural study, this gap is addressed in the literature with an empirical study conducted in Chile. Moreover, it aims to address calls to investigate consumers’ post adoption acceptance of a technology to gain insights into which factors are most influential in explaining continuance behaviour.

The paper tests a model of the influence perceptions of risk and trust on consumers’ attitudes and intentions to continue purchasing on the internet. An online survey method is used. The sample consists of 176 Chilean consumers who purchase online. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM).

The analysis reveals that perceived risk online had an inverse relationship with consumers’ attitude and that attitude has a positive influence on intentions to continue purchasing. Of the trust factors examined, trust in third party assurances and a cultural environment of trust have the strongest positive influence on intentions to continue purchasing online, whereas trust in online vendors and a propensity to trust were both insignificant.

In a Latin American context, for marketers in domestic and global companies these results identify which trust beliefs have the most effect on consumer continuance behaviour towards purchasing online. Additionally, this research shows that consumers in a Latin American country, recognized as a collectivist, high risk avoidance culture, are willing to continue making purchases online despite the risks involved.

The study and its results is one of few available that investigates consumers’ perceptions of risk and trust for online purchasing in a Latin American country. The value of the findings provides an insight into the specific trust factors that influence post adoption behaviour; that is Chilean consumers’ continued purchasing online. The findings add value not only to the literature on the Latin American population's e‐commerce behaviour, but also have managerial implications for domestic and global companies considering offering online retailing for consumers in this region where internet penetration rates are very high, but local e‐commerce availability is low.

The authors investigated the effects of the characteristics of reviews, reviewers and corporate factors on review helpfulness and assessed the role of culture in moderating these relationships.

A research model was established based on the elaboration likelihood and information adoption models. To empirically analyze this research model, 10,611 TripAdvisor reviews from 9 countries were collected. In addition, a zero-inflated negative binomial model and multilevel analysis were employed in consideration of the data characteristics.

The results revealed that review depth had a positive effect on review helpfulness, and review ratings and reviewer expertise had a negative effect. As a corporate characteristic, hotel size had a negative effect on review helpfulness. In addition, the effects of review rating, reviewer expertise and hotel rating exhibited significant differences based on the moderating effects of uncertainty avoidance and power distance level.

The results of this study expand the review helpfulness literature by explaining the inconsistent findings of previous studies via cultural theory. In addition, past research in this field has mainly focused on analyzing only review and reviewer characteristics, while this study demonstrated that company size negatively affects review helpfulness based on the signaling theory. Finally, this study contributes to cultural comparison literature by discovering that the processing of review information by consumers differs according to their cultural background.

The current chapter is one of the first studies to specifically address the role of civil society organisations (CSOs) for entrepreneurship development in the disadvantaged context of Sierra Leone. It highlights the important role of CSOs in the petty trading (disadvantaged) entrepreneurial ecosystem. Based on qualitative analysis of interviewers undertaken with two CSOs and three entrepreneurial firms from disadvantaged backgrounds, our findings offer interesting insights into this phenomenon. The authors find that in the context of disadvantaged entrepreneurship development, CSOs are seen as more trustworthy by the general population than the government (public bodies). The government, through the national youth commission, also tried to collaborate with CSOs regarding entrepreneurial skills development in disadvantaged entrepreneurs. The findings further reveal that despite the appreciation of the role of CSOs for disadvantaged entrepreneurship development by public authorities in recent years, they still face many bureaucratic hurdles and delays in operations. Finally, our chapter reveals several dynamics associated with skills and competencies development in disadvantaged entrepreneurship in the Sierra Leone-specific context, where skills such as basic business planning, livestock handling, and financial management emerge as being highly useful.