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This study examines a way to enhance the effectiveness of commercials embedded in the telecasts of mega sporting events. We hypothesise that embedded commercials are more likeable when the cues of the commercials match the motivations induced by the telecasts of sports games. Specifically, we posit that the telecasts of mega-sporting events induce motives of relatedness (rather than motives of competence) and that the advertisements embedded in these telecasts will be more effective when they appeal to the relatedness motive. The results support this hypothesis. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed and future research directions are provided.

The purpose of this paper is to report the effect of sputtering time on the electrical and physical properties of ZrO_x. ZrO_x (measured thickness is ranging from 20.5 to 51.3 nm) thin films as gate oxide materials are formed by metal deposition at different sputtering time and thermal oxidation techniques.

Zirconium is deposited on silicon substrate at three different sputtering time; 30‐, 60‐ and 120‐s continued with an oxidation process conducted at 500°C for 15 min to form ZrO_x thin films. High‐resolution X‐ray diffraction (HR‐XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and electrical characterizations were used to examine the properties of the thin film.

A broad ZrO_x peak lies in between 26° and 31° from HR‐XRD is presumed as the effect of small thickness of ZrO_x and or the ZrO_x is still partially crystalline. FTIR spectroscopy results suggested that besides ZrO_x, SiO_x interfacial layer (IL) has also formed in all of the investigated samples. As the sputtering time increases, hysteresis between the forward and reverse bias of capacitance‐voltage curve has reduced. The lowest leakage current density and the highest oxide breakdown voltage have been demonstrated by 60‐s sputtered sample. These may be attributed to a lower effective oxide charge and interface trap density. The extracted dielectric constant (κ) of these oxides is ranging from 9.4 to 18, in which the κ value increases with the increase in sputtering time.

ZrO_x thin film which was fabricated by sputtering method at different sputtering time and thermal oxidation techniques showed distinctive electrical results. SiO_x IL formed in the samples.

The purpose of this paper is to propose two performance-based capital budgeting (PBCB) approaches. The proposed approaches aim to assign limited capital within different firms based on their performance. These approaches have been applied to capital budgeting process of the technical and vocational training schools of Semnan Province, Iran for the fiscal year 2014–2016. Although the current capital of each decision-making unit (DMU) is secured in the first approach, the second approach provides possibility of sharing the capital between DMUs.

Data envelopment analysis which is a broadly used mathematical programming technique for assessing performance of DMUs is utilized for the first phase of both approaches. The proposed models are based on linear programming. Different scenarios are presented and their pros and cons for the capital budgeting process are discussed.

The proposed approaches are applied to capital budgeting process for a fiscal year of technical and vocational training schools of Semnan Province, Iran. The budget allocation of the previous year has been found to be non-optimal in terms of budget consuming. This emphasizes reconsideration of budget allotment within schools. The results show a high potential for producing more outputs. The second approach that provides the possibility of sharing and realloting of budget between schools based on their performance may be crucial for those schools that are not performing efficiently because there is possibility of losing budget in each given year in contrast with the previous years.

This paper proposes two linear programming-based approaches for the PBCB. The author not only deals with static framework but also proposes dynamic structured models. Using performance-based budgeting in organizations has been emphasized by authorities in Iran for many years. Using the proposed approaches, different suggestion and policy recommendation for decision makers in process of capital budgeting process within period of study are provided for technical and vocational training schools of Semnan Province, Iran.

The high density of defects mainly attributed to the presence of silicon oxycarbides, residual C clusters, Si- and C-dangling bonds at or near the SiO₂/SiC interface degrades the performance of metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) devices. In the effort of further improving the quality and enhancement of the SiC oxides thickness, post-oxidation annealed by a combination of nitric acid (HNO₃) and water (H₂O) vapor technique on thermally grown wet-oxides is introduced in this work. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A new technique of post-oxidation annealing (POA) on wet-oxidized n-type 4H-SiC in a combination of HNO₃ and H₂O vapor at various heating temperatures (70°C, 90°C and 110°C) of HNO₃ solution has been introduced in this work.

It has been revealed that the samples annealed in HNO₃ + H₂O vapour ambient by various heating temperatures of HNO₃ solution; particularly at 110°C is able to produce oxide with lower interface-state density and higher breakdown voltage as compared to wet-oxidized sample annealed in N2 ambient. The substrate properties upon oxide removal show surface roughness reduces as the heating temperature of HNO₃ solution increases, which is mainly attributed due to the significant reduction of carbon content at the SiC/SiO₂ interface by C=N passivation and CO or CO₂ out-diffusion.

Despite being as a strong oxidizing agent, vaporized HNO₃ can also be utilized as nitridation and hydrogen passivation agent in high temperature thermal oxidation ambient and these advantages were demonstrated in 4H-SiC.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of solder alloying with a small amount of La and Y on bond formation with the Si and Cu substrates.

Bi₂La and Bi₂Y solders were studied. Soldering was performed using a fluxless method in air and with ultrasonic activation.

It was found that in the process of ultrasonic soldering, the La and Y were distributed at the interface with Si and Cu substrates, which enhanced the bond formation. Addition of La or Y elements in a Bi-based solder also ensured wetting of non-metallic materials such as Si, Al₂O₃ and SiC ceramics.

The addition of lanthanides offers a method for ensuring wetting of non-metallic materials. The bond with Si was of an adhesive character without the formation of a new contact interlayer. This resulted in lower shear strength of the bond with Si (8-10 MPa). The shear strength of the bond with a Cu substrate was 22-30 MPa.

The purpose of this paper is to electrically examine the quality of thin thermally grown SiO₂ with thickness variation, on Si‐face of 4H‐SiC <0001> (having 50 μm epitaxial layer) by current‐voltage (I‐V) and capacitance‐voltage (C‐V) methods.

Metal‐oxide‐silicon carbide (MOSiC) structures with varying oxide thickness have been fabricated on device grade 4H‐SiC substrate. Ni has been used for gate metal on thermally oxidized Si‐face and a composite layer of Ti‐Au has been used for Ohmic contact on the highly doped C‐face of the substrate. Each structure was diced and bonded on a TO‐8 header with a suitable wire bonding for further testing using in‐house developed LabVIEW‐based computer aided measurement setup.

The leakage current of fabricated structures shows an asymmetric behavior with the polarity of gate bias ( + V or −V at the anode). A strong relation of oxide thickness and temperature on effective barrier height at SiO₂/4H‐SiC interface as well as on oxide charges have been established and reported in this paper.

The paper focuses on the development of 4H‐SiC based device technology in the fabrication of MOSiC‐based integrated structures.

This paper aims to find proper technological parameters of low-temperature joining technique by silver sintering to eventually use this technique for reliable electronic packaging.

Based on the literature and author’s own experience, the factors influencing the nanosized Ag particle sintering results were identified, and their significance was assessed.

It has been shown that some important technological parameters clearly influence the quality of the joints, and their choice is unambiguous, but the meaning of some parameters is dependent on other factors (interactions), and they should be selected experimentally.

The value of this research is that the importance of all technological factors was analyzed, which makes it easy to choose the technological procedures in the electronic packaging.

Extended from Hofstede’s cultural framework, this study investigated the differences between the Australian (representing the Western culture) and Chinese (representing the Eastern Culture) consumers in regard to their attention paid to product attribute cues presented on food labels and the degree of such attention controlling for an individual-level moderator of product involvement.

Data were collected using face-to-face interviews with semi-structured questionnaires for both Australian and Chinese samples. The questionnaire data were analysed using factorial between-groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) to investigate the influence of culture and product involvement on the attention paid/degree of attention to product nature-related (e.g. brand name), product assurance-related (e.g. country-of-origin) and health-related attribute (e.g. nutritional panel) cues.

The findings revealed that Chinese consumers, as compared to Australian consumers, paid attention to more product-assurance cues (i.e. country of origin) and health-related cues (i.e. bioactivity indicators). The degrees of attention to these cues were also greater among Chinese consumers than for Australian consumers. Product involvement moderated the relationship between culture and attention towards product nature and product assurance-related cues.

Results from this study enable exporters to customize their labelling design by strategically including label information that is more salient to certain export markets.

This study offers a novel insight into the impact of culture on consumers’ attention to food product attributes and the interaction effects of product involvement on these relationships, hitherto underexplored.

Die edge quality with its corresponding die strength are two important factors for excellent dicing quality especially for low-k wafers due to their weak mechanical properties and fragile structures. It is shown in past literatures that laser dicing or grooving does yield good dicing quality with the elimination of die mechanical properties. This is due to the excess heat energy that the die absorbs throughout the procedure. Within the internal structure, the mechanical properties of low-k wafers can be further enhanced by modification of the material. The purpose of this paper is to strengthen the mechanical properties of wafers through the heat-treatment process.

The methodology of this approach is by heat treating several low-k wafers that are scribed with different laser energy densities with different laser micromachining parameters, i.e. laser power, frequency, feed speed, defocus reading and single/multibeam setup. An Nd:YAG ultraviolet laser diode that is operating at 355 nm wavelength was used in this study. The die responses from each wafer are thoroughly visually inspected to identify any topside chipping and peeling. The laser grooving profile shape and deepest depth are analysed using a laser profiler, while the sidewalls are characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to detect cracks and voids. The mechanical strength of each wafer types then undergoes three-point bending test, and the performance data is analyzed using Weibull plot.

The result from the experiment shows that the standard wafers are most susceptible to physical defects as compared to the heat-treated wafers. There is improvement for heat-treated wafers in terms of die structural integrity and die strength performance, which revealed a 6% increase in single beam data group for wafers that is processed using high energy density laser output but remains the same for other laser grooving settings. Whereas for multibeam data group, all heat-treated wafer with different laser settings receives a slight increase at 4% in die strength.

Heat-treatment process can yield improved mechanical properties for laser grooved low-k wafers and thus provide better product reliability.