Shirley Coyle, Fernando Benito-Lopez, Tanja Radu, King-Tong Lau and Dermot Diamond
Wearable sensors can be used to monitor many interesting parameters about the wearer’s physiology and environment, with important applications in personal health and well-being…
Abstract
Wearable sensors can be used to monitor many interesting parameters about the wearer’s physiology and environment, with important applications in personal health and well-being, sports performance and personal safety. Wearable chemical sensors can monitor the status of the wearer by accessing body fluids, such as sweat, in an unobtrusive manner. They can also be used to protect the wearer from hazards in the environment by sampling potentially harmful gas emissions, such as carbon monoxide. Integrating chemical sensors into textile structures is a challenging and complex task. Issues which must be considered include sample collection, calibration, waste handling, fouling and reliability. Sensors must also be durable and comfortable to wear. Here, we present examples of wearable chemical sensors that monitor the person and also his/her environment. We also discuss the issues involved in developing wearable chemical sensors and strategies for sensor design and textile integration.
Details
Keywords
Shirley Cousins and Ashley Sanders
To explore the use of middleware to provide access to a virtual catalogue via Z39.50, allowing its integration with other services. To consider issues arising from the…
Abstract
Purpose
To explore the use of middleware to provide access to a virtual catalogue via Z39.50, allowing its integration with other services. To consider issues arising from the cross‐database search process and the problem of interoperability between systems.
Design/methodology/approach
Middleware was used to establish a Z39.50 server for an existing virtual union catalogue, InforM25. The Copac physical union catalogue was used to carry out cross‐database search tests, investigating the value of query transformation by the middleware and illustrating many of the issues associated with interoperability in cross‐database searching.
Findings
The test results demonstrate the viability and benefits of using middleware to allow the integration of virtual catalogues with other services. The results also illustrate the range of issues affecting the performance of the virtual catalogue, with supporting evidence from the use of the Copac physical union catalogue for cross‐database searching via Z39.50. In particular the discussion highlights the issue of semantic interoperability, as well as emphasising the value of centralised virtual catalogue support.
Research limitations/implications
The research was limited to work on a specific virtual union catalogue, that is InforM25, but the results highlight issues with general relevance in the development of any virtual catalogue. The need for more work on response times in the virtual union catalogue is apparent, along with the related issue of result set post processing.
Originality/value
This paper provides a practical demonstration of the issues important to those involved in making their local catalogue accessible to services, and individuals, outside their own institution, as well as those working on virtual union catalogue development.
Details
Keywords
Wen-Hai Chih, Tao-Sheng Chiu, Li-Chi Lan and Wen-Chang Fang
This study aims to investigate the relationships between consumers’ perceived justice and their behavioral intentions and explores the effects of psychological contract violation…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the relationships between consumers’ perceived justice and their behavioral intentions and explores the effects of psychological contract violation on the relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
This study conducts sampling through the survey to consumers after restaurant dining. This study collected data from 400 respondents and analyzed the data with the structural equation modeling.
Findings
The results indicate that consumers who experience higher level of distribution justice and procedure justice are more likely to have behavioral intentions. This study also reveals that psychological contract violation is a partial mediator of the above relationships. Consumers will feel less psychological contract violation when they perceive more distribution justice and procedure justice and will not significantly affect them more likely to repurchase intention.
Originality/value
During restaurant service, if consumers feel distribution or procedure injustice, they are more likely to engage in negative word-of-mouth. However, the lack of significant and positive effect of interaction justice on negative word-of-mouth in this study can be because of other intervening variables, such as intensity. Furthermore, in terms of customer’s repurchase intention, the results indicate significant and positive effects for all three types of justice on repurchase intention.
Details
Keywords
In this paper I bring together interaction, media, deviance, self, and identity to make sense of how young Singaporeans consume Korean popular (hereafter, K-pop) music and…
Abstract
In this paper I bring together interaction, media, deviance, self, and identity to make sense of how young Singaporeans consume Korean popular (hereafter, K-pop) music and culture. My overarching goal is to highlight that being a music fan is not a straightforward or even easy experience. Rather, the self as music fan is continually developing within a complex variety of social processes, from the circulation of global, mass media representations to inter- and intra-personal interactions. I present data collected from a study on K-pop music consumption in Singapore, a small island-nation in Southeast Asia with an insatiable thirst for foreign culture. The data show how a group of Singaporean K-pop fans were regularly bombarded with largely negative messages about what it means to be K-pop music fans, and how these meanings affected their own negotiations as fans. K-pop fandom provided a sense of shared identity and status within popular youth culture, yet their experiences were often soured by negative media portrayals of deviant fans, whose behaviors risked stigmatizing the K-pop social identity. This paper thus deals with some of the problems for self that being a music fans entails.
Details
Keywords
There has been no lack of criticism in the literature of accounting and logistics over the attention given, or not given, to distribution costs. Dobson stated flatly…
Abstract
There has been no lack of criticism in the literature of accounting and logistics over the attention given, or not given, to distribution costs. Dobson stated flatly: “Distribution is neglected by cost accountants”. Only slightly less deprecating were Lambert and Armitage, who concluded that, for years, “control over distribution costs has been at best haphazard and, at worst, nonexistent”.
The great difficulties which attach to the fixing of legal standards of composition for food products have now to be grappled with by the Departmental Committee appointed by the…
Abstract
The great difficulties which attach to the fixing of legal standards of composition for food products have now to be grappled with by the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture to consider and determine what regulations should be made by the Board, under Section 4 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, with respect to the composition of butter. As we predicted in regard to the labours of the Milk and Cream Standards Committee, so we predict now that the Butter Committee will be unable to do more than to recommend standards and limits, which, while they will make for the protection of the public against the sale of grossly adulterated articles, will certainly not in any way insure the sale of butter of really satisfactory, or even of fair, composition. Standards and limits established by law for the purposes of the administration of criminal Acts of Parliament must of necessity be such as to legalise the sale of products of a most inferior character, to which the term “genuine” may still by law be applied as well as to legalise the sale of adulterated and sophisticated products so prepared as to come within the four corners of the law. It is, of course, an obvious necessity that official standards and limits should be established, and the Board of Agriculture are to be congratulated upon the manner in which they are endeavouring to deal with these extremely knotty problems; but it is important that misconception on the part of the public and the trade with respect to the effect of the regulations to be made should be as far as possible prevented. All that can be hoped for is that the conclusions at which the Committee may find themselves compelled to arrive will not be such as to place too high and too obvious a premium upon the sale of those inferior and scientifically‐adulterated products which are placed in such enormous quantities on the food market.
Universities in the United Kingdom, like their counterparts globally, are confronting difficulties associated with the well-being of students. The origins of these challenges are…
Abstract
Purpose
Universities in the United Kingdom, like their counterparts globally, are confronting difficulties associated with the well-being of students. The origins of these challenges are complex, exacerbated by various global events. In response, universities are trying to address these growing concerns and the escalating need for student support. Faculty members are often recruited to assist students in navigating academic and personal challenges. The aim of this study was to investigate how the process of student mentoring, by faculty members, could be made more operationally robust to better support student demand, thus yielding greater value for both students and staff.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative approach was adopted with 19 academic faculty working as mentors within a UK business school who participated in 90-minute semi-structured interviews. Interviews were analysed using an operational (transformation) management framework, with findings categorised under three key headings – inputs, transformations and outputs – to discover how the operational process of mentoring students could be enhanced.
Findings
Participants discussed the inputs required to deliver mentoring, the process of transformation and their desired outputs. Findings suggest coordinated and relevant inputs that is, information, environments and technology, coupled with good mentor selection and recruitment improves operational robustness, adding greater value to the student experience by creating more purposeful outputs, thereby benefiting themselves and their students.
Originality/value
The application of an operational (transformation) process framework to analyse faculty mentoring of students is unique, thereby offering new insights into the construction and management of these types of academic support initiatives.
Details
Keywords
Reviews the literature of management and information and library service management for 1999.
Abstract
Reviews the literature of management and information and library service management for 1999.