Reexamining Media Capacity Theories Using Workplace Instant Messaging

This study empirically examines the general propositions of media capacity theories using a newer and increasingly popular communication medium: instant messaging (IM). We develop hypotheses based on the proposition that synchronous communication media are perceived to be more effective for convergence communication while asynchronous communication media are perceived to be more suitable for conveyance communication. These hypotheses were tested using data collected from 81 IM users in four organizations by means of survey instruments developed for this study. The results suggest that although IM was perceived to be a highly synchronous communication medium, it was not perceived to be as effective for convergence communication as it was for conveyance communication. These results seem to challenge the general propositions of media capacity theories. Theoretical implications are discussed.      

使用MSMQ实现SQL SERVER的推送服务

在传统的应用中,客户端从数据库拉取数据。在实时性较强,数据更新周期较长的应用中,一般采用短时间间隔的轮询方式．增加了数据库端的负担。利用数据库的触发器调用CLR存储过程或者扩展存储过程,配合MSMQ的消息传递能力．可以实现数据库推送数据的服务。     

Broadband ISDN — service visions and technological realities

Two forces, service needs and technological advances, are driving the extension of the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) into the broadband area. First, this paper identifies several business and residential services which provide a market pull for broadband ISDN (BISDN). Secondly, it reviews recent advances in optical transmission and broadband switching which provide a technological push. Finally, it describes an experimental broadband prototype constructed to help us better understand the transmission, switching, signaling protocol, software, and service capabilities required for BISDN.     

I,Chatbot: Modeling the determinants of users’ satisfaction and continuance intention of AI-powered service agents

Chatbots are mainly text-based conversational agents that simulate conversations with users. This study aims to investigate drivers of users’ satisfaction and continuance intention toward chatbot-based customer service. We propose an analytical framework combining the expectation-confirmation model (ECM), information system success (ISS) model, TAM, and the need for interaction with a service employee (NFI-SE). Analysis of data collected from 370 actual chatbot users reveals that information quality (IQ) and service quality (SQ) positively influence consumers’ satisfaction, and that perceived enjoyment (PE), perceived usefulness (PU), and perceived ease of use (PEOU) are significant predictors of continuance intention (CI). The need for interaction with an employee moderates the effects of PEOU and PU on satisfaction. The findings also revealed that satisfaction with chatbot e-service is a strong determinant and predictor of users’ CI toward chatbots. Thus, chatbots should enhance their information and service quality to increase users’ satisfaction. The findings imply that digital technologies services, such as chatbots, could be combined with human service employees to satisfy digital users.     

Consumer welfare of informative messages via mobile instant messenger: A case of KakaoTalk’s Info-Talk

This study aimed to estimate consumer welfare created by informative messages via mobile instant messenger (MIM). In order to reach this goal, this paper attempted to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) for a MIM’s service as a substitute for the existing texting-message service. Info-Talk, an informative message service provided by KakaoTalk, a major MIM in Korea, was employed as a research case, and conjoint analysis was used for a methodology for finding the WTP of informative messages via MIM. According to the result, an informative message via MIM provides 4.87 Korean Won’s (KRW) worth of service to users. When receiving an informative message via MIM using an LTE network, the maximum data charge generated by an informative message via MIM is KRW 2.864. This implies that the amount of the net welfare of informative messaging via MIM exceeds cost incurred by using it with the LTE network.     

Talk is cheap, text is cheaper [mobile messaging]

E-mail was the first killer application for the Internet-now messaging is coming to cellphones. How does a software application go from zero to 100 million users in a couple of years? One way is to be built into Windows. Another is for the world's largest cellphone manufacturers to make it a standard. That has not happened yet, but it's about to. Three titans of the mobile world, Nokia, Motorola, and Ericsson, are behind a developing standard for instant messaging (IM) between cellphones. Called Wireless Village, it was approved in February as Draft 1.0 by a consortium that includes more than 150 equipment manufacturers, and could be implemented in new cellphones by early fall. Meanwhile, a slightly different messaging mode, short message service (SMS), has already crossed the Atlantic from Europe. In recent months, the leading US wireless carriers have started to promote the service. This could be good news for investors and for the carriers themselves-so good, in fact, that it is said the abbreviation really stands for "significant money streams". European mobile carriers are reporting that SMS accounts for as much as 9 percent of revenues and 20 percent of profits     

Gigabit networking on the public transmission network

The evolution of the public network, from gigabit transmission to gigabit networking, is examined from the perspective of a telephone operating company. The relationship between technology push and service pull and the impact that both have on network architectures are considered. The network transition is discussed to identify ways of cost effectively deploying key enabling technologies (such as asynchronous fibre systems and SONET) in advance of end-user requirements     

A systematic approach for closer integration of cellular and Internet services

The road to 4G runs through 3G, 2G and 2.5G networks. Until 3G is deployed ubiquitously, 2-2.5G networks and endpoints dominate. Because of their widespread deployment and adoption, these endpoints can help ease the transition to an all-Internet 3G/4G network. We describe a standards-based service architecture and its implementation that allows 2-2.5G endpoints to participate as active actors in realizing Internet services like presence and instant messaging without the endpoints themselves being connected to the Internet. Our architecture also demonstrates service migration, wherein a successful 2G service such as short messaging service morphs transparently into its Internet equivalent, an instant message. Our methodology conserves precious radio access bandwidth by offloading such data services from the bandwidth normally allocated to voice. Our approach, as embodied in the service architecture, is to leverage the best of the Internet protocols (SIP, XML) and technologies (instant messaging, presence) to provide a general framework for personalized service specification and execution.     

Towards efficient distributed service discovery in low-power and lossy networks

Low-power and Lossy Networks (LLNs) have been recognised as a promising technology to achieve ubiquity in the internet of things era. To realise this, service oriented architectures and the emerging IPv6 over low-power wireless personal area network (6LoWPAN) standard are identified as key paradigms. One of the main elements to succeed any service oriented approach is a proficient service discovery protocol. In this paper, we propose EADP: an efficient protocol to announce and discover services in 6LoWPAN networks. EADP adopts a fully distributed approach using an adaptive push–pull model to ensure fast discovery times, low energy consumption and low generated overhead with timely reaction to network dynamics. EADP achieves this by using context-awareness information, delivered by a trickle algorithm. EADP was implemented and evaluated in Contiki using the Cooja simulator. Simulation results show EADP’s capability to realise fast discovery times with low cost in terms of energy and overhead. These achievements make EADP very suitable for pervasive LLN applications.     

Modeling the user acceptance of long-term evolution (LTE) services

With an integrated framework, this paper aims to analyze user perception and acceptance toward long-term evolution (LTE) services, focusing on factors that may influence the intention to use. We conducted a web-based survey of 1,192 users to test our research model. We employed structural equation modeling (SEM) as the analysis method. The results of the integrated model analysis indicate that system satisfaction is a core determinant of intention to use LTE services. The model also found that other factors, including perceived usefulness and system and service quality, significantly affect intention to use these services. In addition, both perceived adaptivity and processing speed significantly influence perceived usefulness and service quality, respectively. These factors also play key roles in determining users’ attitudes. This paper is of value to researchers and engineers designing and improving LTE services for use via mobile phones.     

用开关电容网络改善DC-DC变换器性能的研究

将串并电容组合结构,极性反转开关电容网络和推挽开关电容网络和ｂｕｃｋ,ｂｏｏｓｔ,Ｃｕｋ及ｂｕｃｋ－ｂｏｏｓｔ等传统ＤＣ－ＤＣ变换器相结合,构成一系列新的变换器拓扑结构。理论分析和实验结果秀助于提高具有悬殊电压变化比的ＤＣ－ＤＣ变换器的工作频率和动态响应,还能拓宽变换器的电压变换范围。     

Modelling users’ perception of the online real estate platforms in a digitally disruptive environment: An integrated KANO-SISQual approach

Global disruption and innovation are revolutionising many industries and creating a digitally disruptive environment (DDE); real estate is no exception. Real estate online platforms (REOPs) are getting more attention in the era of COVID-19, where the real estate businesses must run online, and the service users are pushed to a forced digital experience adoption. The users or consumers are not satisfied or happy with the current state of REOPs and often regret their decisions due to the poor quality of the web-based information provided on these REOPs. Based on a mixed approach of integrated KANO-SISQual, the current study develops a comprehensive smart real estate technology adoption model (SRETAM) to model the users’ perception of the REOPs in DDE. Data is collected through a questionnaire survey from 407 Sydney based REOP users. A total of 31 key factors are identified by reviewing 256 articles vetted by 12 local real estate agents. The results highlight 19 factors to be very important to REOPs users: reliability, the accuracy of the information, and credibility of the online platforms are the top three important factors. The hypotheses’ results show that all the SRETAM categories contribute equally to the users’ behavioural intention to use the REOPs and the KANO categories are statistically different. For KANO categories, eight attractive features are identified: graphical statistics, familiar web technology, content structure, web design, immersive content, self-efficacy, information novelty, and presence of 3D interactive models. Displaying the users’ location, learning tutorials, and hyperlinks to external sources on the web portals dissatisfy REOP users. The factors and their classifications can help the users get more features, verified, and transparent information for making better decisions in the DDE, whereas the REOP can enjoy more business due to increased service consumers. This can lay the foundation for transforming the traditional real estate sector into smart real estate in lines with industry 4.0 requirements in the DDE.     

高铁场景网络质量和用户感知提升方法

针对高铁场景移动网络质量提升难度大、常规方法收效差的问题,探索了一种针对交通干线,特别是高铁场景移动通信用户感知提升的方法论体系。提出了“覆盖有主、重选合理、切换有序”的交通干线切换链优化核心思想;总结了“先覆盖控制,后参数优化,再特性加载”的三层实践结构模型;采用了拉线图方式关联空闲态、业务态测试数据以及基站工程参数,发现覆盖问题路段和小区,覆盖优化后匹配高速移动场景时延参数,加载业务质量和感知特性的方法,实现高铁网络质量和用户感知大幅提升。该方法从原理分析入手,经过实践应用,“标本兼治”解决网络问题,并可快速推广和复制。     

VoIP走势与难点

VoIP在全球的迅速发展不可逆转,但由于存在难于互操作的多种制式,协议体制标准化是其在全球业务市场上面临的主要问题。目前的趋势是MGCP或SIP与H.323结合,而MeGaCo信令协议进一步改善了互操作的效率。在业务拓展方面,在统一传信普遍应用的同时又发展了实时媒体通信——瞬息传信（IM）;另外还有移动VoIP。     

Disentangling facial recognition payment service usage behavior: A trust perspective

Facial recognition payment (FRP) technology has been used as an innovative digital approach to payment services. This study develops a model to investigate how user trust—including trust in FRP service providers and FRP—affects users’ continuance intentions toward FRP services. We also propose that trust in FRP itself is affected by perceived vulnerability, perceived security, and perceived response efficacy from a privacy and security perspective. Our research model was empirically tested via a partial-least-squares analysis with survey data collected from 217 FRP users in China. The results show that trust in both FRP service providers and FRP itself positively affects users’ continuance intentions, and trust in service providers affects trust in FRP. Perceived security and response efficacy positively affect trust in FRP. This research contributes to the literature on FRP and trust, offering practical implications for FRP service providers on how to manage individual users’ FRP-related privacy concerns while enhancing user trust in FRP, which facilitates continuous FRP use.     

Converged service opportunities supporting the multi-site corporate enterprise

Convergence in the world of telecommunications offers an excellent opportunity for new context-aware services to serve customers better. Customer service is one of the most expensive corporate investments due to the fact that call centres are costly, service is often labour-intensive, and customer representatives require continual training to handle a broad diversity of service issues. Nevertheless, an emerging class of technologies offers the promise to decrease the cost of offering information and services and to improve service consistency. Examples of these technologies include instant messaging (IM), personalisation tools, case-based reasoning systems and intelligent agents or robots (bots) that effectively mimic human interaction. The popularity of IM has increased considerably in recent years. No longer the province of chatty teenagers, it is currently part and parcel of advanced communications networks at many corporations. IM capabilities can help corporate communications with customers in real time, to solve problems, answer questions, and increase sales and customer satisfaction. This paper investigates the use of IM bots in serving corporate customers on the move, the potential value they offer, as well as forecasting how they may deliver the promised benefits. The paper also discusses a prototype demonstrating the extension of a desktop IM to the mobile platform, coupled with context enablers to provide context-aware information and services delivery.     

An Exploratory Investigation into Instant Messaging Preferences in Two Distinct Cultures

The current trend of increasing instant messaging (IM) use and its potential growth motivate this study. It offers a novel exploration of users' preferences for IM in the context of the use of other traditional and new communication media: face-to-face, telephone, email, and short messaging service (SMS) in two distinct cultures: Australia and China. It examines the impact of demographics, media experience, media richness perception, and national culture on media preferences. Our results, based on a student survey conducted in the two countries, show that women prefer IM for communication activities that require more attention and personal presence and prefer email for communication activities that require less personal presence. Communication technology experience may predict the adoption of new technology, such as IM and SMS, but has no effect on media that are already widely adopted, such as email. Email was clustered with face-to-face and telephone as the most preferred media for any communication activity, while IM and SMS clustered together and were the least preferred media for communication. After controlling for demographics and media experience, we found significant cultural differences in IM, telephone, and email preferences. Chinese preferred to use IM and telephone, while Australians preferred to use email. The cultural impact on technology use is persistent.      

电力专网迁移演进关键技术及策略研究

对于电网企业来说,其早期建立的电话交换网采用的是电路交换技术体制,但随着技术的发展,电路交换设备已经停产,网络后期扩容和维护愈发困难,同时伴随着电网信息化程度的不断提升,现有交换网已无法满足要求,迫切需要向下一代交换网络演进。本文结合电网企业交换网现状,分析了向下一代交换网迁移演进过程中的关键技术及策略,涉及下一代交换网技术体制的选择、用户接入技术、业务承接策略、用户号码迁移以及网络互通策略等方面。     

Framework for Enhancing Mobile Availability of RESTful Services

Providing users of mobile devices uninterrupted access to web services in unstable network conditions continues to be a problem. Numerous methods for service caching have been proposed; however, most studies fail to consider two crucial factors: (1) Context of network connectivity: Smartphones are used in a variety of wireless network conditions, such as high-speed networks, unstable networks, and areas without an available network connection; and (2) Service failure handling: Current service caching mechanisms are able to deal with temporary unavailability, but they cannot handle long-time service failures or malfunctions. This paper proposes a connectivity-aware, risk-driven (CARD) approach to the delivery of RESTful services. The CARD approach is encapsulated in the form of a client-side library for use by mobile applications (apps) to invoke backend RESTful services in a highly-available manner. The CARD approach has two main features: 1) the ability to perform actions specific to the network conditions, such as the application of prefetch services and caching services when connected to high speed wireless networks to ensure that cached services are used for unstable wireless networks, and allowing users to request cached service responses from other users when no wireless network can be accessed. 2) The proposed risk-driven analysis method enables the provision of a reasonable service recovery plan when the original service malfunctions. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed CARD approach expands the availability of service and shortens service response times under a variety of network conditions.