Compensation paradox: the influence of monetary rewards on user behaviour

Many e-commerce companies collect users’ personal data for marketing purposes despite privacy concerns. Information-collecting companies often offer a monetary reward to users to alleviate privacy concerns and ease the collection of personal information. This study focused on the negative effects of monetary rewards on both information privacy concerns (IPC) and information disclosure. A survey approach was used to collect data and 370 final responses were analysed using a two-way analysis of variance and a binomial logistic regression model. The results show that monetary rewards increase IPC when an information-collecting company requires sensitive information. Additional results indicate that building trust is a more effective way of collecting personal data. This study identifies how organisations can best execute information-collection activities and contributes additional insights for academia and practitioners.     

Performance analysis of air source heat pump system for office building

In this study, the performance of an air source heat pump system installed in a commercial building is analyzed using the developed heat pump performance model and building load simulation data of several regions in Korea. The performance test of an air source heat pump system with a variable speed compressor is tested to develop model that considers changes in the performance characteristics of the heat pump system under various operating conditions. The heat pump system is installed in an environmental chamber, and the experimental equipment is set up according to the manufacturer’s specifications as well as the AHRI 1230 test specifications. The performance test conditions of the heat pump system are selected using a central composite design method, in which 29 points for each cooling and heating mode are selected. The developed performance model based on experimental data predicts experimental values with an error of ±5 %. Building cooling and heating loads in three regions in Korea are analyzed using TRNSYS software, which includes standard building and weather data from Seoul, Daejeon and Busan in Korea. The effects of outdoor air temperature and part load ratio on the performance and regional monthly average power consumption of the heat pump system are analyzed.

     

Shrinkage behavior and interfacial diffusion in Ni-based internal electrodes with BaTiO3 additive

The effects of particle size of starting materials and amount of a BaTiO₃ additive on the shrinkage behavior and elemental diffusion in Ni-based internal electrodes have been investigated in order to control the shrinkage of the internal electrode in multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs). Two kinds of Ni and BaTiO₃ powders were used with different particle sizes. Volume shrinkage over the range of 700–1300 °C at 150 °C intervals and linear shrinkage during sintering were measured for starting materials and composites in a reducing atmosphere. The interfaces of Ni/BaTiO₃ composites with 90:10 and 70:30 volume ratios, respectively, were investigated using TEM. Composites with bimodal Ni powder show less shrinkage than those with monomodal Ni powder, showing less shrinkage in monolith Ni of bimodal particle size. The shrinkage behavior is changed during sintering with increasing amounts of BaTiO₃ additives in both Ni-based composites. The particle size of the BaTiO₃ additive affects the shrinkage behavior of composites, without the additional amount affecting the final shrinkage. A reaction layer of about 300 nm wide is observed at the interface between the Ni and BaTiO₃ powders in composites, in which elemental Ni diffuses into the BaTiO₃ without counterdiffusion.     

Growth of InGaN HBTs by MOCVD

The design and growth of GaN/InGaN heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) are studied. Atomic-force microscopy (AFM) images of p⁺InGaN base layers (∼100 nm) deposited under various growth conditions indicate that the optimal growth temperature is limited to the range between 810 and 830°C due to a trade-off between surface roughness and indium incorporation. At these temperatures, the growth pressure must be kept above 300 Torr in order to keep surface pit density under control. An InGaN graded-composition emitter is adopted in order to reduce the number of V-shaped defects, which appear at the interface between GaN emitter and InGaN base and render an abrupt emitter-base heterojunction nearly impossible. However, the device performance is severely limited by the high p-type base contact resistance due to surface etching damage, which resulted from the emitter mesa etch.     

AlxGa1−xN Ultraviolet Avalanche Photodiodes Grown on GaN Substrates

Al_xGa_1-xN (x=0.05) ultraviolet (UV) avalanche photodiodes grown on a GaN substrate are reported. The epitaxial structure was grown by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition on a free-standing bulk GaN substrate having low dislocation density. The growth conditions for Al_xGa_1-xN epitaxial layers on GaN substrates were optimized to achieve improved crystalline and structural quality. With UV illumination at lambda~250 nm, devices with mesa diameters of ~30 mum achieve stable maximum optical gains of ~50 at a reverse bias voltage of ~87 V.     

Sliding mode cutting force regulator for turning processes

Continuous sliding mode control is applied to turning processes for cutting force regulation. The motivation of the use of the slide mode control scheme is to solve the nonlinearity problem caused by the feedrate override command element in the commercial CNC machine tool. When the adaptive control algorithm is applied to the commercial CNC machine tool, it is one of the practical methods that the programmed feedrate is overridden after the control algorithm is carried out. However, most CNC lathe manufacturers offer limited number of data bits for feedrate override, thus resulting in nonlinear behavior of the machine tools. Such nonlinearity brings ‘quantized' or discrete effect so that the optimal feedrate is rounded off before being fed into the CNC system. To compensate for this problem, continuous sliding mode control is applied. Simulation and experimental results are presented in comparison with those obtained from applying adaptive control which is a widely used approach in cutting force regulation. Adaptive control loses its effectiveness in the presence of nonlinearity since it generally requires linear parametrization of the control law or the system dynamics. Experiments are conducted under various machining conditions, subject to changes in spindle speed, material of work-piece, and type of machining process. The suggested slide mode controller shows smoother cutting force fluctuation, which cannot be achieved by the conventional adaptive controller. The experimental set-up reflects the emphasis on the practicality of the sliding mode controller. In order to avoid the use of a dynamometer in the course of measuring the cutting force, the indirect cutting force measuring system is used by means of feed drive servo-motor current sensing.     

Degradation of TiN Coatings on Inconel 617 and Silicon Wafer Substrates Under Pulsed Laser Ablation

The degradation behavior of TiN coatings on Inconel 617 and silicon (Si) wafer substrates was compared following Nd:YAG pulsed laser ablation to apply thermomechanical stress. Surface cracks and pores were observed on the TiN coating on the Inconel 617 after five pulses, and melting of the coating was occurred over ten pulses. The TiN coating on the Si wafer also showed surface cracks and pores, but there was no surface melting. As the pulses were increased, the surface roughness of the TiN coating on Inconel 617 increased more than the TiN coating on the Si wafer, and interfacial cracking was the dominant degradation behavior on the Si wafer. The hardness of the TiN coating decreased below 50% of its initial value (2200 HK) after five pulses on the Inconel 617, whereas over 70% of the initial value (2400 HK) was maintained on the Si wafer. The TiN coating on Inconel 617 showed diffusion of substrate atoms to the surface, while Si was not found in the TiN coating on the Si wafer even after 25 pulses. It was determined that the decrease in hardness was influenced by the cracking behavior and the diffusion of atoms from the substrate.     

A Plasma‐Etching Process Modeling Via a Polynomial Neural Network

A plasma is a collection of charged particles and on average is electrically neutral. In fabricating integrated circuits, plasma etching is a key means to transfer a photoresist pattern into an underlayer material. To construct a predictive model of plasma‐etching processes, a polynomial neural network (PNN) is applied. This process was characterized by a full factorial experiment, and two attributes modeled are its etch rate and DC bias. According to the number of input variables and type of polynomials to each node, the prediction performance of the PNN was optimized. The various performances of the PNN in diverse environments were compared to three types of statistical regression models and the adaptive network fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). As the demonstrated high‐prediction ability in the simulation results shows, the PNN is efficient and much more accurate from the point of view of approximation and prediction abilities.     

Electrospun melamine-blended activated carbon nanofibers for enhanced control of indoor CO2

Electrospun carbon nanofibers were activated with melamine–polyacrylonitrile [melamine-blended carbon nanofibers (MACNFs)] for use as a fibrous adsorbent for indoor CO₂ removal. Although, melamine doping was intended solely to incorporate basic nitrogen functionalities on the nanofibers, it also shortened fabrication time, conserving time, and energy cost. The specific surface area and microporosity of the fibers were enhanced from 412 m² g⁻¹ and 0.1646 cm³ g⁻¹ to 547 m² g⁻¹ and 0.220 cm³ g⁻¹, respectively, upon final CO₂ activation of the nanofibers. With the chemical properties, we observed significant tethering of pyridine functionality. The sample, MACNF-7 (10 mL of polymer solution doped with 0.7 g of melamine), provided the optimum melamine doping condition to achieve the highest CO₂ adsorption capacity of 3.15 mmol g⁻¹. The adsorption performance was based on simultaneous improvement in microporosity (physical) and surface basicity (chemical) properties of the adsorbent. However, in a binary mixture with nitrogen, the selective adsorption of CO₂ showed the predominance of the improved surface basicity over microporosity. The highest CO₂ selective capture (1.22 mmol g⁻¹) was occurred for a CO₂:N₂ ratio of 0.15:0.85, with a selectivity of 58.19 at 273 K. In a regeneration test, stable and robust performance was achieved more than five cycles. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47747.