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Extant consumer behavior research has alluded to consumer learning; however, little research exists regarding situated learning and its relation to coping with respect to stressful consumption experiences. The purpose of this research is to study situated or in situ learning in two cultural contexts – that of the USA and China.

Online data were collected from non-students in both the USA and China, and structural equations modeling was used to analyze data.

Results demonstrated that situated learning helped cope better with stressful episodes for both cultures. Psychological closeness to the problem mediated the relationship between the antecedents and situated learning for US consumers more than for Chinese consumers.

Since US consumers tend to be psychologically close to the stressor during the consumption process, firms should preemptively inform and educate them about potential stressors to help them learn and cope. However, as Chinese consumers tend not to be psychologically close to the problem, they need to be dealt differently.

This research provides a holistic view of situated learning and coping as a process involving consumers, firms and situations and examines their underlying factors in stressful consumption encounters. It establishes the mediating role of psychological closeness between antecedents and consumers’ situated learning and explores the differences of psychological closeness in two different cultures, that of the USA and China.

The purpose of this paper is to study the aerodynamic characteristics of Ahmed body in longitudinal and lateral platoons under crosswind by computational fluid dynamics simulation. It helps to improve the aerodynamic characteristics of vehicles by providing theoretical basis and engineering direction for the development and progress of intelligent transportation.

A two-car platoon model is used to compare with the experiment to prove the accuracy of the simulation method. The simplified Ahmed body model and the Reynolds Averaged N-S equation method are used to study the aerodynamic characteristics of vehicles at different distances under cross-winds.

When the longitudinal distance x/L = 0.25, the drag coefficients of the middle and trailing cars at β = 30° are improved by about 272% and 160% compared with β = 10°. The side force coefficients of the middle and trailing cars are increased by 50% and 62%. When the lateral distance y/W = 0.25, the side force coefficients of left and middle cars at β = 30° are reduced by 38% and 37.5% compared with β = 10°. However, the side force coefficient of the right car are increased by about 84.3%.

Most of the researches focus on the overtaking process, and there are few researches on the neat lateral platoon. The innovation of this paper is that in addition to studying the aerodynamic characteristics of longitudinal driving, the aerodynamic characteristics of neat lateral driving are also studied, and crosswind conditions are added. The authors hope to contribute to the development of intelligent transportation.

Global climate change characterized by an increase in temperature has become the focus of attention all over the world. China is a sensitive and significant area of global climate change. This paper specifically aims to examine the association between agricultural productivity and the climate change by using China’s provincial agricultural input–output data from 2000 to 2019 and the climatic data of the ground meteorological stations.

The authors used the three-stage spatial Durbin model (SDM) model and entropy method for analysis of collected data; further, the authors also empirically tested the climate change marginal effect on agricultural productivity by using ordinary least square and SDM approaches.

The results revealed that climate change has a significant negative effect on agricultural productivity, which showed significance in robustness tests, including index replacement, quantile regression and tail reduction. The results of this study also indicated that by subdividing the climatic factors, annual precipitation had no significant impact on the growth of agricultural productivity; further, other climatic variables, including wind speed and temperature, had a substantial adverse effect on agricultural productivity. The heterogeneity test showed that climatic changes ominously hinder agricultural productivity growth only in the western region of China, and in the eastern and central regions, climate change had no effect.

The findings of this study highlight the importance of various social connections of farm households in designing policies to improve their responses to climate change and expand land productivity in different regions. The study also provides a hypothetical approach to prioritize developing regions that need proper attention to improve crop productivity.

The paper explores the impact of climate change on agricultural productivity by using the climatic data of China. Empirical evidence previously missing in the body of knowledge will support governments and researchers to establish a mechanism to improve climate change mitigation tools in China.

While the importance of human touch for maintaining a tech–touch balance has been stressed, little knowledge exists regarding how such human elements should be incorporated in service settings dominated by technologies. This study aims to examine the outcomes of human touch levels across different travel stages in a hotel stay context.

Data were collected through a survey on 900 participants. Latent class analysis was first conducted to categorize the sample into groups based on human touch levels. Hypotheses were then tested using regression-based moderation analysis with the PROCESS macro for SPSS.

Human touch level negatively predicts perceived risk, which is negatively associated with satisfaction. These effects are particularly significant at check-in and check-out stages. Informational privacy significantly moderates the effect of human touch level on perceived risk. Such interaction effects were spotted at the booking and check-out stages.

This study contributes to theory by revealing the role of human touch elements in technology-driven service scenarios and provides practical guidelines for hotels on sharpening service experience by integrating human touch and technology elements.

Through integrating the service encounter framework and concept of customer touchpoints, this study takes a different approach that integrates both “tech” and “touch” by investigating the effects of customer-owned touchpoints in each core stage of a hotel stay journey.

With the rapid development of sharing economy, travelers are facing choices between conventional hotels and the peer-to-peer sharing accommodation in urban tourism. The purpose of this study is to examine how travelers form their preferences in such choice situations and whether/how their preference formation mode would change with the COVID-19 pandemic.

A relative preference model was constructed and estimated for both domestic and outbound tourists, based on two waves of survey data collected before and after the COVID-19. The results of this study were compared to derive the evolution of preference formation patterns.

A set of 15 key value attributes and personal traits was identified, together with their differential effects with the pandemic. Their divergent effects between domestic and outbound trips were also delineated. Based on these findings, the competitive edges and advantageous market profiles were depicted for both hotel and sharing accommodation sectors.

This study contributes to the knowledge of tourists’ preference between accommodation types and adds empirical evidences to the impact of the pandemic on tourist behavior patterns. Both hotel and sharing accommodation practitioners can benefit from the findings to enhance their competitiveness.

Chatbot users’ communication experience with disembodied conversational agents was compared with instant messaging (IM) users’ communication experience with human conversational agents. The purpose of this paper is to identify what affects users’ intention to reuse and whether they perceive any difference between the two.

A conceptual model was developed based on computer-mediated communication (CMC) and interpersonal communication theories. Data were collected online from four different continents (North America, Europe, Asia and Australia). Partial least squares structural equation modeling was applied to examine the research model.

The findings mainly reveal that media richness and social presence positively influence trust and reuse intention through task attraction and social attraction; IM users reported significantly higher scores in terms of communication experience, perceived attractiveness of the conversational agent, and trust than chatbot users; users’ trust in the conversational agents is mainly determined by perceived task attraction.

Customers’ evaluation of the communication environment is positively related to their perceived competence of the conversational agent which ultimately affect their intention to reuse chatbot/IM. The findings reveal determinants of chatbot/IM adoption which have rarely been mentioned by previous work.

Practitioners should note that consumers in general still prefer to interact with human conversational agents. Practitioners should contemplate how to combine chatbot and human resources effectively to deliver the best customer service.

This study goes beyond the Computer as Social Actor paradigm and Technology Acceptance Model to understand chatbot and IM adoption. It is among one of the first studies that compare chatbot and IM use experience in the tourism and hospitality literature.

The composition and thickness of surface oxide of solder particles is extremely important to the quality of interconnect and reliability of packaged system. The purpose of this paper is to develop an observable measurement to research the issue.

AES (Auger electron spectroscopy), XPS (X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy), TEM (transmission electron microscopy) and STEM (scanning transmission electron microscopy) were employed to examine the oxide layer on microscale solder powders. Conventional techniques and FIB (Focus Ion Beam) were employed for the TEM sample preparation. High angle annular dark field (HAADF) pattern was applied to distinguish the oxide layer and the solder matrix by the contrast of average atomic number. The results were confirmed by AES and XPS measurement.

The solder powders were exposed to air (70% relative humidity) at 150°C for 0, 120 and 240 h for the accelerated growth of oxide. The surface oxide thickness was 6 nm and 50 nm measured by TEM for 0 h and 120 h samples, respectively. It was found that the increase in surface oxide thickness of solder particles is proportional to the rooting of time. The elemental distribution along the oxide was quantified by line scanning using STEM and the atomic ratio of Sn to O in the oxide layer nearer to the outer, the middle, and the inner (adjacent to the solder matrix) was found to be 1:2, 2:3 and 1:1, respectively. The result was validated using XPS which gave Sn to O ratio of 1:2 at 5 nm depth of surface oxide.

This is the first time FIB technology has been used to prepare TEM specimens for solder particles and TEM pictures shown of their surface oxide layer. Though requiring more care in sample preparation, the measurements by TEM and STEM are believed to be more direct and precise.

Based on text content analysis using big data, this study aims to explore differences in guest perceptions of peer-to-peer accommodations before and after COVID-19 to provide suggestions for the development of these properties in China postpandemic.

A guest perception dictionary was established by collecting Ctrip customer reviews of peer-to-peer accommodations. After data cleaning, thematic word analysis and semantic association network analysis were used to explore perceptions and thematic differences before and after COVID-19.

This research constructed a multidimensional framework of guest-perceived values for peer-to-peer accommodation in the context of COVID-19. The findings showed that the emphasis on functionality in peer-to-peer accommodation changed; perceived emotional values associated with peer-to-peer stays were more complex; perceived social values decreased, host–guest interactions were reduced and online communication became a stronger trend; tourist preferences for types of experiences changed, and people changed their destination selections; perceived conditional value was reflected in perceived risks, and the perceptions of environmental health, service and physical risks increased.

This research has constructed a multidimensional framework of tourist perceived value on the basis of peer-to-peer accommodation context and epidemic background and has thus shown the changes in tourist perceived value of peer-to-peer accommodation before and after COVID-19.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this research constitutes the first attempt to explore the perceptual differences for peer-to-peer accommodations before and after COVID-19 based on an extensive data set of online reviews from multiple provinces of China.

This paper investigates the extent to which U.S. trade policies during 1922–1962 impacted the Pacific Rim economies differently from the rest of the world. Empirical analysis demonstrates that U.S. trade with the Pacific Rim had consistently higher tariff barriers than U.S. trade with the rest of the world among import-competitive manufactures. This paper then analyzes the reasons behind this phenomenon from both a political economy and a historical perspective. On both fronts, the Pacific Rim was at a disadvantage, and its higher barrier to trade with the United States was by no means historically accidental.