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The impact of image is widely investigated in various research fields. However, its effect in online health communities is rarely studied. In this research, the authors develop a theoretical model to assess the impact of physicians' image on patients' choices in online health communities.

The authors developed a web crawler based on R language program to collect more than 40,000 physicians' images and other related information from their homepages in Haodf.com–a leading online health community in China. The features of physicians' images are computed by Face++ Application Programming Interface (API) through the following variables: beauty, smile and skin status.

The empirical results derive the following findings: (1) physician's beauty or physical attractiveness has no significant effect on patients’ choice; (2) Smile has a positive effect on patients’ choices; (3) Physician's skin status also positively affects patients' choices; (4) Physician's professional capital strengthens the effect of beauty, smile and skin status on patients' choices; (5) Beauty and skin status are the substitutes for each other, and smile and skin status are the substitutes for each other too.

Also, this study provides implications for both physicians and online health community platform managers.

This study provides new evidence in understanding the impact of physician's online image and contributes to the literature on signaling theory, impression management theory and patients' choices.

Gamification has been widely implemented to improve user engagement in the online health community (OHC). While its effect on the physicians' engagement has recently been documented, whether and how gamification influences the patients' engagement in the OHC remains an untapped research area. The purpose of this study is to fill this dearth by encompassing the gamification strategy of Haodf.com, which awards the “Annual Physician” badges to the physicians, to analyze how this gamification approach motivates patients’ engagement in the OHC.

Real-world data are leveraged from the OHC. The Tobit model is employed for modeling the gamification-patient's engagement nexus in an OHC. Robust findings are obtained by incorporating different measures of a dependent variable, a set of control variables about the physician's characteristics and hospital's features, and alternative estimation techniques.

The results reveal that a patient's engagement in the OHC in the form of appointments and review-posting behavior is enhanced by the gamification strategy. Besides, the positive influence of gamification on the patient's engagement is further strengthened by the physician's professional capital. It is basically obtained that the gamification is an efficacious tool to accelerate not only the physicians' engagement but also of the patients in the OHC platform.

The study provides both theoretical and empirical discussion to enrich the understanding on how OHCs enhance patients' engagement by developing gamification techniques. The findings guide the practitioners of OHC to better understand the implications of their gamification design to optimize user engagement.

Free knowledge sharing in the online health community has been widely documented. However, whether free knowledge sharing can help physicians accumulate popularity and further the accumulated popularity can help physicians attract patients remain unclear. To unveil these gaps, this study aims to examine how physicians' popularity are affected by their free knowledge sharing, how the relationship between free knowledge sharing and popularity is moderated by professional capital, and how the popularity finally impacts patients' attraction.

The authors collect a panel dataset from Hepatitis B within an online health community platform with 10,888 observations from April 2020 to August 2020. The authors develop a model that integrates free knowledge sharing, popularity, professional capital, and patients' attraction. The hierarchical regression model is used to for examining the impact of free knowledge sharing on physicians' popularity and further investigating the impact of popularity on patients' attraction.

The authors find that the quantity of articles acted as the heuristic cue and the quality of articles acted as the systematic cue have positive effect on physicians' popularity, and this effect is strengthened by physicians' professional capital. Furthermore, physicians' popularity positively influences their patients' attraction.

This study reveals the aggregation of physicians' popularity and patients' attraction within online health communities and provides practical implications for managers in online health communities.

This paper aims to research the influence of pressure, friction factors, roughness and actuating speed to the mixed lubrication models of outstroke and instroke.

Mixed lubrication model is solved by finite volume method, which consists of coupled fluid mechanics, deformation mechanics and contact mechanics analyses. The influence of friction factor on the finite element model is also considered. Then, contact pressure, film thickness, friction and leakage have been studied.

It was found that the amount of leakage is sensitive to the film thickness. The larger the film thickness is, the greater the influence received from the friction factor, however, the effect of oil film on the friction is negligible. The friction is determined mainly by the contact pressure. The trend of friction and leakage influenced by actuating velocity and roughness is also obtained.

The influence of friction factor on the finite element model is considered. This can make the calculation more accurate.

Based on the summary and analysis of the particle dynamics, developed in the past 300 years, and of fundamental properties of unevenness of natural materials, we propose the opinion of the second stir. We analyze the gains and loses of employing the non‐dimensionalization method developed in the quantitative analysis system of the first push. Combined with some theoretical models, we also consider the epistemological failures of pure quantification, linearization, and formal logic analysis.

After many years’ practice and experiments, it was found that quantitative analysis systems with unequal quantitative effect cannot be extended into that with equal quantitative effect. While it is related to such epistemological viewpoints as irregularity and continuity systems, an infrastructural form comparison has shown universally scientific and methodological characteristics. In combination with evolution of weather systems, our infrastructural analysis involves applications of super low temperatures, reversed information order, rolling currents infrastructure in reversal weather change and long‐term weather forecasting.

In operational tropical cyclone (TC) forecasting practice, there are usually many TC track guidances available from various official sources. When they do not converge, the guidances need to be ensembled by systematic approaches to formulate the best possible track as an official local TC track forecasting.

The main approach of the research is focused on finding an atmospheric environment favourable for TC survival (genesis) with the help of commonly accepted knowledge in atmospheric physics that reveals mechanism driving evolution and change of synoptic patterns in the atmosphere, using routinely available observational data, i.e. identification of TCF/TCR areas. The techniques developed are then applied to ensemble the TC track guidances available operationally to formulate an official TC track forecasting.

The results show that TC movement is very dependent on the atmospheric environment surrounding a TC. Whether the environment is favourable (TCF) or resistant (TCR) to survival of a TC system is a vital factor to determine where the TC moving. A systematic approach to the identification of the TCR/TCF areas is a key technique to ensemble available TC track guidances to formulate an official TC track forecasting.

In operational TC forecasting, TC track forecasting is the most important and difficult issue. The results indicate that the systematic approach to TC track forecasting has philosophical justification, solid scientific ground, sound logic and practical viability, and thus, make TC track forecasting easy and effective.

This paper aims to study the impact of transient velocity changes on sealing performance during reciprocating sealing processes.

Establish a model of transient mixed lubrication, solve the transient Reynolds equation, consider the effect of temperature rise at the seal interfaces, and determine the behavior of the seal interfaces, such as film thickness and fluid pressure. Evaluation with friction and leakage rate, calculate the variation of sealing performance with reciprocating velocity under different working conditions, and verify it through bench experiments.

Within a reciprocating stroke, the frictional force decreases with increasing velocity, and the frictional force of the outstroke is greater than that of the instroke; at the time of the stroke transition, the fluid pressure is smallest and the rough peak contact pressure is greatest. At present, the dynamic pressure effect of fluids is the largest, and the friction force also increases, which increases the risk of material wear and failure. Friction and leakage increase with increasing pressure and root mean square roughness. As temperature increases, friction increases and leakage decreases. In studying the performance variations of seal components through a reciprocating sealing experiment, it was found that the friction force decreases with increasing velocity, which is consistent with the calculated results and more similar to the calculated results considering the temperature rise.

This study provides a reference for the study of transient sealing performance.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an integer linear programming model to schedule the maintenance crew and the maintenance tasks in a bus operating company.

The proposed methodology relies on an integer linear programming model that finds feasible maintenance schedules. It minimizes the costs associated with maintenance crew and the costs associated with unavailability. The model is applied in a real-world case study of a Portuguese bus operating company. A constructive heuristic approach is put forward, based on solving the maintenance scheduling problem for each bus separately.

The heuristic finds better solutions than the exact methods (based on branch-and-bound techniques) in a much lower computational time.

The results suggest the relevance of such heuristic approaches for maintenance scheduling in practice.

This proposed model is an effective decision-making support method that provides feasible maintenance schedules for the maintenance technicians and for the maintenance tasks in a fleet of buses. It also complies with several operational, technical and labour constraints.

Gamification applications (apps) are gaining great attention in many contexts and have grown increasingly. Despite their significant role in many settings, prior research mainly focused on initial adoption, and there are limited studies on the post-adoption stage. This study aims to explore the factors influencing individuals’ continuance intention to use gamified task manager apps, drawing on the technology continuance theory (TCT) by integrating enjoyment, habit and social influence.

Data were obtained from 318 Malaysian who had prior experience with task management gamified apps and analysed with the partial least squares approach.

According to the results, confirmation, perceived usefulness (PU) and enjoyment positively influence satisfaction. PU, enjoyment, satisfaction and social influence affect attitude, while the result failed to confirm the association between perceived ease of use and attitude. Furthermore, PU, attitude and habit are strong determinants of users’ continuance intention. Moreover, continuance intention was not predicted by users’ satisfaction and social influence.

The findings provide directions for developers and marketers of gamified task manager apps. Besides the technological and functional benefits of applications, they should also consider social, hedonic and individual factors in the designing and marketing stages.

This study extends the literature by assessing the determinants of continuous intention to use gamified task manager apps; and extending the TCT in the context of gamification by incorporating three contextual factors, namely, perceived enjoyment, social influence and habit.