bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
An empirical investigation into e‐shopping excitement: antecedents and effects
Authors: Jayawardhena Chanaka , Tiu Wright Len 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThis paper seeks to examine the antecedents of online shopper excitement, its consequences for behavioural intentions as expressed by intent to return, and positive word‐of‐mouth communication.Design/methodology/approachA conceptual model is developed based on the literature. Instrument item scales to measure all constructs in the model were as informed by the literature and adapted from prior studies. An online structured questionnaire survey was sent by e‐mail to a UK consumer panel (n=626). The results were analysed using LISREL 8.7.FindingsConvenience, involvement, attributes of the web site and merchandising all collectively influence shopper excitement. The attributes of the web site and merchandising directly influence intent to return. E‐shopper excitement leads to positive word‐of‐mouth (WOM) and increases the intent to return.Research limitations/implicationsThe study may be limited in that no differentiation is made between the types of goods that e‐consumers purchased. A future extension of this work could be to investigate how the study can be applied to various products, including experience goods such as entertainment.Practical implicationsIt is shown that shopping excitement can increase intent to return and positive WOM. Understanding online shopper excitement can explain some of the reasons why consumers shop online, which in turn can help e‐tailers improve their offerings to their consumers.Originality/valueThe study presents a comprehensive model of online shopper excitement. This is the first study to validate such a model empirically, and therefore the study adds to the understanding of the antecedents and consequences of consumer excitement in the online shopping environment.
Online grocery shopping: the influence of situational factors
Authors: Hand Chris , Dall'Olmo Riley Francesca , Harris Patricia , Singh Jaywant , Rettie Ruth 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThis paper seeks to understand the triggers which influence the adoption (and the discontinuation) of online grocery shopping. Specifically, the research aims to establish the role of situational factors in the process of adoption.Design/methodology/approachA two‐step research process is employed. First, exploratory qualitative research is carried out, with the purpose of gaining an in‐depth understanding of consumers' online grocery shopping behaviour. This is followed by a large‐scale quantitative survey extending the findings of the qualitative research and validating the role of situational factors in instigating the commencement (and discontinuation) of online grocery buying. Cluster analysis is used to segment consumers based on the importance of specific types of situations.FindingsBoth qualitative and quantitative results establish the importance of situational factors, such as having a baby or developing health problems, as triggers for starting to buy groceries online. Many shoppers are found to discontinue online grocery shopping once the initial trigger has disappeared or they have experienced a problem with the service.Practical implicationsWhile situational factors are beyond a marketer's control, they could be used as a basis for marketing communications content and target advertising, for instance, by using magazines directed at new parents.Originality/valueThe importance of situational factors as triggers for the adoption of online grocery shopping suggests an erratic adoption process, driven by circumstances rather than by a cognitive elaboration and decision. The adoption of online shopping seems to be contingent and may be discontinued when the initiating circumstances change.
Factors influencing self‐directed career management: an integrative investigation
Authors: Park Yongho 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the relationship between the protean career and other variables, including organizational learning climate, individual calling work orientation, and demographic variables.Design/methodology/approachThe research data were obtained from a sample consisting of 292 employees of two South Korean manufacturing companies in the private sector. To collect the research data, this study employed the web survey method.FindingsThe study results showed that two organizational learning climates – embedded system and system connection – and calling orientation had significant positive relationship with the protean career. Demographic variables did not relate significantly to the protean career.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper provides an empirical approach to related environmental and psychological variables influencing the protean career based on the literature review.Practical implicationsThe results have implications for both researchers and practitioners in that the study examines the protean career as it relates to the organizational learning climate and provides suggestions for establishing strategies that foster employees' self‐directed career management attitudes.Originality/valueThis paper offers new and useful insight into the predictors of self‐directed career management by exploring variables related to the protean career.
Expertise: myth or reality of a cross‐national definition?
Authors: Germain Marie‐Line , Enrique Ruiz Carlos 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to offer a comparison of how human expertise is perceived by human resource development (HRD) scholars across several Western European countries and in the USA.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative, exploratory approach using electronic mail was used for this study. In total, 36 leading HRD scholars from 11 different countries were interviewed.FindingsThere is a propensity of several countries to converge towards common themes. Based on this fact, a European‐US definition of expertise is offered: expertise is the combination of knowledge, experience, and skills held by a person in a specific domain.Research limitations/implicationsOne major limitation is the selection of “experts” to describe “expertise”. Second, although all but one European interviewee spoke fluent English, the questions were asked in English. Third, virtual ethnography coupled with traditional interviewing is known to be best. Fourth, the research is deeply embedded in one field. Finally, the rather small sample size underrepresented some countries.Practical implicationsThe findings provide HRD practitioners with a better understanding of training and development practices and give additional ground for employee development. They shed light on cultural differences and on cross‐national communication. As organizations increasingly expand worldwide and outsource, understanding expertise across nations can provide insights into selection and hiring procedures and help with cross‐cultural training for expatriates. Expertise can also be used as a performance measure to develop employees for optimal performance.Originality/valueThe paper explores a training and development construct internationally
Electromagnetic optimization based on an improved diversity‐guided differential evolution approach and adaptive mutation factor
Authors: dos Santos Coelho Leandro , Alotto Piergiorgio 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to show, on a widely used benchmark problem, that adaptive mutation factors and attractive/repulsive phases guided by population diversity can improve the search ability of differential evolution (DE) algorithms.Design/methodology/approachAn adaptive mutation factor and attractive/repulsive phases guided by population diversity are used within the framework of DE algorithms.FindingsThe paper shows that the combined use of adaptive mutation factors and population diversity in order to guide the attractive/repulsive behavior of DE algorithms can provide high‐quality solutions with small standard deviation on the selected benchmark problem.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the chosen benchmark is considered to be representative of typical electromagnetic problems, different test cases may give less satisfactory results.Practical implicationsThe proposed approach appears to be an efficient general purpose stochastic optimizer for electromagnetic design problems.Originality/valueThis paper introduces the use of population diversity in order to guide the attractive/repulsive behavior of DE algorithms.
Parallel implementation of evolution strategy optimization algorithm on multicore processors
Authors: Ivanov Petar , Brandisky Kostadin 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a parallel implementation of an evolution strategy (ES) algorithm for optimization of electromagnetic devices. It is intended for multi‐core processors and for optimization problems that have objective function representing a numerical simulation of electromagnetic devices. The speed‐up of the optimization is evaluated as a function of the number of processor cores used.Design/methodology/approachTwo parallelization approaches are implemented in the program developed – using multithreaded programming and using OpenMP. Their advantages and drawbacks are discussed. The program is tested on two examples for optimization of electromagnetic devices.FindingsUsing the developed parallel ES algorithm on a quad‐core processor, the optimization time can be reduced 2.4‐3 times, instead of the expected four times. This is due to a number of system processes and programs that run on part of the cores.Originality/valueA new parallel ES optimization algorithm has been developed and investigated. The paper could be useful for researchers aiming to diminish the optimization time by using parallel evolution optimization on multi‐core processors.
Optimal sizing of an embedded electrical system with an approach for limiting the search space
Authors: Nguyen‐Huu H. , Retière N. , Wurtz F. , Roboam X. , Sareni B. , Aléjo D. 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe an optimization methodology based on a mixed (analytical‐numerical) design model and evolutionary algorithms.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, optimal sizing is used to design the new architecture of an embedded electrical system. An approach is presented for defining the specifications and a method for modeling an embedded electrical network. This will enable the optimization problem to be set.FindingsThis paper shows that the proposed methodology is useful for sizing an embedded electrical system. It is illustrated by its application to the sizing of an aircraft electrical power channel (auto‐transformer‐rectifier unit type).Originality/valueAn original approach is proposed for limiting the search space before using the evolutionary algorithms. The advantage of this approach is to increase convergence speed of the evolutionary algorithms.
Multi‐level design optimization using target cascading, an improvement of convergence
Authors: Moussouni F. , Kreuawan S. , Brisset S. , Gillon F. , Brochet P. , Nicod L. 
Published: October 2009

PurposeAnalytical target cascading (ATC) is a hierarchical multi‐level design methodology. According to the state‐of‐the‐art, it is confirmed that for problems with unattainable targets, strict design consistency cannot be achieved with finite weighting factors. This paper aims to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachA new formulation is proposed to improve the ATC convergence. The weighted sum of deviation metric is transformed into a multi‐objective formulation. An original optimization problem with a single global optimal solution is used as a benchmark.FindingsIt is found that carrying out an industrial application to design optimally a tram traction system demonstrates the efficiency of the proposed solution.Originality/valueThis paper is of value in showing how to improve the convergence of a multi‐level optimization algorithm by best management of the consistency constraints.
Optimization of magnetic sensor arrays for current measurement based on swarm intelligence and D‐optimality
Authors: Zhang Z. , Di Rienzo L. 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to improve the accuracy of innovative current transducers based on magnetic sensor arrays.Design/methodology/approachThe positions and the orientations of the magnetic sensors are optimized. The objective function is defined according to D‐optimality theory and the optimization problem solved using particle swarm optimization (PSO).FindingsPSO is shown to be efficient for the optimization problem and that, following the D‐optimality approach, a significant improvement in the measurement accuracy is obtained in terms of the errors typically used to classify current transducers.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper does not take into account the effects of external magnetic fields.Practical implicationsA criterion and a methodology are suggested in order to design more accurate current transducers based on magnetic sensors.Originality/valueA new methodology to optimize magnetic sensor arrays for current measurement.
Adjoint variable method for time‐harmonic Maxwell equations
Authors: Durand Stephane , Cimrák Ivan , Sergeant Peter 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the optimization problem of low‐frequency magnetic shielding using the adjoint variable method (AVM). This method is compared with conventional methods to calculate the gradient.Design/methodology/approachThe equation for the vector potential (eddy currents model) in appropriate Sobolev spaces is studied to obtain well‐posedness. The optimization problem is formulated in terms of a cost functional which depends on the vector potential and its rotation. Convergence of a steepest descent algorithm to a stationary point of this functional is proved. Finally, some numerical results for an axisymmetric induction heater are presented.FindingsUsing Friedrichs' inequality, the existence and uniqueness of the vector potential, its gradient and the corresponding adjoint variable can be proved. From the numerical results, it is concluded that the AVM is advantageous if the number of parameters to optimize is larger than two.Research limitations/implicationsThe AVM is only faster than conventional methods if the gradients can be calculated with sufficient accuracy.Originality/valueTheoretical results for eddy currents model are often based on a non‐vanishing conductivity. The theoretical value of this paper is the presence of non‐conducting materials in the domain. From a practical viewpoint, it has been demonstrated that the AVM can yield a significant reduction of computational time for advanced optimization problems.
3D optimal design of open type magnetic circuit producing uniform field
Authors: Takahashi N. , Nakazaki S. , Kato H. , Asaumi J. 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an approach to the optimal design of open type magnetic circuit of permanent magnet having uniform field.Design/methodology/approachThe Biot‐Savart's law and evolution strategy are used for the design of permanent magnet configuration. The optimization is carried out by changing the objective function, dimension of target region, and target flux density.FindingsThe obtained uniformity is affected by the selection of objective function, dimension of target region, and target flux density. About 50 ppm uniformity of 0.08 T in the imaging area is obtained by changing the dimensions, dimension of target region, and target flux of 3D magnets and the amplitudes of magnetization and the directions of magnetization vectors.Originality/valueThis paper describes a new approach for obtaining the optimal shape of open type magnetic circuit which may be used when magnetic resonance imaging is carried out.
A constructive algorithm of neural approximation models for optimization problems
Authors: Carcangiu Sara , Fanni Alessandra , Montisci Augusto 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a constructive algorithm to design multilayer perceptron neural networks used as approximation models of electromagnetic devices.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed procedure allows automatic determination of both the number of neurons and the synaptic weights of networks with a single hidden layer. The approximation model is used in design optimization problems. The inputs of the neural network correspond to the design parameters whereas the output corresponds to the objective function of the optimization problem. The neural model is then inverted in order to determine which input is associated to a prefixed output.FindingsThe performance of the algorithm has been tested on analytical function and on the TEAM workshop problem 25.Originality/valueAs the reliability of the optimum solution is strongly affected by the accuracy of the neural approximation model, the approximation error is kept as low as possible, especially in the maximum/minimum points.
Modeling and inversion of 1‐D profiles in time‐domain
Authors: Rahman Mehbub‐ur , Marklein René 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a time‐domain technique to compute the electromagnetic wave field and to reconstruct the permittivity and electric conductivity profile of a one‐dimensional slab of finite length.Design/methodology/approachThe forward scattering problem is solved by a Green's function formulation to generate synthetic data that are used as a testbed for the inversion scheme. The inverse scattering problem is solved by reconstructing the unknown permittivity and electric conductivity profile of the medium with the help of an invariant embedding method.FindingsThe Green's operator maps the incident field on either side of the medium to the field at an arbitrary observation point inside the slab and hence, the internal fields can be computed directly without computing the wave field throughout the entire medium. The invariant embedding method requires a finite time trace of reflection data and therefore it is suitable for reconstructing the material parameters in real‐time.Practical implicationsThe implemented methods have been validated against synthetic and measured time domain reflectometry data.Originality/valueThis paper fulfils an identified need to determine unknown one‐dimensional profiles and thus plays an important role in electromagnetics, non‐destructive testing, and geophysics.
Solution of 2D singular hybrid linear system
Authors: Sajewski Lukasz 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the 2D hybrid linear model, which is a method of describing both continuous‐ and discrete‐time dynamics in one system. Singularity of 2D hybrid linear models is a newly occurred problem and a very important question is how to compute the solution of the singular 2D hybrid linear model.Design/methodology/approachComputation of the solution of mentioned system is based on Laplace transform, Z‐transform and shifting algorithm. The inverse Laplace transform and inverse Z‐transform are used in two cases.FindingsIn this paper, a class of 2D singular hybrid linear systems is introduced. Two methods for computation of solutions of the singular hybrid system with nonzero boundary conditions are proposed. Both methods are illustrated by the examples.Originality/valuePresented methods are a new way for computing the solution of singular 2D hybrid linear systems.
ITAE optimal variable structure control of second order systems with input signal and velocity constraints
Authors: Nowacka‐Leverton Aleksandra , Bartoszewicz Andrzej 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to design a new sliding mode control algorithm for the second order dynamic system subject to input signal and velocity constraints.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed algorithm employs a time‐varying switching line. At the initial time t=t0, the line passes through the representative point of the system in the error state space. Afterwards, the line moves with a constant velocity and a constant angle of inclination to the origin of the space and having reached the origin it stops moving. Parameters of the line are selected in such a way that the integral of the time multiplied by the absolute error is minimized with the input signal and the system velocity constraints. First, each of the constraints is taken into account separately, and then both of them are considered at the same time.FindingsThe algorithm introduced in this paper ensures insensitivity of the controlled system with respect to external disturbance and model uncertainty since the very beginning of its motion. Furthermore, the algorithm guarantees fast tracking error convergence to zero without overshoots or oscillations.Originality/valueIn this paper, new systematic methods of the switching line design for the second order system are presented. Input signal and velocity constraints are explicitly taken into account in the design process.
Parametrization of static output feedback controllers for Markovian switching systems and related robust control problems
Authors: Pakshin Pavel , Soloviev Sergey 
Published: October 2009

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a parametric description (parametrization) of all static output feedback stabilizing controllers for linear stochastic discrete‐time systems with Markovian switching, applications of this result to simultaneous and robust stabilization problems and obtaining of algorithms for computing stabilizing gains.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed approach presents parameterization in terms of coupled linear matrix equations and quadratic matrix inequalities which depend on parameter matrices similar to weight matrices in linear quadratic regulator (LQR) theory. To avoid implementation problems, a convex approximation technique is used and linear matrix inequalities (LMI)‐based algorithms are obtained for computing of stabilizing gain.FindingsThe algorithms obtained in this paper are non‐iterative and used computationally efficient LMI technique. Moreover, it is possible to use well‐known LQR methodology in the process of controller design.Originality/valueAs a result of this paper, a new unified approach to design of static output feedback stabilizing control is developed. This approach leads to efficient stabilizing gain computation algorithms for both stochastic systems with Markovian switching and deterministic systems with polytopic uncertainty.