Perceived risk and trust associated with purchasing at electronic marketplaces

Understanding consumer behaviour is of vital importance to consumer-oriented e-business models today. In this paper, we study the relationships between consumer perceptions of risk and trust and the attitude towards purchasing at a consumer-to-consumer electronic marketplace (EM). Typical for EM settings is that consumer behaviour is subject to perceptions of the selling party as well as of the institutional structures of the intermediary that is operating the EM. Building upon the well-established literature of trust, we consider the concepts of intermediary trust and seller trust. We extend this categorisation by introducing the concepts of intermediary risk and seller risk. We developed measurement instruments for intermediary risk and seller risk. All measurement scales have acceptable alphas and are unidimensional. An empirical study is conducted to explore the relationships between the risk and trust types and consumer purchase attitude. The results reveal significant, direct effects of seller trust and seller risk. Second-order effects of intermediary trust and intermediary risk are investigated and reported. The paper concludes with general observations and recommendations for research and practice.     

Crystal growth of selected II–VI semiconducting alloys by directional solidification: Part I Ground-based experiments

A series of Hg_0.84Zn_0.16 Te crystal ingots have been grown from pseudobinary melts by the Bridgmam–Stockbarger type directional solidification using a Marshall Space Flight Center/Space Science Laboratory heat-pipe furnace and the ground control experiment laboratory furnace of the crystal growth furnace which was flown on the first United States Microgravity Mission. A number of translation rates and a series of hot- and cold-zone temperatures were employed to assess the influence of growth parameters on the crystal properties for the purpose of optimizing the in-flight growth conditions. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Study and design of step-index channel waveguide bends withlarge-angle and low-loss characteristics

By using micro-prisms, improved three-dimensional (3-D) bends of the embedded and buried waveguides of step-index profile are proposed. A simple phase compensation rule for the optimal design of the micro-prism is also presented. Through the simulation of 3-D semivectorial finite-difference beam propagation method, the transmission characteristics of the improved bends are shown to have been enhanced dramatically as compared with those of the conventional ones. Even for a bend angle of as large as 10°, the normalized transmitted power can still be greater than 95%. These results of 3-D bends are then compared with those of the two-dimensional (2-D) ones which are simplified from 3-D structures by the effective index method, and physical explanation of the discrepancy between the 3-D and 2-D results is introduced. The influences of waveguide structures and prism parameters on the transmission characteristics are discussed in detail. Some criteria for the design of large-angle low-loss 3-D improved bends are also accessed     

我国清洁代用燃料汽车发展状况

随着汽车数量的迅速增加，汽车排放的有害废气也急剧增加，人们的健康受到威胁，解决这一问题的最好办法是发展清洁代用燃料汽车。介绍了天然气汽车和液化石油气汽车的主要优点，分析了目前我国清洁代用燃料汽车的发展现状，阐述了近期适宜发展我国清洁代用燃料汽车的机遇和面临的困难。最后就提高人们的环保意识、修改和完善汽车尾气污染控制法及排放标准、清洁代用燃料汽车的有关标准和安全措施。对发展这种汽车应给予优惠政策以及零部件生产和车辆改装企业的管理等方面，提出了建议。     

A tutorial on wavelets from an electrical engineering perspective.I. Discrete wavelet techniques

The objective of this paper is to present the subject of wavelets from a filter-theory perspective, which is quite familiar to electrical engineers. Such a presentation provides both physical and mathematical insights into the problem. It is shown that taking the discrete wavelet transform of a function is equivalent to filtering it by a bank of constant-Q filters, the non-overlapping bandwidths of which differ by an octave. The discrete wavelets are presented, and a recipe is provided for generating such entities. One of the goals of this tutorial is to illustrate how the wavelet decomposition is carried out, starting from the fundamentals, and how the scaling functions and wavelets are generated from the filter-theory perspective. Examples (including image compression) are presented to illustrate the class of problems for which the discrete wavelet techniques are ideally suited. It is interesting to note that it is not necessary to generate the wavelets or the scaling functions in order to implement the discrete wavelet transform. Finally, it is shown how wavelet techniques can be used to solve operator/matrix equations. It is shown that the “orthogonal-transform property” of the discrete wavelet techniques does not hold in numerical computations     

单模光纤最小群速度色散波长附近的调制不稳定性

利用修正的非线性Ｓｃｈｒｏｄｉｎｇｅｒ方程研究了单模光纤最小群速度色散波长附近的调制不稳定性，发现了一个新的由光纤四色散导致的调制不稳定性区域，该区域的调制范围与初始入射脉冲的功率和四阶色散有关。