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Applications offered to end‐users as value‐added services play a vital role in the success of Internet telephony service providers. Today’s standard frameworks for developing them have several shortcomings that motivate the need for novel frameworks. Web services are an emerging paradigm for program‐to‐program interactions over the Internet. This paradigm is a prime candidate for application development in Internet Telephony because it may aid in addressing the drawbacks of today’s standard frameworks. This paper presents a case study that gives insights in the suitability of Web services as a standard framework for the development of conferencing applications in Internet Telephony. The case study includes the definition and the implementation of a novel Web service for conferencing, the implementation of the conference server in a SIP environment, the development of several conferencing applications (including a game), and performance evaluation. Based on this case study, we conclude that Web services are very promising for conferencing application development in Internet Telephony, especially as the performance can be significantly improved with the emerging techniques that are briefly discussed in the paper.

Smart city services (SCS) in contrast with other technology-based services, demand significant interaction and collaboration between the users and the service providers. This study examines the SCS delivery-channel characteristics and the users' personal (behavioral and demographic) characteristics that influence their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the services, as well as their intention to adopt (i.e. continue using) the SCS-delivery channels.

A quantitative study using a structured questionnaire was conducted for this paper. The data-collection method was administered by emailing the survey to a list of 2,350 city/urban residents who are members of the two largest universities in the greater Dubai metropolis. A total of 600 completed responses (26 percent) were received back, while 580 useable responses (25 percent) were analyzed for this paper.

Our initial findings suggest that contrary to popular belief, it is not only SCS channel factors that influence user satisfaction and continuance intention. SCS users' personal characteristics (such as their user innovativeness and control-seeking behavior) are also pivotal in determining their satisfaction and intention to continue or not continue using the SCS-delivery channels.

The paper argues that both SCS channel factors and SCS users' personal characteristics jointly influence the users' experience of the services and therefore jointly determine their satisfaction with the service as well as their SCS usage continuance intention. The result of our research gives important insights into users' behaviors toward the emerging SCS channels in general, and it will be of great value to architects and designers of Smart City technologies around the world.

The paper argues that both SCS channel factors and SCS users' personal (behavioral and demographic) characteristics jointly influence the users' trials of the services, and therefore jointly determine their satisfaction with the service as well as their SCS usage continuance intention. The result of our research gives important insights into users' behavioral intentions toward the emerging SCS channels in general; and it will be of great value to architects and designers of Smart City technologies around the world.

This paper is one of the first few studies focused on investigating the antecedents of SCS usage behaviors in the Middle Eastern region.

This study aims to examine the effects of technology-, organisation- and environment-readiness, smart economic development, change valence, social cohesion and quality of life on citizenship in the context of smart cities.

The study employed a customized questionnaire which was completed by 280 residents of China’s first-tier cities. This study tested the framework using the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique.

The results indicated that smart economy development, social cohesion, change valence, technological readiness, organizational readiness and environmental readiness have a significant impact on the quality of life. Quality of life has a positive impact on citizenship.

This study adds new insights to smart city academic discussions. The study addresses a critical gap identified in existing literature which urges the need for a balance between user-centric, organization-centric and technology-centric approaches. It offers a fresh perspective on how the smart economy, social cohesion and readiness factors are interlinked. These elements together shape urban living experiences. For policymakers and urban planners, our findings provide clear guidance. They highlight the complex dynamics that must be considered to build more unified, inclusive and sustainable smart cities.

Fitness games, as a medium that combines playfulness and usefulness for exercise, face challenges in sustaining long-term user engagement. Currently, there is limited research exploring factors influencing users' continued intention to use from the perspective of user experience. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the priority of various user experience attributes of fitness games in promoting users' sustained engagement and to construct a user behavior model, offering theoretical guidance for designers and businesses.

This study distributed 441 survey questionnaires and, based on the fundamental characteristics of external games, established a model for users' continued intention to use external games. It explores the impact of various gaming elements on users' continued intention to use fitness games and the relationships between these elements.

The study indicates that usefulness, functional quality, and ease of use directly influence players' intention to continue playing external games. Social interactions, technical quality, and playfulness do not have an impact on the continued intention to use.

This research breaks away from the bias of previous studies overly focusing on playfulness in games. It fills the research gap regarding the continued intention to use fitness games and provides insights into the design and operation of fitness games.

This study aims to use geographical information on social media for public opinion risk identification during a crisis.

This study constructs a double-layer network that associates the online public opinion with geographical information. In the double-layer network, Gaussian process regression is used to train the prediction model for geographical locations. Second, cross-space information flow is described using local government data availability and regional internet development indicators. Finally, the structural characteristics and information flow of the double-layer network are explored to capture public opinion risks in a fine-grained manner. This study used the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak for validation analyses, and it collected more than 90,000 pieces of public opinion data from microblogs.

In the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, the double-layer network exhibited a radiating state, and the information dissemination was more dependent on the nodes with higher in-degree. Moreover, the double-layer network structure showed geographical differences. The risk contagion was more significant in areas where information flow was prominent, but the influence of nodes was reduced.

Public opinion risk identification that incorporates geographical scenarios contributes to enhanced situational awareness. This study not only effectively extends geographical information on social media, but also provides valuable insights for accurately responding to public opinion.

This study aims to investigate tourists’ impressions of the smart destinations model from the socio-technical systems and the technology–organization–environment (TOE) perspectives. Specifically, it aims to explore how information source credibility and cloud infrastructure influence tourists’ use of intelligent technology.

This measurement development is based on prior literature; after being evaluated for face and content validity, the authors used random sampling to collect data and conducted a field survey of tourists through Taoyuan Airport and using the airport MRT between December 2022 and March 2023. After confirming that tourists knew the destination information and had experience using travel-related mobile applications to plan their itinerary, the authors further invited tourists to participate in the survey, and 512 valid questionnaires were analyzed by the structural equation modeling approach.

The finding pointed out that source credibility and intelligent technology were innovative technologies that benefitted tourists, as were mobile travel planning apps, which created a relational context based on interests and activities from the socio-technical and TOE perspectives.

Technological innovation is closely related to the development of smart cities; tourists who used travel itineraries successfully understood travel-related actions and significantly had more positive affective images of the city.

This purpose of this study was to examine the impact of social and organisational capital on service innovation capability among service firms in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To test the proposed research model, data were collected using a cross-sectional questionnaire. The study sample consisted of 188 private and public service sector managers in the UAE. Partial least square-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to examine the research model's validity and reliability and to test the research hypothesis.

The empirical evidence indicates that during this pandemic the relationship between social capital and service innovation capability was fully mediated by strategic environmental scanning, while partially mediating the relationship between organisational capital and service innovation capability.

Managers in service organisations must be proactive during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, they should emphasise effective environmental scanning and the tracking of customer preferences to provide customised services that are valued and meet the emerging requirements of their customers. Prioritising investment in organisational capital to enhance innovation capacity is also recommended.

This study is the first to examine strategic environmental scanning as a mediator between social and organisational capital and service innovation capacity during a pandemic. There were significant differences between the findings of our study and previous studies: the authors found that, during crises, management priorities change, and businesses become more reliant on organisational capital to develop service innovation capability.

Artificial intelligence (AI) reasoning is fuelled by high-quality, detailed behavioural data. These can usually be obtained by the biometrical sensors embedded in smart devices. The currently used data collecting approach, where data ownership and property rights are taken by the data scientists, designers of a device or a related application, delivers multiple ethical, sociological and governance concerns. In this paper, the author is opening a systemic examination of a data sharing concept in which data producers execute their data property rights.

Since data sharing concept delivers a substantially different alternative, it needs to be thoroughly examined from multiple perspectives, among them: the ethical, social and feasibility. At this stage, theoretical examination modes in the form of literature analysis and mental model development are being performed.

Data sharing concepts, framework, mechanisms and swift viability are examined. The author determined that data sharing could lead to virtuous data science by augmenting data producers' capacity to govern their data and regulators' capacity to interact in the process. Truly interdisciplinary research is proposed to follow up on this research.

Since the research proposal is theoretical, the proposal may not provide direct applicative value but is largely focussed on fuelling the research directions.

For the researchers, data sharing concepts will provide an alternative approach and help resolve multiple ethical considerations related to the internet of things (IoT) data collecting approach. For the practitioners in data science, it will provide numerous new challenges, such as distributed data storing, distributed data analysis and intelligent data sharing protocols.

Data sharing may post significant implications in research and development. Since ethical, legislative moral and trust-related issues are managed in the negotiation process, data can be shared freely, which in a practical sense expands the data pool for virtuous research in social sciences.

The paper opens new research directions of data sharing concepts and space for a new field of research.

Based on the post-acceptance model of information system continuance (PAMISC), this study investigates the influence of the early-stage users' personal traits (specifically personal innovativeness and technology anxiety) and ex-post instrumentality perceptions (specifically price value, hedonic motivation, compatibility and perceived security) on social diffusion of smart technologies measured by the intention to recommend artificial intelligence-based voice assistant systems (AIVAS) to others.

Survey data from 400 US AIVAS users were collected and analyzed with Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) 18.0 and the partial least square technique using advanced analysis of composites (ADANCO) 2.1.

AIVAS technology is presently at the early stage of market penetration (about 25% of market penetration in the USA). A survey of AIVAS technology users reveals that personal innovativeness is directly and indirectly (through confirmation and continuance) associated with a stronger intention to recommend the use of the device to others. Confirmation is associated with all four ex-post instrumentality perceptions (hedonic motivation, compatibility, price value and perceived security). Among the four, however, only hedonic motivation and compatibility are significant predictors of satisfaction, which lead to use continuance and, eventually, intention to recommend. Finally, technology anxiety is found to be indirectly (but not directly) associated with a lower intention to recommend.

This is the first study conducted on the early-stage AIVAS users that evaluates the influence of both personal traits and ex-post instrumentality perceptions on users' intention for continuance and recommendation to others.

Most research on sustainable tourism has been devoted to understanding the determinants of tourists' sustainable behavior on a unidimensional construct, overlooking the importance of behavioral costs in sustainable travel behavior. To shed light on this issue, this study aims to quantitatively differentiate sustainable travel behaviors based on behavioral costs and to examine the impact of psychological factors on both low-cost and high-cost sustainable travel behaviors.

A survey of 470 tourists used Rasch analysis to measure the behavioral costs associated with sustainable travel behavior and partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to test hypotheses.

The results indicate that the value-identity-personal norm model explains more variance in low-cost sustainable travel behaviors than in high-cost sustainable travel behaviors. This supports the central tenet of the low-cost hypothesis and also suggests that values and self-identity factors have a stronger influence on low-cost sustainable travel behavior. However, personal norms have a stronger influence on high-cost behaviors.

This research highlights the importance for tourism and destination managers to distinguish between different categories of sustainable travel behavior and to analyze their determinants separately. This allows for the development of tailored messages for specific groups of tourists based on the psychological drivers of sustainable travel behavior.

This study provides insights into the determinants of sustainable travel behaviors with different behavioral costs and highlights the importance of analyzing different categories of behaviors separately.