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This qualitative paper examines the importance of both situational factors and adoption constructs in the decision to use online grocery services for the first time. To that end, we have conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with (one or more representatives of) 15 households in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), who all use Collect & Go, Belgium's most popular online grocery service. The content analysis shows that adoption is often induced by situational factors (such as health problems or changes in family circumstances), but not in isolation from an evaluation of technology adoption constructs (such as performance expectancy and social influence). Indeed, we find that immediately or soon after the emergence of the initial trigger, consumers start thinking of the service in terms of innovation characteristics. Moreover, unlike what the literature suggests, adoption is not discontinued when the initiating trigger disappears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a review of research performed by Svenson with colleagues and others work on mental models and their practical implications. Mental models describe how people perceive and think about the world including covariances and relationships between different variables, such as driving speed and time. Research on mental models has detected the time-saving bias [Svenson, O. (1970). A functional measurement approach to intuitive estimation as exemplified by estimated time savings.Journal of Experimental Psychology,86, 204–210]. It means that drivers relatively overestimate the time that can be saved by increasing speed from an already high speed, for example, 90–130 km/h, and underestimate the time that can be saved by increasing speed from a low speed, for example, 30–45 km/h. In congruence with this finding, mean speed judgments and perceptions of mean speeds are also biased and higher speeds given too much weight and low speeds too little weight in comparison with objective reality. Replacing or adding a new speedometer in the car showing min per km eliminated or weakened the time-saving bias. Information about braking distances at different speeds did not improve overoptimistic judgments of braking capacity, but information about collision speed with an object suddenly appearing on the road did improve judgments of braking capacity. This is relevant to drivers, politicians and traffic regulators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Freeze-drying (FD) processes are well known to produce high-quality consumer products. Major problems are long drying times, high investment costs, and resulting maintenance and operating costs that make FD a very costly process. In this study, the potential of air drying (AD) and microwave vacuum drying (MVD) is tested to reduce freeze-drying times and make better utilization of the investment by combining FD with alternative lower cost drying processes using a pre or finish drying step while preserving the qualwity of the final product. Using carrot dice as a sample product, predrying did not lead to the desired qualities and reduction in drying time, whereas finish drying produced promising results. FD/MVD was 40% faster than pure FD and achieved freeze-drying standards regarding volume retention, shape, color, and rehydration. The good performance of microwave vacuum finish drying can directly be traced back to a time effect that is possibly linked to a characteristic collapse time of the cellular matrix. In order to use this effect, a stable skeleton must have developed at the point of process changeover, changeover has to be immediate, and finish drying has to be quick. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the modern world, time has become a precious commodity. Human beings are time bound and therefore time conscious. S. R. Ranganathan recognized that helping constituents save time was the most valuable gift that libraries could give them, such that his only service command law (i.e., the Fourth Law) is that libraries must “Save the time of the User.” Library dependence on computers has increased users' belief that librarians should be able to help them save time. The extent of that expectation can be seen in the way that users involve libraries in their efforts to “satisfice” their research including materials browsing. These expectations about time mean that users bring high expectations when they interact with librarians. They expect librarians to be expert in many fields. Implicit in those expectations is that librarians know how to share their knowledge through appropriate instruction, suggesting an increased role for public librarians as teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Steel strip coils need to be annealed after they leave the cold-rolling process. The purpose of annealing is to improve steel strip formability and to remove residual internal stresses imparted during rolling. Simultaneous increase of circulation rate and inert gas hydrogen content may have considerable effects on reducing the annealing process time. A mathematical model was developed to obtain a more accurate evaluation of the effects of these two parameters on heating and cooling cycles in the annealing process. The results from the simulation of an ordinary annealing process by the proposed model were compared with values measured at site and the accuracy of the model was confirmed. Finally, the effects of increasing hydrogen content and circulation rate were investigated, first independently from each other and then simultaneously. The predictions by the model showed that reduction of annealing time would be considerable when both parameters were simultaneously increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]