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Although active participation of members is a critical success factor for virtual communities, few members actively participate in activities in virtual communities (e.g., posting, commenting, sharing, etc.). This study explores the differences between passive and active community participation from community cohesiveness and community attachment perspectives. Drawing upon a context-specific cohesiveness-attachment-participation framework based on cognition-affection-conation traits of human psychology, we propose a research model and empirically test the roles of community cohesiveness and attachment in virtual community participation. The results suggest that community members' active participation is positively influenced by both community cohesiveness and community attachment. Visitation, as the passive mode of participation, is influenced by community attachment only. The findings not only inspire future IS research to consider community cohesiveness, attachment, and participation as vital research constructs in other social contexts, but it also helps managers build managerial actions, such as prioritising their limited business resources to increase community members' active participation, for the success of virtual communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Auction theory has found vital application in cognitive radio to relieve spectrum scarcity by redistributing idle channels to those who value them most. However, countries have been slow to introduce spectrum auctions in the secondary market. This could be in part because a number of substantial conflicts could emerge for leasing the spectrum at the micro level. These representative conflicts include the lack of legislation, interference management, setting a reasonable price, etc. In addition, the heterogeneous nature of the spectrum precludes the true evaluation of non-identical channels. The information abstracted from the initial activity in terms of price paid for specific channels may not be a useful indicator for the valuation of another channel. Therefore, auction mechanisms to efficiently redistribute idle channels in the secondary market are of vital interest. In this paper, we first investigate such leading conflicts and then propose a novel Adaptive and Economically-Robust spectrum slot Group-selling scheme (AERG), for cognitive radio-based networks such as IoT, 5G and LTE-Advanced. This scheme enables group-selling behavior among the primary users to collectively sell their uplink slots that are individually not attractive to the buyers due to the auction overhead. AERG is based on two single-round sealed-bid reverse-auction mechanisms accomplished in three phases. In the first phase, participants adapt asks and bids to fairly evaluate uplink slots considering the dynamics of spectrum trading such as space and time. In the second phase, an inner-auction in each primary network is conducted to collect asks on group slots, and then, an outer-auction is held between primary and secondary networks. In the third phase, the winning primary network declares the winners of the inner-auction that can evenly share the revenue of the slots. Simulation results and logical proofs verify that AERG satisfies economic properties such as budget balance, truthfulness and individual rationality and improves the utilities of the participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Mobile cloud computing (MCC) is one of the most visible efforts to take computing technology beyond the use of tools and achieve universal penetration. Mobile and cloud computing are becoming increasingly important in people’s daily lives, highlighting the urgent need for new approaches. The motivation of mobile users and the nature of cloud computing make it ideal for developing mobile cloud services. The focus of this paper is on the cognitive, social, and technical motivations that mobile users experience when owning, interacting with, and using mobile devices through MCC. We also explore the moderating role of network externalities between perceived utility of MCC, usage attitudes, and actual use of MCC. The results show that the positive effects of perceived utility and attitudes on mobile cloud computing usage increase gradually with network externalities. This study provides a theoretical basis for academics and practical guidance for service providers to promote MCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]