• Title/Summary/Keyword: a modeling

Search Result 26,097, Processing Time 0.06 seconds

Infrared Characteristics of Some Flash Light Sources (섬광의 적외선 특성 연구)

  • Lim, Sang-Yeon;Park, Seung-Man
    • Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
    • /
    • v.27 no.1
    • /
    • pp.18-24
    • /
    • 2016
  • To effectively utilize a flash and predict its effects on an infrared device, it is essential to know the infrared characteristics of the flash source. In this paper, a study of the IR characteristics of flash light sources is carried out. The IR characteristics of three flash sources, of which two are combustive and the other is explosive, are measured with an IR characteristic measurement system over the middle- and long-wavelength infrared ranges. From the measurements, the radiances over the two IR ranges and the radiative temperatures of the flashes are extracted. The IR radiance of flash A is found to be the strongest among the three, followed by those of sources C and B. It is also shown that the IR radiance of flash A is about 10 times stronger than that of flash B, even though these two sources are the same type of flash with the same powder. This means that the IR radiance intensity of a combustive flash source depends only on the amount of powder, not on the characteristics of the powder. From the measured radiance over MWIR and LWIR ranges for each flashes, the radiative temperatures of the flashes are extracted by fitting the measured data to blackbody radiance. The best-fit radiative temperatures (equivalent to black-body temperatures) of the three flash sources A, B, and C are 3300, 1120, and 1640 K respectively. From the radiance measurements and radiative temperatures of the three flash sources, it is shown that a combustive source radiates more IR energy than an explosive one; this mean, in turn, that the effects of a combustive flash on an IR device are more profound than those of an explosive flash source. The measured IR radiances and radiative temperatures of the flash sources in this study can be used to estimate the effects of flashes on various IR devices, and play a critical role for the modeling and simulation of the effects of a flash source on various IR devices.

Assessment of Visual Characteristics of Urban Bridges using Landscape Simulations - A Case Study of Yanghwaro in the Gyeongui Railroad Area - (경관시뮬레이션을 이용한 도시교량의 시각적 특성 평가 - 경의선 폐철구간 양화로 지역을 대상으로 -)

  • Chun, Hyun-Jin;Kim, Sung-Kyun
    • Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
    • /
    • v.38 no.3
    • /
    • pp.75-82
    • /
    • 2010
  • This study formed an estimation of the visual characteristics of urban bridges in Yanghwaro in the Gyeongui Railroad Area using a landscape simulation. Existing theses have formerly only suggested directions for design based on visual preference, but there is as yet no research on the practical process of landscape design. As a result, it is difficult to directly apply this to bridge design. This study found a potential bridge site and presented a direction for bridge design in order to improve the image of the surrounding urban landscape by surveying the visual effects and landscape preferences of different bridge types. An urban landscape was produced using a landscape simulation model and was made the background for the survey. Five bridge types--Girder, Arch, Truss, Cable and Suspension--were selected and presented. The shapes of the bridges were selected based on the floor plan. The results of this study are as follows. In a preference analysis, every bridge except Girder was evaluated as a positive influence. When rating the image, 'artificial' was rated significantly higher than other traits when assessing the background image. When the Girder Bridge was introduced, 'stable' and 'orderly' were both rated highly while 'stable', 'beautiful', 'orderly' and 'interesting' were high with the introduction of the Arch Bridge. 'Beautiful', 'stable', and 'orderly' were given a high value in the introduction of the Truss Bridge and every image except 'natural', 'harmony' and 'orderly' were highly rated in the introduction of the Cable Bridge. Further, every image but 'natural' was highly rated with the introduction of the Suspension Bridge. Based on the analysis of the landscape, there is a difference in preference before and after modeling a bridge type, while the bridge itself is an influence when it is the main object of the simulated scene. This study researched only the shape of the bridge as a part of the landscape but other elements such as stability, economics, and construction are also factors in the design of a bridge. Stability, economics, construction and other factors must be considered when selecting a bridge type in the future.

Development of A Material Flow Model for Predicting Nano-TiO2 Particles Removal Efficiency in a WWTP (하수처리장 내 나노 TiO2 입자 제거효율 예측을 위한 물질흐름모델 개발)

  • Ban, Min Jeong;Lee, Dong Hoon;Shin, Sangwook;Lee, Byung-Tae;Hwang, Yu Sik;Kim, Keugtae;Kang, Joo-Hyon
    • Journal of Wetlands Research
    • /
    • v.24 no.4
    • /
    • pp.345-353
    • /
    • 2022
  • A wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) is a major gateway for the engineered nano-particles (ENPs) entering the water bodies. However existing studies have reported that many WWTPs exceed the No Observed Effective Concentration (NOEC) for ENPs in the effluent and thus they need to be designed or operated to more effectively control ENPs. Understanding and predicting ENPs behaviors in the unit and \the whole process of a WWTP should be the key first step to develop strategies for controlling ENPs using a WWTP. This study aims to provide a modeling tool for predicting behaviors and removal efficiencies of ENPs in a WWTP associated with process characteristics and major operating conditions. In the developed model, four unit processes for water treatment (primary clarifier, bioreactor, secondary clarifier, and tertiary treatment unit) were considered. Additionally the model simulates the sludge treatment system as a single process that integrates multiple unit processes including thickeners, digesters, and dewatering units. The simulated ENP was nano-sized TiO2, (nano-TiO2) assuming that its behavior in a WWTP is dominated by the attachment with suspendid solids (SS), while dissolution and transformation are insignificant. The attachment mechanism of nano-TiO2 to SS was incorporated into the model equations using the apparent solid-liquid partition coefficient (Kd) under the equilibrium assumption between solid and liquid phase, and a steady state condition of nano-TiO2 was assumed. Furthermore, an MS Excel-based user interface was developed to provide user-friendly environment for the nano-TiO2 removal efficiency calculations. Using the developed model, a preliminary simulation was conducted to examine how the solid retention time (SRT), a major operating variable affects the removal efficiency of nano-TiO2 particles in a WWTP.

A Study on the Effects of User Participation on Stickiness and Continued Use on Internet Community (인터넷 커뮤니티에서 사용자 참여가 밀착도와 지속적 이용의도에 미치는 영향)

  • Ko, Mi-Hyun;Kwon, Sun-Dong
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
    • /
    • v.18 no.2
    • /
    • pp.41-72
    • /
    • 2008
  • The purpose of this study is the investigation of the effects of user participation, network effect, social influence, and usefulness on stickiness and continued use on Internet communities. In this research, stickiness refers to repeat visit and visit duration to an Internet community. Continued use means the willingness to continue to use an Internet community in the future. Internet community-based companies can earn money through selling the digital contents such as game, music, and avatar, advertizing on internet site, or offering an affiliate marketing. For such money making, stickiness and continued use of Internet users is much more important than the number of Internet users. We tried to answer following three questions. Fist, what is the effects of user participation on stickiness and continued use on Internet communities? Second, by what is user participation formed? Third, are network effect, social influence, and usefulness that was significant at prior research about technology acceptance model(TAM) still significant on internet communities? In this study, user participation, network effect, social influence, and usefulness are independent variables, stickiness is mediating variable, and continued use is dependent variable. Among independent variables, we are focused on user participation. User participation means that Internet user participates in the development of Internet community site (called mini-hompy or blog in Korea). User participation was studied from 1970 to 1997 at the research area of information system. But since 1997 when Internet started to spread to the public, user participation has hardly been studied. Given the importance of user participation at the success of Internet-based companies, it is very meaningful to study the research topic of user participation. To test the proposed model, we used a data set generated from the survey. The survey instrument was designed on the basis of a comprehensive literature review and interviews of experts, and was refined through several rounds of pretests, revisions, and pilot tests. The respondents of survey were the undergraduates and the graduate students who mainly used Internet communities. Data analysis was conducted using 217 respondents(response rate, 97.7 percent). We used structural equation modeling(SEM) implemented in partial least square(PLS). We chose PLS for two reason. First, our model has formative constructs. PLS uses components-based algorithm and can estimated formative constructs. Second, PLS is more appropriate when the research model is in an early stage of development. A review of the literature suggests that empirical tests of user participation is still sparse. The test of model was executed in the order of three research questions. First user participation had the direct effects on stickiness(${\beta}$=0.150, p<0.01) and continued use (${\beta}$=0.119, p<0.05). And user participation, as a partial mediation model, had a indirect effect on continued use mediated through stickiness (${\beta}$=0.007, p<0.05). Second, optional participation and prosuming participation significantly formed user participation. Optional participation, with a path magnitude as high as 0.986 (p<0.001), is a key determinant for the strength of user participation. Third, Network effect (${\beta}$=0.236, p<0.001). social influence (${\beta}$=0.135, p<0.05), and usefulness (${\beta}$=0.343, p<0.001) had directly significant impacts on stickiness. But network effect and social influence, as a full mediation model, had both indirectly significant impacts on continued use mediated through stickiness (${\beta}$=0.11, p<0.001, and ${\beta}$=0.063, p<0.05, respectively). Compared with this result, usefulness, as a partial mediation model, had a direct impact on continued use and a indirect impact on continued use mediated through stickiness. This study has three contributions. First this is the first empirical study showing that user participation is the significant driver of continued use. The researchers of information system have hardly studies user participation since late 1990s. And the researchers of marketing have studied a few lately. Second, this study enhanced the understanding of user participation. Up to recently, user participation has been studied from the bipolar viewpoint of participation v.s non-participation. Also, even the study on participation has been studied from the point of limited optional participation. But, this study proved the existence of prosuming participation to design and produce products or services, besides optional participation. And this study empirically proved that optional participation and prosuming participation were the key determinant for user participation. Third, our study compliments traditional studies of TAM. According prior literature about of TAM, the constructs of network effect, social influence, and usefulness had effects on the technology adoption. This study proved that these constructs still are significant on Internet communities.

A Joint Application of DRASTIC and Numerical Groundwater Flow Model for The Assessment of Groundwater Vulnerability of Buyeo-Eup Area (DRASTIC 모델 및 지하수 수치모사 연계 적용에 의한 부여읍 일대의 지하수 오염 취약성 평가)

  • Lee, Hyun-Ju;Park, Eun-Gyu;Kim, Kang-Joo;Park, Ki-Hoon
    • Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
    • /
    • v.13 no.1
    • /
    • pp.77-91
    • /
    • 2008
  • In this study, we developed a technique of applying DRASTIC, which is the most widely used tool for estimation of groundwater vulnerability to the aqueous phase contaminant infiltrated from the surface, and a groundwater flow model jointly to assess groundwater contamination potential. The developed technique is then applied to Buyeo-eup area in Buyeo-gun, Chungcheongnam-do, Korea. The input thematic data of a depth to water required in DRASTIC model is known to be the most sensitive to the output while only a few observations at a few time schedules are generally available. To overcome this practical shortcoming, both steady-state and transient groundwater level distributions are simulated using a finite difference numerical model, MODFLOW. In the application for the assessment of groundwater vulnerability, it is found that the vulnerability results from the numerical simulation of a groundwater level is much more practical compared to cokriging methods. Those advantages are, first, the results from the simulation enable a practitioner to see the temporally comprehensive vulnerabilities. The second merit of the technique is that the method considers wide variety of engaging data such as field-observed hydrogeologic parameters as well as geographic relief. The depth to water generated through geostatistical methods in the conventional method is unable to incorporate temporally variable data, that is, the seasonal variation of a recharge rate. As a result, we found that the vulnerability out of both the geostatistical method and the steady-state groundwater flow simulation are in similar patterns. By applying the transient simulation results to DRASTIC model, we also found that the vulnerability shows sharp seasonal variation due to the change of groundwater recharge. The change of the vulnerability is found to be most peculiar during summer with the highest recharge rate and winter with the lowest. Our research indicates that numerical modeling can be a useful tool for temporal as well as spatial interpolation of the depth to water when the number of the observed data is inadequate for the vulnerability assessments through the conventional techniques.

The Impact of Perceived Risks Upon Consumer Trust and Purchase Intentions (인지된 위험의 유형이 소비자 신뢰 및 온라인 구매의도에 미치는 영향)

  • Hong, Il-Yoo B.;Kim, Woo-Sung;Lim, Byung-Ha
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
    • /
    • v.21 no.4
    • /
    • pp.1-25
    • /
    • 2011
  • Internet-based commerce has undergone an explosive growth over the past decade as consumers today find it more economical as well as more convenient to shop online. Nevertheless, the shift in the common mode of shopping from offline to online commerce has caused consumers to have worries over such issues as private information leakage, online fraud, discrepancy in product quality and grade, unsuccessful delivery, and so forth, Numerous studies have been undertaken to examine the role of perceived risk as a chief barrier to online purchases and to understand the theoretical relationships among perceived risk, trust and purchase intentions, However, most studies focus on empirically investigating the effects of trust on perceived risk, with little attention devoted to the effects of perceived risk on trust, While the influence trust has on perceived risk is worth studying, the influence in the opposite direction is equally important, enabling insights into the potential of perceived risk as a prohibitor of trust, According to Pavlou (2003), the primary source of the perceived risk is either the technological uncertainty of the Internet environment or the behavioral uncertainty of the transaction partner. Due to such types of uncertainty, an increase in the worries over the perceived risk may negatively affect trust, For example, if a consumer who sends sensitive transaction data over Internet is concerned that his or her private information may leak out because of the lack of security, trust may decrease (Olivero and Lunt, 2004), By the same token, if the consumer feels that the online merchant has the potential to profit by behaving in an opportunistic manner taking advantage of the remote, impersonal nature of online commerce, then it is unlikely that the merchant will be trusted, That is, the more the probable danger is likely to occur, the less trust and the greater need to control the transaction (Olivero and Lunt, 2004), In summary, a review of the related studies indicates that while some researchers looked at the influence of overall perceived risk on trust level, not much attention has been given to the effects of different types of perceived risk, In this context the present research aims at addressing the need to study how trust is affected by different types of perceived risk, We classified perceived risk into six different types based on the literature, and empirically analyzed the impact of each type of perceived risk upon consumer trust in an online merchant and further its impact upon purchase intentions. To meet our research objectives, we developed a conceptual model depicting the nomological structure of the relationships among our research variables, and also formulated a total of seven hypotheses. The model and hypotheses were tested using an empirical analysis based on a questionnaire survey of 206 college students. The reliability was evaluated via Cronbach's alphas, the minimum of which was found to be 0.73, and therefore the questionnaire items are all deemed reliable. In addition, the results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) designed to check the validity of the measurement model indicate that the convergent, discriminate, and nomological validities of the model are all acceptable. The structural equation modeling analysis to test the hypotheses yielded the following results. Of the first six hypotheses (H1-1 through H1-6) designed to examine the relationships between each risk type and trust, three hypotheses including H1-1 (performance risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust), H1-2 (psychological risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust) and H1-5 (online payment risk ${\rightarrow}$ trust) were supported with path coefficients of -0.30, -0.27 and -0.16 respectively. Finally, H2 (trust ${\rightarrow}$ purchase intentions) was supported with relatively high path coefficients of 0.73. Results of the empirical study offer the following findings and implications. First. it was found that it was performance risk, psychological risk and online payment risk that have a statistically significant influence upon consumer trust in an online merchant. It implies that a consumer may find an online merchant untrustworthy if either the product quality or the product grade does not match his or her expectations. For that reason, online merchants including digital storefronts and e-marketplaces are suggested to pursue a strategy focusing on identifying the target customers and offering products that they feel best meet performance and psychological needs of those customers. Thus, they should do their best to make it widely known that their products are of as good quality and grade as those purchased from offline department stores. In addition, it may be inferred that today's online consumers remain concerned about the security of the online commerce environment due to the repeated occurrences of hacking or private information leakage. Online merchants should take steps to remove potential vulnerabilities and provide online notices to emphasize that their website is secure. Second, consumer's overall trust was found to have a statistically significant influence on purchase intentions. This finding, which is consistent with the results of numerous prior studies, suggests that increased sales will become a reality only with enhanced consumer trust.

Mapping Categories of Heterogeneous Sources Using Text Analytics (텍스트 분석을 통한 이종 매체 카테고리 다중 매핑 방법론)

  • Kim, Dasom;Kim, Namgyu
    • Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
    • /
    • v.22 no.4
    • /
    • pp.193-215
    • /
    • 2016
  • In recent years, the proliferation of diverse social networking services has led users to use many mediums simultaneously depending on their individual purpose and taste. Besides, while collecting information about particular themes, they usually employ various mediums such as social networking services, Internet news, and blogs. However, in terms of management, each document circulated through diverse mediums is placed in different categories on the basis of each source's policy and standards, hindering any attempt to conduct research on a specific category across different kinds of sources. For example, documents containing content on "Application for a foreign travel" can be classified into "Information Technology," "Travel," or "Life and Culture" according to the peculiar standard of each source. Likewise, with different viewpoints of definition and levels of specification for each source, similar categories can be named and structured differently in accordance with each source. To overcome these limitations, this study proposes a plan for conducting category mapping between different sources with various mediums while maintaining the existing category system of the medium as it is. Specifically, by re-classifying individual documents from the viewpoint of diverse sources and storing the result of such a classification as extra attributes, this study proposes a logical layer by which users can search for a specific document from multiple heterogeneous sources with different category names as if they belong to the same source. Besides, by collecting 6,000 articles of news from two Internet news portals, experiments were conducted to compare accuracy among sources, supervised learning and semi-supervised learning, and homogeneous and heterogeneous learning data. It is particularly interesting that in some categories, classifying accuracy of semi-supervised learning using heterogeneous learning data proved to be higher than that of supervised learning and semi-supervised learning, which used homogeneous learning data. This study has the following significances. First, it proposes a logical plan for establishing a system to integrate and manage all the heterogeneous mediums in different classifying systems while maintaining the existing physical classifying system as it is. This study's results particularly exhibit very different classifying accuracies in accordance with the heterogeneity of learning data; this is expected to spur further studies for enhancing the performance of the proposed methodology through the analysis of characteristics by category. In addition, with an increasing demand for search, collection, and analysis of documents from diverse mediums, the scope of the Internet search is not restricted to one medium. However, since each medium has a different categorical structure and name, it is actually very difficult to search for a specific category insofar as encompassing heterogeneous mediums. The proposed methodology is also significant for presenting a plan that enquires into all the documents regarding the standards of the relevant sites' categorical classification when the users select the desired site, while maintaining the existing site's characteristics and structure as it is. This study's proposed methodology needs to be further complemented in the following aspects. First, though only an indirect comparison and evaluation was made on the performance of this proposed methodology, future studies would need to conduct more direct tests on its accuracy. That is, after re-classifying documents of the object source on the basis of the categorical system of the existing source, the extent to which the classification was accurate needs to be verified through evaluation by actual users. In addition, the accuracy in classification needs to be increased by making the methodology more sophisticated. Furthermore, an understanding is required that the characteristics of some categories that showed a rather higher classifying accuracy of heterogeneous semi-supervised learning than that of supervised learning might assist in obtaining heterogeneous documents from diverse mediums and seeking plans that enhance the accuracy of document classification through its usage.

Downscaling of Sunshine Duration for a Complex Terrain Based on the Shaded Relief Image and the Sky Condition (하늘상태와 음영기복도에 근거한 복잡지형의 일조시간 분포 상세화)

  • Kim, Seung-Ho;Yun, Jin I.
    • Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
    • /
    • v.18 no.4
    • /
    • pp.233-241
    • /
    • 2016
  • Experiments were carried out to quantify the topographic effects on attenuation of sunshine in complex terrain and the results are expected to help convert the coarse resolution sunshine duration information provided by the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) into a detailed map reflecting the terrain characteristics of mountainous watershed. Hourly shaded relief images for one year, each pixel consisting of 0 to 255 brightness value, were constructed by applying techniques of shadow modeling and skyline analysis to the 3m resolution digital elevation model for an experimental watershed on the southern slope of Mt. Jiri in Korea. By using a bimetal sunshine recorder, sunshine duration was measured at three points with different terrain conditions in the watershed from May 15, 2015 to May 14, 2016. The brightness values of the 3 corresponding pixel points on the shaded relief map were extracted and regressed to the measured sunshine duration, resulting in a brightness-sunshine duration response curve for a clear day. We devised a method to calibrate this curve equation according to sky condition categorized by cloud amount and used it to derive an empirical model for estimating sunshine duration over a complex terrain. When the performance of this model was compared with a conventional scheme for estimating sunshine duration over a horizontal plane, the estimation bias was improved remarkably and the root mean square error for daily sunshine hour was 1.7hr, which is a reduction by 37% from the conventional method. In order to apply this model to a given area, the clear-sky sunshine duration of each pixel should be produced on hourly intervals first, by driving the curve equation with the hourly shaded relief image of the area. Next, the cloud effect is corrected by 3-hourly 'sky condition' of the KMA digital forecast products. Finally, daily sunshine hour can be obtained by accumulating the hourly sunshine duration. A detailed sunshine duration distribution of 3m horizontal resolution was obtained by applying this procedure to the experimental watershed.

Development of the Risk Evaluation Model for Rear End Collision on the Basis of Microscopic Driving Behaviors (미시적 주행행태를 반영한 후미추돌위험 평가모형 개발)

  • Chung, Sung-Bong;Song, Ki-Han;Park, Chang-Ho;Chon, Kyung-Soo;Kho, Seung-Young
    • Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
    • /
    • v.22 no.6
    • /
    • pp.133-144
    • /
    • 2004
  • A model and a measure which can evaluate the risk of rear end collision are developed. Most traffic accidents involve multiple causes such as the human factor, the vehicle factor, and the highway element at any given time. Thus, these factors should be considered in analyzing the risk of an accident and in developing safety models. Although most risky situations and accidents on the roads result from the poor response of a driver to various stimuli, many researchers have modeled the risk or accident by analyzing only the stimuli without considering the response of a driver. Hence, the reliabilities of those models turned out to be low. Thus in developing the model behaviors of a driver, such as reaction time and deceleration rate, are considered. In the past, most studies tried to analyze the relationships between a risk and an accident directly but they, due to the difficulty of finding out the directional relationships between these factors, developed a model by considering these factors, developed a model by considering indirect factors such as volume, speed, etc. However, if the relationships between risk and accidents are looked into in detail, it can be seen that they are linked by the behaviors of a driver, and depending on drivers the risk as it is on the road-vehicle system may be ignored or call drivers' attention. Therefore, an accident depends on how a driver handles risk, so that the more related risk to and accident occurrence is not the risk itself but the risk responded by a driver. Thus, in this study, the behaviors of a driver are considered in the model and to reflect these behaviors three concepts related to accidents are introduced. And safe stopping distance and accident occurrence probability were used for better understanding and for more reliable modeling of the risk. The index which can represent the risk is also developed based on measures used in evaluating noise level, and for the risk comparison between various situations, the equivalent risk level, considering the intensity and duration time, is developed by means of the weighted average. Validation is performed with field surveys on the expressway of Seoul, and the test vehicle was made to collect the traffic flow data, such as deceleration rate, speed and spacing. Based on this data, the risk by section, lane and traffic flow conditions are evaluated and compared with the accident data and traffic conditions. The evaluated risk level corresponds closely to the patterns of actual traffic conditions and counts of accident. The model and the method developed in this study can be applied to various fields, such as safety test of traffic flow, establishment of operation & management strategy for reliable traffic flow, and the safety test for the control algorithm in the advanced safety vehicles and many others.

The Effect of Consumers' Value Motives on the Perception of Blog Reviews Credibility: the Moderation Effect of Tie Strength (소비자의 가치 추구 동인이 블로그 리뷰의 신뢰성 지각에 미치는 영향: 유대강도에 따른 조절효과를 중심으로)

  • Chu, Wujin;Roh, Min Jung
    • Asia Marketing Journal
    • /
    • v.13 no.4
    • /
    • pp.159-189
    • /
    • 2012
  • What attracts consumers to bloggers' reviews? Consumers would be attracted both by the Bloggers' expertise (i.e., knowledge and experience) and by his/her unbiased manner of delivering information. Expertise and trustworthiness are both virtues of information sources, particularly when there is uncertainty in decision-making. Noting this point, we postulate that consumers' motives determine the relative weights they place on expertise and trustworthiness. In addition, our hypotheses assume that tie strength moderates consumers' expectation on bloggers' expertise and trustworthiness: with expectation on expertise enhanced for power-blog user-group (weak-ties), and an expectation on trustworthiness elevated for personal-blog user-group (strong-ties). Finally, we theorize that the effect of credibility on willingness to accept a review is moderated by tie strength; the predictive power of credibility is more prominent for the personal-blog user-groups than for the power-blog user groups. To support these assumptions, we conducted a field survey with blog users, collecting retrospective self-report data. The "gourmet shop" was chosen as a target product category, and obtained data analyzed by structural equations modeling. Findings from these data provide empirical support for our theoretical predictions. First, we found that the purposive motive aimed at satisfying instrumental information needs increases reliance on bloggers' expertise, but interpersonal connectivity value for alleviating loneliness elevates reliance on bloggers' trustworthiness. Second, expertise-based credibility is more prominent for power-blog user-groups than for personal-blog user-groups. While strong ties attract consumers with trustworthiness based on close emotional bonds, weak ties gain consumers' attention with new, non-redundant information (Levin & Cross, 2004). Thus, when the existing knowledge system, used in strong ties, does not work as smoothly for addressing an impending problem, the weak-tie source can be utilized as a handy reference. Thus, we can anticipate that power bloggers secure credibility by virtue of their expertise while personal bloggers trade off on their trustworthiness. Our analysis demonstrates that power bloggers appeal more strongly to consumers than do personal bloggers in the area of expertise-based credibility. Finally, the effect of review credibility on willingness to accept a review is higher for the personal-blog user-group than for the power-blog user-group. Actually, the inference that review credibility is a potent predictor of assessing willingness to accept a review is grounded on the analogy that attitude is an effective indicator of purchase intention. However, if memory about established attitudes is blocked, the predictive power of attitude on purchase intention is considerably diminished. Likewise, the effect of credibility on willingness to accept a review can be affected by certain moderators. Inspired by this analogy, we introduced tie strength as a possible moderator and demonstrated that tie strength moderated the effect of credibility on willingness to accept a review. Previously, Levin and Cross (2004) showed that credibility mediates strong-ties through receipt of knowledge, but this credibility mediation is not observed for weak-ties, where a direct path to it is activated. Thus, the predictive power of credibility on behavioral intention - that is, willingness to accept a review - is expected to be higher for strong-ties.

  • PDF