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AbstractConsumers often search for and compare the online and offline performance of businesses, indicated by consumer ratings, before they make purchases. In this study, using empirical evidence from the restaurant industry, we examine the impact of consumer rating discrepancy between online and offline channels on online demand. We find that channel rating discrepancy for overall performance, products, and services negatively affects online demand. In addition, higher prices amplify the negative effect of channel rating discrepancy on consumer online purchase behavior. The negative discrepancy effect has heterogeneity that depends on the business's properties (i.e., chain vs. independent). Our findings suggest that companies should take an integrated approach to make cross‐channel performance consistent. With consistent performance, companies can have a better overall performance that will attract consumer demand.

AbstractIn the platform economy era, e‐commerce platforms function as distribution channels for sellers and offer online loans to sellers as financing providers. This study focuses on platform finance, where the platform sets a credit line or interest rate to offer either a limited or unlimited loan to capital‐constrained sellers. The sellers may have sufficient initial capital or be capital‐constrained but have access to limited or unlimited loans. We found that the optimal sellers' channel strategy, choosing either a single channel or online‐dominant or offline‐dominant dual channels, depends on the platform's credit line, consumers' channel preferences, and their switching behavior between online and offline channels. Given an unlimited (or limited) loan, the seller's dominated channel's quantity decreases (or increases) with her initial capital. The seller's and platform's preference for the unlimited loan or limited loan depends on the dominant channel and the seller's capital constraint. Loan offerings result in Pareto improvements for both participants, which reveals the value platform finance brings. We compare platform finance with bank finance and find that platform finance increases the sellers' threshold quantity without stockout in each channel and encourages the seller to place a higher quantity in both channels. We also examine the channel substitution effect on the sellers' quantity decisions. Findings provide insights for platforms and sellers to implement optimal financing and channel structures to increase their profits.

AbstractThe relationship between labor migration and the medical benefits of migrant children (MC) has long been a focus of empirical research. Based on the dynamic monitoring data of the migrant population in Hubei Province by the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China in 2014 and the characteristic data of prefecture‐level cities, this paper studies the impact of labor migration on the medical benefits of MC. The major findings of this paper are that in China, due to the huge spatial differences in medical services, the migration of labor to urban areas with better public services helps to improve the medical benefits of women during pregnancy and lying‐in period, and at the same time significantly enhances the medical benefits of the MC. In contrast, due to the relative lag of the reform in social security system such as household registration and medical care, in the long run, labor migration is not conducive to the improvement of the medical benefits of MC. Based on the above findings, this paper suggests that in the short‐term, more public resources should be allocated to the urban medical supply, especially at the primary level, and in the long‐term, the adjustment of public policies should be aimed at eliminating urban‐rural differences.

The author would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Malaysian Government through the author's home University: Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM). In addition the support of the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC), through the funding of a research project entitled 'STEP-NC Compliant Machining and Inspection' at Loughborough University is acknowledged. ; Several CAPP and CAM systems related to STEP-NC compliance are being implemented or commercialized around the world but the focus on turning operations has been limited in the second respect. This paper describes and illustrates a STEP compliant CAD/CAPP/CAM System for the manufacture of rotational parts on CNC turning centers. The information models to support the proposed system together with the data models defined in the ISO14649 standard used to create the NC programs are also described. A structured view of a STEP compliant CAD/CAPP/CAM system framework supporting the next generation of intelligent CNC controllers for turn/mill component manufacture is provided. Finally the authors proposed system is outlined by the modeling of a turn/mill workstation and through the use of user interface dialogs that depict the information held in the models. A case study component has been developed to prove the concept for using the milling and turning parts of ISO14649 to provide a turn-mill CAD/CAPP/CAM environment.

Genome analysis of the pico-eukaryotic marine green alga Prasinoderma coloniale CCMP 1413 unveils the existence of a novel phylum within green plants (Viridiplantae), the Prasinodermophyta, which diverged before the split of Chlorophyta and Streptophyta. Structural features of the genome and gene family comparisons revealed an intermediate position of the P. coloniale genome (25.3 Mb) between the extremely compact, small genomes of picoplanktonic Mamiellophyceae (Chlorophyta) and the larger, more complex genomes of early-diverging streptophyte algae. Reconstruction of the minimal core genome of Viridiplantae allowed identification of an ancestral toolkit of transcription factors and flagellar proteins. Adaptations of P. coloniale to its deep-water, oligotrophic environment involved expansion of light-harvesting proteins, reduction of early light-induced proteins, evolution of a distinct type of C4 photosynthesis and carbon-concentrating mechanism, synthesis of the metal-complexing metabolite picolinic acid, and vitamin B1, B7 and B12 auxotrophy. The P. coloniale genome provides first insights into the dawn of green plant evolution. ; Data availability: Whole-genome assemblies, annotation and raw data for P. coloniale in this study are deposited at the CNGB Nucleotide Sequence Archive92 (CNSA: http://db.cngb. org/cnsa, accession no. CNP0000924). ; The Shenzhen Municipal Government of China and the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Genome Read and Write. ; http://www.nature.com/natecolevol ; am2021 ; Biochemistry ; Genetics ; Microbiology and Plant Pathology