Self-service technologies (SSTs) are systems that enable customers to independently access banking services at a time and place of their choosing. Such technologies have been widely incorporated into banking logistical systems to increase the geographical coverage, reduce labor costs and provide customers with a better service, thereby enhancing their satisfaction and loyalty. The fundamental aim of this research is to propose and examine a conceptual model that best explains the key factors influencing Jordanian customers' intentions and usage of SST banking channels: Internet banking, Mobile banking, and Telebanking. The conceptual model proposed was based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2). This was extended by adding perceived risk as an external factor. A quantitative approach was selected and data gathered from 348 bank customers was analyzed through Structural equation modelling (SEM) was conducted using AMOS 21. The results show that behavioral intention is significantly influenced by performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, price value and perceived risk; however, social influences do not have a significant influence on behavioral intention. This study makes an important contribution by applying UTAUT2 to examine new technology (SSTs) in a new context (Jordan).

The paper proposes an improved design of a shock absorber used in drilling deep oil and gas and geothermal wells with polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) bits. The proposed innovations successfully combat the dangerous phenomenon of self-excited vibrations, which can lead to malfunctions such as stick-slip and whirling of the drilling tool. Most conventional drill shock absorbers are designed to only absorb longitudinal vibrations, which was sufficient when using roller cutter bits for the drilling process. However, the design features of PDC bits and the phenomenon of interaction of their cutters with interlayered rocks during deep drilling impose new requirements on the properties of the drill shock absorber. To protect the downhole tool from abnormal torque values and torque oscillations, it is proposed to equip the shock absorber with a special torque transmission unit in the form of a fourteen-thread self-releasing screw pair. This unit is capable of transforming increases in external torque into increases in the force that loads the elastic element of the shock absorber. The numerical and analytical models of the mechanism of transferring external axial load and torque to the elastic element of the drill shock absorber are constructed. The distribution of contact pressures on the interacting surfaces of the screw pair and the distribution of equivalent stresses in the screw pair parts are analysed. The strength of the proposed drill shock absorber assembly was evaluated using the Huber-von Mises energy criterion. The dependence of the load transmitted to the elastic element of the shock absorber on changes in the external torque and external axial force is investigated. In general, it is determined that the external load is distributed evenly between all turns of the screw pair, and the limit state of the parts of the proposed assembly is not reached even under high-torque operating load. The obtained analytical dependencies will allow to effectively determine the required strength and stiffness of the elastic element of the drill shock absorber at the design stage. The obtained analytical results were verified using a finite element model.

Nowadays, the selection and management of the optimal portfolio are the most primary fields of financial decision-making. Thereby, selecting a portfolio capable of providing the highest efficiency and, at the same time, the lowest investment risk has been turned into one of the most critical concerns among financial activists. However, in this selection, the two factors above are not the only determining ones. Various factors are affecting financial markets' behavior under different possible scenarios, which should be identified. In this paper, we examine the high sensitivity of the Iranian capital market to the exchange rate fluctuations in the different scenarios due to the lack of a unified view of the value of that rate among experts as one of the mentioned factors and obtain its value using Dempster–Shafer theory (DST). Then, a portfolio selection model that prefers stocks with higher ranks is proposed. Representative results of the real-life case study reveal that the submitted approach is productive and practically applicable.

The public's demand for simple, livable houses means that material studies to support this continue to be carried out today, starting from using natural materials such as bamboo as precast concrete walls. This study aims to conduct an experimental study using bamboo rope from the Gigantochloa Apus variety as an alternative reinforcement for precast concrete walls. Research was carried out on 12 precast concrete wall test specimens, and the flexural properties, flexural strength, and crack patterns were formulated when subjected to a quasi-static load concentrated in the middle of the span. The concrete slab measures 600800 mm with a 50 and 75 mm thickness. The three configurations of bamboo bones used include (1) Gedhek-type woven bamboo slats, (2) bamboo slat type, and (3) Sasak-type woven bamboo slats. The research results show that Sasak-type woven bamboo slat reinforcement is the most effective alternative reinforcement. The behavior of the test specimen shows a ductile failure pattern similar to conventional reinforced concrete. The maximum moment capacity achieved is 1.5 to 2.2 times greater than the theoretical nominal moment capacity. Meanwhile, the behavior of test specimens with conventional plate-type woven bamboo slat reinforcement showed sudden and brittle failure due to slippage at the bond between the bamboo reinforcement and concrete. The average maximum moment from the test results is 60% of the theoretical nominal moment. The results of this research recommend that woven bamboo slats of the conventional plate reinforcement type are less effective as alternative reinforcement if they are not given special treatment to increase their adhesion to concrete. Gedhek-type woven bamboo slats are not effective as alternative reinforcement because they cause separation of the top and bottom parts of the woven concrete, thereby reducing the integrity of the cross-section and causing the cross-sectional capacity to be relatively small.

The source of financing largely determines the implementation of road maintenance. Due to the limited funding capacity of the Regional Government, the performance of road maintenance cannot be handled throughout the provincial road network, so it is necessary to determine the priorities and types of maintenance that must be performed carefully and accurately following the conditions. Therefore, this article conducts a study to determine the priority scale in road maintenance in the province of Lampung (Indonesia), which is limited by the government's financial capacity to make comprehensive improvements through a multi-criteria analysis approach. The approach used is a survey method with purposive sampling, integrated with a multi-criteria analysis approach to find eigenvalues as a priority for improvement. There are at least eight groups with 238 respondents who provide input in determining the priority of road preservation in the province of Lampung. The results show that there are ten main parameter criteria to assess the implementation of road preservation in the Lampung province, including accessibility, social, regional development, economy, number of vehicles, security, congestion, road damage, road safety, and regional disparities. The results of the calculation of the multi-criteria analysis of the parameters found that the "road damage" parameter has the highest weight or eigenvalue. The following parameter that becomes the main consideration is the economic aspect and accessibility, with the second and third largest eigenvalues. The security parameter is a factor that is not considered because it is ranked the lowest.

A hybrid batch fabrication plan involving an outsourcing option is often established to deal with the in-house capacity constraint and/or meet timely demand with a reduced cycle time. Besides, the occurrences of unpredictable equipment malfunction and imperfect product quality should also be effectively managed during in-house fabrication to meet the production schedule and the required quality level. To address these concerns, we examine a hybrid economic production quantity (EPQ) problem with an unreliable machine and quality reassurance; wherein, an outside provider helps supply a portion of the batch at a requested timing and desirable quality, but at the price of a higher than in-house unit cost. Corrective action is performed immediately when a Poisson-distributed breakdown occurs. Once the equipment repairing task completes, the interrupted lot’s fabrication resumes. Random nonconforming products are identified, and the re-workable items among them are separated from the scraps. A rework task follows the regular process in each cycle at an extra cost. A portion of reworked items fails and are scrapped. A model portraying the problem’s characteristics is built, and an optimization methodology is utilized to find the optimal runtime solution to the problem. A numerical example reveals our result’s applicability, and specific managerial implications are suggested.

This article originates from an experimental program and nonlinear finite element analysis aimed at examining how pozzolanic concrete influences the behavior of RC shear walls with openings. To achieve this, stress-strain diagrams, and the elastic modulus of 33 cylindrical concrete specimens, each containing varying percentages of silica fume and zeolite (ranging from 0% to 25%), were evaluated. The impact of silica fume and zeolite pozzolans on the ductility and load-bearing capacity of RC shear walls with openings was explored. This was done by analyzing the mechanical properties of the specimens and integrating them into the analytical model. Subsequently, a shear wall with conventional concrete was simulated using the finite element method (FEM). The study delved into the effects of substituting the initial concrete with pozzolanic concrete within the shear wall. Additionally, it investigated the simultaneous reduction in the diameter of the reinforcing bars employed, all in the pursuit of attaining the optimal design for these walls. The findings demonstrated that employing pozzolanic concrete in shear walls, coupled with a balanced configuration of rebar, led to heightened ductility, improved energy absorption, and an enhanced load-bearing capacity for the walls.

The wooden trolley (in the sawing line using a vertical bandsaw) during work generally moves by iron wheels on two rails placed on the concrete floor. Due to the effect of noticeable cutting force applied by the saw blade and the vehicle's uneven weight on the wheels, it causes the vehicle to vibrate during the horizontal movement, affecting the stability of the wood sawing circuit. By modeling the problem of vibration of beams located on Winkler elastic foundations, subjected to mobile concentrated loads, the article has built a system of differential equations of vibration of two rails, giving an expression to calculate the vibration amplitude of the swan plane. The influence of the flexural rigidity EI of the rails and the elastic stiffness k of foundation on the vibration amplitude of the cutting plane is studied and analyzed. The use of the Dirac Delta function and the employed analytical solution allow the designers to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of the calculated results.

Optimizing the trade-off between crucial decisions has been a prominent issue to help decision-makers for synchronizing the production scheduling and distribution planning in supply chain management. In this article, a bi-objective integrated scheduling problem of production and distribution is addressed in a production environment with identical parallel machines. Besides, two objective functions are considered as measures for customer satisfaction and reduction of the manufacturer’s costs. The first objective is considered aiming at minimizing the total weighted tardiness and total operation time. The second objective is considered aiming at minimizing the total cost of the company’s reputational damage due to the number of tardy orders, total earliness penalty, and total batch delivery costs. First, a mathematical programming model is developed for the problem. Then, two well-known meta-heuristic algorithms are designed to spot near-optimal solutions since the problem is strongly NP-hard. A multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) is designed using a mutation function, followed by a non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) with a one-point crossover operator and a heuristic mutation operator. The experiments on MOPSO and NSGA-II are carried out on small, medium, and large scale problems. Moreover, the performance of the two algorithms is compared according to some comparing criteria. The computational results reveal that the NSGA-II performs highly better than the MOPSO algorithm in small scale problems. In the case of medium and large scale problems, the efficiency of the MOPSO algorithm was significantly improved. Nevertheless, the NSGA-II performs robustly in the most important criteria.

This study investigates the tensile behavior and crack repair of aluminum using fiberglass-reinforced composite patches. Tensile testing compared uncracked, pre-cracked, and repaired aluminum specimens. Pre-cracking by hole drilling decreased strength and ductility from stress concentrations. Composite patching recovered strength, with 4-ply laminates optimal. Uncracked samples failed by necking, pre-cracked by crack growth, and repaired by adhesive detachment. Results demonstrate composite patching effectively restores strength to cracked aluminum by mitigating stress concentrations when appropriately designed. Finite element modeling simulated stress reduction after patching. This work provides experimental data on composite patch performance for metal crack repair and confirms the approach as an effective strengthening technique, although further optimization is needed.