Purpose Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered service apps are widely adopted but raise critical authenticity concerns, particularly as human-facing AI increasingly simulates social presence and care. This study aims to explore how customers discern authenticity through symbolic and natural stimuli, moving beyond technical perspectives. Design/methodology/approach A sequential mixed-method design combining in-depth interviews (n = 26) and text mining (N = 11,400 reviews) is conducted, focusing on health, beauty and lifestyle sectors. Interviews identified symbolic and natural stimuli, while topic modeling assessed their relative importance in comparison with physical and social stimuli. Findings We developed an integrated servicescape model incorporating physical, social stimuli with the new four symbolic stimuli (monetization strategy, situational/cultural fit, moral commitment, recommendation precision) and three natural stimuli (service realism, soothing interactions, safe disclosure environments). The findings reveal asymmetric effects on customer engagement valence, showing how different stimuli are associated with positive vs negative engagement. Practical implications The model guides app developers, service designers and marketers to strategically embed symbolic and natural stimuli that strengthen authenticity and foster sustained and positively valenced customer engagement. Social implications This study supports the creation of more transparent, trustworthy and inclusive AI service ecosystems. Originality/value Building on and extending the stimulus–organism–response framework and servicescape literature, this research identifies previously underexplored symbolic and natural stimuli beyond physical and social factors. It demonstrates how these stimuli shape customer engagement valence in AI-powered service apps, offering fresh insights into contemporary service authenticity.

ABSTRACT This article explores the negotiation of authenticity in Korean restaurants in Ankara, Türkiye, against the backdrop of the growing influence of the Korean Wave (Hallyu) and the increasing cosmopolitan aspirations of Türkiye’s young urban middle classes. By focusing on these restaurants, the study explores how cultural, social and market dynamics shape perceptions of authenticity in a non-Western context. The research adopts a qualitative approach, utilizing semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and social media analysis, and reveals the negotiated nature of authenticity among owners, staff, and customers. We argue that authenticity is a dynamic construct in Korean restaurants in Ankara, reflecting adaptations to local context, such as halalization, within broader global cultural and economic processes, such as the Korean Wave and cosmopolitan aspirations. These insights invite further research into cultural exchanges and culinary connections in understudied non-Western contexts, enriching discourses on authenticity, identity, and globalization.

The rapid evolution of the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) and the Software Defined Networking (SDN) has enabled dynamic, programmable and scalable vehicular communication systems. Still, the acquisition of secure authentication, efficient routing, and Quality of Service (QoS) management remains the challenging task due to the high mobility, varying data demands and security threats. To address the issues, this research introduces the Blockchain-enabled SDN-IoV framework with secure authentication, priority-based request management and optimal routing. Initially, all the vehicular requests are checked for the legitimacy using the blockchain-based authentication to prevent malicious intrusions using the decentralized trust management. Then, the priority for the request is determined based on task deadline, data size, vehicle speed and emergency condition. By considering the priority, requests are allocated to edge or cloud nodes for further processing. In this, the routing is employed using the Iterative Fossa Optimization (ItFO) algorithm based on multi-objective functions like end-to-end delay, residual energy, link reliability and security factors. The proposed SDN-IoV framework enhances the security, QoS, and energy efficiency of vehicular communications in highly dynamic SDN-IoV environments.

ABSTRACT Many luxury brands have adopted artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots to offer personalized online shopping services. Underpinned by cognitive appraisal theory, this study examines sequential psychological mechanisms in AI chatbot-driven online luxury shopping experiences in information-seeking and problem-solving contexts. A between-subjects design (AI chatbot usage purposes: information-seeking vs. problem-solving) was employed, and 416 responses were collected in the United States. PLS-SEM was used for data analysis. The results reveal that AI chatbot service authenticity and perceived parasocial interaction increase pleasure and satisfaction, prompting online luxury purchase intention and brand loyalty. However, AI chatbot usage purposes did not serve as a moderator. This study contributes to AI chatbot service literature by adopting a consumer-centric approach to understanding the impact of AI-powered service agents on consumer engagement and commitment to luxury e-retailers. Furthermore, this research suggests that luxury brands develop an advanced level of personalization through AI chatbot services as an online retailing strategy to target Millennial and Generation Z consumers who desire a personalized touch. This study helps luxury brands enhance the effectiveness of chatbot services and achieve long-term profitability by leveraging AI-powered chatbots aligned with the brand’s identity and image.

Secure and efficient service authentication is vital for trustable interactions between users and service nodes in decentralized metaverse environments. However, conventional PKI-based authentication methods face limitations such as high query latency, privacy leakage risks, and centralized trust dependencies, making them unsuitable for large-scale, real-time metaverse services. To address these challenges, we propose ESAChain, a novel blockchain-based authentication framework that e nsures lightweight, decentralized, and privacy-preserving identity verification. Specifically, we propose a Mutually Exclusive Cuckoo Filter (MECF) integrated with a Filter Hash Chain (FHC), which provides lightweight data structures and efficient querying capabilities for certificate status. Furthermore, we design a trust-decay-based Delegated Proof-of-Stake (TD-DPoS) consensus mechanism to maintain the integrity and reliability of certificate status data by dynamically adjusting node trust values and decaying votes to prevent single-node dominance. We also incorporate a blind-signature-based authentication mechanism to enhance privacy-preserving identity authentication by preventing tracking of certificate verification requests. Extensive simulation experiments and security analyses demonstrate that ESAChain significantly reduces query latency and data transmission overhead, enhances consensus robustness, and provides an efficient, trustworthy, and privacy-preserving authentication solution for secure metaverse services.

Can service authenticity in nostalgic hotels promote brand resonance? The roles of self-image congruity and memorable customer experience

The rapid growth of mobile payment systems has positioned Near Field Communication (NFC) as a core enabling technology. However, conventional NFC protocols primarily emphasize transmission efficiency rather than robust authentication and privacy protection, which exposes users to threats such as eavesdropping, replay, and tracking attacks. In this study, a lightweight and privacy-preserving authentication protocol is proposed for NFC-based mobile payment services. The protocol integrates anonymous authentication, replay resistance, and tracking protection while maintaining low computational overhead suitable for resource-constrained devices. A secure offline session key generation mechanism is incorporated to enhance transaction reliability without increasing system complexity. Formal security verification using the Scyther tool (version 1.1.3) confirms resistance against major attack vectors, including impersonation, man-in-the-middle, and replay attacks. Comparative performance analysis further demonstrates that the proposed scheme achieves superior efficiency and stronger security guarantees compared with existing approaches. These results indicate that the protocol provides a practical and scalable solution for secure and privacy-aware NFC mobile payment environments.

Purpose With the rise of automation in the restaurant industry, human–robot collaboration is emerging as a dominant service model. However, little is known about how customers’ evaluations of such collaborations influence their intention to revisit. Grounded in cognitive appraisal theory (CAT), this study aims to explore how perceived process fluency and team cohesion impact revisit intention through the mediating roles of robotic service authenticity, customer delight and existential authenticity. Design/methodology/approach An online survey was conducted with Chinese diners who had experienced human–robot team service in restaurants. A total of 448 valid responses were collected, and the proposed model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling. Findings The findings indicate that perceived process fluency and team cohesion positively influence robotic service authenticity. Besides, robotic service authenticity positively affects customer delight and existential authenticity, which leads to revisit intention. The mediating effects of robotic service authenticity, customer delight and existential authenticity are all confirmed. Practical implications The findings offer actionable insights for restaurant managers on optimizing human–robot team collaboration to enhance service authenticity and foster emotional engagement, ultimately encouraging customers to revisit. Originality/value This study extends CAT by integrating emotional and cognitive mechanisms into the evaluation of human–robot collaboration services, offering one of the first empirical investigations in semiautomated restaurant settings.

Effective And Secure Two-Factor Multi Server Authentication Scheme Without Password

Purpose The study develops and tests a framework to investigate the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots’ communication qualities and human-like characteristics on perceived empathy, which translates into service authenticity and empowerment, and eventually brand preference. Design/methodology/approach In study 1, a combined Importance–Performance Map Analysis (IPMA) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was used to analyse the data. Study 2 is a follow-up qualitative study using in-depth interviews. Findings The findings reveal that perceived anthropomorphism and perceived intelligence are the two strongest predictors of perceived empathy. Perceived empathy positively influences service authenticity and consumer empowerment. The cIPMA results further highlight a performance gap in perceived consumer empowerment and empathy. The fsQCA revealed five distinct configurations that foster chatbot empathy. The qualitative findings validate the quantitative results and reveal additional themes that warrant consideration. Originality/value This study provides insight into how key AI chatbot attributes influence brand preference, advancing our understanding of the consumer behaviour mechanisms that drive perceived empathy and overall interaction effectiveness in human–AI communication.

Hybrid workplaces of today increasingly rely on frictionless meeting experiences, yet concerns about ineffective check-ins, booking errors, and lack of real-time room availability visibility persist in the enterprise. To address such limitations, this research presents the Custom QR Wallpaper Generation Tool for Teams Room Android on Cisco endpoints. The answer dynamically generates and displays QR codes on the room wallpaper so that users can quickly scan for a number of purposes like attending a meeting, check-in, reservation, availability check, and occupancy status. By incorporating this feature into Cisco's Teams Room platform, the tool bypasses processes of manual inputting, reduces delays, and enhances ease of access as well as security. The system's architecture utilizes QR-based dynamic authentication, backend validation, and integration of Microsoft Teams' calendaring services to ensure reliability and accuracy. Besides improving operational efficiency, the practice encourages scalable and user-friendly architecture for companies to optimize collaboration spaces. The innovation brings about more resource utilization, improved meeting effectiveness, and improved employee experience in accordance with the evolving needs of hybrid collaboration.

Financial institutions are accelerating the transition from passwords to FIDO2-based authentication to mitigate credential-related breaches and enhance regulatory compliance. This shift removes shared secrets from authentication, eliminating the primary attack vector exploited in credential-driven fraud. This article presents a Blueprint for Passwordless Banking, detailing a phased strategy for deploying FIDO2- and biometric-based authentication in high-compliance environments. The framework covers architectural prerequisites, risk evaluation, customer journey adaptation, and coexistence strategies with legacy multi-factor authentication systems. Practical guidance derives from large-scale banking implementations, emphasizing security gains, reduced credential-reset costs, and measurable improvements in user experience. The proposed model demonstrates how regulated institutions can meet FINRA and PCI-DSS requirements while embracing passwordless paradigms that align with NIST SP 800-63B digital identity guidelines. Financial institutions implementing passwordless strategies report measurable reductions in account takeover incidents, decreased support costs associated with credential management, and enhanced customer satisfaction metrics reflecting streamlined authentication experiences. The regulatory landscape governing financial services authentication has evolved to accommodate passwordless methodologies while maintaining rigorous identity assurance requirements through possession-based authenticators and biometric verification as acceptable alternatives to knowledge-based credentials.

Purpose This paper aims to test an integrated framework comprising omnichannel service experience characterised by integrated information access, information consistency, process consistency, context sensitivity and transactional integration as well as smart shopping perception, service authenticity and cross-buying. The moderating effect of self-determination is examined. Design/methodology/approach The proposed model was evaluated by utilising partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and importance-performance map analysis Findings The findings indicated that all omnichannel service experience dimensions exert significant effects on smart shopping perception, which in turn leads to service authenticity. Service authenticity is a vital precursor to cross-buying, whereas self-determination diminishes this effect. Originality/value This research stands as one of the pioneering academic endeavours in exploring the role of consumer behaviour in the formation process of cross-buying within an omnichannel environment.

Content management systems (CMS) simplify website creation, allowing people without specialized skills, such as designers and corporate public relations departments, to publish their web services. Although the Internet has become more convenient to use, published web services are at risk of various attacks. To realize secure web services, it is essential to incorporate security functions such as user authentication and authorization as well as the detection and blocking of malicious HTTP requests. However, it is difficult to understand and implement appropriate security measures when creating website content. Therefore, this study proposes A+Block, a reverse-proxy-based web security add-on service that provides authentication, authorization, and web application firewall functions for web services. A+Block allows web-service developers to implement these security features by simply pointing to the uniform resource locators of their websites, without the need to modify their websites. By separating the core web-service functionality from security features and offering proxy configuration templates, A+Block simplifies the security implementation for websites and minimizes the configuration burden on web-service operators. We conducted an availability assessment of A+Block and a difficulty assessment of the adoption of WAF, authentication, and authorization in existing web security products. To evaluate the impact of A+Block on web-service availability, we conducted tests on 30 webpages created using the top 30 most frequently used WordPress plugins. Moreover, to evaluate the ease of adoption of A+Block in comparison with existing products, we analyzed the implementation documentation provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Cloudflare. The results confirmed that the solution allows for simple implementation of security functions for web services without compromising their availability.

This paper examines the evolution of Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems in financial services, focusing on the transition from legacy architectures to modern authentication frameworks. Through a detailed analysis of ETRADE's transformation as a primary case study, the article explores the challenges and solutions in implementing contemporary authentication methods, including OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and Multi-Factor Authentication. The study investigates the impact of emerging technologies such as AI-driven authentication, blockchain-based identity solutions, and passwordless authentication on security effectiveness and user experience. By analyzing implementation strategies, security-usability trade-offs, and regulatory compliance requirements, this article provides insights into successful IAM modernization approaches while highlighting future trends in financial services authentication.

This research examines how interpersonal rapport influences sustainable customer relationships during service failures, with a focus on customer empathy as a mediating factor and emotional intelligence and service authenticity as moderating variables. In the context of sustainable service management, analysis of data from 672 respondents through structural equation modeling reveals that rapport significantly affects both cognitive and emotional dimensions of customer empathy, subsequently enhancing satisfaction and long-term loyalty outcomes. This study demonstrates that emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between rapport and cognitive empathy, while service authenticity moderates rapport’s associations with both empathy components. This investigation advances sustainable service recovery theory by illuminating customer empathy formation within rapport-building processes and validating the moderating effects of emotional intelligence and service authenticity. The findings contribute to the sustainable service management literature by empirically confirming these relationships within the rapport–empathy–loyalty framework, suggesting that service providers should emphasize developing meaningful interpersonal connections to ensure sustainable customer relationships, particularly during service recovery situations. This research provides valuable insights for developing sustainable service practices that enhance both social and economic aspects of service organizations, while offering quantifiable metrics for measuring socio-emotional sustainability in service recovery contexts. This approach aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by promoting responsible consumption and production patterns in service industries, while fostering inclusive and sustainable economic growth through enhanced service quality and customer relationship management.

ABSTRACT The advanced architecture called fog‐driven IoT, positioned between the centralized cloud platform and IoT devices, aims to expand storage, computing, and network capabilities to the Internet edges. This setup ensures that services and resources from fog nodes are easily accessible and in proximity to the end‐users and devices, reduces latency, enhances mobility, and provides location awareness. However, despite its benefits, the fog computing paradigm inherits security and privacy issues like those found in cloud computing. These concerns encompass challenges like message replay, impersonation, spoofing, man‐in‐the‐middle attacks, and physical capture of IoT devices, posing potential risks to the system's security and privacy. In order to address these challenges, a new authentication protocol is proposed in this study, which encompasses five key phases: “node registration, fog server registration, node authentication, fog server authentication, and fail‐safe authentication.” It begins with node registers on fog servers (FSs), establishing a foundation for trust and identity verification. The protocol then scales to authenticate the fog network, which consists of multiple FSs, each undergoes authentication within the cloud server, to ensure robustness and reliability across distributed servers. A significant innovation lies in the third phase, where mutual authentication is achieved using the Modified Blowfish (MBF) algorithm, promoting secure communication between FSs and nodes while ensuring stronger encryption and better protection against attacks. The fourth phase extends authentication mechanisms to the FS in which intra‐fog authentication is done by the IKM scheme and inter‐fog authentication is done by the IECC mechanism to manage cryptographic keys effectively within fog nodes and also enhance security in communication between different fog nodes. Additionally, a fail‐safe authentication phase provides emergency response capabilities against potential attacks, bolstering the protocol's resilience. The proposed method's performance is validated against other well‐known techniques to prove the supremacy of the method. At 75% data variation, the IECC scheme attained a better KCA attack value of 0.152, which surpasses the result of ECC, RSA, Blowfish, Fernet, ElGamal, NTRU, and CP‐ABE. This potentially underscores the model's effectiveness in protecting data against known cryptographic vulnerabilities contrasting to other traditional techniques.

The article explores the specifics of the popular science podcast genre from the perspective of concepts of the intelligibility of a Plain Language in the global community. Plain Language is a form of presenting textual information in a form accessible to a wide audience, that is, to a reader who is part of an almost unlimited group of everyone who can read, except for students, or to people who do not have basic functional reading skills due to physiological, age, or social reasons. According to the definition of the International Federation of Plain Language, a text is written in simple language if the choice of words and the construction of sentences in it, as well as its content, structure and design allow the reader to easily find the necessary information, understand it and use it. The podcast texts aimed at popularizing scientific ideas in society, in comparison with scientific articles on similar topics, are used as the object of research. The comparison was carried out in accordance with the criteria of clarity and accessibility, which are defined in the concept of a plain language. The relevance of the research is due to the scientific and practical potential of podcasts, as well as the uncertainty of normative attitudes and frames of a Plain Language in the Russian-speaking community. For the first time, the genre of a popular science podcast is viewed through the prism of the concept of a simple language, which allows us to identify the specifics of Russian-language podcasts and conduct a diagnostic assessment of the perception of podcasts by a wide audience. The reasons for the growing interest of scientists and researchers in using podcasts to spread scientific ideas and concepts are explained. The article considers the potential of the popular science podcast genre as an effective tool for popularizing science in the academic environment, as well as in society as a whole. With reference to existing research, the article shows by examples that the basic principles of creating popular science podcasts largely coincide with the principles of intra-linguistic translation of texts into a Plain Language, that is, adapting texts for accessibility and understanding purposes. The term "plain word" is defined, its characteristics are presented, and ways of its application in various contexts are discussed. As a method of identifying the degree of compliance of a popular science podcast with the functional characteristics of a plain language, a comparative analysis of fragments of the podcast Pump Neuron, implemented on the basis of the National Research Tomsk State University, with fragments of texts of scientific articles was used. The selected fragments were processed using the "Textometer" online service, which formulates indicators of the level of complexity and readability of the text by calculating the Flesch Reading Ease. To identify the levels of complexity of the text, the service's authors use algorithms designed to assess how easy (or difficult) it is to read the text. Thus, the study not only analyzes the texts of podcasts, but also offers new approaches to their creation and evaluation, which makes it relevant and significant for further research in the field of popularization of science.

Internet of Things (IoT) systems that manage data across cloud, fog, and edge environments—and the devices that consume those services—face substantial challenges in confidentiality, privacy, and authentication. However, traditional Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is too rigid and costly for massive, ephemeral IoT deployments. Moreover, device authentication is often overlooked in favor of service authentication, neglecting the security of the entire ecosystem. DNSSEC combined with DANE introduces a new paradigm in which service authentication can be managed globally, extending trust to locally generated, type-agnostic credentials. This framework can accommodate PKI certificates, self-signed credentials, and local keys, all of which can be verified by any client, local or remote. However, DNSSEC’s signature proofs grow linearly with the number of secured records, inflating communication overhead and energy consumption—an issue aggravated by the larger sizes of post-quantum signatures. Additionally, current DNSSEC delegation mechanisms lack the flexibility needed for secure load balancing and isolation. In this article, we present a collision-based DNSSEC signature-delegation mechanism designed to overcome these scalability limitations. By allowing a central DNS authority to delegate signing responsibilities to local DNS servers, our approach reduces certificate-management overhead and enables a dynamic, hierarchical trust model. It supports both service and device authentication in a unified DNS-name-based security context. Our evaluation shows that the proposed mechanism maintains a stable computational cost irrespective of credential count, a critical benefit for large-scale, resource-constrained IoT deployments. By leveraging existing DNS infrastructure and standards, this solution enhances scalability and efficiency compared to traditional PKI and DNSSEC, while promoting interoperability and ease of deployment. It also opens the adoption of future post quantum trapdoor systems still under research and development.

Rent-a-Read is a secure, cloud-based eBook rental system designed to make books more accessible and affordable through a real-time rental platform. This paper presents a robust web-based solution that allows users to rent eBooks for a limited time, ensuring seamless access while preventing downloads. The platform is powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) for secure storage, MongoDB for data management, and Flask with JWT authentication for backend services. The system implements fine-grained access control using signed URLs to provide time-limited access to rented content. Furthermore, MongoDB schemas are enforced to maintain data integrity, and the platform supports role-based access for customers and book owners. The integration of real-time payment system ensures a streamlined transaction process. This research outlines the architectural design, security implementations, and real-time functionalities that make Rent-a-Read a scalable and user-friendly solution for modern readers. Key Words: eBook rental, Cloud computing, MongoDB, AWS S3, Flask, JWT authentication, signed URLs, Role-based Access control, Secure content streaming, Real-time payments, Schema validation