Purpose This study aimed to explore the association between hospital loyalty, perceived usefulness of a mobile app, perceived ease of use of that mobile app, and satisfaction with the app’s use as well as predicting patients’ intended use of the app. Patients and methods Purposive sampling was adopted in a cross-sectional survey. The participants were outpatients at the traditional Chinese medicine departments of three hospitals in northern Taiwan (n=125). The self-report questionnaire comprised information about sociodemographics and scales related to hospital loyalty, perceived usefulness of the mobile app, its perceived ease of use, satisfaction with its use, and its usage intention. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results The four factors explained 70% variance in usage intention. The perceived usefulness of the mobile app directly and indirectly affects their usage intention, but its perceived ease of use had only indirect effects on the usage intention. Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use influence the usage intention through satisfaction. The women’s hospital loyalty does not directly affect the usage intention of the mobile app, but indirectly affects it through perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of the mobile app. Conclusion Intended use of the app by women is mainly related to their experience of which is usefulness, ease of use and satisfaction of service are the most important factors contributing to continuous use. Hospital loyalty does not directly affect intention to use as expected. The influence of loyalty must be related to the patients’ perception of the product, in terms of usefulness, ease to use, and satisfaction. The finding is helpful to understand patients’ preference and support their behavioral adherence.

This study aimed to explore the cluster patterns of female nursing students’ perceptions of the effects of menstrual distress during clinical practice. This study adopted the Q-methodology study design. We recruited female nursing students from a college in northern Taiwan. Forty-seven Q-statements were constructed to explore participants’ experiences of the impact of menstrual distress on clinical learning. In total, 58 participants subjectively ranked Q-statements concerning menstrual distress experiences during clinical practice and were classified. After Q-sorting, the subjective ranking process PQ Method (version 2.35, Schmolck, Emmendingen, Germany) was employed for factor analysis. Four patterns of shared perspectives, accounting for 46.6% of the total variance, were identified: (a) influencing clinical learning and making good use of painkillers; (b) responsible attitudes and diversified relief of discomfort; (c) seeking peer support and effect on mood; (d) negative impact on learning ability and conservative self-care. Clinical practice is a major component of nursing education; menstrual distress affects female nursing students’ clinical learning and performance. The exploration of clustering different nursing students’ perceptions may facilitate customized strategies to enable more appropriate assistance.

In order to drill a deep steps hole with a big belly in hard-cutting material parts, a special boring cutter is designed by analyzing cutting technology of this kind of parts. On the basis of single-tube inner chipremoval ejector drill (SIED), a new tool radical movement mechanism is pulled by a wedge plate installed inside the tool rod at one end of the rod and plate is driven horizontally by a motor controlled by a numerical control device. A straight hole whose diameter is same as the minimum one of the steps holes is firstly machined by an entity drill. And then the tool is used to get the big belly hole in the middle of the straight hole and begin to move radically at the same time as axial feed just in the location of belly. The tool is retreated to the original position at the end of the big belly. Experiments show that this kind of tool can not only drill belly holes effectively but also improve the processing quality.