Search results

The possibilities increasing the wear resistance of friction pair radial lip seal/shaft were tested using fluoroligomeric materials and selective transfer technologies. Measurements of friction moment, temperature in contact spot and wear of friction surfaces show that fluoroligomeric coat and selective transfer technologies (metallpolymeric oil additives and NABA‐coat on shaft) can considerably decrease the friction losses and increase the wear resistance of friction pair. The microscopic analysis of surfaces shows that using tribotechnical materials in contact spot of friction surfaces forms virtually different structures which can explain the different efficiency mechanisms of the mentioned materials. These tests show that in friction pair radial lip seal/shaft the tribomaterials could be used which create selective transfer effect and have regenerating properties.

The increasing popularity of music streaming services also increases the need to customize the services for each user to attract and retain customers. Most of the music streaming services will not have explicit ratings for songs; they will have only implicit feedback data, i.e user listening history. For efficient music recommendation, the preferences of the users have to be infered, which is a challenging task.

Preferences of the users can be identified from the users' listening history. In this paper, a hybrid music recommendation system is proposed that infers features from user's implicit feedback and uses the hybrid of content-based and collaborative filtering method to recommend songs. A Content Boosted K-Nearest Neighbours (CBKNN) filtering technique was proposed, which used the users' listening history, popularity of songs, song features, and songs of similar interested users for recommending songs. The song features are taken as content features. Song Frequency–Inverse Popularity Frequency (SF-IPF) metric is proposed to find the similarity among the neighbours in collaborative filtering. Million Song Dataset and Echo Nest Taste Profile Subset are used as data sets.

The proposed CBKNN technique with SF-IPF similarity measure to identify similar interest neighbours performs better than other machine learning techniques like linear regression, decision trees, random forest, support vector machines, XGboost and Adaboost. The performance of proposed SF-IPF was tested with other similarity metrics like Pearson and Cosine similarity measures, in which SF-IPF results in better performance.

This method was devised to infer the user preferences from the implicit feedback data and it is converted as rating preferences. The importance of adding content features with collaborative information is analysed in hybrid filtering. A new similarity metric SF-IPF is formulated to identify the similarity between the users in collaborative filtering.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the regularities and longevity of the recovering without takedown of the friction pairs in internal combustion engines using the lubricants with metal cladding materials (MCM).

Recovering of friction pairs of internal combustion engines by MCM was investigated using field experiments. Four automobiles were investigated. The wear of those details was evaluated according to the compression in the cylinders. The influence of MCM on the amount of toxic materials (carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons) in the exhaust gas was evaluated after measurements with a gas analyser.

Using MCM can recover on average 60 per cent of lost compression ΔP_m. MCM decreases compression dispersion among separate cylinders of the engine. Compression of recovered engine cylinders decreases according to logarithmic function. Increment of cylinders' compression ΔP_d decreased on average 40‐50 per cent after 10,000 km car run. The recovering of the details of a cylinder‐piston group with MCM decreases the emission of toxic exhaust gas to the environment.

No laboratory investigations of MCM regeneration of friction pairs were performed which could evaluate the influence of different factors on the regeneration quality.

Investigations on the use of MCM for recovering the cylinder‐piston details of engines show the expedience in using such materials during periodic technical service of engines when the lubricants are changed.

Investigations of regenerating engines by MCM using field experiments were performed for the first time.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of fluor‐oligomeric coat on the mechanical properties of steel surface, as well as the chemical interaction of fluor‐oligomeric films with surface and theoretical‐phenomenological interpretation of structural processes in friction surface.

Four groups of specimens were studied: two groups of specimens without any wear tests – initial steel specimen as control version and a specimen which was ten times coated by fluor‐oligomer, and two groups of specimens, which were tribologically tested for one million cycles – without any coating and coated specimens. Closed kinematical profile scheme roller‐roller of steel 45 was chosen for tribological tests. Wear of friction surface after those tests was investigated. The interaction between fluor‐oligomer and iron was studied by means of Mössbauer spectroscopy. The micro‐hardness of matrix was also measured.

Affecting the surface of steel by the fluor‐oligomer and friction produces the complicated processes of carbide decay and formation occur. The mechanisms are found which are related to the weakening of chemical bond in steel during the absorption, to the generation of microscopic ruptures, to the decrease (30‐50 per cent) of the amount of carbides and its increase during the friction (up to 50 per cent). The mechanical effect which causes the regeneration of carbides during friction is revealed. Tribological efficiency of fluor‐oligomeric coats (five times lower wear of coated specimens) is explained by the balance of three processes – the softening of matrix during adsorption, the detention of dislocations, and formation of hard particles in the matrix.

The complex mechanism of the increase of wear resistance is explained by filling of ductile matrix with carbide particles.

This study aims to extend the literature on psychological contracts, employee mental health, self-control and equity sensitivity among employees in Ghana.

Data for this study came from a sample of 484 employees from an organisation in the telecommunication sector of Ghana. The details of the study were discussed with employees after which they were given the choice to participate in the study.

The present study found that psychological contract breach is directly associated with mental health and indirectly related to mental health through equity sensitivity and self-control.

The findings suggest that psychological contracts are important aspects of the employment relationship that could be used to enhance employee mental health. Furthermore, enhancing employees’ self-control and resolving issues of individuals high on equity sensitivity are effective ways that organisations can deploy to sustain mental health in the face of psychological contract breaches.

Researcher agreed that job performance has a positive effect on productivity as well as an organisation’s efficiency. Thus, this study aims to investigate the impact of mindfulness skill, inclusive leadership (IL), employee work engagement and self-compassion on the overall job performance of secondary school teachers in Hong Kong. It then evaluates the mediating effect of employee work engagement between the relationships of mindfulness skill, IL and job performance, as well as the moderate effect of self-compassion between the relationships of mindfulness skill, IL and employee work engagement.

The sample comprised 263 teachers working from three secondary schools in Sha Tin, Hong Kong. The data was then analysed using Smart PLS version 4.0.9.

The results showed significant positive relationships between mindfulness skill and IL towards employee work engagement and between employee work engagement and job performance; meanwhile, there emerged a significant effect on the relationship between mindfulness skill and IL towards job performance. Furthermore, this research has confirmed that self-compassion did not moderate the relationship between mindfulness skill, IL and employee work engagement, but employee work engagement plays a mediating effect on the relationship between mindfulness skill, IL and job performance.

This research has helped to fill the literature gap by examining the mediating roles of employee work engagement and mediator role of self-compassion in the integrated relationship of multi-factor and job performance. Examining the mediating role of employee work engagement has helped to enhance the understanding of the underlying principle of the indirect influence of mindfulness skill, IL and job performance. The result of this research shows that self-compassion plays a vital role in influencing the employees’ work engagement. Hence, it is important that companies design human resource management policy that enables self-compassion to be used as a consideration psychological-related strategy when structing organisation or teams. It is also crucial for top management and policymakers to define and communicate the organisation’s operating principle, value and goals.

The consequences of corporate corruption control (CCC) have either been investigated outside the firm (e.g. foreign direct investment inflows) or inside the firm (e.g. profitability). Yet prior research addresses these implications separately, treating them as distinct phenomena, ignoring questions at their intersection. However, corruption control can be leveraged to benefit both organizations (internally) and environments (externally). In line with open systems theory, this study aims to explore a ripple effect of corruption control not only inside organizations (efficiency through adoption of sustainable resource management practices) but also outside [community-centered corporate social performance (CSP)].

Using a longitudinal sample of multinational enterprises from Forbes list of “The World’s Largest Public Companies,” the authors use a cross-lagged panel design to provide clarity regarding causal effects.

Results confirm causal directionality and support the positive effect of corruption control on resource management and community CSP, contributing toward understanding implications at the organization–environment interface.

The authors examine both internal and external implications of CCC. The use of a cross-lagged design that is relatively novel to the management field allows to check for casual effects between CSP elements that were previously assumed to have reciprocal casual effects.

This study examines why and when qualitative job insecurity (JI) leads to instigated workplace incivility.

The authors collected data from 227 Chinese full-time employees from multiple organizations at two time points. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses.

Results show that qualitative JI is positively related to instigated workplace incivility through negative emotions; this indirect relationship is weaker among employees with higher self-compassion and stronger among employees with higher rumination.

The authors shift the predominant focus on the predictor of instigated workplace incivility from quantitative JI to qualitative JI. Based on the transactional model of stress and the stressor–emotion model of counterproductive work behavior (CWB), they provide new theoretical insights on why qualitative JI affects workplace incivility and identify new boundary conditions that affect employees' reactions to qualitative JI.

This paper aims to offer scholars and practitioners critical arguments on the strengths and weaknesses of the shared value concept and of the mental model of economics that lies at its heart. On the basis of these arguments, it proposes the paradigm of ethicological value-added creation as a new economic framework extending the shared value concept into a concept of lastingly viable business strategy.

Conceptual and philosophical analysis of the mental model of economics and of basic concepts and premises regarding scarcity, competition, growth and raising value. Application of this analysis to the re-design of the shared value approach and to the development of practical guidelines for sustainably viable business models.

This paper highlights how the shared value approach can be transformed into an even stronger strategic tool for the design of viable business models.

Scholars, entrepreneurs and managers receive a new conceptual framework to design lastingly viable business models on the basis of re-defined tools and concepts.

Leading texts on strategy and business development as well as CSR-driven texts on designing sustainable business models do not bridge the paradox of destructive wealth creation, i.e. the fact that individually rational and, in itself, highly successful economic behaviors lead, on the group level and the level of the whole system, to an outcome that by and large is highly destructive, as it places the social, ecological and economic sources of this wealth creation process in existential jeopardy. The paper proposes a new framework of economic reasoning for solving the paradoxes that shape current economic models and the shared value approach. It offers a first set of indicators, the parameters by which the shared value approach can be transformed into a living model for generating resource growth and added value creation cycles that stop the present downward spiral of acceleration, disruption, concentration and resource depletion. The paper thus presents forms of shared value creation that are more holistic and sustainable.