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Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) is widely used in the treatment of skin disease, surface modification of material and other fields of electronics. The purpose of this paper is to design a high-performance power supply with a compact structure for excimer lamps in electronics application.

To design a high-performance power supply with a compact structure remains a challenge for excimer lamps in electronics application, a current-source type power supply in a single stage with power factor correction (PFC) is proposed. It consists of an excitation voltage generation unit and a PFC unit. By planning the modes of the excitation voltage generation unit, a bipolar pulse excitation voltage with a high rising and falling rate is generated. And a high power factor (PF) on the AC side is achieved by the interaction of a non-controlled rectifier and two inductors.

The experimental results show that not only a high-frequency and high-voltage bipolar pulse excitation voltage with a high average rising and falling rate (7.51GV/s) is generated, but also a high PF (0.992) and a low total harmonic distortion (5.54%) is obtained. Besides, the soft-switching of all power switches is realized. Compared with the sinusoidal excitation power supply and the current-source power supply, the proposed power supply in this paper can take advantage of the potential of excimer lamps.

A new high-performance power supply with a compact structure for DBD type excimer lamps is proposed. The proposed power supply can work stably in a wide range of frequencies, and the smooth regulation of the discharge power of the excimer lamp can be achieved by changing the switching frequency. The ideal excitation can be generated, and the soft switching can be realized. These features make this power supply a key player in the outstanding performance of the DBD excimer lamps application.

This study reveals the trigger of innovative behavior from the perspective of intrinsic and extrinsic spiritual inspiration and provides a new research idea for the formation mechanism of innovative behavior. The purpose of this study is to provide certain guidance and implications for enterprises to cultivate and enhance employees’ innovative behavior.

We conducted three studies, collected multi-source data (N = 1,175) from different countries longitudinally, as well as used hierarchical regression analysis and fuzzy-set quantitative comparative analysis to verify the theoretical model.

According to the findings, both spiritual leadership and career calling have a positive impact on employees’ innovative behavior through the mediating effect of autonomous motivation and the moderating effect of person-vocation fit.

Innovative behavior is the positive professional pursuit of employees, which is difficult to form without the motivation of spiritual factors. Spirituality is a complex concept that contains intrinsic and extrinsic spiritual factors, both of which could stimulate employees’ innovative behavior. Although many discussions have been held on this topic in recent years, little attention has been paid simultaneously to the motivating effects of the two perspectives. Drawn from self-determination theory, this study explores the mechanisms of two spiritual motivation paths (i.e. the intrinsic and extrinsic spiritual motivation paths) in the improvement of employees’ innovative behavior.

Value creation in engineering projects has received considerable research attention. However, buyers’ expectations regarding project value do not always translate into the actions of project team members (actors). Drawing upon resource orchestration theory to explore the micro-foundations of project value creation (PVC), we investigate how suppliers organize project team members to create project value that meets buyers’ expectations.

We adopted two instructive engineering projects as comparative cases to analyze patterns in actor interactions in PVC.

The results reveal “social interaction-based value creation” and “structural interaction-based value creation,” which explain the PVC process from the collective-level buyer’s expectations and supplier’s value orientation, to individual-level actor interactions (mobilizing, connecting, and networking), knowledge orchestration activities (structuring, bundling, and leveraging), and finally the value creation process (identifying, configuring, and generating) in project teams to generate collective-level project benefits and values.

We propose a macro-approach to micro-foundations, with a focus on the buyer-expected PVC process on the supplier side. Furthermore, we explain how suppliers organize individual actions and orchestrate the individual knowledge through two patterns of individual-level actor interactions for collective-level PVC.

Key core technology is the most important weapon of the country, and breaking through the “strangled” problem is one of the real problems that China’s emerging industries and enterprises must solve. Accurately identifying the “strangled” problem will help China accelerate the realization of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and win the battle against key core technologies.

Combined with the characteristics of key core technologies, the key core technology evaluation system was constructed from four dimensions: technology innovation, technology radiation, technology economy and technology safety. We adopt the entropy TOPSIS method to evaluate the patents, and the patents with the top 5% scores are identified as key core technology patents. Then, this study identifies key core technology “strangled” problems in three dimensions: technology value advantage, competitive advantage and quantitative advantage.

Taking the patent data of the global new generation information technology industry from 2011 to 2023 as a sample, 178 moderately “strangled” technologies and 49 severely “strangled” technologies are selected. The study results are consistent with the current situation of the new generation information technology industry’s development, and verify the feasibility and reliability of the key core technology “strangled” problem identification model.

This study uses patent data to identify key core technologies and “Strangled” in the new generation information technology industry. It can provide a reference for relevant national departments and agencies, as well as universities and enterprises.

This study adopts the perspective of dynamic capabilities to investigate influencing factors and proposes improvement strategies of supply chain resilience of prefabricated construction.

The structural equation model (SEM) is used to identify and verify the relationship between factors influencing supply chain resilience of prefabricated construction from the perspective of dynamic capabilities. The system dynamics (SD) model is constructed to dynamically simulate the specific effects of different influencing factors.

Results indicate that: (1) An evaluation index system for supply chain resilience of prefabricated construction containing five first-level indicators and 36 second-level indicators is constructed; (2) Ability to anticipate, ability to respond, ability to adapt, ability to recover and ability to learn are positively correlated with the supply chain resilience of prefabricated construction and (3) ANT3 (information system), RES1 (quick response), ADA3 (buffer stock) and LEA4 (trust) are the most leading factors influencing supply chain resilience of prefabricated construction over time.

This study fulfills the need for an in-depth exploration of the various influencing factors on supply chain resilience of prefabricated construction from the perspective of dynamic capabilities. Furthermore, this study provides improvement strategies to enhance supply chain resilience of prefabricated construction in China.

This study investigates lecturers’ challenges in guiding students’ final scientific work online during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores the impact of lecturers’ digital technology proficiency on the students’ ability to compile their thoughts and produce scientific work independently.

The study involved 45 lecturers and 140 students. Data was collected through online surveys using the Google Forms application and focus group discussions. The data were analysed qualitatively and interpretively based on the surveys and interviews.

The findings reveal three modes of mentoring: online, mixed, and offline. Many lecturers’ reluctance to use digital technology for mentoring stems from their lack of proficiency, resulting in mixed mentoring methods. This digital inadequacy affects students’ ability to write scientific work independently, as they are not accustomed to self-directed learning. The pandemic has necessitated more independent work from students, with limited physical guidance from lecturers, leading to a decline in the quality of scientific writing.

This paper contains the latest information related to students' scientific writing activities. Student scientific writing activities are disrupted because supervisors do not have the skills to use technology in the remote student mentoring process. Lecturers are not skilled at using technology in carrying out online tutoring assignments.

Smallholders are essential in ensuring food security; however, smallholder-dominated food production often involves high resource-environmental costs. This study analyzed the factors that differentiate horticultural practices, willingness to adopt technology and social networks between optimized practices (OPT) and farmer practices (FP) to provide localized and systematic solutions for the sustainable apple production.

To explore the approach of smallholder-dominated sustainable apple production, 257 apple producers in the Bohai Bay region, a major apple planting area in China, were investigated. Life cycle assessment (LCA), emergy analysis and social network analysis methods were used for evaluation.

The results showed that the net economic profit and emergy sustainability index (ESI) in OPT was 15.8 × 104 RMB·ha-1 and 1.2, respectively, which were 126.9 and 128.0% higher than FP. In contrast, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under OPT was 29.3% lower than those under FP. OPT has a higher percentage of adoption of scientific fertilizer application and water-saving irrigation technologies compared to FP. OPT has strong learning abilities, more social resources (such as technical training and sharing technical experience with others) and connections with stakeholders in the apple supply chain. Optimizing smallholders' social capital, willingness to adopt technology, behavioral willingness and technological awareness can promote sustainable apple production.

Considering the horticultural practices employed by smallholders in conjunction with their social networks, these factors contributed to the transition of smallholder-led apple production toward sustainability. The findings provided viable options and a theoretical basis for smallholder-dominated crop production to move toward sustainability, with significant implications for policymakers.

Safety research has focused on drivers, pedestrians and vehicles, with scarce attention given to highway traffic officers (HTOs). This paper develops a robust prediction model which enables highway safety authorities to predict exclusive incidents occurring on the highway such as incursions and environmental hazards, respond effectively to diverse safety risk incident scenarios and aid in timely safety precautions to minimise HTO incidents.

Using data from a highway incident database, a supervised machine learning method that employs three algorithms [namely Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forests (RF) and Naïve Bayes (NB)] was applied, and their performances were comparatively analysed. Three data balancing algorithms were also applied to handle the class imbalance challenge. A five-phase sequential method, which includes (1) data collection, (2) data pre-processing, (3) model selection, (4) data balancing and (5) model evaluation, was implemented.

The findings indicate that SVM with a polynomial kernel combined with the Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique (SMOTE) algorithm is the best model to predict the various incidents, and the Random Under-sampling (RU) algorithm was the most inefficient in improving model accuracy. Weather/visibility, age range and location were the most significant factors in predicting highway incidents.

This is the first study to develop a prediction model for HTOs and utilise an incident database solely dedicated to HTOs to forecast various incident outcomes in highway operations. The prediction model will provide evidence-based information to safety officers to train HTOs on impending risks predicted by the model thereby equipping workers with resilient shocks such as awareness, anticipation and flexibility.

This study aims to undertake a review of how carbon trading contributes to a reduction in emission of greenhouse gases (CHGs).

A narrative literature review approach was adopted to identify and synthesise existing literature using the Scopus and Web of Science databases. Articles were limited to the past 10 years to obtain the most current literature. The various ways in which carbon trading leads to reductions in emissions were identified and discussed.

The results showed that the main ways in which carbon trading contributes to reductions in emissions are through innovation in low-carbon technologies, restoration of ecosystems through offset money, development of renewable and clean energy and providing information on investment related to emissions.

The value of this study is to contribute to the built environment’s climate change mitigation agenda by identifying the role of carbon trading.

The output of this research identifies and contextualises the role carbon trading plays in the reduction of CHG emissions.

This research aims to investigate the impact of corporate digital transformation (CDT) on stock market activity.

A data set of Chinese listed manufacturing enterprises from 2012–2021 is used as a research sample.

This research finds that CDT can promote stock market activity. This study validates two potential mechanisms: increasing financial performance and mitigating information asymmetry. This study further suggests that internal control and analyst coverage can strengthen the impact of CDT on stock market activity.

The research exhibits certain limitations that should be considered in future research. Because the findings are based on the Chinese context, the applicability and generalizability of the findings to other environments may be limited. This research enriches the literature on the determinants of stock market activity from a technological perspective and incrementally contributes to understanding the impact of CDT on stock markets. After analyzing two opposing perspectives on the economic consequences of CDT, the favorable effect of CDT on stock market activity is proven based on the resource-based view and agency theory. This research extends the literature on the relationship between CDT and investor behavior, demonstrating that investors perceive CDT as beneficial. The results provide evidence that CDT can increase financial performance and improve the information environment, leading to increased investor attention and enhanced trading activity.

This research has incremental practical implications for enterprises and regulatory authorities to comprehend the economic consequences of CDT in developing countries. First, enterprises should increase their digital investments to improve their performance and decrease information asymmetry. Furthermore, enterprise managers should strengthen information systems to adapt to the process of CDT and train employees on digital skills. Second, regulatory authorities should provide comprehensive digital policies and programs supported by tax incentives, subsidies and digital infrastructure projects (Wang et al., 2023).

This research strengthens the debate on the market impact of CDT. Unlike prior literature, this study explores the influence of CDT on stock market activity for the first time, enriching the literature on CDT and stock market activity. Furthermore, the outcomes guide regulatory authorities to actively support CDT and expedite the digital upgrading of manufacturing industries to promote stock market activity.