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Breathing resistance is the main factor that influences the wearing comfort of respirators. This paper aims to demonstrate the feasibility of using the gene expression programming (GEP) for the purpose of predicting subjective perceptions of breathing resistances of wearing respirators via surface electromyography (sEMG) and respiratory signals (RSP) sensors.

The authors developed a physiological signal monitoring system with a specific garment. The inputs included seven physical measures extracted from (RSP) and (sEMG) signals. The output was the subjective index of breathing resistances of wearing respirators derived from the category partitioning-100 scale with proven levels of reliability and validity. The prediction model was developed and validated using data collected from 30 subjects and 24 test combinations (12 respirator conditions × 2 motion conditions). The subjects evaluated 24 conditions of breathing resistances in repeated measures fashion.

The results show that the GEP model can provide good prediction performance (R² = 0.71, RMSE = 0.11). This study demonstrates that subjective perceptions of breathing resistance of wearing respirators on the human body can be predicted using the GEP via sEMG and RSP in real-time, at little cost, non-invasively and automatically.

This is the first paper suggesting that subjective perceptions of subjective breathing resistances can be predicted from sEMG and RSP sensors using a GEP model, which will remain helpful to the scientific community to start further human-centered research work and product development using wearable biosensors and evolutionary algorithms.

Investigating the subjective breathing resistance of wearing respirators requires a valid and reliable technique to measure breathing resistance. The purpose of this study is to test the validity and reliability of several rating scales and select the best for investigation of breathing resistance.

The authors designed three scales, that is, BRX scale, CP-100 scale and RVAS scale, and 30 subjects were separated into three groups, each group with a different scale. They sat for 5 min and walked for 5 min while wearing three models of respirators. After each trial, subjects were asked to complete subjective ratings of breathing resistance. Reliability was examined by the coefficient of Cronbach’s α, and validity was examined through content validity, discriminant validity and criterion validity. Generally, subjects were capable of reporting their sensation of breathing resistance by using the rating scale technique. However, the accuracy of rating strongly depended upon the properties of the scale.

The CP-100 scale was found to be highly reliable and most valid for rating subjective breath resistance. The validated CP-100 scale is very sensitive and accurate.

This is the first paper to select the best subjective scale for investigation of breathing resistance of respirators. The CP-100 scale will find wide applications in subjective breathing resistance evaluation for the use of respirators in industrial benchmarking activities. It will introduce the human factor engineering into the respirator manufacturing to improve the comfort of respirators.

Choice overload in e-commerce induces choice difficulty, which is detrimental to shopping decision-making. The purpose of this paper is to provide relatively simple and effective methods and indicators to detect and assess the choice difficulty states of customers during clothing online shopping.

In order to find out the behavioral performance of choice difficulty states during clothing online shopping, the authors performed the following steps: at first, the authors conducted an experiment to record the videos of the purchasing process during clothing online shopping. Then, the authors carried out the behavioral analysis of customers, correlating each behavioral index to choice difficulty states.

The results of the behavioral analysis in this study have indicated that three types of behavior were significantly correlated to the choice difficulty states of customers.

It is expected that it would be possible to use the threshold values of behavioral indicators to determine whether and when the customer is suffering from choice phobia disorder. Based on the findings, a recommender system with timely interventions to help customers with choice difficulty to make shopping decisions will be developed in the future.

This is the first reported study that explores the possibility of using behavioral indicators to detect choice difficulty, which will remain helpful to the scientific community to start further customer-centered research work and development of clothing online shopping.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the human factors/ergonomics (HFE) studies for respirator.

This review paper describes and discusses the various factors and methodologies of HFE, for the purpose of better considering human factors, used in respirator studies and further human-centered product development.

Many attempts have been made to study human factors for respirators mainly including fit, human performance, comfort, and mood. Physical, psychological, and physiological indices of people are extremely valuable to HFE studies for respirator. Objective and subjective measures were methodologies widely used. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were adopted to illustrate the human performance and well-being influenced by respirators. A summary table presented with major methods used for indices of respirators in the field of HFE. According to the current researches, this review indicated three particular challenges facing HFE studies of respirators now.

With the ever increasing role of protection from air pollution in society, respirator has become an increasingly important part of our daily lives. HFE intervene in optimizing the relationships between respirators and the human using them. Plenty of efforts have been dedicated for the development of protection capability, but HFE studies for respirators are lacking. In recent years, there has been a tremendous interest in introducing HFE research methods that can evaluate respirators from the perspective of human and translate them into constraints for designing human-centered respirators.

This is a first paper in the field of HFE studies for respirator, which will remain helpful to the scientific community to start further human-centered research work and product development.

This paper is one of the first studies to examine specificities, including limits of mindfulness at work in an African organisational context, whilst dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It specifically addresses the role of organisational and managerial support systems in restoring employee wellbeing, social connectedness and attachment to their organisations, in order to overcome the exclusion caused by the ongoing pandemic.

The study uses a qualitative research methodology that includes interviews as the main data source. The sample comprises of 20 entrepreneurs (organisational leaders) from Ghana and Nigeria.

The authors found that COVID-19-induced worries restricted the practice of mindfulness, and this was prevalent at the peak of the pandemic, particularly due to very tough economic conditions caused by reduction in salaries, and intensified by pre-existing general economic and social insecurities, and institutional voids in Africa. This aspect further resulted in lack of engagement and lack of commitment, which affected overall team performance and restricted employees’ mindfulness at work. Hence, quietness by employees even though can be linked to mindfulness was linked to larger psychological stress that they were facing. The authors also found leaders/manager’s emotional intelligence, social skills and organisational support systems to be helpful in such circumstances. However, their effectiveness varied among the cases.

This paper is one of the first studies to establish a link between the COVID-19 pandemic and mindfulness limitations. Moreover, it is a pioneering study specifically highlighting the damaging impact of COVID-19-induced concerns on leader–member exchange (LMX) and team–member exchange (TMX) relationships, particularly in the African context. It further brings in a unique discussion on the mitigating mechanisms of such COVID-19-induced concerns in organisations and highlights the roles of manager’s/leader’s emotional intelligence, social skills and supportive intervention patterns. Finally, the authors offer an in-depth assessment of the effectiveness of organisational interventions and supportive relational systems in restoring social connectedness following a social exclusion caused by COVID-19-induced worries.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) capabilities have been studied at the individual, project, organizational, and even industry levels to ensure the realization of BIM value in the architectural, engineering, construction, and operation industry. However, limited research has focused on a project owner organization perspective to investigate owner BIM capabilities that are required to ensure effective project management and delivery. This present study aims to propose an indicator framework to evaluate owner BIM capabilities at the organizational level.

Leveraging the existing literature on BIM capabilities and synthesizing insights from the resource-based view and information technology capabilities research, this study conceptualizes the BIM capabilities of project owner organizations and offers a framework of indicators for measurement. Semi-structured interviews with BIM experts and a questionnaire survey were conducted to identify key indicators affecting owner BIM capabilities. A six-dimensional structural equation model with 29 indicators was then established.

The findings highlight the multidimensionality of owner BIM capabilities and show that process capabilities play a crucial role in enhancing owner BIM capabilities, while technical capabilities are considered as the least important aspect.

The study sheds light on the key role of project owner organizations in ensuring BIM value and suggests that project owners focus more on the organizational processes of introducing BIM in managing projects.

This study reconceptualizes owner BIM capabilities drawing on the idea of resource-based view and information technology capabilities and highlights the important dimensions and indicators of owner BIM capabilities at the organizational level.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of dynamic marketing capabilities (DMC), foreign ownership modes and sub-national locations on the performance of foreign-owned affiliates (FOAs) in developing economies.

Based on a sample of 254 FOAs in the Indian manufacturing sector (covering the period of 2000-2008 leading to 623 firm-year observations), the empirical paper adopts the panel data regression approach.

The study confirms the significant importance of DMC to assist FOAs to gain better sales performance in an emerging market such as India. The findings indicate that wholly owned foreign affiliates (WOFAs) have better sales performance than international joint ventures (IJVs), and majority-owned international joint ventures (MAIJVs) perform better than minority-owned international joint ventures in the Indian manufacturing sector. The results confirm that effective deployment of DMC leads to better sales performance in WOFAs and to some extent in MAIJVs. Perhaps the most interesting finding is that developing DMC in non-metropolitan areas is associated with higher sales growth than in metropolitan locations.

The study contributes to the literature by examining the impact of DMC on performance of FOA by considering the organised manufacturing sector in a large and fast growing developing economy. In addition, the results for the moderating effects provide novel evidence of the conditions under which DMC of FOA interact with different ownership modes and influence firm performance.

In this paper the aim is that Aramid/alginate blended nonwoven fabrics were prepared, and the flame retardancy of the blended nonwoven fabrics was studied by thermogravimetric analysis, vertical flame test, limiting oxygen index (LOI) and cone calorimeter test.

The advantages of different fibers can be combined by blending, and the defects may be remedied. The study investigates whether incorporating alginate fibers into aramid fibers can enhance the flame retardancy and reduce the smoke production of prepared aramid/alginate blended nonwoven fabrics.

Thermogravimetric analysis indicated that alginate fibers could effectively inhibit the combustion performance of aramid fibers at a higher temperature zone, leaving more residual chars for heat isolation. And vertical flame test, LOI and cone calorimeter test testified that the incorporation of alginate fibers improved the flame retardancy and fire behaviors. When the ratio of alginate fibers for aramid/alginate blended nonwoven fabrics reached 80%, the incorporation of alginate fibers could notably decreased peak-heat release rate (54%), total heat release (THR) (29%), peak-smoke production rate (93%) and total smoke production (86%). What is more, the lower smoke production rate and lower THR of the blends vastly reduced the risk of secondary injury in fires.

This study proposes to inhibit the flue gas release of aramid fiber and enhance the flame retardant by mixing with alginate fiber, and proposes that alginate fiber can be used as a biological smoke inhibitor, as well as a flame retardant for aramid fiber.