Search results

This study aims to identify Chinese municipal agencies’ and cadres’ drivers to implement government websites’ accessibility upgrades, and to explain how these drivers are interrelated to shape the implementation outcome.

The authors conducted a single case study using qualitative interviews, online follow-up conversations, fieldwork observations and policy documents in the capital municipality MD of J Province, East China. The authors analyzed the case from the theoretical perspectives of institutional pressures, organizational capacity and individual intentions.

Coercive pressure through policy mandate and benchmark incentivized the responsible agency and cadres in MD to initiate the implementation of the accessibility upgrades and “meet the set targets.” The responsible agency’s enhanced organizational capacity and local cadres’ engagement allowed them to “outperform” as their eventual way of achieving the mandate requirements. The implementation outcome resulted from the interplay of all levels of incentives. Coercive pressure predominantly drove the launch of the upgrade project, meanwhile significantly influencing the organizational- and individual-level incentives that additionally explained the outperformance.

This study provides a nuanced, in-depth understanding of how sedimented factors and especially their interrelationships drive the implementation of e-government initiatives and shape the implementation outcome in Chinese municipal agencies.

The metallic alloys and their components fabricated via laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) suffer from the microvoids formed inevitably due to the extreme solidification rate during fabrication, which are impossible to be removed by heat treatment. This paper aims to remove those microvoids in as-built AlSi10Mg alloys by hot forging and enhance their mechanical properties.

AlSi10Mg samples were built using prealloyed powder with a set of optimized LPBF parameters, viz. 350 W of laser power, 1,170 mm/s of scan speed, 50 µm of layer thickness and 0.24 mm of hatch spacing. As-built samples were preheated to 430°C followed by immediate pressing with two different thickness reductions of 10% and 35%. The effect of hot forging on the microstructure was analyzed by means of X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, electron backscattered diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. Tensile tests were performed to reveal the effect of hot forging on the mechanical properties.

By using hot forging, the large number of microvoids in both as-built and post heat-treated samples were mostly healed. Moreover, the Si particles were finer in forged condition (∼150 nm) compared with those in heat-treated condition (∼300 nm). Tensile tests showed that compared with heat treatment, the hot forging process could noticeably increase tensile strength at no expense of ductility. Consequently, the toughness (integration of tensile stress and strain) of forged alloy increased by ∼86% and ∼24% compared with as-built and heat-treated alloys, respectively.

Hot forging can effectively remove the inevitable microvoids in metals fabricated via LPBF, which is beneficial to the mechanical properties. These findings are inspiring for the evolution of the LPBF technique to eliminate the microvoids and boost the mechanical properties of metals fabricated via LPBF.

The accurate prediction of driving torque demand is essential for the development of motion controllers for mobile robots on complex terrains. This paper aims to propose a hybrid model of torque prediction, adaptive EC-GPR, for mobile robots to address the problem of estimating the required driving torque with unknown terrain disturbances.

An error compensation (EC) framework is used, and the preliminary prediction driving torque value is achieved using Gaussian process regression (GPR). The error is predicted using a continuous hidden Markov model to generate compensation for the prediction residual caused by terrain disturbances and uncertainties. As the final step, a gain coefficient is used to adaptively tune the significance of the compensation term through parameter resetting. The proposed model is verified on a sample set, including the driving torque of a mobile robot on three different sandy terrains with two driving modes.

The results show that the adaptive EC-GPR yields the highest prediction accuracy when compared with existing methods.

It is demonstrated that the proposed model can predict the driving torque accurately for mobile robots in an unconstructed environment without terrain identification.

Utilizing the extended transportation-imagery model, this study categorizes three storytelling elements into six distinct factors – character types, influencer-character congruence, imaginable titles, concrete details, replication difficulty and artistic processing – to explore how these factors enhance influencer engagement.

This study utilized a quantitative research design, analyzing 1,660 influencer-created videos over a six-month period. Narrative elements were examined through manual coding, and their impact on live comments was assessed using negative binomial regression to identify key factors driving audience engagement.

Research results show that non-fictional characters, imaginable titles and concrete details significantly increased live comments. Conversely, high replication difficulty negatively influenced engagement. Notably, influencer-character congruence and artistic processing showed no significant effect.

This study advances the extended transportation-imagery model by integrating narrative elements with live comments, offering new perspectives on real-time audience engagement. The findings deepen our understanding of how storytelling techniques enhance the effectiveness of influencer marketing. From a managerial standpoint, this research provides strategic insights for influencers and brands to refine their content strategies, ultimately boosting audience engagement.

For the purpose of saving nickel, this study aims to develop new duplex stainless steel cored wires suitable for wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM) with the addition of nitrogen.

The effect of nitrogen content on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the thin-walled deposits is investigated in detail.

The microstructure of thin-walled deposits mainly consists of austenite, ferrite and secondary austenite. With increasing nitrogen content, the austenite in the deposited metals increases. The austenite proportion in the bottom region is more than that in the top region of the deposited metals. The χ phase is randomly distributed at the grain boundaries and within ferrite. The σ phase is mainly precipitated at ferrite and austenite grain boundaries. With increasing nitrogen content, the tensile strength of the deposited metals increases, but the impact toughness of the deposited metals deteriorates.

This study proposes new duplex stainless steel cored wires for WAAM, which realizes the objective of saving nickel.

The objective was to investigate the utility of cottonseed oil (CSO) as a raw material for the synthesis of CSO water-based alkyd resin. The synthesis involved the polymerization of CSO, trimethylolpropane, phthalic anhydride (PA) and trimellitic anhydride (TMA). The prepared resin coating material was subsequently applied to the surface of steel structure material.

This study aimed to synthesize water-based alkyd resins using CSO. Therefore, the alkyd resin was introduced with TMA containing carboxyl groups and neutralized with triethylamine (TEA) to form a water-soluble salt. Then, the esterification kinetics of CSO water-based alkyd resin were investigated, and finally, the basic properties of CSO water-based alkyd resin coating were evaluated.

It was demonstrated that CSO water-based alkyd resin exhibited excellent water solubility and that the esterification kinetic of the synthesis reaction could be described by a second-order reaction. The coating properties of the material were investigated and found to have good basic properties, with 40% resin addition having the best corrosion resistance. Consequently, it could be effectively applied to the surface of steel structural materials.

This study not only met the requirement of environmentally friendly development but also expanded the application of CSO through the synthesis of CSO water-based alkyd resin via alcoholysis. Compared to fatty acid process, the alcoholysis reduced the need for fatty acid pre-extraction, simplifying the alkyd resin synthesis process. Thus, economic costs are effectively reduced.

As artificial intelligence technology empowers service robots, they increasingly communicate with consumers in a human-like manner. This study aims to investigate the effect of service robots’ different conversational styles (competent conversational style vs. cute conversational style) on consumer service acceptance and demonstrate the moderating role of consumers’ technology anxiety.

Based on anthropomorphism theory and social presence theory, the authors conducted two scenario-based experiments (restaurant scenario and hotel scenario) to investigate this issue.

The results indicate that service robots’ conversational styles impact consumers’ willingness to accept the use of service robots through perceived social presence and positive emotion. Moreover, consumers perceived social presence and positive emotion play a serial mechanism. In addition, the effect of competent conversational style on consumers perceived social presence is less effective than that of cute conversational style. Finally, the authors demonstrate the moderating role of consumer technology anxiety in the relationship between conversational styles and perceived social presence.

To provide consumers with a positive human–robot interaction experience at the service front line, managers need to make better use of the conversational styles of service robots by comprehensively considering the characteristics of consumer technology anxiety.

This research extends the literature on service robots by integrating consumer characteristics and robots’ conversational styles. These findings highlight the effectiveness of cute conversational style in alleviating consumer technology anxiety.

This study investigates and explores sustainable fashion based on social attitudes toward culture and sustainable fashion effects in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), based on environmental knowledge and consumer satisfaction initiatives. It explicates sustainable fashion on the sustainable development agenda in addressing the gap of cultural value, environmental knowledge and sustainable fashion in SSA.

Using a quantitative approach, the study employed a web-based online cross-sectional survey to extract tangible information from 620 participants from SSA. The study integrated theory of planned behaviors (TPB) model and hypotheses. A structural equation model (SEM) was used to test all proposed hypotheses.

The results show that low environmental knowledge, influenced by geographical and cultural differences, affected fashion value, as which is predictively significant for sustainable fashion. However, attitude and cultural value results found statistical significance for consumer satisfaction in sustainable fashion. Furthermore, mediation was attained between consumer behavioral and environmental knowledge of sustainable fashion. The study recommends government policies on educational awareness and textile regulations for environmental garbage disposal possible harmful effects of climate change and finally, designing innovative initiatives for environmentally friendly fashion.

This study examines the environmental and social attitudes as well as behavioral effects, of an ecosystem that would most likely have a short life period, eliminate disposal dumps and foster an environmental control policy. Consequently, the study’s conceptual model and extended TPB contribute to how sustainable fashion supports environmental knowledge, consumer attitudes and cultural behaviors in fashion among Sub-Saharan Africans.

The aim of this study is to determine the fracture behavior of wool felt and fabric based epoxy composites and their responses to electromagnetic waves.

Notched and unnotched tensile tests of composites made of wool only and hybridized with a glass fiber layer were carried out, and fracture behavior and toughness at macro scale were determined. They were exposed to electromagnetic waves between 8 and 18 GHz frequencies using two horn antennas.

The keratin and lignin layer on the surface of the wool felt caused lower values to be obtained compared to the mechanical values given by pure epoxy. However, the use of wool felt in the symmetry layer of the laminated composite material provided higher mechanical values than the composite with glass fiber in the symmetry layer due to the mechanical interlocking it created. The use of wool in fabric form resulted in an increase in the modulus of elasticity, but no change in fracture toughness was observed. As a result of the electromagnetic analysis, it was also seen in the electromagnetic analysis that the transmittance of the materials was high, and the reflectance was low throughout the applied frequency range. Hence, it was concluded that all of the manufactured materials could be used as radome material over a wide band.

Sheep wool is an easy-to-supply and low-cost material. In this paper, it is presented that sheep wool can be evaluated as a biocomposite material and used for radome applications.

The combined evaluation of felt and fabric forms of a natural and inexpensive reinforcing element such as sheep wool and the combined evaluation of fracture mechanics and electromagnetic absorption properties will contribute to the evaluation of biocomposites in aviation.

This study aims to investigate the mechanical and tribological behavior of 70Mn steel with different laser re-melted textured patterns.

Laser surface re-melting (LSR) was used to manufacture various textured patterns (i.e. line, grid and mixed) on both the original and heat-treated 70Mn steel plates. The micro-hardness, microstructure, tensile strength, yield strength, elongation, coefficients of friction (COF) and worn morphologies were characterized to evaluate the impact of different textured patterns on the overall performance.

The results show that re-melted unit exhibited the highest surface hardness on the subsurface. The increase in surface hardness of the re-melted unit for the heat-treated 70Mn steel samples was much lower than that of the original ones. The re-melted textured patterns did not improve the tensile strength, yield strength and elongation of either original or heat-treated 70Mn steel samples. The re-melted textured patterns effectively reduced the average COFs of heat-treated 70Mn steel samples, but increased friction of the non-heat-treated samples.

This study provides valuable insights into enhancing the mechanical properties and tribological characteristics of 70Mn steel, particularly in the automotive, heavy machinery and high-load application sectors. These industries have stringent requirements for durability and friction control, and the findings of this research are expected to effectively extend the lifespan of mechanical components.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-11-2024-0443/