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Building on the core concept of anthropomorphism and the empathy-helping theory, this research aims to examine how product anthropomorphism and buyer usage intentions affect sellers’ pricing in second-hand markets as well as explore the psychological dynamics underlying these effects.

To test the hypotheses, a series of four experiments were conducted. Studies 1a (n = 140) and 1b (n = 140) employed a one-factor (product anthropomorphism: yes vs no) between-subject design and used chi-square analysis. Study 2 (n = 145) and Study 3 (n = 162) employed a 2 (usage intention: protective vs destructive) × 2 (product anthropomorphism: yes vs no) between-subject design and used two-way ANOVA and moderated mediation analysis.

The study found that even when potential buyers with destructive (vs protective) usage intentions offer higher prices, sellers of anthropomorphized (vs non-anthropomorphized) products are less willing to choose them (Studies 1a and 1b). When potential buyers express destructive (vs protective) usage intentions, sellers of anthropomorphized (vs non-anthropomorphized) products are less willing to offer discounts (Study 2), and the lowest price they are willing to accept is higher (Study 3). The level of perceived capacity for pain mediates these effects (Study 3).

These findings offer insights into the application of product anthropomorphism strategies and the second-hand transactions of used anthropomorphized products.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between military connections and tax avoidance in Indonesia. Further, the paper examines whether the relationship between military connections and tax avoidance is impacted by three corporate governance variables: auditor size or Big 4, board size and audit committee independence. Indonesia's settings allow for a unique investigation, as military involvement has been documented.

This paper uses Indonesia as the research setting because its military forces have a long history of business involvement. The sample includes 1,986 firm-year observations on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2018. The period signifies the time of significant change post-Suharto to illustrate changes in military reform.

Military-connected firms recorded a negative relationship with effective tax rates, indicating higher tax avoidance. The authors extend this test by considering three corporate governance variables: Big 4, board size and audit committee independence. They find the corporate governance variables are ineffective in mitigating the positive impact of military-connected firms and corporate tax avoidance. The results remain consistent when performing endogeneity tests.

This paper adds to the extant literature by examining the impact of military connections on tax avoidance. The findings reflect Indonesia's institutional settings depicting military and political connections.

This study aims to investigate how investment opportunity sets (IOs) and free cash-flow (FCF) surpluses affect aggressive tax planning (ATP). This research focuses on examining the correlation between these factors and delves into how ATP, perceived as a tool for exploiting legal loopholes, plays a central role.

This study uses panel data analysis techniques on a sample of 1,248 firm-observations gathered from nonfinancial enterprises in Jordan that are listed in the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) between the years 2008 and 2019. The Driscoll–Kraay regression model (fixed effect) is enlisted to avoid the inconsistency of the slope across individual units and time period.

The findings indicate that the IOs does not affect ATP. However, there is a significant negative effect of FCF surplus on ATP. Furthermore, consistent with positive accounting theory the data reveal that all of these control variables exert a substantial positive influence on ATP.

This study concentrates on nonfinancial firms listed in the ASE, thereby constraining the applicability of the results to alternative contexts. Nevertheless, the findings of this study enhance comprehension regarding the extent of ATP and bear policy implications for policymakers regarding the structuring of future tax systems aimed at reducing the prevalence of tax avoidance behaviors. Thus, future research should conduct longitudinal studies to capture temporal dynamics.

This study contributes to the existing literature on ATP by focusing on using the Wilson tax-shelter model as a precise proxy. It fills gaps in prior research by exploring connections between IOs, FCF and ATP. The findings offer novel insights into the dynamics of tax planning strategies and contribute to the broader understanding of tax management practices.

The debate surrounding the influence of parental nutritional knowledge on offspring’s susceptibility to overweight/obesity persists, with a dearth of research elucidating the mechanisms involved. This study aims to explore if and how parental nutrition knowledge affects adolescents' overweight and obesity, by highlighting the mediating effect of parental perceived severity of obesity.

A questionnaire was conducted in Zhejiang Province, China, with a sample of 2,298 students as well as their parents during November–December 2022. Logistic regression and propensity score matching methods was used to validate the relationship between parental nutrition knowledge and adolescents' overweight/obesity, while the multiplication coefficient method was used to test the mediation effect.

Parental nutrition knowledge significantly reduces the odds ratio for adolescent obesity, without affecting the likelihood of overweight. The perceived severity of obesity fully mediates the relationship between parental nutrition knowledge and adolescents' overweight and obesity.

By exploring mediating factors, the analysis offers an innovative explanation of the process by which nutritional knowledge influences health behaviors. Lack of relevant motivation or beliefs is an important reason for the failure of nutritional knowledge. If parents do not have sufficient awareness of the dangers of overweight or obesity, they will have inadequate motivation to apply nutritional knowledge in guiding dietary or exercise decisions. We also supplement the literature by demonstrating the health belief model in highlighting the mediating mechanism of perceived severity in the relationship between parental nutrition knowledge and adolescents' obesity.

Extending the research focus on subjective beliefs and cognitive motivation bears important policy implications for designing education campaigns to effectively restrain the obesity rate. Considering that many Chinese parents have insufficient awareness of the dangers of childhood overweight and obesity, even considering “chubby children” as symbols of “cuteness” and “health”. This can largely undermine their motivation to apply nutritional knowledge to restrain adolescents' overweight and obesity. Consequently, education campaigns, public health professionals and government agencies can be developed aiming to increase parental nutrition knowledge, especially on the hazards of obesity.

With the prevalence of overweight and obesity among adolescents, it is critical to control students' weight and health. Families, especially parents, are vital to the physical and mental health of adolescents. This research confirmed that improving parental nutrition knowledge is necessary for maintaining a healthy weight for adolescents. Results also emphasized that the association between parental nutritional knowledge and adolescents' overweight or obesity was mediated by parental perceived severity. This indicates that interventions designed to enhance parental nutritional knowledge should pay more attention to strengthening parental cognition of and beliefs in obesity.

This paper added to the debate on the impact of parental nutritional knowledge on adolescent’s overweight and obesity. Based on the health belief model, it also identified a novel pathway and mechanism by highlighting the importance of subjective motivations and beliefs such as the perceived severity of obesity in influencing overweight/obesity. Conclusions bear important policy implications for designing education campaigns to effectively restrain the obesity rate.

Current multi-source image fusion methods frequently overlook the issue of detailed features when employing deep learning technology, resulting in inadequate target feature information. In real-world mission scenarios, such as military information acquisition or medical image enhancement, the prominence of target feature information is of paramount importance. To address these challenges, this paper introduces a novel infrared-visible light fusion model.

Leveraging the foundational architecture of the traditional DenseFuse model, this paper optimizes the backbone network structure and incorporates a Unique Feature Encoder (UFE) to meticulously extract the distinctive features inherent in the two images. Furthermore, it integrates the Convolutional Block Attention Module (CBAM) and the Squeeze and Excitation Network (SE) to enhance and replace the original spatial and channel attention mechanisms.

Compared to other methods such as IFCNN, NestFuse, DenseFuse, etc., the values of entropy, standard deviation, and mutual information index of the method presented in this paper can reach 6.9985, 82.6652, and 13.6022, respectively, which are significantly improved compared with other methods.

This paper presents a UFEFusion framework that synergizes with the CBAM attention mechanism to markedly augment the extraction of detailed features relative to other methods. Moreover, the framework adeptly extracts and amplifies unique features from disparate images, thereby elevating the overall feature representation capability.

Previous studies have mainly focused on the negative impact of illegitimate tasks on recipients but ignored its impact on observers. Drawing on deservingness theory, this research developed a moderated serial mediation model to examine the underlying mechanism in the relationship between observed illegitimate tasks and observers’ helping behaviour.

This research tested the model using a sample of 218 employees in China through a two-wave field study. A path analysis was conducted with the bootstrapping procedure to test the hypothesized model.

The results showed that the effect of observing illegitimate tasks was contingent upon the degree of the observer’s interpersonal liking towards the recipient. Specifically, when the observer had a high level of interpersonal liking for a coworker, the observer may perceive that the coworker was undeserving of being assigned illegitimate tasks, which increased sympathetic emotion and the sequent helping behaviour.

This study shifted the perspective of the illegitimate task literature from the recipient to the third parties. Additionally, it provided a finer-grained understanding of the mechanism between observed workplace disrespectful treatment and the observer’s helping behaviour.

The production planning problem with fine-grained information has hardly been considered in practice. The purpose of this study is to investigate the data-driven production planning problem when a manufacturer can observe historical demand data with high-dimensional mixed-frequency features, which provides fine-grained information.

In this study, a two-step data-driven optimization model is proposed to examine production planning with the exploitation of mixed-frequency demand data is proposed. First, an Unrestricted MIxed DAta Sampling approach is proposed, which imposes Group LASSO Penalty (GP-U-MIDAS). The use of high frequency of massive demand information is analytically justified to significantly improve the predictive ability without sacrificing goodness-of-fit. Then, integrated with the GP-U-MIDAS approach, the authors develop a multiperiod production planning model with a rolling cycle. The performance is evaluated by forecasting outcomes, production planning decisions, service levels and total cost.

Numerical results show that the key variables influencing market demand can be completely recognized through the GP-U-MIDAS approach; in particular, the selected accuracy of crucial features exceeds 92%. Furthermore, the proposed approach performs well regarding both in-sample fitting and out-of-sample forecasting throughout most of the horizons. Taking the total cost and service level obtained under the actual demand as the benchmark, the mean values of both the service level and total cost differences are reduced. The mean deviations of the service level and total cost are reduced to less than 2.4%. This indicates that when faced with fluctuating demand, the manufacturer can adopt the proposed model to effectively manage total costs and experience an enhanced service level.

Compared with previous studies, the authors develop a two-step data-driven optimization model by directly incorporating a potentially large number of features; the model can help manufacturers effectively identify the key features of market demand, improve the accuracy of demand estimations and make informed production decisions. Moreover, demand forecasting and optimal production decisions behave robustly with shifting demand and different cost structures, which can provide manufacturers an excellent method for solving production planning problems under demand uncertainty.

Mechanoreception is crucial for robotic planning and control applications, and for robotic fingers, mechanoreception is generally obtained through tactile sensors. As a new type of robotic finger, the soft finger also requires mechanoreception, like contact force and object stiffness. Unlike rigid fingers, soft fingers have elastic structures, meaning there is a connection between force and deformation of the soft fingers. It allows soft fingers to achieve mechanoreception without using tactile sensors. This study aims to provide a mechanoreception sensing scheme of the soft finger without any tactile sensors.

This research uses bending sensors to measure the actual bending state under force and calculates the virtual bending state under assumed no-load conditions using pressure sensors and statics model. The difference between the virtual and actual finger states is the finger deformation under load, and its product with the finger stiffness can be used to calculate the contact force. There are distinctions between the virtual and actual finger state change rates in the pressing process. The difference caused by the stiffness of different objects is different, which can be used to identify the object stiffness.

Contact force perception can achieve a detection accuracy of 0.117 N root mean square error within the range of 0–6 N contact force. The contact object stiffness perception has a detection average deviation of about 15%, and the detection standard deviation is 10% for low-stiffness objects and 20% for high-stiffness objects. It performs better at detecting the stiffness of low-stiffness objects, which is consistent with the sensory ability of human fingers.

This paper proposes a universal mechanoreception method for soft fingers that only uses indispensable bending and pressure sensors without tactile sensors. It helps to reduce the hardware complexity of soft robots. Meanwhile, the soft finger no longer needs to deploy the tactile sensor at the fingertip, which can benefit the optimization design of the fingertip structure without considering the complex sensor installation. On the other hand, this approach is no longer confined to adding components needed. It can fully use the soft robot body’s physical elasticity to convert sensor signals. Essentially, It treats the soft actuators as soft sensors.

The purpose of this paper is that the long fluorocarbon monomer is used to modify the latex. The film of the resultant latex has the C-F bond with high bond energy and low surface energy, which can effectively improve the heat resistance and water resistance of the resultant film. In addition, a mixture of CO-436 and dibutyl maleate (DBM) as surfactants is used as the emulsifier, which brings the new application of the above surfactants.

The modified Vac-VeoVa10 copolymer nanometre latex modified VAc-VeoVa10 latex has been successfully synthesized via the semi-continuous seeded emulsion polymerization, which VAc and VeoVa10 is used as the main monomers and long fluorocarbon monomer was used as the functional monomer. Potassium persulphate (KPS) and the mixture of CO-436 and DBM were used as the initiator and emulsifier, respectively. The structure of resultant latex film was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The latex films were tested by thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry and contact angle. The particle size and its distribution of the latex were measured by the nano particle size analyzer.

Detailed investigation was conducted on the factors influencing the properties of the latex and film. The stability of the resultant latex is good. The average particles of the latex and its distribution are small and uniform, respectively. In comparison with the conventional latex film, the thermal stability and hydrophobicity of the resultant latex film are improved obviously.

The modification of p (VAc-VeoVa10) using a new emulsifier and long fluorocarbon monomer has not been widely reported. In this study, the modified Vac-VeoVa10 copolymer nanometre latex modified VAc-VeoVa10 latex has been successfully synthesized via the semi-continuous seeded emulsion polymerization, which VAc and VeoVa10 is used as the main monomers and long fluorocarbon monomer was used as the functional monomer. KPS and the mixture of CO-436 and DBM were used as the initiator and emulsifier, respectively.

The traditional VeoVa10-VAc copolymer latex, which prepared via the emulsion polymerization of the mixed monomers of VAc and VeoVa10, has the poor water resistance and thermal stability because of the migration of the conventional emulsifier molecules and the low bond energy of C-C bond. The purpose of this work is that the fluorinated monomer is used to modify the latex. The film of the resultant latex has the C-F bond with high bond energy and low surface energy, which can effectively improve the heat resistance and water resistance of the resultant film. In addition, the reactive emulsifier is used to replace the conventional emulsifier. The drawbacks of the conventional emulsifier molecules migrate and desorb can be avoided when the polymer latex is stored, thereby also improving the water resistance.

The modified VAc-VeoVa10 latex has been successfully synthesized via the semi-continuous seeded emulsion polymerization, which VAc and VeoVa10 is used as the main monomers and HFMA was used as the functional monomer. KPS and reactive surfactants of SE-10 were used as the initiator and emulsifier, respectively. The structure of resultant latex film was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The latex films were tested by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and contact angle (CA). The particle size and its distribution of the latex were measured by the nano particle size analyzer.

The factors that had an influence on the properties of the latex and the film were investigated in detail. The stability of the resultant latex is good. The average particles of the latex and its distribution are small and uniform, respectively. In comparison with the conventional latex film, the thermal stability and hydrophobicity of the resultant latex film are improved obviously.

The resultant latex can be used in both the waterborne interior and exterior wall coatings, pickering stabilized waterborne polymer dispersions, polymer powders, environmentally friendly polymer-modified waterproof mortar and other fields, which can be satisfied with the high demand of thermal stability and hydrophobicity.

The modification of poly (VAc-VeoVa10) by reactive surfactant and fluorinated monomer is seldom reported. In this study, the fluorinated poly (VAC-VeoVa) latex is prepared via the reactive surfactants, which VAc and VeoVa10 is used as the main monomers and hexafluorobutyl methacrylate is used as the functional monomer. Potassium persulfate (KPS) and allyl nonyl phenoxy propyl alcohol polyoxyethylene ether ammonium sulfate are used as the initiator and emulsifier, respectively.