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The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of graphene, basalt flakes and their synergy on the corrosion resistance of zinc-rich coatings. As the important heavy-duty anticorrosion coatings, zinc-rich coatings provided cathodic protection for the substrate. However, to ensure cathodic protection, a large number of zinc powder made the penetration resistance known as the weakness of zinc-rich coatings. Therefore, graphene and basalt flakes were introduced into zinc-rich coatings to coordinate its cathodic protection and shielding performance.

Three kinds of coatings were prepared; they were graphene modified zinc-rich coatings, basalt flakes modified zinc-rich coatings and graphene-basalt flakes modified zinc-rich coatings. The anticorrosion behavior of painted steel was studied by using the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) technique in chloride solutions. The equivalent circuit methods were used for EIS analysis to obtain the electrode process structure of the coated steel system. Simultaneously, the corrosion resistance of the three coatings was evaluated by water resistance test, salt water resistance test and salt spray test.

The study found that the addition of a small amount of graphene and basalt flakes significantly improved the anticorrosion performance of coatings by enhancing their shielding ability against corrosive media and increasing the resistance of the electrochemical reaction. The modified coatings exhibited higher water resistance, salt water resistance and salt spray resistance. The graphene-basalt flakes modified zinc-rich coatings demonstrated the best anticorrosion effect. The presence of basalt scales and graphene oxide in the coatings significantly reduced the water content and slowed down the water penetration rate in the coatings, thus prolonging the coating life and improving anticorrosion effects. The modification of zinc-rich coatings with graphene and basalt flakes improved the utilization rate of zinc powder and the shielding property of coatings against corrosive media, thus strengthening the protective effect on steel structures and prolonging the service life of anticorrosion coatings.

The significance of developing graphene-basalt flakes modified zinc-rich coatings lies in their potential to offer superior performance in corrosive environments, leading to prolonged service life of metallic structures, reduced maintenance costs and a safer working environment. Furthermore, such coatings can be used in various industrial applications, including bridges, pipelines and offshore structures, among others.

This study aims to optimize the energy consumption of residential buildings in mild and humid climates. It investigates the use of thermal insulation to reduce thermal load through energy simulation analysis.

A residential building located in Rasht city, Iran (a mild and humid climate zone), is simulated using DesignBuilder software. Subsequently, the minimum thermal resistance for external walls and roof is analyzed along with its impact on building energy consumption and carbon emissions.

The simulation results indicated a 26.5% reduction in heat loss through the walls and a 14.2% reduction through the roof due to optimal thermal insulation. Furthermore, optimal insulation led to a 19.2% reduction in cooling system energy use, a 12% reduction in heating system energy use and a combined 15.3% reduction in total energy consumption for cooling and heating.

This optimization process leads to several benefits: reduced costs associated with thermal and cooling energy losses in buildings, improved building performance against atmospheric factors and, ultimately, a reduction in energy consumption across the building industry. This research can be valuable to various stakeholders, including the construction industry and building sector, municipalities and engineering systems, building owners and contractors and environmental organizations. By implementing these findings, they can improve the state of modern building insulation and achieve greater energy efficiency.

The purpose is to understand the factors affecting Chinese diet selections and propose strategies for revolutionizing Chinese diets toward healthy ones.

This study implemented an online discrete choice experiment to identify the factors affecting diet selections among urban Chinese consumers. Four different diet patterns were used to label each of the product alternatives in the experiment, which varied in taste and cost. Specifically, implying the healthiness and sustainability of a diet, the diet alternatives included the average diet, the Chinese Food Guide Pagoda diet, the EAT-Lancet diet and the Flexitarian diet. Using consumer data from six provincial capital cities, we used random parameter logit models to estimate their preferences.

Diet type and diet cost were found to be more important in urban Chinese consumers' diet selections than the ability to customize taste. The average diet, although not healthy and sustainable, was preferred most by respondents, signaling the challenges of shifting the consumer diet in China. Increasing the cost of the average diet can significantly promote sustainable healthy diet choices among urban Chinese residents. In other words, improving the affordability of sustainable healthy diets would have the potential to fuel the diet revolution in China.

Instead of choices of a single food item, this paper focused on the individual selection of a diet, where different food products can act as substitutes or as complements for one another. We also proposed a way to assess individual preferences and valuations for several different diets.

This study explores the determinants of public willingness to comply with COVID-19 regulations to address the research gap at the intersection of public health and law enforcement within the unique sociocultural context of Taiwan.

Utilizing survey data from New Taipei City in 2021, the analysis involved multiple linear regression models to assess the influences of psychological conditions (i.e. distress and self-efficacy), community compliance and perceptions of government (i.e. general trust in government and specific perceptions of police procedural justice) on compliance tendencies while controlling for individual demographics.

The results indicated that self-efficacy, perceived community compliance, trust in government, and police procedural justice are positively associated with public compliance with COVID-19 regulations. Among these variables, trust in government and police procedural justice were identified as the most prominent factors, followed by self-efficacy and perceived community compliance. As demographic factors such as age, gender and education did not significantly affect willingness to comply, psychological, social and governmental influences are more powerful determinants of compliance than static demographic characteristics.

This study provides empirical evidence from Taiwan on the factors shaping public compliance during an unprecedented global pandemic. It highlights the importance of fostering governmental trust and enhancing police procedural justice during periods of stability to secure compliance with public health directives in times of crisis.

In modern China, sports and nationalism always have close connection, and nationalism is the important reason for the promotion of Chinese sports. However, the relationship between Chinese sports and nationalism in globalised China could be much more examined by academics, as well as its influencing factors. This chapter selects the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games as the context and representative three Chinese sports heroes in the period of globalisation to study. The findings show that in some extent, Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and three Chinese sports heroes represent the national image of China in the globalised world, also bearing the burden of washing away historical humiliation and pursuing national glory. Furthermore, it is manifested that China have a complex nationalism in the process of hosting the 2008 Olympic Games. Under the influence of mass media, market economy and sports professionalisation, nationalism still exists in Chinese sports, but people gradually start to reflect on the ‘Juguo Tizhi’, the traditional Chinese sports system and the concept of ‘winning glory for the nation’. The relationship between Chinese nationalism and sports shows the important implications of rapid Chinese sports development.

The diagnosis and prediction methods used for estimating the health conditions of the bearing are of great significance in modern petrochemical industries. This paper aims to discuss the accuracy and stability of improved empirical mode decomposition (EMD) algorithm in bearing fault diagnosis.

This paper adopts the improved adaptive complementary ensemble empirical mode decomposition (ICEEMD) to process the nonlinear and nonstationary signals. Two data sets including a multistage centrifugal fan data set from the laboratory and a motor bearing data set from the Case Western Reserve University are used to perform experiments. Furthermore, the proposed fault diagnosis method, combined with intelligent methods, is evaluated by using two data sets. The proposed method achieved accuracies of 99.62% and 99.17%. Through the experiment of two data, it can be seen that the proposed algorithm has excellent performance in the accuracy and stability of diagnosis.

According to the review papers, as one of the effective decomposition methods to deal with nonlinear nonstationary signals, the method based on EMD has been widely used in bearing fault diagnosis. However, EMD is often used to figure out the nonlinear nonstationarity of fault data, but the traditional EMD is prone to modal confusion, and the white noise in signal reconstruction is difficult to eliminate.

In this paper only the top three optimal intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) are selected, but IMFs with less correlation cannot completely deny their value. Considering the actual working conditions of petrochemical units, the feasibility of this method in compound fault diagnosis needs to be studied.

Different from traditional methods, ICEEMD not only does not need human intervention and setting but also improves the extraction efficiency of feature information. Then, it is combined with a data-driven approach to complete the data preprocessing, and further carries out the fault identification and classification with the optimized convolutional neural network.

This chapter argues that the National Basketball Association (NBA) and American mainstream sporting media produce and mediate a representation of India as underdeveloped and as an unmodern subject/nation as a way to enter the Indian basketball marketplace. The chapter emphasizes that the NBA produces the attendant discourse of the ‘white saviour’ through a multi-pronged process. The chapter shows how it draws upon the legacies of British colonialism, along with the expansion of US imperialism, to construct India in particular racialised ways as backward, unmodern, and not cosmopolitan. In this respect, Black NBA players’ modes of basketball reach India as part of the racialisation of Indian basketball. Finally, the chapter engages with the larger global circuits of race and racialisation to understand how India is then imagined within the US sporting landscape. This chapter underscores the capitalist desires of the NBA alongside the desires of South Asian Americans for an Indian basketball hero. Both desires, institutional and personal, showcase racialisation at work. The NBA uses the language and performance of Judeo-Christian modernity through NBA players in India to racialise Indians as in need of NBA mentorship and upliftment. On other hand, diasporic Indians in the US dream of an Indian NBA player as a way to unravel, destabilise, and challenge their racialisation as hypo-masculine subjects. These competing forms of racialisation provide important information on the global flows of capital, desire, and sport.

This study aims to improve the robot’s performance during interactions with human and uncertain environments.

A joint stiffness model was established according to the molecular current method and the virtual displacement method. The position and stiffness coordination controller and fuzzy adaptive controller of variable stiffness joint are designed, and the principle prototype of variable stiffness joint is built. The position step and trajectory tracking performance of the variable stiffness joint are verified through experiments.

Experimental test shows that the joint stiffness can be quickly adjusted. The accuracy of position and trajectory tracking of the joint increases with higher stiffness and decreases with increasing frequency. The fuzzy adaptive controller performed better than the position and stiffness coordination controller in controlling the position step and trajectory tracking of the variable stiffness joint.

A hybrid flux adjustment mechanism is proposed for the components of variable stiffness robot joints, which reduces the mass of the output end of variable stiffness joints and the speed of joint stiffness adjustment. Aiming at the change of system controller performance caused by the change of joint stiffness, a fuzzy adaptive controller is proposed to improve the position step and trajectory tracking characteristics of variable stiffness joints.

The environment in which users acquire medical and health information has changed dramatically, with online health communities (OHCs) emerging as an essential means for accessing health information. It is imperative to comprehend the factors that shape the users' compliance willingness (UCW) to health information in OHCs.

This study adopted the information adoption model (IAM) and theory of planned behavior (TPB) to investigate the influence of argument quality (AQ), source credibility (SC) and subjective norms (SN) on UCW while considering the two types of online health information – mature and emerging treatments. The authors conducted an explanatory-predictive study based on a 2 (treatment types: mature vs. emerging) * 2 (AQ: high vs. low) * 2 (SC: high vs. low) scenario-based experiment, using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

SC positively influences AQ. AQ, SC and SN contribute to information usefulness (IU). These factors positively affect UCW through the mediation of IU. SN were found to improve UCW directly. Moreover, the moderating effect of SC on AQ and IU was more substantial for emerging treatments.

The research model integrates IAM and TPB, considering information types as an additional variable. The approach and findings provide a valuable explanation for UCW to health information in OHCs.

The purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on the stimulus–organism–response (S–O–R) model to examine whether network externality, personalization and sociability as environmental feature antecedents to learners’ learning engagement (LE) can influence their learning persistence (LP) in massive open online courses (MOOCs).

Sample data for this study were collected from learners who had experience in taking MOOCs provided by the MOOC platform launched by a well-known university in Taiwan, and 371 usable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling in this study.

This study proved that learners’ perceived network externality, personalization and sociability in MOOCs positively affected their cognitive LE, psychological LE and social LE elicited by MOOCs, which jointly led to their LP in MOOCs. The results support all proposed hypotheses, and the research model accounts for 76.2% of the variance in learners’ LP in MOOCs.

This study uses the S–O–R model as a theoretical base to construct learners’ LP in MOOCs as a series of the inner process, which is affected by network externality, personalization and sociability. It is worth noting that three psychological constructs including cognitive LE, psychological LE and social LE are used to represent learners’ organismic states of MOOCs usage. To date, hedonic/utilitarian concepts are more often adopted as organisms in previous studies using the S–O–R model, and psychological constructs have received lesser attention. Hence, this study’ contribution on the application of capturing psychological constructs for completely expounding three types of environmental features as antecedents to learners’ LP in MOOCs is well documented.