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We leverage Lachmann's insight on elite conflict to explain the politics surrounding industry regulation in contemporary America and argue that conflicts between political elites create both constraints on industry players and opportunities for them to shape regulation. The widening urban-rural polarization of American society, in particular, has made urban political elites more liberal than those in state politics. The greater the political polarization of a state, the more local restrictions the nascent US hydraulic fracturing (fracking) industry – generally regarded as conservative – face in that state. Players in the industry thus seek interventions by conservative elites at the state government level. The dominance of conservative state legislators and the presence of affiliates of the right-leaning American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are bound to strengthen the industry's lobbying efforts in that state. These, in turn, increase the likelihood of the enactment of state preemption laws that nullify local restrictions. We discuss the implications of this on the study of elite conflict, the politics of industry regulation, and the industry's political strategy.

The core objective of this study is to provide an in-depth quantitative assessment of the efficiency of public library knowledge services (PLKS) in China and to scrutinize the factors that have a significant impact on the efficiency of PLKS. Furthermore, this study also aims to examine the characteristics and evolving patterns of PLKS in China and to propose strategies for enhancing the quality of services provided by public libraries. The findings of this paper are expected to provide valuable references for current academic research and practice areas, guiding and promoting exploration and development in related fields.

To analyse and evaluate the operation mechanism and efficiency of PLKS, this study creatively constructs a multi-stage PLKS efficiency evaluation model and provides related indicators. Based on this process, the super-efficiency network slacks-based measure model was used to analyse the efficiency, and dynamic qualitative comparative analysis was adopted to analyse the recipes about the influencing factors of PLKS. Ultimately, through a comprehensive interpretation of the measured data and the integration of extant societal development conditions, the authors put forth relevant recommendations.

In the first stage, PLKS in China meets the basic requirements, but in the second stage, there is evident resource wastage. In addition, there are five recipes in PLKS of China. These five recipes reveal the configuration relationship between the factors that affect PLKS. The results show that PLKS in China are different in different regions, and the effects of the influencing factors are also different.

In this study, the authors provide an exhaustive deconstruction and interpretation of PLKS, thereby proposing a three-stage PLKS efficiency conversion process. Furthermore, the authors have identified a set of readily accessible and quantifiable indicators. It is worth emphasizing that the authors have taken a unique approach to analyse the elements affecting PLKS from the perspective of configuration, which has significantly broadened the boundaries and depth of PLKS research.

An increasing number of fashion firms face criticism for “greenwashing” due to the industry’s longstanding negative environmental and social impacts. This experimental study, in the fashion industry context, evaluated consumers’ perceptions of hypocrisy, demonstrated by false labeling, vague information and downsizing negative environmental impacts in corporate social responsibility initiatives. This study also investigated how these perceptions influence consumers’ evaluations of the firm’s moral inequity and their likelihood of engaging in complaint behaviors.

An online survey company recruited Chinese consumers to participate in a between-subjects experimental study. Three types of news articles were developed – false labeling, vague information and downsizing of negative aspects – reporting on a fictitious fashion firm’s greenwashing practices. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the stimuli and completed a corresponding survey.

Analysis of the 210 collected responses revealed that false labeling had the highest level of corporate hypocrisy perceptions, whereas the downsizing of negative aspects resulted in the lowest level. Moreover, perceived hypocrisy increased moral inequity, which subsequently influenced consumer complaint behaviors. Specifically, when consumers’ expectations toward a firm’s morality were violated – whether through false labeling, vague claims or selective omission – they felt deceived, leading to perceptions of moral hypocrisy. Upon detecting hypocritical behavior in corporate greenwashing, consumers felt moral inequity and took various complaint actions.

This study’s findings provide valuable insights into greenwashing within the fashion industry, addressing industry-specific issues. Academically, this study suggests new classifications of customer complaint behaviors by relating the current circumstances of customer complaints to previous classifications.

Nucleic acid testing is an effective method of accurate prevention and control and a key measure to block the spread of the epidemic. However, the fraud in nucleic acid testing occurred frequently during epidemics. This paper aims to provide a viable scheme for the government to strengthen the supervision of nucleic acid testing and to provide a new condition for the punishment for the negative act of the government and the upper limit of the reward for nucleic acid testing institution of no data fraud.

This paper formulates an evolutionary game model between the government and nucleic acid testing institution under four different mechanisms of reward and punishment to solve the issue of nucleic acid testing supervision. The authors discuss the stability of equilibrium points under the four distinct strategies and conduct simulation experiments.

The authors find that the strategy of dynamic reward and static penalty outperforms the strategies of static reward and static penalty, dynamic reward and static penalty, static reward and dynamic penalty, dynamic reward and dynamic penalty. The results reveal the appropriate punishment for the negative act of the government can enhance the positivity of the government's supervision in the strategy of dynamic reward and static penalty, while the upper limit of the reward for nucleic acid testing institution of no data fraud cannot be too high. Otherwise, it will backfire. Another interesting and counterintuitive result is that in the strategy of dynamic reward and dynamic penalty, the upper limit of the penalty for data fraud of nucleic acid testing institution cannot be augmented recklessly. Otherwise, it will diminish the government's positivity for supervision.

Most of the existing evolutionary game researches related to the reward and punishment mechanism and data fraud merely highlight that increasing the intensity of reward and punishment can help improve the government's supervision initiative and can minimize data fraud of nucleic acid institution, but they fall short of the boundary conditions for the punishment and reward mechanism. Previous literature only study the supervision of nucleic acid testing qualitatively and lacks quantitative research. Moreover, they do not depict the problem scenario of testing data fraud of nucleic acid institution regulated by the government via the evolutionary game model. Thus, this study effectively bridges these gaps. This research is universal and can be extended to other industries.

The integration of women higher education leaders into the ideal discourse of educational leadership is a significant issue, as the discourses on women and leadership are continually reshaped in a changing social background, with their compatibility directly influencing women leaders’ construction, understanding and presentation of their leadership identities. In recent years, the Ministry of Education in China has issued a series of documents encouraging the promotion of academic and innovative development in higher education. In response, local governments and higher education institutions (HEIs) have introduced policies that directly link the achievements of university teachers and leaders to evaluations, promotions and performance assessments. The concept of ‘academic and innovative’ encompasses both research and innovation – the ideal educational leader is expected to demonstrate stable research outcomes while actively promoting educational reforms. This chapter focuses on the narratives of women higher education leaders. In particular, the study explores the structural challenges faced by women leaders within the higher education system in integrating this seemingly non-conflicting new ideal leadership discourse with their identities. The research is derived from narrative interviews with eight women leaders in HEIs in China, focusing on their understanding, construction and presentation of their leadership identities. The study suggests that the discourse surrounding the ideal ‘academic and innovative’ higher education leader, while not directly opposing traditional notions of ‘feminine traits’, brings a set of performance management-like evaluation criteria for leaders. However, due to structural challenges within higher education, women face significant hurdles in attempting to integrate into the emerging ideal leadership discourse.

The authors originally explore the factors for blockchain technology (BCT) adoption in agricultural supply chains (ASCs) to enhance circularity and understand the dependencies, hierarchical structure and causalities between these factors.

Based on an extant literature review and expert opinion, the present study identified ten enablers for adopting BCT to leverage the circular economy (CE) practices in the ASCs. Then, using an integrated interpretive structural modeling and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (ISM-DEMATEL) approach, hierarchical and cause–effect relationships are established.

It was observed that traceability is the most prominent enabler from the CE perspective in ASCs. However, traceability, being a net effect enabler, will be realized through the achievement of other cause enablers, such as seamless connectivity and information flow and decentralized and distributed ledger technology. The authors also propose a 12 Rs framework for enhancing circularity in ASC operations.

The paper identifies enablers to BCT adoption that will enhance circularity in ASC operations. The ISM hierarchical model is based on the driving and dependence powers of the enablers, and DEMATEL aids in identifying causal relationships among the enablers.

The study's findings and proposed 12 Rs framework may help the practitioners and policymakers devise effective BCT implementation strategies in ASCs, thereby empowering sustainability and circularity.

This study enriches the literature by identifying and modeling enablers for BCT adoption in ASCs. The study also proposes a new 12 Rs framework to help enhance ASC circularity.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate cutting-edge coagulant materials and procedures for the removal of harmful microplastics from the water.

Traditional methods of removing microplastics from water bodies, like filtration, face limitations due to the small sizes involved. Hence, coagulation and flocculation emerge as essential strategies to enhance filtration efficacy. This paper summarizes recent research on coagulant materials, including novel hybrids, for water purification. It also looks at the most recent improvements in coagulation and flocculation processes, as well as the factors that influence their efficiency.

This paper highlights recent research on coagulant materials, including novel hybrids, used in water purification. It also examines the most recent advancements in coagulation and flocculation procedures, as well as the elements influencing their effectiveness.

The environmental threat posed by plastics, especially in their non-naturally degradable forms, such as microplastics, has reached alarming proportions. These minute particles pervade our air, soil and water bodies, driven by various factors and sources. Their diminutive size, whether in micro or nano form, renders them ingestible by marine and freshwater organisms, as well as humans, posing significant health risks. Traditional methods of water cleaning are not effective in dealing with very small-sized plastics and hence this paper summarizes recent research on coagulant materials, including various novel hybrids, for water purification from tiny microplastics in detail.

The phase-field method of interfacial damage is used to simulate the damage in composite structures containing the brittle orthotropic materials and their interface.

In the brittle fracture modeling, the strain tensor is decomposed into positive and negative parts characterizing tension and compression behaviors. By requiring an elastic energy preserving transformation involving the elastic stiffness tensor, these two strain parts must satisfy the orthogonality condition in the sense that the elastic stiffness tensor responds as a metric. However, most of the recent phase-field methods for brittle fracture do not verify this orthogonality condition. Additionally, to describe the damage in structures with anisotropic phases, recent studies have used multiple phase-field variables, with each preferential orientation represented by a phase-field variable to describe the bulk damage of component materials. This approach increases the complexity of simulation procedure. These disadvantages motivate the present study aimed at enhancing the simulation method.

The present study improves the phase-field method of interfacial damage by (1) incorporating the strain orthogonality condition into the phase-field method; (2) using only one phase-field variable instead of multiple phase-field variables to simulate damage in component orthotropic phases; and (3) investigating the interaction between interfacial damage and bulk damage as well as the effect of orientation tensor of preferential orientation in each orthotropic phase and the interfacial parameters on crack branching in composite structures.

Through several simulation examples, the present simulation method is proven to be accurate, effective, and helps the simulation process simpler than previous relevant methods.

This study aims to improve detection efficiency of fluorescence biosensor or a graphene field-effect transistor biosensor. Graphene field-effect transistor biosensing and fluorescent biosensing were integrated and combined with magnetic nanoparticles to construct a multi-sensor integrated microfluidic biochip for detecting single-stranded DNA. Multi-sensor integrated biochip demonstrated higher detection reliability for a single target and could simultaneously detect different targets.

In this study, the authors integrated graphene field-effect transistor biosensing and fluorescent biosensing, combined with magnetic nanoparticles, to fabricate a multi-sensor integrated microfluidic biochip for the detection of single-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Graphene films synthesized through chemical vapor deposition were transferred onto a glass substrate featuring two indium tin oxide electrodes, thus establishing conductive channels for the graphene field-effect transistor. Using π-π stacking, 1-pyrenebutanoic acid succinimidyl ester was immobilized onto the graphene film to serve as a medium for anchoring the probe aptamer. The fluorophore-labeled target DNA subsequently underwent hybridization with the probe aptamer, thereby forming a fluorescence detection channel.

This paper presents a novel approach using three channels of light, electricity and magnetism for the detection of single-stranded DNA, accompanied by the design of a microfluidic detection platform integrating biosensor chips. Remarkably, the detection limit achieved is 10 pm, with an impressively low relative standard deviation of 1.007%.

By detecting target DNA, the photo-electro-magnetic multi-sensor graphene field-effect transistor biosensor not only enhances the reliability and efficiency of detection but also exhibits additional advantages such as compact size, affordability, portability and straightforward automation. Real-time display of detection outcomes on the host facilitates a deeper comprehension of biochemical reaction dynamics. Moreover, besides detecting the same target, the sensor can also identify diverse targets, primarily leveraging the penetrative and noninvasive nature of light.

The main purpose of our study is to investigate the impact of daily leader humor behaviors on healthcare workers’ daily psychological state and behavioral outcomes.

Based on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study proposes that daily leader humor behaviors are positively related to healthcare workers’ daily positive affect, which in turn affects their next-day helping behaviors towards patients. These predictions hinge on healthcare workers’ difficulty in maintaining display rules. We conducted a lagged experience sampling methodology (ESM) survey of 621 complete daily observations from 93 healthcare workers who work in direct contact with patients at a large public hospital in China across consecutive 10 working days.

Results of multilevel path analysis demonstrate that daily leader humor behaviors are positively related to healthcare workers’ same-day positive affect, and this positive affect enhances their next-day helping behaviors towards patients. Furthermore, healthcare workers’ higher difficulty in maintaining display rules attenuates the benefits of daily leader humor behaviors.

Building on the COR theory and adopting a diary research design, this study shows daily fluctuations in leader humor behaviors and proposes a mechanism through which daily leader humor behaviors indirectly affect healthcare workers’ next-day helping behaviors. Thus, our study disclosed possible means for healthcare organizations to improve service quality.