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This study aims to look into the role of gamification as an effective marketing tool to engage with consumers and influence purchase behaviours. As there are a plethora of gamified elements, it is crucial to determine which of them can significantly facilitate consumer purchase behaviour. Therefore, a unique stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework which encompasses four popular gamified elements (i.e. fun, rewards, competition and badges) was employed to investigate consumers’ engagement.

An online survey was utilized to collect the data which yielded 307 responses. Subsequently, partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyse the data.

Among the gamification elements assessed in this study, fun was revealed to be the strongest facilitating antecedent of shopping engagement. However, reward was revealed to have an insignificant effect on shopping engagement. In addition, it was found that consumers undergo a processual development with regard to their impulse buying of retail food products. More precisely, shopping engagement is a significant facilitator of customer satisfaction which subsequently motivates impulse buying.

This is among the pioneering studies to provide detailed insights into the effect of different gamified elements on consumer engagement. Furthermore, a number of practical and theoretical implications for the relevant stakeholders were discussed.

The purpose of this study is to reduce the residual stress in welded workpieces, optimize the vibratory stress relief treatment process through the use of a vibration generator and enhance the durability and longevity of the workpiece by developing a vibratory stress relief robot that incorporates a multi-manipulator system.

The multi-manipulator combination work is designed so that each manipulator is deployed according to the requirements of vibration stress relief work. Each manipulator works independently and coordinates with others to achieve multi-dimensional vibratory stress relief of the workpiece. A two-degree-of-freedom mobile platform is designed to enable the transverse and longitudinal movement of the manipulator, expanding the working space of the robot. A small electromagnetic superharmonic vibration generator is designed to produce directional vibrations in any orientation. This design addresses the technical challenge of traditional vibration generators being bulky and unable to achieve directional vibrations.

The residual stress relief experiment demonstrates that the residual stress of the workpiece is reduced by approximately 73% through three-degree-of-freedom vibration. The multi-dimensional vibration effectively enhances the relief effect of residual stress, which is beneficial for improving the strength and service life of the workpiece.

A new multi-manipulator robot is proposed to alleviate the residual stress generated by workpiece welding by integrating vibratory stress relief with robotics. It is beneficial to reduce material and energy consumption while enhancing the strength and service life of the workpiece.

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.

This study aims to better understand the morphological characteristics of single particle and the health risk characteristics of heavy metals in PM_2.5 in different functional areas of Handan City.

High resolution transmission electron microscopy was used to observe the aerosol samples collected from different functional areas of Handan City. The morphology and size distribution of the particles collected on hazy and clear days were compared. The health risk evaluation model was applied to evaluate the hazardous effects of particles on human health in different functional areas on hazy days.

The results show that the particulate matter in different functional areas is dominated by spherical particles in different weather conditions. In particular, the proportion of spherical particles exceeds 70% on the haze day, and the percentage of soot aggregates increases significantly on the clear day. The percentage of each type of particle in the teaching and living areas varied less under different weather conditions. Except for the industrial area, the size distribution of each type of particle in haze samples is larger than that on the clear day. Spherical particles contribute more to the small particle size segment. Soot aggregate and other shaped particles contribute more to the large size segment. The mass concentrations of hazardous elements (HEs) in PM_2.5 in different functional areas on consecutive haze pollution days were illustrated as industrial area > traffic area > living area > teaching area. Compared with the other functional areas, the teaching area had the lowest noncarcinogenic risk of HEs. The lifetime carcinogenic risk values of Cr and As elements in each functional area have exceeded residents’ threshold levels and are at high risk of carcinogenicity. Among the four functional areas, the industrial area has the highest carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic risks. But the effects of HEs on human health in the other functional areas should also be taken seriously and continuously controlled.

The significance of the study is to further understand the morphological characteristics of single particles and the health risks of heavy metals in different functional areas of Handan City. the authors hope to provide a reference for other coal-burning industrial cities to develop plans to improve air quality and human respiratory health.

The carbon complementary supply chain (CCSC) is a collaborative framework that facilitates internal carbon credit trading agreements among supply chain agents in compliance with prevailing carbon regulations. Such agreements are highly beneficial, prompting agents to consider joint investment in emission reduction initiatives. However, capital investments come with inevitable opportunity costs, compelling agents to weigh the potential revenue from collaborative investments against these costs. Thus, this paper mainly explores carbon abatement strategies and operational decisions of the CCSC members and the influence of opportunity costs on the strategic choice of cooperative and noncooperative investment.

The authors propose a novel biform game-based theoretical framework that captures the interplay of pricing competition and investment cooperation among CCSC agents and assesses the impact of opportunity costs on CCSC profits and social welfare. Besides, the authors also compare the biform game-based collaborative scenario (Model B) to the noncooperative investment scenario (Model N) to investigate the conditions under which collaborative investment is most effective.

The biform game-based collaborative investment strategy enhances the economic performance of the traditional energy manufacturer, who bears the risk of opportunity costs, as well as the retailer. Additionally, it incentivizes the renewable energy manufacturer to improve environmental performance through renewable projects.

This research contributes significantly by establishing a theoretical framework that integrates the concepts of opportunity costs and biform game theory, offering new insights into the strategic management of carbon emissions within supply chains.

The purpose of this study was to explicate how leaders’ knowledge hiding results in employees’ knowledge hiding. In addition, the study was intended to explore under what conditions leaders’ knowledge hiding affects employees’ moral disengagement more deleteriously.

Data were collected from 321 employees at three different times which were two months apart from each other. Structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

The study found leaders’ knowledge hiding to be related to employee moral disengagement. In addition, the study found moral disengagement to affect employees’ knowledge-hiding behavior. Moral disengagement was found to mediate the relationship between leaders’ knowledge hiding and employees’ knowledge hiding. Finally, the study found that employees with high moral identity show more perseverance to preserve their moral engagement when led by knowledge-hiding leaders.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study was first to establish a relationship between a leader’s knowledge hiding and employees’ moral disengagement. The study also established the mediating role of moral disengagement to work as a mediating mechanism linking leaders’ knowledge hiding to employees’ knowledge hiding. Finally, the study found that moral identity moderates the relationship between leaders’ knowledge hiding and employees’ moral disengagement.