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This study aims to examine the plane wave reflection problem in micropolar orthotropic magneto-thermoelastic half space, considering the influence of impedance as a boundary in a nonlocal elasticity.

This study presents the novel formulation of governing partial differential equations for micropolar orthotropic medium with impact of nonlocal thermo-elasticity under magnetic field.

This study provides the numerical results validation for a particular numerical data and expression for the amplitude ratios of reflected waves and identifies the existence of four different waves, namely, quasi longitudinal displacement qCLD-wave, quasi thermal wave qCT-wave, quasi transverse displacement qCTD-wave and quasi-transverse micro-rotational qCTM-wave. The study derives the velocity equation giving the speed and phase velocity of these waves. The study also shows that the small-scale size effect gives significant impact on phase velocity.

The graphical analysis examines the variation of speeds and coefficients of attenuation of these waves due to frequency, magnetic field and nonlocal parameters. Also, significant conclusions on the variation of reflection coefficient against nonlocal parameter, frequency, impedance parameter and angle of incidence are provided graphically.

The creation of more effective micropolar orthotropic anisotropic materials which are very useful in the daily life and their applications in earth science are greatly impacted by the findings of this study.

The authors of the submitted document initiated and produced it collectively, with equal contributions from all members.

This paper aims to study the impact of pyro-electricity, moisture and temperature diffusivity on the energy distribution of plane waves at the free surface of an orthotropic piezo-hygro-thermo-elastic medium.

This study presents the novel creation of governing equations for an anisotropic piezothermoelastic medium with moisture impact, which is a significant contribution of this paper.

In addition to providing numerical data for the amplitude ratios and energy ratios of reflected waves, this study identifies five different kinds of coupled reflected plane waves, namely, quasi-longitudinal P wave, quasi-thermal wave, quasi-transverse wave, quasi-moisture wave and electric potential wave.

The graphical analysis examines the impact of various factors, such as the angle of incidence, moisture and temperature diffusivity, pyro-electricity and frequency, on energy distribution.

This paper's results significantly impact the development of more efficient piezoelectric materials and their applications in geophysics.

The authors of the submitted document initiated and produced it collectively, with equal contributions from all members.

This paper aims to develop an initial understanding of the Lean Six Sigma methodology since its inception and examine the few Lean Six Sigma dimensions as a research domain through a critical review of the literature.

The paper is structured in two-part. The first part of the paper attempts to dwell on the evolution of the Lean Philosophy and Six Sigma methodology individually and the emergence of Lean Six Sigma methodology, covered under the Lean Six Sigma: a historical outline section. The second part of the study examines the dimensions associated with Lean Six Sigma such as frameworks, critical success factors, critical failure factors, type of industry, performance metric, year, publisher and journal, based on a total of 223 articles published in 72 reputed journals from the year 2000 to 2019 as a literature review.

The adoption of Lean Six Sigma, as a continuous improvement methodology, has grown enormously in the manufacturing and few service sectors such as health care and higher education during the past decade. The study revealed that researchers came out with conceptual frameworks for the implementation of Lean Six Sigma, whereas the validation through case studies seems to be lacking. The integration of Lean Six Sigma and other approaches with a focus on sustainability and the environment has emerged as a research field. A few of the most common critical success and failure factors were identified from the articles studied during the study.

This paper may not have included some of the studies due to the inaccessibility and selection criteria followed for the study.

This paper will provide an initial introduction on Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma and research insights Lean Six Sigma to beginners such as students, researchers and entry-level professionals.

Aircraft operators incur significant costs when an aircraft is taken out of service for maintenance. The purpose of this paper is to present a method for reducing time duration of aircraft maintenance checks using critical chain project management (CCPM) principle.

A case study of a typical heavy maintenance check performed on an Airbus 320 aircraft is undertaken for the analysis. The critical chain method is applied to develop a plan with a reduced duration and a survey and field observations to validate the findings have also been carried out as a part of this paper.

The paper compares the traditional project management method with CCPM in view of reducing the aircraft down time duration for maintenance. This paper repositions buffers and other techniques to shorten the chain path and a reduction in the total duration of the project by five days is achieved.

It is argued that the application of CCPM principle can reduce the duration of an aircraft maintenance check, but this paper is done in a single project situation focusing on project planning and execution. Therefore, additional study may be required to examine other issues.

Cost of the maintenance is second highest expenditure factor for an airline operator. Therefore, it is necessary to drive the maintenance cost down. The paper demonstrates that the duration of a maintenance check can be reduced by 8.9 per cent using the method suggested in this paper.

With gaining popularity, online communities are increasing. It is leading to the data and information overflow. So, there are some challenges like cyber frauds, cyberbullying, etc. while engaging with online communities. Not only this, anonymity of the participants, stress and racism are also big challenges in online communities' interaction. Online harassers' attack tactics have changed over time. In addition, there are challenges like quality of discussion, inequality in participation of the users, etc. may scale online communities towards incitement and activism. Therefore, this study will try to analyse these challenges for overall benefit of the society.

The underlying fuzzy set theory is employed to handle the fuzziness of users' perceptions since the attributes are expressed in linguistic preferences. Through exhaustive literature review, the authors have identified 15 challenges. These challenges are further categorised as cause and effect by using DEMATEL (Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory) approach.

Lack of strategic planning and uninspired discussions between users has emerged as a major challenge in cause category. This study further demonstrates how individual challenge can be managed and developed to navigate the online communities to maintain a healthy environment in society.

Results are based on limited dataset. Therefore, findings cannot be generalised for all online communities.

The research findings offer a suitable direction to policymakers to formulate and design policies, laws and regulations to increase user engagement in the online community. The study is beneficial to firms and researchers in understanding the factors influencing effective management of online communities.

India liberalized its economy in 1991, which resulted in intense global competition, quality-conscious and demanding customers. Additionally, significant technological advancements lead to enhancements in products and processes. These forced Indian organizations to adopt innovative business strategies in the past 30 years. Meanwhile, the Lean Six Sigma methodology has significantly grown with vast applicability during the past 30 years. Thus, the purpose of this study is to develop the learning on Lean Six Sigma methodology in the Indian context through investigation of literature.

A three-stage systematic literature review approach was adopted to investigate the literature during the present study. In total, 187 articles published in 62 journals/conference proceedings from 2005 to 2022 (18 years) were shortlisted. The first part of the article summarizes the significant milestones towards the quality journey in the Indian context, along with the evolution of the Lean Six Sigma methodology. The second part examines the shortlisted papers on Lean Six Sigma frameworks, their applicability in industrial sectors, performance metrics, outcomes realized, publication trends, authorship patterns and leading researchers from the Indian perspective.

Lean Six Sigma has emerged as a highly acclaimed and structured business improvement strategy worldwide. The Indian economy has seen remarkable growth in the past decade and is one of the fastest-growing economies in the 21st century. Lean Six Sigma implementation in India has significantly increased from 2014 onward. The study revealed that researchers have proposed several different frameworks for Lean Six Sigma implementation, the majority of which are conceptual. Furthermore, the balanced applicability of Lean Six Sigma in manufacturing and service sectors was observed with the highest implementation in the health-care sector. Additionally, the widely adopted tools, techniques along with performance metrics exploring case studies were reported along with a summary of eminent and leading researchers in the Indian context.

This study is confined to reviewed papers as per the research criteria with a significant focus on the Indian context and might have missed some papers due to the adopted papers selection strategy.

The present study is one of the initial attempts to investigate the literature published on Lean Six Sigma in the Indian context, including perspective on the Indian quality movement. Therefore, the present study will provide an understanding of Lean Six Sigma methodology in the Indian context to graduating students in engineering and management and entry-level executives. The analysis and findings on Lean Six Sigma frameworks, research approach, publications details, etc., will be helpful to potential research scholars and academia. Additionally, analysis of case studies on Lean Six Sigma implementation by Indian industries will assist the managers and professionals in decision making.

The purpose of this paper is to develop, test and validate a measure of fairness in the context of franchisor-franchisee relationship and test for the dimensionality of fairness.

The authors surveyed 300 franchisees of a large-scale franchisor in India. The authors employ confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to analyse the data.

The authors tested four models of the fairness construct through CFA using structural equation modelling. The three-factor corrected model of the fairness construct exhibits comparatively better goodness of fit indices as compared to the other correlated models of the fairness construct. It clears the threshold level of validity and reliability test. The findings of the study suggest that the factor structure of fairness is three-factor correlated model with aspects of procedural fairness and informational fairness getting subsumed into one construct.

Factor structure of fairness construct differs with earlier empirical research findings with both interpersonal fairness and informational fairness subsuming into each other to form one construct.

This measure can be utilized by franchisee managers to track perceptions of fairness among franchisees to manage the franchise relationship in a better way. Franchisees expect information sharing from the franchisor and not the representative of the franchisor.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to develop a valid and reliable measure of fairness construct in the context of franchise relationship. This study also identifies factor structure of fairness construct.

Concrete is a building material widely used for the infrastructural development. Cement is the binding material used for the development of concrete. It is the primary cause of CO₂ emission globally. The purpose of this study is to develop sustainable concrete material to satisfy the present need of construction sector. Geopolymer concrete (GPC) is a sustainable concrete developed without the use of cement. Therefore, investigations are being conducted to replace the cement by 100% with high calcium fly ash (FA) as binding material.

High calcium FA is used as cementitious binder, sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium silicates (Na₂SiO₃) are used as alkaline liquids for developing the GPC. Mix proportions with different NaOH molarities of 4, 6, 8 and 10 M are considered to attain the appropriate mix. The method of curing adopted is ambient and oven curing. Workability, compressive strength and microstructure characteristics of GPC are analysed and presented.

An increase of NaOH in the mix decreases the workability. Compressive strength of 29 MPa is obtained for Mix-I with 8 M under ambient curing. A polynomial relationship is obtained to predict the compressive strength of GPC. Scanning electron microscope analysis is used to confirm the geo-polymerisation process in the microstructure of concrete.

This research work focuses on finding some alternative cementitious material for concrete that can replace ordinary portland cement (OPC) to overcome the CO₂ emission owing to the utilisation of cement in the construction industry. An attempt has been made to use the waste material (high calcium FA) from thermal power plant for the production of GPC. GPC concrete is the novel building material and alternative to conventional concrete. It is the ecofriendly product contributing towards the improvement of the circular economy in the construction industry. There are several factors that affect the property of GPC such as type of binder material, molarity of activator solution and curing condition. The novelty of this work lies in the approach of using locally available high calcium FA along with manufactured sand for the development of GPC. As this approach is rarely investigated, to prove the attainment of compressive strength of GPC with high calcium FA, an attempt has been made during the present investigation. Other influencing parameter which affects the strength gain has also been analysed in this paper.

This study aims to assess the moderating and mediating role of supportive culture (SC) in the relationship between participation in decision-making (PDM) and job satisfaction (JS) and the dimensions of commitment, such as affective commitment (AC), normative commitment (NC) and continuance commitment (CC).

Data were collected from 712 employees working in different public sector undertakings (PSUs) across India. Necessary condition analysis and partial least square analysis were used to test the proposed hypotheses.

The findings of the present study indicated that SC is partially mediating the relationship between PDM and JS; PDM and AC. However, SC did not mediate the relationship between PDM and NC; PDM and CC. PDM was positively and significantly related to SC, JS, AC, NC and CC. JS had a significant impact on AC, NC and CC. It is highly desirable for organizations to retain their employees ranging from line managers to top management levels and provide opportunities for everyone to actively use their experience and expertise.

The findings have implications for managers, as well as employees in PSUs, as they demonstrate how several work-related factors can be emphasized to maintain employees' commitment and motivation. Until now, India has paid scant attention to the role of SC as a mediator and moderator between PDM, JS and multiple commitments. This study cautiously collected responses from unbiased employees working in a variety of organizational functional units.

This case describes the events following an incident of a rape in a taxi associated with Uber, by its driver. Uber was an application based taxi operator. The events raised several issues for government systems and processes, such as need for regulation of new formats of business like application based taxi services, integrated databases, checks against forgery and holistic approach towards women safety. The case also brings out how an e-commerce business raises regulatory concerns.