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The purpose of this article is to discuss the characteristics of China’s strategic partners in Latin America, emphasizing the foreign policy orientations of these nations towards China.

The first part is a theoretical analysis of the foreign economic policy orientations of the Chinese strategic partners in South America. In the second part, attention is paid to the empirical regularities of economic cooperation between China and its South American strategic partners.

China seeks to diversify the profile of its strategic partnerships, as long as they increase Chinas complexity in the orientation of cooperation, using a multidimensional approach, based on three strategic cooperation networks (partners based on ideological affinities, geo-economic partners and trade partners).

This article increases the understanding of how new strategic partnerships take a more active position in the new great geo-economic game in which China is involved. China increases its facilitation role in Latin American Pacific rim countries, as well as its influence in countries historically close to the USA.

The purpose of this paper is to emphasize how different service strategies are properly aligned with the external environment, and how organizational factors lead to a specific level of service‐related performance outcomes.

A multicase research design on Western‐European firms is used as the research methodology. This study answers the following three strategic questions: what typical service strategies exist that enable firms to move from products to services?; what is the appropriate alignment of the service strategies with the external environment and organizational design?; and what performance level can be achieved through the service strategies?

After‐sales service providers are faced with a high competitive intensity and their customers invest in low‐priced products. Customer support providers' market consists of customers who are looking for outstanding product quality. Development partners' customers expect specific solutions for the operating processes.

The study focuses only on manufacturing companies in business‐to‐business markets. The findings are limited to this sector.

The paper assists managers in concentrating on the right triggers for implementing the service strategy.

Both scholars and managers tend to be somewhat vague in suggesting strategies to move along the transition line from products to services. This study identifies specific service strategies that enable manufacturing firms to shift their position on the transition line.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the combined effect of sensory variables, information and attitudinal constructs in the prediction of consumer behaviour towards homemade food.

A quantitative survey-based study was carried out in Lima, Peru, with subjects involved in making household food purchasing decisions. A sensory test was performed and respondents were asked about their degree of liking (DOL) and intention to buy (ITB) a specific homemade food product. Ordinary least squares was used to identify predictors of DOL and ITB.

Information about homemade characteristics affects neither the sensory evaluation of a homemade food product nor the dependent variables. The sensory attributes were the most important predictors of overall DOL, whereas buying intention was strongly influenced by the overall liking of the product. Attitude towards homemade food significantly predicted both dependent variables as well. While the importance given to extrinsic cues had a negative effect on overall DOL, food enjoyment positively affected ITB.

Bias in some socio-demographic aspects and the fact that only one homemade product category was assessed in a specific location do not allow for generalisations. The use of negative-to-positive response scales might also have biased the results of this study.

To the best of the authors knowledge, this is the first research paper that analyse the combined effect of information, socio-demographic, psychographic and sensory variables in the prediction of consumer behaviour towards homemade food.

This chapter proposes a simple, fairly general, test for global identification of unconditional moment restrictions implied from point-identified conditional moment restrictions. The test is a Hausman-type test based on the Hausdorff distance between an estimator that is consistent even under global identification failure of the unconditional moment restrictions, and an estimator of the identified set of the unconditional moment restrictions. The proposed test has a χ2 limiting distribution and is also able to detect weak identification. Some Monte Carlo experiments show that the proposed test has competitive finite sample properties already for moderate sample sizes.

Since the early modern age, the debt of the State was a constant source for concern to the Spanish governments. Episodes of defaults caused by enormous expenditure to keep the Empire slowly faded out until a certain reorganization of public finance was attained in the central decades of the nineteenth century. The core idea that finance ministers and economists, in general, had at that time was to balance the public budget controlling expenses, in order to handle the problem of public debt. However, alternative views on government finance existed. Focusing on a crucial period for the consolidation of Spanish liberal regime and its public finance, this chapter shows that, among a predominant concern for reducing public expenditure as the best way to stabilize the economy and promote economic growth, the character of Luis María Pastor emerges to support government expansionary policies financed with credit. Far from fearing deficit, Pastor, one of the leaders of the Spanish liberal school of economic thought, believed that investment in infrastructures financed through debt was the key to economic growth. Through a multiplicative effect, a program of public investment would enhance economic growth, eventually solving the long-term insufficiency of Spanish finance. This gives evidence that ideas on public finance of classical liberal economists were far from uniform, contributing to a more precise view on the body of doctrines of this school.

The aim of this study was directed toward how a group of fourth year bachelor physiotherapy students describes their experiences, attitudes and beliefs from participating in a course of 40 h lasting three months in basic body awareness therapy (BBAT).

A qualitative study using phenomenological exploratory design was conducted. A total of 125 physiotherapy students within the subject of mental health physiotherapy, in the fourth year’s study course belonging participated. The BBAT introduction course consisted of 20 h theory and 20 h practical implementation with a particular focus on promoting movement quality through a movement awareness learning strategy. The course was carried out through three consecutive years. Data were collected through using focus group interview at the end of each movement session and qualitative face-to-face research interview at the end of the whole course.

The data-analysis revealed 16 emerging themes grouped into four categories: physical perceptions, body awareness characteristics, self-awareness and body awareness professional development.

This study highlights key experiences after attending a course on BBAT. In addition, it points out that to achieve movement quality awareness among the students, there is a need to include more self-training in the curriculum.

The movement quality learning process is necessary to develop the mental health physiotherapy program. The experiences of students while body awareness learning process included physical perceptions, body awareness characteristics, self-awareness and professional development.

This study is among the first to describe the experiences of students when a movement awareness learning methodology is applied. In physiotherapy in mental health, this learning process is relevant for the application of BBAT.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a methodology that has been set up to schedule predictive maintenance of distribution transformers at Cauca Department (Colombia) using machine learning.

The proposed methodology relies on classification predictive model that finds the minimal number of distribution transformers prone to failure. To verify this, the model was implemented and tested with real data in Cauca Department Colombia.

The implementation of the methodology allows a saving of 13% in corrective maintenance expenses for the year 2020.

The proposed model is an effective decision-making tool that provides an ideal solution for preventive maintenance scheduling problems for distribution transformers.

An Autodesk Ember three-dimensional (3D) printer was used to print optical components from Clear PR48 photocurable resin. The cured PR48 was characterized by the per cent of light transmitted and the index of refraction, which was measured with a prism spectrometer. Lenses and diffraction gratings were also printed and characterized. The focal length of the printed lenses agreed with predictions based on the thin lens equation. The periodicity and effective slit width of the printed gratings were determined from both optical micrographs and fits to the Fraunhofer diffraction equation. This study aims to demonstrate the advantages offered by a layer-by-layer DLP printing process for the manufacture of optical components for use in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

A 3D printer was used to print both lenses and diffraction gratings from Standard Clear PR48 photocurable resin. The manufacturing process of the lenses and the diffraction gratings differ mainly in the printing angle with respect to the printer x-y-axes. The transmission diffraction gratings studied here were manufactured with nominal periodicities of 10, 25 and 50 µm. The aim of this study was to optically determine the effective values for the distance between slits, d, and the effective width of the slits, w, and to compare these values with the printed layer thickness.

The normalized diffraction patterns measured in this experiment for the printed gratings with layer thickness of 10, 25 and 50 µm are shown by the solid dots in Figures 8(a)-(c). Also shown as a red solid line are the fits to the experimental diffraction data. The effective values of d and w obtained from fitting the data are compared to the nominal layer thickness of the printed gratings. The effective distance between slits required to fit the diffraction patterns are well approximated by the printed layer thickness to within 14, 4 and 16 per cent for gratings with a nominal 10, 25 and 50 µm layer thickness, respectively.

Chromatic aberration is present in all polymer lenses, and the authors have not attempted to characterize it in this study. These materials could be used for achromatic lenses if paired with a crown-type material in an achromatic doublet configuration, because this would correct the chromatic aberration issues. It is worthwhile to compare the per cent transmission in cured PR48 resin (approximately 80 per cent) to the percent transmission found in common optical materials like BK7 (approximately 92 per cent) over the visible region. The authors attribute the lower transmission in PR48 to a combination of surface scattering and increased absorption. At the present time, the authors do not know what fraction of the lower transmission is related to the surface quality resulting from sample polishing.

There are inherent limitations to the 3D manufacturing process that affect the performance of lenses. Approximations to a curved surface in the design software, the printing resolution of the Autodesk Ember printer and the anisotropy due to printing in layers are believed to be the main issues. The performance of the lenses is also affected by internal imperfections in the printed material, in particular the presence of bubbles and the inclusion of debris like dust or fibers suspended in air. In addition, the absorption of wavelengths in the blue/ultraviolet produces an undesirable yellowing in any printed part.

One of the most interesting results from this study was the manufacture of diffraction gratings using 3D printing. An analysis of the diffraction pattern produced by these printed gratings yielded estimates for the slit periodicity and effective slit width. These gratings are unique because the effective slit width fills the entire volume of the printed part. This aspect makes it possible to integrate two or more optical devices in a single printed part. For example, a lens combined with a diffraction grating now becomes possible.

Based on conservation of resources theory, this study aims to understand how employees’ level of mindfulness serves as a boundary condition capable of negatively conditioning the process through which empowering leadership affects employees’ proactivity and extra-role service (ERS) behaviors.

A total of 361 Spanish frontline employees in the hospitality sector collaborated in this research. We tested our hypotheses using a bootstrapping method to perform a regression study employing the PROCESS macro developed for Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).

As expected, our results confirmed the direct and indirect positive effects between empowering leadership and ERS. However, these effects nearly disappeared when employees exhibited high levels of mindfulness.

Worker ERS behavior is a key way for hotels to distinguish themselves from competitors. Paradoxically, ERS is discretionary and not part of the employee’s formal duties. Although mindfulness is often promoted to enhance organizational functioning, our study highlights its drawbacks in hospitality. Hotel work requires proactive decision-making, and we found that mindfulness curbs this, thereby impeding ERS. This study suggests that mindfulness may act as an anchor in a service work environment.

The purpose of this paper is to approach predictive maintenance (PdM) of brushless direct current (BLDC) motors using audio signal processing and extracting statistical and spectral features to train classical machine learning (ML) models.

The proposed methodology relies on classification predictive model that shows the motors prone to failure. To verify this, the model was implemented and tested with audio data. The trained models are then deployed to an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) application built using Django.

The implementation of the methodology allows for achieving performance as high as 92% accuracy, proving that spectral features should be considered when training ML models for PdM.

The proposed model is an effective decision-making tool that provides an ideal solution for preventive maintenance scheduling problems for BLDC motors.