Pan Hao, Yuchao Dun, Jiyun Gong, Shenghui Li, Xuhui Zhao, Yuming Tang and Yu Zuo
Organic coatings are widely used for protecting metal equipment and structures from corrosion. Accurate detection and evaluation of the protective performance and service life of…
Abstract
Purpose
Organic coatings are widely used for protecting metal equipment and structures from corrosion. Accurate detection and evaluation of the protective performance and service life of coatings are of great importance. This paper aims to review the research progress on performance evaluation and lifetime prediction of organic coatings.
Design/methodology/approach
First, the failure forms and aging testing methods of organic coatings are briefly introduced. Then, the technical status and the progress in the detection and evaluation of coating protective performance and the prediction of service life are mainly reviewed.
Findings
There are some key challenges and difficulties in this field, which are described in the end.
Originality/value
The progress is summarized from a variety of technical perspectives. Performance evaluation and lifetime prediction include both single-parameter and multi-parameter methods.
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Huang Taiming, JingMao Ma, Li Zhang, Pan Hao, MingChen Feng, Wei Zeng and Changjie Ou
The purpose of this study is investigate the transient aerodynamic characteristics of high-speed vehicle with body roll motion under crosswind condition to improve aerodynamic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is investigate the transient aerodynamic characteristics of high-speed vehicle with body roll motion under crosswind condition to improve aerodynamic stability.
Design/methodology/approach
An overset mesh was used to simulate the rolling motion of the vehicle body. A wind tunnel experiment was conducted to validate the numerical method.
Findings
The results revealed that the vehicle’s aerodynamic characteristics changed periodically with the body’s periodic motion. In the absence of crosswind, the pressure distribution on the left and right sides of the vehicle body was symmetrical, and the speed streamline flowed to the rear of the vehicle in an orderly manner. The maximum aerodynamic lift observed in the transient simulation was −0.089, which is approximately 0.70 times that of the quasi-static simulation experiment. In addition, the maximum aerodynamic side force observed in the transient simulation was 0.654, which is approximately 1.25 times that of the quasi-static simulation experiment.
Originality/value
The aerodynamic load varies periodically with the vehicle body’s cyclic motion. However, the extreme values of the aerodynamic load do not occur when the vehicle body is at its highest or lowest position. This phenomenon is primarily attributed to the mutual interference of airflow viscosity and the hysteresis effect in the flow field, leading to the formation of a substantial vortex near the wheel. Consequently, the aerodynamic coefficient at each horizontal position becomes inconsistent during the periodic rolling of the vehicle body.
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Peter Trim and Hao Pan
The purpose of this paper is to make explicit how marketers employed in the pharmaceutical sector can ensure that the company is positioned in the industry as a result of a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to make explicit how marketers employed in the pharmaceutical sector can ensure that the company is positioned in the industry as a result of a sustainable competitive advantage being achieved. Various factors are highlighted, including high research and development costs, stringent government regulations and cultural factors such as religion.
Design/methodology/approach
The new product launch strategy model outlined in this paper was developed from both secondary and primary sources. A literature review was undertaken, a number of in‐depth personal interviews and a focus group session were conducted, which involved managers within a pharmaceutical company. The research strategy encompassed the case study method and the NPLS model was validated and can be viewed as generalisable.
Findings
It is clear from the research undertaken that some marketing models are viewed as being too complex; however, it is generally appreciated that marketing models can be used to interpret complex relationships that are evident in a marketing system.
Research limitations/implications
Two weaknesses associated with the model were identified. First, the assumption that there was a one‐way relationship between the strategic launch decisions and the tactical launch decisions and, second, a feedback mechanism was absent that would provide users of the model with a means for evaluating their decisions and identifying alternative strategies and tactics. The model was amended and a feedback mechanism was introduced.
Practical implications
The NPLS model can be used by marketing practitioners to enhance communication between corporate level staff and subsidiary level staff, and can be used to implement and/or facilitate the strategic marketing concept within a pharmaceutical company. The model can also be used to focus attention on risk reduction/elimination associated with market entry.
Originality/value
The NPLS model is an addition to marketing knowledge and can assist marketing academics and researchers to understand better how marketing models can be constructed and implemented. The model can also be used by marketing practitioners employed by pharmaceutical companies to make tactical and strategic decisions; to evaluate a new product launch strategy; and to devise international marketing entry plans and strategies.
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Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an investigation on a new kind of photocatalytic material, namely, the porous ceramic foam loading titanium dioxide, which can make an effective photocatalytic degradation of the methyl orange (MO) solution in the wastewater.
Design/methodology/approach
The natural zeolite powder has been used as the primary raw material to produce a sort of lightweight porous ceramic foam by impregnating polymer foam in slurry and then sintering. With the sol-gel method, a kind of open-cell reticular porous ceramic foam loading TiO2 film was obtained having a good photocatalytic action, and the resultant porous composite product presents the bulk density of 0.3~0.6 g/cm3 to be able to float on water.
Findings
The MO could tend to be completely degraded in the solution with a certain concentration by the TiO2-loaded ceramic foam irradiated with ultraviolet light, and this composite foam was found to have high degradation efficiency for the MO solution in a wide range of pH.
Originality/value
This work presents a TiO2-loaded ceramic foam that can effectively photo-catalyze to degrade the MO in water, and the degradation efficiency were examined under different conditions of the MO solution with various pH values.
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Bailing Zhang and Hao Pan
Many applications in intelligent transportation demand accurate categorization of vehicles. The purpose of this paper is to propose a working image-based vehicle classification…
Abstract
Purpose
Many applications in intelligent transportation demand accurate categorization of vehicles. The purpose of this paper is to propose a working image-based vehicle classification system. The first component vehicle detection is implemented by applying Dalal and Triggs's histograms of oriented gradients features and linear support vector machine (SVM) classifier. The second component vehicle classification, which is the emphasis of this paper, is accomplished by an improved stacked generalization. As an effective ensemble learning strategy, stacked generalization has been proposed to combine multiple models using the concept of a meta-learner. However, it was found that the well-known meta-learning scheme multi-response linear regression (MLR) for stacked generalization performs poorly on the vehicle classification.
Design/methodology/approach
A new meta-learner is then proposed based on kernel principal component regression (KPCR). The stacked generalization scheme consists of a heterogeneous classifier ensemble with seven base classifiers, i.e. linear discriminant classifier, fuzzy k-nearest neighbor, logistic regression, Parzen classifier, Gaussian mixture model, multiple layer perceptron and SVM.
Findings
Experimental results using more than 2,500 images from four types of vehicles (bus, light truck, car and van) demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The improved stacked generalization produced consistently better results when compared to any of the single base classifier used and four other beta learning algorithms, including MLR, majority voting, logistic regression and decision template.
Originality/value
With the seven base classifiers, the KPCR-based stacking offers a performance of 96 percent accuracy and 95 percent κ coefficient, thus exhibiting promising potentials for real-world applications.
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Henridass Arun and Gulam Nabi Alsath M.
This paper aims to present the design and implementation of a circularly polarized co-planar waveguide (CPW) fed wideband pie-shaped monopole antenna for multi-antenna techniques…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present the design and implementation of a circularly polarized co-planar waveguide (CPW) fed wideband pie-shaped monopole antenna for multi-antenna techniques. Multi-antenna techniques are promising solutions for higher data rate and enhanced reliability of wireless applications. They find numerous applications in 4G/5G networks and in most wireless standards such as wireless local area networks (WLAN), wireless fidelity and worldwide interoperability for microwave access systems to enhance the channel capacity without additional spectrum by means of multi-path propagation techniques.
Design/methodology/approach
The antenna is designed to operate at three WLAN frequency bands of 4.8, 5.2 and 5.8 GHz. The measured 10 dB impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna element is 1.2 GHz (24.23 per cent). The proposed CPW fed, pie-shaped monopole antenna has a gain of 5.4 dB and an efficiency of 72.8 per cent at 4.8 GHz.
Findings
To use the proposed antenna in a multi-antenna environment, the antennas have to be placed in a close proximity to each other. The close proximity introduces strong mutual coupling between the antennas, which in turn degrades the performance of multi-antenna systems. A multi-antenna system with two antenna elements has been constructed with an edge to edge spacing of 0.24 λ0 (15 mm), and the mutual coupling level is −17 dB. To enhance the isolation between the antenna elements, a shorting pin-based interconnected semicircles enclosed decoupling structure is proposed, which improves the isolation by a factor of 12.67 dB at 4.8 GHz.
Originality/value
To validate the performance of the proposed multi-antenna in working environment, the performance metrics such as envelope correlation coefficient (ECC), diversity gain (DG) and total active reflection coefficient (TARC) are computed for the proposed multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna. The ECC value is 0.000366 at center frequency and below 0.09 for the entire operating bandwidth, which is well below the acceptable level of 0.5 as per 3GPP standard. The DG value lies above 9.5 dB for the entire operating bandwidths and it is well above the minimum value of 3 dB. The TARC values are calculated based on S parameters, and it proves that the proposed antenna a good candidate for the multi-antenna systems.
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Tanveer Bagh, Elie Bouri and Muhammad Asif Khan
This study investigates the effect of climate change sentiments (CCS) on firm value (FV) and how environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices moderate this effect.
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the effect of climate change sentiments (CCS) on firm value (FV) and how environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices moderate this effect.
Design/methodology/approach
High-dimensional fixed effects and a two-stage generalized method of moments are applied to data on 6,059 publicly traded firms from 2006 to 2022.
Findings
There is a significant negative effect of CCS on FV, specifically on growth option value (GOV) and Tobin’s Q (TQR), which intensifies during crisis periods. ESG practices, however, moderate this relationship positively, especially for firms with higher GOV and TQR, enhancing their resilience to climate risks. External shocks accelerate sustainability-driven strategies in firms with higher CCS exposure. In developed countries, firms show a stronger sensitivity to CCS due to stronger institutional environments and investor pressure, while firms in developing countries exhibit a weaker sensitivity.
Practical implications
The results underline the necessity for corporate managers to proactively manage climate-related risks and integrate robust ESG strategies to sustain and enhance FV. Analysts, risk managers and investors should consider a company’s exposure to CCS and its ESG performance when assessing risk profiles. Policymakers are encouraged to implement stronger regulatory frameworks and incentives promoting corporate transparency and accountability in managing climate-related risks.
Originality/value
This study unfolds novel evidence, linking psychological research and the traditional basic modified model through an examination of the effect of CCS on FV using an international sample. It highlights the critical role of ESG practices in mitigating the adverse effects of CCS on FV, providing valuable insights for businesses, investors and policymakers.
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Based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and stakeholder theory, the model proposes that responsible leadership (RL) is mediated by affective commitment (AC) on both outcome…
Abstract
Purpose
Based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and stakeholder theory, the model proposes that responsible leadership (RL) is mediated by affective commitment (AC) on both outcome variables (organizational citizenship behavior [OCB] and patient satisfaction [PS]) while distributive justice (DJ) moderates the relationship among RL, OCB and PS through the mediator of AC.
Design/methodology/approach
Overall, data collected from 275 employees and patients in India’s healthcare sector support this model both in online and offline mode. SPSS 25, AMOS 22 and PROCESS macro were used to analyze the data.
Findings
The influence of RL, OCB and PS was seen insignificant in the Indian healthcare sector. This study examines the role of AC as a mediator which does not affect extra-role behavior and PS. The findings also show that the moderation-mediation effect of DJ through AC strengthened the link between RL and OCB, but not PS. Commitment does not affect extra-role behavior and PS.
Originality/value
Until now, there has been no research in the Indian context that has tested the effect of RL on extra-role behaviors and PS, as mediated by AC, according to researchers’ knowledge. Since RL and outcome variables are related through AC, the current study aims to understand how DJ acts as a moderator to that relationship.
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Wenting Zhan, Wenmei Zhou, Jinchan Liu and Yubo Guo
Previous research has advanced in two-stage construction project productivity (CPP) evaluation by integrating site efficiency (SE) in the delivery and utilisation effectiveness…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous research has advanced in two-stage construction project productivity (CPP) evaluation by integrating site efficiency (SE) in the delivery and utilisation effectiveness (UE) in the post-delivery stages. The literature has separately addressed the factors affecting these three constructs. However, the interrelationships among them are rarely discussed together. This study aims to systematically identify the influencing factors of CPP, SE and UE and disentangle interrelationships among the three constructs.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper first reviews the literature about the two-stage project productivity evaluation framework for government construction projects. Then this paper proposes hypotheses regarding the relationships between the three constructs and identifies influencing factors associated with the constructs. Based on questionnaire survey from over 200 government construction project professionals in China, the structural equation modelling is adopted to validate the hypotheses.
Findings
The paper provides empirical insights that CPP can be directly influenced by UE to a large extent but indirectly impacted by SE through its effects on UE. The findings indicate that CPP is not a simple sum of SE and UE, and consequently reveals the complex, non-linear and indirect relationships between SE and CPP.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should further extend the timeframe boundary to merge the pre-delivery stage (e.g. design and planning), findings of which may propose a more generalised understanding and reduce the bias resulting from pre-delivery activities.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to construction facility management literature by explaining the mediating role of UE on the relationship between SE and CPP. Therefore, this paper offers practitioners an integrated management logic in strategically combining project and facility management into government project management.