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The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamic influence of WTI crude oil returns on the stock returns of China’s traditional energy sectors, including oil and gas exploitation, coal mining and processing, petroleum processing and coking, electricity, heat production and supply and mining services.

Hong’s information spill-over test and the DP Granger causality test are applied to investigate the relationship between the two markets. Moreover, a rolling window is introduced into the above two tests to capture time-varying characteristics of the influence of WTI crude oil returns.

The empirical results indicate that, first, there exists significant bidirectional linear causality between WTI crude oil returns and China’s traditional energy sectoral stock returns, but the nonlinear causality appears weaker. Second, the influence of WTI crude oil returns on traditional energy sectoral stock returns has time-varying characteristics and industry heterogeneity both in the linear and nonlinear cases. Finally, the decline of WTI crude oil prices may strengthen its linear influence on the stock returns of traditional energy sectors, while the excessive rise of market values in traditional energy sectors may weaken the linear and nonlinear influence of WTI on them.

The general nexus between international crude oil market and China’s traditional energy stock market is explored both in the linear and nonlinear perspectives. In particular, the dynamic linear and nonlinear influence of WTI crude oil returns on China’s traditional energy sectoral stock returns and its industry heterogeneity are analysed in detail.

With the growing online review manipulation and fake reviews in the hospitality industry, it is not uncommon that a consumer encounters disconfirmation when comparing the existing online reviews with his/her own product or service evaluation. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of review disconfirmation on customer online review writing behavior.

This study used a mixed-method combining online secondary big data modeling and experimental design.

Review disconfirmation influences customers’ emotional responses embedded in the review; a customer who encounters review disconfirmation tends to exert more reviewing effort, manifested by writing longer reviews; negativity bias exists in disconfirmation effects, in that negative review disconfirmation shows more significant and stronger effects than positive review disconfirmation.

Findings from this study provide important managerial implications for business owners and marketers who attempt to influence online reviews. The study suggests that fictitious online review manipulation might be detrimental to the business.

This research contributes to two literature streams, including research on the social influence of online consumer reviews, and the relationship between disconfirmation and consumers’ post-consumption behavior, by extending the influence of disconfirmation from the offline context to the online context.

The purpose of this paper is to study the electric vehicle (EV) drive efficiency of a traction motor considering regenerative braking according to various motor cores.

A software program was developed to predict the driving performance of an EV. It determines the driving mileage, the required power of the traction motor, and the operation points on a torque-speed map when drive cycles are given. The driving performance is calculated from the battery capacity, vehicle specification, and efficiency map of the traction motor computed using the finite element analysis.

As a result, the motor core is a significant design variable for raising the driving mileage of an EV. It is noted that the change of electrical steels used for the motor core is the lowest priced method of increasing the driving range by 2 km.

The comparative analysis of motor core by replacing 35PN250 to 25PNX1250F results in improvement effects traveling 4.62 and 5.16 km farther in the Simplified Federal Urban Driving Schedule (SFUDS) and Highway Fuel Economy Driving Schedule (HWFET), respectively. It was also verified that regenerative braking system is able to enhance drive efficiency by 29-31.3 km in the SFUDS and 6.5-7.3 km in the HWFET. From comparison of price rise for increasing driving mileage by 2 km, it is noted that the change of electrical steels used for the motor core is the lowest priced method.

Homebuyers' motivation to purchase the green building (GB) is vital for the widespread adoption of greener practices and for tackling the adverse impact of the built environment. In this regard, through the lenses of qualified and competent GB developers (GBD) and real estate agents (REAs) using judgment sampling technique, this paper aims to evaluate the factors stimulating the purchase intention of Malaysian homebuyers.

The study uses the interval-valued fuzzy Delphi method (IVFDM) to identify influential factors, while the cybernetic fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (CFAHP) for prioritizing the identified factors according to their significance in nationwide promotion of GBs is utilized.

The findings, which are consistent with those reported in the literature and validated by the focus group, uncover the most prominent factors that drive the purchase intention of GB homebuyers. The results indicate that the homebuyers are familiar with the benefits of GB; however, the benefits are not sufficient to overcome the perceived “high cost” of green practices. Hence, homebuyers still seek financial incentives, which is a clear indication that financial issues are the most motivating factor.

Increase in informative promotion of GB is necessary, particularly among prospective homebuyers in developing countries where GB adoption is in its infancy. Frontline players (those who are responsible for wider promotion) can utilize the factors that this study found to be important to identify appropriate steps to increase prospective homebuyers' motivation for purchasing greener dwellings.

The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, review and identification of the most cited determinants that have been reported in the context of the subject. Second, this paper presents the most significant determinants in a developing country setting through the lenses of Malaysian experts in the area. Third, improvement measures could be implemented in Malaysia and other developing countries to promote the GB paradigm with an aim to make the building environment more sustainable.

This study aims to investigate the behaviour of building users and how this impacts upon building energy performance. Specifically, the work examines the behavioural traits of able-bodied users of a large higher education building who erroneously access and egress the building using doorways intended for disabled users.

An inductive methodological approach is adopted that uses grounded theory to devise new insights into building users’ access and egress habits. Structured interviews are conducted to collect primary data from 68 building users of a large educational building over a four-week period. Responses to questions posed provide the basis for a tabularisation of behavioural traits.

Reasons for able-bodied building users’ preferences to using disabled access are identified and discussed; these are thematically grouped under the headings of apathy, convenience, emergency, ergonomics, ignorance and phobia. Building upon these findings, the research then offers insights into the approaches that could be adopted to change the erroneous behaviours. These approaches include education of building users on the impact their behaviour has upon building performance and environmental pollution, more stringent regulation to penalise repeat offenders and changes to building entrance design using obtrusive (i.e. radio frequency identification tags) and unobstrusive control measures (i.e. a second entrance doorway or slower opening mechanism).

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to investigate the rationale for able-bodied building users erroneously using disabled persons’ access and egress doorways within a building, which as a consequence, inadvertently reduces the building’s environmental performance.

The nature of early care and education (ECE) programs in the United States, serving children from birth through age eight, has shifted dramatically in the last 20 years. With his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama positioned ECE at the top of his educational reform agenda. His acknowledgment of the importance of the early years in providing a foundation for children’s lifelong learning and the critical need for national reform is welcoming to those of us in the field; yet, we meet it with some trepidation. ECE has a history of fragmented services for children and families, relying primarily on inconsistent state funds. Additionally, the pressure to be more competitive with our global counterparts has led to an academic push down at all levels of education, including ECE, rather than an increase in support for schools to meet the diverse needs of young children. The President’s proposed initiative further contributes to this pressure on our youngest children, their families, and their ECE caregivers.

In this chapter, we examine the current state of the ECE field, with an emphasis on the years prior to kindergarten.

We analyze two federal ECE initiatives, and argue for a return to the original purposes of ECE that best serve young children and families.

The use of air-conditioners (ACs) is on the increase in the developing world, with exacerbating compounding effect on carbon footprints. With this development, there is the expectation that developing countries would begin to appreciate and understand occupant behaviours in the use of ACs towards combating climate change, especially as building energy consumption is heavily influenced by the behaviour of its occupants. This study aims to identify occupant behaviours that leads to efficient use of ACs in public buildings so that these can be factored into developing guidelines for improving energy efficiency in buildings.

Drawing on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), survey questionnaire was used to collect data in office buildings in Kumasi, Ghana. Partial least squares–structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) analysis was employed for the analysis.

Switching on fan(s) as alternative to ACs has a path coefficient of 0.527, suggesting that it will have the most positive impact on energy consumption as far as AC use is concerned. The second occupant behaviour with a positive impact on energy consumption for AC use is opening windows for natural ventilation accounting for 0.351 significant path coefficient. Wearing of light or heavy clothing as a means of conserving energy achieved 0.174 impact coefficient while occupant behaviour of switching off ACs when leaving the room came last in the ranking, with an impact coefficient of 0.146. TBP is validated in this model, given that all the four occupant behaviours had their perceived behavioural control (PBC) having less impact on the behaviour compared to the behavioural attitude (BA) and the subjective norm (SN).

This research focused on public buildings used as offices, and the findings may not be applicable to private company buildings and also residential properties. Given that Ghana and, for that matter, many developing countries rely heavily on thermal plant for electricity generation, the climate change implications of the findings are discussed.

It is recommended that behaviours of occupants should be considered and factored in building energy predictions to bridge the energy performance gap. Subsequently, project managers, designers and energy consultants are encouraged to provide fans and openable windows in offices, even if there is going to be an air-conditioning provisions.

Originality emanates from the paper being at the forefront of helping to understand occupants' behaviour in the use ACs and associated climate change implications in a developing country context. One of the new variables introduced, switching on fans as an alternative to ACs, achieved the highest path coefficient and has important implication for occupant behaviour in the use of ACs in the literature.

As the demand for human–robot collaboration in manufacturing applications grows, the necessity for collision detection functions in robots becomes increasingly paramount for safety. Hence, this paper aims to improve the existing method to achieve efficient, accurate and sensitive robot collision detection.

The external torque is estimated by momentum observers based on the robot dynamics model. Because the state of the joints is more accessible to distinguish under the action of the suppression operator proposed in this paper, the mutated external torque caused by joint reversal can be accurately attenuated. Finally, time series analysis (TSA) methods can continuously generate dynamic thresholds based on external torques.

Compared with the collision detection method based only on TSA, the invalid time of the proposed method is less during joint reversal. Although the soft-collision detection accuracy of this method is lower than that of the symmetric threshold method, it is superior in terms of detection delay and has a higher hard-collision detection accuracy.

Owing to the mutated external torque caused by joint reversal, which seriously affects the stability of time series models, the collision detection method based only on TSA cannot detect continuously. The consequences are disastrous if the robot collides with people or the environment during joint reversal. After multiple experimental verifications, the proposed method still exhibits detection capabilities during joint reversal and can implement real-time collision detection. Therefore, it is suitable for various engineering applications.

Supply chains, as prototypical uncertain systems, are crucial for national security and socioeconomic development. Grey system theory (GST) is an effective tool for addressing uncertainties and has played a pivotal role in related research within the supply chain domain. This study aims to systematically summarize the research achievements and knowledge structures pertaining to GST in supply chain studies. Current and potential research hotspots are also analyzed.

CiteSpace is used to conduct a bibliometric analysis of 1,617 articles sourced from the Web of Science (WOS). The analysis aims to summarize the current state of research and the knowledge structure in the field. A strategic diagram incorporating two data indicators, namely, novelty and concern, is constructed based on keyword clustering to identify and analyze current and potential research hotspots.

Studies utilizing GST to guide supply chain practices have attracted the interest of scholars from 205 research institutions across 85 countries and regions globally, which earned recognition from 183 high-level academic journals. In this field, the School of Economics and Management at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics stands out as a core research institution, with Professor Deng Julong, who is the founder of GST, being the most frequently cited scholar. Current research hotspots are complex equipment supply chains, drivers and challenges in supply chain management, supply chain risk management, closed-loop supply chain and supply chain operation in the big data era. In addition, emerging research hotspots include digital and intelligent logistics technology, sustainable supplier management, determinants and flexibility of supply chain contracts, supply chain strategy, purchase management, grey prediction of demand and consumption, grey forecasting and economy efficiency, China-specific issues and grey model construction.

The bibliometric analysis reveals the current state and knowledge structure of research in this field. Previous studies on research hotspots have primarily relied on subjective judgments, which lacked empirical data support. This study constructs a strategic diagram incorporating two data indicators, namely, novelty and concern, to provide a more objective and reliable analysis of research hotspots.