Search results

The aim of this study is to identify and describe the factors associated with Nissan Company's electric vehicle (EV) development. In addition, Nissan's different commercialization strategies toward EV and HEV development will be discussed.

This study uses a descriptive case study approach to provide a deep understanding of successful or failed projects of Nissan. In this term, the company's green car development between 1996 and 2012 will be analyzed. Based on the market presence, Nissan's electric vehicle production trend is divided into two different generations with different characteristics. The gap between these two generations has a structural effect on the current state of Nissan's EV development.

One key factor behind Nissan's success and lead in the current electric vehicle market is the long-term experience with specific type of market structure, which has nurtured the company with a strong green vehicle development capability. The study shows that the electric vehicles market gap acted as a catalyst for later Nissan's successful cases. Also, the authors demonstrate how the dramatic shifts in Nissan strategies helped the company to revitalize its leadership as an electric car guru.

This study provides a better insight into the importance of early stage commercialization strategies in the re-born market of eco-friendly vehicles.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of methyl donor supplementation on anthropometric indices, body composition, glycemic control, lipid profile, homocysteine and appetite regulatory hormones in overweight and obese subjects.

This randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial was conducted on overweight and obese subjects in Shiraz, Iran, in 2018. The 25 participants in each intervention and control group were required to take methyl donor supplement and placebo, respectively, for eight weeks. A variety of measurements was collected at baseline and the end of the study. The data were analyzed using SPSS 21 software.

The results indicated a significant reduction in weight, body mass index, body fat and waist and hip circumference (p < 0.001 for all parameters) within both groups and a significant improvement in skeletal muscle (p = 0.005), fat-free mass (p = 0.006), visceral fat area (p < 0.001) and body cell mass (p = 0.004) in the intervention group. Also, the results showed a significant difference between the two groups regarding serum homocysteine concentration at the end of the intervention (p < 0.001).

The results demonstrated that methyl donor supplementation might have effects on the improvement of anthropometric indices, body composition, glycemic and lipid profile status and appetite regulatory hormones among obese and overweight individuals. These effects might be attributed to their roles in energy metabolism, protein synthesis and epigenetics regulation.

Claim formation is a fact and a regular occurrence in construction industry projects and often leads to a waste of money and time for organizations. Organizations can, however, reduce and control claims by promoting an integrated claim management system and improving productivity in the results of the claims. Establishing a claim management office is one of the ways to help organizations achieve this.

Based on library research, expert opinion and analysis of organizations' contracts as case studies and identifying the root causes of the claim, this paper proposes a claim management office maturity model and determines its levels.

This paper proposes a claim management office maturity model and also determines its levels. The general structure of this model is based on three parameters: “characteristics of each level,” “requirements of each level” and “transition period of each level” in five levels, where the first level is the most basic level and level five is the highest level of the implementation of a claim management office in the organization.

It can be clearly emphasized that this research is one of the first research studies that has dealt with the issue of claim management office in the construction industry and has proposed the model of maturity and development of claim management office in the organization. The use of numerous and experienced experts in achieving the results and case organizations to develop this research has increased the value and credibility of this research. This study also helps to improve the level of claim management in construction industry organizations so that these organizations can implement each level of claim management maturity model in the organization according to their competence and need for claim management. And by implementing it correctly, solve or reduce the problems of claim management in the organization and their projects.

The purpose of this paper is to compute the amount of methane generated from the waste of livestock from 1980 to 2008; then use the information in forecasting subsequent methane emissions by the sector in Malaysia from 2009 to 2020.

The research study employed two approaches; computing methane emissions from 1980 to 2008 using the IPCC guidelines, and forecasting methane emissions for the animals from 2009 to 2020 using the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model from the predictive analysis software (PASW-SPSS 18.0).

Methane emissions from cattle, buffaloes and pigs accounted for over 95 per cent of total emissions and emissions from cattle are predicted to increase from 67.0 Gg in 2009 to 77.0 Gg by 2020. Emissions from the others will not be appreciable although poultry emissions will rise to 11.0 Gg by 2020. Attempt by the Malaysian Government to increase cattle production is not necessary at the moment as protein requirement has been met.

ARIMA model suffers from linear and data limitation: the future value of a variable assumed to be a linear function of several past observations in ARIMA is sometimes unrealistic. Large amounts of historical data are needed in ARIMA models in order to get desired results. The inventory of the animals was taken from 1980 to 2008.This needs to be improved upon by updating it to cover up to 2011 so that the forecast will start from 2012.

The chosen ARIMA method has demonstrated its correctness in being adequate as a predicting tool for animal methane emissions. Policy makers can apply it so as to take practical steps to avoid these emissions.

This is a novice idea as animal methane emission forecasting tool. This model will be of immense use and help in predicting methane emissions from livestock.

This paper aims to assess the level of computer literacy skills of librarians in the University of Isfahan, Iran and attempts to examine their avenue of computer literacy, software used, benefits derived from computer and problems militating against effective usage of computers.

The paper uses a survey research approach to carry out this investigation.

The investigation reveals that the majority of the librarians do not yet possess a good level of computer skills and even their long duration experience of computer use has not necessarily improved their level of computer literacy.

The findings can be utilized by library managers in order to organize and offer regular training programmes to train or re‐train librarians with the latest advancement of information technology.

The paper provides insight into the state of computer literacy of librarians in one of the public universities in Iran. This shows the urgent need for the librarians to be adequately equipped with the computer skills to take advantage of all computerized library facilities.

This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2020.

The paper provides a brief description of all 440 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested in a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the mediating effect of work-life balance (WLB) in the relationship between three significant job resources (namely, job autonomy, supervisor support and co-worker support) and job satisfaction experienced by frontline nursing professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic in an Indian setting using the theoretical foundation of job demands-resources theory.

Structured questionnaire survey has been used to get the responses from 452 nursing professionals in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. To carry out data analysis structural equation modeling has been used.

The results reveal the relationship between the framed hypotheses. Surprisingly, the relationship between all three job resources and WLB was found to be positive, and also WLB was positively associated with nursing professionals’ job satisfaction during pandemic situations. However, WLB partially mediated the relationship only between two job resources (namely, job autonomy and supervisor support) and job satisfaction.

The research paper addresses Indian nursing professionals’ perceptions of job resources, WLB and job satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper seeks to examine such a relationship when nursing professionals’ worked round the clock with intuitive expertise and cautiousness to provide quality care and responded more efficiently to scarce resource situations.

Although previous studies have studied the impact of spiritual leadership (SL) on employees’ innovation, the research on mechanisms and the boundary conditions for stimulating this relationship is scant. This paper aims to follow the idea of social capital theory (SCT), which contends that social relationships are resources that lead toward the development of intellectual capital, important for innovative work behavior (IWB) of employees; the mediating role of knowledge sharing self-efficacy (KSSE) and moderating role of innovation climate (IC) are considered.

The authors collected the data from the foreign and local employees working in multinational companies in China. The quantitative analysis was performed using Smart-PLS 3.0.

The results indicated that employee high-ranking of SL is positively related to KSSE. Moreover, SL is significant to enhance IWB, whereas KSSE explained this relationship. The authors also suggest that an employee’s KSSE is significant to form important behavior at work (IWB). However, IC did not play its moderating role in the SL – IWB link.

This study explores the influence of the leadership style (SL) on employees’ KSSE and the effect of KSSE on IWB, which have not been studied previously. The current study confirms the relationship between SL and IWB in the multicultural workplace and reveals the deeper influence of an individual’s belief (KSSE) mechanism between them. SCT was applied to explain the proposed relationships.

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of two-phase power law nanofluid on a curved arterial blood flow under the presence of ovelapped stenosis. Over the past couple of decades, the percentage of deaths associated with blood vessel diseases has risen sharply to nearly one third of all fatalities. For vascular disease to be stopped in its tracks, it is essential to understand the vascular geometry and blood flow within the artery. In recent scenarios, because of higher thermal properties and the ability to move across stenosis and tumor cells, nanoparticles are becoming a more common and effective approach in treating cardiovascular diseases and cancer cells.

The present mathematical study investigates the blood flow behavior in the overlapped stenosed curved artery with cylinder shape catheter. The induced magnetic field and entropy generation for blood flow in the presence of a heat source, magnetic field and nanoparticle (Fe₃O₄) have been analyzed numerically. Blood is considered in artery as two-phases: core and plasma region. Power-law fluid has been considered for core region fluid, whereas Newtonian fluid is considered in the plasma region. Strongly implicit Stone’s method has been considered to solve the system of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDE’s) with 10–6 tolerance error.

The influence of various parameters has been discussed graphically. This study concludes that arterial curvature increases the probability of atherosclerosis deposition, while using an external heating source flow temperature and entropy production. In addition, if the thermal treatment procedure is carried out inside a magnetic field, it will aid in controlling blood flow velocity.

The findings of this computational analysis hold great significance for clinical researchers and biologists, as they offer the ability to anticipate the occurrence of endothelial cell injury and plaque accumulation in curved arteries with specific wall shear stress patterns. Consequently, these insights may contribute to the potential alleviation of the severity of these illnesses. Furthermore, the application of nanoparticles and external heat sources in the discipline of blood circulation has potential in the medically healing of illness conditions such as stenosis, cancer cells and muscular discomfort through the usage of beneficial effects.