Search results

The purpose of this study is to examine how well reinforced concrete structures can be shielded against concrete carbonation using anti-carbonation coatings based on synthetic polymer.

Applying free radical polymerization, an acrylate terpolymer emulsion that a surfactant had stabilized was created. A thermogravimetric analysis, minimum film-forming temperature, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and particle size distribution are used to characterize the prepared eco-friendly water base acrylate terpolymer emulsion. Using three different percentages of the acrylate terpolymer emulsion produced, 35%, 45% and 55%, the anti-carbonation coating was formed. Tensile strength, tensile strain, elongation, crack-bridging ability, carbon dioxide permeability, chloride ion diffusion, average pull-off adhesion strength, water vapor transmission, gloss, wet scrub resistance, QUV/weathering and storage stability are the characteristics of the anti-carbonation coating.

The formulated acrylate terpolymer emulsion enhances anti-carbonation coating performance in CO₂ permeability, Cl-diffusion, crack bridging, pull-off adhesion strength and water vapor transmission. The formed coating based on the formulated acrylate terpolymer emulsion performed better than its commercial counterpart.

To protect the steel embedded in concrete from corrosion and increase the life span of concrete, the surface of cement is treated with an anti-carbonation coating based on synthetic acrylate terpolymer emulsion.

In addition to saving lives from building collapse, it maintains the infrastructure for the long run.

The anti-carbonation coating, which is based on the synthetic acrylate terpolymer emulsion, is environmentally benign and stops the entry of carbon dioxide and chlorides, which are the main causes of steel corrosion in concrete.

The purpose of this paper is to find the optimal environmental quality criteria for a strategic eco-labeling authority with three objectives (i.e. maximizing the aggregate environmental quality, maximizing the industry profit and maximizing the social welfare). Particularly, the authors investigate how the existence of imperfectly informed consumers affects labeling criteria determination and competition among firms.

A game-theoretic modeling approach was adopted in this paper. A three-stage sequential game was modeled and backward induction was used to solve for a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium. To investigate the impacts of the existence of imperfectly informed consumers, the equilibrium, if all consumers are perfectly informed of the eco-label, was studied as a benchmark.

A more strict eco-labeling criterion improves revenues for both the labeled and unlabeled firms. It is interesting to find that the eco-labeling criteria to maximize industry profits are stricter than the criteria to maximize social welfare. Moreover, when the fraction of imperfectly informed consumers increases, the eco-labeling criteria to maximize aggregate environmental quality or industry profits will be more strict, while the criteria to maximize the social welfare will be looser.

The authors analyze the equilibrium strategies for firms against the eco-labeling criteria certified by authority with different objectives. The obtained optimal labeling strategies could provide insightful guidelines for the certifying authority to select the best suitable labeling criteria to achieve its goals.

Authorization and access control have been a topic of research for several decades. However, existing definitions are inconsistent and even contradicting each other. Furthermore, there are numerous access control models and even more have recently evolved to conform with the challenging requirements of resource protection. That makes it hard to classify the models and decide for an appropriate one satisfying security needs. Therefore, this study aims to guide through the plenty of access control models in the current state of the art besides this opaque accumulation of terms meaning and how they are related.

This study follows the systematic literature review approach to investigate current research regarding access control models and illustrate the findings of the conducted review. To provide a detailed understanding of the topic, this study identified the need for an additional study on the terms related to the domain of authorization and access control.

The authors’ research results in this paper are the distinction between authorization and access control with respect to definition, strategies, and models in addition to the classification schema. This study provides a comprehensive overview of existing models and an analysis according to the proposed five classes of access control models.

Based on the authors’ definitions of authorization and access control along with their related terms, i.e. authorization strategy, model and policy as well as access control model and mechanism, this study gives an overview of authorization strategies and propose a classification of access control models providing examples for each category. In contrast to other comparative studies, this study discusses more access control models, including the conventional state-of-the-art models and novel ones. This study also summarizes each of the literature works after selecting the relevant ones focusing on the database system domain or providing a survey, a classification or evaluation criteria of access control models. Additionally, the introduced categories of models are analyzed with respect to various criteria that are partly selected from the standard access control system evaluation metrics by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The traditional capitalist development model with its emphasis upon economic growth has, in the past decade, been severely criticised with respect to its negative effects upon the poor as well as its negative impact upon women. The first and second development decades not only have failed to achieve “economic take off,” but they also have failed to provide that improvement in the status of women which modernisation is reputed to induce. The push for growth and modernisation in the Third World may have led to a deterioration of the economic position of women as well as a deterioration in the absolute economic situation of at least the poorer third of the population. Furthermore evidence suggests that the poorest of the poor are disproportionately women heads of households and their families. One result of this negative impact of the development process has been a refocus of attention in development policy upon the poor as well as a mandate to integrate women in the development process in the “Percy Amendment” to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1973. Nevertheless this new emphasis upon women‐in‐development suffers from a flaw similar to that of the traditional development model. Each treats the family only in a superficial way: the first because of naive assumptions concerning women in the family, the second by treating women independently of the family constellation.

The governance of our towns and cities requires an approach that connects people with nature and places. Digital technology can be the glue that does this, if it serves the needs of the various stakeholders, including urban communities. It means identifying the potential connections across people, digital, and place themes, examining successful approaches, and exploring some of the current practice (or lack of it) in spatial planning and smart cities. This can be considered using a range of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies with other methodologies which combine the use of socioeconomic and environmental data about the urban environment. This ambient domain sensing can provide the ecological and other data to show how digital connectivity is addressing the placemaking challenges alongside providing implications for urban governance and communities.

The purpose of this paper is to close the gap between the theoretical nature of existing contributions in customer engagement value (CEV) and its need to practically empower business decisions. This is done by proposing a framework that consists of three techniques, each of which combines the components of CEV to make it more comprehensive and applicable. The paper also reviews and analyzes the work that has been done so far in the area of CEV whether in business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C) or consumer to consumer (C2C) markets.

CEV is a comprehensive term that measures the total value of the customer through capturing his transactional and non-transactional behaviors. Hence, it is an essential term for measuring the value of the customer in direct marketing. This motivates researchers to compete in developing models to maximize CEV. Meanwhile, most of the existing models are conceptual and the majority of them lack applicability due to many reasons. First, these models relied on a linear version of the CEV model, hence double-counting the value of the customer; also they weighted the components of CEV equally, which is unrealistic. Finally, the effect of the environmental components in determining the engagement level of each customer was almost ignored. In this paper, two main contributions are presented. First, a summary and analysis of the contributions of the literature in the CEV field for different market types whether in B2C, B2B or C2C. Furthermore, three modifications are added to the existing models. The first model introduces a non-linear relationship of the components of CEV. The second model is a weighted linear model of these components. Finally, the third model adds the environmental factors to the CEV components. All the proposed models are theoretical in nature, however, these models are expected to show superiority when being applied to real data sets due to their ability to capture the complexity in the relationship between the firm and its customers in real-life situations. The proposed models are expected to attract the practitioners and other researchers and they both are encouraged to apply the proposed models on real-life data sets, test their performance, compare them against each other, to be able to apply each of them on the best suitable data set and business scenario.

Based on the review and analysis that has been done on about 87 papers, it is found that the majority of the contributions that have been done in the area of CEV are theoretical in nature, in spite of the effectiveness of CEV in empowering business decision. It is also found that few researchers proposed a set of theoretical comprehensive frameworks that combined CEV’s components together. Meanwhile, those frameworks are not practically applicable.

Although the contribution of the proposed models expected to attract both researchers and practitioners, these are not applied to real-life case studies to prove their effectiveness.

The research in this paper has many industrial and managerial implications. First, it helps managers and decision takers to treat the customers as assets and cost-free resources who can work with the firm to achieve what’s both aims to (i.e. increase customer satisfaction and firm’s profitability). Second, it helps the firm to determine the total value of each customer and treat its customers accordingly. Third, it empowers the managers to do target marketing, based on grouping the customers upon their total engagement. This would save time and cost and for sure increase the profitability and customer satisfaction. Forth, the proposed models take into consideration not only the transactional behavior of the customers but also the non-transactional factors that play a significant role in formulating the relationship between the firm and its customers.

This is hereby to certify that the paper is original, neither the paper nor a part of it is under consideration for publication anywhere else. Also, this study has no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Given the importance of the growing segmentation of ageing consumers and their increasing interaction with the Internet, digital marketing scholars are becoming more interested in this market. Prior research needs to pay more attention to this market in many contexts of digital marketing. This study aims to provide insights into ageing consumers’ content usage, content typology choices, and online brand advocacy (OBA).

Semi-structured interviews were applied, and 16 consumers from Southern Europe aged 55+ were included. The interviews were transcribed and examined following the principles of content analysis.

According to the research, older consumers display their usage and concerns regarding online content. They have different decision-making processes depending on whether they are purchasing products or services. Likewise, their choices of content typology vary based on the utilitarian or hedonic product category.

This study contributes to the literature by providing insights into this growing segmentation and proposing an OBA framework for older consumers related to content marketing. Finally, the study suggests that older consumers are passive online and active offline brand advocates.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between workplace spirituality (WS) and teachers’ professional well-being (TPW), and additionally to scrutinize the mediating role of the construct of positive psychological capital (PPC) between the two constructs.

Data were gathered from 345 teaching professionals employed in Indian higher educational institutions. The associations were verified through covariance-based structural equation modeling, mediation analysis performed and further verified through Preacher and Haye’s (2008) method.

Results indicated an epochal positive relationship between WS and TPW. Further, PPC partially mediated the relationship between the two constructs.

The inner source of spirituality among teachers can be tapped to cope with occupational stress levels, thereby augmenting the sense of professional well-being. Psychologically clear and receptive minds are indispensable in the process of teaching.

There is a paucity of research linking the relationship between WS, TPW and PPC, specifically in the higher education sector.