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Nowadays, more and more Chinese consumers purchase luxury goods on live streaming platforms. However, the existing literature rarely focuses on this emerging phenomenon. This article attempts to construct a theoretical model based on the perceived value theory to explain this phenomenon.

In total, 354 online questionnaires are collected, and the partial least square structural equation model is used to analyze the model empirically.

The results show that consumers' perceived luxury values (financial value, functional value, individual value and social value) have a significant and positive effect on customer engagement, which further leads to purchase intention.

In view of fact that there is a big difference between luxury goods and nonluxury goods, yet the existing literature rarely distinguishes between luxury goods and nonluxury goods in the context of live streaming shopping, this article attempts to use perceived value theory to examine consumers' luxury purchase intentions in live streaming shopping and explores whether customer engagement is a mediating mechanism of perceived luxury values that influences purchase intention in live streaming.

This study explores the interplay among climate change, economic growth and energy consumption in G20 countries by considering the role of green energy.

This study uses various empirical tools to determine the association between carbon emissions, economic growth, renewables, non-renewables, population and urbanization for a panel of G20 countries between 1990 and 2014.

Empirical outcomes from various empirical tools reveal a positive and significant impact of economic growth, non-renewable energy consumption and urbanization on carbon emissions, and their increase will further lead to the deterioration of environmental quality. The elasticity coefficient of renewable energy coefficient is negative and significant implying an increase in its consumption will improve environmental quality. Panel causality test results reveal the existence of both short-run and long-run causality among the variables. Therefore, results infer that a reduction in the consumption of non-renewable and substitution with renewables will have a significant impact on carbon emission mitigation.

Through this study, the authors suggest the sustainable use of renewables as they are sustainable, secure, efficient, environmentally justifiable and economically viable sources of energy. Therefore, replacing traditional non-renewables with modern renewables has the potential in avoiding the dangerous impacts of greenhouse gases (GHGs) particularly in the G20 countries. This paper intends to guide policymakers regarding the environmental quality and renewable energy consumption required to hold back the fossil fuel dependence for a cleaner and greener planet.

The rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT) over the past decade has enabled heterogeneous economic sectors to be more integrated, leading to a significant effect on nation’s growth across OECD countries. The objective of this study is to estimate the short run and long run inter-linkages among ICT, innovation technology, globalization, and economic growth for the period 1996-2017 in OECD countries.

This research provides some sophisticated methodologies by using principal component analysis to construct ICT and innovation indices and follow up by employing the panel cointegration test, pooled mean group regression, fully modified ordinary least squares and dynamic ordinary least squares as sophisticated estimation techniques, panel Granger causality and forecast error variance decomposition to examine the robustness of the causal association in the findings.

The empirical results herein suggest that ICT, innovation and globalization positively contribute to economic growth, while the causality findings reveal strong endogenous relationships among both ICT mobile and internet use, innovation development, globalization and economic growth in both short and long run. The findings further imply that OECD countries have yet to promote economic growth from ICT infrastructure expansion, the enlargement of technology innovation and the spread of globalization.

The particular policy recommendation is to reinforce the investment and establishment of a reliable ICT infrastructure as well as innovation technology to create sustained economic growth in this progressively interconnected world.

This study is valuable from policy and decision-makers’ perspective, as it highlights the significance of ICT infrastructure development, innovation enlargement and globalization to elevate the economic growth in OECD countries.

Products that espouse environmental ethical principles have received increasing attention in recent years. However, one key barrier against sustainable consumption is that green attributes could result in consumer’s expectation of decreased product physical performance. This study aims to investigate how green attributes existing in different product categories affect consumer purchase intention.

Two experimental studies were conducted to test the hypotheses. Study 1 provides initial evidence of the interaction effects between green attributes and product category on consumer purchase intention. Study 2 replicates the findings of Study 1 and further tests a benefits-based mechanism in the relationship between green attributes and consumer purchase intention.

The findings show that in the utilitarian product category, products with green peripheral attributes result in a higher purchase intention than those with green core attributes, whereas, in the hedonic product category, products with green core attributes result in a higher purchase intention than those with green peripheral attributes. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that green attributes, as universal sustainability cues predominantly affect consumers’ perceptions of utilitarian environmental benefits and self-expression benefits, which further enhance their purchase intention towards utilitarian products and hedonic products, respectively.

This study responds to the calls for more empirical studies into discussing the role of green attributes in consumer purchase intention. Furthermore, it uncovers a benefits-based mechanism that explains how green attributes existing in utilitarian product categories and hedonic product categories trigger consumers’ analysis of benefits, leading to positive consumer purchase intention.

This study aims to investigate the surface modification on 20CrMnTi gear steel individually treated by diamond-like carbon films and nitride coatings.

For this purpose, the mechanical properties of a-C:H, ta-C and AlCrSiN coatings are characterized by nano-indentation and scratch tests. The friction and wear behaviors of these three coatings are evaluated by ball-on-disc tribological experiments under dry contact conditions.

The results show that the a-C:H coating has the highest coating-substrate adhesion strength (495 mN) and the smoothest surface (Ra is about 0.045 µm) compared with the other two coatings. The AlCrSiN coating shows the highest mean coefficient of friction (COF), whereas the ta-C coating exhibits the lowest one (steady at about 0.16). The carbon-based coatings possess excellent self-lubricating properties compared with nitride ceramic ones, which effectively reduce the COF by about 64%. The major failure mode of carbon-based coatings in dry contact is slight abrasive wear. The damage of AlCrSiN coating is mainly adhesive wear and abrasive wear.

It is suggested that the carbon-based film can effectively improve the friction-reducing and wear resistance performance of the gear steel surface, which has a promising application prospect in the mechanical transmission field.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-05-2023-0129/

This study aims to form composite solid lubricant coatings on the surface of bearing steel, which can significantly improve the tribological properties of thrust cylindrical roller bearings (TCRBs). Phosphating films possess microscopic porosity that typically needs to be sealed with oil, grease or wax. Due to its unique crystal structure, the phosphating film itself also exhibits a certain degree of lubricity. In this study, solid lubricants are used to fill the pores of the phosphating film. By combining the phosphating film with solid lubricants, lubrication and wear reduction can be achieved.

In this study, the surfaces of the shaft washer (WS) and seat washer (GS) were treated with zinc-phosphating. Subsequently, a solid lubricant solution (polytetrafluoroethylene [PTFE], MoS₂ and graphite) was sprayed onto the phosphated samples at concentrations of 1 , 2  and 3 g/L. The porous and adsorptive nature of the phosphating film was used to embed the solid lubricant particles into the film, thus forming a composite lubrication layer containing solid lubricants on the surface of the bearing steel.

The addition of solid lubricant materials has shown significant potential in reducing wear losses compared with phosphated samples without such additives. Increasing the amount of solid lubricant added can facilitate the formation of a transfer film, which further enhances the protective properties. However, it is important to note that excessive amounts of solid lubricant material can contribute to seizure, leading to increased wear losses of the cage and a higher average coefficient of friction (ACOF).By spraying a PTFE solution with a concentration of 2 g/L, the lowest ACOF and cage wear loss were achieved, resulting in reductions of 60.5% for the ACOF and 89.4% for the cage wear loss. Similarly, when spraying a graphite solution with a concentration of 3 g/L, the lowest wear losses for GS and WS were observed, with reductions of 51.7% for GS wear loss and 38.9% for WS wear loss.

The combination of the phosphating film and solid lubricants aims to achieve lubrication and wear reduction, providing a new approach to wear-resistant technology for TCRBs.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-07-2023-0231/

The main purpose of this study is to enhance bio-tribological properties of Ti6Al4V and the surface-modified layers of Ni⁺/N⁺-implanted Ti6Al4V alloy, bionic texturing was done on Ti6Al4V surface.

The phase compositions and nano-hardness of the surface-modified layers of the samples have been analyzed by X-ray diffractometer and Nano Indenter, respectively. This paper has conducted bio-tribological tests under artificial saliva, sodium hyalurate and sodium hyalurate +γ-globulin by micro tribology multifunction tribometer, with ZrO2 ball/modified layer as the friction pair. S-3000N scanning electron microscope has been used to analyze the morphology of the surface-modified layers and scratches of the ones after the bio-tribological tests.

The results show that the surface-modified layers were mainly composed of Ti₂Ni and Ti₂N. Moreover, bionic texturing can obviously increase the contents of Ti₂Ni and Ti₂N that were formed on the surface of Ni⁺/N⁺-implanted Ti6Al4V alloy, and enhance the nano-hardness of the surface-modified layers. It could also reduce the friction coefficients of the surface-modified layers, and render the modified layers more wear-resistant.

The surface bio-tribological properties of Ti6Al4V have been enhanced by ion implantation technique and bionic texturing in this paper; this provided a new method for the research of related fields.

China’s foreign aid efforts in Africa remain contentious. Chinese foreign aid tends to be different from “traditional” development assistance in that it frequently involves firms as the implementing agents of projects. Firms bring unique resources to public–private partnerships (PPPs) formed with government agencies, but their possible self-interested nature also gives rise to concerns over their development impact. Yet, on a larger scale, little is known about the characteristics of Chinese PPPs in foreign aid. Using project-level data available for 1,308 Chinese aid projects in 50 countries across Africa, the author characterizes the projects undertaken by firms and government agencies in a PPP and contrasts them to those executed by Chinese government agencies without firm involvement. This exploratory data analysis suggests that important differences apply, as Chinese PPPs tend to target different sustainable development goals (SDGs), work on the basis of distinct aid conditions, and implement projects that tend to be larger than those that are solely run by government agencies. Such observations raise important questions of an ethical, theoretical, and international nature, and warrant further research. The author develops a research agenda that aims at issues particularly important for business ethics scholars, organization theorists, and international business scholarship.

This paper aims to explore the effect of automatic transmission fluid (ATF) temperature on the dynamic friction-wear properties of the friction component in a wet multi-disc clutch during the running-in process.

The running-in evolution was explored in terms of global friction performance and instantaneous friction characteristics. The variation of friction torque of the initial 300 engagement cycles was obtained by wet-clutch tests. Finally, an optical microscope was used to detect the wear mechanism of friction surfaces.

The ATF temperature showed a significant effect on the friction-wear performance in the clutch running-in process. The mean coefficient of friction decreased with the increase of the ATF temperature and decreased rapidly in the approximately initial 60 clutch engagements. The higher the ATF temperature was, the thinner the ATF film was, and more asperity summits were cut, thus leading to a smoother surface. Considering the slightly instantaneous friction fluctuation and the wear performance, a proper ATF temperature is necessary.

The results provide theoretical guidance for selecting the optimal ATF temperature during the running-in process.

This paper aims to explore the influence of applied pressure on the tribological properties of the friction component in a wet multi-disc clutch during the running-in process.

The running-in evolutionary was explored in terms of global friction performance. The variation of friction torque and mean COF of the initial 300 engagement cycles was obtained by full-scale tests. Finally, an optical microscope was used to detect the wear characteristics of friction surfaces.

The applied pressure showed a significant influence on the tribological behaviors of wet clutches during the running-in process. The mean COF decreased and then increases with the increase of the applied pressure. A higher applied pressure contributed to more asperity summits being sheared, thus resulting in a smoother surface. Considering a suitable wore performance, properly applied pressure is necessary.

The results provide theoretical guidance for selecting the optimal applied pressure in the running-in of wet clutches.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-08-2022-0256/