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Solar cells could make textile-based wearable systems energy independent without the need for battery replacement or recharging; however, their laundry resistance, which is prerequisite for the product acceptance of e-textiles, has been rarely examined. This paper aims to report a systematic study of the laundry durability of solar cells embedded in textiles.

This research included small commercial monocrystalline silicon solar cells which were encapsulated with functional synthetic textile materials using an industrially relevant textile lamination process and found them to reliably endure laundry washing (ISO 6330:2012). The energy harvesting capability of eight textile laminated solar cells was measured after 10–50 cycles of laundry at 40 °C and compared with light transmittance spectroscopy and visual inspection.

Five of the eight textile solar cell samples fully maintained their efficiency over the 50 laundry cycles, whereas the other three showed a 20%–27% decrease. The cells did not cause any visual damage to the fabric. The result indicates that the textile encapsulated solar cell module provides sufficient protection for the solar cells against water, washing agents and mechanical stress to endure repetitive domestic laundry.

This study used rigid monocrystalline silicon solar cells. Flexible amorphous silicon cells were excluded because of low durability in preliminary tests. Other types of solar cells were not tested.

A review of literature reveals the tendency of researchers to avoid standardized textile washing resistance testing. This study removes the most critical obstacle of textile integrated solar energy harvesting, the washing resistance.

During the last 20 years trade between Korea and Mexico has increased steadily, reaching $2.8 billion in 2003. This trade expansion will be further accelerated with the increase in intra-industry trade in the future. Mexico's chronic trade deficit against Korea, which is attributed to Korea's increasing investment in Mexico, has rather contributed to Mexico's exports to the American region.

As Mexico expands its FTA networks, Korean companies are having difficulties in accessing the Mexican market. Considering this situation and the economic benefits of a Korea-Mexico FTA for both countries, we should first expand cooperation between private sectors, which is expected to facilitate a formal discussion on the Korea-Mexico FTA.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the question “In what order of magnitude does the comfort and performance improvement lie with the use of a cooling vest for construction workers?”.

The use of personal cooling systems, in the form of cooling vests, is not only intended to reduce the heat load, in order to prevent disruption of the thermoregulation system of the body, but also to improve work performance. A calculation study was carried out on the basis of four validated mathematical models, namely a cooling vest model, a thermophysiological human model, a dynamic thermal sensation model and a performance loss model for construction workers.

The use of a cooling vest has a significant beneficial effect on the thermal sensation and the loss of performance, depending on the thermal load on the body.

Each cooling vest can be characterized on the basis of the maximum cooling power (Pmax; in W/m²), the cooling capacity (Auc; in Wh/m2) and the time (tc; in minutes) after which the cooling power is negligible. In order to objectively compare cooling vests, a (preferably International and/or European) standard/guideline must be compiled to determine the cooling power and the cooling capacity of cooling vests.

It is recommended to implement the use of cooling vests in the construction process so that employees can use them if necessary or desired.

Climate change, resulting in global warming, is one of the biggest problems of present times. Rising outdoor temperatures will continue in the 21st century, with a greater frequency and duration of heat waves. Some regions of the world are more affected than others. Europe is one of the regions of the world where rising global temperatures will adversely affect public health, especially that of the labor force, resulting in a decline in labor productivity. It will be clear that in many situations air conditioning is not an option because it does not provide sufficient cooling or it is a very expensive investment; for example, in the situation of construction work. In such a situation, personal cooling systems, such as cooling vests, can be an efficient and financially attractive solution to the problem of discomfort and heat stress.

The value of the study lies in the link between four validated mathematical models, namely a cooling vest model, a thermophysiological human model, a dynamic thermal sensation model and a performance loss model for construction workers.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the determinants of the performance of regional industrial technology development programs among the regional strategic industrial development program that the central government and Daegu metropolitan city jointly promoted between 2004 and 2012. Specifically, in this research, the authors are trying to identify the effects of R&D capabilities and technical development tasks on technological and managerial performance.

The dependent variables of this study are technical and economic performance. Technical performance, product and process innovation, economic performance, sales and export increases were measured using five-point Likert scales. The authors added the contribution of sales through technology development to economic performance. The independent variable is the company’s R&D capability, measured by the number of R&D staff compared to the average total number of employees from 2004 to 2012. The characteristics of the technology development tasks were measured by technical characteristics, market characteristics and collaborative research types. The technological characteristics were measured by seven factors, including technological change, technical difficulty, potential in commercialization, competition between domestic and foreign competitors, difficulty in introducing overseas technology and the technological gap. Market characteristics were largely divided into complexity, dynamics and competitiveness. The types of collaborative research were divided into whether or not there were collaborative research with the participation of large corporations. The control variables are firm size (number of employees) and firm age. Regression analysis was used to analyze the determinants of performance, and a difference analysis was conducted to determine the effect of collaborative research on performance.

The main determinants of the regional industrial technology development program performance are the characteristics of the technology development task rather than the internal R&D capability; moreover, the technical characteristics, complexity of the developed product market and participation of large corporations had significant effects on R&D capability. The R&D capacity of firms in internal R&D capacity had a significant effect only on the improvement of technology development ability. Therefore, R&D capacity, which is the main determinant of technology innovation, did not have a significant effect on the performance of short-term technology development tasks. Technological change, technological difficulty, competition between domestic and foreign competitors and the technological gap had positive effects on performance, excluding sales contributions. In addition, the complexity of the developed product market such as the diversification of demand, competitive product and sales distribution channels had positive influences on the performance of technology development programs, unlike dynamics and competitiveness. In this study, the authors cannot confirm the effect of collaborative research on the performance of the technology development programs, but they confirmed that collaborative research involving large corporations had a positive influence on performance.

The results of the analysis of the determinants of regional industrial technology development programs suggest some implications in the future evaluation of these regional industrial technology development programs. It is necessary to review the application qualification and merit, advance review of the business plans and confirmation, an examination of the research results and performance of the applicants and a review of the technology and market situation of the project. For this, the authors suggest that the written review from the relevant technical experts be submitted to the evaluation committees. Also, when establishing regional industrial development programs, they should be evaluated thoroughly, including detailed information and contents about the technical and market characteristics of the local industry.

This research is one of the first to investigate the achievements of R&D support programs among regional industrial development programs in Korea. The results of this study can substantially contribute to the development and implementation of the R&D support policies of the central and local governments. Furthermore, the findings suggest guidelines for improving the performance of R&D support programs in the future. A theoretical model for enhancing the efficiency of government R&D support programs may be established, and an empirical analysis may be conducted to provide practical and academic implications for further research.

This study aims to investigate the motives of mobile payment adoption from both customers' and retailers' perspectives in Sri Lanka during the COVID-19 pandemic period. It also aims to compare the motives of mobile payment adoption across rural and urban contexts.

The study employs a mixed-method approach with a concurrent research design. Both a survey of customers and in-depth interviews of managers in retail companies are used.

The study discloses that performance expectancy and facilitating conditions (PEFC), Hedonic motivation (HM) and perceived technology security (PTS) as significant motives for customers to adopt mobile payment during this pandemic period. Such findings are confirmed by the four challenges disclose by the retailers. The unfamiliarity of customers, lack of employees' knowledge on mobile payment systems, poor management orientation and lack of computer literacy of customers are the main challenges from the retailers' perspectives. Further, it shows, though PEFC is a common motive, other motives are different across rural and urban.

The findings of the study are helpful for retailers and policymakers. Retailers can develop strategies to enhance mobile payment adoption through PEFC, HM and PTS by giving special attention to the rural community. The main motive possible to use in both rural and urban contexts is PEFC. Further, retailers should take the initiatives to uplift the technological know-how of their employees while inculcating supportive management orientation. Policymakers can use this study to develop policies to enhance the community's familiarity with mobile payment technology and computer literacy.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate motives for adopting mobile payments from both customers' and retailers' perspectives while being the first scrutiny to compare rural and urban scenarios. The use of mixed methods with concurrent research design also contributes to originality.