Search results

The number of people with special needs, including citizens and military personnel, has increased as a result of terrorist attacks and challenging conditions in Iraq and other countries. With almost 80% of the world’s amputees having below-the-knee amputations, Iraq has become a global leader in the population of amputees. Important components found in lower limb prostheses include the socket, pylon (shank), prosthetic foot and connections.

There are two types of prosthetic feet: articulated and nonarticulated. The solid ankle cushion heel foot is the nonarticulated foot that is most frequently used. The goal of this study is to use a composite filament to create a revolutionary prosthetic foot that will last longer, have better dorsiflexion and be more stable and comfortable for the user. The current study, in addition to pure polylactic acid (PLA) filament, 3D prints test items using a variety of composite filaments, such as PLA/wood, PLA/carbon fiber and PLA/marble, to accomplish this goal. The experimental step entails mechanical testing of the samples, which includes tensile testing and hardness evaluation, and material characterization by scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectrometer analysis. The study also presents a novel design for the nonarticulated foot that was produced with SOLIDWORKS and put through ANSYS analysis. Three types of feet are produced using PLA, PLA/marble and carbon-covered PLA/marble materials. Furthermore, the manufactured prosthetic foot undergoes testing for dorsiflexion and fatigue.

The findings reveal that the newly designed prosthetic foot using carbon fiber-covered PLA/marble material surpasses the PLA and PLA/marble foot in terms of performance, cost-effectiveness and weight.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to use composite filaments not previously used, such as PLA/wood, PLA/carbon fiber and PLA/marble, to design and produce a new prosthetic foot with a longer lifespan, improved dorsiflexion, greater stability and enhanced comfort for the patient. Beside the experimental work, a numerical technique specifically the finite element method, is used to assess the mechanical behavior of the newly designed foot structure.

This study explores how titanium oxide (TiO₂) filler influences the specific wear rate (SWR) in flax fiber-reinforced epoxy composites (FFRCs) through a Taguchi approach. It aims to boost abrasive wear resistance by incorporating TiO₂ filler, promoting sustainable and eco-friendly materials.

This study fabricates epoxy/flax composites with TiO₂ particles (0–8 wt%) using hand layup. Composites were tested for wear following American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) G99-05. Statistical analysis used Taguchi design of experiments (DOE), with ANOVA identifying key factors affecting SWR in abrasive sliding conditions.

The study illuminates how integrating TiO2 filler particles into epoxy/flax composites enhances abrasive wear properties. Statistical analysis of SWR highlights abrasive grit size (grit) as the most influential factor, followed by normal load, wt% of TiO₂ and sliding distance. Grit size has the highest effect at 43.78%, and wt% TiO₂ filler contributes 15.61% to SWR according to ANOVA. Notably, the Taguchi predictive model closely aligns with experimental results, validating its reliability.

This paper integrates TiO₂ filler and flax fibers to form a novel hybrid composite with enhanced tribological properties in epoxy composites. The use of Taguchi DOE and ANOVA offers valuable insights for optimizing control variables, particularly in natural fiber-reinforced composites (NFRCs).

Composite materials have revolutionized the aerospace industry by offering superior structural qualities over traditional elements. This study aims to focus on the development and testing of bamboo natural fiber-based composites enhanced with SiO₂ nanoparticles.

The investigation involved fabricating specimens with varying nanoparticle compositions (0, 10 and 20%) and conducting tensile, flexural, impact and fracture toughness tests. Results indicated significant improvements in mechanical properties with the addition of nanoparticles, particularly at a 10% composition level.

This study underscores the potential of natural fiber composites, highlighting their environmental friendliness, cost-effectiveness and improved structural properties when reinforced with nanoparticles. The findings suggest an optimal ratio for nanoparticle integration, emphasizing the critical role of precise mixing proportions in achieving superior composite performance.

The tensile strength, flexural strength, impact resistance and fracture toughness exhibited notable enhancements compared with the 0 and 20% nanoparticle compositions. The 10% composition showed the most promising outcomes, showcasing increased strength across all parameters.

This papers aims to study lattice structures in terms of geometric variables, manufacturing variables and material-based variants and their correlation with compressive behaviour for their application in a methodology for the design and development of personalized elastic therapeutic products.

Lattice samples were designed and manufactured using extrusion-based additive manufacturing technologies. Mechanical tests were carried out on lattice samples for elasticity characterization purposes. The relationships between sample stiffness and key geometric and manufacturing variables were subsequently used in the case study on the design of a pressure cushion model for validation purposes. Differentiated areas were established according to patient’s pressure map to subsequently make a correlation between the patient’s pressure needs and lattice samples stiffness.

A substantial and wide variation in lattice compressive behaviour was found depending on the key study variables. The proposed methodology made it possible to efficiently identify and adjust the pressure of the different areas of the product to adapt them to the elastic needs of the patient. In this sense, the characterization lattice samples turned out to provide an effective and flexible response to the pressure requirements.

This study provides a generalized foundation of lattice structural design and adjustable stiffness in application of pressure cushions, which can be equally applied to other designs with similar purposes. The relevance and contribution of this work lie in the proposed methodology for the design of personalized therapeutic products based on the use of individual lattice structures that function as independent customizable cells.

Technology is widely recognised to be revolutionising the accounting profession, allowing accountants to focus on professional skills and technical knowledge that deliver value for organisational success. Despite the known benefits, it is reported that accountants are not fully leveraging the potential value of certain technologies. To understand why, this study aims to draw on the technology adoption model (TAM) and investigates accounting professionals’ perceptions towards technology, and how these may influence adoption at work.

The study gathered online survey data from 585 accounting managers from organisations of varying sizes and in different sectors in Australia and parts of Southeast Asia. Qualitative data were thematically analysed, and quantitative data were analysed using both descriptive and multivariate techniques.

The study highlighted the pivotal role of staff perceptions on the importance and ease of using technology on the uptake and successful usage. Findings emphasised important opportunities for organisations to educate accounting staff on the value of technology and optimise their confidence and skills through training and support initiatives, particularly smaller businesses. Marked differences in the orientation towards technology among Australian and Southeast Asian participants illuminate how national work culture and practice can influence technology adoption.

The study makes a practical contribution by advancing the understanding of the relative importance and value of certain technologies in different regions and organisation types in the accounting profession. It extends the theoretical understanding of the role of TAM’s core elements to the accounting context, exploring staff’s notions of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use from the manager’s perspective.

Aluminum alloy is considered an ideal material in aerospace, automobile and other fields because of its lightweight, high specific strength and easy processing. However, low hardness and strength of the surface of aluminum alloys are the main factors that limit their applications. The purpose of this study is to obtain a composite coating with high hardness and lubricating properties by applying GO–PVA over MAO coating.

A pulsed bipolar power supply was used as power supply to prepare the micro-arc oxidation (MAO) coating on 6061 aluminum sample. Then a graphene oxide-polyvinyl alcohol (GO–PVA) composite coating was prepared on MAO coating for subsequent experiments. Samples were characterized by Fourier infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis. The friction test is carried out by the relative movement of the copper ball and the aluminum disk on the friction tester.

Results showed that the friction coefficient of MAO samples was reduced by 80% after treated with GO–PVA composite film.

This research has made a certain contribution to the surface hardness and tribological issues involved in the lightweight design of aluminum alloys.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-12-2023-0427/

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors have attracted great attention worldwide for a variety of applications in measuring physical, chemical and biological parameters. However, stability has been one of the key issues which have limited their effective commercial applications. To fully understand this challenge of operation stability, this paper aims to systematically review mechanisms, stability issues and future challenges of SAW sensors for various applications.

This review paper starts with different types of SAWs, advantages and disadvantages of different types of SAW sensors and then the stability issues of SAW sensors. Subsequently, recent efforts made by researchers for improving working stability of SAW sensors are reviewed. Finally, it discusses the existing challenges and future prospects of SAW sensors in the rapidly growing Internet of Things-enabled application market.

A large number of scientific articles related to SAW technologies were found, and a number of opportunities for future researchers were identified. Over the past 20 years, SAW-related research has gained a growing interest of researchers. SAW sensors have attracted more and more researchers worldwide over the years, but the research topics of SAW sensor stability only own an extremely poor percentage in the total researc topics of SAWs or SAW sensors.

Although SAW sensors have been attracting researchers worldwide for decades, researchers mainly focused on the new materials and design strategies for SAW sensors to achieve good sensitivity and selectivity, and little work can be found on the stability issues of SAW sensors, which are so important for SAW sensor industries and one of the key factors to be mature products. Therefore, this paper systematically reviewed the SAW sensors from their fundamental mechanisms to stability issues and indicated their future challenges for various applications.

The purpose of this study is to establish the relationship between digital leadership and academic performance. It models the digitalization process, outlining why and how digital leadership is important for better academic performance. At the same time, this study examines the role of digital culture as a moderating variable in the direct relationship between main variables of the study. The study aims to expand the domain of academic performance at the university by including a much recent leadership-related aspect and organizational context of the digital culture.

The study opted for a descriptive study, using the survey instruments to collect the data. The sample population consisted of students currently enrolled at the Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Melaka, Malaysia. Based on the convenience sampling, 383 samples were drawn from the sample population. All items were adopted from previous literature, and expert feedback was obtained to examine the validity of the instruments. The data were analysed using SPSS and SmartPLS version 3.0.

This study provides empirical insights about how digital leadership is important for academic performance for the new millennials. Also, digital culture is found to provide significant moderation effect into the relationship. It suggests that universities must promote digitalization culture and embed the use of technology and digitalization into teaching and learning to cultivate a more effective learning process among university students. This is important as elements of digital leadership, including adaptive role, attitude, digital competency, digital skill and inspirational role, are found to significantly contribute to academic performance.

This study only focuses on samples taken from one of the faculties in one campus, thus limiting its scope. Future research is encouraged to replicate the same study setting to include larger sample size from different faculties, or perhaps from different universities. These propositions could help to better generalize the research findings on the practice of digital leadership on academic performance in the country. However, this study established a digital leadership model that can be applied to undergraduate students at the universities. Also, the inclusion of digital culture can strengthen the learning process.

This study includes implications for the development of digital leadership attributes and promoting digital culture within the university students and environment for engaging in a better academic performance. Digital leadership is found to be an important criterion of academic performance in this digital age society, and cultivating digital culture enhances students’ academic performance. These findings shall prompt the university to actively engage in fostering digitalization culture within the university. Also, the top management of the university should inform the students to be adaptive and cultivate the attributes of digital leaders, as their readiness to cope with the technological change has significant positive impact on their academic performance.

It is important to ensure that the future graduates that are being produced are ready to take on more challenges as digital leaders in the digital society. This might accelerate the country’s initiatives and efforts towards becoming a developed nation. Thus, investing in oneself to become digitally literate and competent might not only influence their academic performance, but they will also be equipped to fulfil one of the expectations of future employers of potential graduates, which is possessing digital leadership.

Digitalization is not only about the technology. It is about the people too. As the study on digital leadership is still in its infant stage, this study is unique as it is among the earliest to establish digital leadership constructs within the context of Malaysia. It informs the university that digital leadership provides significant contribution to academic performance. Thus, the university is encouraged to nurture digitalization, not only in the teaching and learning but also with the people within the university environment. Determining the right programs and plans for the curricular will help students to develop digital leadership attributes more effectively. Finally, improving digitalization among its students and culture is important, as these elements provide significant effect towards academic performance.

Selective laser sintering (SLS) is an essential technology in the field of additive manufacturing. However, SLS technology is limited by the traditional point-laser sintering method and has reached the bottleneck of efficiency improvement. This study aims to develop an image-shaped laser sintering (ISLS) system based on a digital micromirror device (DMD) to address this problem. The ISLS system uses an image-shaped laser light source with a size of 16 mm × 25.6 mm instead of the traditional SLS point-laser light source.

The ISLS system achieves large-area image-shaped sintering of polymer powder materials by moving the laser light source continuously in the x-direction and updating the sintering pattern synchronously, as well as by overlapping the splicing of adjacent sintering areas in the y-direction. A low-cost composite powder suitable for the ISLS system was prepared using polyether sulfone (PES), pinewood and carbon black (CB) powders as raw materials. Large-sized samples were fabricated using composite powder, and the microstructure, dimensional accuracy, geometric deviation, density, mechanical properties and feasible feature sizes were evaluated.

The experimental results demonstrate that the ISLS system is feasible and can print large-sized parts with good dimensional accuracy, acceptable geometric deviations, specific small-scale features and certain density and mechanical properties.

This study has achieved the transition from traditional point sintering mode to image-shaped surface sintering mode. It has provided a new approach to enhance the system performance of traditional SLS.

This study aimed to examine the role of big data analytics capabilities (BDAC) in fostering organizational innovation capabilities and, consequently, in achieving economic, social and environmental sustainability.

Through the lens of dynamic capability theory, this study surveyed 115 hotels using purposive sampling to gain in-depth insights regarding the factors affecting organizational sustainability in the hospitality industry. The data analysis was conducted using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The findings reported a substantial impact of seven core dimensions (i.e. technology, data, basic resources, technological skills, managerial skills, organizational learning and data-driven culture) in building BDAC among hotels. Moreover, BDAC was also revealed to significantly influence innovation capabilities, positively impacting all three sorts of sustainability performance. Innovation capability also mediated the relationship between BDAC and all sustainability factors.

The findings will assist policymakers and practitioners in developing effective initiatives to enhance the adoption and implementation of data science and technologies, substantially contributing to the “National IR 4.0 Policy” and “Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint” and achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The originality of this study is established by investigating the interplay between BDAC, innovation capability and sustainability performance, particularly in the context of the hotel industry, whereas the existing studies focus on exploring the advantages of BDA.