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The purpose of this research is to examine the extent to which source attractiveness and source credibility (or skill in a sporting context) provide an effective marketing strategy for Field Hockey in New Zealand, a minority sport Minority sports struggle to generate capital and have minimal sponsorship backing due to small participation and viewership rates compared to “major sports”. By understanding how source attractiveness and source credibility work in the context of a minority sport such as hockey, more effective advertising towards target audiences can be achieved. We also consider differences between advertising to players and no-players of the sport. This is the first research to consider these issues.

Four advertisements were created in an experimental design that manipulated the two variables: source credibility and source attractiveness, in an advertisement promoting Hockey. A survey was conducted, using an online questionnaire.

Results show that a mixture physical attractiveness and skill (credibility) increase attitudes towards the advertisement. This results in positive intentions to both watch and play hockey. When the respondents were segmented into hockey players and non-hockey players, only skill is effective for the Hockey Player segment, whereas both skill and attractiveness are effective for non-players.

Future research should include comparing hockey to further minority sports codes. Additionally, understanding if male models created the same effects would be particularly interesting for further research.

Management should focus on skill, with physical attractiveness being considered, but not as the most important attribute. If targeting hockey players, skill needs to be especially visible. Even though these elements could be argued to be within the “proverbial eye of the beholder”, the results have shown that in terms of sports advertising, it is possible to portray these two attributes in a generalised way.

This research to focuses on source credibility and attractiveness in a minority sporting context, in particular field hockey, whereas the majority of research considers major sporting codes. In addition, involvement with the sport is also considered.

This study aims to explore entropy evaluation in the bi-directional flow of Casson hybrid nanofluids within a stagnated domain, a topic of significant importance for optimizing thermal systems. The aim is to investigate the behavior of unsteady, magnetized and laminar flow using a parametric model based on the thermo-physical properties of alumina and copper nanoparticles.

The research uses boundary layer approximations and the Keller-box method to solve the derived ordinary differential equations, ensuring numerical accuracy through convergence and stability analysis. A comparison benchmark has been used to authenticate the accuracy of the numerical outcomes.

Results indicate that increasing the Casson fluid parameter (ranging from 0.1 to 1.0) reduces velocity, the Bejan number decreases with higher bidirectional flow parameter (ranging from 0.1 to 0.9) and the Nusselt number increases with higher nanoparticle concentrations (ranging from 1% to 4%).

This study has limitations, including the assumption of laminar flow and the neglect of possible turbulent effects, which could be significant in practical applications.

The findings offer insights for optimizing thermal management systems, particularly in industries where precise control of heat transfer is crucial. The Keller-box simulation method proves to be effective in accurately predicting the behavior of such complex systems, and the entropy evaluation aids in assessing thermodynamic irreversibilities, which can enhance the efficiency of engineering designs.

These findings provide valuable insights into the thermal management of hybrid nanofluid systems, marking a novel contribution to the field.

The purpose of the study is to evaluate mobile apps developed to prevent food waste from the perspective of responsible production and consumption.

The study employs qualitative methods, and the dataset consists of the 1,382 content and online reviews and comments for 11 mobile apps in addition to 30 in-depth interviews conducted with consumers and restaurant managers/owners using the apps.

Mobile apps are proving to be popular with people, inviting users to fight food waste in a sustainable and responsible way. While users' main motivations for becoming food waste fighters are responsibility, positive emotions and economic sensitivity, restaurants' motivations are different, such as social responsibility, innovative business models, attracting new customers and cost orientation.

Creating digital value and contributing significantly to sustainability in the food industry, mobile apps offer different opportunities to the market. By supporting and encouraging the use of these apps, businesses can reduce food waste, prevent financial losses and offer consumers more choice and variety.

The present study aims to address this lack of empirical research based on a holistic perspective by providing a multidimensional assessment. Such an approach should contribute to a thorough understanding of the motivations that drive users and restaurants to become food waste fighters.

The importance of sustainable public procurement is growing in many countries and industries, including higher education institutions (HEIs) in China. However, in China, the practice of sustainable public procurement is currently limited due to various reasons. This study aims to identify the main challenges faced by Chinese HEIs when it comes to sustainable public procurement. The identification of the challenges encountered by HEIs in sustainable public procurement practices not only has practical significance in terms of improving efficiency, sustainability, competitiveness and guiding policymaking but also has theoretical significance in terms of enriching the knowledge body, facilitating the dissemination of sustainability and supporting international comparative research. To identify these challenges, the study gathered data from a small sample of procurement supervisors, experts and commissioners in HEIs using the Delphi method. The study concludes that Chinese HEIs can address the challenges of sustainable public procurement through measures such as fundraising, technology and equipment upgrading, supply chain optimization, regulatory compliance and raising awareness and providing training.

To pinpoint the challenges of sustainable public procurement faced by HEIs in China, this study began by obtaining data from a small sample of procurement supervisors, experts and commissioners in HEIs who are knowledgeable about the issue through the Delphi method. Secondly, the collected challenge factors were also subjected to a literature review to identify the most common challenges in recent papers published around the world. Thus, it was possible to assess the relationship between the challenges mentioned by researchers in China and other countries.

The main challenges faced by HEIs in China in implementing sustainable public procurement are the focus on economic efficiency, the experience and awareness of procurement staff, policy ambiguity as well as culture, management mechanisms and leadership attitudes in the organizations. The study concludes that Chinese HEIs can effectively overcome the challenges of implementing sustainable public procurement through a variety of measures, including fundraising, technology and equipment upgrading, supply chain optimization, regulatory compliance and awareness raising and training.

Some limitations should be considered in this study. Judging by the sample size, it is clear that the results of the study are limited. Although the number of experts involved in the study is required, caution should be exercised when generalizing the results, as this may not be representative of the entire population. In future studies, the use of a larger sample size could be considered to overcome this problem. Related to this limitation is the uneven geographical distribution of the sample, and this study only considered the situation of HEIs in Jiangsu Province, China, which is not representative of the national region.

The practical significance can be seen in two aspects. First, accurately identifying challenges can help HEIs optimize the implementation of their sustainable purchasing policies, leading to more efficient resource allocation and reduced unnecessary resource consumption. Second, by addressing these challenges, HEIs can better fulfill their social role in sustainable development, contributing to the triple bottom line of the economy, environment and society. Implementing sustainable procurement strategies not only enhances the social image of HEIs but also attracts a broader student base and financial support, ultimately improving their competitive position in the education market. A deeper understanding of these challenges provides policymakers with a basis to develop a more operational and targeted policy framework to support sustainable procurement in HEIs.

This study succeeded in answering two research questions that provide practical implications for public procurement practitioners, researchers and policymakers. Although HEIs in China do not practice sustainable public procurement at a high rate, however, with the spread of sustainability and environmental awareness, more and more HEIs are beginning to realize the importance of sustainability and are gradually taking it into account in their procurement.

The findings of the study not only significantly enrich the existing body of knowledge on sustainable public procurement, but also support the selection of challenge variables that must be addressed first to facilitate the application of sustainable procurement in China’s HEIs.

Most of the existing time-cost-quality-environmental impact trade-off (TCQET) analysis models have focused on solving a simple project representation without taking typical activity and project characteristics into account. This study aims to present a novel approach called the “hybrid opposition learning-based Aquila Optimizer” (HOLAO) for optimizing TCQET decisions in generalized construction projects.

In this paper, a HOLAO algorithm is designed, incorporating the quasi-opposition-based learning (QOBL) and quasi-reflection-based learning (QRBL) strategies in the initial population and generation jumping phases, respectively. The crowded distance rank (CDR) mechanism is utilized to rank the optimal Pareto-front solutions to assist decision-makers (DMs) in achieving a single compromise solution.

The efficacy of the proposed methodology is evaluated by examining TCQET problems, involving 69 and 290 activities, respectively. Results indicate that the HOLAO provides competitive solutions for TCQET problems in construction projects. It is observed that the algorithm surpasses multiple objective social group optimization (MOSGO), plain Aquila Optimization (AO), QRBL and QOBL algorithms in terms of both number of function evaluations (NFE) and hypervolume (HV) indicator.

This paper introduces a novel concept called hybrid opposition-based learning (HOL), which incorporates two opposition strategies: QOBL as an explorative opposition and QRBL as an exploitative opposition. Achieving an effective balance between exploration and exploitation is crucial for the success of any algorithm. To this end, QOBL and QRBL are developed to ensure a proper equilibrium between the exploration and exploitation phases of the basic AO algorithm. The third contribution is to provide TCQET resource utilizations (construction plans) to evaluate the impact of these resources on the construction project performance.

The literature currently offers only fragmentary insights into the research on the relationship between employee emotions and human resource management (HRM). Therefore, further research is essential to bridge this knowledge gap. Our study aims to identify the mediating effects of positive employee emotions and exhaustion in the relationship between HRM and employee engagement.

Drawing on the literature review findings, a conceptual model was formulated to illustrate the relationship between HRM, employee emotions and engagement. A confirmatory analysis was conducted using structural equation modelling (SEM CFA) on a sample of 1,000 employees to validate the proposed model. The data were collected in 2021, with a particular emphasis on exploring the indirect influence of HRM on engagement through positive employee emotions and exhaustion.

The quantitative research aimed to test a model depicting the relationship between HRM and employee emotions. The findings indicate the robust effect of HRM on positive employee emotions and exhaustion. The authors observed significant variation in the level of impact depending on the size of the organisation (stronger in large firms) and the sector (stronger in the public sector).

The study bridges the gap in our understanding of the link between HRM and employee emotions. It would be advisable to further explore the specific impact of individual HRM practices on both positive and negative employee emotions. It is worth extending the scope of future research to explore components of the investigated constructs as well as mediators and moderators of the relationship between HRM and employee emotions.

To elaborate the nature of fact-checking in the domain of political information by examining how fact-checkers assess the validity of claims concerning the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and how they support their assessments by drawing on evidence acquired from diverse sources of information.

Descriptive quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 128 reports written by the fact-checkers of Snopes – an established fact-checking organisation – during the period of 24 February 2022 – 28 June, 2023. For the analysis, nine evaluation grounds were identified, most of them inductively from the empirical material. It was examined how the fact-checkers employed such grounds while assessing the validity of claims and how the assessments were bolstered by evidence acquired from information sources such as newspapers.

Of the 128 reports, the share of assessments indicative of the invalidity of the claims was 54.7%, while the share of positive ratings was 26.7%. The share of mixed assessments was 15.6%. In the fact-checking, two evaluation grounds, that is, the correctness of information and verifiability of an event presented in a claim formed the basis for the assessment. Depending on the topic of the claim, grounds such as temporal and spatial compatibility, as well as comparison by similarity and difference occupied a central role. Most popular sources of information offering evidence for the assessments include statements of government representatives, videos and photographs shared in social media, newspapers and television programmes.

As the study concentrated on fact-checking dealing with political information about a specific issue, the findings cannot be extended to concern the fact-checking practices in other contexts.

The study is among the first to characterise how fact-checkers employ evaluation grounds of diverse kind while assessing the validity of political information.

Given the magnitude of the literature, a researcher must be selective of research papers and publications in general. In other words, only papers that meet strict standards of academic integrity and adhere to reliable and credible sources should be referenced. The purpose of this paper is to approach this issue from the prism of scientometrics according to the following research questions: Is it necessary to judge the quality of scientific production? How do we evaluate scientific production? What are the tools to be used in evaluation?

This paper presents a comparative study of scientometric evaluation practices and tools. A systematic literature review is conducted based on articles published in the field of scientometrics between 1951 and 2022. To analyze data, the authors performed three different aspects of analysis: usage analysis based on classification and comparison between the different scientific evaluation practices, type and level analysis based on classifying different scientometric indicators according to their types and application levels and similarity analysis based on studying the correlation between different quantitative metrics to identify similarity between them.

This comparative study leads to classify different scientific evaluation practices into externalist and internalist approaches. The authors categorized the different quantitative metrics according to their types (impact, production and composite indicators), their levels of application (micro, meso and macro) and their use (internalist and externalist). Moreover, the similarity analysis has revealed a high correlation between several scientometric indicators such as author h-index, author publications, citations and journal citations.

The interest in this study lies deeply in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of research groups and guides their actions. This evaluation contributes to the advancement of scientific research and to the motivation of researchers. Moreover, this paper can be applied as a complete in-depth guide to help new researchers select appropriate measurements to evaluate scientific production. The selection of evaluation measures is made according to their types, usage and levels of application. Furthermore, our analysis shows the similarity between the different indicators which can limit the overuse of similar measures.

The boundary integral method (BIM) is very attractive to practicing engineers as it reduces the dimensionality of the problem by one, thereby making the procedure computationally inexpensive compared to its peers. The principal feature of this technique is the limitation of all its computations to only the boundaries of the domain. Although the procedure is well developed for the Laplace equation, the Poisson equation offers some computational challenges. Nevertheless, the literature provides a couple of solution methods. This paper revisits an alternate approach that has not gained much traction within the community. The purpose of this paper is to address the main bottleneck of that approach in an effort to popularize it and critically evaluate the errors introduced into the solution by that method.

The primary intent in the paper is to work on the particular solution of the Poisson equation by representing the source term through a Fourier series. The evaluation of the Fourier coefficients requires a rectangular domain even though the original domain can be of any arbitrary shape. The boundary conditions for the homogeneous solution gets modified by the projection of the particular solution on the original boundaries. The paper also develops a new Gauss quadrature procedure to compute the integrals appearing in the Fourier coefficients in case they cannot be analytically evaluated.

The current endeavor has developed two different representations of the source terms. A comprehensive set of benchmark exercises has successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of both the methods, especially the second one. A subsequent detailed analysis has identified the errors emanating from an inadequate number of boundary nodes and Fourier modes, a high difference in sizes between the particular solution and the original domains and the used Gauss quadrature integration procedures. Adequate mitigation procedures were successful in suppressing each of the above errors and in improving the solution accuracy to any desired level. A comparative study with the finite difference method revealed that the BIM was as accurate as the FDM but was computationally more efficient for problems of real-life scale. A later exercise minutely analyzed the heat transfer physics for a fin after validating the simulation results with the analytical solution that was separately derived. The final set of simulations demonstrated the applicability of the method to complicated geometries.

First, the newly developed Gauss quadrature integration procedure can efficiently compute the integrals during evaluation of the Fourier coefficients; the current literature lacks such a tool, thereby deterring researchers to adopt this category of methods. Second, to the best of the author’s knowledge, such a comprehensive error analysis of the solution method within the BIM framework for the Poisson equation does not currently exist in the literature. This particular exercise should go a long way in increasing the confidence of the research community to venture into this category of methods for the solution of the Poisson equation.

In order to estimate the value of semi-automated subject indexing in operative library catalogues, the study aimed to investigate five different automated implementations of an open source software package on a large set of Swedish union catalogue metadata records, with Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) as the target classification system. It also aimed to contribute to the body of research on aboutness and related challenges in automated subject indexing and evaluation.

On a sample of over 230,000 records with close to 12,000 distinct DDC classes, an open source tool Annif, developed by the National Library of Finland, was applied in the following implementations: lexical algorithm, support vector classifier, fastText, Omikuji Bonsai and an ensemble approach combing the former four. A qualitative study involving two senior catalogue librarians and three students of library and information studies was also conducted to investigate the value and inter-rater agreement of automatically assigned classes, on a sample of 60 records.

The best results were achieved using the ensemble approach that achieved 66.82% accuracy on the three-digit DDC classification task. The qualitative study confirmed earlier studies reporting low inter-rater agreement but also pointed to the potential value of automatically assigned classes as additional access points in information retrieval.

The paper presents an extensive study of automated classification in an operative library catalogue, accompanied by a qualitative study of automated classes. It demonstrates the value of applying semi-automated indexing in operative information retrieval systems.