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The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of nanoadditive lubricants on the vibration and noise characteristics of helical gears compared with conventional lubricants. The experiment aims to analyze whether nanoadditive lubricants can effectively reduce gear vibration and noise under different speeds and loads. It also analyzes the sensitivity of the vibration reduction to load and speed changes. In addition, it compares the axial and radial vibration reduction effects. The goal is to explore the application of nanolubricants for vibration damping and noise reduction in gear transmissions. The results provide a basis for further research on nanolubricant effects under high-speed conditions.

Helical gears of 20CrMnTi were lubricated with conventional oil and nanoadditive oils. An open helical gearbox with spray lubrication was tested under different speeds (200–500 rpm) and loads (20–100 N·m). Gear noise was measured by a sound level meter. Axial and radial vibrations were detected using an M+P VibRunner system and fast Fourier transform analysis. Vibration spectrums under conventional and nanolubrication were compared. Gear tooth surfaces were observed after testing. The experiment aimed to analyze the noise and vibration reduction effects of nanoadditive lubricants on helical gears and the sensitivity to load and speed.

The key findings are that nanoadditive lubricants significantly reduce the axial and radial vibrations of helical gears under low-speed conditions compared with conventional lubricants, with a more pronounced effect on axial vibrations. The vibration reduction is more sensitive to rotational speed than load. At the same load and speed, nanolubrication reduces noise by 2%–5% versus conventional lubrication. Nanoparticles change the friction from sliding to rolling and compensate for meshing errors, leading to smoother vibrations. The nanolubricants alter the gear tooth surfaces and optimize the microtopography. The results provide a basis for exploring nanolubricant effects under high speeds.

The originality and value of this work is the experimental analysis of the effects of nanoadditive lubricants on the vibration and noise characteristics of hard tooth surface helical gears, which has rarely been studied before. The comparative results under different speeds and loads provide new insights into the vibration damping capabilities of nanolubricants in gear transmissions. The findings reveal the higher sensitivity to rotational speed versus load and the differences in axial and radial vibration reduction. The exploration of nanolubricant effects on gear tribological performance and surface interactions provides a valuable reference for further research, especially under higher speed conditions closer to real applications.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-07-2023-0220/

The purpose of this paper is to inquire whether gender plays a role in the supervisory preference of female workers, and to establish a starting‐point in the identification of any bias that is discovered.

A field experiment of 226 adults of both genders was used to test the hypotheses. It combined a video vignette with a survey that employed a dispositional index followed by attitudinal measures.

Descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and regression analyses were used to highlight the biases that were discovered. Females believed that other women are good managers, but the female workers did not actually want to work for them. The results may have some basis in females' perceptions of female managers as being high in dominance. The female manager was also seen as being emotional. More specifically, the female manager was seen as being more nervous and more aggressive than a male manager. It was also discovered that female preference for male supervisors increased with greater numbers of years in the workforce.

This is an exploratory study. Workers surveyed were enrolled in a large metropolitan US university. Subsequent studies need to include a broader sample, particularly including workers from earlier generations. Extensive additional research is essential.

The findings lend credence to strong but seldom discussed anecdotal undercurrents of women's unwillingness to work for other women. Although female managers have been studied to a limited degree, there has been no empirical research on the female subordinate relationship. The study makes an entry into this important question of whether women have a prejudice against working for other women. The practitioner/policymaker implications are substantial.

To address three issues of survey-based methods (i.e. the absence of behaviors, the reference inequivalence, and the lack of cross-cultural interaction), the purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of using the behavioral experiment method to collect cross-cultural data as well as the possibility of measuring culture with the experimental data. Moreover, challenges to this method and possible solutions are elaborated for intriguing further discussion on the use of behavioral experiments in international business/international management (IB/IM) research.

This paper illustrates the merits and downside of the proposed method with an ultimate-game experiment conducted in a behavioral laboratory. The procedure of designing, implementing, and analyzing the behavioral experiment is delineated in detail.

The exploratory findings show that the ultimate-game experiment may observe participants’ behaviors with comparable references and allow for cross-cultural interaction. The findings also suggest that the fairness-related cultural value may be calibrated with the horizontal and vertical convergence of cross-cultural behaviors (i.e. people’s deed), and this calibration may be strengthened by incorporating complementary methods such as a background survey to include people’s words.

The behavioral experiment method illustrated and discussed in this study contributes to the IB/IM literature by addressing three methodological issues that are not widely recognized in the IB/IM literature.

Exploratory search activities are ubiquitous in various information systems. Much potentially useful or even serendipitous information is discovered during the exploratory search process. Given its irreplaceable role in information systems, exploratory search has attracted growing attention from the information system community. Since few studies have methodically reviewed current publications, researchers and practitioners are unable to take full advantage of existing achievements, which, in turn, limits their progress in this field. Through a literature review, this study aims to recapitulate important research topics of exploratory search in information systems, providing a research landscape of exploratory search.

Automatic and manual searches were performed on seven reputable databases to collect relevant literature published between January 2005 and July 2023. The literature pool contains 146 primary studies on exploratory search in information system research.

This study recapitulated five important topics of exploratory search, namely, conceptual frameworks, theoretical frameworks, influencing factors, design features and evaluation metrics. Moreover, this review revealed research gaps in current studies and proposed a knowledge framework and a research agenda for future studies.

This study has important implications for beginners to quickly get a snapshot of exploratory search studies, for researchers to re-align current research or discover new interesting issues, and for practitioners to design information systems that support exploratory search.

Internet is set to be one of the main channels of distribution in the future and already greatly facilitates product evaluation thanks to the information available on the net. The main advantages of electronic shopping over other channels include the reduced costs of searching for products and for product‐related information. Research has stressed the importance of quality information in web site design. The perceived utility of a web site depends on the perceived utility of its content (i.e. quality of information on product characteristics) and its presentation of that content. This paper compares the ways in which a web site's content and content presentation affect the product choice of two consumer groups from different cultures. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors conduct an exploratory study to determine the key factors which may be used in a later conclusive research. The authors propose a tool based on the statistical design of experiments to determine the number of significant factors used by two market segments (Spanish and US students) when selecting a bottle of wine sold via a web site.

The authors identify key extrinsic factors of consumers' perceived utility when selecting a bottle of wine from a web site and analyse whether cross‐cultural aspects are significant in this choice. The authors assume that web site evaluations made by users from different geographical areas reflect their preferences for more familiar designs.

The sample size does not enable us to determine the significance of certain variables. Moreover, the sample is not fully representative of the overall consumer population, and so inferences cannot be made about all consumers. However, since the study is exploratory with a theoretical content, the results can be considered valid.

Web page designers need to take into account the cultural characteristics of their target market in the presentation and content of their sites.

The internet marketing literature considers cultural differences in web design as a tool to improve user confidence and attitude. However, few studies have examined the effects of the cultural adaptation of web sites on user evaluations. Here, the authors propose a straightforward procedure for calculating the main effects of web site attributes. Yates' algorithm and the normal probability plot, proposed by Daniel, can be implemented in any spread sheet.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the process of fused filament fabrication (FFF) of a compliant gripper (CG) using thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) material. The paper studies the applicability of different CG designs and the efficiency of some design parameters.

After reviewing a number of different papers, two designs were selected for a number of exploratory experiments. Using design of experiments (DOE) techniques to identify important design parameters. Finally, the efficiency of the parts was investigated.

The research finds that a simpler design sacrifices some effectiveness in exchange for a remarkable decrease in production cost. Decreasing infill percentage of previous designs and 3D printing them, out of TPU, experimenting with different parameters yields functional products. Moreover, the paper identified some key parameters for further optimization attempts of such prototypes.

The cost of conducting FFF experiments for TPU increases dramatically with product size, number of parameters studied and the number of experiments. Therefore, all three of these factors had to be kept at a minimum. Further confirmatory experiments encouraged.

This paper addresses an identified need to investigate applications of FFF and TPU in manufacturing functional efficient flexible mechanisms, grippers specifically. While most research focused on designing for increased performance, some research lacks discussion on design philosophy, as well as manufacturing issues. As the needs for flexible grippers vary from high-performance grippers to lower performance grippers created for specific functions/conditions, some effectiveness can be sacrificed to reduce cost, reduce complexity and improve applicability in different robotic assemblies and environments.

Information seeking is often performed in collaborative contexts. The research into such collaborative information seeking (CIS) has been proceeding since the 1990s but lacks methodological discussions. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and discuss methodological issues in existing CIS studies.

The authors systematically review 69 empirical CIS studies.

The review shows that the most common methods of data collection are lab experiments (43 percent), observation (19 percent) and surveys (16 percent), that the most common methods of data analysis are description (33 percent), statistical testing (29 percent) and content analysis (19 percent) and that CIS studies involve a fairly even mix of novice, intermediate and specialist participants. However, the authors also find that CIS research is dominated by exploratory studies, leaves it largely unexplored in what ways the findings of a study may be specific to the particular study setting, appears to assign primacy to precision at the expense of generalizability, struggles with investigating how CIS activities extend over time and provides data about behavior to a larger extent than about reasons, experiences and especially outcomes.

The major implication of this review is its identification of the need for a shared model to which individual CIS studies can contribute in a cumulative manner. To support the development of such a model, the authors discuss a model of the core CIS process and a model of the factors that trigger CIS.

This study assesses the current state of CIS research, provides guidance for future CIS studies and aims to inspire further methodological discussion.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the roles that employee-initiated Lean improvement projects play in health care. Lean ideas are introduced to improve flow in health care. Although variability is detrimental to flow performance, it is unclear whether Lean initiatives set out to reduce this variability and the associated buffers.

Longitudinal field research is combined with an exploratory field-quasi-experiment. First, a large set of Lean interventions were explored and their focus classified. Semi-structured interviews with practitioners supported the initial findings regarding the focus. Second, this study investigated whether a knowledge deficiency could explain the identified focus through a quasi-experiment in which the authors’ stimulated knowledge on the roles of variability and buffers and then classified subsequent interventions.

The results reflected a narrow application of Lean, with most interventions directed at reducing direct waste. A quasi-experiment demonstrated that a small investment in knowledge enables the focus to shift toward buffers and variability issues – i.e. toward a more complete Lean approach.

This research supports the commonly held view that there is a tendency to focus on waste. Furthermore, a lengthy experience of Lean does not guarantee interventions will focus on buffers and variability, issues with arguably a higher complexity compared to obvious waste. However, small investments in knowledge can broaden the focus of practitioners’ interventions.

This study is one of the first to research the focus of Lean interventions through a data set spanning several years. The results are based on a unique data set covering a large number of documented Lean interventions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate when and how people working in collaboration could be benefitted by an exploratory search task, specifically focussing on team size and its effect on the outcomes of such a task.

The paper investigates the effects of team sizes on exploratory search tasks using a lab study involving 68 participants – 12 individuals, ten dyads, and 12 triads. In order to assess various factors during their exploratory search sessions, an evaluation framework is synthesized using relevant literature. The framework consists of measures for five groups of quantities relevant to exploratory search: information exposure, information relevancy, information search, performance, and learning.

The analyses on the user study data using the proposed framework reveals that while individuals working alone cover more information than those working in teams, the teams (dyads and triads) are able to achieve better information coverage and search performance due to their collaborative strategies. In many of the measures, the triads are found to be even better than the dyads, demonstrating the value of adding a collaborator to a search process with multiple facets.

The findings shed light on not only how collaborative work could help in achieving better results in exploratory search, but also how team sizes affect specific aspects – information exposure, information relevancy, information search, performance, and learning – of exploratory search. This has implications for system designers, information managers, and educators.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of destination images on tourists’ behavioral intention to select a destination for their next vacation. Most of previous studies investigated this relationship by interacting with tourists during their stay in the destination. However, this research examines the impact of destination images before tourists visit a destination, using functional technological-oriented magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) approach to track brain activation during the decision to select a destination.

The proposed model is adopted from the theory of planned behavior. Study participants divide a set of hotel destination images into two groups: attractive and non-attractive destination images. A blocked design experiment was used during fMRI scan to track brain activities resulting from presenting the two groups of images to participants, and record the strength of their intention to visit the attractive destination.

The level of brain activation at the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) increased when participants were asked to assess the attractive destination images compared with the level of activation for non-attractive ones. Also, the positive attitude toward an attractive destination led to higher intention to visit that destination.

This study enhances the authors’ understanding of how tourists analyze destination images to reach a decision on future action. It can also be used to help destination managers define an advertisement strategy that makes their destination more attractive.

Although the literature reports considerable research on destination image and its influence on tourists intention, this is the first exploratory study to use the fMRI technology to investigate tourists’ attitude toward destination images.