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The purpose of this paper is to strengthen and standardize general hospital use of traditional Chinese medicine, strengthen the inner construction, highlight the characteristics and advantages of Chinese medicine and improve Chinese medicine services' capacity and competitiveness.

Through data analysis and face‐to‐face interviews, the influential factors for Chinese medicine use in general hospitals are found and the extent and impact of these factors are researched. Based on survey results, grey relational analysis is used to analyze the actual factors.

Based on the results of grey relational analysis, a clear order of these factors on the degree of influence is obtained and suggestions are offered which can promote the development of traditional Chinese medicine in general hospitals.

The grey system theory was applied in medical management. The influential factors for Chinese medicine use in general hospitals was analyzed by using grey relational analysis, to offer the relevant departments several operational recommendations which can accelerate the development of general hospital use of traditional Chinese medicine.

Attracting commuters from driving to light rail systems has a good potential for reducing carbon emissions. However, the light rail system is interrupted by disruptions frequently, which reduces its attraction to passengers. Therefore, how to provide a quick replacement service during disruptions is of vital importance to avoid passengers change to other higher emission vehicles. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the decision analysis of the replacement tool for disruption recovery service in urban public light rail systems from the perspective of environmental effect.

The traditional approach – bus replacement service – and the new approach – taxi replacement service – which has been recently adopted by several cities, are examined individually and compared. The benefit of the light rail company is formulated by balancing between carbon emission and financial cost. The involving parties’ decision functions taking the passengers’ behaviors as well as numerous other important factors into account are formulated.

Both theoretical and numerical sensitivity analyses are conducted to shed light for light rail systems to better coping with disruptions, increasing service level, and attracting more passengers to the environmental transit system to reduce carbon emission.

It is worth mentioning that this research is a successful application for disruption recovery in a public transit system considering the environmental effect. To the authors’ knowledge, this research is one of the first of such applications in this area and can be used not only in the public light rail systems, but also in other urban public transport network components such as the subway and rail systems.

The study proposes Material Flow Analysis (MFA) methodology as a tool to measure and qualify food waste in the Italian beef supply chain in each stage of the food supply chain, from farm to fork. In particular, the authors attempt to: (1) measure resources consumption and waste generation toward companies' and policymakers' sustainable evaluations; (2) enhance consumers' education in the field of agri-food resilience and sustainability.

MFA is applied to the entire Italian sector of beef consumed as packaged fresh product in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic. The analysis regards bovine, which represent roughly one-third of the national meat flow. To collect data, bottom-up and top-down mixed approach is applied. Subsequently, MFA results are used to calculate the wastage-related losses in terms of embedded natural resources (e.g. water, energy).

In 2020, it results that the Italian meat industry slaughtered more than 1.15 Mt of bovine to produce approximately 0.29 Mt of fresh meat, 0.69 Mt of by-products and over 0.015 Mt of food waste at households, while 0.15 Mt of beef meat is destined to catering services and food industry (out-of-boundaries). In terms of hidden natural resources, it emerged that, on average, more than 94bn m3 of water, approximately 101,000 TJ of energy and over 11,500 t of PET and PE trays are required to sustain the entire beef system.

This research is one of the few studies proposing MFA methodology as a tool to measure food waste and hidden associated flows in the agri-food sector. This analysis shows its utility in terms of natural resources (water, energy, materials) and waste quality/quantity evaluation, hidden flows accounting and development of new educational strategies toward food waste minimization and sustainability at household consumption.

Automakers are engaged in manufacturing both efficient and inefficient green cars. The purpose of this paper is to categorize efficient green cars and inefficient green cars followed by improving efficiencies of identified inefficient green cars for distribution fitting.

The authors have used 2014 edition of secondary data published by the Automotive Research Centre of the Automobile Club of Southern California. The paper provides the methodology of applying data envelopment analysis (DEA) consisting of 50 decision-making units (DMUs) of green cars with six input indices (emission, braking, ride quality, acceleration, turning circle, and luggage capacity) and two output indices (miles per gallon and torque) integrated with Monte Carlo simulation for drawing significant statistical inferences graphically.

The findings of this study showed that there are 27 efficient and 23 inefficient DMUs along with improvement matrix. Additionally, the study highlighted the best distribution fitting of improved efficient green cars for respective indices.

This study suffers from limitations associated with 2014 edition of secondary data used in this research.

This study may be useful for motorists with efficient listing of green cars, whereas automakers can be benefitted with distribution fitting of improved efficient green cars using Monte Carlo simulation for calibration.

The paper uses DEA to empirically examine classification of green cars and applies Monte Carlo simulation for distribution fitting to improved efficient green cars to decide appropriate range of their attributes for calibration.

The misalignment is generally inevitable in the process of machining and assembly of rotor systems with gas foil bearings, but the exploration on this phenomenon is relatively less. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to carry out the thermo-elastohydrodynamic analysis of the foil bearing with misalignment, especially the inhomogeneous foil bearing.

The rotor is allowed to misalign in two non-rotating directions. Then the static and dynamic performance of the inhomogeneous foil bearing is studied. The thermal-elastohydrodynamic analysis is realized by combining the Reynolds equation, foil deformation equation and energy equation. The small perturbation method is used to calculate the dynamic coefficients, then the critical whirl ratio is obtained.

The gas pressure, film thickness and temperature distribution distort when the misalignment appears. The rotor misalignment can improve the loading capacity but rise the gas temperature at the same time. Furthermore, the rotor misalignment can affect the critical whirl ratio which demonstrates that it is necessary to analyze the misalignment before the rotordynamic design.

The value of this paper is the exploration of the thermo-elastohydrodynamic performance of the inhomogeneous foil bearing with misalignment, the analysis procedure and the corresponding results are valuable for the design of turbo system with gas foil bearings.

The normal operation of a rotor system is generally vulnerable to misalignment between gas foil bearing (GFB) and rotor. However, most theoretical and experimental researches about the characteristics of GFBs have ignored this phenomenon. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the static and dynamic performance of GFBs considering misalignment.

The shaft is allowed to misalign in two directions. Then the variations of bearing load, friction force, restoring moment, stiffness and damping coefficients are thoroughly explored. The hydrodynamic pressure on the gas film is modeled with compressible Reynolds equation, and the deformation of the flexible bearing is calculated with finite element method. Small perturbation method is used to obtain the displacement and moment dynamic coefficients.

The film thickness and pressure distribution distort when misalignments appear. The inclination of GFBs can enhance the restoring moment to withstand the imposed misalignment. Furthermore, the simulation phenomenon demonstrates the misalignment around load direction should be avoided as much as possible, while a small value misalignment around another direction is allowed.

The value of this paper is the exploration of the influence of misalignments on the static and dynamic performance of the Generation II journal GFB.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-10-2019-0418/

Water is a vital natural resource without which life on earth would be impossible. Properties of synthetic dyes like high stability and noxious nature make it difficult to remove them from the effluent. This review focuses on the removal of synthetic dyes using nanoparticles (NPs) based on the adsorption principle.

Adsorption technique is widely used to remove synthetic dyes from their aqueous solution for decades. Synthetic dye removal using NPs is promising, less energy-intensive and has become popular in recent years. NPs are in high demand for treating wastewater using the adsorption principle due to their tiny size and vast surface area. To maximise environmental sustainability, the utilisation of green-produced NPs as efficient catalysts for dye removal has sparked attention amongst scientists.

This review has prioritised research and development of optimal dye removal systems that can be used to efficiently remove a large quantity of dye in a short period while safeguarding the environment and producing fewer harmful by-products. The removal efficiency of synthetic dye using different NPs in wastewater treatment varies mostly between 75% to almost 100%. This review will aid in the scaling up of the wastewater treatment process.

There is a lack of research emphasis on the safe disposal of NPs once the reuse efficiency significantly drops. The relevance of cost analysis is equally critical, yet only a few papers discuss cost-related information.

Comprehensive and planned research in this area can aid in the development of long-term wastewater treatment technology to meet the growing need for safe and reliable water emphasising reuse and desorption efficiency of the NPs.

Suggests that misunderstandings frequently occur when trying to understand Chinese language and culture, and so gives the implied meaning of various Chinese expressions and sayings such as greetings, thanks, respect, age, congratulations and taboo subjects.

Sustainability performance of the global trade as well as of the traded products are affected by the trade policies and trade tariffs. Trade tariffs and policies can either encourage or discourage trade among the countries affecting feasibility of trade. In other words, the scope and amount of these trade tariffs have impact on the trade globally. Based on an in-depth literature review, this chapter aims to examine impacts of the trade policies and trade tariffs on the environmental footprint of the global trade. With this aim, recent trade policies and trade tariffs as well as roles of the trade policies, trade tariffs in reducing environmental footprint of the global trade are examined. It arrives at the conclusion that trade tariffs can affect environmental footprint of the global trade as well as of the traded products. They can have impact on the feasibility of the trading activities influencing their profit margins and costs. Based on these findings, recommendations for trade policies and trade tariffs are thereby provided to enhance sustainability performance of the global trade.

Research on grey systems is becoming more sophisticated, and grey relational and prediction analyses are receiving close review worldwide. Particularly, the application of grey systems in marine economics is gaining importance. The purpose of this paper is to summarize and review literature on grey models, providing new directions in their application in the marine economy.

This paper organized seminal studies on grey systems published by Chinese core journal database – CNKI, Web of Science and Elsevier from 1982 to 2018. After searching the aforementioned database for the said duration, the authors used the CiteSpace visualization tools to analyze them.

The authors sorted the studies according to their countries/regions, institutions, keywords and categories using the CiteSpace tool; analyzed current research characteristics on grey models; and discussed their possible applications in marine businesses, economy, scientific research and education, marine environment and disasters. Finally, the authors pointed out the development trend of grey models.

Although researches are combining grey theory with fractals, neural networks, fuzzy theory and other methods, the applications, in terms of scope, have still not met the demand. With the increasingly in-depth research in marine economics and management, international marine economic research has entered a new period of development. Grey theory will certainly attract scholars’ attention, and its role in marine economy and management will gain considerable significance.