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Drawing upon institution-based trust theory, the purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, to examine the joint influences of legally binding and market-driven institutional mechanisms in promoting customers’ trust and continuance intention in the ridesharing platform; and secondly, to examine if there exists a trust transfer mechanism between institution-based trust and interpersonal trust.

An online survey was conducted in China and data were collected from 307 customers in DiDi, which is one of the largest ridesharing platforms in China. Structural equation modeling statistical method was used to test the theoretical model and research hypotheses.

The empirical results suggest that market-driven institutional mechanisms, regarding feedback and surge pricing, have strong influences on customers’ trust in the ridesharing platform. In addition, legally binding institutional mechanisms, regarding payment security and driver certification, are also beneficial to promote customers’ trust. Furthermore, there is a trust transfer between customers’ trust in the platform and trust in the driver.

This study provides guidelines to the administrators of the ridesharing platform to establish effective institutional mechanisms. In particular, the platform can appropriately adopt and implement the legally binding mechanisms combined with market-driven mechanisms on the platform, in order to enhance customers’ trust and promote their subsequent transaction behaviors.

This study enriches and extends the extant literature of institution-based trust from e-commerce to the sharing economy by identifying four significant institutional mechanisms. Furthermore, this study presents a new perspective of customer trust (one-to-many) in the context of ridesharing and uncovers the transfer mechanism between institution-based trust and interpersonal trust.

The interaction between the silver powder and organic vehicle largely determines the rheological behavior of silver conductive paste. This study aims to prepare silver conductive paste with an organic vehicle system consisting of ethyl cellulose (EC) and terpineol/butyl carbitol acetate solvent mixtures. The study also aims to measure the rheological behaviors of the silver conductive pastes with different solvent mixtures, EC molecular weights and silver content, to investigate the interaction among the polymer, solvent and silver powder and determine the main factors affecting the thixotropic index and maximum silver content.

The rheological behaviors of silver conductive pastes with different solvent mixtures, EC molecular weights and silver content were investigated using viscometer.

The shear thinning became significant with increasing EC molecular weight. The EC solvation with higher molecular weight in solvent is better than that of EC with lower molecular weight. This leads to a stronger interaction between the silver powder and EC with higher molecular weight and consequently good silver particle dispersion. The relative viscosity of silver conductive paste at 10 s⁻¹ increases significantly with increasing silver content, but the relative viscosity at 100 s⁻¹ is much less sensitive to the silver content. The viscosities at low and high shear rate can be increased by increasing the silver content and EC molecular weight, respectively.

The interaction among the polymer, solvent and silver powder was investigated for the silver paste with high solid content. The main factors affecting the viscosities at high and low shear rates, thixotropic index and maximum silver content were determined.

The purpose of this study is to prepare a polydopamine (PDA)–palygorskite (Pal) hybrid-reinforced epoxy coating with high adhesion strength on wet concrete surface.

One synthetic step was adopted to prepare novel PDA–Pal hybrid epoxy coating. The process and product were analyzed and confirmed by FIRT, thermogravimetric analysis and scanning electron microscopy. The mass fraction of PDA–Pal hybrid affecting the adhesion strength of epoxy coating was analyzed and confirmed by pull-off test.

PDA–Pal hybrid mass fractions of 0, 1, 3 and 5 were added to the coatings. For a 5 Wt.% PDA–Pal hybrid content, the adhesive strengths on the saturated or underwater concrete surfaces increased to 4.0 and 2.5 MPa, respectively. In addition, the tensile mechanical property of the epoxy coating improved significantly after PDA–Pal addition.

This new epoxy coating hybrid by PDA–Pal could be applied as a concrete protective layer near water or in wet or damp environments.

Introduction of PDA–Pal hybrid to prepare epoxy coating with high adhesion strength on wet concrete surface has not been systematically studied previously.

This paper proposes an improved fatigue life analysis method for optimal design of electric multiple units (EMU) gear, which aims at defects of traditional Miner fatigue cumulative damage theory.

A fatigue life analysis method by modifying S–N curve and considering material difference is presented, which improves the fatigue life of EMU gear based on shape modification optimization. A corrected method for stress amplitude, average stress and S–N curve is proposed, which considers low stress cycle, material difference and other factors. The fatigue life prediction of EMU gear is carried out by corrected S–N curve and transient dynamic analysis. Moreover, the gear modification technology combined with intelligent optimization method is adopted to investigate the approach of fatigue life analysis and improvement.

The results show that it is more corresponded to engineering practice by using the improved fatigue life analysis method than the traditional method. The function of stress and modification amount established by response surface method meets the requirement of precision. The fatigue life of EMU gear based on the intelligent algorithm for seeking the optimal modification amount is significantly improved compared with that before the modification.

The traditional fatigue life analysis method does not consider the influence of working condition and material. The life prediction results by using the method proposed in this paper are more accurate and ensure the safety of the people in the EMU. At the same time, the combination of intelligent algorithm and gear modification can improve the fatigue life of gear on the basis of accurate prediction, which is of great significance to the portability of EMU maintenance.

The purpose of this study is to prepare a new self-emulsified waterborne epoxy hardener which can emulsify the liquid epoxy resin in aqueous media without addition of acid neutralizers.

Two synthetic steps were adopted to prepare novel self-emulsified amine-epoxy adduct type hardener composition based on the reaction of a commercially available polyetheramine, bisphenol A epoxy resin and triethylene tetramine. The different factors affecting the synthesis of the waterborne epoxy hardener were explored by emulsifying and curing properties. The process and products were analyzed and confirmed by FIRT.

Compared to an introduction of polyether as a hydrophilic segment in previous literature, whose reaction required Lewis acid catalysts and strict control of the presence of water, the introduction of polyetheramine to obtain a novel self-emulsified waterborne epoxy hardener were concise and convenient by mere two amine-epoxy addition steps in this research. Moreover, the final product offered good film formation with a practical value of mechanical properties, glass transition temperature and water-resistant property.

The self-emulsified waterborne epoxy hardener can be used to prepare water-resistant waterborne coatings from liquid epoxy resins while also providing the option of zero VOC formulations.

Introduction of hydrophilic polyether amine to prepare self-emulsified waterborne epoxy hardener without acid neutralizers has not been systematically studied previously.

This study aims to research the influence of non-probabilistic design variables on interval robust optimization of electric multiple units (EMU) brake module, therefore obtain the reasonable of design variables of the EMU brake module.

A robust optimization model of the EMU brake module based on interval analysis is established. This model also considers the dimension tolerance of design variables, and it uses symmetric tolerance to describe the uncertainty of design variables. The interval order relation and possibility degree of interval number are employed to deal with the uncertainty of objective function and constraint condition, respectively. On this basis, a multiobjective robust optimization model in view of interval analysis is established and applied to the robust optimization of the EMU brake module.

Compared with the traditional method and the method proposed in the reference, the maximum stress fluctuation of the EMU brake module structure is smaller after using the method proposed in this paper, which indicates that the robustness of the maximum stress of the structure has been improved. In addition, the weight and strength of the structure meet the design requirements. It shows that this method and model introduced in this research have certain feasibility.

This study is the first attempt to apply the robust optimization model based on interval analysis to the optimization of EMU structure and obtain the optimal solution set that meets the design requirements. Therefore, this study provides an idea for nonprobabilistic robust optimization of the EMU structure.

This paper aims to explore the influence of marketing investment on drug diffusion processes, to analyze the heterogeneity of the diffusion characteristics and to understand the drug diffusion patterns in the prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) markets.

The study introduces marketing investment into the Bass model. The authors use the Generalized Bass Model (GBM) to examine the influence of marketing efforts on drug diffusion in Chinese prescription and OTC markets.

The results of this study suggest that the imitation effect in the prescription drug market is greater than that in the OTC drug market; drug diffusion in the OTC market reaches saturation earlier in the diffusion process. Before reaching the critical state, the effect of marketing investment on drug diffusion in the OTC market is greater than that in the prescription market, and after the critical state, drug diffusion in the prescription market is more sensitive to marketing investment.

The study demonstrates the value of the GBM in empirical analyses of drug diffusion across two distinct markets, and the marketing regulation policies governments adopt have a powerful impact on the speed at which drugs become available in different markets. It enriches the extant product diffusion literature by highlighting the different diffusion patterns of the two segments of pharmaceutical market.

The study endeavours to bring out a critical synthesis of the effect of quality of financial reporting in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries pertaining to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption. BRICS is the group composed by the five major emerging countries, which together represent about 42% of the population, 23% of gross domestic product (GDP), 30% of the territory, and 18% of the global trade. The study synthesised 57 quantitative, qualitative, and theoretical studies between the period 2005 and 2020. The findings reflect that the BRICS countries are far way behind with the qualitative and quantitative outcomes on IFRS adoption, which may be on a voluntary basis or mandatory basis. However, there are mixed revelation based on the implications of the domestic convergence of standards with IFRS, which demonstrate that 15 papers’ results revealed a negative impact.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of operating conditions including process coefficient, lubricant viscosity and cavitation pressure on the cavitation of spiral groove liquid-film seal (SG-LFS).

A mathematical model of SG-LFS is established based on the JFO boundary and a relative density is introduced. The universal governing equation after a coordinate transformation is discretized by the FVM method and solved by the Gauss-Seidel relaxation scheme.

The results indicate that the two-dimensional size of cavitation and cavitation degree are affected significantly by the process coefficient and lubricant viscosity but the effect of cavitation pressure can be ignored.

The effect mechanisms of operating conditions on the cavitation of SG-LFS are studied by the JFO boundary and cavitation degree characterized by a relative density. The results presented are helpful to perfect and deeply understand the cavitation mechanism of liquid-film seal.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-03-2020-0083/

There is a dearth of literature aimed at understanding the Chinese entrepreneur. There are even fewer studies that compare Chinese and American entrepreneurs. As the interdependence of the economic superpowers continues to grow, it becomes increasingly important to understand similarities and differences between the two groups. Furthermore, researching the two groups can result in greater understanding of the entrepreneur. The purpose of this paper is to look at how economics, culture and policy influence the formation of established successful entrepreneurs.

In this study Chinese and American researchers collected responses from 279 Chinese and American established entrepreneurs in China and the USA. The goal of the research is to develop greater understanding of how culture, economics and policy influence the formation of their ventures.

The study's results indicate a significant difference in Chinese and American response to policy. The significant difference in policy response might justify further research, and could indicate that policy is more important to the Chinese entrepreneur.

A contribution to existing entrepreneurial theory was made regarding the similarities of networking regardless of cultural environment. A three‐dimensional conceptual model was used, measuring culture, economics and policy.