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This paper investigates the variations in electrical properties of a typical isotropic conductive adhesive (ICA) made with an epoxy‐based binder that are caused by differences in the curing conditions.

In‐situ monitoring of the various processes that were used to cure the ICA revealed that electrical conduction in the ICA specimens depends on both the high‐temperature curing conditions and the conditions during cooling to temperatures below the glass transition temperature (T_g).

The electrical resistivity of the cured ICA specimens after cooling to ambient temperature decreased with increasing degree of conversion, tending towards a convergence value that decreased with increasing curing temperature. The electrical resistivity of the specimens also varied significantly depending on the subsequent annealing process. However, the electrical resistivity achieved after annealing at temperatures above the curing temperatures clearly depended on the particular curing temperature that was used. The characteristics of the polymer structure in the adhesive binder are considered to be different, depending on the curing temperature, and this affects the electrical properties of the ICA;, i.e. the characteristics of the polymer structure obtained during the curing process affect the electrical resistance of the ICA, even after subsequent annealing processes.

This paper discusses generalities of variation in the electrical properties of ICAs during heating and cooling processes. The variation in behaviour in practice will differ depending on the type of adhesive binder in the ICA.

This paper clarifies how the electrical properties of ICAs evolve during the curing, annealing and cooling processes.

The purpose of this paper is to characterise the electrical and mechanical properties of multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)-based isotropic conductive adhesives (ICAs). The paper also compares the electrical and mechanical performance of MWCNTs-based ICAs with silver flakes and silver nanoparticles-based ICAs.

The ICAs were formulated with dyglycidyl ether bisphenol A epoxy resin and conductive fillers such as silver flakes, silver nanoparticles and MWCNTs. The four-point probe is used to measure the bulk resistivity of the ICAs.

The results from the study showed that the percolation threshold of the MWCNTs-based ICAs is 1.5 Wt.%. At 3 Wt.%, the drop in bulk resistivity is lower than the conventional ICAs. The addition of silver nanoparticles increased the overall bulk resistivity of the system. The mechanical properties improved with the introduction of carbon nanotubes into the silver flakes–epoxy system.

The results from bulk resistivity and mechanical properties of the MWCNTs could help to formulate MWCNTs-based ICAs with optimum weight fraction.

The paper demonstrates that the addition of MWCNTs to the silver-based ICAs will enhance their mechanical and electrical conductivity. In addition, the optimum weight percentage is also determined, which shows a bulk resistivity value lower along with improved mechanical property with the conventional ICA system.

This chapter explores the impact of equality, diversity, and inclusivity (EDI) on internal change agents’ (ICAs) personal and professional development. We have surveyed 117 ICAs that undergo a four-year digital development programme at Edinburgh Business School (EBS). Our survey design draws from expectancy, surprise, sensemaking, and attribution theories to test four hypotheses using Spearman’s rank. We found that diversity features such as gender, age, sector affiliation, work experience, management responsibility, and programme stage do not strongly impact ICAs’ experience of personal and professional development. Surprisingly, some diversity features had a modest or moderate impact on ICAs’ experience of personal and professional development. This disconfirmed our basic assumption about the effectiveness of inclusivity practices in the digital development programme at EBS. We conclude that future research should further investigate the impact of evaluation on ICAs’ personal and professional development and how we can secure it in a digital Business School context.

Though paradoxes constitute a basic ontological condition of organizational processes, the modernist approach has always been to find ways to resolve them. In this chapter, an alternative approach called hermeneutic appreciation is proposed. By accepting and affirming paradoxes through the process of hermeneutic appreciation, the generative potential inherent in them can be recognized and unfolded. This chapter presents a case study of an organization that demonstrated such a sophisticated understanding of hermeneutic appreciation. By not dismissing the paradoxes but by affirming and reframing them, members of this organization were able to reverse a visible organizational decline and instead infuse it with new energy and vitality leading to an eventual organizational renewal. Lessons learned from this appreciative inquiry project suggest that a hermeneutic appreciation of paradoxes may act as a change intervention and is likely to enable innovation and organizational transformation.

The purpose of this study is to formulate a governance and regulatory framework for Islamic crypto assets (ICAs). A balanced regulatory framework is required to protect consumers and to encourage digital Islamic finance innovation.

This study focuses on Indonesia and compares it to other countries, specifically Malaysia and the UK, using statutory, comparative and conceptual research approaches.

The ICAs are permissible (halal) commodities/assets to be traded if they fulfil the standards as goods or commodities that can be traded with a sale and purchase contract (sil’ah) and have an underlying asset (backed by tangible assets such as gold). Islamic social finance activities such as zakat and Islamic microfinance activities such as halal industry are backed by ICAs. The regulatory framework needed to support ICAs includes the Islamic Financial Services Act, shariah supervisory boards, shariah governance standards and ICA exchanges.

This study only examined crypto assets (tokens as securities) and not cryptocurrencies. It used regulations in several countries with potential in Islamic finance development, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and the UK.

The ICA regulatory framework is helpful as an element of a comprehensive strategy to develop a lasting Islamic social finance ecosystem.

The development of crypto assets must be supported by a regulatory framework to protect consumers and encourage innovation in Islamic digital finance.

ICA has growth prospects; however, weak regulatory support and minimal oversight indicate weak legal protection for consumers and investors. Regulating ICA, optimising supervision, implementing shariah governance standards and having ICA exchanges can strengthen the Islamic economic ecosystem.

The purpose of this paper is to examine electrical and mechanical properties of radio frequency identification (RFID) chip joints assembled on a flexible substrate and made from isotropic conductive adhesives (ICAs) reinforced with graphene nanoplatelets (GPNs) or graphite nanofibers (GFNs).

The ICAs reinforced with GPNs or GFNs were prepared and screen printed on a test pattern to investigate resistance and thickness of these adhesive layers. Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) was performed to assess a curing behaviour of the prepared ICAs. Then, RFID chips were mounted with the prepared ICAs to the pattern of silver tracks prepared on foil. Shear test was carried out to evaluate mechanical durability of the created chip joints, and resistance measurements were carried out to evaluate electrical properties of the tested ICAs.

The 0.5 per cent (by weight) addition of GFNs or GPNs to the ICA improved shear force values of the assembled RFID chip joints, whereas resistance of these modified adhesives increased. The DSC analysis showed that a processing temperature of the tested adhesives may range from 80 to 170°C with different curing times. It revealed a crucial influence of curing time and temperature on electrical and mechanical properties of the tested chip joints. When the chip pads were cured for too long (i.e. 60 minutes), it resulted in a resistance increase and shear force decrease of the chip joints. In turn, the increase of curing temperature from 80 to 120°C entailed improvement of electrical and mechanical properties of the assembled chips. It was also found that a failure location changed from the chip – adhesive interface towards the adhesive – substrate one when the curing temperature and time were increased.

Further investigations are required to examine changes thoroughly in the adhesive reinforced with GFNs after a growth of curing time. It could also be worth studying electrical and mechanical properties of the conductive adhesive with a different amount of GFNs or GPNs.

The tested conductive adhesive reinforced with GFNs or GPNs can be applied in the production of RFID tags because it may enhance the mechanical properties of tags fabricated on flexible substrates.

Influence of GFNs and GPNs on the electrical and mechanical properties of commercial ICAs was investigated. These properties were also examined depending on a curing time and temperature. New conductive materials were proposed and tested for a chip assembly process in fabrication of RFID tags on flexible substrates.

Interchange of text and hypertext between various systems is vital in order to reuse text and hypertext, but the task of generating translators between different representations is often complex and tedious. The Integrated Chameleon Architecture (ICA) is a public domain toolset for generating translators. However, ica can only handle context‐free grammars while the grammar of hypertext is not context‐free. This paper presents an extended ICA (E‐ICA) which is based on ICA with extra pre‐ and post‐processors to handle the context‐sensitive and implicit information of hypertext. A system called SGML‐MUCH has been developed using E‐ICA. The development and use of the SGML‐MUCH system is presented as a case study with converters for the hypertext systems MUCH, Guide, Hyperties, and Toolbook described in detail.

Despite the flourishing literature on intellectual capital (IC), few studies explored its features in the perspective of family firms, and even fewer focussed on small family firms (SFFs). The purpose of this paper is to analyze how managers and senior employees in SFFs perceive the benefits and costs of intellectual capital assets (ICAs) and provides many insights for future researches.

Taking the lead from the constructivist epistemology, this instrumental study describes the implementation of a framework for the assessment of ICAs into four SFFs in order to develop general theoretical principles.

Among the findings, it stands out that most SFFs in the sample especially rely on their internal processes and on their human resources’ knowledge and competences. Furthermore, the authors found much internal disagreement with respect to the expected costs of investing on ICAs, especially within firms operating in more turbulent markets.

Being referred to a multiple case study, the results may not be generalized to other organizations. Nevertheless, they are useful to build theory, either by verification of falsification, and to encourage their future testing in empirical papers.

The implementation of the framework allows identifying internal disagreement with respect to the ICAs’ costs and benefits and exploring their causes. Furthermore, it suggests which should be the ICAs deserving primary attention in order to have the best impact on value creation.

The paper investigates IC in SFFs, thus contributing to fill a remarkable gap in IC literature.

This article is going to introduce a modified variant of the imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

ICA is a meta-heuristic algorithm that is introduced based on a socio-politically motivated global search strategy. It is a population-based stochastic algorithm to control more countries. The most powerful countries are imperialists and the weakest countries are colonies. Colonies movement toward their relevant imperialist, and making a competition among all empires to posses the weakest colonies of the weakest empires, form the basis of the ICA. This fact that the imperialists also need to model and they move towards top imperialist state is the most common type of political rules from around the world. This paper exploits these new ideas. The modification is the empire movement toward the superior empire for balancing the exploration and exploitation abilities of the ICA.

The algorithms are used for optimization that have shortcoming to deal with accuracy rate and local optimum trap and they need complex tuning procedures. MICA is proposed a way for optimizing convex function with high accuracy and avoiding to trap in local optima rather than using original ICA algorithm by implementing some modification on it.

Therefore, several solution procedures, including ICA, modified ICA, and genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization algorithm are proposed. Finally, numerical experiments are carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of models as well as solution procedures. Test results present the suitability of the proposed modified ICA for convex functions with little fluctuations.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors influencing the scale and nature of intercountry adoption (ICA) between the People’s Republic of China and the USA, and to describe the significance and contribution of each to ICA processes.

A documentary data analysis approach based upon the quantitative grounded theory: first, interpreting available data, and second, conducting a thematic analysis of the literature to generate a theory of key factors.

The results showed that changes in policies, ethical narratives and ideological shifts (principally the rise of nationalism) were highly influential in determining the scale and type of ICAs in successive years.

This paper concluded that China: US ICA is likely to continue only in small numbers with older and special needs children. However, China: US adoptions provide some examples of “best practice”. Understanding the interplay of factors explored theoretically in this study may guide future ICA arrangements between other country pairs.

Although a range of data has been collected on China: US ICA over a number of years, no systematic attempt has been made to link changes in those data to changes in the legal, social or cultural climate in which such adoptions take place. As well as providing new insights into the dynamics of ICA, the paper develops an original method which could be applied to parallel arrangements between other countries.