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Happiness is an important mental emotion and yet becoming a major health concern nowadays. For this reason, better recognizing the objective understanding of how humans respond to event-related observations in their daily lives is especially important.

This paper uses non-intrusive technology (hyperspectral imaging [HSI]) for happiness recognition. Experimental setup is conducted for data collection in real-life environments where observers are showing spontaneous expressions of emotions (calm, happy, unhappy: angry) during the experimental process. Based on facial imaging captured from HSI, this work collects our emotional database defined as SWU Happiness DB and studies whether the physiological signal (i.e. tissue oxygen saturation [StO2], obtained by an optical absorption model) can be used to recognize observer happiness automatically. It proposes a novel method to capture local dynamic patterns (LDP) in facial regions, introducing local variations in facial StO₂ to fully use physiological characteristics with regard to hyperspectral patterns. Further, it applies a linear discriminant analysis-based support vector machine to recognize happiness patterns.

The results show that the best classification accuracy is 97.89 per cent, objectively demonstrating a feasible application of LDP features on happiness recognition.

This paper proposes a novel feature (i.e. LDP) to represent the local variations in facial StO₂ for modeling the active happiness. It provides a possible extension to the promising practical application.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the inhibition efficiency and mechanism of a specific carboxylate corrosion inhibitor which consists of benzoic acid and dimethylethanolamine on steel surface.

The performance of carbon steel influenced by this organic inhibitor under different concentration of Cl⁻ and immersion time was studied by linear polarization resistance and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy in a simulated concrete pore (SCP) solution. The surface morphology and composition of steel was also analyzed by optical microscopy, SEM and EDS to investigate the effect of inhibitor on the pattern of the steel surface after long-term immersion.

Carboxylate of benzoic acid and dimethylethanolamine can increase the chloride threshold level and decrease the corrosion area of carbon steel in SCP solution with 0.6 mol/L Cl⁻ even after 120 days exposure. The inhibition mechanism of inhibitor lies in quick adsorption and buffering effect at initial time then formed deposited layer on steel surface after long-term immersion in chloride-rich environment.

It demonstrated that the carboxylate corrosion inhibitor not only can improve the chloride threshold level for carbon steel but also effectively decrease the corrosion rate even in chloride-rich SCP solution after long-term immersion, which is different form the conventional amino alcohol.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of non-founder CEO succession on firms’ research and development (R&D) decision, and further explore its mechanism and economic consequences.

Using founders’ personal-level information of entrepreneurial firms in the Chinese growth enterprise market from 2009 to 2015, the authors empirically investigate whether firms can be motivated to launch more R&D activities as the result of switching to non-founder CEOs. The author’s further test the impact of non-founder CEOs on R&D output to distinguish their motivation. Moreover, the authors use stepwise regression to explore the mechanism and possible channels.

The authors find that R&D investment significantly increases in firms with non-founder CEOs and the R&D output that comes in the form of patent exhibits an upward trending in numbers, too, ruling out non-founder CEOs’ incentive to chase private benefits. Specifically, the authors find that non-founder CEOs can promote R&D investment through their more professional human capital and better internal control. The authors also show mitigating effects under different circumstances on the relationship between non-founder CEOs and R&D investment.

This study helps the authors to understand the impact of non-founder CEO succession on R&D investment in emerging markets. It also indicates that human capital of non-founder CEOs is critical in driving firms’ innovation, proposing policy suggestions to improve formal intermediary labor market of professional CEOs.

This study provides elaborate theoretical analysis and empirical tests on the mechanism and economic consequences of (non-)founders’ impact on R&D activities.

In this paper, a high-frequency radar test system was used to collect the data of clean ballast bed and fouled ballast bed of ballasted tracks, respectively, for a quantitative evaluation of the condition of railway ballast bed.

Based on original radar signals, the time–frequency characteristics of radar signals were analyzed, five ballast bed condition characteristic indexes were proposed, including the frequency domain integral area, scanning area, number of intersections with the time axis, number of time-domain inflection points and amplitude envelope obtained by Hilbert transform, and the effectiveness and sensitivity of the indexes were analyzed.

The thickness of ballast bed tested at the sleep bottom by high-frequency radar is up to 55 cm, which meets the requirements of ballast bed detection. Compared with clean ballast bed, the values of the five indexes of fouled ballast bed are larger, and the five indexes could effectively show the condition of the ballast bed. The computational efficiency of amplitude envelope obtained by Hilbert transform is 140 s·km⁻¹, and the computational efficiency of other indexes is 5 s·km⁻¹. The amplitude envelopes obtained by Hilbert transform in the subgrade sections and tunnel sections are the most sensitive, followed by scanning area. The number of intersections with the time axis in the bridge sections was the most sensitive, followed by the scanning area. The scanning area can adapt to different substructures such as subgrade, bridges and tunnels, with high comprehensive sensitivity.

The research can provide appropriate characteristic indexes from the high-frequency radar original signal to quantitatively evaluate ballast bed condition under different substructures.

The authors use their university and its writing program as a case study to interrogate established wraparound support systems for foster youth and the role that additional, volunteer faculty – led support services can play in retention and graduation rates. This chapter first provides research on college-going foster youth in the United States. Then, it considers the foster youth population and established support programs at the University of California, Riverside. Next, this chapter reviews the benefits of faculty – student mentoring and tutoring, specifically in composition studies, and how those benefits can contribute to a successful college-going experience. The chapter then shifts to offering a model for those interested in establishing a similar program. Using business, communication, composition, education, and psychosocial theory to ground the discussion, the authors provide a detailed account of the proposal, implementation, and ongoing programmatic administration processes, including the rationale undergirding decision-making. Ultimately, they show how equitable supplemental academic support led by composition faculty can bridge the gap between existing foster youth services and outstanding needs, an innovative approach that relies on the natural mentoring relationships which organically evolve from faculty–student interaction.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate effects of two integrative mechanisms of third-party logistics (3PL) integration (i.e. information sharing and process coordination) between users and providers on relationship satisfaction, and further explores how partnership-surrounding (e.g. legal unprotectability) and partnership-specific barriers (e.g. measurement difficulty and cooperation difficulty) influence 3PL integration in the context of Chinese 3PL practices.

Using data collected from 247 3PL users in China, this study uses the structural equation modeling method to empirically examine the relationship among partnership-surrounding/specific barriers, 3PL integration and relationship satisfaction.

The results show that information sharing has no significant effect on relationship satisfaction, while process coordination has a positive effect on relationship satisfaction and partially mediates the relationship between information sharing and relationship satisfaction. Furthermore, as partnership-specific barrier, measurement difficulty and cooperation difficulty are negatively related to information sharing and process coordination. Surprisingly, as partnership-surrounding barrier, legal unprotectability is not significantly related to information sharing but is positively related to process coordination.

As a comprehensive study on 3PL user-provider relationship in China, this study extends existing 3PL literature by providing evidence about the importance of 3PL integration and different types of barriers to 3PL integration, also providing managerial implications for 3PL users, providers, law and regulation makers about how to better implement 3PL integration in China.

At the beginning of the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a digitalized construction environments surfaced in the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in the form of a modern delivery system called demand controlled ventilation (DCV). Demand controlled ventilation has the potential to solve the building ventilation's biggest problem of managing indoor air quality (IAQ) for controlling COVID-19 transmission in indoor environments. However, the improper evaluation and information management of infection prevention on dense crowd activities such as measurement errors and volatile organic compound (VOC) generation failure rates, is fragmented so the aim of this research is to integrate this and explore potentials with machine learning algorithms (MLAs).

The method used is a thorough systematic literature review (SLR) approach. The results of this research consist of a detailed description of the DCV system and digitalized construction process of its IAQ elements.

The discussion revealed that DCV has a potential for being further integrated by perceiving it as a MLAs and hereby enabling the management of IAQ level from the perspective of health risk function mechanism (i.e. VOC and CO₂) for maintaining a comfortable thermal environment and save energy of public and private buildings (PPBs). The appropriate MLA can also be selected in different occupancy patterns for seasonal variations, ventilation behavior, building type and locations, as well as current indoor air pollution control strategies. Furthermore, the conceptual framework showed that MLA application such as algorithm design/Model Predictive Control (MPC) integration can alleviate the high spread limitation of COVID-19 in the indoor environment.

Finally, the research concludes that a large unexploited potential within integration and innovation is recognized in the DCV system and MLAs which can be improved to optimize level of IAQ from the perspective of health throughout the building sector DCV process systems. The requirements of CO₂ based DCV along with VOC concentrations monitoring practice should be taken into consideration through further research and experience with adaption and implementation from the ventilation control initial stage of the DCV process.

This paper investigates Chinese agricultural insurance agents willingness to offer (WTO) livestock insurance based on the variations of eight main attributes of livestock insurance.

This study implements discrete choice experiments (DCE) with actual insurance agents who design, sell and operate livestock insurance in China. The choice experiment of this study is based on the D-optimal approach, a six-block design, with 15 cards per block and two choices per card. The sample size was 211. Econometrics results are based on conditional and mixed logit models.

The authors find that the subsidy effect is enormous; a one level increase of subsidy leads to 3.166 times higher probability to offer. This subsidy effect is important as it confirms the endogenous structure between price and quantity in insurance offering, where subsidy does not only incentivize demand but also the supply. Another main factor of insurance investigated is the impact of different coverage types on agents' WTO. The authors find that agents prefer mortality insurance the most, followed by revenue insurance and profit insurance, while Index-Based Livestock Insurance (IBLI) is the least preferred to offer. Agents' knowledge about these newer types of insurance supports their WTO as well; thus, proper education is necessary to promote the more advanced types of livestock insurance.

A limitation is that in the presence of COVID 19, and administrative issues at the local level, the sample was not randomly drawn. Nonetheless, the authors believe that there is enough diversity across participants, insurers and provinces and have done sufficient robustness checks to support results and conclusions.

This study provides further validation for the DCE research method that could potentially be applied to different analyses: using choice experiments to study insurers and reveal their preferences, through combinations of various levels of core attributes for insurance products. The findings and contribution are critical to the reform and improvement of livestock insurance in China and for insurance markets more broadly. The authors find that insurers do not place equal weights or values on insurance product attributes and do not view types of insurance equally. In other words, while farmers may hold different preferences about the type of insurance they demand, the results suggest that insurers also hold preferences in the type of insurance they sell.

So far as the authors are aware, this is the first DCE designed around the supply of insurance products with the subjects being insurance agents, marketers and executives.

Entrepreneurship is ubiquitous, but it is not unequivocally a human force for social and economic good. Critical perspectives of the entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial success (and failure) are evolving in the scholarly literature. Dark side theory has emerged as a language for critiquing the dominant narratives of entrepreneurship portrayed in scholarship, education, planning, policy, and other forms of practice. This chapter draws from dark side entrepreneurship theory, Baumolian entrepreneurship, and exemplars of counterculture to craft language for an emerging theory of misfit entrepreneurship, which consists of misfit entrepreneurs and alternative enterprises. Alternative enterprises and misfit entrepreneurs are conceptualized, and literary examples (i.e., Robin Hood and Song Jiang) and modern-day examples (i.e., Hacker groups) are supplied. The unique actions and impacts of misfit entrepreneurs and alternative enterprises are offered for discussion. This new theory of misfit entrepreneurship leaves readers with exploratory questions that enhance critical perspectives and modern understandings of entrepreneurship today.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the benefits of logistics clustering, with the intent to explain their growth and popularity among private agents and policy makers during the last decade.

Because of limited knowledge about the benefits of logistics clustering a main objective of this paper is theory building. The authors employed a grounded theory approach and conducted 135 open and semi structured interviews with logistics executives, government officials, academics, and chambers of commerce representatives.

Study results revealed that, the agglomeration of logistics firms provides several key benefits to companies. Specifically, it was found that logistics clustering facilitates collaboration-related benefits, offering of value added services, career mobility for the logistics workforce within the cluster, and promotes job growth at multiple levels within the cluster. The authors offer a rich description of these benefits and the mechanisms that facilitate these outcomes.

This paper uses a qualitative approach. Further research using a quantitative approach to measure the magnitude of the impacts and benefits of logistics clusters would be desirable.

This paper identifies the benefits associated with logistics clustering and thus provides justification for public authorities and private agents to invest in this phenomenon.