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This paper aims to expand the theory of situated learning with the application of technology and provides a technology-based situated learning model with suggestions for doctoral program design.

A literature review of the relevant topics was conducted. Themes emerged by the systematic review of the relevant studies and theoretical framework.

Studies reveal that part-time doctoral students often feel unsupported, dissatisfied and disconnected with their program. Many of these issues may be mitigated by faculty and peer mentoring, and various forms of asynchronous communication through a situated learning framework with interactive communication technologies.

Research of doctoral education should pay more attention to part-time doctoral students and investigate the quality of their programs given their individual needs, and how their progression and completion can be achieved through the innovative approaches proposed in this study.

Program designers may use a technology-based situated learning approach in program design to fulfill part-time doctoral students’ needs toward enhancing mentorship, students’ academic self-efficacy and career preparation. Further support is offered through a virtual community of practice.

This paper draws researchers’ attention to program design and part-time doctoral students’ retention and completion of a doctoral program.

This study provides an innovative synergetic model that helps administrators and program designers to design doctoral programs and motivates researchers to conduct research regarding part-time doctoral students.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and identify Chinese consumers’ behavior and preference characters toward table grapes, especially to explore the variance of consumption preference in recent five years.

Two representative China-wide questionnaire surveys were conducted by face-to-face and online questionnaire survey, respectively, in 2009 and 2014. Comparative study was adopted to dig the changes of consumers’ preferences and habits. ANOVA was adopted to explore the statistically difference among consumers’ behavior and preferences.

The results indicate that Chinese consumers are rational-motivation-driven grape consumers, they prefer to sweet taste, seedless and medium priced grapes. Safety and quality characters (clean appearance, freshness and taste) were ranked as the most important grape attributes. As a whole, it was found that consumers are more quality-focussed and safety-conscious five years later, so some variances was showed in their purchase habits and preferences, such as the choice of purchase place, attitude to special grapes and willingness to pay to safe and genetically modified grapes.

This research not only indicates some stable preferences of Chinese consumers toward table grape, but also finds out some significant changes in consumers’ behavior before and after five years based on a comparative study in 2009 and 2014.

This paper aims to propose a design method for attenuating stress waves pressure using soft matrix embedded with particles.

Based on the phononic crystal theory, the particle composed of hard core and soft coating can form a spring oscillator structure. When the frequency of the wave is close to the resonance frequency of the spring oscillator, it can cause the resonance of the particle and absorb a lot of energy. In this paper, the resonant phononic crystal with three phases, namely, matrix, particle core and coating, is computationally designed to effectively mitigate the stress wave with aperiodic waveform.

The relationship between the center frequency and width of the bandgap and the geometric and physical parameters of particle core are discussed in detail, and the trend of influence is analyzed and explained by a spring oscillator model. Increasing the radius of hard core could effectively enhance the bandgap width, thus enhancing the effect of stress wave attenuation. In addition, it is found that when the wave is in the bandgap, adding viscosity into the matrix will not further enhance the stress attenuation effect, but will make the stress attenuation effect of the material worse because of the competition between viscous dissipation mechanism and resonance mechanism.

This study will provide a reference for the design of stress wave protection materials with general stress waves.

This study proposes a design method for attenuating stress waves pressure using soft matrix embedded with particles.

To solve several “inorganic” problems generated recently by community development in China (e.g., waste of social resources, environmental pollution, and decreased economic energy efficiency), focus should be on improving the community traffic organic micro-circulation system. As a historic and mixed functional urban community, the micro-circulation system of Xi'an Railway Bureau exhibits representativeness and complexity. Based on existing research results and years of follow-up investigations, which concentrate on circulation patterns and inherent organic development requirements of the community traffic micro-circulation system, this paper builds an evaluation index system. Value function method was used to implement the index factor quantitative analysis and comprehensive evaluation. Several related strategies were proposed to improve the organic micro-circulation system of the community, which is based on the analysis of the evaluation, in order to adopt the trend in both increasing urban development and stock updating. The analysis results demonstrate that it is necessary to present guiding renewal strategies on community land, road, people, and the environment for those mixed functional communities which use progressive renewed mode. It compensates the problems of overly strong export-oriented system, which is caused by the lack of organic traffic micro-circulation, so as to achieve the selective opening of community external. The study mainly highlights the significance of the systematic analysis of evaluation in influencing strategies on community renewal.

The case study intends to depict the career plateau of an old committed and loyal employee of an organization. The deliberation on the case enables participants to understand the vitality of career planning for employees and organizations. The case helps to develop reflections on workplace ostracism, to arrive at the solutions to address the issues of career planning, to value the experience of the employee and give him a sense of satisfaction. Overall, to understand the importance of career planning for applying HR and OB concepts at the workplace.

It is an account of a real scenario in the automation industry, with slight modifications to hide the identity. The essence of the case study is when a loyal employee is branded as a “dignified clerk” and gets a feeling of ostracism. The employees’ makes the organization, terminations because of outdated skills shall be a debatable topic. However, such practices have a profound impact on the other employees who stays in the organization and affect their productivity level. Career adaptability helps to overcome termination issues; adaptability is a psychological process of assisting an individual in coping with the challenges of automation technologies (Zhang Wenguang et al., 2019), it is a process of showing concerns, providing controls, solving curiosity and developing confidence during the transition process. When technologies are implemented the employer needs to address specific challenges access to technology, access to information, provide required skills and competencies to use technology, integrate people, these challenges support the successful implementation of technology (Kettunen and Sampson Jr., 2019). Career planning is a joint effort of employee and employer that sets the development target and path; the process sets demands for both the parties; it places an irreplaceable role for individual growth and corporate strategy (Zhai Meng et al., 2018). The Findings are the frequent review of job analysis and career planning that are critical for the organization's success; if done inappropriately, it would make one's roles obsolete. The critical implications of this case are the essence of career planning and the upskilling of employees. The case is useful for teaching job analysis, career planning concepts. The story is original and explains the transition of an automation industry from labor to capital intensive. The transition to automation makes a loyal employee feel ostracized due to a lack of skill sets.

Post graduate students studying in business and management and working professional of human resources can use this case.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 6: Human resource management.

The development of low-carbon production is impeded by the investment costs of green technology research and development (R&D) and carbon emission reduction while facing the uncertain risk of emission reduction investment. With the government's carbon emission constraints, green manufacturers implement the advance selling strategy to increase both profit and reduction level. However, few studies consider the consumer's green preference and emission constraints in advance selling market and spot market independently. The authors' paper investigates the optimal strategies of advance selling pricing and reduction effort for green manufacturers to maximize profits.

The authors' paper designs a stochastic model and investigates the manufacturer's optimal strategies of advance selling price and emission reduction efforts by categorizing different purchasing periods of low-carbon consumers. With the challenges of uncertain demand and government's emission constraints, the authors' develop the non-linear optimization model to investigate the manufacturer's profit-oriented decisions.

The results show the government's carbon constraints cannot influence the manufacturer's profit, but the consumer's low-carbon preference in the advance selling period can. Interestingly, the manufacturer will make fewer reduction efforts even when the consumers have stronger environmental awareness. In addition, the increasing consumer price sensitivity will exacerbate the profit loss from mandatory emissions reduction. Overall, for achieving a win–win situation between emission reduction and profit growth, green manufacturers should not only consider the sales strategies, market demand, and government constraints in a low-carbon market, but also pay attention to the uncertainty of green technology innovation.

With the consideration of the government's carbon emission constraints, uncertain demand, and low-carbon consumer's preferences, the authors' study innovatively incorporates the joint impacts of advance selling strategy and emission reduction effort strategy and then differentiates between two cases that pertain to the diverse carbon emission regulations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore an innovative teaching design to teach accounting management that aims to foster students’ technical and soft skills. The effectiveness of this new teaching design addresses current concerns for universities preparing students for the future.

The paper deploys the qualitative research methodology and applies multiple methods to gather data in a case study. The researchers collected data through pre- and post-surveys of individual students, three half-day observations on the five project teams and a one-hour long semi-structured interview with a focus group.

Five themes emerged in the research to support the effectiveness of the new teaching design. The study also showed that students’ abilities in self-directed learning (SDL) link to their learning experiences. When students were more capable of initiating learning, such ability enriched their practices of soft skills in the team setting.

This one-shot study had a small group of homogeneous participants and had no baseline comparison to identify the increment of students’ soft skills.

The findings provide valuable insights into the course design and implementation of the teaching approach for the future. The paper suggests that fostering students’ SDL will increase the effectiveness of soft skills development.

This empirical research extends current knowledge of teaching soft skills and calls for action on the development of students’ SDL abilities.

This paper aims to obtain the film thickness, friction torque and pumping rate and analyze the effects of roughness and surface micro-dimple texture (circular, square and equilateral triangle) on the performance of the oil seal.

On the basis of elastohydrodynamic lubrication and the pumping mechanism of rotating shaft seal, this paper establishes a numerical model of hybrid lubrication of oil seal in sealing area. The model is coupled with fluid mechanics, rough peak contact mechanics and deformation analysis.

The results show that surface texture significantly improves the lubrication properties of the oil seal. The oil seal with the square texture has the largest oil film thickness, while the equilateral triangle texture has a better effect on the pumping rate.

To get closer to the real working environment of the oil seal, based on the surface roughness, this paper studies the effect of the texture shapes applied to the oil seal lip surface on the performance of the oil seal. The critical roughness and rotational speed values with zero pumping rate are obtained, which provides a theoretical basis for the correct selection of oil seals.

This paper aims to study the wear properties of electron beam melted Ti6Al4V (EBM-Ti6Al4V) in simulated body fluids for orthopedic implant biomedical applications compared with wrought Ti6Al4V (Wr-Ti6Al4V).

Wear properties of EBM-Ti6Al4V compared with Wr-Ti6Al4V against ZrO₂ and Al₂O₃ have been investigated under dry friction and the 25 Wt.% newborn calf serum (NCS) lubricated condition using a ball-on-disc apparatus reciprocating motion. The microstructure, composition and hardness of the samples were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), x-ray diffraction and a hardness tester, respectively. The contact angles with 25 Wt.% NCS were measured by a contact angle apparatus. The wear parameters, wear 2D and 3D morphology were obtained using a 3D white light interferometer and SEM.

EBM-Ti6Al4V yields a higher contact angle than the Wr-Ti6Al4V with the 25 Wt.% NCS. EBM-Ti6Al4V couplings exhibit lower coefficients of friction compared with the Wr-Ti6Al4V couplings under both conditions. There is only a slight difference in the wear resistance between the Wr-Ti6Al4V and EBM-Ti6Al4V alloys. Both Wr-Ti6Al4V and EBM-Ti6Al4V suffer from similar friction and wear mechanisms, i.e. adhesive and abrasive wear in dry friction, while abrasive wear under the NCS condition. The wear depth and wear volume of the ZrO₂ couplings are lower than those of the Al₂O₃ couplings under both conditions.

This paper helps to establish baseline bio-tribological data of additively manufactured Ti6Al4V by electron beam melting in simulated body fluids for orthopedic applications, which will promote the application of additive manufacturing in producing the orthopedic implant.

Focusing on the supply side of peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation service sector, this study identifies the emerging types of micro-enterprise operators in the growing Chinese market, and investigate their respective operational risks and coping strategies.

A qualitative study was adopted to explore the micro-enterprise in peer-to-peer accommodation in China. Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the operators' behaviors in the service sector.

Based on the types of property ownership and forms of interaction, four groups of operators were identified, i.e. hospitable sharers, remote sharers, roommates and butlers. This study uncovers their operational risk factors (safety, cost, legal and social, psychological) and respective coping strategies.

Most prior studies on P2P accommodation sector are conducted from the demand side about customer behaviors. This study not only enhances the understanding of the hosts in the sharing economy by developing a novel typology of operators, but also provides insights into the operational behaviors on an individual operator perspective.