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This study aims to determine the contribution effect of learning experience on the financial well-being of government retirees in North-Central Nigeria. Special emphasis was placed on the contribution effect of the elements of the learning experience.

This study used correlational and cross-sectional research designs based on a questionnaire survey of 376 retirees drawn from North-Central Nigeria. A confirmatory factor analysis was used to identify the factors of learning experience using the Analysis of Moments of Structures (AMOS) software, version 23. The contributory effect of the confirmed sub-domains of learning experience on the financial well-being of retirees was established using hierarchical regression.

Confirmatory factor analysis results confirmed that financial knowledge, financial planning and financial self-efficacy are factors of learning experience. Although the sub-domains of the learning experience are significant predictors of financial well-being, financial knowledge has a significant effect on financial well-being, followed by financial planning and financial self-efficacy. The sub-domains of learning experience collectively explain about 46.5% of the variance in the financial well-being of retirees in North-Central Nigeria.

Unlike most other documentation on financial well-being, which has focused on the general effect of the learning experience as a global variable, this study explores the role played by the three dimensions of learning experience and methodologically isolates the contribution of each dimension with respect to retirees in developing countries. As such, we uncover the reality that all the sub-domains of the learning experience are significant for the financial well-being of retirees in a developing country context, though in varying effects.

The health care industry has been influenced by changes in the market structure and new technological developments during the recent decades. With the new technological developments in medicine, some less complex care moved out of the hospitals that led to decrease in demand for inpatient services. This recent change in hospital care created excess capacity in hospital markets, and therefore hospitals started to explore potential financial gains through horizontal consolidations. This has resulted in a wave of mergers in 1990s, which transformed the US, Canadian and European hospital markets. This, in turn, created concerns among policy makers and researchers in terms of its welfare implications.

This paper aims to provide an introductory overview and selected annotated bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy across all library types.

It introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2014.

It provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the international agenda regarding the discussion on the sustainable development. It asserts the idea that economic growth is a process that embraces the cultural values, human capability, and transnational policies aimed to guide and support the efforts of nations to achieve social security. The paper places the issues of contemporary heritage science theory on the recent debate concerning the cultural heritage preservation based on scientific, legal, social, and management issues.

The paper selected mainly reports, declarations, resolutions, and recommendations concerning this theme. The framework comprehends almost 30 years: from the first project titled “World Decade of Cultural Development” (1988) to the last conference in Tanzania (2016). Some questions defined the methodological approach of this investigation: how can we generate sustainability in terms of the use, maintenance, and conservation of cultural heritage? How can we adjust the local, national, and international guidelines to a common logic without letting go of the community autonomy?

The paper provides a historical context about the enlargement of the debate concerning the international policies for sustainable development from cultural empowerment. It suggests that UNESCO, WHC, and ICCROM have been promoting positive projects in vulnerable regions.

Eurocentric models of development and occidental concept of culture exposure in the selected documents should be reviewed mainly in decolonization areas.

The article offers a distinct perspective for the system of international evaluation of cultural heritage, and a different focus of reflection for the academic community.

The study promotes a reflection regarding the international agenda for sustainable development over the last 30 years.

Service robots are now an integral part of people's living and working environment, making service robots one of the hot topics for service researchers today. Against that background, the paper reviews the recent service robot literature following a Theory-Context-Characteristics-Methodology (TCCM) approach to capture the state of art of the field. In addition, building on qualitative input from researchers who are active in this field, the authors highlight where opportunities for further development and growth lie.

The paper identifies and analyzes 88 manuscripts (featuring 173 individual studies) published in academic journals featured on the SERVSIG literature alert. In addition, qualitative input gathered from 79 researchers who are active in the service field and doing research on service robots is infused throughout the manuscript.

The key research foci of the service robot literature to date include comparing service robots with humans, the role of service robots' look and feel, consumer attitudes toward service robots and the role of service robot conversational skills and behaviors. From a TCCM view, the authors discern dominant theories (anthropomorphism theory), contexts (retail/healthcare, USA samples, Business-to-Consumer (B2C) settings and customer focused), study characteristics (robot types: chatbots, not embodied and text/voice-based; outcome focus: customer intentions) and methodologies (experimental, picture-based scenarios).

The current paper is the first to analyze the service robot literature from a TCCM perspective. Doing so, the study gives (1) a comprehensive picture of the field to date and (2) highlights key pathways to inspire future work.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an increasingly important issue for service brands in fast fashion retailing, as consumers' negative impressions about retailers' CSR activities influence brand experience. Consumers' impressions of CSR efforts arise based on agendas communicated through many channels from different sources. The paper unravels the ‘wrinkles’, i.e. possible mismatches in CSR communication around service brands by studying differences between the three main sources of fast fashion brand-related CSR agendas: Autonomous company communication, news media and social media postings by consumers.

The authors use structural topic modeling (STM) to analyze a corpus of texts focusing on the CSR efforts of three major fast fashion service brands over three years. The texts included 89 items of company communication (CSR reports and press releases), 5,351 news media articles about the brands' CSR efforts and 57,377 consumer generated tweets about the brands.

The STM analysis extracted 26 different CRS-related topics from the texts. Results showed differences in how much the three sources emphasized topics. The brands' own communication puts emphasis on environmental responsibility. News media tended to report on economic issues, treatment of employees and specific CSR-related events. Twitter showed more activity in discussing incident-based and emotionally charged topics.

The results feed into the ongoing discussion about how companies' CSR communication relates to communication in the press and among consumers. The authors highlight themes in the individual topics that are emphasized by the three sources, and discuss how CSR themes emerge in the overall transformative agenda.

The paper highlights how fast fashion service brands can identify and understand different CSR agendas arising around their brand. Insight into such agendas can be used to tailor the brands' communication strategies.

The paper contributes to the understanding of the factors behind fashion service brands' CSR reputation, highlighting how the three main sources of CSR reputation (company reports, news and social media) emphasize different types of agendas.

Additive manufacturing has disadvantages, such as the maximum part size being limited by the machine’s working volume. Therefore, if a part more considerable than the working volume is required, the part is produced in parts and joined together. Among the many methods of joining thermoplastic parts, adhesives and mechanical interlocking are considered. This study aims to characterize and optimize mechanically stressed adhesive joints combined with female and male mechanical interlocking on acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) specimens made with fused filament fabrication (FFF) so that the joint strength is as close as possible to the strength of the base material.

This study characterized the subject’s state of the art to justify the decisions regarding the experimental design planned in this research. Subsequently, this study designed, executed and analyzed the experiment using a statistical analysis of variance. The output variables were yield strength and tensile strength. The input variables were two different cyanoacrylate adhesives, two different types of mechanical interlock (truncated pyramid and cylindrical pin) and the dimensions of each type of mechanical interlock. This study used simple and factorial experiments to select the best adhesive and interlocking to be optimized using the response surface and the steep ascent method.

The two adhesives have no statistical difference, but they show different data dispersion. The design or yield stress was a determining factor for selecting the optimal specimen, with cylindrical geometry exhibiting higher resistance at initial failure. Geometry type is crucial due to the presence of stress concentrators. The cylindrical geometry with fewer stress concentrators demonstrated better tensile strength. Ultimately, the specimen with a mechanically reinforced joint featuring a cylindrical pin of radius 5.45 mm and height of 4.6 mm exhibited the maximum tensile and yield strength.

Previous research suggests that a research opportunity is the combination of bonding methods in FFF or fused deposition modeling, which is not a frequent topic, and this research to enrich that topic combines the adhesive with mechanically interlocked joints and studies it experimentally for FFF materials, to provide unpublished information of the performance of the adhesive joint with mechanical interlocking, to designers and manufacturers of this technology.