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The self-cleaning properties of nanostructured titanium dioxide facade coatings are useful in Singapore's tropical climate. However, its potential maintenance issues need to be determined right at the design stage. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the development of the design for maintainability tool which is a multicriteria design decision score sheet that evaluates the maintainability potential of nano-facade coating applications on high-rise façades with concrete and stonemasonry finishes and curtain walls.

Quantitative methods (expert and practitioner surveys) are conducted in this research study. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and sensitivity analysis were used to develop a robust Design for Maintainability tool.

Safety measures indicator received the highest weighted score by experts, while the maximizing performance, minimizing risk, minimizing negative environmental impact and minimizing consumption of matter and energy were the top ranking main criteria by both experts and practitioners. The top ranked design for maintainability sub-criteria identified by practitioners and experts were risk management, maintenance considerations, climatic conditions, safety measures, lifecycle cost and maintenance access, sun's path, rainfall intensity, biological growth measures and building age profile.

Most researches on the maintainability of nano-façade coatings uses experimentation to test the durability of nano-façade coatings, while this study focuses on design based empirical data such as establishing and ranking the list of design for maintainability criteria or indicators to minimize future defects and maintenance issues. The design for maintainability tool contributes to the maintainability of nano-façade coatings leading to maximizing its performance while minimizing cost, risks, resource consumption and negative environmental impact.

The authors analyse six actively traded VIX Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) including 1x long, −1x inverse and 2x leveraged products. The authors assess their impact on the VIX Futures index benchmark.

Long-run causal relations between daily price movements in ETPs and futures are established, and the impact of rebalancing activity of leveraged and inverse ETPs evidenced through causal relations in the last 30 min of daily trading.

High frequency lead lag relations are observed, demonstrating opportunities for arbitrage, although these tend to be short-lived and only material in times of market dislocation.

The causal relations between VXX and VIX Futures are well established with leads and lags generally found to be short-lived and arbitrage relations holding. The authors go further to capture 1x long, −1x inverse as well as 2x leveraged ETNs and the corresponding ETFs, to give a broad representation across the ETP market. The authors establish causal relations between inverse and leveraged products where causal relations are not yet documented.

This study proposes and validates an integrated theoretical model involving the theory of planned behavior (TPB), health belief model (HBM), personal norms and information privacy to understand determinants of acceptance and resistance to the use of mobile contact tracing app (MCTA) in a pandemic situation.

This study draws on online surveys of 194 research respondents and uses partial least squares structural equation modeling (PL-SEM) to test the proposed theoretical model.

The study establishes that a positive attitude towards MCTA is the most important predictor of individuals' willingness to use MCTA and resistance to use MCTA. Furthermore, barriers to taking action positively influence resistance to the use of MCTA. Personal norms negatively influence resistance to the use of MCTA. Information privacy showed a negative and positive influence on willingness to use MCTA and use the resistance of MCTA, respectively, but neither was statistically significant. The authors found no significant influence of perceived vulnerability, severity, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control on either acceptance or use resistance of MCTA.

The study has been one of the first in the literature to propose an integrated theoretical model in the investigation of the determinants of acceptance and resistance to the use of MCTA in a single study, thereby increasing the scientific understanding of the factors that can facilitate or inhibit individuals from engaging in the use of a protection technology during a pandemic situation.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-10-2021-0533

The purpose of this paper is to propose a design of online-merge-offline (OMO) classroom for open education with design principles related to practical issues of teachers’ teaching, students’ learning and schools’ management.

Three stages were covered: drafted an OMO classroom framework, built a sample classroom and explored end-users’ experience. First, authors searched for and reviewed previous studies and related cases to draft an OMO framework. Second, a classroom, consisted of wireless devices, cloud-based services, Internet of Things terminals, ergonomics furniture, and comprehensive data management and analysis services, was built in Shanghai Open University. Third, invited 11 students’, 18 teachers’ and 9 school managers’ perspectives were collected and analysed by surveys and interviews.

All student participants responded positively in terms of learning experience in the classroom. They not only engaged in classroom activities such, but also accessed needed learning materials and interacted with teachers and peers anytime anywhere via mobile devices. Similarly, most teachers (90 per cent) made positive responses because of flexibility of teaching strategies and learning activities and expressed willingness to use the classroom in the future (94.4 per cent). In addition, more than 78 per cent of managers positively commented on the design of classroom, interaction effects and effective management. Visualised data allowed them to timely monitor status of facilities, comprehensively understand users’ behaviour and issues, make necessary decision with scientific evidence.

The framework and classroom not only provide teachers, students, school managers and researcher with a better understanding of innovative open education, but also indicate the key role of objective-oriented and data-driven issues for further work.

To meet needs of teachers, students, managers and researchers in today’s open education, an OMO classroom was built in Shanghai Open University based on the proposed Objective-Oriented Pedagogy-Space-Technology (OPST) framework. The framework provides readers (especially teachers and administrators of open-education institutes, staff of information centres and ed-tech researchers) with a better understanding of innovative instruction and effective management, and the originally designed classroom can be a practical and illuminating example.