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As an emerging video comment feature, danmaku is gaining more traction and increasing user interaction, thereby altering user engagement. However, existing research seldom explores how the effectiveness of danmaku on user engagement varies over time. To address this research gap, this study proposes a comprehensive framework drawing on social presence theory and information overload theory. The framework aims to explain how the effectiveness of danmaku in increasing user engagement changes over shorter time intervals.

A research model was proposed and empirically tested using data collected from 1,019 movies via Bilibili.com, one of China’s most popular danmaku video platforms. A time-varying effect model (TVEM) was used to examine the proposed research model.

The study finds that the volume of danmaku and its valence exert a time-varying influence on user engagement. Notably, the study shows that danmaku volume plays a more substantial role in determining user engagement than danmaku valence.

This research offers theoretical insights into the dynamic impact of danmaku on user engagement. The innovative conceptualization and measurement of user engagement advance research on pseudo-synchronous communication engagement. Furthermore, this study offers practical guidelines for effectively managing danmaku comments on online video platforms.

Contemporary literature reveals that, to date, the poultry livestock sector has not received sufficient research attention. This particular industry suffers from unstructured supply chain practices, lack of awareness of the implications of the sustainability concept and failure to recycle poultry wastes. The current research thus attempts to develop an integrated supply chain model in the context of poultry industry in Bangladesh. The study considers both sustainability and supply chain issues in order to incorporate them in the poultry supply chain. By placing the forward and reverse supply chains in a single framework, existing problems can be resolved to gain economic, social and environmental benefits, which will be more sustainable than the present practices.

The theoretical underpinning of this research is ‘sustainability’ and the ‘supply chain processes’ in order to examine possible improvements in the poultry production process along with waste management. The research adopts the positivist paradigm and ‘design science’ methods with the support of system dynamics (SD) and the case study methods. Initially, a mental model is developed followed by the causal loop diagram based on in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and observation techniques. The causal model helps to understand the linkages between the associated variables for each issue. Finally, the causal loop diagram is transformed into a stock and flow (quantitative) model, which is a prerequisite for SD-based simulation modelling. A decision support system (DSS) is then developed to analyse the complex decision-making process along the supply chains.

The findings reveal that integration of the supply chain can bring economic, social and environmental sustainability along with a structured production process. It is also observed that the poultry industry can apply the model outcomes in the real-life practices with minor adjustments. This present research has both theoretical and practical implications. The proposed model’s unique characteristics in mitigating the existing problems are supported by the sustainability and supply chain theories. As for practical implications, the poultry industry in Bangladesh can follow the proposed supply chain structure (as par the research model) and test various policies via simulation prior to its application. Positive outcomes of the simulation study may provide enough confidence to implement the desired changes within the industry and their supply chain networks.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how China’s rapid growth and increasing resource dependence have changed its relationship with India and their respective defense strategies. In particular, we consider China's Belt and Road Initiative, India's “Act East” policy and the strategic and economic value of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea regions.

The authors find no econometric evidence of interactions between China and India’s military spending using a Richardson-Baumol arms race model. Likewise, in a cross-county panel data study of military spending, they find that China’s military spending has no independent effect on military spending in other countries. The authors also show that once wage costs and other sources of military inflation are accounted for, the pattern of real defense spending growth is much less intense than is suggested by nominal data. Nevertheless, they show that China has been undertaking intense military modernization with rapidly rising capital-labor ratios in its defense spending.

The authors find little evidence of a traditional arms race, but also show that China, and to a lesser extent India, have been realigning their military capabilities to these new security risks while maintaining overall military burden on the economy.

Econometric analysis is limited by data availability and is necessarily historical, whereas the security situation is very fluid and may change in the short term.

The paper identifies factors that are likely to influence China and India's attitudes to defense spending in the coming years.

The paper finds that there is not an arms race in the traditional sense but may be an arms race in terms of new technologies and military modernization.

This is a very much underexplored topic in economics. The authors take an interdisciplinary approach showing how economics tools can be used to help understand this important issue in international relations.

This study aims to design the rotor geometry of switched reluctance motor (SRM) in a completely flexible way. In the proposed method, there is no default geometry for the rotor. The initial geometry of the rotor can start from a circle or any other shape and depending on the required performance takes the final shape during the optimal design. In this way, the best performance, possible with geometric design, can be achieved.

The rotor boundary of a 4/2 SRM is defined by a few B-splines. Some control points are located around the rotor and changing their locations causes customized changes in the rotor boundary. Locations of these points are defined as design variables. A 2-D finite element analysis using MATLAB/PDE is applied to the SRM model and sensitivity analysis is used to optimization design by means of minimizing of objective function.

The proposed method has many more capabilities for matching different objective functions. For the suggested objective function, while the conventional rotor torque profile difference with the desired torque profile reaches 40%, this difference for B-spline rotor is about 17%. Experimental results from a prototype motor have a close agreement with analysis results.

The B-splines have been used to design machines and electromagnetic devices. However, this method is used for the first time in design of the whole rotor of a SRM.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the relationship between psychological empowerment (PE) and four variables: autonomy, openness, superior-subordinate relationship (SSR), and climate of innovation (CI). The paper also aims to establish the mediating effects of SSR and CI on PE.

The sample size for the study was 319 employees (197 managers and 122 team leaders) from ten leading information and communication technology companies of India. Structural equation modelling was used to test the model under study. Bootstrapping was applied to provide better estimation of the sample.

The exogenous variables under study were autonomy and openness. The mediating variables were SSR and CI. Results supported the model and indicated a significant direct effect between exogenous variables and PE. The role of SSR and CI as mediator was also ascertained.

The paper highlights that the managers of service organisations should take initiatives to provide a conducive climate for innovation. Having the right climate for innovation and support from superiors will make employees feel psychologically empowered.

Although as researchers and as practitioners the authors understand the importance of innovation climate and role of superior, few studies have sought to explain the mediating effects of SSR and CI.

The work presents a novel implementation of the generalized minimum residual (GMRES) solver in conjunction with the interpolating meshless local Petrov–Galerkin (MLPG) method to solve steady-state heat conduction in 2-D as well as in 3-D domains.

The restarted version of the GMRES solver (with and without preconditioner) is applied to solve an asymmetric system of equations, arising due to the interpolating MLPG formulation. Its performance is compared with the biconjugate gradient stabilized (BiCGSTAB) solver on the basis of computation time and convergence behaviour. Jacobi and successive over-relaxation (SOR) methods are used as the preconditioners in both the solvers.

The results show that the GMRES solver outperforms the BiCGSTAB solver in terms of smoothness of convergence behaviour, while performs slightly better than the BiCGSTAB method in terms of Central processing Unit (CPU) time.

MLPG formulation leads to a non-symmetric system of algebraic equations. Iterative methods such as GMRES and BiCGSTAB methods are required for its solution for large-scale problems. This work presents the use of GMRES solver with the MLPG method for the very first time.

The objective of this study is to investigate how country risk, different political actions from the government and bureaucratic behavior influence the activities in industry supply chains (SCs) in emerging markets. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of these external stakeholders’ elements to the demand-side and supply-side drivers and barriers for improving competitiveness of Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in the way of analyzing supply chain. Considering the phenomenon of recent change in the RMG business environment and the competitiveness issues this study uses the principles of stakeholder and resource dependence theory and aims to find out some factors which influence to make an efficient supply chain for improving competitiveness. The RMG industry of Bangladesh is the case application of this study. Following a positivist paradigm, this study adopts a two phase sequential mixed-method research design consisting of qualitative and quantitative approaches. A tentative research model is developed first based on extensive literature review. Qualitative field study is then carried out to fine tune the initial research model. Findings from the qualitative method are also used to develop measures and instruments for the next phase of quantitative method. A survey is carried out with sample of top and middle level executives of different garment companies of Dhaka city in Bangladesh and the collected quantitative data are analyzed by partial least square-based structural equation modeling. The findings support eight hypotheses. From the analysis the external stakeholders’ elements like bureaucratic behavior and country risk have significant influence to the barriers. From the internal stakeholders’ point of view the manufacturers’ and buyers’ drivers have significant influence on the competitiveness. Therefore, stakeholders need to take proper action to reduce the barriers and increase the drivers, as the drivers have positive influence to improve competitiveness.

This study has both theoretical and practical contributions. This study represents an important contribution to the theory by integrating two theoretical perceptions to identify factors of the RMG industry’s SC that affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. This research study contributes to the understanding of both external and internal stakeholders of national and international perspectives in the RMG (textile and clothing) business. It combines the insights of stakeholder and resource dependence theories along with the concept of the SC in improving effectiveness. In a practical sense, this study certainly contributes to the Bangladeshi RMG industry. In accordance with the desire of the RMG manufacturers, the research has shown that some influential constructs of the RMG industry’s SC affect the competitiveness of the RMG industry. The outcome of the study is useful for various stakeholders of the Bangladeshi RMG industry sector ranging from the government to various private organizations. The applications of this study are extendable through further adaptation in other industries and various geographic contexts.

The globalization of market and production activities with unequal distribution of market demand and resources has accelerated the demand for shipping services. Public concerns about environmental issues and the impacts of shipping service providers’ green shipping practices (GSPs) on the reputation and performance of multinational companies (MNCs) motivated the authors to test the impact of shipping companies’ GSPs on MNCs’ loyalty by considering timeliness and perceived value as moderators. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The data were collected from 141 MNCs and analyzed using the partial least squares technique.

The results show that company policy and procedure, shipping documentation, shipping equipment and shipping materials have significant effects on MNCs’ loyalty. Furthermore, timeliness positively moderates the impacts of shipping materials and shipping design on compliance, while perceived value positively moderates the effects of shipping equipment and shipping design for compliance on MNCs’ loyalty.

The results provide insight for shipping service providers on GSPs that may lead to MNCs’ loyalty by considering the roles of lead time and freight rate.

The results extend the literature by testing empirically the impacts of GSP of shipping companies on MNCs’ loyalty and also by investigating the moderating impacts of perceived value and timeliness.

The purpose of this paper is to differentiate the empowering influences of critical enablers of supply chain management (SCM) along with their interrelationships. These empowering enablers are significant, as they encourage productive execution to improve organizational performance and stakeholder's satisfaction.

From the literature review, incidence of a number of SCM enablers were found and they were subjected to critical scrutiny by a considerable number of experts engaged in SCM research and application to identify significant and applicable empowering enablers by grounded interactions. By using Impact Matrix Cross-Reference Multiplication Applied to a Classification analysis, the driving and dependence power were analyzed and the empowering enablers were ordered. This was pursued by building up a structural model of the empowering enablers using interpretive structure modeling, followed with measuring cause–effect relationship using decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL).

Among these identified enablers of SCM, operational performance, green SCM, employee empowerment and motivation and strategic association came out to be strategic enablers.

The findings may help the practicing professionals to develop clarity in understanding of these essential enablers and their contextual as well as cause–effect relationship in SCM. The practicing professionals need to focus on all these enablers during implementation of SCM for enhancing the organizational performance and stake holders' satisfaction.

This study is of practical utility in real-life implementation of SCM. The algorithm used in applying the multi-criteria decision-making approach is very user-friendly, and the application of DEMATEL is an innovation compared to previous research. Further, the findings can be used as a benchmark for improving the performance of SCM by considering the cause–effect relationship.