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The effect of using microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) as an additive in coating paint films for non-stick coatings was studied in this work. This paper aims to discuss the benefits of MCC blended in the coating paint film that consists of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and dammar.

PMMA and dammar mixed at a specific Wt.% ratio with xylene as its solvent. Two sets of mixtures were prepared, where one mixture contained MCC and another, without. The mixtures were applied to metal substrates as coating paint films. The performance of the non-stick coating paint film was observed through the adhesive test between adhesion layers on the coating paint film and also through the cross-hatch test for the adhesion of the non-stick coating paint film to the metal substrate. The results correlate with the surface roughness and glossiness tests.

The results showed that for the coating paint films, Sample B consisted of 80:20 Wt.% ratio of PMMA-dammar with an addition of 5 Wt.% MCC had an excellent performance as non-stick coating paint films. The MCC formed microparticles on the surface of the coating paint film sample and this causes the coating paint film samples with MCC to develop a rougher surface compared to the coating paint film without MCC. Sample B coating paint film had the highest average surface roughness (Ra) of 383 µm. The cross-hatch test showed the coating paint film with the addition of MCC had stronger adhesiveness on the substrate’s surface thus prevents the coating from peeling off from the surface.

The developed coating paint film in this study would be suitable for outdoor applications to prevent illegal advertisements and stickers.

MCC added to the coating paint film improves the surface performance as a non-stick coating.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of blockchain technology on firms’ operational efficiency in the context of China.

The authors use panel data for blockchain-based companies listed on stock exchanges in China (Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong) between 2014 and 2018. The operational efficiency of firms that deploy blockchain technology is evaluated using ordinary least squares and system generalized method of moments estimation.

Results suggest that companies’ current year performance exceeds the previous year performance because of blockchain deployment in firms’ operations. Firms with higher financial leverage and return on assets reap more benefits from blockchain. Larger and older firms benefit less from blockchain implementation. Stochastic frontier estimation suggests that, on average, firms attain a 57.76 per cent technical efficiency level, or, put differently, they operate 42.24 per cent below their maximum level of potential output.

Blockchain can benefit firms in terms of consensus, security and trust, spurring the evolution of a new form of organizational dynamics. This study explores the theory of transactional cost analysis under blockchain technology. In addition, this study hypothesizes and empirically demonstrates the significant impacts of blockchain technology on corporations’ operational efficiency, using audited, externally reported financial data. Industry professionals can reap benefits from this research by noticing the magnitude of changes in firms’ financial parameters attributable to blockchain adoption.

The influence of some N‐containing organic compounds such as tetraethanol‐β‐octadecenyl succinylamide (TOSA), morphonil‐β‐hexenyl succinylamide (MHSA), ammonium naphthenyltri‐n‐butyl chloride (ANBC) and 1‐(2,4,6‐trimethylphenyl)‐3‐diethylaminopropanol‐2 (TMAP) as inhibitors for the corrosion of carbonized steel in mineral acid (HCl and H₂SO₄) solutions with different concentrations has been studied by using gravimetrical, electrochemical and polarization corrosion test methods. Observes that all compounds having surface active properties behave as inhibitors of a functional active cathodic type and have an inhibition effect at the first stage of corrosion in both acids, but more effectively in H₂SO₄. Shows that inhibition effect increases with increase of temperature in 0.5N H₂SO₄ solution and decreases with increase of temperature for the higher concentrations of acidic solutions. Shows that TOSA and TMAP compared with MHSA and ANBC enchance protection properties of adsorption layer.

Recent years have witnessed a significant rise in Indian healthcare establishments (HCEs) which indicate that there is a constant need to improve the healthcare quality services through the adoption and implementation of TQM enablers. The purpose of this paper is to identify such enablers and then propose a ranking model for TQM implementation in Indian HCEs for improved performance.

The study identifies 20 TQM enablers through comprehensive literature survey and expert’s opinion, and classifies them into five main categories. The prominence of these enablers is established using a recently developed novel multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method, i.e. best-worst method (BWM). The importance of the various main category and sub-category enablers is decided on the basis of their weights which are determined by the BWM. In comparison to other MCDM methods, such as analytical hierarchy process, BWM requires relatively lesser comparison data and also provides consistent comparisons which results in both optimal and reliable weights of the enablers considered in this paper. Further, a sensitivity analysis is also carried out to ensure that the ranking (based on the optimal weights) of the various enablers is reliable and robust.

The results of this study reveal that out of five main category enablers, the “leadership-based enablers (E1)” and the “continuous improvement based enablers (E5)” are the most and the least important enablers, respectively. Similarly, among the 20 sub-category enablers, “quality leadership and role of physicians (E14)” and “performing regular survey of customer satisfaction and quality audit (E52)” are the most and the least dominating sub-category enablers, respectively.

This study does not explore the interrelationship between the various TQM enablers and also does not evaluate performance of the various HCEs based on the weights of the enablers.

The priority of the TQM enablers determined in this paper enables decision makers to understand their influence on successful implementation of the TQM principles and policies in HCEs leading to an overall improvement in the system’s performance.

This study identifies the various TQM enablers in HCEs and categorizes them into five main categories and ranks them using the BWM. The findings of this research are quite useful for management of the HCEs to properly understand the relative importance of these enablers so that managers can formulate an effective and efficient strategy for their easy and smooth implementation which is necessary for continuous improvement.

This paper aims to document the information transmission capacity of Shariah-compliant firms.

The vector auto-regression (VAR) model is used to test the information transmission capacity of Shariah-compliant firms in India during the period between 2010 and 2015.

The findings show that the returns of non-Shariah-compliant firms lead the returns of Shariah-compliant firms. It is argued that non-Shariah-compliant firms possess certain financial characteristics (higher leverage, higher accounts receivable and higher cash holdings) that make their information environment better than information environment of Shariah-compliant firms. The authors argue that superior information environment leads to timely incorporation of market-wide information, thereby causing the returns of non-Shariah-compliant firms to lead the returns of Shariah-compliant firms. It is also shown that the result holds in various market conditions.

It is believed that prior literature does not adequately address the information transmission capacity of the stock prices of Shariah-compliant firms. The gap is filled by documenting that stock prices of Shariah-compliant firms that are more informative than stock prices of non-Shariah-compliant firms.

The study focused on improving stiffness and premature failure, the weaknesses of the other retrofitting techniques and the retrofitted beam. A detailed study regarding the section properties and effective length of the angles was also carried out in this study.

In this article, a comprehensive study was carried out using a finite element method to investigate the behavior and performance of steel angles as a retrofitting technique subjected to flexure. A model was developed in ABAQUS and validated with the available experimental works. The model was then applied to examine the beams retrofitted with the steel angles.

From the investigation, the strengthening technique successfully enhanced the flexural capacity and stiffness of the beam. The stiffness of the retrofitted beam achieved more than 2.5 times of the controlled beam. The thickness and flange width of the angles improved both the load capacity and stiffness whereas, web width, having same flange width, improved the stiffness only. This study also illustrates that a premature failure can be minimized by maintaining L/S (length to span) ratio between 0.7 and 1.0 along with the welding to provide the connections between the angles and stirrups.

The developed model and the findings can be used for designing the retrofitting technique for the damaged as well as beams to be increased their capacity.

The research focused on the implication of a new technique of retrofitting, steel angles to improve the stiffness of beam, which is one of the major drawbacks of traditional techniques. Moreover, the research aimed to improve premature failure by bonding the retrofitting materials with the stirrups of the mother beam through welding.

This chapter investigates the effects of the corporate sector on the effectiveness of selected tax compliance instruments in the context of large corporate taxpayers belonging to the finance, manufacturing, and service sectors. Applying multilevel logit models based on real tax office and survey data from Bangladesh, it is found that the filing compliance of large corporate taxpayers is influenced by penalty, tax audit, and taxpayer services, while reporting compliance is influenced by tax audit, criminal prosecution, and tax simplification. In the case of payment compliance, two coercive instruments – penalty and tax audit – have been found to be statistically significant. However, when sector characteristics are considered, the extent of the influence of these instruments, and, in some cases, their statistical significance changes. This suggests that the effectiveness of tax compliance instruments, among other things, largely depends on the sector affiliation of corporate taxpayers. Overall, this study establishes that corporate sector plays an important role in the effectiveness of tax compliance instruments, with the caveat that findings might be different if working definitions of the study variables were measured differently.

This paper briefly introduces the concept of model selection, reviews recent development in the area of econometric analysis of model selection and addresses some of the crucial issues that are being faced by researchers in their routine research problems. The paper emphasizes on the importance of model selection, particularly the information criteria and penalty functions based model selection procedures which are useful for economists and finance researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate university students’ WeChat usage during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in relation to the mediating role of online self-disclosure on their quality of friendship and well-being. A model is proposed to explain how students’ interactions occur during the lockdown and the mediatory role which self-disclosure plays in influencing their socio-psychological markup.

The research model was tested empirically through a survey conducted online with 600 research participants, comprising of university students in China.

Results in structural equation modeling show that WeChat interaction significantly correlates with the quality of friendship, online self-disclosure but not significantly correlates with well-being, but an indirect relationship was found out in the mediation analysis. There is also a significant relationship between online self-disclosure, quality of friendship and well-being. Mediation analysis shows that online self-disclosure mediates the relationship between interactions on WeChat and quality of friendship; it also mediates the relationship between WeChat interaction and well-being. In all, the results achieved in this study will significantly help provide more insights in comprehending the nuances attached to some socio-psychological aspects of WeChat and how its usage affects people during the period of crisis.

Theoretically based investigation of WeChat usage among university students and its relationship with online self-disclosure, quality of friendship and well-being is still quite scarce, thereby underscoring the needs and significance of a theoretically based study in this regard. This study tested the credibility and validity of the proposed model in the context of the recent COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in China, which is one of the first in recent times.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the potential barriers of telecom services and develop relationships among them using interpretive structural modeling (ISM) in the Indian telecom sector. Further, this paper intends to find the driving and dependence powers of telecom barriers, using MICMAC (Matriced' Impacts Croise′s Multiplication Applique′ea′un Classement) analysis.

A group of experts from telecom sector and academia was consulted and the ISM was used to develop the contextual relationship among identified barriers of telecom services. The results of ISM are used as an input to MICMAC analysis, to further classify identified barriers based on their driving and dependence powers.

This paper has identified 11 barriers of telecom services from the literature review and opinion of experts, and a contextual relationship model was developed using the ISM technique. The paper further studied barriers based on their driving and dependence powers using MICMAC analysis that classifies them into four clusters. The results identified the barriers such as “lack of adequate investment in infrastructure expansion”, “interference of private operators”, “legal and regulatory issues”, “lack of maintenance culture” and “lack of financial resources and high cost” as strategic-level barriers that, if dealt with carefully, can help overcome the effect of other barriers preventing the effective performance of the Indian telecom sector.

Although, there are a number of barriers that affect the performance of telecom services, existing theories, models and frameworks have focused on identification of factors, their implementation and benefits, and thus, these theories lack a holistic view in understanding those barriers which hinder the performance of the telecom sector. Top-managers and policymakers need to be more concerned about these barriers so that the performance of the Indian telecom sector could be improved.

A thorough literature review has revealed that no such study has been undertaken that provides any clear understanding of the barriers of telecom services, linkages between them and hierarchical relationships among the barriers.