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This research aims to examine the challenges of recruiting participatory action research (PAR) in managing innovation projects. An enhanced methodology based on PAR was developed to mitigate the challenges related to recruiting PAR in managing innovation projects. The proposed methodology was evaluated by comparing it to established methodologies/frameworks such as Scrum, Design Thinking (DT) and The Lean Startup (TLS). The evaluation aimed to determine the advantages and limitations of the proposed methodology in managing innovation projects.

The proposed enhanced methodology consists of eight steps, ranging from developing an understanding of the industry and business structure to learning and knowledge management. In addition, the enhanced methodology uses other techniques, such as Force field analysis and 12 boundary questions.

The research findings indicate that using the proposed methodology can improve the formalization of collaboration in PAR, enabling the organization to respond better to market changes. It helps define the project scope more clearly, encouraging innovation, addressing communication barriers and considering different worldviews and practical issues. Based on the findings, the proposed enhanced methodology could complement other methodologies/frameworks such as Scrum, DT and TLS.

The current research adds to the existing literature by identifying the challenges of recruiting PAR in managing innovation projects. A deductive reasoning process was utilized because there is no comprehensive research concerning the challenges of recruiting PAR in managing innovation projects. On the other hand, the PAR 4-phase cycle has been reviewed and enhanced to manage innovation projects.

The proposed methodology was used in a new product development project. The case study was done on one of the payment service provider companies that design, develop and deploy a digital product for marketing, installation, repair and maintenance of electronic funds transfer at point of sale devices.

No research has yet sought to identify the challenges of using PAR in innovation project management (IPM). Identifying the challenges associated with applying PAR in the IPM and providing an enhanced methodology to mitigate the challenges could fill a gap in IPM studies.

The present study is performed to identify the propagation mechanism of the ripple effect as well as examine the simultaneous impact of risks on supply chain (SC) performance.

A theoretical framework with many hypotheses regarding the relationships between SC risk types and performance is established. The data are collected from a large-scale survey supported by a project of the Japanese government to promote sustainable socioeconomic development for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, with the participation of 207 firms. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the hypotheses of the theoretical framework.

It is indicated that human-made risk causes operational risk, while natural risk causes both supply risk and operational risk. Furthermore, the impacts of human-made risk and natural risk on performance are amplified through operational risk.

This study is one of the first attempts that identifies the propagation mechanism of the ripple effect and examines the simultaneous impact of risks on performance in construction SCs.

Although many studies on risk management in construction SCs have been carried out, they mainly focus on risk identification or quantification of risk impact. It is observed that research on the ripple effect of disruptions has been very scarce.

Supply chain disruptions have a significant impact on overall project delivery. This study aims to identify the supply chain disruptive factors and develop a framework to mitigate the disruptive effects on the supply chain. Covid-19 and Brexit disruption and their longevity effects in the short, medium and long term on the supply chain are relied upon to develop the framework.

The study adopted a mixed-method approach with a sequential explanatory design. The main disruptive factors were identified through a literature review, and key factors were selected through a focus group exercise. A questionnaire survey was carried out to sample opinions from the practitioners; 41 questionnaires were received and analysed using the relative importance index (RII) method for ranking the factors and percentage frequency distribution to determine the longevity effects. Five follow-up semi-structured interviews were conducted over the telephone and later transcribed.

The results of Covid-19 disruption indicate that material cost increase ranked first (RII: 0.863), logistics cost increase and supply chain interaction ranked second and third, respectively. They have long-term, medium-term and short-term longevity effects, respectively. The lowest-rated factors were communication (RII: 0.561), staff shortages (RII: 0.629) and impact on relationships (RII: 0.639). The three most ranked Brexit disruptive factors are supply chain interaction (RII: 0.775), material cost increase (RII: 0.766) and logistic and haulage delay (RII: 0.717). The first two factors have long-term effects, and the logistics and haulage delays have a medium-term impact. The mitigating solutions suggested in the framework are collaborative working, stronger resilience to external forces and better transparency and communication that will lead to good relationships among the supply chain members.

The scope of the study was limited to the UK construction industry; however, the pandemic effect on supply chain can serve as critical learning curve in other developed and developing countries.

The study will help the government and construction firms to understand the focal areas of importance in solving the supply chain disruption problems based on the effects of Brexit and Covid-19. The research would be useful in ensuring the proactive involvement of the government and contracting firms in their preparedness for similar events in the future. The results could be interpreted for critical learning in other developed/developing countries.

Identifying and ranking the supply chain disruptive factors affecting the small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK construction industry has been the focal point of this study. The study also proposes a simple but effective framework comprising the highly ranked factors, their longevity effects and mitigating measures. This will help the SMEs manage future/similar external events affecting the supply chain.

This paper aims to propose an improved version of portfolio optimization model through the prediction of the future behavior of stock returns using a combined wavelet-based long short-term memory (LSTM).

First, data are gathered and divided into two parts, namely, “past data” and “real data.” In the second stage, the wavelet transform is proposed to decompose the stock closing price time series into a set of coefficients. The derived coefficients are taken as an input to the LSTM model to predict the stock closing price time series and the “future data” is created. In the third stage, the mean-variance portfolio optimization problem (MVPOP) has iteratively been run using the “past,” “future” and “real” data sets. The epsilon-constraint method is adapted to generate the Pareto front for all three runes of MVPOP.

The real daily stock closing price time series of six stocks from the FTSE 100 between January 1, 2000, and December 30, 2020, is used to check the applicability and efficacy of the proposed approach. The comparisons of “future,” “past” and “real” Pareto fronts showed that the “future” Pareto front is closer to the “real” Pareto front. This demonstrates the efficacy and applicability of proposed approach.

Most of the classic Markowitz-based portfolio optimization models used past information to estimate the associated parameters of the stocks. This study revealed that the prediction of the future behavior of stock returns using a combined wavelet-based LSTM improved the performance of the portfolio.

The purpose of this paper is to study the spillover effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on skilled–unskilled wage inequality in the Indian manufacturing industries.

The authors show theoretically with a model of spillover that if foreign firms (receiving FDI) have a negative spillover effect on domestic firms (not receiving FDI), then the level of capital and skilled workers in the domestic firms falls down. Consequently, the authors conduct an empirical analysis by using system GMM estimation technique on the firm-level data of the Indian organised manufacturing sector.

The authors show that wage inequality worsens when there is negative spillover effects like competition spillover or skill spillover effect of FDI in India.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to measure the various spillover effects of FDI on the wage inequality in the Indian manufacturing industries by using firm-level data.

This study aims to comparatively analyze the cut parts obtained as a result of cutting the Ni-based Inconel 625 alloy, which is widely used in the aerospace industry, with the wire electro-discharge machining (WEDM) and abrasive water jet machining (AWJM) methods in terms of macro- and microanalyses.

In this study, calipers, Mitutoyo SJ-210, Nikon SMZ 745 T, scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive X-ray were used to determine kerf, surface roughness and macro- and microanalyses.

Considering the applications in the turbine industry, it has been determined that the WEDM method is suitable to meet the standards for the machinability of Inconel 625 alloy. In contrast, the AWJM method does not meet the standards. Namely, while the kerf angle was formed because the hole entrance diameters of the holes obtained with AWJM were larger than the hole exit diameters, the equalization of the hole entry and exit dimensions, thanks to the perpendicularity and tension sensitivity of the wire electrode used in the holes drilled with WEDM ensured that the kerf angle was not formed.

It is known that the surface roughness of the parts used in the turbine industry is accepted at Ra = 0.8 µm. In this study, the average roughness value obtained from the successful drilling of Inconel 625 alloy with the WEDM method was 0.799 µm, and the kerf angle was obtained as zero. In the cuts made with the AWJM method, thermal effects such as debris, microcracks and melted materials were not observed; an average surface roughness of 2.293 µm and a kerf of 0.976° were obtained.

The construction industries at present are focusing on designing sustainable concrete with less carbon footprint. Considering this aspect, a Fibre-Reinforced Geopolymer Concrete (FGC) was developed with 8 and 10 molarities (M). At elevated temperatures, concrete experiences deterioration of its mechanical properties which is in some cases associated with spalling, leading to the building collapse.

In this study, six geopolymer-based mix proportions are prepared with crimped steel fibre (SF), polypropylene fibre (PF), basalt fibre (BF), a hybrid mixture consisting of (SF + PF), a hybrid mixture with (SF + BF), and a reference specimen (without fibres). After temperature exposure, ultrasonic pulse velocity, physical characteristics of damaged concrete, loss of compressive strength (CS), split tensile strength (TS), and flexural strength (FS) of concrete are assessed. A polynomial relationship is developed between residual strength properties of concrete, and it showed a good agreement.

The test results concluded that concrete with BF showed a lower loss in CS after 925 °C (i.e. 60 min of heating) temperature exposure. In the case of TS, and FS, the concrete with SF had lesser loss in strength. After 986 °C and 1029 °C exposure, concrete with the hybrid combination (SF + BF) showed lower strength deterioration in CS, TS, and FS as compared to concrete with PF and SF + PF. The rate of reduction in strength is similar to that of GC-BF in CS, GC-SF in TS and FS.

Performance evaluation under fire exposure is necessary for FGC. In this study, we provided the mechanical behaviour and physical properties of SF, PF, and BF-based geopolymer concrete exposed to high temperatures, which were evaluated according to ISO standards. In addition, micro-structural behaviour and linear polynomials are observed.

The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis on the economic relationship between trade openness and economic growth and to identify current developments, potential research area and future directions. The emphasis is on the identification of annual growth of publications, country-wise distribution, publication pattern, intellectual structure and cluster analysis of scientific production in this field.

This study used evaluative techniques, text mining approach and performance analysis to identify possible patterns and correlation and to measure the impact of authors/citations/scientific production. Further, this study used the bibliometric mapping to represent the structural features of scientific production. This study emphasized on identification of the research hotspots based on occurrence of indexed keywords, productive researchers and journals during 2000–2022. Further, cluster analysis is performed using VOS viewer to analyze the current dynamics and future direction of the association between trade openness and economic growth (Eck and Waltman, 2011). Also, co-citation analysis is used in this study to identify the relations among authors or journals or documents using citation data, whereas the bibliographic coupling/mapping is intended to analyze the citing documents. Similarly, co-word analysis is used to study the article keywords that are mainly used to assess the conceptual structure of a concerning subject.

Economic growth is a function of trade openness, and it is important to analyze the relationship between trade openness and economic growth. Trade openness tends to become more liberalized over time, to contribute more to economic growth. Empirical evidence suggested that there exists a strong association between trade openness and economic growth. Further, keyword timeline analysis illustrated that the linkage between trade openness and economic growth is current area of interest among researchers. As per bibliometric analysis, China, Pakistan and Malaysia are the three most prolific countries in the terms of published articles on this theme. However, the most influential publications based on h-index and citation on trade openness–economic growth relationship is produced by Turkey. Based on cluster analysis, this study suggests that researchers are currently working on trade openness–economic growth relationship with other variables such as FDI, financial development, labor force, environment degradation and carbon emission, while in future, researchers could work on variables such as technology and sustainable development.

There are some limitations of this study. The first limitation is the authors have used Scopus database, leaving the possibility for future research to use Web of Science, Google Scholar or other similar sources. The second limitation is that the authors have used search terms “trade openness “and “economic growth,” although research could be performed using synonyms or even relevant terms in other languages.

Cluster analysis suggested that researchers are currently working on trade openness–economic growth relationship with other variables such as FDI, financial development, labor force, environment degradation and carbon emission, while in future, researchers could work on variables such as technology and sustainable development. Therefore, this study identified the potential research area in this research domain.

To confirm the originality of this study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to combine bibliometric analysis and cluster analysis on trade openness–economic growth relationship. This study makes a comparison with phenomena/processes/events in contemporary economic and social reality in the field of trade openness and economic growth relationship.

Concrete, the second most used material in the world, surpassed only by water, relies on a vast amount of cement. The process of cement production emits substantial amounts of carbon dioxide (CO₂). Consequently, it is crucial to search for cement alternatives. Geopolymer concrete (GC) uses industrial by-product material instead of traditional cement, which not only reduces CO₂ emissions but also enhances concrete durability. On the other hand, the disposal of concrete waste in the landfills represents a significant environmental challenge, emphasising the urgent need for sustainable solutions. This study aimed to investigate waste concrete's best form and rate as the alternative aggregates in self-compacting and ambient-cured GC to preserve natural resources, reduce construction and demolition waste and decrease pertinent CO₂ emissions. The binding material employed in this research encompasses fly ash, slag, micro fly ash and anhydrous sodium metasilicate as an alkali activator. It also introduces the best treatment method to improve the recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) quality.

A total of25%, 50% and 100% of coarse aggregates are replaced with RCAs to cast self-compacting geopolymer concrete (SCGC) and assess the impact of RCA on the fresh, hardened and water absorption properties of the ambient-cured GC. Geopolymer slurry was used for coating RCAs and the authors examined the effect of one-day and seven-day cured coated RCA. The mechanical properties (compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and modulus of elasticity), rheological properties (slump flow, T500 and J-ring) and total water absorption of RCA-based SCGC were studied. The microstructural and chemical compositions of the concrete mixes were studied by the methods of energy dispersive X-Ray and scanning electron microscopy.

It is evident from the test observations that 100% replacement of natural aggregate with coated RCA using geopolymer slurry containing fly ash, slag, micro fly ash and anhydrous sodium metasilicate cured for one day before mixing enhances the concrete's quality and complies with the flowability requirements. Assessment is based on the fresh and hardened properties of the SCGC with various RCA contents and coating periods. The fresh properties of the mix with a seven-day curing time for coated RCA did not meet the requirements for self-compacting concrete, while this mix demonstrated better compressive strength (31.61 MPa) and modulus of elasticity (15.39 GPa) compared to 29.36 MPa and 9.8 GPa, respectively, for the mix with one-day cured coated RCA. However, incorporating one-day-cured coated RCA in SCGC demonstrated better splitting tensile strength (2.32 MPa) and water absorption (15.16%).

A potential limitation of this study on SCGC with coated RCAs is the focus on the short-term behaviour of this concrete. This limited time frame may not meet the long-term requirements for ensuring the sustained durability of the structures throughout their service life.

This paper highlights the treatment technique of coating RCA with geopolymer slurry for casting SCGC.

Auxetics metamaterials show high performance in their specific characteristics, while the absolute stiffness and strength are much weaker due to substantial porosity. This paper aims to propose a novel auxetic honeycomb structure manufactured using selective laser melting and study the enhanced mechanical performance when subjected to in-plane compression loading.

A novel composite structure was designed and fabricated on the basis of an arrowhead auxetic honeycomb and filled with polyurethane foam. The deformation mechanism and mechanical responses of the structure with different structural parameters were investigated experimentally and numerically. With the verified simulation models, the effects of parameters on compression strength and energy absorption characteristics were further discussed through parametric analysis.

A good agreement was achieved between the experimental and simulation results, showing an evidently enhanced compression strength and energy absorption capacity. The interaction between the auxetic honeycomb and foam reveals to exploit a reinforcement effect on the compression performance. The parametric analysis indicates that the composite with smaller included angel and higher foam density exhibits higher plateau stress and better specific energy absorption, while increasing strut thickness is undesirable for high energy absorption efficiency.

The results of this study served to demonstrate an enhanced mechanical performance for the foam filled auxetic honeycomb, which is expected to be exploited with applications in aerospace, automobile, civil engineering and protective devices. The findings of this study can provide numerical and experimental references for the design of structural parameters.