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Concerns about underage drinking have led to calls for a UK ban on alcohol sponsorship of sport. Such a ban would have severe financial consequences for many sports, so should not be implemented without thorough consideration of its likely effectiveness. This study investigating the alcohol consumption intentions of 14 and 15 year olds showed that boys who were involved in sport were more likely both to drink alcohol and to get drunk, with awareness of sponsorship enhancing the likelihood of these behaviours. Girls involved in sport, however, showed more negative attitudes than their peers towards alcohol. It is argued that boys involved in sport are socialised into a traditional masculine alcohol and sports culture, which is reinforced by sponsorship. Evidence from studies on tobacco sponsorship suggests that health-related marketing communications and the use of low-alcohol or non-alcohol brands for sports sponsorship could be more effective than a ban in changing the culture.

This paper aims to empirically examine the relationship between stock liquidity and asset pricing, using a new price impact ratio adjusted for free float as the approximation of liquidity. The free-float-adjusted ratio is free from size bias and encapsulates the impact of trading frequency. It is more comprehensive than alternative price impact ratios because it incorporates the shares available to the public for trading.

The authors are using univariate and multivariate econometric methods to test the significance of a newly created price impact ratio. The authors are using secondary data and asset pricing models in their analysis. The authors use a data sample of all US listed companies over the period of 1997–2017.

The authors provide evidence that the free-float-adjusted price impact ratio is superior to all price impact ratios used in the previous academic literature. The authors also discover that their findings are robust to the financial crises between 2007 and 2009.

This is the first comprehensive study on a newly established price impact ratio. The authors show the significance of this ratio and explain why it is superior to all previous price impact ratios, established in prior research.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of synthesis conditions on properties of TiO₂ nanoparticles to be used for photocatalysis and also producing TiO₂ using a low temperature method.

TiO₂ nanoparticles were synthesised via a sol‐gel method at low temperature and the effect of parameters such as: synthesis temperature, HNO₃ concentration, calcination temperature and synthesis time on properties of TiO₂ were studied. The effects of the physico‐chemical properties of TiO₂, its concentration and light intensity on photocatalytic properties of TiO₂ nanoparticles were investigated also.

The results showed that TiO₂ with Anatase phase were formed at 80‐100°C by using proper HNO₃ concentration, synthesis time and calcinations temperature. Calcinations programme and temperature and also the synthesis time affect the formation of TiO₂ crystalline phase (i.e. Rutile and Brookite), their surface area and crystallite size. To evaluate the photocatalytic properties of TiO₂ nanoparticles, fluorescein was used as a model molecule. Results showed that degradation of fluorescein could be described by pseudo‐first order kinetics. The effect of TiO₂ concentration and light intensity on photocatalytic activity showed that increasing concentration of TiO₂ and the light intensity would increase the degradation of fluorescein.

The method used in this work to prepare TiO₂ nanoparticles is an economic method for low temperature synthesis of TiO₂ nanoparticles with high photocatalytic activity, which could find numerous applications in coating technology.

Robots are used in assembly lines because of their higher flexibility and lower costs. The purpose of this paper is to develop mathematical models and simulated annealing algorithms to solve the robotic assembly line balancing (RALB-II) to minimize the cycle time.

Four mixed-integer linear programming models are developed and encoded in CPLEX solver to find optimal solutions for small-sized problem instances. Two simulated annealing algorithms, original simulated annealing algorithm and restarted simulated annealing (RSA) algorithm, are proposed to tackle large-sized problems. The restart mechanism in the RSA methodology replaces the incumbent temperature with a new temperature. In addition, the proposed methods use iterative mechanisms for updating cycle time and a new objective to select the solution with fewer critical workstations.

The comparative study among the tested algorithms and other methods adapted verifies the effectiveness of the proposed methods. The results obtained by these algorithms on the benchmark instances show that 23 new upper bounds out of 32 tested cases are achieved. The RSA algorithm ranks first among the algorithms in the number of updated upper bounds.

Four models are developed for RALBP-II and their performance is evaluated for the first time. An RSA algorithm is developed to solve RALBP-II, where the restart mechanism is developed to replace the incumbent temperature with a new temperature. The proposed methods also use iterative mechanisms and a new objective to select the solution with fewer critical workstations.

About 30 years have passed since the initial work in the field of polyurethane compounds was begun. This work has resulted in a wide choice of materials for use in surface coatings. The commercial development of aliphatic urethane prepolymers during the past few years has made possible the formulation of exterior coatings with good weathering properties.

Nanoparticles of TiO₂ and ZnO were chemically synthesized by different routes and were characterized using Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). These particles were applied to cotton fabric using 1-10 wt% acrylic binder and cured. The photocatalytic activity of the finished fabric was investigated and a comparison was drawn between the synthesized and commercially available TiO₂ (Degussa P25) sample. Experiments were carried out by exposing the coffee stained samples to solar light. The self-cleaning leading to stain discolouration was quantified from the residual concentration of stain to assess the photoactivity of TiO₂ and ZnO nanoparticles. An attempt was also made to study the effect of concentration of nanoparticles (0.5-1.0 wt% on weight of fabric (owf) and acrylic binder concentration (1, 2, 10 wt% owf) on the self cleaning action. TiO₂ particles with smaller particle size of <10 nm was able to show significantly better activity than the commercial sample. At the same time, finish with nano ZnO though showed a bit lower activity; the self cleaning effect was significant and similar to the commercial TiO₂.

Use of highly dye doped nano composite for organic pollutant degradation.

One-pot synthesis of titanium nano-particles were carried out in the presence of N719 dye.

High dye doping and exceptional dye degradation efficiency was observed. Within 25 min, 99 per cent of methylene blue was removed from waste water.

A novel one-pot synthesis of the composite was introduced.

In this Journal last year Melinda Phillips asked: ‘What is sheltered housing for, in the current environment?’ (Phillips, 1998 p25). In Effective Sheltered Housing, recently published in the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) Good Practice Guide series, we address this question and its implications for community care.

Studies show that building information modelling (BIM) technology can improve construction productivity regarding the design, construction and maintenance of a project life cycle in the 21st century. Revit has been identified as a frequently used tool for delivering BIM in the built environment. Studies about BIM technology via Revit are scarce in training middle-level workforce higher education institutions. Thus, this study aims to investigate the relevance of BIM technology and offer measures to promote digitalisation in Nigeria’s built environment polytechnic undergraduates via Revit.

Given the unexplored nature of training the middle-level workforce in Nigeria, 37 semi-structured virtual interviews were conducted across Nigeria, and saturation was achieved. The participants were knowledgeable about construction-related BIM. The researchers used a thematic analysis for the collected data and honed them with secondary sources.

Improved visualisation of design, effective and efficient work productivity, automatic design and quantification, improved database management and collaboration and data storage in the centrally coordinated model, among others, emerged as BIM’s benefits. BIM technology via Revit is challenging, especially in Nigeria’s polytechnic education curriculum. The 24 perceived issues were grouped into government/regulatory agencies-related, polytechnic management-related and polytechnic undergraduate students-related hindrances in Nigeria’s built environment.

This study is limited to BIM implications for Nigeria’s built environment polytechnic undergraduates.

This study contributes to the literature paucity in attempting to uncover perceived issues hindering the implementation of BIM technology via Revit in training Nigeria’s built environment polytechnic undergraduates via a qualitative approach.

Nigeria has one of the highest graduate unemployment rates in Africa, and there is no comprehensive policy framework to address it. Evidence shows that integrating craftsmanship into higher education academic programmes can enhance graduate employability. Therefore, there is a need to integrate it into the built environment programmes at institutions in Nigeria. The built environment craftmanship (BEC) in Nigeria's HEIs may have had some challenges, although studies about these challenges are scarce. In this regard, the study investigated BEC's perceived encumbrances and proffered measures to integrate craftsmanship skills in Nigerian HEIs built environment programmes.

The research adopted a qualitative research design using a virtual interview approach to solicit data from 34 experts across Nigeria. An exploratory approach was used to engage selected HEIs in Nigeria and thematic analysis was adopted to analyse the collected data, and saturation was achieved.

The study findings indicate that integrating BEC in built environment programmes will enhance graduate employment. However, possible encumbrances like institutional frameworks, funding, infrastructural development and pedagogical and social-cultural issues were found to be affecting BEC's integration into built environment programmes at higher education in Nigeria.

Future studies should explore more detailed large-scale investigations about integrating craftsmanship into higher education institution (HEI) programmes.

Given the dearth of pragmatic studies on the built environment graduates' unemployment in Nigeria, this research contributes to the academic community debates on reducing graduates' unemployment via BEC in HEIs.