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The purpose of this paper is to understand how the 2015 Tianjin Port explosion – which resulted in more than 100 deaths – changed local residents’ acceptance, perceived benefit and risk and trust related to hazardous goods warehouses and chemical plants (HGWCPs) and how it influenced local residents’ decisions about accepting HGWCPs through the lens of the trust heuristic.

A survey was conducted eight months after the disaster. Respondents were classified into two groups: involved (with direct experience of the explosion) and uninvolved (without direct experience). Their trust in those responsible for HGWCPs, and perceived benefit, perceived risk and acceptance associated with HGWCPs were surveyed.

The disaster reduced public acceptance of HGWCPs and trust and increased perceived risk. Trust retained an indirect effect on acceptance through perceived benefit in both groups and a direct effect on acceptance in the involved group. Trust partly accounted for the reduction in acceptance of HGWCPs.

Results remind the local government of the medium-term psychological consequences of the Tianjin Port explosion (e.g. increased perceived risk and reduced trust) and suggest the importance of building trust in mitigating risk perceptions of relevant technological hazards.

It represents a valuable addition to the literature on the medium-term psychological consequences of technological disasters and on the public’s decision making about hazardous technologies.

This paper examines how the level of low-carbon awareness (LCA) affects the remanufacturing strategy in a supply chain with an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and an independent remanufacturer (IR) competing with each other.

Game theory and operations optimization.

The studies analytically characterize the threshold levels of the LCA in response to which the OEM and the IR will change their remanufacturing strategies from no remanufacturing to partial remanufacturing and then to full remanufacturing. In addition, the studies reveal that as compared with the OEM, the IR has more flexibility in terms of the market entry to remanufacturing with the level of LCA increasing. With the extended studies, it is exhibited that the above findings are robust to a good extent.

It can provide decision support for remanufacturing enterprises.

Based on the base force element method, a two-dimensional random circle aggregate model with Monte Carlo principle is proposed to carry out research on softening curve in meso-level.

The meso-level structure of recycled concrete is considered as the five-phase materials composed of aggregate, old interfacial transition zone, old mortar, new interfacial transition zone and new mortar. A multi-polyline damage model is adopted to describe the nonlinear mechanical behavior of recycled concrete material. The destruction state of the element is determined by the first strength theory. The research studies on damage process of recycled concrete under the loading conditions of uniaxial tension were established using the base force element method.

The softening curves of recycled concrete are obtained, which are in good agreement with experiment results. Simulation results show that the macroscopic mechanical properties and failure mechanism can analyze more reasonably from mesoscopic structure. Besides that, it can be investigated from the numerical results of the size effect in recycled concrete through the mesoscopic heterogeneity. Furthermore, the form of aggregate distribution has influence on the crack path but little effect on the tensile strength of recycled concrete.

The results show that the base force element method has been successfully applied to the study of softening curve of recycled concrete under uniaxial tension.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceived challenges that Chinese vocational college educators face in developing and delivering constructivist active and experiential entrepreneurship education.

Qualitative data were collected from 24 focus groups of educators who had been tasked with embedding constructivist entrepreneurship education into their teaching and curriculum, at four different vocational colleges situated in four different provinces in China. The data were coded and analysed for emerging themes using a process of bottom-up thematic analysis.

A range of concerns were identified from the focus groups and these could be divided into five main challenges, which were the role of the educator in the constructivist learning process and their ability to control the process; the educators perceived student reaction to the process and their engagement with it; the time and technology required to deliver the process; the link between the learning and industry; and the educators’ perception of the requirements to meet internal expectations.

This research explores the educators’ perceptions of the challenges they face in developing and delivering active and experiential constructivist entrepreneurship education. Whilst these concerns may impact how the educators’ approach the task, these concerns are only perceived, as the educators’ have not yet implemented the introduction of constructivist entrepreneurship education when other challenges may become evident.

Encouragement by the Chinese Government to develop and deliver constructivist active and experiential entrepreneurship education has resulted in a number of tensions and challenges. Entrepreneurship education in China is still relatively young and under researched and this research contributes to the literature by exploring the challenges that educators face in developing and delivering constructivist entrepreneurship education in Chinese vocational colleges.

This paper aims to investigate four successful Chinese ICT enterprises to determine what initiated their business-model innovations and the process they went through by exploring how they adapted and innovatively renewed four key elements of their business models.

This investigative and exploratory research adopted a multiple-case-study design exploring four purposively selected successful Chinese ICT enterprises which had all engaged in significant business model innovation since their inception. Data for the case studies were collected through in-depth interviews with the founders and analyses of the companies’ history to gain a detailed account of the evolution of the firms’ business models since their formation.

The research identified three key initiating factors to business model innovation in the firms studied, namely, constant and rapid product iteration, along with an emergent strategy, leading to business model innovations to take full advantage of the firms’ competitive advantages; a reaction to threats and environmental changes; and an opportunistic behaviour to extend the business model to new markets. The research found that networks were a key factor in the process, including the customer base, financial investors and network collaborators.

This research is limited to four successful Chinese ICT firms; this in-depth approach means the information may have only limited transferability but provides depth on a burgeoning Chinese sector.

This research addresses the call for more research and a greater understanding of what initiates business model innovation and the process firms go through to develop the key elements of their business models by looking at a purposively selected sample of successful Chinese enterprises in a fast-moving and technologically driven market.

The poor leadership style is a key obstacle to the effective implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies. To successfully apply the Industry 4.0 technologies, which can enhance the sustainability of firms, senior management needs to be inspiring and transformational. On the other hand, numerous factors can hinder the Industry 4.0 transition and “Circular Supply Chain (CSC)” transformation. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to evaluate the related barriers of CSCs in the era of Industry 4.0 transition.

The current study developed an innovative decision-making approach with the help of the “Combined Compromise Solution (CoCoSo)” method and “Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC)” method on the “q-Rung Orthopair Fuzzy Sets (q-ROFSs).” CRITIC in this combined method was used to predict the importance or weighting degrees of the CSCs barriers in the age of Industry 4.0 transition.

The results of this study found that the absence of knowledge about the Industry 4.0 technologies and circular approaches was the first barrier followed by the problems associated with data security in relationship management in circular flows, the deficiency of knowledge regarding the data management among stakeholders and the lack of awareness about the potential benefits of autonomous systems in labor-oriented “End-of-Life (EOL)” activities for CSCs in the era of Industry 4.0 transition.

A limitation may be that despite the generalizability of the proposed framework, the results may differ when it is implemented in different sectors. By emphasizing the obstacles to sustainable operations of supply chains (SCs) in the context of circular economy (CE) and Industry 4.0, researchers working in the same domain may be encouraged to find ways to remove such obstacles in different settings. As suggested in this study, the priority of various barriers helps researchers suggest effective strategies for the sustainable development of companies within the current dynamic business atmosphere.

The findings of this paper can aid industry practitioners in fixing their attention on the digitization or automation of their systems in the context of sustainability or resource circularity. Note that within the current context of CE, one of the crucial issues is how to conserve the existing resources; the answer to this question can save the environment.

The current paper proposed a new multi-criteria decision-making method using q-ROFSs to analyze, rank and evaluate the CSC barriers in the age of Industry 4.0 transition. To this end, a new decision-making approach with the help of CRITIC and CoCoSo methods on q-ROFSs called q-ROF-CRITIC-CoCoSo was introduced to evaluate the CSCs barriers in the era of Industry 4.0 transition.

Based on the random aggregate model of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC), this paper aims to focus on the effect of loading rate on the failure pattern and the macroscopic mechanical properties.

RAC is regarded as a five-phase inhomogeneous composite material at the mesoscopic level. The number and position of the aggregates are modeled by the Walraven formula and Monte–Carlo stochastic method, respectively. The RAC specimen is divided by the finite-element mesh to establish the dynamic base force element model. In this model, the element mechanical parameters of each material phase satisfy Weibull distribution. To simulate and analyze the dynamic mechanical behavior of RAC under axial tension, flexural tension and shear tension, the dynamic tensile modes of the double-notched specimens, the simply supported beam and the L specimens are modeled, respectively. In addition, the different concrete samples are numerically investigated under different loading rates.

The failure strength and failure pattern of RAC have strong rate-dependent characteristics because of the inhomogeneity and the inertial effect of the material.

The dynamic base force element method has been successfully applied to the study of recycled concrete.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an automatic disassembly navigation approach for human interactions in the virtual environment to achieve accurate and effective virtual assembly path planning (VAPP).

First, to avoid the error-prone human interactions, a constraint-based disassembly method is presented. Second, to automatically provide the next operable part(s), a disassembly navigation mechanism is adopted. Finally, the accurate assembly path planning can be obtained effectively and automatically by inversing the ordered accurate disassembly paths, which are obtained interactively in the virtual environment aided with the disassembly navigation matrix.

The applications present that our approach can effectively avoid the error-prone interactive results and generate accurate and effective VAPP.

There are several works that could be conducted to make our approach more general in the future: to further study the basic disassembly direction deducing rules to make the process of determining disassembly direction totally automatic, to consider the hierarchy of the parts in virtual reality system and to consider the space for assembly/disassembly tools or operators.

The approach has the following characteristics: a new approach to avoid the error-prone human interactions for accurate assembly path planning obtaining, a new constraint deducing method for determining the disassembly semantics automatically or semi-automatically is put forward and a new method for automatically identifying operable parts in VAPP is set forward.

There is a gap in scholarly investigation when it comes to issues of academic integrity and corruption in higher education. The major research question this chapter addresses is: How is corruption in higher education in the United States and Russia reflected in the media? The frequency with which the media reports on higher education corruption varies. The variation in reporting can be attributed to particular reforms and major changes undertaken in the higher education sector as well as in-depth reporting of some high-profile cases. The scope of problems reflected is very broad, but some important forms of corruption are either underreported or overlooked. The major problems, types, and forms of higher education corruption are nation-specific: in Russia they are bribery in admissions and grading, while in the United States they are fraud and embezzlement of state funds, among others. These types and forms of corruption in general correlate with those analyzed in the scholarly literature. This chapter also presents some policy recommendations for both Russia and the United States regarding anti-corruption efforts in higher education.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the performance of the stabilised moving least squares (MLS) scheme in the meshless local Petrov–Galerkin (MLPG) method for heat conduction method.

In the current work, the authors extend the stabilised MLS approach to the MLPG method for heat conduction problem. Its performance has been compared with the MLPG method based on the standard MLS and local coordinate MLS. The patch tests of MLS and modified MLS schemes have been presented along with the one- and two-dimensional examples for MLPG method of the heat conduction problem.

In the stabilised MLS, the condition number of moment matrix is independent of the nodal spacing and it is nearly constant in the global domain for all grid sizes. The shifted polynomials based MLS and stabilised MLS approaches are more robust than the standard MLS scheme in the MLPG method analysis of heat conduction problems.

The MLPG method based on the stabilised MLS scheme.