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The findings from the brand commitment literature suggest that the outcomes of commitment are not always favorable to the brand. This research aims to integrate the multi-component view of commitment with the relationship investment model to suggest a possible explanation to understand the mixed findings in the literature.

A random mall intercept method was used. A total of 1,000 surveys were distributed to participants to answer and mail back. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

This research finds that consumers in affective and continuance commitment relationships differ significantly from each other both from an antecedent and an outcome perspective. Specifically, affective commitment consumers were more willing to make sacrifices, felt better about their brand relationship, held less favorable impressions about a competitor brand and were likely to continue patronizing the brand in the future. Continuance commitment consumers were unwilling to make sacrifices for the relationship, did not feel that their brand relationship was superior, were not keen on continuing the brand relationship in the future and were more favorable toward a competitor brand.

This paper contributes to the development of theory on brand commitment and provides a way to understand the mixed findings in the literature. Importantly, by examining the antecedents and outcomes, a more complete understanding of affective and continuance commitment is possible. The marketing manager benefits by understanding that not all brand commitments are the same. This research might help them to think more broadly about important brand-related outcomes in a service setting.

This research aims to examine two constructs that define loyal brand relationships – greater resistance to changing their brand beliefs and attitudes (resistance to change) and greater willingness to shun competitor brands (determinism). The paper develops and tests psychometrically sound scales to measure these two constructs and proposes and tests a model that identifies antecedent and outcome linkages between resistance and determinism and other brand relationship measures across two studies.

Scale development was done following the guidelines recommended by Nunnally and Bernstein (1994) and Churchill (1979). Factor analysis was used to test scale item fit. Discriminant validity, scale reliability tests, nomological and predictive validity tests were conducted.

This study adds to the literature by identifying the specific dimensions that compose the resistance concept. It finds that strong resistance leads to determinism at the high end. It also finds that brand engagement is an outcome of resistance. In addition, three sub-components of the resistance dimension – resistance to new products that offer higher value, resistance to value improvements of competing offerings and resistance to quality deterioration for the focal or object brand – are also identified and scale items developed to measure them.

Resistance to change and determinism are less understood and researched concepts in the context of brand relationships. Further, these two dimensions are of particular importance in emerging markets such as India because of the changes taking place in these markets with the introduction of many global brands competing with traditional strong brands. For new brands, a key question is how to reduce the resistance that consumers exhibit toward trying out new brands. For existing brands, the key question is how to leverage the resistance that consumers have in trying out a new brand so that greater determinism is built and defections are minimized. This research helps answer some of these questions.

The primary purpose of the study was to identify the specific dimensions that compose the resistance concept. An important aspect of brand relationships is the ability to foster greater strength in the relationship. While the important of resistance has been known, a good scale to measure it has been lacking.

The study of ferrothermohaline convection, double diffusive convection with Soret and Dufour effects have drawn the attention of researchers for the past four decades due to their remarkable applications. The Soret-driven ferrothermoconvective instability in a porous medium heated from below and salted from above has been analyzed using Darcy model for various values of parameters. A small thermal perturbation is applied to the basic state and linear stability analysis is used for which normal mode technique is applied. It is found that the presence of porous medium favours the onset of convection. The present work has been carried out both for oscillatory as well as stationary modes with graphical representation.

Thermoconvective instability with Soret effect in multi-component fluids has wide range of applications in heat and mass transfer. This work deals with the theoretical investigation of the effect of magnetic field dependent (MFD) viscosity on Soret-driven ferrothermohaline convection heated and salted from below in an anisotropic porous medium subjected to a transverse uniform magnetic field. The resulting eigen value problem is solved using Brinkman model. An exact solution is obtained for the case of two free boundaries and the stationary and oscillatory instabilities are investigated by using linear stability analysis and normal mode technique for the vertical of anisotropic porous medium. The analysis has been made for different parameters like porosity, anisotropy, ratio of heat transport to mass transport, buoyancy magnetization, non-buoyancy magnetization, Soret parameter and Salinity Rayleigh number. The effect of MFD viscosity is assumed to be isotropy. It is found that the presence of MFD viscosity has a stabilizing effect, whereas magnetization has a destabilizing effect.

The effect of magnetic field dependent (MFD) viscosity on the onset of convection in a ferromagnetic fluid layer heated from below saturating rotating porous medium in the presence of vertical magnetic field is investigated theoretically by using Darcy model. The resulting eigen value problem is solved using the regular perturbation technique. Both stationary and oscillatory instabilities have been obtained. It is found that increase in MFD viscosity and increase in magnetic Rayleigh number is to delay the onset of ferroconvection, while the nonlinearity of fluid magnetization has no influence on the stability of the system.

The thermal perturbation method is employed for analytical solution. A theory of linear stability analysis and normal mode technique have been carried out to analyze the onset of convection for a fluid layer contained between two impermeable boundaries for which an exact solution is obtained.

The conditions for the system to stabilize both by stationary and oscillatory modes are studied. Even for the oscillatory system of particular frequency dictated by physical conditions, the critical Rayleigh numbers for oscillatory mode of the system were found to be greater than for the stationary mode. The system gets destabilized for various physical parameters only through stationary mode. Hence, the analysis is restricted to the stationary mode. To the Coriolis force, the Taylor number T_a is calculated to discuss the results. It is found that the system stabilizes through stationary mode for values of and for oscillatory instability is favored for Ta > 104. Therefore the Taylor number T_a leads to stability of the system. For larger rotation, magnetization leads to destabilization of the system. The MFD viscosity is found to stabilize the system.

This research paper is new and original.

The Prevention of Money Laundering Act (the PMLA/the Act) was enacted in India in 2002. Since then, Indian courts have had to deal with two interconnected issues owing to the nature of the offence of money laundering (ML) as conceived in the Act itself. The first issue relates to the independence of the offence of ML from the conviction of the underlying offence; and the second is the manner in which the PMLA operates – whether it does so retrospectively or prospectively. The purpose of this paper is to delve into these questions as there is no definitive and binding answer provided for by the courts. It aims to provide normative answers to the above-mentioned questions to enable better functioning of the Act.

This research paper examines international conventions relating to ML, reports by inter-governmental bodies, the statutory language of the Act and judgements rendered by courts.

The paper goes on to conclude that for fulfilling the purpose of the Act, the offence of ML must be considered separate from the conviction of the predicate offence. As a result, it also concludes that the Act must apply in instances where the predicate offence was committed prior to its inclusion in the Act’s Schedule if the act of ML occurs after such inclusion.

There does not exist any scholarly literature addressing the judiciary’s interpretation of the Act regarding the said two issues in a systematic fashion. Added to this is the fact that there exist uncertainty and ambiguity because of conflicting judgements. By analyzing international instruments, the phraseology of the Act and contradictory case-law, this paper attempts to find definitive solutions to the said two questions in a purposive manner.

The purpose of this study, the tribological behaviors at different temperatures of aluminium matrix composites (AMCs) with different amounts of ZrO₂ added were investigated.

Aluminium graphite (A356/2 wt% graphite (solid lubricant)) composite powders prepared by adding four different amounts (3 wt%, 6 wt%, 9 wt% and 12 wt%) of Zirconia (ZrO₂) to the matrix were mechanically alloyed for 4 h. Wear tests were conducted at five different temperatures (20 °C, 100 °C, 180 °C, 260 °C and 340 °C) and for three different sliding distances (53 m, 72 m and 94 m) on the pin-on-disc type wear tester.

Results of the study showed that the highest hardness and density value were measured for 12% ZrO₂ added AMC material. Wear test results showed that weight loss increases with increasing temperature; weight loss decreases at all temperatures with the increasing amount of reinforcement in the matrix.

In this paper, the tribological properties of aluminium matrix composites produced by the mechanical alloying method by adding different amounts of ZrO₂ were determined by simulating the tribological properties at different loads and temperatures.

International Journal of Lean Six Sigma (IJLSS) has completed a decade. To celebrate the same, this study aims to review the articles published in IJLSS from its inception to the year 2020. The journal’s trends and professional impact over the years are investigated and potential future research directions are proposed.

A bibliometric analysis comprising of citation, co-citation and keyword co-occurrence methods is used on all the articles published in IJLSS till the year 2020. Content analysis is further done to analyse the type of research, type of industry studied and the articles’ target audience.

The journal has improved its reputation, productivity and impact over the years. Currently, studies published in IJLSS have been cited more than 5,000 times, with the most prominent themes being Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma (LSS) and Lean in manufacturing and services. Researchers from India, the USA and the UK have contributed a significant number of publications. Most of the work published is case-based. There is a need for more empirical or survey-based research having high generalizability. Future studies should also focus on integrating LSS with emerging topics such as sustainability, Industry 4.0 and the like.

The study provides evidence of the impact of IJLSS and highlights the trend in the domain of LSS. It can be of use for the editorial board members to identify potential areas to focus on in the future. Researchers can use it to further their research by working on the research gaps identified.

This paper is the first to trace the progress of IJLSS from its inception till the year 2020.

The fiber orientation is considered one of the important parameters that have an effect on the characteristics of composites. This paper aims to investigate the effect of fiber orientation on the abrasive wear of the glass-epoxy (G-E) composites with different silicon carbide (SiC) filler weights (Wt.%).

The wear rate of glass fiber reinforced with angle-ply 0º, ±45º and 90º is discussed. The G-E composites with different weights of SiC filler at angle ±45º are considered. Hand lay-up technique was adopted for specimen preparation. The influence of effective parameters such as filler Wt. %, normal load, abrasive size and abrading distance on the wear rate was presented and discussed.

Experimental tests including pin on disk, micro-hardness and scanning electron microscope were carried out to investigate the composite characteristics.

The experimental results showed that the resistance wear was superior in case of ±45º fiber orientations. A validation of the experimental results using Taguchi approach to verify the optimal wear rate parameters was presented.

The purpose of this study is to understand the behavior of hybrid bio-composites under varied applications.

Fabrication methods and material characterization of various hybrid bio-composites are analyzed by studying the tensile, impact, flexural and hardness of the same. The natural fiber is a manufactured group of assembly of big or short bundles of fiber to produce one or more layers of flat sheets. The natural fiber-reinforced composite materials offer a wide range of properties that are suitable for many engineering-related fields like aerospace, automotive areas. The main characteristics of natural fiber composites are durability, low cost, low weight, high specific strength and equally good mechanical properties.

The tensile properties like tensile strength and tensile modulus of flax/hemp/sisal/Coir/Palmyra fiber-reinforced composites are majorly dependent on the chemical treatment and catalyst usage with fiber. The flexural properties of flax/hemp/sisal/coir/Palmyra are greatly dependent on fiber orientation and fiber length. Impact properties of flax/hemp/sisal/coir/Palmyra are depended on the fiber content, composition and orientation of various fibers.

This study is a review of various research work done on the natural fiber bio-composites exhibiting the factors to be considered for specific load conditions.