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A multi-laser sensors-based measurement instrument is proposed for the measurement of geometry errors of a differential body and quality evaluation. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned idea.

First, the differential body is set on a rotation platform before measuring. Then one laser sensor called as “primary sensor”, is installed on the intern of the differential body. The spherical surface and four holes on the differential body are sampled by the primary sensor when the rotation platform rotates one revolution. Another sensor called as “secondary sensor”, is installed above to sample the external cylinder surface and the planar surface on the top of the differential body, and the external cylinder surface and the planar surface are high in manufacturing precision, which are used as datum surfaces to compute the errors caused by the motion of the rotation platform. Finally, the sampled points from the primary sensor are compensated to improve the measurement accuracy.

A multi-laser sensors-based measurement instrument is proposed for the measurement of geometry errors of a differential body. Based on the characteristics of the measurement data, a gradient image-based method is proposed to distinguish different objects from laser measurement data. A case study is presented to validate the measurement principle and data processing approach.

The study investigates the possibility of correction of sensor data by the measurement results of multiple sensors to improving measurement accuracy. The proposed technique enables the error analysis and compensation by the geometric correlation relationship of various features on the measurand.

The proposed error compensation principle by using multiple sensors proved to be useful for the design of new measurement device for special part inspection. The proposed approach to describe the measuring data by image also is proved to be useful to simplify the measurement data processing.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between trait and situational empathy, and the effect of educational activities on empathy of nursing students towards people living with dementia.

This embedded mixed-methods study compared trait and situational empathy examined situational empathy pre/post didactic and experiential activities with nursing students and used qualitative data from focus group discussions to corroborate the quantitative data.

There was no significant difference between trait and situational empathy. Post intervention scores (situational) demonstrated improvements on empathic concern, shared affect, empathic imagination, helping motivation and cognitive empathy. Focus group discussions supported quantitative findings and also included distress.

Limitations include lack of generalizability, single group threats and exclusion of stakeholder input. Single group threats include absence of a control group, familiarity with the CSES from pre-test to post-test and reactive measurements, as the students were observed by faculty while completing the Dementia Live activity. The perspective of stakeholders would strengthen the impact of the results on implementation.

Information gleaned from this study can help inform administrators in education and in practice. CliftonStrengths assessment and Dementia Live simulation activities can be used for administrators, faculty and students in schools of nursing as well as administrators and health-care workers.

Information from this study can impact those living with dementia as well as their caregivers.

Most studies involving health-care students and empathy do not delineate between trait and situational empathy. This study is unique in that it measured both and sought a relationship between the two. Determining one's personal attributes such as trait empathy, can help students capitalize on their strengths and ultimately enhance patient care.

This study aims to extend research in marketing on two important relational constructs, customer satisfaction and brand attachment, by comparing their long-term effects on customer behaviors with different levels of performance difficulty in a relatively understudied domain of durable products.

Using a two-stage quantitative study with US customers from five durable product categories, the authors first explored the hierarchy of customers’ loyalty behaviors based on increasing effort in a pretest study (N = 675). Then, the authors tested the effectiveness of satisfaction and brand attachment for customers’ loyalty behaviors over a nine-month period in a longitudinal study (N = 2,284) with customers from the same product categories.

Compared to satisfaction, brand attachment emerges as a stronger long-term predictor of customer behaviors. The performance difficulty of customer behaviors positively moderates the impact of brand attachment and negatively moderates the impact of customer satisfaction. Brand attachment is particularly effective in predicting difficult-to-perform customer behaviors, which require customers to expend resources such as time and money. Customer satisfaction is mainly effective for predicting easy-to-perform behaviors, but its long-term impact is significantly lower for easy-to-perform behaviors than brand attachment.

The use of consumer durables in the study and samples from only one country restricts the generalizability of the findings.

The complementary roles of customer satisfaction and brand attachment are highlighted. Only satisfying customers is not enough to engage customers in behaviors that require resources such as money, time and energy for the brand.

A comparative study on the long-term effectiveness of two established relational metrics in explaining different customer behaviors varying in their performance difficulty in an understudied domain of durable products.

This study aims to examine the moderating effect of cultural conditions on the relationship between environmental performance and environmental disclosure.

The authors used meta-analysis technique to examine 100 effect sizes from 43 studies published between 1982 and 2023 to integrate the existing results and to detect causes contributing to variability of results across studies.

There is a significant positive relationship between environmental performance and environmental disclosure. Further, the authors found that cultures with long-term orientation positively moderated the relationship, whereas cultures with high uncertainty avoidance and indulgence negatively moderated it.

This study did not account for the problem of endogeneity between environmental performance and environmental disclosure because most of the already published studies included in the authors’ meta-analysis did not address this issue.

This research provides regulators and policymakers insights on the influence of cultural factors on environmental disclosure and performance, critical information to consider when adopting, or revising social and environmental policy and regulations within a country.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first meta-analysis study examining different cultural dimensions influencing the relationship between environmental performance and environmental disclosure and contributes new knowledge to the literature on determinants of environmental disclosure.

How does a manager’s coaching behaviour encourage taking charge behaviour among subordinates? Although prior research has found a positive association between managerial coaching behaviour and employee performance, to date few studies have examined its effect on proactive behaviours in the workplace such as taking charge. Drawing on social exchange theory (SET) and social cognitive theory (SCT), this study develops a theoretical model to examine the mediating effects of work engagement and role breadth self-efficacy (RBSE) in the relationship between managerial coaching and subordinates taking charge. Additionally, drawing on social role theory (SRT), we test whether our proposed relationships are contingent on subordinates’ gender.

We tested our proposed moderated-mediation model using empirical data collected across two waves from 196 employees within a large Malaysian services enterprise. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results revealed that managerial coaching has a significant, positive relationship with taking charge, work engagement and RBSE. However, only work engagement was found to partially mediate the relationship between managerial coaching and taking charge. Subordinates’ gender was found to positively attenuate the direct effect between managerial coaching and taking charge among females. However, the mediating effects of work engagement and RBSE in managerial coaching and taking charge were found to be not contingent on subordinates’ gender.

Finding from this study reveals that managerial coaching is useful in shaping employees' taking charge behaviour through work engagement. Hence, organisations should focus on strategies aiming to enhance managers' coaching capabilities.

This study extends the nomological networks of managerial coaching by highlighting it as a predictor of taking charge. Moreover, drawing on SET and SCT to explain the mechanism of managerial coaching and taking charge, we provide a novel perspective on how managerial coaching can influence taking charge. Specifically, we highlight the critical role of work engagement as a key mechanism that influences the relationship between managerial coaching and taking charge. Finally, we demonstrate managerial coaching as a means through which organisations can improve individual functioning.

This paper attempts to examine the impact of merger on the stock returns and economic value added (EVA) of acquiring firms to know if the mergers are successful corporate restructuring strategies for the firms.

In total, 108 Indian firms are studied using paired sample t-test and Wilcoxon signed rank test for comparing the EVA of acquiring firms in short, medium and long term after merger. The effect of merger announcements on stock returns is analyzed by way of event study. An event window of −20 to +20 is taken and an estimation window of 256 (-276 -20) days is used in the study.

The authors find that mergers lead to significant improvement in the EVA of acquiring firms. However, the increase in financial performance and EVA is witnessed only in long term. The authors did not find any significant impact of merger announcement on the stock returns of acquiring firms.

The study is a first of study's kind, which evaluates both short-term (using event study methodology) and long-term (using EVA) impact of value addition to an acquirer after Merger & Acquisition (M&A). The study contributes to existing literature on the signaling theory of announcement of M&As and synergy gain theory of completed M&As by providing evidence from the context of an emerging market like India.

The purpose of this paper is to design a modified version of the double sampling plan to handle the inspection processes requiring a minimum sample size to assure the median life for the products under the new Weibull–Pareto distribution. The economic design of the proposed plan is also considered to assure the product's lifetime with minimum cost.

The authors have developed an optimization model for obtaining the required plan parameters by solving simultaneously two non-linear inequalities and such inequalities have been formed based on the two points on the operating characteristic curve approach.

The results show that the average sample number, average total inspection and total inspection cost under the proposed plan are smaller than the same of a single sampling plan. This means that the proposed plan will be more efficient than a single sampling plan in reducing inspection effort and cost while providing the desired protection.

The proposed modified double sampling plan designed to assure the median life of the products under the new Weibull–Pareto distribution is not available in the literature. The proposed plan will be very useful in assuring the product median lifetime with minimum sample size as well as minimum cost in all the manufacturing industries.

This study investigates the repetitive mixed sampling (MRS) plan based on the Cpk index that was proposed by Aslam et al. (2013a). They were the first to study the MRS plan, but they did not pay attention to the fact that submitting to the variable inspection a sample that was first submitted to the attribute inspection, truncates the X observations. In addition, they did not work with an accurate expression to calculate the probabilities of the Cpk statistic.

The authors presented the results based on their original sampling plan through Monte Carlo simulation and defined the theoretical results of their plan when the sample submitted to the variable inspection is no longer the same one submitted to the attribute inspection.

The β risks of the optimum sampling plans presented by Aslam et al. (2013a) are pretty high, exceeding 46%, on average – this same problem was also observed in Saminathan and Mahalingam (2018), Balamurali (2020) and Balamurali et al. (2020), where the β risks of their proposed sampling plans are yet higher.

In terms of originality, the authors can declare the following. It is not a big deal to propose new sampling plans, if one does not know how to obtain their properties. The miscalculations of the sampling plans risks are dangerous; imagine the situation where the acceptance of bad lots exceeds 50% just because the sampling plan was incorrectly designed. Yes, it is a big deal to warn that this type of problem is arising in a growing number of papers. The authors of this study are the pioneers to discover that many studies focusing on the sampling plans need to be urgently revised.

This study aims to better understand the morphological characteristics of single particle and the health risk characteristics of heavy metals in PM_2.5 in different functional areas of Handan City.

High resolution transmission electron microscopy was used to observe the aerosol samples collected from different functional areas of Handan City. The morphology and size distribution of the particles collected on hazy and clear days were compared. The health risk evaluation model was applied to evaluate the hazardous effects of particles on human health in different functional areas on hazy days.

The results show that the particulate matter in different functional areas is dominated by spherical particles in different weather conditions. In particular, the proportion of spherical particles exceeds 70% on the haze day, and the percentage of soot aggregates increases significantly on the clear day. The percentage of each type of particle in the teaching and living areas varied less under different weather conditions. Except for the industrial area, the size distribution of each type of particle in haze samples is larger than that on the clear day. Spherical particles contribute more to the small particle size segment. Soot aggregate and other shaped particles contribute more to the large size segment. The mass concentrations of hazardous elements (HEs) in PM_2.5 in different functional areas on consecutive haze pollution days were illustrated as industrial area > traffic area > living area > teaching area. Compared with the other functional areas, the teaching area had the lowest noncarcinogenic risk of HEs. The lifetime carcinogenic risk values of Cr and As elements in each functional area have exceeded residents’ threshold levels and are at high risk of carcinogenicity. Among the four functional areas, the industrial area has the highest carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic risks. But the effects of HEs on human health in the other functional areas should also be taken seriously and continuously controlled.

The significance of the study is to further understand the morphological characteristics of single particles and the health risks of heavy metals in different functional areas of Handan City. the authors hope to provide a reference for other coal-burning industrial cities to develop plans to improve air quality and human respiratory health.

The purpose of the paper is set to minimize the total cost of a manufacturing system when an acceptance sampling plan (ASP) is carried out in a fuzzy environment.

A fuzzy acceptance sampling plan (FASP) is employed for the inspection of the batch of products and a fuzzy cost optimization problem is formulated.

The extent of uncertainty determines an interval for the total cost function with upper and lower bounds. The effect of variation in the ambiguity of the proportion of defectives in the probability of acceptance is determined.

The proposed model is specifically designed for production and supply units with ASP for attributes. Still, the proportion of defectives in the inspection process is fuzzy.

Fuzzy probability distribution is used to model an optimal inspection plan for a general supply chain. Economic design of supply chain under fuzzy proportion of defectives is discussed for the first time.