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This study aims to investigate the relationships between the perceived neighborhood walkable environment (PNWE), neighborhood interaction (NI) and residents’ mental health, with a focus on examining differences among residents of different age groups.

Using an electronic survey questionnaire, data on PNWE, NI and mental health were collected from 1,159 residents across 205 communities in Shanghai, China. Our study utilized a structural equation modeling (SEM), employing the maximum likelihood estimation method. The structural equation model was fitted using the MPLUS software.

The mental health of young and middle-aged adults is generally poor, and they are at higher risk of depression than children and older adults. The effects of PNWE and NI on the mental health of residents varied among different age groups. As residents get older, their mental health is more affected by the PNWE. In addition, the influence of the PNWE on children and older adults’ mental health is direct and not mediated by NI. For young and middle-aged adults, the influence of the PNWE on their mental health needs to be mediated by NI.

This study marks the first examination of the relationship between PNWE, NI and mental health among different age groups of residents in China. The findings of this research can assist policymakers in gaining a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms by which PNWE affects mental health. Furthermore, it can contribute to the development of more targeted walkable environment designs aimed at enhancing mental health among various age groups.

The digital age requires people of all ages to communicate and organise their lives through digital technologies. The project EQualCare investigates how the growing population of older people living alone is managing this transition, how it shapes their (non-)digital social networks and what changes on a local level need to be brought about. This paper aims to give insight into the process of participatory action research (PAR) with older people in the community across four countries and reflects on experiences made by academic and co-researchers.

Following the emancipatory underpinnings of PAR, which aims to reduce inequalities through collaboration and co-design, EQualCare involved nine teams of co-researchers across Finland, Germany, Latvia and Sweden making older people the centre of policy development. Co-researchers were involved in formulating research aims, collecting data, reflecting on data, formulating and disseminating recommendations for local policy stakeholders.

Co-researchers’ motivation to invest considerable time and effort was driven by a desire to create a more equal future for older people living alone. Moreover, they were keen to involve marginalised older people and became frustrated when this proved difficult. Power dynamics played a role throughout the process but became productive as roles and responsibilities were renegotiated. Doing PAR with older people can be emotionally challenging for co-researchers when negative feelings around ageing are encountered.

The paper advances understanding on the process of PAR in ageing research by reflecting on the social, cultural and political contexts of doing PAR with diverse sets of older people.

Many older adults engage in volunteer activities, drawing meaning and purpose through such efforts. Social distancing restrictions, put in place during Covid-19 surges to reduce the risk of transmission, disrupted older adult volunteers’ lives and volunteer experiences. Social distancing measures provide a unique opportunity to explore what happened when the choices around pausing or stopping volunteering were not entirely within the control of older adults. This paper aims to explore the experiences of older adult volunteers as they navigated uncertainties and made difficult decisions around balancing their safety and their desire to continue volunteering.

The authors conducted interviews with 26 community-dwelling older adults, age 50+, who had engaged in volunteer activities for at least 1 h a week prior to the start of the pandemic. The interviews were conducted on the phone or via Zoom. The authors used thematic analysis to help us analyze the data and identify patterns from participants’ experiences.

Despite the risk presented by Covid-19, most participants volunteered during the pandemic. They continued some or all of their previous activities with safety-related adjustments, with some seeking new or different opportunities. Participants’ discussions highlight the challenges of volunteering during the pandemic and the importance of engagement to their resiliency and subjective well-being.

This paper provides original contributions to understanding how and why older adults volunteered during the Covid-19 pandemic. The social distancing measures provide a novel opportunity to enrich our understanding of the meaningfulness and value of volunteerism to older adults’ lives and subjective well-being.

There is a growing mismatch between the skill demands of the industry and the offerings of academia. One way of reducing this mismatch is by improving collaborations between practitioners and instructors using web-networking platforms. However, it is important to understand practitioners’ considerations while collaborating with instructors. Therefore, this study identified these considerations in order to infer inputs for the design of the graphical user interface (GUI) of a web-based platform for connecting instructors and practitioners.

A mixed method was adopted through a survey and focus group. A survey was used to capture practitioners’ considerations while collaborating with instructors for student development, and a focus group helped uncover an in-depth understanding of the study phenomena. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and thematic analysis.

The results show the willingness of practitioners to collaborate with instructors for student development, the ways by which practitioners are willing to meet instructors' course-support needs and their considerations in deciding to do so. Slight differences were observed between the results of the survey and the focus group regarding the ranking of the practitioners’ considerations. The study highlighted demographic differences in practitioners’ considerations when deciding on meeting instructors' course-support needs. The results provide a basis to deduce the GUI inputs of web-networking platforms for connecting instructors and practitioners.

This study revealed practitioners’ design needs and GUI inputs to facilitate the design of web-networking platforms for connecting instructors and practitioners. This study also contributes to user interface design principles, theories on individual differences and practitioners’ involvement in student professional development.

Focusing on the social influence processes in the context of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), this study aims to investigate the nomological network of social influence factors, a topic seldom explicitly articulated in the literature in this unique context.

This study adopts a mixed-methods approach to develop and test a context-specific model of social influence processes in MMORPGs. First, the authors conducted qualitative interviews with MMORPG players to identify the drivers shaping players' perceptions of social influences. Second, the authors formulated and tested a research model with quantitative data collected from 450 respondents of an online survey.

Through the qualitative study, the authors identify leader enthusiasm, social support and social presence as the critical drivers of social influence factors. The result of the quantitative study validates the influences of the critical drivers and demonstrates the impact of social influences on MMORPG players' we-intention to continue playing games.

This research extends the social influence theory by identifying contextualized drivers that shape MMORPG players' perception of social influences determining their we-intention to continue playing games. MMORPG service providers can draw on these drivers to leverage social influences to increase players' we-intention of continuance.

This study aims to investigate consumer perceptions of inauthenticity due to adulteration of a narrative brand ending by using the research context of the final season and ending of the television series, Game of Thrones.

Two data sets totalling 2,032 online comments detailing consumer reactions to the final season of Game of Thrones were analysed using thematic analysis and human interpretive analysis. The coding was an iterative and continuous process, and posts were returned to and re-examined to refine codes and groupings as the analysis progressed.

The results indicate consumers perceived the ending of the eighth and final season of the television series, Game of Thrones, did not meet their expectations and was not authentic due to rushed writing and illogical character and plot developments. Consumers judged this adulteration was so great that it was a moral violation and transgression. Consumers also sought to assign blame for the inauthenticity, which they attributed to the writers and showrunners, who became the subject of revenge behaviours.

This study indicates consumers of narrative brands, due to their strong emotional attachments to their characters and storyworlds, may perceive unexpected and extensive changes to them as moral violations and transgressions and thus inauthentic. Consumers establish the authenticity of a narrative brand by regularly scrutinising narrative and character development against their expectations as shaped by prior narrative content. Due to their emotional attachment, consumers may attempt to attribute blame for the inauthenticity. The findings have not been established in prior research, and inauthenticity in a narrative brand context is also explored for the first time.

Contractual services are characterized by features such as termination fees, long-term commitment, and complex terms. When customers find better deals from other providers, they may want to switch, but contractual obligations prevent them from doing so. Thus, this study aims to draw upon the stimulus-organism-response paradigm and theories of emotion regulation to examine how punitive switching costs (PSCs) can evoke negative emotions (NEs) from customers and, consequently, lead to negative behavioral responses in contractual service settings.

This study collected data from 395 customers of telecommunications companies, fitness centers, tutoring firms/centers, and house leasing companies in Taiwan. We tested the hypotheses using partial least squares structural equation modeling via SmartPLS 3.0.

The results show that NEs partially mediate the relationship between PSC and customers’ switching intention and negative word-of-mouth. This study also finds alternative attractiveness (AA) and service recovery (SR) do not moderate the PSCs–NEs relationship, but AA does directly influence NEs.

First, this study contributes to the literature on switching costs by exploring how PSC exerts a detrimental impact on behavioral responses. Second, this study adds to the literature on service failures by identifying the mediating role of NEs in such a relationship.

Self-crosslinked long fluorocarbon acrylate polymer latex has good hydrophobic and oleophobicity, weather resistance, aging resistance, stability and other excellent properties, which make the polymer be widely used in coatings, dyes, adhesives and other products. The purpose of this study is to prepare self-crosslinked long fluorocarbon acrylate polymer latex via semi-continuous seeded emulsion technology and carry out comparative study on two different cross-linked monomers.

Methyl methacrylate (MMA) and butyl acrylate (BA) were used as the main monomers, dodecafluoroheptyl methacrylate (DFMA) as the fluoromonomer, hydroxypropyl methacrylate (HPMA) and N-methylol acrylamide (NMA) as cross-linked monomers, and 1-allyloxy-3–(4-nonylphenol)-2-propanol polyoxyethylene (10) ether (ANPEO10) and 1-allyloxy-3–(4-nonylphenol)-2-propanol polyoxyethylene (10) ether ammonium sulfate (DNS-86) as compound emulsifiers via the semicontinuous-seeded emulsion polymerization.

The properties of the polymer emulsions, which are prepared with two different cross-linked monomers, are compared and discussed, and it is concluded that HPMA is more suitable for the preparation of self-crosslinked polymer emulsions. The formula of the polymer latex is ANPEO10: DNS-86 = 1:1, and the mass ratio of the monomers used in the polymer is MMA: BA: DFMA: HPMA = 14.40:14.40:0.60:0.60.

Self-crosslinked long fluorocarbon acrylate polymer latex can be used in many fields such as coatings, dyes, adhesives and other products.

The self-crosslinked long fluorocarbon acrylate polymer latex is prepared by mixing the nonionic emulsifier ANPEO10 and the anionic emulsifier DNS-86 when potassium persulfate is used as the thermal decomposition initiator and the semicontinuous-seeded emulsion technology is adopted and the comparative study on two different cross-linked monomer is carried out, which is not reported in the open literatures.