Search results

This study aims to examine factors affecting Chinese adolescents’ purchase intention for local brands; this study focuses on the effects of perceived social status value and materialistic values.

A theoretical model relating perceived social status value of brands to purchase intention, including materialistic values as a moderator, was developed and tested, using a sample of 587 Chinese adolescent respondents. Another experimental study examined the variability of the moderation of materialistic values across different levels of peer pressure in a product usage occasion.

Perceived social status value associated with local and foreign brands significantly influences purchase intention for local brands. Moreover, influence of perceived social status value of local versus foreign brands on local brand purchase intention is greater for materialistic adolescents. Additionally, the moderation of materialistic values is found in a product usage occasion with high peer pressure, but not in an occasion with low peer pressure.

The findings show that perceived social status value associated with brands shapes purchase intention for local brands. The moderating effect of materialistic values is complex and suggests further research. The study’s scope is limited to Chinese adolescents.

The findings provide understanding of the drivers of purchase intention, and thus serve as a guideline for Chinese firms and foreign marketers seeking to enter the growing Chinese market, as well as consumer educators in China.

This study contributes to the limited empirical research into the factors shaping country-of-origin effects. Moreover, the findings suggest the need to consider the moderating role of materialistic values on purchase intention for local brands.

The purpose of this paper is to know airflow field and its distribution of pneumatic compact spinning systems. Complete compact spinning (CCS) and four-line rollers compact spinning (FRCS) are both two kinds of pneumatic compact spinning systems, which utilizes airflow in condensing equipment to condense fiber bundle and improve yarn properties.

The paper opted for an exploratory study using finite element method, the airflow field in the condensing area of CCS and FRCS were simulated. First, a periodic movement of the fibers in bundle in condensing area was detected, and the yarn tracks were described veritably under the high-speed-video-camera and AutoCAD Software. Then the physical models of the condensing zone were constructed according to the physical parameters of the practical system. The simulation of airflow velocities were extracted along the yarn tracks using ANSYS Software. Finally, the numerical results were verified by spinning experiments.

The results show that the negative velocity component along the Y-axis helps keeping beneficial hairiness. CCS has higher negative velocity value and more abundant beneficial hairiness than FRCS. The velocity component in the X-axis direction has a direct effect on yarn evenness. For the same liner density of CCS and FRCS, the larger the value of the velocity component on X-axis is, the better the yarn evenness is. For 9.7tex, CCS has larger velocity component in the X-axis direction and better yarn evenness than FRCS, showing that CCS is more suitable for spinning fine count yarn. The velocity component in the Z-axis direction has a direct effect on breaking strength. CCS has little velocity component in the Z-axis direction and little breaking strength than FRCS.

To know airflow field and its distribution by finite element method is helpful to investigate the condensing principles of the fiber bundle and improve yarn properties.

The paper formulates a bi-objective mixed-integer nonlinear programming model, aimed at minimizing the total labor hours and the workload unfairness for the multi-skilled worker assignment problem in Seru production system (SPS).

Three approaches, namely epsilon-constraint method, non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm 2 (NSGA-II) and improved strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm (SPEA2), are designed for solving the problem.

Numerous experiments are performed to assess the applicability of the proposed model and evaluate the performance of algorithms. The merged Pareto-fronts obtained from both NSGA-II and SPEA2 were proposed as final solutions to provide useful information for decision-makers.

SPS has the flexibility to respond to the changing demand for small amount production of multiple varieties products. Assigning cross-trained workers to obtain flexibility has emerged as a major concern for the implementation of SPS. Most enterprises focus solely on measures of production efficiency, such as minimizing the total throughput time. Solutions based on optimizing efficiency measures alone can be unacceptable by workers who have high proficiency levels when they are achieved at the expense of the workers taking more workload. Therefore, study the tradeoff between production efficiency and fairness in the multi-skilled worker assignment problem is very important for SPS.

The study investigates a new mixed-integer programming model to optimize worker-to-seru assignment, batch-to-seru assignment and task-to-worker assignment in SPS. In order to solve the proposed problem, three problem-specific solution approaches are proposed.

The purpose of this study is to elucidate the size effect (groove width, unit length and area density) of the hexagonal texture on tribological properties under lubrication.

The tribological properties of nine hexagonal textures with different hexagon lengths and groove widths have been investigated under mixed lubrication to elucidate the size effect.

Overall, the friction coefficient decreases as the groove width increases within the examined range, whereas the hexagon length shows an optimal value around 3 mm. In particular, one hexagonal texture (3 × 3 mm) exhibits lower friction coefficients and less wear losses than the others. Interestingly, two hexagonal textures of similar area density (1 × 1 mm and 3 × 3 mm) yield the worst and best tribological performances, respectively, which can be explained by the simulated distribution of equivalent stress.

The tribological properties of nine hexagonal textures are examined under lubrication. The 3 × 3 texture exhibits lower friction coefficient and wear loss than the others. Two textures of similar area density yield the worst and best tribological performances. The results agree with the simulated distribution of equivalent stress.

One of the challenging issues in computer vision and pattern recognition is face image recognition. Several studies based on face recognition were introduced in the past decades, but it has few classification issues in terms of poor performances. Hence, the authors proposed a novel model for face recognition.

The proposed method consists of four major sections such as data acquisition, segmentation, feature extraction and recognition. Initially, the images are transferred into grayscale images, and they pose issues that are eliminated by resizing the input images. The contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization (CLAHE) utilizes the image preprocessing step, thereby eliminating unwanted noise and improving the image contrast level. Second, the active contour and level set-based segmentation (ALS) with neural network (NN) or ALS with NN algorithm is used for facial image segmentation. Next, the four major kinds of feature descriptors are dominant color structure descriptors, scale-invariant feature transform descriptors, improved center-symmetric local binary patterns (ICSLBP) and histograms of gradients (HOG) are based on clour and texture features. Finally, the support vector machine (SVM) with modified random forest (MRF) model for facial image recognition.

Experimentally, the proposed method performance is evaluated using different kinds of evaluation criterions such as accuracy, similarity index, dice similarity coefficient, precision, recall and F-score results. However, the proposed method offers superior recognition performances than other state-of-art methods. Further face recognition was analyzed with the metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall and F-score and attained 99.2, 96, 98 and 96%, respectively.

The good facial recognition method is proposed in this research work to overcome threat to privacy, violation of rights and provide better security of data.

This paper examines the impact of a blockchain platform on the role and importance of trust in established buyer-supplier relationships.

A literature review provides insight into trust development in supply chains. Research uses a case study of two wine supply chains: the producers, importers, logistics companies and UK Government agencies. Semi-structured interviews determine how trust and trustworthiness develop in buyer-supplier relationships and the impact of a blockchain-based technology proof of concept on supply chain trust.

A blockchain-based platform introduces common trusted data, reducing data duplication and improving supply chain visibility. The platform supports trust building between parties but does not replace the requirements for organisations to establish a position of trust. Contrary to literature claims for blockchain trustless disintermediation, new intermediaries are introduced who need to be trusted.

The case study presents challenges specific to UK customs borders, and research needs to be repeated in different contexts to establish if findings are generalisable.

A blockchain-based platform can improve supply chain efficiency and trust development but does not remove the need for trust and trust-building processes. Blockchain platform providers need to build a position of trust with all participants.

Case study research shows how blockchain facilitates but does not remove trust, trustworthiness and trust relationships in established supply chains. The reduction in information asymmetry and improved supply chain visibility provided by blockchain does not change the importance of trust in established buyer-supplier relationships or the trust-based policy of the UK Government at the customs border.

The issue of concurrent jurisdiction over cross-border crimes has become common in a globalizing world, while the rigid compliance with territoriality and active personality jurisdiction has created a legal vacuum for cross-border crimes in many situations. The jurisdiction dispute between mainland China and Taiwan over cross-border telecom fraud crimes is a good example. In recent years, the Ministry of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China cracked down a series of cross-border telecom fraud crimes against mainland residents and extradited suspects to mainland China. Given a certain proportion of Taiwan residents in criminal gangs, the Taiwan side raised jurisdiction objections, arguing that mainland China had no right to exercise jurisdiction over Taiwanese criminals. The essence of the jurisdiction dispute between two sides is the concurrence of Taiwan’s right to exercise active personality jurisdiction and the mainland’s right to exercise passive personality jurisdiction. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the connotation of different jurisdiction principles (namely, territorial, active personality, protective and passive personality jurisdiction) and reinterpret their prioritization of applicability from a jurisprudential perspective, and thus, enhance the theoretical basis for resolving the issue of concurrent jurisdiction over cross-border crimes.

By reviewing the historical trajectory of major jurisdiction principles since the 1920s, and studying the specificities of the case in this context, this paper argues that territorial jurisdiction and active personality jurisdiction have presumed priority but not an absolute priority for resolving the issue of concurrent jurisdiction. The applicability of protective and passive personality jurisdiction could precede the former provided the jurisdictions of territoriality or active personality are inadequate, incompetent or lack of motivation to combat crimes, which harm other jurisdictions.

The developmental trajectory and contemporary connotation of major jurisdiction principles suggests that the legitimacy of the mainland’s exercise of passive personality jurisdiction over Taiwan criminal suspects lies in the urgent need to recover mainland victims’ significant property loss, the incompetence of Taiwan in detecting and prosecuting telecom fraud crimes committed by Taiwanese residents and targeting mainland victims and that the mainland has guaranteed the Taiwan side’s right to be timely informed and fully participate in its exercise of criminal jurisdiction over crimes involving Taiwan suspects.

Current literature on jurisdiction doctrines mainly uses a historical or descriptive approach to reveal the attitudes of different countries toward jurisdiction principles, which helps little in resolving the issue of concurrent jurisdiction over cross-border crimes in an era of globalization. This paper uses an interpretative approach, reinterprets the contemporary connotation of different jurisdiction principles and redefines the criteria for determining their prioritization in the context of the specificities of a case. It is expected to update the academic literature for resolving concurrent jurisdiction, fill the legal vacuum for combating cross-border crimes created by rigid compliance with territorial jurisdiction, and meanwhile relieve concerns about abuse of extraterritorial jurisdiction as it provides concrete standards for weighting the applicability of jurisdiction principles.