bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Schedule compression and emerging waste in construction: an assessment of overlapping activities
Authors: Salhab Diana , Lindhard Søren Munch , Hamzeh Farook 
Published: June 2023

PurposeCompressing the schedule by using overlapping activities is a commonly adopted approach for accelerating projects. However, this approach might channel a variety of risks into the construction processes. Risks imply waste; still, evaluating the effects of using overlapping activities on schedule quality has been a looming gap in construction research. Therefore, this paper aims to study the quality of overlapping in terms of emerging waste and to demarcate the boundaries of the overlapping envelope.Design/methodology/approachThis study presents a method for assessing the consequences of implementing overlapping activities in a schedule on two types of waste namely waiting time and variation gap. A critical path method (CPM) network including eleven activities is modeled stochastically where the durations of individual activities are sampled as beta-distributions. Using program evaluation and review technique (PERT) assumptions to calculate the schedule dates, the network is simulated for various amounts of overlapping and the corresponding waste is quantified each time.FindingsResults show that not only the returns on overlapping are diminishing after a certain overlap percentage, but also waste in the production system increases. Particularly, results reveal that compressing the schedule leads to a decrease in variation gaps, but at the same time, it leads to a larger increase in waiting times, which creates more waste.Originality/valueThe presented study shows through simulation how overlapping activities affects productivity by identifying wastes. It shows that despite the apparent gains, overlaps should be used with caution, and while considering the side-effects of increased waste which introduces a need for increased managerial awareness.
What drives the successful launch of IoT-related business models?
Authors: Falkenreck Christine , Leszczyński Grzegorz , Zieliński Marek 
Published: June 2023

Purpose
Customer value perception of Internet of Things (IoT)-based services has not been studied in the context of a company’s readiness to adopt IoT technology. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap by indicating a research framing that combines insights from the IoT business model literature and customer perception of the value of such models and their drivers.

Design/methodology/approach
The interplay between a company’s IoT readiness and its perception of the value of IoT services is tested using a sample of 90 Eastern European business customers in a competitive business field. The conceptual framework described also examines relationships among constructs that refer to relationship quality. This study evaluates its quantitative sample using partial least squares path modeling.

Findings
Customers’ perceived value of IoT business models strongly relates to their digitalization capabilities and their own company’s innovativeness. When referring to disruptive technical offerings, existing trustful and satisfactory relationships cannot enhance the customer’s value perception.

Research limitations/implications
The sample of Eastern European buyers is not representative of the majority of manufacturing companies. A randomized sample using other sources such as large industry databases could be useful. In addition, a replication of the study in other countries would allow for a cross-border validation of this study’s results.

Practical implications
This study suggests a detailed process that is based on a careful preselection of test customers working for innovative companies. A marketing communication approach must state clearly the benefits the buyers get in return for their sacrifice of sharing data.

Originality/value
Technology readiness refers to the user’s propensity to embrace and use new technologies. The results indicate that IoT readiness influences the successful launch of IoT-related business models. For managers, this study proposes a process to implement IoT-related business models.
Investigating the implementation of immersive technologies within on-site construction safety processes
Authors: Swallow Mark , Zulu Sambo Lyson 
Published: June 2023

Purpose
The benefits of integrating immersive technologies (ImTs) within a construction safety context are acknowledged within the literature; however, its practical application on construction sites remains low. Whilst research into the integration of ImTs within the construction industry is underway, most have viewed this from a broader adoption context or within educational settings, and not specifically from a practical on-site safety perspective. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to address the contributing factors to its integration within on-site safety processes, using the experiences of active construction professionals.

Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts a qualitative approach. Data was collected through online focus groups involving UK based construction professionals with experience in using ImTs, recruited using selective sampling. Data sets were subsequently analysed using inductive thematic analysis and are presented within key themes.

Findings
The results showed that among the experienced construction professionals, the use of ImTs specifically for on-site safety applications (including inductions/training/workshops) was rare on projects. The findings identified various contributing factors related to the integration of ImTs, including the potential improvements in on-site safety practices such as enhanced communication of hazards, safety planning, engagement during training and more accurate risk assessment. Critical challenges, concerns and frustrations included a lack of engagement from senior level management, inadequate leadership, limited investment, a need for digital expertise, fear of complacency and the acceptance of ImTs within existing safety processes from the wider project team.

Originality/value
This study provides a fresh perspective to this field by using practical accounts from active and experienced on-site construction professionals. This study supports the integration of ImTs within the construction industry, presenting key contributing factors influencing its integration within on-site safety processes. These factors can be considered by industry adopters, and includes the rationale, challenges and potential on-site benefits of ImTs.
Mapping the state of expanded audit reporting: a bibliometric view
Authors: Mashayekhi Bita , Dolatzarei Ehsan , Faraji Omid , Rezaee Zabihollah 
Published: June 2023

Purpose
This study aims to identify the intellectual structure of expanded audit reporting (EAR), offers a quantitative summation of prominent themes, contributors and knowledge gaps and provides suggestions for further research.

Design/methodology/approach
This research uses various bibliometric techniques, including co-word and co-citation analysis for EAR science mapping, based on 123 papers from Scopus Database between 1991 and 2022.

Findings
The results show EAR research is focused on Audit Quality; Auditor Liability and Litigation; Communicative Value and Readability; Audit Fees; and Disclosure. Regarding EAR research, Brasel et al. (2016), article is the most cited paper, Bédard J. is the most cited author, Laval University is the most influential university, The Accounting Review is the most cited journal and USA is the leading country. Furthermore, the results show that in common law countries, in which shareholder rights and litigation risk is high, topics such as disclosure quality and audit litigation have been addressed more; and in civil legal system countries, which usually favor stakeholders’ rights, topics of gender diversity or corporate governance have been more studied.

Practical implications
This research has practical implications for standard setters and regulators, who can identify important, overlooked and emerging issues and consider them in future policies and standards.

Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature by providing a more objective and comprehensive status of the accounting research on EAR, identifying the gaps in the literature and proposing a direction for future research to continue the discussion on the value-relevance of EAR to achieve more transparency and less audit expectation gap.
Physicochemical characterization of titanium dioxide inks for digital textile printing based on newly developed polyurethane prepolymers
Authors: Hassanein M. , El Rahm M. Abd , El Bary H. M. Abd , El-Wahab H. Abd 
Published: June 2023

Purpose
This paper aims to study the physical and chemical characteristics of inkjet titanium dioxide inks for cotton fabric digital printing.

Design/methodology/approach
Different dispersing agents through the reaction of glycerol monooleate and toluene diisocyanate were prepared and then performed by using three different polyols (succinic anhydride-modified polyethylene glycol PEG 600, EO/PO Polyether Monoamine and p-chloro aniline Polyether Monoamine), to obtain three different dispersing agents for water-based titanium dioxide inkjet inks. The prepared dispersants were characterized using FTIR to monitor the reaction progress. Then the prepared dispersants were formulated in titanium dioxide inkjet inks formulation and characterized by particle size, dynamic surface tension, transmission electron microscopy, viscosity and zeta potential against commercial dispersants. Also, the study was extended to evaluate the printed polyester by using the prepared inks according to washing and crock fastness.

Findings
The obtained results showed that p-chloro aniline Polyether Monoamine (J) and succinic anhydride modified polyethylene glycol PEG 600 (H) dispersants provided optimum performance as compared to commercial standards especially, particle size distribution data while EO/PO Polyether Monoamine based on dispersant was against and then failed with the wettability and dispersion stability tests.

Practical implications
These ink formulations could be used for printing on cotton fabric by DTG technique of printing and can be used for other types of fabrics.

Originality/value
The newly prepared ink formulation for digital textile printing based on synthesized polyurethane prepolymers has the potential to be promising in this type of printing inks, to prevent clogging of nozzles on the printhead and to improve the print quality on the textile fiber.
Role of top management green commitment, adaptability culture and green product innovation in boosting organizational green performance in Pakistan
Authors: Gull Maryam , Rashid Mohsin , Hassan Sobia , Rehman Saqib 
Published: June 2023

Purpose
Top management and managers must highlight environmental issues and adopt green product innovation (GPI) to implement eco-friendly management in their businesses. This research aims to examine the impact of top management’s green commitment and adaptability culture (AC) on organizational green performance (OGP) mediated by GPI.

Design/methodology/approach
The study was conducted in the context of the textile industry of Pakistan, where a sample of 232 employees was collected for the data analysis. The study adopted a quantitative approach, and the data collected were analyzed using relevant statistical tools (SPSS 24 and Smart PLS 3.0) to address the research questions.

Findings
The present study supported positive relationships of top management green commitment (TMGC) and AC with the OGP, whereas GPI mediated the relationships.

Originality/value
Integrating the AC, TMGC, GPI and the organization’s green performance is a milestone as it serves as an effort to present a model promoting green management research. The study’s findings could be used in the textile sector to foster a green culture by strengthening green AC and GPI by raising environmental concerns within the workforce.
Exploring environmental sustainability and green management practices: evidence from logistics service providers
Authors: Leung Tiffany Cheng Han , Guan Jieqi , Lau Yui-Yip 
Published: June 2023

Purpose
This study aims to examine management attitude and awareness towards green logistics, explores the external conditions that drive and restrict its positive behaviour, investigates the level of its adoption amongst logistics service providers (LSPs) and determines the major barriers affecting its application in the industry.

Design/methodology/approach
This research investigates the key decision-making process on green logistics attitude and behaviour through in-depth interviews and thematic analysis.

Findings
This study explores both institutional and individual-level attitudes/awareness. Then, the driving and restraining forces and the challenges that influence the industry’s adoption of green initiatives are determined. Finally, this study constructs a framework following a behavioural driving route with interactions among green “attitude”, sustainable “subjective norms”, “behavioural control” and “external context” factors.

Practical implications
Findings can enlighten the practitioners who are struggling to adopt the green or low-carbon practice and provide valuable insights and constructive advice to LSPs and their stakeholders.

Social implications
Findings can draw the government and policy-makers’ attention to provide necessary financial or non-financial support for the practitioners to improve their green operations.

Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first attempts to adopt the hybrid theoretical lens on the green behaviour of the logistics industry. New insights are added to existing environmental management literature with a wider understanding and deeper investigation of the decision-making on green logistics in the industry. The theoretical framework in this study can offer future applications to a relevant large-scale study.
‘A place for training, not for competition’: negotiations of competition and agency among long‐distance runners in Kenya
Authors: Kovač Uroš 
Published: June 2023

AbstractKenyan long‐distance runners have for decades famously dominated international athletic competitions. Most of the aspiring runners live and train in the highlands of northwest Kenya, in Elgeyo Marakwet County, where they have access to competitive peer groups of budding athletes and an elaborate infrastructure of camps, coaches, and managers. The most promising and successful ones travel abroad to take part in international races, only to quickly return and continue training in the ‘county of champions’. Meanwhile, Kenya is undergoing a rapid transformation, envisioned by the government's development plan, which promises to transform it into a ‘globally competitive and prosperous country’. On the surface, competition is a self‐explanatory notion that drives the transnational sports industry and the state's development plan. However, ethnography of the county's capital, Iten, and its community of athletes reveals tensions: Kenyans take up, negotiate, appropriate, and challenge meanings of competition offered by the state and the sports industry on ecological, gendered, and moral grounds. Ethnography of ideologies of competition in Iten, conceptualized as moral, aesthetic, and gendered projects, complicates accounts of competition as a tool for global neoliberal governance. It also provides an alternative to analyses of African subjects’ agency in global circulation of capital, people, and ideas, namely analyses subsumed under signs of marginality, dependence, and subjection.
Meat color and iridescence: Origin, analysis, and approaches to modulation
Authors: Ruedt Chiara , Gibis Monika , Weiss Jochen 
Published: June 2023

AbstractMeat color is an important aspect for the meat industry since it strongly determines the consumers’ perception of product quality and thereby significantly influences the purchase decision. Emergence of new vegan meat analogs has renewed interest in the fundamental aspects of meat color in order to replicate it. The appearance of meat is based on a complex interplay between the pigment‐based meat color from myoglobin and its chemical forms and light scattering from the muscle's microstructure. While myoglobin biochemistry and pigment‐based meat color have been extensively studied, research on the physicochemical contribution of light scattering to meat color and the special case of structural colors causing meat iridescence has received only little attention. Former review articles focused mostly on the biochemical or physical mechanisms rather than the interplay between them, in particular the role that structural colors play. While from an economic point of view, meat iridescence might be considered negligible, an enhanced understanding of the underlying mechanisms and the interactions of light with meat microstructures can improve our overall understanding of meat color. Therefore, this review discusses both biochemical and physicochemical aspects of meat color including the origin of structural colors, highlights new color measurement methodologies suitable to investigate color phenomena such as meat iridescence, and finally presents approaches to modulate meat color in terms of base composition, additives, and processing.
Physicochemical and structural changes of myofibrillar proteins in muscle foods during thawing: Occurrence, consequences, evidence, and implications
Authors: Zhang Yuanlv , Liu Guishan , Xie Qiwen , Wang Yanyao , Yu Jia , Ma Xiaoju 
Published: June 2023

AbstractMyofibrillar protein (MP) endows muscle foods with texture and important functional properties, such as water‐holding capacity (WHC) and emulsifying and gel‐forming abilities. However, thawing deteriorates the physicochemical and structural properties of MPs, significantly affecting the WHC, texture, flavor, and nutritional value of muscle foods. Thawing‐induced physicochemical and structural changes in MPs need further investigation and consideration in the scientific development of muscle foods. In this study, we reviewed the literature for the thawing effects on the physicochemical and structural characters of MPs to identify potential associations between MPs and the quality of muscle‐based foods. Physicochemical and structural changes of MPs in muscle foods occur because of physical changes during thawing and microenvironmental changes, including heat transfer and phase transformation, moisture activation and migration, microbial activation, and alterations in pH and ionic strength. These changes are not only essential inducements for changes in spatial conformation, surface hydrophobicity, solubility, Ca2+‐ATPase activity, intermolecular interaction, gel properties, and emulsifying properties of MPs but also factors causing MP oxidation, characterized by thiols, carbonyl compounds, free amino groups, dityrosine content, cross‐linking, and MP aggregates. Additionally, the WHC, texture, flavor, and nutritional value of muscle foods are closely related to MPs. This review encourages additional work to explore the potential of tempering techniques, as well as the synergistic effects of traditional and innovative thawing technologies, in reducing the oxidation and denaturation of MPs and maintaining the quality of muscle foods.
Piercing the surface: A mechanical analysis of stabbing with household tools
Authors: Heckmann Veronika , Engum Vilde , Simon Gabor , Poór Viktor Soma , Tóth Denes , Molnar Tamás F. 
Published: June 2023

AbstractEstimating the applied power during a stabbing incident, or estimating the minimal force necessary to penetrate the body with a certain weapon is a challenging task in forensic practice. A thorough forensic evaluation of stabbing forces needs objective numerical experimental data. Stabbing tests of 12 different weapons – including knives, a pair of scissors, a fork, screwdrivers, a rasp, a corkscrew, and a utility knife blade – were performed with a Mecmesin MultiTest‐dV material tester on pork loin and ballistic gel to estimate the stabbing forces and dynamics. Penetration force (Fp) and maximal force (Fmax) were recorded, and the registered force curves were analyzed. Fmax was 159.8–212.07 Newton (N), 30.56–30.58 N, 168.9–185.48 N for various knives; 171.39–190.43 N for the pair of scissors, 233.6 N for the fork; 532.65–562.65 N, 370.31–367.19 N and 314.51–432.89 N for various screwdrivers, 44.14–56.62 N for utility knife during pork loin stabbing. The butter knife, corkscrew and rasp were not able to penetrate the pork loin, and the curved fork bent during stabbing. The results prove that weapon characteristics greatly influence the force necessary for penetration. Maximal stabbing force depends mostly on tip sharpness, and the force sharply decreases after penetration occurs, which indicates that edge sharpness is not as important as tip characteristics during stabbing perpendicular to skin surface. The penetration force during stabbing with a pair of scissors is comparable to the penetration force of knives. Stabbing with screwdrivers generally needs larger force than average knives but depends greatly on screwdriver size.
Effect of oestrogen modulation on semen parameters in men with secondary hypogonadism: Systematic review and meta‐analysis
Authors: de Silva Nipun Lakshitha , Dissanayake Harsha , Suarez Camila , Wickramarachchi Ranga Eshaka , Ramasamy Ranjith , Dhillo Waljit S. , Minhas Suks , Corona Giovanni , Jayasena Channa N. 
Published: June 2023

AbstractBackgroundSelective oestrogen receptor modulators and aromatase inhibitors stimulate endogenous gonadotrophins and testosterone in men with hypogonadism. There are no systematic reviews/meta‐analyses assessing the effects of selective oestrogen receptor modulators/aromatase inhibitors on semen parameters in men with secondary hypogonadism.ObjectivesTo assess the effect of monotherapy or a combination of selective oestrogen receptor modulators/aromatase inhibitors on sperm parameters and/or fertility in men with secondary hypogonadism.Materials and methodsA systematic search was conducted in PubMed, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library and ClinicalTrials.gov. Study selection and data extraction were performed by two reviewers independently. Randomised controlled trials and non‐randomised studies of interventions reporting effects of selective oestrogen receptor modulators and/or aromatase inhibitors on semen parameters or fertility in men with low testosterone with low/normal gonadotrophins were selected. The risk of bias was assessed using ROB‐2 and ROBINS‐I tools. The results of randomised controlled trials were summarised using vote counting while summarising effect estimates where available. Non‐randomised studies of intervention meta‐analysis were conducted using the random‐effect model. The certainty of evidence was assessed using GRADE.ResultsFive non‐randomised studies of interventions (n = 105) of selective oestrogen receptor modulators showed an increase in sperm concentration (pooled mean difference 6.64 million/mL; 95% confidence interval 1.54, 11.74, I2 = 0%) and three non‐randomised studies of interventions (n = 83) of selective oestrogen receptor modulators showed an increase in total motile sperm count (pooled mean difference 10.52; 95% confidence interval 1.46–19.59, I2 = 0%), with very low certainty of evidence. The mean body mass index of participants was >30 kg/m2. Four randomised controlled trials (n = 591) comparing selective oestrogen receptor modulators to placebo showed a heterogeneous effect on sperm concentration. Three included men with overweight or obesity. The results were of very low certainty of evidence. Limited pregnancy or live birth data were available. No studies comparing aromatase inhibitors with placebo or testosterone were found.Discussion and conclusionCurrent studies are of limited size and quality but suggest that selective oestrogen receptor modulators may improve semen parameters in those patients, particularly when associated with obesity.