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PurposeE-commerce live streaming is a new influencer advertising method that allows influencers to interact directly with consumers on e-commerce platforms. Although evidence suggests that influencer live-streaming advertisements (ads) on social media can increase consumers’ buying impulses, little research examined how this similar but new advertising method on e-commerce platforms may influence consumers’ urge to buy impulsively. This study explores the role of influencer credibility, celebrity effect, perceived entertainment, trust and perceived usefulness on consumers’ attitudes toward influencer ads and their urge to buy impulsively.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire containing seven constructs was developed and distributed to participants using a convenient sample and snowball sampling approach. The constructs were measured based on validated measurement items from the literature and adjusted according to this study’s focus. A total of 236 valid responses were obtained from the survey and used for data analysis. A partial least squares structural equation modeling approach was employed for parameter estimation and model testing.FindingsThe empirical results show that all constructs influenced consumers’ urge to buy impulsively via attitude toward influencer ads. The proposed research model explains 61.7% of the variance in attitude toward influencer ads and 19.4% of the urge to buy impulsively.Originality/valueThis is an early study investigating the relationship between influencer advertising and impulse buying. The results provide valuable insights into improving the design of influencer ads and marketing strategies.HighlightsI-eIB model tests the mechanism of influencer ads on consumers’ buying impulse.Consumers’ attitude towards influencer ads affects their urge to buy impulsively.Influencer credibility affects consumer attitude via celebrity effect as a mediator.Trust affects consumer attitude via perceived usefulness as a mediator.Entertaining ads help develop favorable consumer attitude.

Work–life balance (WLB), which has become a central issue in workers’ everyday lives, is a global issue with a growing body of investigation into its meaning and the construction of suitable measurement scales, but varying meanings for WLB have been observed in studies. Due to these discrepancies, review or summary work is needed to identify the trends and development of WLB among workers, including (a) the commonly used WLB scales, (b) the antecedents and outcomes related to WLB and (c) the frequency of the emergence of these antecedents and outcomes. This review aims to provide an overview of empirical studies investigating the antecedents and outcomes of WLB. A total of 99 published articles from 77 journals over the period of 2006–2020 were extracted. The research methods, analysis methods, countries investigated, pivot of WLB scales used, and thematic topics and research gaps were identified. The trends of WLB, including the establishment of standard working hours, the availability of working from home, the effects of technologies on achieving WLB and the benefits of WLB for subjective wellbeing, are discussed. The research insights will provide the research directions for constructing WLB scales and investigating issues that significantly affect the WLB of employees.

A dual task was designed to involve a tracking mission with various tracking speeds and a spatial compatibility task with various signal-key mappings and presentation modalities. This dual task was used to investigate the effects of workload and resource competition in distinct parts of the dual-task process. The results demonstrated that increasing the tracking speed adversely affected the tracking performance but led to positive arousal to the secondary discrete response task. Visual spatial signals gave the shortest reaction time due to the optimal time-sharing of the visual resources in the focal and ambient channels. Compared with visual spatial signals, spatial signals of auditory and tactile modalities did not lead to an improved performance because of their cross-modality nature. These findings provided practical design guidelines for dual tasks in which the operators need to complete a continuous monitoring task visually and elicit timely and accurate responses to spatial information.

Risk taking among construction workers is a critical topic in construction safety research. The aim of this study was to empirically investigate how optimism bias and safety climate influence construction worker risk-taking behavior. A survey with a designed questionnaire was conducted to collect data from construction workers. A total of 183 construction workers participated in this study and completed the designed questionnaire. The collected data were subjected to statistical analysis by using structural equation modeling. Results show that optimism bias related to work risks positively influences construction worker risk-taking behavior, whereas safety climate and optimism bias related to hazard perception skills negatively affect the risk-taking behavior. These findings can enrich the literature on construction worker risk-taking behavior from the perspective of optimism bias and safety climate. Practical implications are provided for discouraging construction workers from taking risks at work.

The objective of this study is to improve the efficiency of the flow‐wrap packaging process in soap industry through the reduction of defectives. At the 95% confidence level, with the regression analysis, the sealing temperature, temperatures of upper and lower crimper are found to be the significant factors for the flow‐wrap process with respect to the number/percentage of defectives. Twenty seven experiments have been designed and performed according to three levels of each controllable factor. With the general linear model (GLM), the suggested values for the sealing temperature, temperatures of upper and lower crimpers are 185, 85 and 85° C, respectively while the response surface method (RSM) provides the optimal process conditions at 186, 89 and 88° C. Due to different assumptions between percentage of defective and all three temperature parameters, the suggested conditions from the two methods are then slightly different. Fortunately, the estimated percentage of defectives at 5.51% under GLM process...

In this paper, a technique for detecting faults in underground distribution system is presented. Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) based on traveling wave is employed in order to detect the high frequency components and to identify fault locations in the underground distribution system. The first peak time obtained from the faulty bus is employed for calculating the distance of fault from sending end. The validity of the proposed technique is tested with various fault inception angles, fault locations and faulty phases. The result is found that the proposed technique provides satisfactory result and will be very useful in the development of power systems protection scheme.

Aseptic loosening effects are critical issues in encouraging long term stability of cemented hip arthroplasty. Stress shielding is believed to be an important factor that contributes to the aseptic loosening problems. The numerous changes in the prosthesis stem design are intended to minimize the stress shielding and aseptic loosening problems and to improve the long term performance of the implants. In this study, the stress distribution in cemented hip arthroplasty is established using finite element method. The taper of the prosthesis is designed to be 3° at anterior/posterior, 3° at medial/lateral and 10° from wide lateral to narrow medial. Major muscle loads and contact forces are simulated for walking (toe‐off phase) and stair climbing load cases. Effects of prosthesis stem tapers on the resulting stress distribution are investigated. Results show that compressive stress dominates in the medial plane while tensile stress in the lateral plane of the femur. The corresponding stress levels of intact femur for walking and stair‐climbing load cases are 22 and 29 MPa, respectively. The magnitude of Tresca stress for the THA femur in stair‐climbing load case remains higher in the region of 85 MPa while the walking load case induces around 40 MPa. The stress range in the straight and single taper stem prosthesis is lower than 260 MPa, while localized Tresca stress is in the order of the yield strength of Ti‐6Al‐4V alloy for double and triple taper stem design.

A systematic approach with proper statistical analysis techniques for analyzing maintenance data can give insight on how well the performance of the existing system. The objective of this study is to present a methodology for systematically analyzing the maintenance data of offshore gas compressor system to gain insight about the system performance and identify the critical factors influencing the performance. The study approach is based on problem and data‐lead rather than technique‐driven. The results of trend test propose that the system under studied can be modeled using a simple Homogeneous Poisson process (HPP) process where the failure rate is constant. Analyses of covariates are done using Kaplan Meier and Proportional hazards models. The results indicate that the preventive maintenance (PM) plus engine wash has a significance influence on the system failure distribution. This covariate is found to play a positive role in extending the inter‐arrival failure times thus improving the system performance.

The present study investigated the influence of flow arrangement on the performance index (expressed as the ratio of the heat transfer rate to the pressure drop) of an aluminium microchannel heat exchanger. The results were obtained by both numerical simulations and experimental data. For all cases done in this study, the performance index obtained from the counter‐flow arrangement is always higher than that obtained from the parallel‐flow one: the value obtained from the counter‐flow is 1.13 to 1.2 times of that obtained from the parallel‐flow. For the case of the counter‐flow, the experimental results indicated that the performance index of 21.69 W/kPa was achieved for water from the hot side of the device having the inlet temperature of 70° C and the flow rate of 0.2321 g/s and for water from the cold side having the inlet temperature of 22.5° C and the flow rate of 0.401 g/s. Besides, the numerically obtained profiles of the temperature and the temperature gradient were shown graphically. Furthermore,...

A fuzzy goal programming model for solving a Multi‐Depot Distribution Problem (MDDP) is proposed in this research. This effective proposed model is applied for solving in the first step of Assignment First‐Routing Second (AFRS) approach. Practically, a basic transportation model is firstly chosen to solve this kind of problem in the assignment step. After that the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) model is used to compute the delivery cost in the routing step. However, in the basic transportation model, only depot to customer relationship is concerned. In addition, the consideration of customer to customer relationship should also be considered since this relationship exists in the routing step. Both considerations of relationships are solved using Preemptive Fuzzy Goal Programming (P‐FGP). The first fuzzy goal is set by a total transportation cost and the second fuzzy goal is set by a satisfactory level of the overall independence value. A case study is used for describing the effectiveness of the proposed model. Results from the proposed model are compared with the basic transportation model that has previously been used in this company. The proposed model can reduce the actual delivery cost in the routing step owing to the better result in the assignment step. Defining fuzzy goals by membership functions are more realistic than crisps. Furthermore, flexibility to adjust goals and an acceptable satisfactory level for decision maker can also be increased and the optimal solution can be obtained.

This study presents a new method for detecting the cutting tool wear based on the measured cutting force signals. A statistical‐based method called Integrated Kurtosis‐based Algorithm for Z‐Filter technique, called I‐kaz was used for developing a regression model and 3D graphic presentation of I‐kaz 3D coefficient during machining process. The machining tests were carried out using a CNC turning machine Colchester Master Tornado T4 in dry cutting condition. A Kistler 9255B dynamometer was used to measure the cutting force signals, which were transmitted, analyzed, and displayed in the DasyLab software. Various force signals from machining operation were analyzed, and each has its own I‐kaz 3D coefficient. This coefficient was examined and its relationship with flank wear lands (VB) was determined. A regression model was developed due to this relationship, and results of the regression model shows that the I‐kaz 3D coefficient value decreases as tool wear increases. The result then is used for real time tool wear monitoring.

The present study discusses the retailer’s optimal replenishment policy for seasonal products. The demand rate of seasonal merchandise such as clothes, sporting goods, children’s toys and electrical home appearances tends to decrease with time after reaching its maximum value. In this study, we focus on “Special Display Goods”, which are heaped up in end displays or special areas at retail stores. They are sold at a fast velocity when their quantity displayed is large, but are sold at a low velocity if the quantity becomes small. We develop the model with a finite time horizon (selling period) to determine the optimal replenishment policy, which maximizes the retailer’s total profit. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the theoretical underpinnings of the proposed model.

The routing problem is applied to various engineering fields. Many researchers study this problem. In this paper, we propose a new routing algorithm which is based on Ant Colony Optimization. The proposed algorithm introduces the tabu search mechanism to escape the blind alley. Thus, the proposed algorithm enables to find the shortest route, even if the map data contains the blind alley. Experiments using map data prove the effectiveness in comparison with Dijkstra algorithm which is the most popular conventional routing algorithm.

This paper introduces a framework for a highly constrained sports scheduling problem which is modeled from the requirements of various professional sports leagues. We define a sports scheduling problem, introduce the necessary terminology and detail the constraints of the problem. A set of artificial and real‐world instances derived from the actual problems solved for the professional sports league owners are proposed. We publish the best solutions we have found, and invite the sports scheduling community to find solutions to the unsolved instances. We believe that the instances will help researchers to test the value of their solution methods. The instances are available online.