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In this study, we examine the relation between employee treatment and annual report readability, which is measured as a reading difficulty score.

We use regression analysis to explore the impact of employee treatment on annual report reading difficulty.

We find a significant negative relation between employee treatment and reading difficulty, which suggests that annual reports of firms with better employee treatment are easier to read and understand (i.e. more readable).

Our study contributes to a more thorough knowledge of annual report readability and our findings may be of relevance to accounting standard setters and investors.

The purpose of this study is to explore the interfacial adhesion between superhydrophobic coatings FC-X (X = 1%, 2%, 3%, 4% and 5%) and the concrete substrate, along with the impact of FC-X on the water repellency characteristics of the concrete substrate.

One synthetic step was adopted to prepare novel F-SiO₂ NP hybrid fluororesin coating. The impact of varying mass fractions of F-SiO₂ NPs on the superhydrophobicity of FC-X was analyzed and subsequently confirmed through water contact angle (WCA) measurements. Superhydrophobic coatings were simply applied to the concrete substrate using a one-step spraying method. The interfacial adhesion between FC-X and the concrete substrate was analyzed using tape pasting tests and abrasion resistance measurements. The influence of FC-X on the water repellency of the concrete substrate was investigated through measurements of water absorption, impermeability and electric flux.

FC-4% exhibits excellent superhydrophobicity, with a WCA of 157.5° and a sliding angle of 2.3°. Compared to control sample, FC-X exhibits better properties, including chemical durability, wear resistance, adhesion strength, abrasion resistance, water resistance and impermeability.

This study offers a thorough investigation into the practical implications of enhancing the durability and water repellency of concrete substrates by using superhydrophobic coatings, particularly FC-4%, which demonstrates exceptional superhydrophobicity alongside remarkable chemical durability, wear resistance, adhesion strength, abrasion resistance, water resistance and impermeability.

Through the examination of the interfacial adhesion between FC-X and the concrete substrate, along with an assessment of FC-X’s impact on the water repellency of the concrete, this paper provides valuable insights into the practical application of superhydrophobic coatings in enhancing the durability and performance of concrete materials.

The preferences and adoption of recycled materials by consumers are subject to a variety of factors, such as enablers and barriers. Despite this, there exists a paucity of research concerning stakeholders' perceived value and real purchase decision towards recycled products. Consequently, this research study aims to fill this gap by investigating stakeholders' perceived value of recycled products derived from construction and demolition (C&D) waste and its effect on purchase decisions.

Research data were collected from 219 valid questionnaires completed by Chinese stakeholders. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was then employed to test eight hypotheses.

The results show intrinsic cue (materials) and extrinsic cue (brand) influence the stakeholders’ judgment on C&D waste recycled products’ value and then their purchase intention. However, cues such as quality, word-of-mouth, price, policy and advertised have not play a significant role in practice.

This research study verified the significance of brand and material cues on decision making for purchasing C&D waste recycled products, providing new insights to policy making to enhance the uptake of C&D waste recycled products in construction industry.

This paper aims to explore Chinese entrepreneurs’ perceptions and interpretations of social media marketing (SMM) in their daily business practices.

A qualitative approach was adopted to explore the phenomenon. Specifically, 18 in-depth interviews were conducted among Chinese entrepreneurs to obtain their experiences of and perceptions on SMM.

Findings revealed that Chinese entrepreneurs have good understandings of SMM. They believe SMM is a necessary way to interact with customers and SMM can provide flexibility and sensitivity which are important for entrepreneurial marketing and are not easy to achieve through traditional marketing activities. When they choose social media applications, they will match the purpose of marketing activity with the characteristics of the social media. They have developed the specific strategies for different social media applications. In the meantime, they are facing some challenges, such as breaking the communication clutter, measuring the results and over depending on social media.

Findings of the current study extend the uses and gratifications theory to the context of business-oriented media usage. In addition, findings of the study expand previous literature by enriching the theoretical understanding of the concept of entrepreneur and entrepreneurial marketing in new social and cultural contexts. Finally, findings of the current study also supplement previous research on social media advertising by uncovering rich meanings of SMM from business owners’ emic perspective.

This study develops a conceptualization of NPD (new product development) complexity and explores how inter-organizational collaboration and conflict influence NPD performance.

An empirical examination tests the proposed relationships in the context of Korean manufacturing firms, which currently engage in NPD projects with their key partners. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the hypotheses.

The findings suggest that a higher level of NPD complexity simultaneously calls for inter-organizational collaboration and conflict, and these two factors influence NPD performance in a conflicting manner: inter-organizational collaboration serves as a driver, and inter-organizational conflict acts as a barrier against NPD performance.

This study provides answers to the academic and practical calls by providing how NPD complexity should be managed in a way to increase NPD performance. This study provides insight into how manufacturing firms form inter-organizational collaboration practices and why they need to mitigate inter-organizational conflict.

The role of conventional contracts in achieving sustainability goals in public–private partnership (PPP) projects has been questioned. From the multifunctional perspective of contract theory, joint-contract functions that combine contractual control, coordination and adaptation may be a potential approach for improving PPP project sustainability performance. This research intends to investigate the link between the joint-contract functions and PPP project sustainability performance, and their underlying mechanism, by analyzing the mediating role of relationship quality and moderating roles of environmental uncertainty and behavioral uncertainty.

Based on 170 valid survey data collected from the Chinese PPP professionals, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was adopted to test the hypothesis.

The results reveal that joint-contract functions are positively associated with the PPP project sustainability performance. This relationship is strengthened by environmental and behavioral uncertainty. Moreover, the relationship between the joint-contract functions and PPP project sustainability performance is mediated by relationship quality.

This research extends contract governance theory and sustainability research in PPP projects. The research implications are as follows: (1) joint-contract functions are a second-order construct consisting of three first-order dimensions: control, coordination and adaptation and are positively associated with PPP project sustainability performance; (2) joint-contract functions enhance the sustainable benefits of PPP projects during environmental uncertainty and behavioral uncertainty; (3) informal relationships are a critical bridge connecting formal institutions with the sustainability performance of PPP projects.

In general, these findings guide project participants who aim to achieve sustainable outcomes in PPP projects. (1) Project participants should consider the process of contract design and sign contracts that focus on joint-contract functions. (2) Project participants should investigate the degree of uncertainty of a PPP project before designing contracts, and design the contracts with corresponding complexity. (3) Project participants should work to enhance PPP sustainable benefits by improving the relationship between partners, such as encouraging mutual trust and joint problem-solving.

This research verifies the relationship between joint-contract functions and PPP project sustainability performance, and the boundary and intermediary conditions between them.

This paper aims to present a human-in-the-loop natural teaching paradigm based on scene-motion cross-modal perception, which facilitates the manipulation intelligence and robot teleoperation.

The proposed natural teaching paradigm is used to telemanipulate a life-size humanoid robot in response to a complicated working scenario. First, a vision sensor is used to project mission scenes onto virtual reality glasses for human-in-the-loop reactions. Second, motion capture system is established to retarget eye-body synergic movements to a skeletal model. Third, real-time data transfer is realized through publish-subscribe messaging mechanism in robot operating system. Next, joint angles are computed through a fast mapping algorithm and sent to a slave controller through a serial port. Finally, visualization terminals render it convenient to make comparisons between two motion systems.

Experimentation in various industrial mission scenes, such as approaching flanges, shows the numerous advantages brought by natural teaching, including being real-time, high accuracy, repeatability and dexterity.

The proposed paradigm realizes the natural cross-modal combination of perception information and enhances the working capacity and flexibility of industrial robots, paving a new way for effective robot teaching and autonomous learning.

Addressing global warming challenge, carbon emissions reduction potential of the construction industry has received additional attentions. The decoupling of construction industry and carbon emissions through policies, technologies and model innovations is an effective way for reducing environmental pollution and achieve eco-urban target. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Within the scope of green building carbon emissions (GB-CO₂) research, a large number of scientific literature has been published in construction discipline over the past few decades. However, it seems that a systematic summary of strategies, techniques, models and scientific discussion of future direction of GB-CO₂ is lacking. Therefore, this paper carries out data mining on authoritative journals, identified the key research topics, active research areas and further research trends through visualization studies.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge in GB-CO₂ by critically reviewing and summarizing: professional high-quality journals have a greater influence in the scope of research, developed countries and developing countries are all very concerned about sustainable buildings, and the current hot topics of research focus on the application of the life cycle models, energy efficiency, environmental performance of concrete material, etc. Moreover, further research areas that could expand the knowledge of cross-national long-term carbon mechanisms, develop comprehensive life cycle carbon emissions assessment models, build technical standards and tests for the sustainable building material and systems, and exploit multi-objective decision models considering decarbonizing design and renewable energy.

This study is of value in systematic insight the state-of-the-art of GB-CO₂ research in the more recent decade. A more vividly and effectively method is documented in extending the traditional bibliometric review to a deeper discussion. This study can also benefit construction practitioners by providing them a focused perspective of strategy and technologies innovations for emerging practices in green building projects.

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of different prefabricated construction (PC) policies using a case study in Wuhan, considering the local context.

The effectiveness of PC policies is falling behind expectations. The main reason lies in an insufficient understanding of the policy impacts. An agent-based model was built by choosing the residential sector in a typical large city of Wuhan, China, as the study case. Different cost reduction scenarios were introduced for investigating the PC policy effectiveness. The proposed model and simulation approach can be used for other cities and generalized to the whole Chinese PC industry with the potential to include more local policies and corresponding data.

Simulation results show that carbon emission reduction will be between 60,000 and 80,000 tons with policy incentives, nearly double that of the no policy intervention scenario. The target of 30% PC in all new buildings by 2026 in China is achievable with the subsidy policies of linear cost reduction, or cost reduction conforms to the learning curve.

Simulation results of three kinds of policy show that subsidy policy optimization is necessary regarding reducing the level of subsidy needed. The carbon credit policy is not essential since it has little influence on PC development. Implementing the project procurement restriction policy is not recommended if the scale of development of PC is more important than achieving the development target.

This study can help the government and developers make better policy and strategic decisions on PC development and boost the sustainability transition of the construction industry.

This article was based on the information from The 5th International Conference of Institutes and Libraries for Chinese Overseas Studies held in the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada in which the author was a presenter in session 4.2.9a of the Early life of Yuan Shikai and the formation of Yuan family. The paper aims to include comprehensive analysis and development of the history of Chinese migration. An annotated bibliography of suggested readings was offered to highlight the subject knowledge for further research in this area.

The paper includes comprehensive analysis and development of the history of Chinese migration and the experiences and family histories of overseas Chinese in Canada. An annotated bibliography of suggested readings was offered to highlight the subject knowledge for further research in this area.

The paper offers full description and comprehensive analysis of the history of Chinese migration and overseas Chinese studies in Canada. A bbibliography of suggested readings was offered for further research in this area.

This research study has a strong subject focus on Chinese migration, overseas Chinese studies, and resource-sharing in the subject area. It is a specific field for research in Asian studies.

The result of this study will assist students, researchers, and the general public in the area of overseas Chinese studies and developing their interests in the social and historical value of Chinese migration history and resource-sharing in the area.

Very little research has been done in the area of Chinese migration and historical development. The paper would offer historians, sociologists, ethnologists, librarians, administrations, professors, as well as students in the fields of Asian history, anthropology, sociology, political science, geography, and other Asian-related interdisciplinary studies.