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This paper aims to improve the permeability and antifouling of polysulfone (PSF) ultrafiltration membranes, the PSF matrix was modified by incorporating sulfonated polysulfone (SPSF).

Systematic investigations were conducted on the synergistic effects of a pore-forming agent, coagulation bath temperature and SPSF doping in the casting solution on blended ultrafiltration membranes. The chemical composition of the membranes was analyzed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The morphology and surface roughness of the membranes were characterized using scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. The hydrophilicity of the membrane surface was analyzed using a contact angle meter. The permeability and antifouling properties of the blended membranes were also investigated through filtration experiments.

The results indicated that the blended ultrafiltration membranes demonstrated an optimal overall performance when PVP-K30 content was 5.0 Wt.%, coagulation bath temperature was 30°C and SPSF content was 2.4 Wt.%. In comparison to a pure PSF ultrafiltration membrane, there was a significant increase in pure water flux (390.7 L·m⁻²·h⁻¹) by 2.2 times, while bovine serum albumin retention slightly decreased to 93.8%. In addition, the flux recovery rate improved by 2.1 times (71.4%) compared to that of the original PSF ultrafiltration membrane.

The method provided a simple and practical solution for improving the antifouling and permeability of PSF ultrafiltration membranes.

SPSF was anticipated to serve as an excellent modification additive for the preparation of ultrafiltration membranes with superior properties.

This study aims to optimize the preparation conditions and modify the nanofiltration (NF) membranes to prepare high-performance polysulfone/sulfonated polysulfone composite nanofiltration (PSF/SPSF-NF) membranes through interfacial polymerization.

Investigating the impacts of anhydrous piperazine (PIP) concentration, trimesoyl chloride (TMC) concentration and basement membrane type on NF membrane performance, the optimal membrane was prepared. In addition, nano-SiO₂ was added to the active separation layer to modify the NF membranes.

The comprehensive performance of PSF/SPSF-NF membranes was optimized when the concentration of PIP was 0.75 Wt.% and the concentration of TMC was 0.15 Wt.%, at which time the water flux was 66.1 L·m⁻²·h⁻¹ and the retention rate of Na₂SO₄ was 98.1%. The comprehensive performance of polysulfone/sulfonated polysulfone-SiO₂ nanofiltration (PSF/SPSF-SiO₂-NF) membranes was optimized when the blending ratio of nano-SiO₂ to PIP was 2:3, with a pure water flux of 81.9 L·m⁻²·h⁻¹ and a Na₂SO₄ retention rate of 95.9%. Compared to polysulfone nanofiltration (PSF-NF) membranes and PSF/SPSF-NF membranes, NF membranes with nano-SiO₂ increased the flux recovery rate by 22.9% and 8.7%.

PSF/SPSF-SiO2-NF membrane exhibits excellent antifouling properties.

There is currently no literature available on the preparation of NF membranes using polysulfone/sulfonated polysulfone (PSF/SPFS) as a substrate. This provides a method for modifying NF membranes, starting with the modification of the basement membrane and then modifying the active separation layer.

Crack sensor based on RFID tag has become a research hotspot in the field of metal structural health monitoring for its significant benefit of passive wireless transmission. While in practice, crack location will impact the performance of crack depth-sensing tag. The purpose of this paper is to provide a method for reducing disturbance of crack location on crack depth-sensing tag.

The effect analysis of crack location on crack depth-sensing tag is presented first to find disturbance reason and disturbance law. On the basis of that, a miniaturized tag is proposed to improve the current distribution and reduce the disturbance introduced by crack location.

The degree of crack location disturbance is closely related to the current distribution in the coverage area of tag. Because sensing tag performs better when crack locates in the high current density area, miniaturization of sensing tag is exploited to expand the high current density area and make the area more symmetrical. The simulated and experimental results demonstrate that tag miniaturization can enhance the performance of crack depth-sensing tag.

This paper provides a method to enhance the performance of crack depth-sensing tag.

This paper aims to report on a literature review that aimed to establish a guiding framework for the development of digital scholarship services in China’s university libraries.

The framework was developed through systematically searching, screening, assessing, coding and aggregating digital scholarship services as reported in the existing body of literature. Three types of literature were included in the analysis: international academic literature as reported in English; academic literature in Chinese; and relevant professional reports.

The literature analysis pointed to 25 different digital scholarship services, which emerged in six themes: supporting services, formulating research ideas, locating research partners, writing proposals, conducting research and publishing results.

Although this literature review focused on university libraries in China, the research findings and the guiding framework developed provide useful insights and indications that can be shared across international borders.

This paper reports on a critical literature review, which aimed to identify, understand and qualify barriers that hinder the release of open government data (OGD) in China. Moreover, the purpose of this paper is to develop and propose a theoretical framework, which can be adopted as a basis for empirical investigation in the future, and to articulate mitigating strategies.

This study adopted an inductive qualitative approach, retrieving 42 academic articles from three main Chinese academic databases: CNKI, Wanfang and CQVIP. A thematic analysis approach was employed for the literature analysis.

The literature analysis pointed to 15 barriers to the release of OGD in China. Furthermore, the barriers emerged in the following three main themes: institutional barriers, data integrity and quality barriers, and user participation barriers.

This paper reports on one of the early research efforts into the problems of releasing OGD in China. Although this study focusses on Chinese context and issues, the findings and lessons learnt can be shared across international borders.

Self-service libraries (SSLs) have been regarded as an effective approach to provide convenient book services to the enormously large populations of China’s cities. These SSLs are in fact automatic book service machines, which provide a combination of services, including reading card issuing, book lending and returning, and book reservations and collection. However, despite acclaimed success, SSL services are not well received by patrons and are underutilised. The purpose of this paper is to identify and understand the causes of the underutilisation of SSL services in Chinese cities.

This study adopted an inductive approach and a case study research design. The SSL services in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province, were adopted as the case study, in which 20 public librarians, SSL workers and managers, and library patrons were approached and interviewed using semi-structured question scripts. The interview data were analysed using a thematic analysis approach.

The analysis pointed to 13 causes in three main themes: management problems, service limitations, and the implicit role of government. Further conceptualisation of the findings revealed that the underutilisation of SSL services has resulted from the absence of a patron-centric perspective and the negligence of patrons’ needs and requirements. Therefore, to increase the popularity and usage of SSLs, it is necessary to develop patron-centric management mechanisms through which patrons’ needs and requirements can be effectively understood and responded to.

This study aims to develop specific suggestions to improve the usage of SSLs. Furthermore, although this study focuses on SSL development in China, this research can provide useful suggestions and implications that can be shared across international borders.

The development of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is vital to the economy, as such the financing of SMEs has become the focus of government and enterprises. The purpose of this paper is to find the operational and financial strategies of the supplier and retailer in supply chain.

In a Stackelberg game, supplier moves first setting wholesale price, while the retailer follows, setting the ordering quantity. Enterprises maximize their profits by optimization. When measuring profit targets, the capital constraints and income taxes of two companies are considered. In the portfolio financing model, the retailer can obtain products from suppliers through trade credit, and the supplier can use asset-backed securitization (ABS) to solve his/her financing problems.

The wholesale price is a decreasing function of retailer’s initial cash balance, and the supplier’s financing interest rate is a decreasing function of his/her own capital, the incentive effect of the supplier’s price discount strategy on retailer is more intense in the supply chain with high-priced product or high-capital retailer. And in a capital-constrained supply chain, an increase in tax rate or financing rate does not necessarily motivate the supplier to increase wholesale price. Most importantly, if the supplier’s markup is moderate, portfolio financing has value for both retailer and supplier, while solving the financing problems of both parties.

Future research can consider the explicit and implicit interest when supplier provides trade credit to retailer. It is also possible to consider the portfolio financing when multiple retailers are facing financial constraints.

It provides guidance for supply chain enterprises with financing needs, helping them find optimal decisions. With financial interest, enterprise income tax on the enterprises’ financing factors will produce a tax shield effect; thus, a cost–benefit analysis with the tax shield effect can provide more accurate picture when making corresponding decisions.

Government takes feasible adjustments of tax rate for the sake of motivation on financial SMEs tax shield. Furthermore, ABS calls for service from financial institutions, which will, in turn, expedite financial institutions revenue.

The authors provide insights on enterprise financing models, combining ABS with trade credit, expanding enterprise financing channels and enriching the theory of financial supply chain and supply chain management. The authors analyze in detail the influence of tax factors on enterprises by introducing tax factors into traditional process of enterprise operation and financing strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships among job and career satisfactions, work commitment, and turnover intentions for the Post‐80 employees in China.

A total of 290 of China's Post‐80 employees from 19 knowledge‐intensive companies were surveyed. Structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

The perceptions of selected Post‐80 employees on job and career satisfactions were negatively related to turnover intention, while job satisfaction was positively related to four types of work commitment, affective commitment, normative commitment, career commitment and job involvement. Career satisfaction was also positively related to three types of work commitment, affective commitment, normative commitment, and career commitment. However, the relationships of job and career satisfactions and turnover intention as mediated by continuance commitment and career commitment were inconclusive.

Combining the available literature on China's Post‐80 generation with the inconclusive results, the authors posit that the uniqueness of work attitudes held by this generation has not been captured in previous studies. Future research should focus on differentiating work attitudes between this cohort and its preceding generations, as well as its Western counterparts.

Organizations need to recognize the uniqueness of China's Post‐80 generation employees' work attitudes, and develop appropriate talent strategies to retain and motivate this cohort of employees in China.

The paper highlights China's Post‐80 generation employees and extends the turnover models by integrating the perspectives of job satisfaction, career satisfaction and work commitment. The paper identifies research gaps for future research on China's Post‐80 employees' work attitudes.

Effective farmer participation in the rural land consolidation process has become increasingly important because it improves results in rural land consolidation and land use efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to examine the mechanism of farmers’ effective participation in Chinese rural land consolidation.

The authors empirically assess farmers’ effective participation in the rural land consolidation process in ten counties of China’s Hubei province. Focusing on an effective decision-making model, the authors comprehensively evaluated farmer participation using surveys that incorporated an index system and analyzed survey results using a structural equation model to examine factors that influenced farmer’s effective participation.

The results of the study suggest that the correlations between farmers’ effective participation and the impacting factors the authors proposed were particularly strong. In addition, participation ability, participation opportunity and participation incentive are strongly associated with effective farmer participation. Thus, the authors highlight that incentives should be provided to encourage farmers’ effective participation in rural land consolidation.

Because of the chosen approach and the set of the research object, the geographic context of the empirical survey work was limited; furthermore, the authors only studied the influencing factors at the individual level, leaving the interaction effects between governmental factors and farmer individual factors inadequately explained.

Despite those limitations, these results serve as an important reference for government agencies and stakeholder groups in rural land consolidation decision making.

In the context of Industry 4.0, intelligent construction technologies (ICT) represented by information technology and networking will undoubtedly provide new impetus to the development of the prefabricated building supply chain (PBSC), but they will also bring various potential risks. So far, there is a large lack of research on the comprehensive consideration of the risks associated with the intelligent transformation of PBSC based on the information sharing perspective, and the critical risks and interactions are still unclear, making it difficult to identify efficient risk mitigation strategies. Therefore, this paper aims to reveal the interactions between stakeholders and clarify the critical risk nodes and interactions in information sharing of PBSC (IS-PBSC), and propose targeted risk mitigation strategies.

Firstly, this paper creatively delineates the risks and critical stakeholders of IS-PBSC. Secondly, Data is collected through questionnaires to understand the degree of risks impact. Thirdly, with the help of NetMiner 4 software, social network analysis is conducted and IS-PBSC risk network is established to reveal critical risk nodes and interactions. Finally, further targeted discussion of critical risk nodes, the effectiveness and reasonableness of the risk mitigation strategies are proposed and verified through NetMiner 4 software simulation.

The results show that the critical risks cover the entire process of information sharing, with the lack of information management norms and other information assurance-related risks accounting for the largest proportion. In addition, the government dominates in risk control, followed by other stakeholders. The implementation of risk mitigation strategies is effective, with the overall network density reduced by 41.15% and network cohesion reduced by 24%.

In the context of Industry 4.0, ICT represented by information technology and networking will undoubtedly provide new impetus to the development of the PBSC, but they will also bring various potential risks. So far, there is a large lack of research on the comprehensive consideration of the risks associated with the intelligent transformation of PBSC based on the information sharing perspective, and the critical risks and interactions are still unclear, making it difficult to identify efficient risk mitigation strategies.

Based on the results of risk network visualization analysis, this paper proposes an ICT-based IS-PBSC mechanism that promotes the development of the integration of ICT and PBSC while safeguarding the benefits of various stakeholders.