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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the characteristics of environmental protection behaviours of community residents from the perspective of system dynamics.

Documentation method is used to collect the factors and environmental improvement intervention strategies that influence the environmental protection behaviours of community residents from the top journals. To analyse the characteristics of the environmental protection behaviours of community residents which are nonlinear and dynamic, system dynamics (SD) are drawn. The initial value for simulation is obtained from the investigation report of some communities in China by questionnaires method.

The simulation shows that a process of continuous and interactional feedback is formed among environmental improvement intervention strategies, living context, environmental behavioural intention and environmental protection behaviours. These influences affect how environmental protection behaviour is affected by frequency of community environmental publicity, frequency of community participation regulation and local government investment, all of which are significant and decrease successively. Living context and environmental behavioural intention, which are intervened by the three strategies, can promote community residents’ environmental protection behaviours and reduce the degree of environmental pollution in communities.

The goal of reducing the community environmental pollution may be achieved, because the community environmental management departments can use this system dynamics approach to intervene the environmental protection behaviours of community residents.

The nonlinear and dynamic interactions among influencing factors are illustrated for an in-depth understanding of the environmental protection behaviours of community residents in this study. In addition, the initial parameter value and correlation coefficients are obtained for simulation through the questionnaire survey given to Chinese community residents to avoid the subjectivity of system dynamics.

Scholars have examined the relationship between sports and urban development and proposed to use sport programs and events as a catalyst to revitalize communities, upgrade urban infrastructure, promote city image, shift economic structure, nurture an active lifestyle, and enhance societal harmony and solidarity. Yet, previous studies were usually focused on mega sport events and were typically conceptual, theoretical and lack of practical applications. This study was designed to attain in-depth understanding on how a specific sport, table tennis, can be systematically organized and utilized to influence urban development through a qualitative research injury.

This investigation was carried by conducting in-depth interviews of the executive director of the Shanghai Table Tennis Association, on-site observations and comprehensive review of literature. Development of interview questions took into consideration the conceptual framework postulated by Preuss (2007) that contains six structures of urban development through sports. Triangulation analyses were conducted to cross validate the three information sources to generate themes and assertions.

While the identified practices were consistent with Preuss' (2007) framework, specific management activities earnestly practiced in Shanghai are centered on utilizing cultural and historical heritage, star power, branding strategies, staging tournaments, hallmark events, technical innovation and government relations to achieve the objectives of table tennis as a sport and the objectives of urban development through table tennis.

The findings of this study help fill the void that a theory usually cannot specify, namely, detailed, unambiguous practices. While table tennis may be a viewed as a small sport in many parts of the world, it has a strong, unprecedented historical heritage in Shanghai. This city has made a prudent choice and investment in this sport, which has proved to be effective. Other cities in the world should look into their own social, cultural and historical heritage and develop sport strategies, operations and programs accordingly.

This paper aims to examine how auditors respond through audit fees and audit quality following disciplinary actions imposed by audit regulators in an emerging market setting.

This paper uses the disciplinary actions in 2017 against two major audit firms in China as an exogenous shock to examine the effect of tougher enforcement actions on auditor behavior as reflected in their emended audit fees and audit quality. This paper sampled from publicly listed firms in China with requisite data for the period 2015 through 2018. Using a difference-in-differences model, this paper examines whether the enforcement action (i.e. the suspension of audit firms) significantly impacted the audit fees and audit quality for clients of the disciplined audit firms (hereafter, suspended audit firms) in the two-year period postsuspension relative to audit firms that were not disciplined (hereafter, nonsuspended audit firms).

This paper finds evidence of increased audit fees and improved audit quality by the suspended audit firms relative to the nonsuspended audit firms in the two-year period postsuspension. These findings suggest that in contrast to symbolic disciplinary actions such as public censures documented in prior literature (Boone et al.,2015), tougher punitive disciplinary actions are followed by an increase in audit fees and an improvement in audit quality by the suspended audit firms. This paper also finds that the deterrent effect from the audit firm suspension is exclusive to the penalized audit firms and had no positive spillover effects on their peers.

A limitation of this study is the focus on the effect of audit firm suspension against two large local audit firms in China. Given the unique characteristics of the Chinese audit market and the Chinese regulatory environment, our findings may not be generalizable to audit firms in other countries and jurisdictions, especially where the audit market is dominated by the international Big 4 auditors that possess greater brand name capital than second-tier local audit firms.

This paper provides novel evidence on the impact of strengthened enforcement on auditor behavior in an emerging market setting. This paper contributes to the existing literature examining the impact of regulatory interventions on financial reporting outcomes and audit quality. While there is evidence on how regulations affect financial statement preparers’ demand for high audit quality, there is limited research on how regulatory interventions affect auditor’s incentive to supply higher audit quality. This paper also contributes to the scant existing evidence on the effect of disciplinary actions against audit firms in emerging economies.

This study aims to test the effect of individual audit quality on career advancement the audit labour market.

This paper uses data on auditors from two collapsed audit firms in China, namely, Ruihua and Zhengzhong Zhujiang, and tests the effect of individual audit quality on career advancement in the audit labour market.

The baseline results show that high-quality audits promote auditors’ career advancement. Our results hold after a battery of robustness tests. Further analyses support our hypothesis, indicating that client retention and audit fees are positively related to auditors’ prior audit quality. The effect of audit quality on career advancement does not hold for auditors from sanctioned branch offices or for auditors with prior culpable clients, as shared reputation damage can weaken the effect of high audit quality. Furthermore, this paper investigates whether the reputation enhancement effect of high audit quality can be strengthened by auditor experience, the title of “senior auditor” and IPO auditing experience. We also show that clients and audit firms place more weight on the quality of audits conducted by auditors in competitive markets and auditors with engagements matched with industries.

Together, these findings indicate the vital role of individual audit quality in auditors’ career development in the audit labour market, consistent with the reputation rationale for audit quality.

It is an indispensable part of airworthiness certification to evaluate the fuel tank flammability exposure time for transport aircraft. There are many factors and complex coupling relationships affecting the fuel tank flammability exposure time. The current work not only lacks a comprehensive analysis of these factors but also lacks the significance of each factor, the interaction relationship and the prediction method of flammability exposure time. The lack of research in these aspects seriously restricts the smooth development of the airworthiness forensics work of domestic large aircraft. This paper aims to clarify the internal relationship between user input parameters and predict the flammability exposure time of fuel tanks for transport aircraft.

Based on the requirements of airworthiness certification for large aircraft, an in-depth analysis of the Monte Carlo flammability evaluation source procedures specified in China Civil Aviation Regulation/FAR25 airworthiness regulations was made, the internal relationship between factors affecting the fuel tank flammability exposure time was clarified and the significant effects and interactions of input parameters in the Monte Carlo evaluation model were studied using the response surface method. And the BP artificial neural network training samples with high significance factors were used to establish the prediction model of flammability exposure time.

The input parameters in the Monte Carlo program directly or indirectly affect the fuel tank flammability exposure time by means of the influence on the flammability limit or fuel temperature. Among the factors affecting flammability exposure time, the cruising Mach number, balance temperature difference and maximum range are the most significant, and they are all positively correlated with flammability exposure time. Although there are interactions among all factors, the degree of influence on flammability exposure time is not the same. The interaction between maximum range and equilibrium temperature difference is more significant than other factors. The prediction model of flammability exposure time based on multifactor interaction and BP neural network has good accuracy and can be applied to the prediction of fuel tank flammability exposure time.

The flammability exposure time prediction model was established based on multifactor interaction and BP neural network. The limited test results were combined with intelligent algorithm to achieve rapid prediction, which saved the test cost and time.

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of asymmetric trust on construction project management performance in China's construction industry. Moreover, the authors explore the mediating role of two types of knowledge sharing (explicit knowledge sharing and tacit knowledge sharing) in explaining the association between asymmetric trust and project management performance.

A theoretical model based on the research hypotheses proposed in this study was developed and a questionnaire survey was conducted with 271 professionals. The data collected was analyzed by the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique.

The results of this study indicate that there is a significant and negative association between asymmetric trust and project management performance. Moreover, two types of knowledge sharing (explicit knowledge sharing and tacit knowledge sharing) have different degrees of impact on improving project management performance. In addition, tacit knowledge sharing is a mediator between asymmetric trust and project management performance.

The data used in this study is from Chinese scenarios, so the research conclusions and application effects based on this are bound to have certain regional limitations. Besides, there are many factors that affect project management performance improving, and the relationships among them are so complex. The theoretical model proposed in this study may not be fully considered. Therefore, follow-up researchers can consider bringing more suitable variables into their researches, so that the theoretical researches can be more in line with the actual project management practice, and the specific mechanism for improving project management performance can be explained more deeply.

This research's value is as follows: Firstly, this paper contributes to the trust and relational governance literature by expanding the research perspective of mutual trust to asymmetric trust. Specially, this research designs a measurement scale for asymmetric trust and then reveals the impact mechanism of it on project management performance, which will certainly promote research paradigm change of trust. Secondly, this research is beneficial to knowledge sharing literature in the construction management field by expanding the research scope of knowledge sharing from a cross-organizational perspective.

Polymeric parts produced by 3D stereolithography (SL) process have poorer mechanical properties as compared to their counterparts fabricated via conventional methods, such as injection or compression molding. Adding nanofillers in the photopolymer resin for SL could help improve mechanical properties. This study aims to achieve enhancement in mechanical properties of parts fabricated by SL, for functional applications, by using well-dispersed nanofillers in the photopolymers, together with suitable post-processing.

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have high strength and Young’s modulus, making them attractive nanofillers. However, dispersion of CNTs in photopolymer is a critical challenge, as they tend to agglomerate easily. Achieving good dispersion is crucial to improve the mechanical properties; thus, suitable dispersion mechanisms and processes are examined. Solvent exchange process was found to improve the dispersion of multiwalled carbon nanotubes in the photopolymer. The UV-absorbing nature of CNTs was also discovered to affect the curing properties. With suitable post processing, coupled with thermal curing, the mechanical properties of SL parts made from CNTs-filled resin improved significantly.

With the addition of 0.25 wt.% CNTs into the photopolymer, tensile stress and elongation of the 3D printed parts increased by 70 and 46 per cent, respectively. With the significant improvement, the achieved tensile strength is comparable to parts manufactured by conventional methods.

This allows functional parts to be manufactured using SL.

In this paper, an improved procedure to incorporate CNTs into the photopolymer was developed. Furthermore, because of strong UV-absorption nature of CNTs, curing properties of photopolymer and SL parts with and without CNT fillers were studied. Optimized curing parameters were determined and additional post-processing step for thermal curing was discovered as an essential step in order to further enhance the mechanical properties of SL composite parts.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a guiding framework for studying the travel patterns of PT users. The combination of public transit (PT) users’ travel data and user profiling (UP) technology to draw a portrait of PT users can effectively understand users’ travel patterns, which is important to help optimize the scheduling of PT operations and planning of the network.

To achieve the purpose, the paper presents a three-level classification method to construct the labeling framework. A station area attribute mining method based on the term frequency-inverse document frequency weighting algorithm is proposed to determine the point of interest attributes of user travel stations, and the spatial correlation patterns of user travel stations are calculated by Moran’s Index. User travel feature labels are extracted from travel data containing Beijing PT data for one consecutive week.

In this paper, a universal PT user labeling system is obtained and some related methods are conducted including four categories of user-preferred travel area patterns mining and a station area attribute mining method. In the application of the Beijing case, a precise exploration of the spatiotemporal characteristics of PT users is conducted, resulting in the final Beijing PTUP system.

This paper combines UP technology with big data analysis techniques to study the travel patterns of PT users. A user profile label framework is constructed, and data visualization, statistical analysis and K-means clustering are applied to extract specific labels instructed by this system framework. Through these analytical processes, the user labeling system is improved, and its applicability is validated through the analysis of a Beijing PT case.

The purpose of this paper is to review maintenance practices, tools and parameters for marine mechanical systems that can be classified as plant, machinery and equipment (PME). It provides an insight for the maintenance crew on which maintenance parameters and practices are critical for a given PME systems.

The review paper characterizes the various maintenance parameters and maintenance practices used onshore and offshore for PME and identifies the possible gaps.

A variety of maintenance techniques are being used in the marine industry such as corrective maintenance, preventive maintenance and condition-based maintenance. As marine vehicles (MV) get older, the most important maintenance parameters become maintenance costs, reliability and safety. Maintenance models that have been developed in line with marine mechanical systems have been validated using a single system, whose outcome could be different if another PME system is used for validation.

There is a limited literature on MV maintenance parameters and maintenance characterization regarding mechanical systems. The maintenance practices or strategies of marine mechanical systems should be based on maintenance parameters that suit the marine industry for a given PME.

Based on the available literature, the paper provides a variety of maintenance framework, parameters and practices for marine mechanical systems. The paper further gives an insight on what maintenance parameters, strategies and platforms are given preference in the shipping industry.

The paper aims to examine the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity of audit firms.

Using hand-collected data on all Chinese audit firms’ CSR activities from 2007 to 2020, this study constructs two measures to proxy for audit firms’ CSR engagement: a dummy variable to indicate whether an auditor engages in CSR activities in year t and the frequency with which auditors conduct CSR activities in year t. The authors use ordinary least squares regression as a baseline methodology, along with the entropy balancing method and instrumental variable approach to alleviate potential endogeneity concerns.

The baseline results show that socially responsible audit firms provide higher quality audit services than their counterparts. In particular, the authors find that clients audited by socially responsible audit firms are less likely to receive an aggressively clean opinion. Moreover, the findings suggest that CSR activities related to community and employees are more relevant in improving audit quality compared with those related to other dimensions of CSR. Further analyses show that capital markets and audit clients react positively to audit-firm CSR activity. Audit firms engaging in CSR increase their audit inputs in response to risky clients, as compared with their counterparts. Finally, cross-sectional analyses show that the positive relationship is more pronounced for non-Big 4 and non-industry experts and is attenuated by within-firm geographic dispersion. In terms of client characteristics, the positive effect of audit-firm CSR is stronger when their clients face the higher financial risk or have lower CSR awareness than others. Taken together, these findings are consistent with the ethical view of audit-firm CSR engagement.

The study advances investors’ understanding of audit-firm CSR engagement and helps them evaluate the credibility of audited financial reports. Besides, the findings may also help guide the audit firms to conduct more CSR activities and help guide the audit clients to choose CSR audit firms.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study provides the first large-sample evidence by empirically examining the association between audit-firm CSR activity and audit service performance. Besides, this paper also explores audit-firm CSR activity from two competing perspectives, thereby providing a comprehensive understanding of this issue. Finally, this work responds to the call for more CSR research in emerging markets.