64 research outputs found
IKEA's brand culture in today's Chinese market: Focus on Shanghai
No full textTitle: IKEA's brand culture in today's Chinese market: Focus on Shanghai Level: Final assignment for Master of Business Administration Author: Hongming Yang, Chen Hu Supervisor: Maria Fregidou-Malama Date: 2012-June Aim: The aim of this study is to analyze the collected information to study the IKEA's brand culture and consumer psychology and behavior in Shanghai market nowadays. By using Hofstede´s cultural dimensions to assess the IKEA's brand culture in Shanghai we give suggestions to IKEA about how to adapt to the regional market. Method: Use of primary data which were collected through interviews, with a questionnaire provided to managers. Secondary data in form of articles, books and published literature has been collected through databases such as DIVA, Emerald and the library at Gävle University. We use qualitative analysis to study the issue. Result & Conclusions: IKEA's brand culture to provide good quality products to improve people's life in Shanghai in cheap price is not so clearly understood. IKEA has to adjust its marketing strategy, such as improving the quality of its products, or reducing the price, to remove the Shanghai consumers' confusion and misunderstanding of IKEA, in order to suit the Shanghai regional culture. Contribution of the thesis: We suggest that multinational enterprises should pay attention on the regional culture of the market they want to enter in. It is important that the enterprises know the Shanghai consumers' culture requirements, which can lead enterprises to promote their brand culture
A Corpus-based Analysis of The Time Machine: From the Perspective of Literary Stylistics
No full textFrom a corpus stylistic perspective, this paper analyses H.G. Wells’ book The Time Machine at the level of punctuation and vocabulary, etc. By utilizing the Sketch Engine and AntConc software, this paper finds that the author excels at using a large number of content words to present information and makes extensive use of transitive conjunctions in the course of the narration in order to present information that is difficult for the readers to anticipate. Based on the above methods, the author creates a contextual atmosphere suitable for the construction of the scientific discourse, eventually achieving an efficient degree of language code transmission with readers
The Concept of the Buddha in Early Buddhism
No full textSome scholars of Buddhist studies consider the Buddha as a mythological figure. This is especially true at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Later on, rational Buddhist scholars argue that the Buddha is a historical personage and the miraculous stories are actually later additions. In this paper, the author has reexamined the identity of the Buddha by using the earliest Buddhist scripture, namely the Pāli Nikāyas and the Chinese Āgamas. An analysis of the descriptions of the Buddha in these early scriptures reveals two aspects of the concept: a human identity and a superhuman character. These two identities may have co-existed from the inception of Buddhism.published_or_final_versio
Methane-derived authigenic carbonates – A case for a globally relevant marine carbonate factory
No full textPrecipitation of methane-derived authigenic carbonates (MDAC) is an integral part of marine methane production and consumption, but MDAC's relative significance to the global marine carbon cycle is not well understood. Here we provide a synthesis and perspective to highlight MDAC from a global marine carbon biogeochemistry viewpoint. MDAC formation is a result and archive of carbon‑sulfur (Csingle bondS) coupling in the shallow sulfatic zone and carbon‑silicon (Csingle bondSi) coupling in deeper methanic sediments. MDAC constitute a carbon sequestration of 3.93 Tmol C yr−1 (range 2.34–5.8 Tmol C yr−1) in the modern ocean and are the third-largest carbon burial mechanism in marine sediments. This burial compares to 29% (11–57%) organic carbon and 10% (6–23%) skeletal carbonate carbon burial along continental margins. MDAC formation is also an important sink for benthic alkalinity and, thereby, a potential contributor to bottom water acidification. Our understanding of the impact of MDAC on global biogeochemical cycles has evolved over the past five decades from what was traditionally considered a passive carbon sequestration mechanism in a seep-oasis setting to what is now considered a dynamic carbonate factory expanding from deep sediments to bottom waters—a factory that has been operational since the Precambrian. We present a strong case for the need to improve regional scale quantification of MDAC accumulation rates and associated carbonate biogeochemical parameters, leading to their incorporation in present and paleo‑carbon budgets in the next phase of MDAC exploration.This article is published as Akam, Sajjad A., Elizabeth D. Swanner, Hongming Yao, Wei-Li Hong, and Jörn Peckmann. "Methane-derived authigenic carbonates–A case for a globally relevant marine carbonate factory." Earth-Science Reviews 243 (2023): 104487. doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2023.104487.© 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Performance evaluation of urea injection on the emission reduction of dioxins and furans in a commercial municipal solid waste incinerator
No full textPolychlorinated dibenzo-p-furans and dioxins (PCDD/Fs) that pose a great threat to human health are commonly found during the incineration of municipal solid waste. In this study, industrial urea was injected into a commercial MSW incinerator flue gas to evaluate the suppression performances of PCDD/Fs, and the possible inhibition mechanisms were proposed. The results show that the use of urea dramatically reduced the PCDD/Fs emission concentration from 8.87 to 0.63 ng/Nm3, along with a significant decrease in the I-TEQ value (0.26 → 0.047 ng I-TEQ/Nm3), below the Chinese national standard of 0.1 ng I-TEQ/Nm3. The emission reduction cost of the industrial urea was over 41 % lower than that of using activated carbon. Urea molecule poisoned the metal ions, thus seriously inhibiting the de novo synthesis of PCDD/Fs. Furthermore, the decomposition products of urea reduced the concentration of HCl in the flue gas, thereby reducing the formation of Cl2 and hindering the chlorination reaction, which was identified from the reduction of chlorination degree and lower distribution of high-chlorinated PCDD/Fs. This research provided some practice basis and experience to reduce the emission of PCDD/Fs from municipal solid waste incineration for future commercial promotion and application
Environmental issues related to bioenergy
No full textExtensive efforts have been made in the conversion of biomass into renewable energy using thermochemical and biochemical approaches. During biomass thermochemical conversion, nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matter (PM), and tar are the major environmental emissions generated. NOx and PM generated in thermochemical conversion processes can be effectively removed by existing technologies, and tar can be reduced through end treatment and in situ process control. In bioconversion of biomass, the major environmental emissions are volatile organic compounds (VOCs), sulfur-containing gases (e.g., H2S), wastewater, and biogas slurry. Biogas slurry can be utilized as a value-added resource, and wastewater and VOCs can be treated via physical-chemical or biological methods. From a green engineering perspective, the most effective approach is the source reduction of pollution, which can be achieved through process improvement/control or the development of new conversion processes. Employing emission treatment and source-reduction approaches, bioenergy-related environmental issues can be minimized. Developing new industrial technologies or processes that use biomass as a source of energy or chemicals is the future direction of clean production.BioFuelNet CanadaNSER
Valorization of the spent catalyst from flue gas denitrogenation by improving bio-oil production from hydrothermal liquefaction of pinewood sawdust
No full textNormally, the spent catalyst (V2O5-WO3/TiO2, denoted as VWTi) is dumped as a solid waste after denitrogenation of flue gas through selective catalyst reduction (SCR). However, this used catalyst contains an abundant amount of acid sites and thus can be potentially utilized as the catalyst in hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) to produce bio-oil. Thus, in this study, the influences of operational variables on the main HTL products distribution and physicochemical properties of bio-oil were evaluated at 240–320 °C for 0–60 min and 0–20 wt% of catalyst dosage. The results demonstrated that the spent VWTi catalyst significantly promoted the production of bio-oil, yielding the highest bio-oil yield (33.9 wt%) at 300 °C for 30 min with a 10 wt% of catalyst loading. The bio-oil obtained with catalyst under the optimal conditions has a HHV of 28.69 MJ/kg, along with an energy recovery of 51.93%. In addition, the use of the spent VWTi catalyst in the HTL could obtain a higher fraction of phenolics compounds with lower boiling point and lower molecular weight, as identified by TGA and GPC analysis. Overall, this study provides an alternative route to valorize the spent catalyst from flue gas denitrogenation by applying as a catalyst to produce high quality bio-oil production in the biomass HTL process.China Scholarship Counci
Neural mechanism of proposer's decision-making in the ultimatum and dictator games
No full textPrevious studies have demonstrated that reactions to unfair offers in the ultimatum game are correlated with negative emotion. However, little is known about the difference in neural activity between a proposer's decision-making in the ultimatum game compared with the dictator game. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging study revealed that proposing fair offers in the dictator game elicited greater activation in the right supramarginal gyrus, right medial frontal gyrus and left anterior cingulate cortex compared with proposing fair offers in the ultimatum game in 23 Chinese undergraduate and graduate students from Beijing Normal University in China. However, greater activation was found in the right superior temporal gyrus and left cingulate gyrus for the reverse contrast. The results indicate that proposing fair offers in the dictator game is more strongly associated with cognitive control and conflicting information processing compared with proposing fair offers in the ultimatum game
Influence of temperature and crystal orientation on tool wear during single point diamond turning of silicon
No full textOwing to the capricious wear of cutting tools, ultra precision manufacturing of silicon through single point diamond turning (SPDT) operation becomes a challenging task. It thus becomes non-trivial to understand the contribution of temperature and crystal orientation during the SPDT process in order to suppress tool wear. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation is an appropriate tool to study nanoscale processes occurring at the femtosecond/picosecond timescale which cannot otherwise be studied experimentally or by the finite element method (FEM). Accordingly, MD simulation has been deployed with a realistic analytical bond order potential (ABOP) formalism based potential energy function to simulate the single point diamond turning operation of single crystal silicon in order to understand the influence of temperature and crystal orientation on the tool wear mechanism. Results showed the strong influence of crystal orientation on the wear resistance of a diamond tool; cubic orientation performed better than dodecahedral orientation. It was also observed that high pressure phase transformation (HPPT) in the cutting zone was accompanied by the formation of dangling bonds of silicon. Under the influence of cutting temperature, the newly formed dangling bonds of silicon chemically combine with the pre-existing dangling bonds on the surface of the diamond tool resulting in the formation of silicon carbide (SiC), the main appearance of which was evident at the tool flank face. Continuous abrasion of the diamond cutting tool with SiC causes sp3–sp2 disorder of the diamond tool. Hence, both these processes proceed in tandem with each other. The mechanism proposed here is in good agreement with a recent experimental study, where silicon carbide and carbon like particles were observed using X-ray photoelectron spectroscope (XPS) technology after machining a silicon wafer with a diamond tool
A longitudinal study on a place-based school-university partnership: Listening to the voices of in-service teachers
No full textThis paper reports on a longitudinal place-based study by two Australian teacher educators investigating their three-year science-based school-university partnership. The study examined key benefits, challenges, and tensions within the partnership. Data collection was drawn from focus group interviews with in-service teachers across each partnership year. While findings portray the partnership as a catalyst for increased science learning opportunities for school students, teaching opportunities for pre-service teachers, and new in-service teacher roles and responsibilities, the study highlights the evolving nature of partnership development, including the need for continuous negotiation of labor division and stakeholder expectations. © 2023 The Author
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