Determinants of the transition towards circular economy in SMEs: a sustainable supply chain management perspective.

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) increasingly know the benefits of improving resource efficiency and closing loops. These benefits include lowering material costs, establishing competitive advantages, and gaining access to new markets. As a consequence of implementing new regulations, manufacturing companies, particularly those in the automobile industry, are compelled to modify and change their business practices related to the circular economy (CE). More stringent the implementation of environmentally responsible policies and strengthening environmental regulations. CE is the most important factor in improving environmental conditions since it reduces waste and boosts output. This facet calls for the attention of fresh academics and policymakers with years of relevant expertise. Recent studies have investigated how green logistics management might improve a company's overall performance in terms of environmental responsibility. However, we believe that the connection between environmentally responsible companies is not a direct one but rather one that is mediated by the practices of circular economies. We investigate the direct and indirect effects of the environmentally responsible impact of proper logistics management on organizations' overall environmental performance via the application of circular economy practices. Our theoretical underpinnings are the resource-based viewpoint and the resource dependence theory. This research also investigates whether or not the traceability of the supply chain has a mitigating influence on the connections. We evaluated the hypotheses using the PLS-SEM method, drawing on the empirical data provided by 245 Chinese factories considered modest or medium size. The results demonstrate that the management of green logistics has a constructive effect on circular economy practices and businesses' sustainability performance. In addition, although it greatly impacts circular economy practice among SMEs, supply chain traceability does not attenuate the connection between eco-friendly supply chain management and environmental impact. Green logistics management in SMEs is linked to improved sustainability performance via the circular economy practice. To further verify the efficacy of the mediation, we also ran the sober test. Our results strengthen knowledge of circular economy, environmentally friendly logistics management practices, and sustainability performance while advancing natural resource-based planning and the resource dependence theory, which are the two approaches. Given the scarcity of information research analyzing the interplay between these factors, our results are very significant.

An image-based approach for quantitative assessment of uniformity in particle distribution of noise reduction material.

Under the background of noise pollution caused by railway development, noise reduction material is worthy of in-depth study. A uniform distribution of particles in the material has an important influence on sound absorption property. In this article, the relevant image processing technology is applied to get structure information to quantify the uniformity. The main contributions of this study are: (a) In the preprocessing stage, SEM cross-sectional image of material is processed by mean filter and histogram equalization. Therefore, the grayscale and the contrast between target and background are enhanced, and a low-quality image is transformed into a high-quality one. (b) In the locating stage, local details of the image are considered to discriminate each particle from the whole image. When a global threshold is combined with the local iteration threshold, an improved Otsu algorithm is designed to binarize the image. Through morphology transforming, area filtering, and hole filling, the connected domain of target can be found and particles are located. (c) In the assessing stage, area index, number index and local distance index are established for assessing the uniformity of pore distribution. The experimental results indicate that statistical analysis is consistent with human visual observation. The smaller the porosity is, the better the uniformity is. Compared with some important methods, the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach could be illustrated.

The Willingness-to-Pay for General Practitioners in Contractual Service and Influencing Factors among Empty Nesters in Chongqing, China.

BACKGROUND: In 2012, a pilot health policy of contractual service relations between general practitioners and patients was implemented in China. Due to the decline in body and cognitive function, as well as the lack of family care and narrow social support networks, the demand of health services among the elderly is much higher than that among the general population. This study aims to probe into the empty nesters' willingness-to-pay for general practitioners using a contractual service policy, investigating empty nesters' payment levels for the service, and analyze the main factors affecting the willingness of empty-nesters' general practitioners using contractual service supply cost. METHODS: This cross-sectional study adopted a multistage stratified sampling method to survey 865, city empty nesters (six communities in three districts of one city) aged 60-85 years. A condition value method was used to infer the distribution of the willingness-to-pay; Cox's proportional hazards regression model was used to analyze the influencing factors of willingness-to-pay. RESULTS: More than seventy percent (76.6%) of the empty nesters in this city were willing to pay general practitioners using contract service in Chongqing. The level of willingness-to-pay for the surveyed empty nesters was 34.1 yuan per year. The median value was 22.1 yuan per year, which was below the Chongqing urban and rural cooperative medical insurance individual funding level (60 yuan per year) in 2013. Cox's proportional hazards regression model analysis showed that the higher the education level was, the worse the self-reported health status would be, accompanied by higher family per capita income, higher satisfaction of community health service, and higher willingness-to-pay empty nesters using a contract service. Women had a higher willingness-to-pay than men. CONCLUSIONS: The willingness-to-pay for general practitioners by contractual service is high among city empty nesters in Chongqing, thus, individual financing is feasible. However, people are willing to pay less than half of the current personal financing of cooperative medical insurance of urban and rural residents. Education level, family per capita income, and self-reported health status are the main factors affecting the cost sharing intention for general practitioners using contract service supply. According to the existing situation of different empty nesters, it is important to perfect the design of general practitioners using a contractual service policy system, according to differentiated personal financing levels.

A feasibility study on laser rapid forming of a complete titanium denture base plate.

This work attempted to integrate the technologies of computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacture (CAD/CAM) and laser rapid forming (LRF) for the fabrication of the titanium plate of a complete denture. By the combination of laser scan and reverse engineering software, the standard triangulation language (STL)-formatted denture base plate was finally designed and sliced into a sequence of numerical controlled codes. The titanium (Ti) complete denture plate was finally built, layer-by-layer, on the LRF system. To evaluate the quality of fit, a virtual adaptation test that measured and compared the profiles of the laser free formed denture plate and those of the edentulous plaster cast had been conducted, and the mean deviation was found to be 0.34 mm. After traditional dental finishing techniques, a complete denture with a Ti base plate was then made and judged to be acceptable. The CAD/CAM/LRF system is a potential candidate and a new platform for the design and manufacture of custom-made Ti denture plates and restorations.