University of Derby

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of work-from-home (WFH) practices, raising important questions about their long-term implications for organisational performance. This issue is particularly salient for multinational enterprises (MNEs) and international small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), where digitalisation has significantly reshaped work arrangements. This study evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of WFH and their differential impacts on MNEs and international SMEs. A comparative analysis was conducted using expert pairwise judgements, assessed through linguistic terms with weakened hedges (LTWHs) within the Best–Worst Method (BWM) framework. The LTWHs approach enables experts to articulate nuanced and flexible preferences, extending traditional linguistic scales by softening the strength of evaluations. This makes it particularly suited for capturing subjective assessments of WFH impacts under conditions of uncertainty. The findings indicate substantial variation in WFH adoption, with private sector organisations demonstrating approximately 50 % greater willingness to adopt WFH compared to public authorities. The analysis further highlights the distinct advantages and disadvantages that shape the performance outcomes of MNEs and international SMEs. By introducing a novel hesitant fuzzy linguistic preference approach, this study develops a comprehensive framework for assessing the organisational consequences of WFH. The results offer valuable insights for managers and policymakers seeking to strike a balance between flexibility, productivity, and resilience in the design of post-pandemic work strategies. • Paper investigates the implications of work-from-home using digitalisation. • This is done on the performance of multinational enterprises and international SMEs. • Findings reveal a difference between the public and private sectors in their adoption of WFH. • Study highlights pros and cons of WFH, demonstrating their varying impacts.

In response to large-scale health crises, emergency healthcare infrastructure projects (EHIPs) have been implemented to provide healthcare services rapidly. However, few studies have systematically explored the success of these projects. This study aims to assess the success of EHIPs throughout the whole life cycle using a cloud matter-element model (CMEM). Considering multiple performance indicators that measure the success of EHIPs, a hierarchy model of the project success index is proposed through eight rounds of Delphi surveys. This model comprises 10 key performance indicators (KPIs) that are most appropriate for measuring the success of EHIPs and 20 quantitative metrics aligned with these KPIs across the life cycle. Based on the hierarchy model, the CMEM is applied to evaluate the success of EHIPs, which effectively addresses the fuzziness and randomness inherent in the Delphi process. Two cases were then utilized for verifying the practicality of the proposed project success assessment model. The findings demonstrate that the CMEM-based assessment offers not only significant flexibility but also high accuracy, robustness, and scalability. The CMEM-based assessment seamlessly integrates numerous incompatible indexes and their characteristic values, without being limited by the number of evaluation indexes. Further, sensitivity analyses are conducted to test the robustness of the assessment model and its results. These analyses confirmed that the CMEM is a robust, reliable, and adaptable tool for assessing the success of EHIPs. Theoretically, this study should set an exemplar of aggregating the performance measurement with emergency management and healthcare systems, facilitating an efficient response to major crises. It also provides a novel approach to evaluating multiple-criteria decision-making problems. Practically, this study should enable project management teams to identify and improve weak areas, ensuring continuous success in the EHIP-related domain.

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is a sensory-triggered phenomenon that induces atypical physiological and positive psychological responses. Specifically, the ASMR video-watching experience has been associated with flow-like immersion, authenticity, and positive affects and body reactions, sparking academic interest in exploring its impact on physical and mental therapies, communication, and learning. Drawing on a Systemic-Functional multimodality perspective, this study first conducted a multifaceted ASMR video discourse analysis and then tested the effectiveness of ASMR videos in enhancing EFL acquisition with the comparative incidental and intentional EFL interventions among ASMR-capable learners recruited from a Chinese university. The discourse analysis reveals that ASMR videos feature a unique genre that affords rich multisemiotic meaning-making, a viewer-centred power dynamic, digital intimacy, and emotional-perceptual copresence, through five key semiotic resources: linguistic, auditory, visual, tactile, and olfactory. The incidental intervention results demonstrate that long-term incidental ASMR video-immersion significantly improves participants' general pronunciation proficiency. ASMR video-enhanced instruction leads to superior EFL vocabulary and pronunciation acquisition compared to regular video-enhanced intervention. Overall, this study offers a comprehensive understanding of ASMR video features and highlights their potential in facilitating EFL learning.

In this study, tubular specimens of Inconel 625 and Inconel 718 were additively manufactured using the Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS) technique. Their initial yield surfaces were experimentally determined under biaxial stress loading at 0.005% and 0.01% plastic offset strain. Uniaxial tensile tests showed yield strengths of 509 MPa and 461 MPa, with Young’s moduli of 180 GPa and 171 GPa for Inconel 625 and Inconel 718, respectively. Yield surfaces, fitted using the Szczepiński anisotropic criterion, revealed elliptical shapes with axis ratios below 1.73, confirming moderate anisotropy. Inconel 625 exhibited nearly symmetric yield strengths in tension and compression, with a higher tensile-direction elongation of the surface, whereas Inconel 718 showed stronger directional dependence, reflecting a higher degree of mechanical anisotropy.

ABSTRACT Aim European grasslands rank among the most species‐rich ecosystems at small spatial scales, yet their biodiversity and functioning face significant threats from climate change and land‐use intensification. Functional traits more effectively explain ecosystem functions (EFs) than species identity or diversity. This study examines how future climate and land cover changes will shape grassland functional composition, addressing gaps in trait‐environment relationships and large‐scale functional predictions. Location Europe. Time Period 1971–2000 and 2081–2100. Major Taxa Studied 4406 distinct grassland plant species. Methods We used Boosted Regression Trees to model trait‐environment relationships based on vegetation plot data from sPlotOpen, GrassPlot, and the Nordic‐Baltic Grassland Vegetation Database (NBGVD). We mapped the 17 trait community‐weighted means (CWMs) and three functional richness (FRic) metrics under historical conditions and two future climate scenarios to assess temporal and spatial changes in grassland functional composition. Results The trait–environment relationships are highly trait‐dependent: structural and size‐related traits such as plant height, leaf area and seed number were consistently well‐predicted, whereas other traits were less well predicted. Mean annual temperature emerged as the strongest predictor of grassland functional composition. Climate and land cover change were predicted to drive significant spatial shifts in trait CWMs and FRic. Specifically, leaf area was predicted to decline in the Baltic Sea region and Pannonian Basin, while plant height was expected to increase across Europe. Seed number was predicted to rise at higher latitudes and in mountainous regions. Moreover, FRic was expected to decrease in temperate grasslands but increase at high latitudes and mountainous regions. Main Conclusions Our findings reveal distinct spatial patterns in functional shifts, reflecting plant adaptation to future environmental conditions. The increase in FRic at high latitudes and mountainous regions also signals ecosystem transitions that may pose additional threats to further complicate grassland conservation efforts.

ABSTRACT Immigrant youth have been found to be particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of cyberbullying. Cyber‐upstanders have been highlighted with the potential to tackle bias‐based bullying, such as immigrant cyberbullying; thus, it is crucial to understand its predictors. This study examined the indirect effects of intergroup contact on cyber‐upstanding intentions towards immigrant cyberbullying, via two mediators: intergroup empathy and intergroup anxiety. Participants ( N = 147, M age = 16.75 years), aged 16–19 years, completed an online survey. Results showed a significant indirect effect of intergroup contact on cyber‐upstanding intentions via intergroup empathy, but not via intergroup anxiety. There were also significant total and direct effects of intergroup contact on cyber‐upstanding intentions. Therefore, intergroup contact and intergroup empathy have great potential to encourage cyber‐upstanding intentions in an immigrant cyberbullying context. Theoretical and practical implications for encouraging upstanding in bias‐based bullying contexts are discussed with consideration for future directions.