Search results

Aim to the limitations of grey relational analysis of interval grey number, based on the generalized greyness of interval grey number, this paper tries to construct a grey angle cosine relational degree model from the perspective of proximity and similarity.

Firstly, the algorithms of the generalized greyness of interval grey number and interval grey number vector are given, and its properties are analyzed. Then, based on the grey relational theory, the grey angle cosine relational model is proposed based on the generalized greyness of interval grey number, and the relationship between the classical cosine similarity model and the grey angle cosine relational model is analyzed. Finally, the validity of the model in this paper is illustrated by the calculation examples and an application example of related factor analysis of maize yield.

The results show that the grey angle cosine relational degree model has strict theoretical basis, convenient calculation and is easy to program, which can not only fully utilize the information of interval grey numbers but also overcome the shortcomings of greyness relational degree model. The grey angle cosine relational degree is an extended form of cosine similarity degree of real numbers. The calculation examples and the related factor analysis of maize yield show that the model proposed in this paper is feasible and valid.

The research results not only further enrich the grey system theory and method but also provide a basis for the grey relational analysis of the sequences in which the interval grey numbers coexist with the real numbers.

The paper succeeds in realizing the algorithms of the generalized greyness of interval grey number and interval grey number vector, and the grey angle cosine relational degree, which provide a new method for grey relational analysis.

In this study, the authors sought to investigate how the implicit social ties of both project owners and potential backers are associated with crowdfunding project success.

Drawing on social ties theory and factors that affect crowdfunding success, in this research, the authors developed a model to study how project owners' and potential backers' implicit social ties are associated with crowdfunding projects' degrees of success. The proposed model was empirically tested with crowdfunding data collected from Kickstarter and social media data collected from Twitter. The authors performed the test using an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model with fixed effects.

The authors found that project owners' implicit social ties (specifically, their social media activities, degree centrality and betweenness centrality) are significantly and positively associated with crowdfunding projects' degrees of success. Meanwhile, potential project backers' implicit social ties (their social media activities and degree centrality) are negatively associated with crowdfunding projects' degrees of success. The authors also found that project size moderates the effects of project owners' social media activities on projects' degrees of success.

This work contributes to the literature on crowdfunding by investigating how the implicit social ties of both potential backers and project owners on social media are associated with crowdfunding project success. This study extends the previous research on social ties' roles in explaining crowdfunding project success by including implicit social ties, while the literature explored only explicit social ties.

The purpose of this paper is to study the properties of comprehensive incidence degrees of closeness incidence degrees and similitude incidence degrees.

Based on the new definitions of the closeness incidence degree and the similitude incidence degree, the properties of comprehensive incidence of closeness incidence and similitude incidence are studied in this paper. It is proved that weighted arithmetic average of two closeness incidence degrees as well as power product (including weighted geometric average) of two closeness incidence degrees is still closeness incidence degree; and arithmetic weighted average of two similitude incidence degrees as well as power product (including weighted geometric average) of two similitude incidence degrees is still similitude incidence degree. Mixed weighted arithmetic average of closeness incidence degree and similitude incidence degree and mixed power product (including weighted geometric average) of closeness incidence degree and similitude incidence degree are closeness incidence degrees.

The result shows that the effect of closeness incidence degree is stronger than similitude incidence degree. As long as the weight of closeness incidence degree is not equal to zero, the comprehensive incidence degree results are closeness incidence degrees.

Grey incidence degrees have been widely applied in many fields, such as the test of grey model's forecasting effect, the system analysis and so on. The obtained result in this paper is to illustrate two kinds of incidence degrees are incompatible, namely there does not exist both closeness and similitude incidence degree.

The paper succeeds in showing that the attempt to get comprehensive incidence degree by arithmetic or geometric weighted average of closeness incidence degree and similitude incidence degree to reflect both closeness and similarity is in vain. And it is undoubtedly a new development in grey system theory.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and rank the influence of internet public opinion of China’s Government work in 2015 by weighted absolute degree of grey incidence with TOPSIS.

This disaggregation method includes four main steps, determine the vector of weights for the factors by analytic hierarchy process, calculate the matrix of consistent effect measure, determine the weighted absolute degree of grey incidence with TOPSIS, rank and evaluate the events.

We get the ranking of internet public opinion of China’s Government work in 2015 by weighted absolute degree of grey incidence with TOPSIS. The result can be used for evaluating and ranking the influence of internet public opinion in China. The positive weighted absolute degree of grey incidence, the negative weighted absolute degree of grey incidence and the weighted absolute degree of grey incidence with TOPSIS have the same ranking results. The same ranking results show that the method of weighted absolute degree of grey incidence with TOPSIS has good consistency.

The weighted absolute degree of grey incidence with TOPSIS can be easily used for other evaluation.

The weighted absolute degree of grey incidence with TOPSIS is proposed and first used for evaluating and ranking the influence of internet public opinion of China’s Government work.

This paper contains a generalization of the existing theory of Garden of Eden configurations in tessellation automata. We consider spaces of at most two dimensions but with transition functions having arbitrarily large neighborhoods. A configuration c is said to be Garden of Eden of degree n just in case there is no configuration from which c can arise in n time steps; c is Garden of Eden of minimal degree n just in case there is no smaller m such that c is Garden of Eden of degree m. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of Garden of Eden configurations of higher degree (and of degree 1) are established. Results are obtained relating decision procedures for Garden of Eden configurations of degree one to decision procedures for Garden of Eden configurations of higher degree.

Foundation degrees, the new proposal for sub‐degree vocational education in the UK, are characterised by innovation both in their design (curriculum, teaching, learning and assessment) and in the marketplace for which they are designed. This article argues that the development and delivery of foundation degrees carry a high level of risk, and encourages reflection on the nature and impact of those risks.

The article discusses the sources of the risks associated with the development of foundation degrees, as a platform for the development of strategies for the management of risk, and positive quality management. The discussion is developed under the following headings: working in partnership, validation processes, curriculum and learning issues, marketplace and admission issues, staffing and organisational issues, and the student experience.

There are a number of sources of support and advice to assist in mitigation of the risks, but ultimately the responsibility for the management of the risks rests with employers, educational institutions, their staff and students.

The article surfaces a range of issues relating to risks and their management in the context of foundation degrees. It should inform curriculum development, and the development of quality management systems for the management of foundation degrees.

From the viewpoint of degree of cure, the purpose of this paper is to find how to improve the reliability of flip‐chip packaging modules based on an anisotropically conductive adhesive film (ACF) interconnection process.

The work begins by revealing the correlation of adhesive strength and contact resistance of flip‐chip joint interfaces with the degree of cure of the ACF. The effect of different degrees of curing on the electrical and mechanical properties of some typical ACF‐interconnected joints is studied, and the optimum degree of cure is suggested to achieve highly reliable ACF joints, where the performance variations of the adhesion strength and contact resistance are considered simultaneously. First, the degradation data of the contact resistance of some ACF assemblies, bonded with several degrees of cure, is collected during a standard high‐hydrothermal fatigue test. The resistance distribution is verified using a two‐parameter Weibull model and the distribution parameters are estimated, respectively. After that, a reliability analysis method based on the degradation data of contact resistance is achieved, instead of the traditional failure time analysis, and the reliability index, as well as the mean‐time‐to‐degradation of the ACF joints, as a function of the degree of cure, is deduced, through which the optimum degree of cure value and recommend range are suggested.

Numerical analysis and calculations are performed based on the experiments. Results show that the optimum degree of cure to achieve highly reliable joints is 83 per cent, and the recommend range is from 82 to 85 per cent for the ACF tested (considering a 95 per cent confidence interval).

The paper provides important support for optimizing the curing process for various ACF‐based packaging applications, such as chip‐on‐glass packaging of liquid crystal displays and flip‐chip bonding of radio frequency identification, etc.

The purpose of this two‐part paper is to present and discuss research into gender and seniority differences in 360‐degree assessments of influencing, leadership and team behaviours.

The paper builds on a previous article on influencing behaviour and 360‐degree assessments, which found a statistically significant positive relationship between these two sets of variables. However, the strength of this relationship was found to vary, depending on the seniority and gender of individuals. This article extends the previous one in two ways. First, it examines four hypotheses to explain the earlier findings. Second, it introduces data on two other types of behaviour – leadership and team behaviour – in relation to 360‐degree performance assessments. The first two hypotheses relate to seniority differences. The first is that influencing behaviour is more closely linked to 360‐degree assessments among middle managers because they have less power than senior managers and, in consequence, their style of influence is more important. The second hypothesis is that the behaviour of those at senior levels is symbolic and/or constrained and thus of little substantive importance. Gender differences are, therefore, explored more fully by considering two further hypotheses. The third is that male and female managers tend to be judged by different gender stereotypes. The fourth hypothesis is that male and female managers tend to do different jobs.

Support was found support for the first hypothesis. 360‐degree assessments are affected by seniority. Influencing behaviour is more closely linked to 360‐degree assessments of middle managers who tend to have less legitimate power. By contrast, influencing behaviour is less closely linked to 360‐degree assessments in senior managers who have more legitimate power, more influence over change and others and a more significant leadership role. Little support was found for the second hypothesis. 360‐degree assessments were strongly related to leadership and team behaviours in senior managers, as well as middle managers. These findings indicate that the behaviour of those at senior levels is of consequence and, can therefore, be expected to influence 360‐degree assessments. Clear evidence was found to support the third hypothesis that male and female managers were judged by different gender stereotypes. Male managers were judged more positively when they displayed a range of “leadership” behaviours. In contrast, female managers were judged more positively when they displayed “management” and “team” behaviours. Support was also found for the fourth hypothesis that male and female managers tended to do different jobs. Male managers were over‐represented at senior levels and were likely to have more influence over change at both middle and senior management levels.

The originality and value of this paper lies in its examination of the relationship between three different types of behaviour (i.e. influencing, leadership and team working) and 360‐degree assessments of performance, including seniority and gender differences.

This paper attempts to extend classic absolute degree of grey incidence so that the extended model can be used for grey number sequences.

The classic absolute degree of grey incidence was extended according to basic principles of grey incidence analysis. First, modelling methods and theories of the classic grey incidences were summarized. Then, the zeroing starting operator in grey incidence was extended for grey sequence. Third, the parameters in classic incidence degree were redefined, and an absolute degree of grey incidence for grey number sequences was proposed. The degree can not only be applied to grey number sequence, but also contains the uncertain information of analysis result. Fourth, two non‐linear programming models were constructed to estimate the grey coverage interval of absolute degree of incidences. Finally, the comparison method of grey numbers was introduced for sorting the different absolute degrees of incidences.

A theoretically feasible absolute degree of grey incidence was constructed for grey sequence. A case study showed that the proposed incidence degree was an effective method for grey sequence incidence analysis.

The method exposed in the paper can be used for grey sequences clustering, grey decision making, multi‐attribute decision making theory, uncertain target recognition and other related fields.

The paper succeeded in establishing an incidence analysis model for grey sequences which was still a research gap in grey system theory.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an appropriate machine learning model for predicting soil compaction degree while also examining the contribution rates of three influential factors: moisture content, electrical conductivity and temperature, towards the prediction of soil compaction degree.

Taking fine-grained soil A and B as the research object, this paper utilized the laboratory test data, including compaction parameter (moisture content), electrical parameter (electrical conductivity) and temperature, to predict soil degree of compaction based on five types of commonly used machine learning models (19 models in total). According to the prediction results, these models were preliminarily compared and further evaluated.

The Gaussian process regression model has a good effect on the prediction of degree of compaction of the two kinds of soils: the error rates of the prediction of degree of compaction for fine-grained soil A and B are within 6 and 8%, respectively. As per the order, the contribution rates manifest as: moisture content > electrical conductivity >> temperature.

By using moisture content, electrical conductivity, temperature to predict the compaction degree directly, the predicted value of the compaction degree can be obtained with higher accuracy and the detection efficiency of the compaction degree can be improved.