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The purpose of this paper is to introduce a participatory library service based on artificial intelligence (AI).

AI technologies and various technologies for facilitating the use of the currently existing libraries and the third-party resources are combined in the new mobile and social networking environments to provide an innovative real-time virtual reference service. Special aesthetic design and library marketing measures are adopted to expand the gains of the service. Questionnaire survey, in-depth interview, and statistical analysis are conducted to evaluate the effects of the service.

A smart talking robot called Xiaotu (female) is developed. This robot is regarded as a promising new online reference service modus operandi. Four factors contribute to the success of the robot, namely, AI, self-learning, vivid logo and language, and modular architecture.

Xiaotu presents a participatory library service, in which users participate in the resources collection and become content co-creators. Her presence at anytime and anywhere on any kind of terminal maximizes her potential for the delivery of virtual reference services. Xiaotu has the potential to be a general reference robot or a costumed institute robot.

AI is adopted in libraries to form an innovative online reference service. The participatory library service is practiced through a high-featured interactive communication. The aesthetic design of Xiaotu and the related promotions are new in libraries as well.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a method to address the problem of selecting risk response actions (RRAs) considering the risk dependency that is seldom considered in the existing studies.

First, a method based on the Measuring Attractiveness by a Categorical-Based Evaluation Technique (MACBETH) is proposed to measure the dependencies between the risks, and then a preference coefficient denoting the relative importance of the risk dependency is introduced. Besides, an exponential utility function is used to describe the project manager’s (PM) risk-averse behaviour. Finally, a mathematical model that incorporates the risk dependency and risk preference of the PM is constructed for selecting the RRAs.

Risk dependency plays an important role in the process of RRA selection. First, more expected utility can be obtained when the risk dependency is considered. Second, more attention should be paid to the risk dependency for coping with critical risks when the budget is tight.

This method can be applied to determine the RRAs when the risk dependency exists between the project risks.

This paper proposes a model to select RRAs with consideration of the risk dependency, which is an important issue from a theoretical as well as a practical perspective in project risk management.

The purpose of this paper is to study the operation performance of the high-speed ramjet kinetic energy projectile using solid fuel ramjet as power plant that is a new short-range and small caliber projectile.

The numerical investigation on combustion characteristic of polyethylene in high-speed ramjet kinetic energy projectile is carried out in this paper. The flow characteristics’ differences are analyzed when ramjet works or do not work, and both the combustion characteristics and propulsive performance are analyzed when ramjet works.

The results show that with the increase of the abscissa x, the flame front is close to solid fuel surface at first and then keeps away from solid fuel surface. With the increase of the abscissa x, the temperature of solid fuel surface and regression rate of solid fuel continues to increase before re-attachment point and then decreases, which a maximum locate at the re-attachment point. Both the average temperature and the regression rate on the surface of the solid fuel tend to rise as the increase of inflow Mach number. As the inflow of Mach number increases, the mass flow rate of gaseous fuel increases.

The research results can provide useful database for the subsequent research on high-speed ramjet kinetic energy projectile.

This paper studies the operation characteristics of the ramjet projectile, especially the effect of the change of the flight velocity on the performance of high-speed ramjet projectile.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the evolution of collaboration among researchers in Library Hi Tech based on the co-authorship network analysis.

The Library Hi Tech publications were retrieved from Web of Science database between 2006 and 2017. Social network analysis based on co-authorship was analyzed by using BibExcel software and a visual knowledge map was generated by Pajek. Three important social capital indicators: degree centrality, closeness centrality and betweenness centrality were calculated to indicate the co-authorship. Cohesive subgroup analysis which includes components and k-core was then applied to show the connectivity of co-authorship network of Library Hi Tech.

The results indicated that around 42 percent of the articles were written by single author, while an increasing trend of multi-authored articles suggesting the collaboration among researchers in librarian research field becomes popular. Furthermore, the social network analysis identified authorship network with three core authors – Markey, K., Fourie, I. and Li, X. Finally, six core subgroups each included six or seven tightly connected researchers were also identified.

This study contributed to the existing literature by revealing the co-authorship network in librarian research field. Key researchers in the major subgroup were identified. This is one of the limited studies that describe the collaboration network among authors from different perspectives showing a more comprehensive co-authorship network.

The purpose of the study is to investigate the spatial aspects of underfill flow during the flip-chip encapsulation process, for instance, meniscus evolution and contact line jump (CLJ). Furthermore, a spatial-based void formation mechanism during the underfill flow was formulated.

The meniscus evolution of underfill fluid subtended between the bump array and the CLJ phenomenon were visualized numerically using the micro-mesh unit cell approach. Additionally, the meniscus evolution and CLJ phenomenon were modelled analytically based on the formulation of capillary physics. Meanwhile, the mechanism of void formation was explained numerically and analytically.

Both the proposed analytical and current numerical findings achieved great consensus and were well-validated experimentally. The variation effects of bump pitch on the spatial aspects were analyzed and found that the meniscus arc radius and filling distance increase with the pitch, while the subtended angle of meniscus arc is invariant with the pitch size. For larger pitch, the jump occurs further away from the bump entrance and takes longer time to attain the equilibrium meniscus. This inferred that the concavity of meniscus arc was influenced by the bump pitch. On the voiding mechanism, air void was formed from the air entrapment because of the fluid-bump interaction. Smaller voids tend to merge into a bigger void through necking and, subsequently, propagate along the underfill flow.

The microscopic spatial analysis of underfill flow would explain fundamentally how the bump design will affect the macroscopic filling time. This not only provides alternative visualization tool to analyze flow pattern in the industry but also enables the development of accurate analytical filling time model. Moreover, the void formation mechanism gave substantial insights to understand the root causes of void defects and allow possible solutions to be formulated to tackle this issue. Additionally, the microfluidics sector could also benefit from these spatial analysis insights.

Spatial analysis on underfill flow is scarcely conducted, as the past research studies mainly emphasized on the temporal aspects. Additionally, this work presented a new mechanism on the void formation based on the fluid-bump interaction, in which the formation and propagation of micro-voids were numerically visualized for the first time. The findings from current work provided fundamental information on the flow interaction between underfill fluid and solder bump to the package designers for optimization work and process enhancement.

Adaptive reuse of building assets is an important approach to sustainability. Adapting a building for new uses often involves complex factors in the decision-making process, particularly in conservation areas. The paper aims to show an evaluation process of the adaptive reuse potential of historic buildings that are subject to change in the Grand Canal area, a world heritage site in Hangzhou, China.

For this purpose, a model has been established with aggregated views of professionals on the degree to which a variety of factors affect the buildings’ potential for adaptive reuse. The model intends to help prioritise some of the buildings in the area for adaptive reuse, which is important for effective allocation of public resources. Interviews with professionals, analytic hierarchy process and the Delphi method have been used to establish the evaluation model. It is then applied to the Grand Canal area to generate indices for buildings’ adaptive reuse potential and the ranking of priority. The indices are generated through public scoring of historic buildings against the variables and calculated through the model.

The paper concludes that the evaluation process is an effective way to engage the public in the decision-making process and to balance conflict interests of various stakeholders in the management of historic building assets in conservation areas.

The research has proposed an evaluation model to help set priority of buildings subject to adaptive reuse and to help distribute public fund effectively. It facilitates wide public engagement in the decision-making progress of adaptive reuse of historic buildings.

As in real applications several alternating current (AC) currents may be injected to the electronic devices, this study aims to analyze their effects on the lifetime of the solder joints and, consequently, shed the light on these effects at the design phase for other researchers to consider.

In this paper, the authors investigated on current waveform shapes on the performance and reliability of the solder joints in electronic package. Three common and extensively used current shapes in several simulations and experiments were selected to study their effects on the solder joint performance.

The results demonstrate a sever thermal swing and stress fluctuation in the solder joint induced in the case of triangle current type because the critical states lack any relaxation time. In fact, the stress intensification in the solder under application of the triangle current type has been shown to contribute to increasing brittle intermetallic compounds. An accelerated increase of on-state voltage of power semiconductor was also observed in under application of the triangle current type.

The originality of this paper is confirmed.

Business is about building relationships and hence relationship building is becoming increasingly important for cross‐cultural management. Current research findings in this area have mainly focused on relationship marketing or on cultural dimensions of business relationships. This preliminary study attempts to break the boundary and aims to explore relationship building from a culture‐specific perspective while in corporating a social constructivist dimension. Specifically, it compares relationship building across four cultures including European, New Zealand, Chinese, Indian and South African cultures. The research method is interpretive, based on an analysis of interview results with business executives from the four target cultures.