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Fretting wear exists widely in the field of matching mechanical parts whereas previous research studies mostly focus on the point contact through a ball-plate tribometer. This paper aims to study the influence of wear debris on the fretting wear characteristics of the nitrided medium carbon steel under line contact condition at elevated temperature.

Fretting wear behavior of the nitrided medium carbon steel was experimentally investigated under line contact condition at elevated temperature and different normal loads without lubrication. Wear loss, worn surface and wear debris were studied to analyze the wear mechanism of nitrided steel.

The results showed that surface hardness of the medium carbon steel was notably improved because of the generation of a 230 µm nitrided case. Wear loss increased with the normal load, which was associated with the damage of a thin solid film formed by the wear debris, consisting of iron oxides and chromium oxide rather than only iron or iron oxides. The wear debris became partially amorphous and spherical because it was trapped within the contact interface and was ground, rolled, oxidized under line contact conditions. The spherical wear debris acted as a third body and formed a lubricating film between the contact faces. This lubricating film helped to stabilize the friction coefficient and reduced the wear rate, which further caused the acceleration of wear volume to gradually decrease. The wear mechanisms of the nitrided steel were oxidation wear, abrasive wear and fatigue spalling of the oxide layer.

The findings are helpful to understand the fretting wear behavior of the friction pair under line contact and enrich the fretting tribology theory.

This paper aims to provide a well-behaved nonlinear scheme and accelerating iteration for the nonlinear convection diffusion equation with fundamental properties illustrated.

A nonlinear finite difference scheme is studied with fully implicit (FI) discretization used to acquire accurate simulation. A Picard–Newton (PN) iteration with a quadratic convergent ratio is designed to realize fast solution. Theoretical analysis is performed using the discrete function analysis technique. By adopting a novel induction hypothesis reasoning technique, the L^∞ (H¹) convergence of the scheme is proved despite the difficulty because of the combination of conservative diffusion and convection operator. Other properties are established consequently. Furthermore, the algorithm is extended from first-order temporal accuracy to second-order temporal accuracy.

Theoretical analysis shows that each of the two FI schemes is stable, its solution exists uniquely and has second-order spatial and first/second-order temporal accuracy. The corresponding PN iteration has the same order of accuracy and quadratic convergent speed. Numerical tests verify the conclusions and demonstrate the high accuracy and efficiency of the algorithms. Remarkable acceleration is gained.

The numerical method provides theoretical and technical support to accelerate resolving convection diffusion, non-equilibrium radiation diffusion and radiation transport problems.

The FI schemes and iterations for the convection diffusion problem are proposed with their properties rigorously analyzed. The induction hypothesis reasoning method here differs with those for linearization schemes and is applicable to other nonlinear problems.

The public sector use of the internet of Things (IoT) technology is an emerging field with a potential for a variety of institutional applications in the fields of information gathering and policy implementation to establish resilience for modern society. In this context, we aim to investigate the success factors which can positively influence the continuous usage intention of IoT service with the mediation effect of perceived public value.

A conceptual model based on the strong literature and theoretical background is tailored to provide factors for IoT services success in the public sector. A quantitative survey was conducted through 381 citizens using IoT services to validate the proposed conceptual model using structural equation modeling approach in order to examine the influence of identified constructs on the continuous usage intention.

The results highlighted that the proposed model successfully accounted for about 59% perceived variance in public value creation and 63% perceived variance in citizens' continuous usage intention. IoT services success is best dignified by the perceptions of citizens who use the services, therefore, this study identifies the positive role of digital society affinity in context of social sustainability and it climaxes that the real value of IoT in public sector comes from establishment of services on top of the service delivery and that's where the public value is going to be created.

The use of IoT technology in public services will fetch much benefit to the citizens as well as to the government. The study findings are significant in identifying good practices for generating public value in digital society affinity.

The integrated conceptual model explores the driving factors of citizens' inclination towards IoT technology in a social context. Through this study, we can analyze the role of perceived public value in enhancing the citizens' engagement with IoT services. The government policymakers and ICT managers take help from this study to designing IoT public services with making the government more responsive to citizens.

The purpose of this study is to provide an optimal joint strategy of multi-period pricing and sales effort for a retailer with a logit choice demand in an integrated channel.

Customer demand is characterized by a logit choice model, it varies over time and is influenced by price and sales effort. The multi-period decision model for the retailer is constructed using a discrete-time dynamic programming method to determine the optimal price and sales effort in each period.

When the inventory level does not exceed a certain threshold, decreasing price and increasing sales effort over time or as inventory level increases are the optimal strategies. However, once the inventory level exceeds the threshold, the optimal strategy is to maintain both price and sales effort constant as the inventory level changes or to increase price and decrease sales effort over time. Additionally, the greater the influence of sales effort on demand or the higher the arrival rate of customers, the higher the optimal price and the greater the optimal sales effort level.

This study contributes to the existing research on dynamic pricing and sales effort in integrated channels by incorporating a logit choice model. Furthermore, it provides valuable management insights for retailers operating in an integrated channel to make pricing and sales effort decisions based on inventory level and time period.

This paper aims to provide details of a study on the widely shared definition of e‐government and to help scholars – especially young scholars – to understand the scope and meaning of the field.

From 1998‐2007, a ten‐year time‐span, 632 articles from the three world‐leading academic databases, including Wiley InterScience, Elsevier ScienceDirect, and SCI Expanded, were retrieved and 324 were analyzed using CATA software (Concordance 3.20), to identify the vocabulary that was used frequently by e‐government scholars. Then the distinct vocabulary was used to construct the widely shared definition of e‐government.

In those 324 articles, 57 words generated from the text analysis formed the basis for imputing a widely shared definition of the field of e‐government. The definition was conceptualized by six elements.

Two limitations of the pool of articles selected may be noted. First, articles were drawn from three leading academic databases in an effort to distinguish e‐government from other fields; but such an approach omitted any consideration of how e‐government definitions varied from different academic fields. Second, because the pool of articles was drawn only from these three, journals excluded by these databases were thus omitted.

The study is unique in that it discusses the definition of e‐government by an exploratory approach. The universal shared definition extracted could serve as either a screen or a magnet for future research. And the methodology could be applied to several academic fields, including administration and management, library and information science, e‐records management, computer science, etc.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the effect of nano-Al₂O₃ particle addition on the nucleation/growth kinetics, microhardness, wear resistance and corrosion resistance of Co–P–xAl₂O₃ nanocomposite plating.

The kinetics and properties of Co–P–xAl₂O₃ nanocomposite plating prepared by electroplating were investigated by electrochemical measurements, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Vickers microhardness measurement, SRV5 friction and wear tester and atomic force microscopy.

A 12 g/L nano-Al₂O₃ addition in the plating solution can transform the nucleation/growth kinetics of the plating from the 3D progressive model to the 3D instantaneous model. The microhardness of the plating increased with the increase of nano-Al₂O₃ content in plating. The wear resistance of the plating did not adhere strictly to Archard’s law. An even and denser corrosion product film was generated due to the finer grains, with a high corrosion resistance.

The effect of different nano-Al₂O₃ addition on the nucleation/growth kinetics and properties of Co–P–xAl₂O₃ nanocomposite plating was investigated, and an anticorrosion mechanism of Co–P–xAl₂O₃ nanocomposite plating was proposed.

It is necessary to implement green supply chains. But green development needs to be gradual and coexist with ordinary products in the market. This paper aims to study the green and ordinary product pricing and green decision-making under chain-to-chain competition.

This paper considers consumers' multiple preferences and takes two competitive supply chains with asymmetric channels as the research object. Through the construction of the game models involving different competitive situations, this paper studies the pricing, green decision-making and the supply chains' profits, and discusses the impact of consumer green preference, channel preference, green investment and competition on the decision-making and performance. Finally, this paper further studies the impact of the decision structure on the environmental and economic benefits of supply chains.

The results show that consumer green preference has an incentive effect on the green supply chain and also provides an opportunity for the regular supply chain to increase revenue. Specifically, consumers' preference for green online channels improves the product greenness, but its impact on the green retailer and regular supply chain depends on the green investment cost. Moreover, competition not only fosters product sustainability, but also improves supply chain performance. This paper also points out that the decentralization of the regular supply chain is conducive to the environmental attributes of the green product, while the environment-friendly structure of the green supply chain is different under different conditions. In addition, the profit of a supply chain under centralized decision is not always higher than that under decentralized decision.

The novelty of this paper is that it investigates the pricing of two heterogeneous alternative products and green decision-making for the green product under the competition between two supply chains with asymmetric channels, in which the green supply chain adopts dual channels and the regular supply chain adopts a single retail channel.

Drawing on theories of social information processing and social identity, the authors explore how abusive supervision climate affects team creativity in a Chinese cultural context. The authors propose that this relation will be mediated by collective efficacy and group identification and moderated by task interdependence

The study conducted a confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical regression to analyze the paired data from 67 research and development (R&D) teams involving 378 employees and employers in a Chinese cultural context.

Results demonstrate that abusive supervision climate was negatively related to team creativity, fully mediated by collective efficacy and group identification in a Chinese cultural context. In addition, task interdependence strengthened the positive relation between collective efficacy and team creativity, as well the positive relation between group identification and team creativity.

Although research has explored how abusive supervision climate influences individual creativity, few studies have investigated the relation between abusive supervision climate and team creativity in a Chinese cultural context. This study is one of the first to explore how abusive supervision climate affects team creativity in a Chinese cultural context and examine the moderating role of task interdependence in the relation between abusive supervision climate and team creativity.