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This paper aims to investigate the thermal characteristics of the clutch hydraulic system under various oil flow conditions. Increasing the oil flow is one of the most important approaches to reduce the clutch temperature. However, the effect of the oil flow on the clutch temperature remains to be explored.

The thermal resistance network model and the lumped parameter method are used to study the thermal characteristics of the clutch hydraulic system. The predicted temperature variations of the clutch and the oil are compared with experimental data.

Results demonstrate that the larger the friction power is, the higher the temperatures of the clutch and the oil are. However, the temperature growth rates of the clutch and oil present different trends: the former decreases gradually and the latter increases constantly. Additionally, increasing the oil flow within a certain range gives rise to the decrease of clutch temperature and the increase of oil temperature; nevertheless, their variation trends are gradually weakening. When the oil flow is large enough, it brings a slight effect on the clutch temperature rise.

This paper extends the knowledge into the oil flow supply of the clutch hydraulic system. The conclusions can provide a theoretical guidance for the oil management of the transmission system. Additionally, the thermal resistance network model is also effective and efficient for other hydraulic equipment to predict the temperature variation.

This paper aims to study and compare the friction stability of wet paper-based clutches with regard to the radial grooves (RG) and waffle grooves (WG).

This paper presents an experimental study of a wet clutch concerning the effect of groove patterns on the friction torque and surface temperature. The friction stabilities of RG and WG are investigated with the applied pressure, rotating speed and automatic transmission fluid (ATF) temperature taken into consideration.

The friction torque and surface temperature of WG are larger than those of RG under the same operating condition. The friction torque difference between RG and WG grows with the increase of applied pressure and narrows with the increase of ATF temperature. Additionally, their temperature difference expands via increasing the rotating speed and ATF temperature or reducing the applied pressure; in this way, not only the variable coefficient difference between RG and WG can be narrowed, but also the friction stability of the clutch can be improved dramatically.

This paper explains the thermodynamic differences between RG and WG; moreover, it is verified experimentally that WG has a better friction stability than RG.

The aim of this article is two-fold. First, it offers a unique account of San Min, the prototype of the current Chinese educational principle proposed by Yan Fu (1854–1921) that aimed at improving people’s physical, intellectual and moral capacities. This system of educational thinking has received only marginal attention in Anglophone research literature. Second, given the influence of Yan Fu’s interpretation and promulgation of Herbert Spencer’s educational philosophy during that period, it investigates the extent to which San Min is derived from Spencer’s educational thought (the “Spencerian Triad”). This article focusses on how Yan Fu adapted the ideas of San Min from Spencer’s account.

This article considers Yan Fu’s principle of San Min in relation to Spencer’s educational triad through a close reading and comparison of key primary texts (including Yan Fu’s original writing). It explores the similarities and differences between each account of education’s goals and its proposed means of attainment.

Yan Fu’s principle of San Min is shown to have been adapted from the Spencerian Triad. However, using the theory of Social Organism, Yan Fu re-interpreted Spencer’s individual liberty as liberty for the nation. While Spencer’s goal was to empower individuals, Yan Fu aimed to serve collective independence, wealth and power.

This article addresses oversights concerning San Min’s Western origins in the Spencerian Triad and its influence on Chinese education under Yan Fu’s sway. It is significant because San Min is still at the core of the current Chinese educational policy.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical historical analysis of the business (mis)behaviors and influencing factors that discourage enduring cooperation between principals and agents, to introduce strategies that embrace the social values, economic motivation and institutional designs historically adopted to curtail dishonest acts in international business and to inform an improved principal–agent theory that reflects principal–agent reciprocity as shaped by social, political, cultural, economic, strategic and ideological forces

The critical historical research method is used to analyze Chinese compradors and the foreign companies they served in pre-1949 China.

Business practitioners can extend orthodox principal–agent theory by scrutinizing the complex interactions between local agents and foreign companies. Instead of agents pursuing their economic interests exclusively, as posited by principal–agent theory, they also may pursue principal-shared interests (as suggested by stewardship theory) because of social norms and cultural values that can affect business-related choices and the social bonds built between principals and agents.

The behaviors of compradors and foreign companies in pre-1949 China suggest international business practices for shaping social bonds between principals and agents and foreign principals’ creative efforts to enhance shared interests with local agents.

Understanding principal–agent theory’s limitations can help international management scholars and practitioners mitigate transaction partners’ dishonest acts.

A critical historical analysis of intermediary businesspeople’s (mis)behavior in pre-1949 (1840–1949) China can inform the generalizability of principal–agent theory and contemporary business strategies for minimizing agents’ dishonest acts.

China is a fast‐growing economy, and many multinational companies (MNCs) have found their ways to infiltrate that market. The competition among the MNCs has generated human resource management (HRM) problems. When formulating approaches in dealing with these problems, the expatriate management of the MNCs often “speak for” their local employees, as if the latter has no voice of its own. It is suspected that MNCs know partly what their local employees value. With such limited understanding, the former may be ineffective in managing their local staff. The purpose of this paper is to report a study that explores the HRM problems from local employees' perspectives. To understand Chinese employees, the conceptual lens, stemmed from Chinese philosophical traditions instead of that derived from western experience, is used.

Data were collected through semi‐structured interviews with Chinese employees working in MNCs.

The findings suggest that “asymmetrical understanding” exists between expatriate managers and their Chinese employees, and that the former may know much less about the latter than it is normally assumed.

The findings, illustrated through interviews, have shed light on how MNCs could manage their Chinese employees, and how a meaningful dialogue could take place: understanding the other (Chinese employees) on their own intellectual ground to overcome “asymmetrical understanding”.

By allowing the voice of the other to come forth rather than to keep it in the background as, at best, a whisper, the study helps create a platform for a meaningful cross‐cultural dialogue between voices from the west and the other.

Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

This paper aims to compare the Greek and Chinese rhetorical traditions and explore their influences on today’s business and marketing communication across relevant cultures. In particular, it uses the Aristotelian persuasive orientations as reference points to introduce the Chinese rhetoric, and interpret cultural differences in persuasion from a historical and sociocultural perspective. It has been found that Greek and Chinese rhetoric and persuasion were developed to meet the needs of the social and cultural environments and this rule still applies to today’s business communication. The logical approach has been emphasised in the English rhetorical tradition while both qing (emotional approach) and li (logical approach) are the focus of persuasion in the Chinese tradition. This difference is also the root of cultural differences in modern business communication. Findings from both English and Chinese texts and data are examined to substantiate our focal argument.

This paper aims to promote an expanded two‐way dialog between Chinese and Western leaders and executives which recognizes that “wisdom” can flow in both directions.

Interviews were undertaken with three Chinese executives and analyzed against a model of performance excellence.

An understanding of some of the similarities and differences of Western and Chinese business practices and a conclusion that there are lessons for Western businesses to learn.

The work involved interviews with only three Chinese executives and thus represents a tiny sample.

Illustrates some of the practices that might be worth considering by the West as we climb out of the current economic depression and re‐focus business efforts for a longer‐term future.

The paper adopts a novel approach of analyzing interview outcomes against a reference model. The core value is, however, in highlighting the benefits that might arise from extended dialog.

The purpose of this paper is to find an efficient fabric defect detection algorithm by means of exploring the sparsity characteristics of main local binary pattern (MLBP) extracted from the original fabric texture.

In the proposed algorithm, original LBP features are extracted from the fabric texture to be detected, and MLBP are selected by occurrence probability. Second, a dictionary is established with MLBP atoms which can sparsely represent all the LBP. Then, the value of the gray-scale difference between gray level of neighborhood pixels and the central pixel, and the mean of the difference which has the same MLBP feature are calculated. And then, the defect-contained image is reconstructed as normal texture image. Finally, the residual is calculated between reconstructed and original images, and a simple threshold segmentation method can divide the residual image, and the defective region is detected.

The experiment result shows that the fabric texture can be more efficiently reconstructed, and the proposed method achieves better defect detection performance. Moreover, it offers empirical insights about how to exploit the sparsity of one certain feature, e.g. LBP.

Because of the selected research approach, the results may lack generalizability in chambray. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.

In this paper, a novel fabric defect detection method which extracts the sparsity of MLBP features is proposed.

The transportation of fresh food requires cold chain logistics to maintain a low-temperature environment, which can reduce food waste and ensure product safety. Therefore, temperature control is a major challenge that cold chain logistics face.

This research proposes a prediction model of refrigerated truck temperature and air conditioner status (air speed and air temperature) based on hybrid mayfly algorithm (MA) and extreme learning machine (ELM). To prove the effectiveness of the proposed method, the mayfly algorithm–extreme learning machine (MA-ELM) is compared with the traditional ELM and the ELM optimized by classical biological-inspired algorithms, including the genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO). The assessment is conducted through two experiments, including temperature prediction and air conditioner status prediction, based on a case study.

The prediction method is evaluated by five evaluation indicators, including the mean relative error (MRE), mean absolute error (MAE), mean squared error (MSE), root mean square error (RMSE) and coefficient of determination (R²). It can be concluded that the biological algorithm, especially the MA, can improve the prediction accuracy. This result clearly proves the effectiveness of the proposed hybrid prediction model in revealing the nonlinear patterns of the cold chain logistics temperature.

The case study illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed temperature prediction method, which helps to keep the product fresh. Even though the performance of MA is better than GA and PSO, the MA has the disadvantage of premature convergence. In the future, the modified MA can be designed to improve the performance of MA-ELM.

In prior studies, many scholars have conducted related research on the subject of temperature monitoring. However, this monitoring method can only identify temperature deviations that have occurred that harmed fresh food. As a countermeasure, research on the temperature prediction of cold chain logistics that can actively identify temperature changes has become the focus. Once a temperature deviation is predicted, temperature control measures can be taken in time to resolve the risk.