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Filtroil had opened a new factory that was a merger between Shenzhen Filtroil and its supplier, Liu Li—whose own factory was on the verge of bankruptcy. But the supplier had begun making excessive demands and threatening to delay product shipment to the United States if his conditions were left unmet. The case reveals the options that could be taken to manage the situation. The case is suitable for use in organizational behavior, human resource management, and strategy classes at the MBA and executive education levels.

Academic and industrial researches on nanoscale flows and heat transfers are an area of increasing global interest, where fascinating phenomena are always observed, e.g. admirable water or air permeation and remarkable thermal conductivity. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the phenomena by the fractional calculus.

This paper begins with the continuum assumption in conventional theories, and then the fractional Gauss’ divergence theorems are used to derive fractional differential equations in fractal media. Fractional derivatives are introduced heuristically by the variational iteration method, and fractal derivatives are explained geometrically. Some effective analytical approaches to fractional differential equations, e.g. the variational iteration method, the homotopy perturbation method and the fractional complex transform, are outlined and the main solution processes are given.

Heat conduction in silk cocoon and ground water flow are modeled by the local fractional calculus, the solutions can explain well experimental observations.

Particular attention is paid throughout the paper to giving an intuitive grasp for fractional calculus. Most cited references are within last five years, catching the most frontier of the research. Some ideas on this review paper are first appeared.

The study aims to examine the effect of inclusions and inherent microstructure on fatigue behavior of 34Cr2Ni2Mo steel.

Fatigue behavior of 34Cr2Ni2Mo steel was investigated for up to 1E10 cycles.

Results showed that both inclusion and inherent microstructure have an influence on the crack initiation mechanism. Fatigue cracks mostly initiated from inclusions, whereas substrate-induced crack initiations were also observed. Fatigue life of inclusion-induced failures is mostly determined by the location of inclusions rather than the loading stress. The inherent microstructure seems to tolerate inclusions at a lower stress level in very high-cycle regime owing to the absence of internal inclusion-induced failure. For the substrate-induced crack initiations, high-density dislocations are found to be accumulated around the carbide particle-matrix interface, which may be the cause of crack initiation in the inherent structure due to strain localization.

The effect of inclusions and inherent microstructure on fatigue behavior of 34Cr2Ni2Mo steel up to 1E10 cycles.

Highlights

• Fatigue failure occurs even at a lifetime of 5.76E9 cycles.

• Surface inclusion induced premature failures.

• Inherent microstructure tolerates inclusions at lower stress level.

• Internal carbides promote substrate-induced crack initiations.

Fatigue failure occurs even at a lifetime of 5.76E9 cycles.

Surface inclusion induced premature failures.

Inherent microstructure tolerates inclusions at lower stress level.

Internal carbides promote substrate-induced crack initiations.

Currently, most research studies focus on ownership reforms and governance reforms, while only a few research studies focus on management system innovations. Based on an evolution of state-owned enterprises’ (SOEs) performance appraisal systems, this paper investigates the influence of performance appraisal system on earnings management.

Using a natural experiment that central government-owned enterprises (CGOEs) carried out economic value-added performance appraisal (EVA-PA) in 2010, the authors adapt difference-in-difference method to analyze the relationship between EVA-PA and earnings management choice. Furthermore, the authors consider the situation which contained financial status, separation between decision-making rights and decision-control rights, separation between ownership and control and industrial characteristics.

The research finds that after carrying out EVA-PA, CGOEs prefer accrual-based earnings management to real earnings management, and there is substitution effect between the two types of earnings management. Moreover, further research studies reveal that enterprises suffering losses in the previous year and featuring higher separation between decision-making rights and decision-control rights and higher separation between ownership and control have stronger earnings management motive under EVA-PA. In contrast, enterprises achieving satisfactory financial performance in the previous year and engaging in businesses within protective industry have weaker earnings management motive under EVA-PA. After the implementation of EVA-PA, accrual-based earnings management and real earnings management both impair operating performances of CGOEs.

Theoretically, this paper enriches research studies on earnings management from the perspective of incentive mechanism and expands research studies on economic consequences of EVA-PA. In addition, it validates the relationship between the two types of earnings management. As an important mechanism of corporate management and control, performance appraisal system is an important part for establishing ownership management system and improving internal management system of SOEs.

This study aims to introduce a modern higher efficiency predictor–corrector iterative algorithm.

Furthermore, the efficiency of new algorithm is analyzed on the based on Chun-Hui He’s iteration method.

In comparison with the current robust algorithms, the newly establish algorithm behaves better and efficient, whereas the current existing algorithm fails or slows in the considered test examples.

The modified Chun-Hui He’s algorithm has great practical implication in numerous real-life challenges in different area of engineering, such as Industrial engineering, Civil engineering, Electrical engineering and Mechanical engineering.

The paper presents a modified Chun-Hui He’s algorithm for solving the nonlinear algebraic models exist in various area.

To optimize the shape of a cascade where velocity (or pressure) distribution is optimally given.

The semi‐inverse method suggested by Ji‐Huan He is applied to establishment of a variational theory for the discussed inverse problem. The boundary conditions on unknown shape are converted into the natural boundary conditions of the obtained variational functional.

Ji‐Huan He's semi‐inverse method is a powerful tool to the search for the variational formulation for the discussed problem. The derivation procedure is very simple and convenient; the finite element method based on the variational theory with moving boundary provides a very effective and robust numerical approach to the inverse problem.

The design method is limited to frictionless flow.

The numerical method based on variational principle with moving boundary can be readily extended to other cases with moving surfaces or free boundaries.

The suggested numerical method can satisfy the demand of various cascade designs, where the velocity (or pressure) distribution can be optimally given from different aspects of engineering requirement: aerodynamics, strength, manufacture, etc.

System dynamics is a whole-system modelling and learning approach, useful for tackling non-linear problems, such as sustainable urban development. The purpose of this paper is to review system dynamics applications in the simulation of sustainable urban development over a period from 2005 to 2017.

The analysis reveals that the number of applications of system dynamics modelling in the area of urban sustainable development increased in the analysed period. Research has changed its focus from the modelling of environmental problems to more complex models, portraying the multidimensional socio-economic processes that have an impact on the sustainability of urban development. Analysed case studies most often use the behaviour reproduction test for model validation, but without a unified approach. In most cases, modelling has been done in China, Germany and the USA, while urban development in the Eastern European countries, Africa and Latin America has not often been investigated. This paper indicates the knowledge gaps and suggests future research directions.

Papers that report the use of system dynamics modelling reveal a wide range of applications in urban sustainability. The analysis shows significant emphasis on environmental problems, while the interest for modelling social problems has been increasing during the last several years. Most of the modelled problems examine the sustainability of resources (land, water) and waste management, which are used for insights into the reasons for the system behaviour, forecasting future behaviour and policy testing.

The presented models were developed in most cases for the purpose of understanding the phenomena examined, as well as the future use of the models in policy planning. This brings us back to the need for greater stakeholder involvement, not only in the initial phase, but also during the whole modelling process, which could increase understanding, use and ownership of the models in the future, and thus increase their practical application.

In recent years, a great number of top conferences and workshops on artificial intelligence (AI) were held in China, showing Chinese AI plays an important role in the world. Meanwhile, Chinese government announced an ambitious scheme, “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan,” for the country to become a world leader in AI technologies by 2030. The AI research in China has covered various aspects, ranging from chips to algorithms. This chapter attempts to give an overview of the recent advances of AI research and development in China, as well as some perspectives on the future development of AI in China.

Due to the increasing size and complexity of construction projects, construction engineering and management involves the coordination of many complex and dynamic processes and relies on the analysis of uncertain, imprecise and incomplete information, including subjective and linguistically expressed information. Various modelling and computing techniques have been used by construction researchers and applied to practical construction problems in order to overcome these challenges, including fuzzy hybrid techniques. Fuzzy hybrid techniques combine the human-like reasoning capabilities of fuzzy logic with the capabilities of other techniques, such as optimization, machine learning, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) and simulation, to capitalise on their strengths and overcome their limitations. Based on a review of construction literature, this chapter identifies the most common types of fuzzy hybrid techniques applied to construction problems and reviews selected papers in each category of fuzzy hybrid technique to illustrate their capabilities for addressing construction challenges. Finally, this chapter discusses areas for future development of fuzzy hybrid techniques that will increase their capabilities for solving construction-related problems. The contributions of this chapter are threefold: (1) the limitations of some standard techniques for solving construction problems are discussed, as are the ways that fuzzy methods have been hybridized with these techniques in order to address their limitations; (2) a review of existing applications of fuzzy hybrid techniques in construction is provided in order to illustrate the capabilities of these techniques for solving a variety of construction problems and (3) potential improvements in each category of fuzzy hybrid technique in construction are provided, as areas for future research.