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This review aims to give a critical view of the wheel/rail high frequency vibration-induced vibration fatigue in railway bogie.

Vibration fatigue of railway bogie arising from the wheel/rail high frequency vibration has become the main concern of railway operators. Previous reviews usually focused on the formation mechanism of wheel/rail high frequency vibration. This paper thus gives a critical review of the vibration fatigue of railway bogie owing to the short-pitch irregularities-induced high frequency vibration, including a brief introduction of short-pitch irregularities, associated high frequency vibration in railway bogie, typical vibration fatigue failure cases of railway bogie and methodologies used for the assessment of vibration fatigue and research gaps.

The results showed that the resulting excitation frequencies of short-pitch irregularity vary substantially due to different track types and formation mechanisms. The axle box-mounted components are much more vulnerable to vibration fatigue compared with other components. The wheel polygonal wear and rail corrugation-induced high frequency vibration is the main driving force of fatigue failure, and the fatigue crack usually initiates from the defect of the weld seam. Vibration spectrum for attachments of railway bogie defined in the standard underestimates the vibration level arising from the short-pitch irregularities. The current investigations on vibration fatigue mainly focus on the methods to improve the accuracy of fatigue damage assessment, and a systematical design method for vibration fatigue remains a huge gap to improve the survival probability when the rail vehicle is subjected to vibration fatigue.

The research can facilitate the development of a new methodology to improve the fatigue life of railway vehicles when subjected to wheel/rail high frequency vibration.

For strategic and competitive insights, the purpose of this paper is to measure and benchmark the comparative operating efficiencies of Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) major airlines and present a new interpretation along with managerial implications.

This research statistically tests returns to scale and the equality of mean efficiencies for 15 ASEAN airlines covering the period 2010-2014. The disaggregate input efficiency of ASEAN airlines is computed by comparing the target and actual inputs.

The disaggregate input efficiency of ASEAN airlines shows that aircraft efficiency is the lowest, operating cost efficiency is better, and available seat efficiency is the best.

This paper applies data envelopment analysis models, disaggregated input efficiency measures, and bootstrapping approaches to compute the operational efficiency of ASEAN airlines. Strategic suggestions are made to improve the operational efficiency of ASEAN airlines.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the latest research of BIM adoption in construction engineering and management (CEM) and propose research directions for future scholarly work. During the recent decade, building information modeling (BIM) has gained increasing applications and research interest in the construction industry. Although there have been review-based studies that summarized BIM-based research in the overall architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) area, there is limited review that evaluates the current stage of BIM-based research specifically in the CEM sub-area.

CEM falls into the scope of AEC. It involves construction-related tasks, activities and processes (e.g. scheduling and cost estimates), issues (e.g. constructability), as well as human factors (e.g. collaboration). This study adopted a holistic literature review approach that incorporates bibliometric search and scientometric analysis. A total of 276 articles related to BIM applied in CEM were selected from Scopus as the literature sample for the scientometric analysis.

Some key CEM research areas (e.g. CEM pedagogy, integrated project delivery, lean and off-site construction) were identified and evaluated. Research trends in these areas were identified, and analyses were carried out with regard to how they could be integrated with BIM. For example, BIM, as a data repository for ACE facilities, has substantial potential to be integrated with a variety of other digital technologies, project delivery methods and innovative construction techniques throughout the whole process of CEM.

As BIM is one of the key technologies and digital platforms to improve the construction productivity and collaboration, it is important for industry practitioners to be updated of the latest movement and progress of the academic research. The industry, academics and governmental authorities should work with joint effort to fill the gap by first recognizing the current needs, limitations and trends of applying BIM in the construction industry. For example, it needs more understanding about how to address technical interoperability issues and how to introduce the integrated design and construction delivery approach for BIM implementation under the UK BIM Level 2/3 framework.

This study contributed to the body of knowledge in BIM by proposing a framework leading to research directions including the differences of BIM effects between design-bid-build and other fast-track project delivery methods; the integration of BIM with off-site construction; and BIM pedagogy in CEM. It also addressed the need to investigate the similarities and differences between academia and industry toward perceiving the movement of BIM in construction field work.

The issue of environmental regulation and productivity has received increasing attention among academics, but little research has focused on Chinese firms despite the serious state of pollution in China. This study aimed to fill that gap. Analyzing a sample of firms from 12 Chinese cities, we found that environmental regulation could improve firm productivity, but the responses to environmental regulation differed across industry sectors, firm sizes, and locations. In this paper, we discuss the implications of these responses toward the environmental policy in China.

To analyze the work principle and capacity of energy conversion in each segment of profile lines, the energy transfer from impeller to transmission medium is separated into head coefficient and load coefficient to analyze the energy transfer process. The concepts of airfoil lift coefficient and drag coefficient are used; the third manifestation of the Euler equations is used as well.

The numerical simulation of energy conversion mechanism based on load criteria of vane airfoil has been established in screw centrifugal pump to explain its energy conversion mechanism in an impeller. Upon this basis, the velocity and pressure along the entire blade are investigated through the numerical simulation of internal solid–liquid flow in the pump. The energy conversion process under load criteria in the blade airfoil has also been obtained.

The research suggests that the mathematical model of energy conversion mechanism based on the load criteria of the vane airfoil is reliable in the screw centrifugal pump. The screw centrifugal blade has twice or even several times the wrap angle than the ordinary centrifugal blade. It is a large wrap angle that forms the unique flow channel which lays the foundation for solid particles to pass smoothly and for soft energy conversion. At the same time, load distribution along the profile line on the long-screw centrifugal blade is an important factor affecting the energy conversion efficiency of the impeller.

The quantitative analysis method of energy in the screw centrifugal pump can help the pump designer improve certain features of the pump and shorten the research cycle.

The purpose of this paper is to explore Taiwan’s regional energy efficiency trend and complement the work of the total-factor energy efficiency (TFEE) index proposed by Hu and Wang (2006). It further extends panel data stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) modeling for estimating disaggregate energy efficiency.

This paper applies the panel data stochastic production frontier to estimate the TFEE scores for 20 administrative regions in Taiwan over the period 2004-2015. The SFA models include five inputs (employed population, amount of productive electricity power consumed, amount of electricity consumed for household and non-household electric lighting, amount of gasoline sales, and amount of diesel sales) and one output (total real income in the base year of 2011).

This research concludes with three main findings: the inefficient administrative regions of Taiwan include mostly large industrial parks and the petrochemical industry cluster; the top five administrative regions with inefficient diesel use are mostly metropolitan areas that the concern of air pollution caused by diesel system arouses the awareness to use less diesel fuel; and the average TFEE score on household and non-household electric lighting is higher than the usage efficiency of productive electricity power, gasoline, and diesel, but there is still room for efficiency improvement.

Most administrative regions in Taiwan are not efficient in almost all kinds of energy use. The results show that the efficiencies of using productive electricity power, gasoline, and diesel need to be improved a lot more.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the antecedents and the conditions of coopetition at the inter-organizational level.

This study is based on survey research methodology and analyzes the data from 138 companies regarding the antecedents and the conditions of their coopetition.

The results indicate that the interdependence between partners (i.e. the antecedent) positively affects interfirm coopetition, and that this relationship is contingent on the joint occurrence of opportunism (a behavioral condition) and technology uncertainty (a contextual condition). Specifically, highly interdependent firms are more likely to be involved in a coopetitive relationship when both opportunism and technology uncertainty are high. Interestingly, the authors’ data also show that opportunism or technology uncertainty alone may not be adequate in moderating the interdependence–coopetition relationship.

This study contributes to the current literature in two meaningful ways. First, it empirically examines interdependence as a potential antecedent of interfirm coopetition. Second, it improves our understanding of the behavioral and contextual conditions that facilitate the formation of coopetitive relationships by examining the moderating roles of opportunisms and technology uncertainty in the relationship between interdependence and interfirm coopetition. The limitations of this study lie in its confined method of cross-sectional survey from the focal firm’s perspective. Future research may advance beyond this study through experimental and/or longitudinal research designs.

This study provides managers with two important practical insights in coopetition management. First, the findings suggest a two-step approach to help a firm assess and manage the level of coopetition in its relationship with a business partner. In addition, the findings provide a counterintuitive suggestion to managers that the joint conditions of high opportunism and high technology uncertainty indeed prime the relationship for the rise of coopetition, provided that managerial efforts are made to somewhat increase the level of interdependence in the relationship.

Despite the growing number of studies on coopetition, research still lacks knowledge about the antecedents and the conditions of inter-organizational coopetition, and this study aims to fill this gap.

The purpose of this paper is to present a simple and effective method to search the optimal turn-on and turn-off angles on-line for the control of the switched reluctance motor (SRM). The optimal turn-on and turn-off angles are defined as the ones that can meet torque production requirements with minimum copper loss.

The optimal turn-on and turn-off angles are first defined based on the analysis of the SRM losses and torque production principles. Then the algorithm for optimal angles searching is developed, and the searching parameters are determined through analytical computation. The optimal angles are approached on-line with iterative process. Simulation and experiments are finally performed to verify the proposed method.

The presented method can meet torque production requirements while copper loss is minimized. The optimal turn-on and turn-off angles are generally approached within five phase cycles for most of the SRM operation modes. Furthermore, the SRM drive system using the presented method exhibits good dynamics during starting and sudden load operations.

The presented method is simple, and implementation of it is easy. It is an eligible candidate for industrial applications where energy conversion efficiency is crucial.

The optimal turn-off angle definition that considers both torque production and copper loss minimization is proposed. The turn-on and turn-off angles are searched independently on-line with little SRM geometrical information. The searching steps are derived through analytical computation and qualitative analysis so that both the searching speed and algorithm convergence are balanced.

This study aims to examine empirically the existence of four classical and four emerging buyer–supplier relationship (BSR) types and how they differ in terms of behavioral dynamics and performance measures.

This study uses an online survey to collect data from 371 purchasing managers in the USA.

A cluster analysis statistically supports the existence of five of these eight BSR types, including strategic/bilateral partnership, market/discrete, supplier-led collaboration, captive supplier/buyer dominant and captive buyer/supplier dominant BSRs. Further, ANOVA tests show that these five BSRs differ in terms of behavioral outcomes and performance measures.

This study is based on a cross-sectional survey so it cannot examine how these BSR types may evolve over time, and it is not suitable to examine some rare types of BSRs. In addition, this study does not consider contextual factors that may moderate the influence of BSR types on the behavioral dynamics and performance measures.

Managers should consider the potential to be able to develop and enhance a strategic/bilateral relationship with their supply chain partners, which in at least some circumstances can lead to superior performance results. Similar observations can be made with respect to supplier-led and, to a lesser degree, buyer-led collaboration.

Most existing research of the BSR types is largely a product of theoretical classifications, and there is also a lack of research of their performance implications. This study fills these gaps in the literature.