Search results

The purpose of this paper is to apply firework optimization algorithm to optimize multi-matching selective assembly problem with non-normal dimensional distribution.

In this paper, a multi-matching selective assembly approach based on discrete fireworks optimization (DFWO) algorithm is proposed to find the optimal combination of mating parts. The approach introduces new operator with the way of 3-opt and also uses a stochastic selection strategy, combines the discrete selective assembly problem with firework optimization algorithm properly and finds the best combination scheme of mating parts with non-normal dimensional distributions through powerful global search capability of the firework optimization algorithm.

The effects of different control parameters, including the number of initial fireworks and the coefficient controlling the total number of sparks generated by the fireworks on the evolution performance, are discussed, and a promising higher performance of the proposed selective assembly approach is verified through comparison with other selective assembly methods.

The best combination of mating parts is realized through the proposed selective assembly approach, and workers can select suitable mating parts under the guidance of the combination to increase the assembly efficiency and reduce the amount of surplus parts.

A DFWO algorithm is first designed to combine with multi-matching selective assembly method. For the case of an assembly product, the specific mapping rule and key technologies of DFWO algorithm are proposed.

This study aims to examine why women transition from wage work to self-employed entrepreneurship, the seemingly insecure and unruly economic sector compared with the stable iron rice bowl and the fancy spring rice jobs.

Based on in-depth interviews in Zhejiang, the entrepreneurial hotbed in coastal China, this study examines the experiences of self-employed female entrepreneurs who used to work in the iron rice bowl and the spring rice jobs and explores their nonconventional career transition and its gendered implications.

This study finds that these women quit their previous jobs to escape from gendered suppression in wage work where their femininity was stereotyped, devalued or disciplined. By working for themselves, these women embrace a rubber rice bowl that allows them to improvise different forms of femininity that are better rewarded and recognized.

The study contributes to studies on gender and work by framing femininity as a fluid rather than a fixed set of qualities and fills the research gap by illustrating women’s agency in reacting to gender expectations in certain workplaces. The study develops a new concept of rubber rice bowl to describe how entrepreneurship, a seemingly women-unfriendly sphere, attracts women by allowing them to comply with, resist, or improvise normative gender expectations.

Higher order statistics (HOS)-based blind source separation (BSS) technique has been applied to separate data to obtain a better performance than second order statistics-based method. The cost function constructed from the HOS-based separation criterion is a complicated nonlinear function that is difficult to optimize. The purpose of this paper is to effectively solve this nonlinear optimization problem to obtain an estimation of the source signals with a higher accuracy than classic BSS methods.

In this paper, a new technique based on HOS in kernel space is proposed. The proposed approach first maps the mixture data into a high-dimensional kernel space through a nonlinear mapping and then constructs a cost function based on a higher order separation criterion in the kernel space. The cost function is constructed by using the kernel function which is defined as inner products between the images of all pairs of data in the kernel space. The estimations of the source signals is obtained through the minimizing the cost function.

The results of a number of experiments on generic synthetic and real data show that HOS separation criterion in kernel space exhibits good performance for different kinds of distributions. The proposed method provided higher signal-to-interference ratio and less sensitive to the source distribution compared to FastICA and JADE algorithms.

The proposed method combines the advantage of kernel method and the HOS properties to achieve a better performance than using a single one. It does not require to compute the coordinates of the data in the kernel space explicitly, but computes the kernel function which is simple to optimize. The use of nonlinear function space allows the algorithm more accurate and more robust to different kinds of distributions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of liberalization forces, political constraints (on labor decisions) and formal control mechanisms (i.e. delegation of decision authority, objective performance measurement and merit‐based rewards) on the performance of Chinese State‐owned enterprises (SOEs).

A survey instrument was used to collect data from functional managers representing over 500 SOEs. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

The findings revealed significant and positive path relationships between liberalization forces and each of the formal control mechanisms, leading to firm performance. The findings also reveal that political constraints have a significant and negative path relationship with objective performance measures and firm performance.

The evidence provided in this study adds to our understanding of the role the institutional environment plays in the structuring and management of the firm in transitional economies. The topic is of interest, given the pace of modernization of firms in emerging economies, and the differences in the institutional “rules of the game” that exist compared with developed economies. Both of these forces have the potential to affect not only the management control practices in emerging economy firms, but also other firms that do business with them.

Academic contention occurs when research evidence is amenable to more than one interpretation. China has a long tradition of Shang Que (商榷), in which authors argue for their preferred interpretation. The modern form of this tradition is the Shang Que article, which often takes the form of research papers in Chinese-language journals and which tends to be question-oriented. Shang Que articles usually take the views of a particular author or article as the focus of independent and complete criticism by another, independent, academic. This paper explains the role of Shang Que articles in Chinese scholarship and their influence on international academia.

A bibliometric analysis was used to explore the characteristics and evolution of Chinese Shang Que articles using 30,577 articles published between 1979 and 2018. Microsoft Excel and Gephi were used for data analysis and visualization.

Findings suggest a decline in the number of Shang Que articles and an increase in the number of co-authors. Shang Que articles remained particularly prominent in Philosophy and Humanities and Social Sciences, where they focused on local issues such as classical Chinese, the Sinicization of Marxism and Chinese literature. This suggests that the number of Shang Que articles is related to the degree of internationalization of a research field.

Shang Que articles, which have been influenced by academic paradigms in English, are a fusion of China's Shang Que tradition and of the modern academic system. Through considering Shang Que articles, this paper explores the benefits of local academic traditions in non-English-speaking cultures.

To prepare a new type of composite for selective laser sintering 3D printing, the surface of Al₂O₃ nanoparticles was modified by the coupling agent (3-methacryloxypropyl)-trimethoxy silane (KH570) before coated with thermoplastic epoxy resin (TER).

Laser diffraction confirmed that the size distribution of prepared powder materials in this study ranged between 20 to 80 µm. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) showed that the loading of organic matter was below 5 per cent. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy indicated that the silane coupling agent molecule bound strongly with the alumina. X-ray diffraction confirmed the prepared powder materials to be α-alumina. Through the angle of repose (AOR) test, the AOR = 18.435º was obtained, suggesting the high flowability of prepared powder materials. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observation demonstrated that the shape of the prepared powder materials was sphere-like grains.

Molding properties of prepared powder materials were studied on the basis of particle size distribution, particle size, sphericity, crystal structure and the reaction mode of the TER. This prepared powder materials can be well applied to the production of epoxy resin-coated Al₂O₃ composite parts with high precision and good mechanical performance.

This composite can be well applied to the production of epoxy resin-coated Al₂O₃ composite parts with high precision and good mechanical performance.