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This paper aims to investigate the conformable fractal approaches of unsteady natural convection in a partial layer porous H-shaped cavity suspended by nano-encapsulated phase change material (NEPCM) by the incompressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics method.

The partial hot sources with variable height L_Hot are in the H-cavity’s sides and center. The performed numerical simulations are obtained at the variations of the following parameters: source of hot length L_Hot = (0.4–1.6), conformable fractal parameter α (0.97–1), fusion temperature θ_f (0.05–0.9), thermal radiation parameter Rd (0–7), Rayleigh number Ra (10³–10⁶), Darcy parameter Da (10⁻² to 10⁻⁵) and Hartmann number Ha (0–80).

The main outcomes showed the implication of hot source length L_Hot, Rayleigh number and fusion temperature in controlling the contours of a heat capacity within H-shaped cavity. The presence of a porous layer in the right zone of H-shaped cavity prevents the nanofluid flow within this area at lower Darcy parameter. An increment in the thermal radiation parameter declines the heat transfer and changes the heat capacity contours within H-shaped cavity. The velocity field is strongly enhanced by an augmentation on Rayleigh number. Increasing the Hartmann number shrinks the velocity field within H-shaped cavity.

The novelty of this work is solving the conformable fractal approaches of unsteady natural convection in a partial layer porous H-shaped cavity suspended by NEPCM.

The main goal of this paper is to develop novel Tω(weakest t-norm)-based fuzzy arithmetic operations to analyze the intuitionistic fuzzy reliability of Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) using fault tree.

The paper proposes a fuzzy fault tree analysis (FFTA) method for evaluating the intuitionistic fuzzy reliability of any nonrepairable system with uncertain information about failures of system components. This method uses a fault tree for modeling the failure phenomenon of the system, triangular intuitionistic fuzzy numbers (TIFNs) to determine data uncertainty, while novel arithmetic operations are adopted to determine the intuitionistic fuzzy reliability of a system under consideration. The proposed arithmetic operations employ Tω(weakest t-norm) to minimize the accumulating phenomenon of fuzziness, whereas the weighted arithmetic mean is employed to determine the membership as well as nonmembership degrees of the intuitionistic fuzzy failure possibility of the nonrepairable system. The usefulness of the proposed method has been illustrated by inspecting the intuitionistic fuzzy failure possibility of the PCBA and comparing the results with five other existing FFTA methods.

The results show that the proposed FFTA method effectively reduces the accumulating phenomenon of fuzziness and provides optimized degrees of membership and nonmembership for computed intuitionistic fuzzy reliability of a nonrepairable system.

The paper introduces Tω(weakest t-norm) and weighted arithmetic mean based operations for evaluating the intuitionistic fuzzy failure possibility of any nonrepairable system in an uncertain environment using a fault tree.

Management science, operational and financial risk of overseas enterprises.

This case is mainly applicable to international business course and project management course.

Since 1992, the Great Mekong sub-regional economic cooperation between China and ASEAN countries was officially launched and set free economic zone. Hydropower is starting to develop in recent years in Cambodia, and it is a good significance to Cambodia's industry. Furthermore, most of hydropower plants in Cambodia are built by Chinese companies. Thus, this paper will analyze the current risk and condition of Kamchay hydropower, as well as the development of Chinese enterprise for Cambodia economic and social development.

This case study provides students concepts on international business, project management, and operational risk of overseas enterprises. The principle of project contracting, labor cooperation, and project financial in international process are considered together with the implications they have for advancing understanding of the problem of the host country's government interests and the various risk of enterprises in international BOT projects.

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The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new method called simultaneous elimination and back-substitution method (SEBSM) to solve a system of linear equations as a new finite element method (FEM) solver.

In this paper, a new technique assembling the global stiffness matrix will be proposed and meanwhile the direct method SEBSM will be applied to solve the equations formed in FEM.

The SEBSM solver for FEM with the present assembling technique has distinct advantages in both computational time and memory space occupation over the conventional methods, such as the Gauss elimination and LU decomposition methods.

The developed solver requires less memory space no matter the coefficient matrix is a typical sparse matrix or not, and it is applicable to both symmetric and unsymmetrical linear systems of equations. The processes of assembling matrix and dealing with constraints are straightforward, so it is convenient for coding. Compared to the previous solvers, the proposed solver has favorable universality and good performances.

The understanding of the motives for consumers’ support of business underdogs is generally limited. The purpose of this paper is to help address this important research topic by conceptualizing underdog affection as a theoretical construct capturing the emotional attachment held by some consumers toward underdog business entities and advances two perspectives (self- and other-oriented) to unravel its motivational underpinnings.

To test the conceptual model, a survey study was conducted involving 365 respondents drawn from an electronic alumni association list from a medium-sized Midwestern university in the USA. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analyses were used to validate the scales, and the structural equations modeling method was used to test the hypothesized effects.

The data support most of the hypotheses (eight out of nine). Under the self-oriented perspective, commerce underdog affection is positively influenced by underdog orientation, need for uniqueness, nostalgia proneness, and hope, and is negatively impacted by their materialism level. Only hope did not impact consumer underdog affection. Under the other-oriented perspective, balance maintenance, top dog antipathy, and empathic concern positively influence underdog affection. The other-oriented factors, especially top dog antipathy and balance maintenance, show stronger effects on commerce underdog affection than self-oriented factors.

The sample was geographically restrictive in the sense that it measured only one group of respondents in the USA. The conceptual model is limited in terms of its coverage of the consequences of underdog affection. While discriminant validity is established in the scale development phase of the study, relatively close relationships do exist among some of these theoretical constructs.

Given the significant evidence linking consumers’ underdog affection to underdog support in commerce, small locally owned businesses could use underdog positioning advertising to differentiate themselves against national retailers. Due to their tendency to display higher underdog affection in commerce, people with higher levels of balance maintenance, top dog antipathy, underdog orientation, emphatic concern, and nostalgia proneness, and lower levels of materialism can be segmented for marketing purposes.

This research indicates that there are ways in which small business entities and non-profits alike can operate in a business setting that is increasingly more competitive and challenging for underdog entities.

This study integrates the various underdog studies across contexts to examine motives to underdog affection, a construct not yet operationalized in business studies. In addition, hypotheses linking eight specific antecedents to commerce underdog affection, via two theoretical perspectives, are empirically examined to assess relative as well as absolute effects.

This paper aims to solve the problems of the synchronization between branches and the uncertainties such as joint friction, load variation and external interference of a hybrid mechanism. The controller is used to improve the synchronization and robustness of the hybrid mechanism system and achieve both finite time convergence and chattering-free sliding mode.

First, the dynamic model of hybrid mechanism containing lumped uncertainties is formulated by the Lagrange method, and a composite error based on coupling synchronization error and the end-effector tracking error is set up in the task space. Then, by combining the finite time super twisting sliding mode control algorithm, a composite error-based finite time super twisting sliding mode synchronous control law is designed to make the end-effector tracking error and coupling synchronization error achieve better tracking performance and convergence performance. Finally, the Lyapunov stability of the control law and the finite-time convergence of the composite error are proved theoretically.

To verify the effectiveness of the proposed control method, simulations and experiments for the prototype system of the hybrid mechanism are conducted. The results show that the proposed control method can achieve better tracking performance and convergence performance.

This is a new innovation for a hybrid mechanism containing lumped uncertainties to improve the robustness, convergence performance, tracking performance and synchronization of the system.

There have recently been an increasing number of scientific studies exploring the effectiveness of practising Chinese geomancy or feng shui in the built environment. However, these are rather generic studies focusing mainly on urban planning, architecture and interior design. The impetus for this present research stems from the lack of understanding relating to the practice of feng shui in Facilities Management (FM). Bridging these two disciplines, this study examines the relevance of and relationship between feng shui and FM principles.

A questionnaire survey was conducted, the results of which affirm the validity of the assimilated relationships between the two disciplines. Interviews with three groups of experts – the feng shui practitioners, facilities managers and feng shui practitioners who are also building professionals – were also conducted to verify the assimilation of the two disciplines with a view to draw new perspectives for better understanding.

The principles of feng shui and FM were studied, and the validity of the relationships between 15 feng shui principles and three FM activities were examined. The latter relates specifically to building fabric cleaning, routine external site/lot cleaning and road and pavement cleaning. It was found that specific feng shui principles and scenarios appear to influence the three FM activities. The statistical analysis shows that the means of specific feng shui scenarios in relation to FM activities were consistently higher than those of the feng shui principles. The one-sample t-test indicates that all the feng shui principles were significant in affecting the three FM activities.

This study provides a better understanding of the relevance of feng shui principles influencing FM principles. It also revealed the challenges and limitations in bridging the relationships between these two disciplines.

This study is the first investigation to examine the relevance and relationship between feng shui and FM practice. This serves to encourage further research to determine how feng shui design implementation will affect the ease of conducting FM activities. If the relationship is established, as is the case from this study, then the implementation of feng shui principles in building design can be encouraged to positively influence the ease of conducting FM activities downstream in the occupancy stage. This can serve to contribute to the improvement of sustainable building design. It can also contribute to the scientific investigation of feng shui, which has so far been largely overlooked in built environment studies. Such studies can help to demystify and provide logical and scientific interpretations of how feng shui principles actually work.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the effectiveness of the credit evaluation system using the borrowing data from China’s leading P2P lending platform, Renrendai.com.

The current credit valuation systems are classified into the forward-looking mechanism, which judges the borrowers’ credit levels based on their uploaded information, and the backward-looking mechanism, which judges the borrowers’ credit levels based on their historical repayment performance. Probit models and Tobit models are used to examine the effectiveness of credit evaluation mechanisms.

The results show that only the “hard” information reflecting borrowers’ credit ability can explain the default risk on the platform under the forward-looking credit evaluation mechanism. The backward-looking credit evaluation mechanism (BCEM) based on the repeated borrowings produces both promise-enhancing and “fishing” incentives and thus fails to explain the default risk, and weakens the effectiveness of forward-looking credit indicators in explaining the default risk because it encourages borrowers to invest in forging forward-looking credit indicators. Additional information such as the interest rate and the repayment periods reveals borrowers’ credit and thus can also be used as a predictor of borrowers’ default risk.

The findings suggest that current ex ante screening based on the information collected from the borrowers or repeated borrowings is inadequate to control the default risk in P2P lending markets and thus needs be improved. Ex post monitoring and sharing on defaulter’s information should be strengthened to increase the default cost and thus to deter potential bad borrowers.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper classifying the credit evaluation system in online P2P lending market into the forward-looking type and the backward-looking type, which is important since they provide different incentives to borrowers. The paper also investigates and provides evidence on the promise-enhancing and “fishing” incentives of BCEMs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the liquid sloshing behaviors in two-dimensional tanks with various porous baffles under the external excitation.

Adopting the finite element method (FEM) and control variable method to study the impacts of the height, length, number, location, shape, porous-effect parameter of the porous baffle, the external load frequency and the shape of the tank on the liquid sloshing response.

The amplitude of the free surface can be reduced effectively when the baffle opening is appropriate. The anti-sway ability of the system increases in pace with the baffle’s height growing. Under the same conditions, the shapes of the baffles have an important effect on improving the anti-sway ability of the system.

As there exist the differences of the velocity potential between each side of the porous baffle, which means that there are two different velocity potentials at a point on the porous baffle, the conventional finite element modeling technologies are not suitable to be applied here. To deal with this problem, the points on the porous baffle are regarded as two nodes with the same coordinate to model and calculate.

This study aims to explore Asian American students’ identities and their perceptions about who they are within the Midwestern American high school setting.

A naturalistic inquiry (Lincoln and Guba, 1985) is employed in this qualitative study. Naturalistic inquiry assumes that reality is constructed by individuals, and there exist multiple realities as diverse people experience teaching and learning (Glesne, 1999). It is characterized by natural settings (the schools), natural language (language actually used by students and teachers), responsiveness to concerns and issues of stakeholders (what is important to students and teachers) and collaborative checks on trustworthiness.

The study finds that the participants all identify themselves as students, while they perceive differently on their racial/ethnic and cultural identity. They have employed a variety of strategies to negotiate with their dynamic, multiple and sometimes contradictory identities when confronted with challenges and opportunities within different social contexts.

The limitations of my study lie first in a small number of participants. Eight Asian American students do not represent the heterogeneous Asian American groups in the USA. More students would provide different perspectives and experiences in the study. The time for conducting this study is another limitation. Longer period on the research sites would provide thicker descriptions.

There are implications for educational practice and future research to help understand the diversity among Asian American students and to find ways to integrate accurate and comprehensive information related to Asian Americans into the curricular with critical reflection upon the issues of race, ethnicity, culture and identity.

This study will enrich the current literature on Asian American education because there is currently limited research in this area. It will give voices to Asian American students and contribute to a better understanding of how both students and teachers are responding to the challenges faced in many schools as demographics change. It will also have implications for teacher education and encourage awareness in this field that might affect future educational practices and policies.