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This paper aims to study the effect of chloride concentration on the properties of passive film formed on Q235 steel in simulated concrete pore solutions.

Mott–Schottky analysis and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy were used to study the passive film of Q235 steel in simulated concrete pore solution. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to analyze the composition of passive film on Q235 steel.

When the chloride concentration is below the chloride threshold value, open circuit potential (OCP) and Rct gradually increases and donor concentration (N_D) remains unchanged with the increasing immersion time. When the chloride concentration exceeds chloride threshold value, OCP and Rct decreases after a temporary increase and N_D increases. The linear region of the Mott–Schottky curve lost its linearity. The electrochemical process control step is changed from charge transfer control to oxygen diffusion control. As the chloride concentration increases, the FeO content in the passive film increases and the Fe₂O₃ content decreases. Chloride can destroy the outer layer of passive film and introduce impurities.

The effects of chloride and immersion time on the change process of passive films on Q235 steel in simulated concrete pore solution were studied using electrochemical methods. The mechanism of chloride destroying passive film was analyzed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the coordination mechanism of cost sharing for green food production and marketing between a food producer and a supplier who both contribute to the sales of green food.

This paper first develops demand functions for both a food supplier and a producer, considering their influence on green degree of food and associated consumers’ acceptances. Then, cost-sharing contracts-based game models are proposed. At last, regarding to optimal supply chain profits and green performance, the proposed contracts and the non-coordination situation are compared and tested by a real case.

When green cost is only shared by one side, the cost-sharing contracts cannot optimally coordinate the food supply chain, but it can improve profits for both the supplier and producer. When consumers’ sensitivity to the green degree of food increases, a mutual cost-sharing contract will bring more profits for both the supplier and producer than those under the non-coordination mode in a decentralized supply chain situation. A real case verifies the conclusions.

The models are in complete information, and the market demand is assumed to be linear to sales price. Mutual cost sharing is only for material processing and food production, which can be extended to include sharing for sales cost. Coordination ideas on the proposed contracts development and solutions for optimal decisions can be applied in the other industries.

The study shows that coordination between a supplier and a producer is needed to improve the food supply chain’s green performance.

This paper first extends the existing profit functions by considering the green efforts of both a supplier and a producer as well as their effects on green degree of products and consumers’ acceptances to the green degree.

Asymmetric cost information exists between a supplier and a manufacturer regarding the manufacturer's process innovation for remanufacturing (PIR), which may hurt the supplier's profit. The authors therefore seek to develop a menu of nonlinear pricing contracts for channel information sharing.

Based on principal–agent theory, the supplier, acting as a Stackelberg leader, designs a menu of nonlinear pricing contracts to impel the manufacturer to disclose its private cost information on PIR (i.e. PIR efficiency). In addition, the authors compare the equilibrium outcomes under asymmetric and symmetric information to examine the effects of asymmetric PIR information on the production policies and profits of the supplier and the manufacturer.

The proposed contract menu encourages th4e manufacturer to spontaneously share PIR efficiency information with the supplier. Asymmetric PIR information may distort the output of new products upward or downward, but the output of remanufactured products may only be distorted downward. In addition, the manufacturer with high PIR efficiency gains information rent, and interestingly, the increase in the probability of low PIR efficiency amplifies its information rent. Finally, an asymmetric information environment may increase the threshold for the manufacturer to enter remanufacturing.

The authors probe the issue of the supplier's contract design by jointly considering remanufacturing, process innovation and information asymmetry. The paper expands the influencing mechanism of process innovation information in the remanufacturing field. The authors also observe new results that may offer guidance to decision makers.

The purpose of this paper is to extend game analysis to explore decision-making mechanisms for promoting a specific type of products, low energy consumption for individual one while the total energy consumption is huge due to the high quantity of sales, that is, low for individual and high for total (LIHT) in terms of energy consumption.

Game models are developed to compare decisions of optimal prices for newly developed and environmentally friendly (NDEF) and regular products as well as associated sales quantity, profits, carbon emissions under different governmental policies, along with a case of low energy-intensive broadband terminal products in the Chinese telecommunication industry under the carbon tax and subsidy policies.

For both NDEF and regular products, optimal prices decrease under the subsidy policy while both increase under the tax policy. Manufacturers’ decision of optimal prices is highly relevant with unit carbon tax/subsidy and the consumers’ preference. Both the tax and subsidy policies can improve consumption of NDEF products while the subsidy policy can be more effective at the current initial stage.

This paper provides decision support for manufacturers to promote sustainable consumption of LIHT products. Research ideas on models development and solutions for optimal prices can be applied to other LIHT products.

The results provide insights for governments on how to effectively evaluate and motivate sustainable consumption for LIHT products.

This paper first explores how to motivate sustainable consumption of LIHT products by developing models, examining effectiveness of potential governmental policies as well as associated carbon emissions.

In the implementation of large-size additive manufacturing (AM), the large printing area can be established by using the tiled and fixed multiple printing heads or the single dynamic printing head moving in the x–y plane, which requires a layer decomposition after the mesh slicing to generate segmented infill areas. The data processing flow of these schemes is redundant and inefficient to some extent, especially for the processing of complex stereolithograph (STL) models. It is of great importance in improving the overall efficiency of large-size AM technics software by simplifying the redundant steps. This paper aims to address these issues.

In this paper, a method of directly generating segmented layered infill areas is proposed for AM. Initially, a vertices–mesh hybrid representation of STL models is constructed based on a divide-and-conquer strategy. Then, a trimming–mapping procedure is performed on sliced contours acquired from partial surfaces. Finally, to link trimmed open contours and inside-signal square corners as segmented infill areas, a region-based open contour closing algorithm is carried out in virtue of the developed data structures.

In virtue of the proposed approach, the segmented layered infill areas can be directly generated from STL models. Experimental results indicate that the approach brings us the good property of efficiency, especially for complex STL models.

The proposed approach can generate segmented layered infill areas efficiently in some cases.

The region-based layered infill area generation approach discussed here will be a supplement to current data process technologies in large-size AM, which is very suitable for parallel processing and enables us to improve the efficiency of large-size AM technics software.

What are the mechanisms through which Chinese municipal leaders overcome implementation breakdown? This study, through process tracing, archival work and semi-structured interviews, examines the implementation of three sub-municipal-level railway projects involving the same principals and agents over the same period of time.

The analysis was guided by the hypothesis that political coordination and the exercise of political and Party leadership played an indispensable role in the two cases of successful policy implementation, and its absence accounts for the case of implementation breakdown.

The principal finding is that an informal “strategic group” was created to “herd” cadres to overcome the problem of implementation. Herding here refers to the idea that Party leadership, through the use of moral persuasion, encourages cadres moving towards a desired common goal and direction.

This study is limited in the number of secondary resources (government documents and government and media releases) available to the field interviewees, which the author heavily relied on to complete the study.

Building on the conceptual work of “strategic groups” by Thomas Heberer, Anna Ahlers, and Gunter Schubert, this study makes an empirical contribution by tracing the process through which an informal strategic group exercises its power to overcome implementation breakdown.