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Gives a bibliographical review of the finite element methods (FEMs) applied for the linear and nonlinear, static and dynamic analyses of basic structural elements from the theoretical as well as practical points of view. The range of applications of FEMs in this area is wide and cannot be presented in a single paper; therefore aims to give the reader an encyclopaedic view on the subject. The bibliography at the end of the paper contains 2,025 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with the analysis of beams, columns, rods, bars, cables, discs, blades, shafts, membranes, plates and shells that were published in 1992‐1995.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a hybrid driving system that couples a motor and flywheel energy storage (FES) for a megawatt-scale superconducting direct current (DC) induction heater. Previous studies have proven that a superconducting DC induction heater has great advantages in relation to its energy efficiency and heating quality. In this heater, a motor rotates an aluminium billet in a DC magnetic field and the induced eddy current causes it to be heated. When the aluminium billet begins to rotate, a high peak load torque appears at a low rotation speed. Therefore, driving the billet economically has been a great challenge when designing the driving system, which is the focus of this paper.

A hybrid driving system based on FES is designed to provide extra torque when the peak load torque occurs at a low rotation speed, which allows the successful start-up of the aluminium billet and the operation of the motor at its rated capacity. The mechanical structure of this hybrid driving system is introduced. A simulation model was constructed using Matlab/Simulink and the dynamic start-up process is analysed. The influence of the flywheel’s inertia and required minimum engagement speed are investigated.

The results of this paper show that the hybrid driving system that couples FES and a motor can successfully be used to start the aluminium billet rotating. The flywheel’s inertia and engagement speed are the most important parameters. The inertia of the flywheel decreases with an increase in its engagement speed.

The cost of the driving system is significantly reduced, which is very important in relation to the commercial potential of this apparatus.

A novel start-up strategy for driving the aluminium billet of a superconducting DC induction heater at low speed is proposed based on FES.

In this paper, Yale model was adopted to understand how the characteristics of a green message (goal framing, argument volume and argument consistency), its source (source credibility) and its receivers (environmental consciousness) influence the communication process regarding the receivers' perceptions and attitudes (information value, persuasiveness and communication effectiveness) and their intention to spread the green message.

Eight scenarios of factorial design were developed to test the effects of a message on receivers' perceptions and attitudes. 1,157 valid questionnaires were used to conduct AMOS-SEM and ANOVA analyses.

The analytical results showed significant differences between the persuasive effects of Scenarios 1 and 8. A high level of environmental consciousness significantly affected the relationships between the message characteristics, source credibility and information value, leading to a higher intention to share the green messages.

The Yale model was applied to online persuasion to examine the receivers' perceptions of and attitudes toward a green message and their intention to share it on social networking sites (SNSs). Being environmentally conscious can strengthen the perception that the receivers of an online green message have of the source credibility and information value. The Yale model proved to represent the online green message-sharing context and explain how to persuade online users more effectively.

This study suggests that green message providers should present content emphasizing the losses associated with inaction, thus increasing the receivers' acceptance of the message's persuasiveness. Additionally, with the assistance of supportive measures, such as national education programs, government policies and actions showing corporate social responsibility, the environmental awareness of individuals can encourage them to share green message posts on SNSs and engage in green practices.

A significant effect of the message characteristics (goal framing × argument volume × argument consistency) was observed on SNS users' perceived source credibility and information value. Therefore, key opinion leaders, governments, and organizations who want to promote green ideas and attract public attention are encouraged to provide messages emphasizing the costs of inaction and contain arguments with a sufficient number of responses strongly supporting the original message. This could arouse the concern for green issues among online communities.

A Yale model research framework was developed to investigate the effect of message characteristics on the intention to share green messages online. Receivers' environmental consciousness played a vital role in this message-sharing process.

A wide urban–rural income gap exists in China despite the implementation of pro-rural policies. Additionally, with the proliferation of the internet and information technology, the promotion effect of e-commerce on the economy has become apparent. Accordingly, China has been actively encouraging rural households to participate in e-commerce activities. This study aims to examine the effect of e-commerce on the urban–rural income gap.

In the study, linear and panel threshold models were applied to provincial-level panel data from 2002 to 2018.

The results of the linear model show that e-commerce contributes to narrowing the urban–rural income gap. Moreover, the panel threshold model results show that the narrowing effect exists in regions where the e-commerce intensity is at a medium-to-high level and urbanization is at a relatively low level; otherwise, e-commerce has no effect. In addition, in regions with a relatively high level of public expenditure and education, the income-gap-narrowing effect of e-commerce is more than double.

The urban–rural income gap can be reduced by promoting e-commerce and reducing the urban–rural divide in e-commerce use.

To determine how varying levels of e-commerce development affect the urban–rural income gap across regions, the study proposes four key causes of the digital divide in e-commerce: e-commerce intensity, public expenditure level, urbanization level and education level and applies the variables as threshold variables to examine the non-linear effect of e-commerce on the income gap.

In this paper, a multi-objective multi-echelon supply-distribution model is proposed to optimize interactions of entities located within an Industrial Cluster (IC) including small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), using a third-party logistics provider (3PL)-managed supply-demand hub in industrial cluster (SDHIC) as a specific public provider of warehousing and logistics services.

The three considered objectives are minimizing the total logistics costs, maximizing the rate of demand satisfaction and maximizing the quality of delivery. Because some parameters such as “demand of customers” are naturally fuzzy because of incompleteness and/or inaccessibility of the needed information, the triangular fuzzy number is applied for all fuzzy parameters to handle this difficulty. The proposed model is primarily changed into a correspondent supplementary crisp model. To solve such a model, a revised multi-choice goal programming (RMCGP) approach is then used with the purpose of finding a compromise solution.

Experimental results demonstrate that all enterprises involved in such a supply chain benefit with several advantages using SDHIC by consolidating shipments and merging the storage space of inventories. The applicability of the presented model is shown by conducting these experiments over an applied industrial case study.

The main contributions of this research are proposing a practical mathematical approach to the supply chain of ICs using a specific public warehouse managed by a 3PL, called SDHIC, bridging the existing gaps with respect to the already published researches in this area by applying real-world assumptions such as uncertainty; optimizing the interactions of involved entities in the supply chain of an IC, comprising suppliers, SMEs as manufacturers and customers; minimizing the total incurred logistics costs to such a system through optimum usage of lands, facilities, labors, etc. and boosting the satisfaction of customers through maximizing the service level criteria, illustrating the positive consequences of cooperation of 3PL with the SMEs/manufacturers in an IC, showing the applicability of the adopted approach by implementing it on an applied industrial instance.

The purpose of this paper is to study integrated inventory system and pricing and ordering strategy for vendor‐buyer supply chain system. Here, the vendor offers a trade credit to the buyer when the buyer's order quantity exceeds a given pre‐specified quantity. Therefore, to incorporate the concept of vendor‐buyer integration and trade credit linked, the authors analyze the model to determine the optimal strategy for an integrated vendor‐buyer inventory system under the condition of credit linked to the order quantity when demand is quadratic.

A mathematical model for integrated inventory system is developed when demand rate is increasing function of the time and decreasing function of the retail price. By analyzing the total channel profit function, the authors developed some useful results to characterize the optimal solution and provide an iterative algorithm to find the retail price, buyer's order quantity and the number of shipments per production run from the vendor to the buyer.

By developing a solution algorithm, the optimal retail price, order quantity and number of shipments from the vendor to the buyer are provided. Numerical examples and sensitivity analyses are presented to validate the proposed model. Through extensive numerical analyses, it is observed that a longer credit term increases profits of the player for the entire supply chain. The vendor should establish the threshold for allowing trade credit comprehensively to ensure the greatest benefit for both players.

Most of the research articles available in the literature considered the constant demand or linearly changing demand. In this paper, a mathematical model is developed considering time dependent quadratic demand. Very few researchers have investigated joint optimal policy in vendor‐buyer supply chain system, considering trade credit is linked to order quantity, and still there are not many findings on the benefit of integrated policy and trade credit.

As technology-created gamers’ representations, avatars are influential in communication among online gamers. However, there is scant research on how avatars’ characteristics impact gamers’ friendly behaviour via avatars, i.e., avatar friendliness, and how avatar friendliness is related to online gamer loyalty. The purpose of this paper is to develop a research model grounded in the theory of embodied cognition to examine the impacts of perceived avatar appearance agreeableness, attractiveness and height on avatar friendliness and online gamer loyalty.

The authors collect 1,384 responses from online gamers and use structural equation modelling for hypothesis testing.

The authors find that perceived avatar appearance agreeableness and attractiveness are positively related to avatar friendliness, while perceived avatar height is negatively related to avatar friendliness. Avatar friendliness, in turn, is positively related to online gamer loyalty.

This study assessed gamers’ perceptions using a cross-sectional design. Future works could use a big data approach to collect behavioural and longitudinal data. Moreover, future works could measure avatar height using pixels.

The authors contribute to the e-commerce literature by inventing the new constructs of perceived avatar appearance agreeableness and avatar friendliness, and conducting the first study of using avatar friendliness to explain the impacts of the three avatar characteristics on online gamer loyalty. The findings also provide novel insights for e-commerce managers to effectively build a loyal gamer base.

The proportional‐integral‐derivative (PID) controller has been a practical application in industry due to its simple architecture, being easily designed and its parameter tuning without complicated computation. However, the traditional PID controller usually needs some manual retuning before being used for practical application in industry. The purpose of this paper is to propose an auto‐tuning PID controller (ATPIDC) which can automatically tune the controller parameters based on the gradient descent method and the Lyapunov stability theorem. Finally, a field‐programmable gate array (FPGA) chip is adopted to implement the proposed ATPIDC scheme for possible low‐cost and high‐performance industrial applications, and it is applied to a DC servomotor to show its effectiveness.

To ensure the stability of the intelligent control system, a compensator usually should be designed. The most frequently used compensator is designed as a sliding‐mode control, which results in substantial chattering in the control effort. To tackle this problem, the proposed ATPIDC system is composed of a PID controller and a fuzzy compensator. The PID controller can automatically tune the gain factors of the controller gains based on the gradient descent method, and the fuzzy compensator is utilized to eliminate approximation error based on the Lyapunov stability theorem. The proposed fuzzy compensator not only can remove the chattering phenomena of conventional sliding‐mode control completely, but also can guarantee the stability of the closed‐loop system.

The proposed ATPIDC system is applied to a DC servomotor on a FPGA chip. The hardware implementation of the ATPIDC scheme is developed in a real‐time mode. Using the FPGA to implement, the ATPIDC system can achieve the characteristics of small size, fast execution speed and less memory. A comparison among the fuzzy sliding‐mode control, adaptive robust PID control and the proposed ATPIDC is made. Experimental results verify a better position tracking response can be achieved by the proposed ATPIDC method after control parameters training.

The proposed ATPIDC approach is interesting for the design of an intelligent control scheme. An on‐line parameter training methodology, using the gradient descent method and the Lyapunov stability theorem, is proposed to increase the learning capability. The experimental results verify the system stabilization, favorable tracking performance and no chattering phenomena can be achieved by using the proposed ATPIDC system. Also, the proposed ATPIDC methodology can be easily extended to other motors.

As most existing computer‐aided design systems do not provide part feature information which is essential for process planning, automatic part feature recognition systems serve as an important link between Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP). Attempts to provide a structural framework for understanding various issues related to part feature recognition. Reviews previous work in the field of part feature recognition and classifies known feature recognition systems for the sake of updating information and future research. Briefly introduces about 12 systems. Studies 31 systems and lists them in the Appendix based on 60 references. Comments on future research directions.

This paper seeks to construct a model for inventory management for multiple periods. The model considers not only the usual parameters, but also price quantity discount, storage and batch size constraints.

Mixed 0‐1 integer programming is applied to solve the multi‐period inventory problem and to determine an appropriate inventory level for each period. The total cost of materials in the system is minimized and the optimal purchase amount in each period is determined.

The proposed model is applied in colour filter inventory management in thin film transistor‐liquid crystal display (TFT‐LCD) manufacturing because colour filter replenishment has the characteristics of price quantity discount, large product size, batch‐sized purchase and forbidden shortage in the plant. Sensitivity analysis of major parameters of the model is also performed to depict the effects of these parameters on the solutions.

The proposed model can be tailored and applied to other inventory management problems.

Although many mathematical models are available for inventory management, this study considers some special characteristics that might be present in real practice. TFT‐LCD manufacturing is one of the most prosperous industries in Taiwan, and colour‐filter inventory management is essential for TFT‐LCD manufacturers for achieving competitive edge. The proposed model in this study can be applied to fulfil the goal.