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The purpose of this paper is to artificially construct a functional surface with self-propulsion flow characteristics for the directional transportation of propellant in surface tension tanks.

In this study, a method to enhance the propulsion efficiency by using functional surfaces of self-propulsion performance was proposed. Superhydrophilic wedged-groove with the superhydrophobic background was fabricated and the self-propulsion capacity was verified.

It is found that the self-propulsion capacity is related to the divergence angle of the wedged-groove in the hydrophilic area, and the velocity of the droplets on the deflector plate is the largest with the divergence angle of 4°; the temperature gradient field formed by the condensing device at the nozzle can accelerate the droplet outflow from the tank.

Realization of this idea provides an accurate control strategy for the complex flow process of propellant in plate surface tension tanks, which could enhance the efficiency of the tension tank significantly.

Francois Quesnay, known as the “Confucius of Europe”, was profoundly influenced by traditional Chinese culture to form his thoughts, which contained strong Chinese characteristics. This paper aims to examine economic thought of Francois Quesnay from the perspective of the construction of socialist political economics with Chinese characteristics.

Moreover, his thoughts also profoundly influenced subsequent economists, such as Adam Smith and Karl Marx. It can be said that Francois Quesnay was at the intersection of Chinese, Western and Marxist thought systems, so it is quite important to examine his thoughts critically and conduct source-tracing in China.

Hence, in the process of constructing and developing socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics, there is an urgent need to focus on exploring the value of excellent traditional Chinese culture at the theoretical level and combining the development and dissemination of the history of thoughts and the historical position of Chinese reality to realize the innovation and development of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics.

Meanwhile, while absorbing nutrition from excellent traditional Chinese culture, it is necessary to establish scientific coordinates rather than use the discourse systems and paradigms of Western economics to interpret ancient Chinese economic thoughts. It is necessary to adhere to, inherit and develop Marxist political economy and absorb nutrition from Chinese excellent traditional culture to construct socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics.

This paper aims to comprehensively clarify the research status of thermal transport of supercritical aviation kerosene, with particular interests in the effect of cracking on heat transfer.

A brief review of current research on supercritical aviation kerosene is presented in views of the surrogate model of hydrocarbon fuels, chemical cracking mechanism of hydrocarbon fuels, thermo-physical properties of hydrocarbon fuels, turbulence models, flow characteristics and thermal performances, which indicates that more efforts need to be directed into these topics. Therefore, supercritical thermal transport of n-decane is then computationally investigated in the condition of thermal pyrolysis, while the ASPEN HYSYS gives the properties of n-decane and pyrolysis products. In addition, the one-step chemical cracking mechanism and SST k-ω turbulence model are applied with relatively high precision.

The existing surrogate models of aviation kerosene are limited to a specific scope of application and their thermo-physical properties deviate from the experimental data. The turbulence models used to implement numerical simulation should be studied to further improve the prediction accuracy. The thermal-induced acceleration is driven by the drastic density change, which is caused by the production of small molecules. The wall temperature of the combustion chamber can be effectively reduced by this behavior, i.e. the phenomenon of heat transfer deterioration can be attenuated or suppressed by thermal pyrolysis.

The issues in numerical studies of supercritical aviation kerosene are clearly revealed, and the conjugation mechanism between thermal pyrolysis and convective heat transfer is initially presented.

Global supply chains experienced unprecedented changes in 2020 and the relationship between domestic and global markets needed adjustments considering the long-term impacts of the changes that are unfolding around these markets. China has become the first country to announce a formal strategy – “Dual Circulation” Strategy (DCS) – to guide its self-reliant economic development in the post-COVID era. However, what exactly is the DCS and what drove China to publicize this strategy is not yet clear. This study aims to answer these questions.

Based on an extensive review of literature and media reports, a background has been constructed that justifies the DCS as a long-overdue historic necessity.

A novel definition of “Dual Circulation” is introduced. A novel construct to visualize the domestic circulation in light of international and domestic markets and international circulation has been presented. The study argues that maintaining optimum levels of consumption and saving rates is crucial to the DCS’s success.

The study pioneers the first scientific definition of the “Dual Circulation” that will pave way for future debate on the topic. Also, it is the first time an academic study on the DCS has been executed.

Precise vehicle localization is a basic and critical technique for various intelligent transportation system (ITS) applications. It also needs to adapt to the complex road environments in real-time. The global positioning system and the strap-down inertial navigation system are two common techniques in the field of vehicle localization. However, the localization accuracy, reliability and real-time performance of these two techniques can not satisfy the requirement of some critical ITS applications such as collision avoiding, vision enhancement and automatic parking. Aiming at the problems above, this paper aims to propose a precise vehicle ego-localization method based on image matching.

This study included three steps, Step 1, extraction of feature points. After getting the image, the local features in the pavement images were extracted using an improved speeded up robust features algorithm. Step 2, eliminate mismatch points. Using a random sample consensus algorithm to eliminate mismatched points of road image and make match point pairs more robust. Step 3, matching of feature points and trajectory generation.

Through the matching and validation of the extracted local feature points, the relative translation and rotation offsets between two consecutive pavement images were calculated, eventually, the trajectory of the vehicle was generated.

The experimental results show that the studied algorithm has an accuracy at decimeter-level and it fully meets the demand of the lane-level positioning in some critical ITS applications.

This first chapter explores the basic foundation of corporate ethics: the human person in all its dignity and mystery, its corporeality and emotionality, and its cognitive and volitive capacities of moral development. Four fundamental characteristics of the human person, namely individuality, sociality, immanence, and transcendence, will be examined for their potential to understand, live, experience, and witness corporate ethics and morals. We explore the profound meaning and mystery of human personhood invoking several philosophies of the good and human dignity as exposed by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas in the West, by the doctrine of Dharma in the East as expounded by Gautama Buddha, Mahabharata, and Bhagavad Gita, and by Prophets Confucius and Tao, in the East. Several contemporary cases of great human personhood are analyzed: for example, Peace Nobel Laureate Nelson Mandela from South Africa (1993) and Peace Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo from China (2017) – cases of human abuse that turned into triumphs of human dignity.

This study examines the connection between different digital-twin characteristics and organizational control. Specifically, the study aims to examine whether the digital-twin characteristics exploration, guidance and gamification will affect formal and social control.

The study is based on an analysis of survey results from 139 respondents comprising applied university students who use digital twins.

The results offer an interesting contribution to the literature. The authors consider the digital-twin characteristics exploration, guidance and gamification and investigate their contribution to two types of organizational controls: formal and social. The results show that two characteristics, exploration and gamification, affect the extent to which digital twins can be utilized for social control. Exploration and guidance’s role is significant concerning the extent to which digital twins can be utilized for formal control.

This study contributes to literature by considering multiple digital-twin characteristics and their contribution to two different control outcomes. First, it diverges from previous technical-oriented research by investigating digital twins in a human context. Second, the study is the first to examine digital twins’ effects from an organizational control perspective systematically.

In recent years, there has been significant interest in adopting XR (extended reality) technologies such as VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality), particularly in retail. However, extending activities through reality-mediation is still mostly believed to offer an inferior experience due to their shortcomings in usability, wearability, graphical fidelity, etc. This study aims to address the research gap by experimentally examining the acceptance of metaverse shopping.

This study conducts a 2 (VR: with vs. without) × 2 (AR: with vs. without) between-subjects laboratory experiment involving 157 participants in simulated daily shopping environments. This study builds a physical brick-and-mortar store at the campus and stocked it with approximately 600 products with accompanying product information and pricing. The XR devices and a 3D laser scanner were used in constructing the three XR shopping conditions.

Results indicate that XR can offer an experience comparable to, or even surpassing, traditional shopping in terms of its instrumental and hedonic aspects, regardless of a slightly reduced perception of usability. AR negatively affected perceived ease of use, while VR significantly increased perceived enjoyment. It is surprising that the lower perceived ease of use appeared to be disconnected from the attitude toward metaverse shopping.

This study provides important experimental evidence on the acceptance of XR shopping, and the finding that low perceived ease of use may not always be detrimental adds to the theory of technology adoption as a whole. Additionally, it provides an important reference point for future randomized controlled studies exploring the effects of technology on adoption.

The study aims to provide a basis for the effective use of safety-related information data and a quantitative assessment way for the occurrence probability of the safety risk such as the fatigue fracture of the key components.

The fatigue crack growth rate is of dispersion, which is often used to accurately describe with probability density. In view of the external dispersion caused by the load, a simple and applicable probability expression of fatigue crack growth rate is adopted based on the fatigue growth theory. Considering the isolation among the pairs of crack length a and crack formation time t (a∼t data) obtained from same kind of structural parts, a statistical analysis approach of t distribution is proposed, which divides the crack length in several segments. Furthermore, according to the compatibility criterion of crack growth, that is, there is statistical development correspondence among a∼t data, the probability model of crack growth rate is established.

The results show that the crack growth rate in the stable growth stage can be approximately expressed by the crack growth control curve da/dt = Q•a, and the probability density of the crack growth parameter Q represents the external dispersion; t follows two-parameter Weibull distribution in certain a values.

The probability density f(Q) can be estimated by using the probability model of crack growth rate, and a calculation example shows that the estimation method is effective and practical.