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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the factors associated with role satisfaction in farm and non-farm family businesses differ by gender of the business owner.

The data used are from a 30-minute telephone survey of owners of farm and non-farm family businesses in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio. The sample consists of 627 small- and medium-size family businesses. Three ordered probit regressions are used to analyze role satisfaction.

Women’s participation in management and the number of family members in management are positively associated with women’s role satisfaction, while tension from resource competition is negatively associated with role satisfaction. In contrast, men’s role satisfaction is increased through high family business functioning and profit.

There is no difference in the level of role satisfaction between men and women when one controls for the owner, family and business characteristics. However, there is a difference in the factors that drive role satisfaction between men and women. This may be driven, in part, by what their roles are vis-à-vis the financial aspects of the business. Male and female business owners seem to focus on different aspects of their family business to achieve role satisfaction.

This paper determines the impact of gender on the role satisfaction of business owners of farm and non-farm family businesses in four Midwestern states. It identifies the different factors associated with role satisfaction for female and male family business owners based on their actual roles.

In order to improve the engine reliability and efficiency, an effective way is to reform the turbine blade tip conformation. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The present research provides several novel tip-shaping structures, which are considered to control the blade tip loss. Four different tip geometries have been studied: flat tip, squealer tip, flat tip with streamwise ribs and squealer tip with streamwise ribs. The tip heat transfer and leakage flow are both analyzed in detail, for example the tip heat transfer coefficient, tip flow and local pressure distributions.

The results show that the squealer seal and streamwise rib can reduce the tip heat transfer and leakage loss, especially for the squealer tip with streamwise ribs. The tip and near-tip flow patterns at the different locations of axial chord reflect that both the squealer seal and streamwise rib structure can control the tip leakage flow loss. In addition, the analysis of the aerodynamic parameters (the static pressure and turbine efficiency) also indicates that the squealer tip with streamwise ribs obtains the highest adiabatic efficiency with an increase of 2.34 percent, compared with that of the flat tip case.

The analysis of aerothermal and dynamic performance can provide a reference for the blade tip design and treatment.

Blade tip clearance has always been a concern for the gas turbine design and control. The numerical analysis of tip clearance is based on the turbine components displacement. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the thermal and mechanical effects on a real cooling blade rather than the simplified model.

The coupled fluid-solid method is used. The thermal analysis involves solid and fluid domains. The distributions of blade temperature, stress and displacement have been calculated numerically under real turbine operating conditions.

Temperature contour can provide a reference for stress analysis. The results show that temperature gradient is the main source of solid stress and radial displacement. Compared with thermal or mechanical effect, there is a great change of stress magnitude for the thermomechanical effect. Large stress gradients are found between the leading and trailing edge of turbine cooling blade. Also, the blade radial displacement is mainly attributed to the thermal load rather than the centrifugal force. The analysis of the practical three-dimensional model has achieved the more precise results.

It is significant for clearance design and life prediction.

Fatigue and creep are the key factors for the failure of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) in the engineering structure, so a great of quantity attention is focused on the life prediction under the creep and fatigue conditions. This paper aims to mainly summarize the traditional life assessment method (S–N curve), life assessment method based on crazing density and life assessment method based on transmittance. S–N curve and classical creep curve are introduced on the traditional life assessment method; the variation of the craze density with the logarithm of cyclic numbers is given in different fatigue load. A linear relationship is obtained, and a higher stress leads to a higher slope, suggesting a faster growth of craze. Furthermore, a craze density model is purposed to describe this relationship; the variation of craze density with the time at different creep load is given. The craze density has two obvious stages. At the first stage, craze density ranged from approximately 0.02 to 0.17, and a linear relationship is obtained. In the following stage, a nonlinear relationship appears till specimen rupture, a new creep life model is proposed to depict two stages. The relationship between transmission and time under creep load is shown. With increasing of time, the transmittance shows a nonlinear decrease. Through polynomial nonlinear fitting, a relationship between the transmittance and residual life can be obtained. To provide reference for the life assessment of transparent materials, the paper compares three life assessment methods of PMMA.

This paper uses the traditional life assessment method (S–N curve), life assessment method based on crazing density, life assessment method based on transmittance.

The variation of the craze density with the logarithm of cyclic numbers is given in different fatigue loads. A linear relationship is obtained, and a higher stress leads to a higher slope, suggesting a faster growth of craze. Furthermore, a craze density model is proposed to describe this relationship, and the variation of craze density with the time at different creep loads is given. The craze density has two obvious stages. The relationship between transmission and time under creep load is shown. With increasing of time, the transmittance shows a nonlinear decrease. Through polynomial nonlinear fitting, a relationship between the transmittance and residual life can be obtained.

Fatigue and creep are the key factors for the failure of PMMA in the engineering structure, so a great of quantity attention is focused on the life prediction under the conditions of creep and fatigue. This paper mainly summarizes traditional life assessment method (S–N curve), life assessment method based on crazing density and life assessment method based on transmittance.

China is experiencing tremendous changes of rapid urbanization and aging society. The development of age-friendly communities (AFCs) has been encouraged for improving health and well-being of older adults. Hence, this study aimed to deepen the understanding of AFCs in China and to investigate the integrated relationships between AFCs and the quality of life (QoL) of older adults, using a large-scale questionnaire survey.

A questionnaire survey was conducted in Hefei, China, to investigate the complicated relationships between the components of AFCs and the QoL of older adults. Ultimately, 1,383 valid questionnaires were collected from senior respondents aged more than 60 years. Several statistical methods, including reliability analysis, correlation analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM), were adopted to develop an integrated model for AFC components and the QoL of older adults.

Six AFC components and four older adults' QoL factors were identified. The SEM results revealed integrated relationships between specific AFC components and the QoL of older adults: (1) physical QoL was affected by outdoor spaces, public transportation, housing and community and health services; (2) psychological QoL was predicted by most of the AFC components except community and health services; and (3) environmental QoL and social QoL were both influenced by outdoor spaces, communication and information and community and health services.

In order to enhance the QoL of older adults, it is suggested that outdoor spaces need to be enlarged by fully using the facilities and playgrounds of middle schools and renovating the older buildings. The locations of public transportation stations are recommended to be revised to be within a 5-minute walking distance of senior residents. Improvements to the social environment of AFCs, by increasing the coverage of medical services and creating multiple approaches to recreational activities, are encouraged.

These findings have empirical significance for urban planners and policy-makers in regard to identifying major components of AFCs and understanding the effect of those components on the QoL of older adults.

The purpose of this study is to identify the health information needs of senior online communities (SOCs) users, which could provide a basis for improving senior health information services.

A total of 14,933 health-related posts in the two most popular senior online communities (Yinling and Keai) in China are crawled as a corpus. Based on the results of word frequency analysis, text classification is performed based on two aspects: medical systems (Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine) and topics. The health information needs of SOCs users are revealed from the composition, growth trends and popularity of health information. Finally, some key points of senior health information services are discussed.

The health information needs of senior users can be divided into four types: coping with aging, dietary nutrition, physical exercise and mental health. These needs are comprehensive and involve a variety of health issues. Users are mainly concerned with physical health issues. In terms of medical systems, the number of Western medicine posts is relatively larger, whereas traditional Chinese medicine appears more in posts on coping with aging and physical exercise. The health information needs of SOCs users are in a stable status. Both the medical systems and topics could have an impact on the popularity of health information, but the number of posts is inconsistent with the level of popularity.

This study combines multiple perspectives to identify the health information needs of seniors in China with a comprehensive overview.

This paper aims to present a multi-material additive manufacturing (AM) process with a newly developed curing-on-demand method to fabricate a three-dimensional (3D) object with multiple material compositions.

Unlike the deposition-on-demand printing method, the proposed curing-on-demand printheads use a digital light processing (DLP) projector to selectively cure a thin layer of liquid photocurable resin and then clean the residual uncured material effectively using a vacuuming and post-curing device. Each printhead can individually fabricate one type of material using digitally controlled mask image patterns. The proposed AM process can accurately deposit multiple materials in each layer by combining multiple curing-on-demand printheads together. Consequently, a three-dimensional object can be fabricated layer-by-layer using the developed curing-on-demand printing method.

Effective cleaning of uncured resin is realized with reduced coated resin whose height is in the sub-millimeter level and improved vacuum cleaning performance with the uncleaned resin less than 10 µm thick. Also, fast material swapping is achieved using the compact design of multiple printheads.

The proposed multi-material stereolithography (SL) process enables 3D printing components using more viscous materials and can achieve desired manufacturing characteristics, including high feature resolution, fast fabrication speed and low machine cost.

This paper aims to examine the mediating role of brand relationship quality in the relationship between brand experience and customer citizenship behavior.

Two studies were conducted in China. Data were collected via questionnaire surveys. Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping methods were used for data analyses.

Results show that brand relationship quality mediates the effects of the four dimensions of brand experience (i.e. sensory, affective, behavioral and intellectual) on the two aspects of customer citizenship behavior (i.e. toward other customers and toward the organization). In addition, service provider ratings can moderate the effect of brand relationship quality on customer citizenship behavior.

The findings suggest that marketing or service managers should build high quality of customer–brand relationship to enhance customer citizenship behaviors by providing memorable and pleasurable brand experiences. Brands with high ratings can facilitate the effect of brand relationship quality on customer citizenship behavior.

This research sheds light on the mediating role of brand relationship quality in the relationship between brand experience and customer citizenship behavior.

In human history, poverty for most and prosperity for few is the norm. Thus, no theory or practice of common prosperity has been developed. Marxism first formulated the theory of common prosperity, and the classical Marxist authors conducted theoretical exploration on the issue of common prosperity, forming a series of scientific conclusions.

The century-long practical history of the Communist Party of China (CPC) is the great practice of leading the Chinese people in getting rid of poverty, letting some people and regions get rich first and ultimately achieving the goal of common prosperity.

Common prosperity is the great practice of the CPC that leads all Chinese people in building a modern socialist country in an all-round way in the new era.

The path of common prosperity with Chinese characteristics will certainly arise in the process of the great practice of common prosperity with Chinese characteristics. Based on the anti-poverty theory and the “spirit of poverty alleviation” from the battle against poverty with Chinese characteristics, the theory of common prosperity and its spirit with Chinese characteristics will certainly be formed. The above conclusions constitute the basic principles of the theory of common prosperity with Chinese characteristics.