Search results

The electrical properties of piezoelectric vibrators have a crucial influence on the operating state of ultrasonic motors. In order to solve the problem that the current piezoelectric vibrator generates a large amount of heat during vibration to degrade its performance, which in turn affects the normal operation of ultrasonic motors, this paper prepares a novel piezoelectric vibrator and tests its maximum vibration velocity under the working condition, which is more than twice as much as that of the current commercial PZT-8.

The crystal structures of the samples were analyzed by using an X-ray diffractometer. For microstructure observation, samples were observed by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The quasi-static piezoelectric coefficient meter (ZJ-3AN) was used for piezoelectric measurement. Dielectric properties were measured by utilizing an impedance analyzer (Agilent 4294A) with a laboratory heating unit. Ferroelectric hysteresis loops were obtained using a ferroelectric analyzer (Radiant, Multiferroic 100). A Doppler laser vibrometer (Polytec PSV-300F, Germany) and a power amplifier were used for piezoelectric vibration measurements, during which the temperature rise was determined by an infrared radiation thermometer (Victor 303, China).

The ceramics exhibit enhanced piezoelectric performance at 0.1–0.4 mol% of Yb doping contents. The ceramic of 0.4 mol% Yb reaches the maximal internal bias field and presents a larger mechanical quality factor of 1,692 compared with that of 0.2 mol% Yb-doped ceramic, in spite of a slightly decreased dielectric constant of 439 pC/N, the unit of the piezoelectric constant, which is the ratio of the local charge (pC) to the frontal force (N) and electromechanical coupling coefficient of 0.63. The vibrator with this large mechanical quality factor ceramic displays a vibration velocity of up to 0.81 m/s under the constraint of 20 °C temperature rising, which is much higher than commercial high-power piezoelectric ceramics PZT-8.

The enhanced high-power properties of the piezoelectric vibrator by Yb doping may provide a potential application for the high-performance USM and offer the possibility of long-term stable operation under high power for special equipment like USM. In the subsequent phase of research, the novel PZT-based high-power piezoelectric vibrator can be utilized in the USM, and the motor's performance will be evaluated under aerospace conditions to objectively assess the reliability of the piezoelectric vibrator.

In a first of its kind, this paper tries to explore the long-run relationship between investors' sentiment and selected industries' returns over the period January 2010 to December 2021.

The paper uses 23 market and macroeconomic proxies to measure investor sentiment. Principal component analysis has been used to create sentiment sub-indices that represent investor sentiment. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and other sophisticated econometric techniques such as the unit root test, the cumulative sum (CUSUM) stability test, regression, etc. have been used to achieve the objectives of the study.

The authors find that there is a significant relationship between sentiment sub-indices and industries' returns over the period of study. Market and economic variables, market ratios, advance-decline ratio, high-low index, price-to-book value ratio and liquidity in the economy are some of the significant sub-indices explaining industries' returns.

The study has relevant implications for retail investors, policy-makers and other decision-makers in the Indian stock market. Results are helpful for the investor in improving their decision-making and identifying those sentiment sub-indices and the variables therein that are relevant in explaining the return of a particular industry.

The study contributes to the existing literature by exploring the relationship between sentiment and industries' returns in the Indian stock market and by identifying relevant sentiment sub-indices. Also, the study supports the investors' irrationality, which arises due to a plethora of behavioral biases as enshrined in classical finance.

Singapore has had a dramatic spike in coronavirus infections in early 2020, with thousands of new cases linked to clusters in migrant workers (MWs) dormitories. To control the spread, the Government attempted to isolate the dormitories, test workers and move symptomatic patients into quarantine facilities. But those measures have left thousands of them trapped in their dormitories, living in cramped conditions that make social distancing near impossible. This paper investigates how COVID-19 has impacted the lives of these workers in varied ways and highlights the migrant workers' belief if Singapore’s effort has been enough for them during the COVID-19 pandemic? The focus is mainly on the low-skilled workers from India and Bangladesh, who are prone to be affected in various ways by COVID-19. My collected data show that migrant workers are grateful to the Singapore state for the support extended during COVID-19. I used the concept of subcultures to explain the condition of the workers in the state of Singapore. Because they expect so little social protection from the state, they are genuinely grateful for its support during the pandemic.

This review aims to give a critical view of the wheel/rail high frequency vibration-induced vibration fatigue in railway bogie.

Vibration fatigue of railway bogie arising from the wheel/rail high frequency vibration has become the main concern of railway operators. Previous reviews usually focused on the formation mechanism of wheel/rail high frequency vibration. This paper thus gives a critical review of the vibration fatigue of railway bogie owing to the short-pitch irregularities-induced high frequency vibration, including a brief introduction of short-pitch irregularities, associated high frequency vibration in railway bogie, typical vibration fatigue failure cases of railway bogie and methodologies used for the assessment of vibration fatigue and research gaps.

The results showed that the resulting excitation frequencies of short-pitch irregularity vary substantially due to different track types and formation mechanisms. The axle box-mounted components are much more vulnerable to vibration fatigue compared with other components. The wheel polygonal wear and rail corrugation-induced high frequency vibration is the main driving force of fatigue failure, and the fatigue crack usually initiates from the defect of the weld seam. Vibration spectrum for attachments of railway bogie defined in the standard underestimates the vibration level arising from the short-pitch irregularities. The current investigations on vibration fatigue mainly focus on the methods to improve the accuracy of fatigue damage assessment, and a systematical design method for vibration fatigue remains a huge gap to improve the survival probability when the rail vehicle is subjected to vibration fatigue.

The research can facilitate the development of a new methodology to improve the fatigue life of railway vehicles when subjected to wheel/rail high frequency vibration.

Building on the theory of brand psychological ownership, this paper aims to explore the mediating role of brand psychological ownership in the relationship between brand personality (innocence/coolness) and consumers’ preferences, as well as identify the boundary conditions of this relationship.

To test the hypotheses, a series of four experiments were conducted in Wuhan, a city in southern China, using questionnaires administered at two universities and two supermarkets. Hypotheses were tested using PLS-SEM in SmartPLS 4.

The results indicate that brand personality, specifically the dimensions of innocence and coolness, has a significant impact on consumers’ brand preferences. Brands with a cool personality are preferred over those with an innocent personality. Moreover, the relationship between brand personality and consumers’ brand preferences is moderated by power motivation and identity centrality.

This study contributes to the literature by differentiating between brand personality of innocence and coolness as two separate constructs and proposing brand psychological ownership as a mechanism through which brand personality affects brand preferences. The study’s samples were drawn from universities and supermarkets in southern China, providing evidence for the significant moderating effects of power motivation and identity centrality on consumers’ brand preferences.

The game strategies differ when different regions participate in the oil game. Under what circumstances will different participants choose cooperation or sanction strategies? This is the core issue of this paper.

Regarding the current and future game behavior between different regions in the oil trade, this paper constructs an evolutionary game model between two regions to explore the possibility of sanctions strategies between the two sides in different situations.

The research finds: (1) When the benefits of in-depth cooperation between the two regions are greater, both sides tend to adopt cooperative strategies. (2) When the trade conflict losses between the two regions are smaller, both sides adopt sanctions strategies. (3) When a strong region trades with a weak region, if the former adopts a sanctions strategy, the net profits are greater than the benefits of in-depth cooperation between the two regions. If the latter adopts a sanctions strategy, the net profits are less than the trade conflict losses between the two regions. There will be the strong region adopting a sanctions strategy and the weak region adopting a non-sanctions strategy. At this time, the latter should reasonably balance the immediate and future interests and give up some current interests in exchange for in-depth cooperation between the two regions. Otherwise, it will fall into the situation of unilateral sanctions by the strong against the weak.

There is no paper in the existing literature that uses the evolutionary game method to analyze the oil game problem between the two regions. This paper constructs a two-party evolutionary game model composed of crude oil importers and crude oil exporters and, based on this, analyzes the evolutionary stability between the two regions under sanctions and cooperation strategies, which enriches the energy research field.

The ecological environment of the Loess Plateau, China, is extremely fragile under the context of global warming. Over the past two decades, the vegetation of the Loess Plateau has undergone great changes. This paper aims to clarify the response mechanisms of vegetation to climate change, to provide support for the restoration and environmental treatment of vegetation on the Loess Plateau.

The Savitsky–Golay (S-G) filtering algorithm was used to reconstruct time series of moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) 13A2 data. Combined with trend analysis and partial correlation analysis, the influence of climate change on the phenology and enhanced vegetation index (EVI) during the growing season was described.

The S-G filtering algorithm is suitable for EVI reconstruction of the Loess Plateau. The date of start of growing season was found to gradually later along the Southeast–Northwest direction, whereas the date of the end of the growing season showed the opposite pattern and the length of the growing season gradually shortened. Vegetation EVI values decreased gradually from Southeast to Northwest. Vegetation changed significantly and showed clear differentiation according to different topographic factors. Vegetation correlated positively with precipitation from April to July and with temperature from August to November.

This study provides technical support for ecological environmental assessment, restoration of regional vegetation coverage and environmental governance of the Loess Plateau over the past two decades. It also provides theoretical support for the prediction model of vegetation phenology changes based on remote sensing data.

Independent directors are important corporate decision participants and makers. Based on the Chinese cultural background, this paper interprets the listing order of independent directors as independent directors’ status, exploring their influence on the corporate research and development (R&D) behavior.

This paper studies A-share listed firms in China from 2008 to 2018 as the sample. The main method is ordinary least square (OLS) regression. We also use other methods to deal with endogenous problems, such as the firm fixed effect method, change model method, two-stage instrumental variable method, and Heckman two-stage method.

(1) Higher independent directors’ status attribute to more effective exertion of supervision and consultation function, and positively enhance the corporate R&D investment. The increase of the independent director’ status by one standard deviation will increase the R&D investment by 4.6%. (2) The above effect is more influential in firms with stronger traditional culture atmosphere, higher information opacity and higher performance volatility. (3) High-status independent directors promote R&D investment by improving the scientificity of R&D evaluation and reducing information asymmetry. (4) The enhancing effect of independent director’ status on R&D investment is positively associated with the firm’s patent output and market value.

This paper contributes to understanding the relationship between the independent directors’ status and their duty execution from an embedded cultural background perspective. The findings of the study enlighten the improvement of corporate governance efficiency and the healthy development of the capital market.

Research on grey systems is becoming more sophisticated, and grey relational and prediction analyses are receiving close review worldwide. Particularly, the application of grey systems in marine economics is gaining importance. The purpose of this paper is to summarize and review literature on grey models, providing new directions in their application in the marine economy.

This paper organized seminal studies on grey systems published by Chinese core journal database – CNKI, Web of Science and Elsevier from 1982 to 2018. After searching the aforementioned database for the said duration, the authors used the CiteSpace visualization tools to analyze them.

The authors sorted the studies according to their countries/regions, institutions, keywords and categories using the CiteSpace tool; analyzed current research characteristics on grey models; and discussed their possible applications in marine businesses, economy, scientific research and education, marine environment and disasters. Finally, the authors pointed out the development trend of grey models.

Although researches are combining grey theory with fractals, neural networks, fuzzy theory and other methods, the applications, in terms of scope, have still not met the demand. With the increasingly in-depth research in marine economics and management, international marine economic research has entered a new period of development. Grey theory will certainly attract scholars’ attention, and its role in marine economy and management will gain considerable significance.

The purpose of this paper was to assess and determine the impact of the five core technologies of Industry 4.0 (3D Printing, Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things (IoT) and Robotics) on the organizational performance of the retail industry in the context of Pakistan.

Pakistan's retail industry was chosen as the target sector, and the target population was composed of senior-level employees, including managers from first-level positions to top-level positions, as well as subordinate employees working under the supervision of first-level managers, possessing the technological know-how of Industry 4.0. The data were collected through a matrix-based survey questionnaire that was based on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” The process of data analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics.

The findings obtained by this research work showed a significant relationship among the five core pillars of Industry 4.0 and the organizational performance of Pakistan's retail industry. Besides, the obtained findings provided preliminary evidence that Industry 4.0's disruptive technologies, particularly, 3D printing, big data analytics, cloud computing, IoT and robotics, could help Pakistan's retail industry solve various problems and challenges, such as meager revenues, increased expenses and unorganized systems.

The present study extended the theoretical body of knowledge through studying and examining Industry 4.0's five crucial factors that significantly contribute to the service sector, particularly, the retail industry, of the big emerging markets (BEM) economies, including Pakistan.