Search results

This paper summarizes the severity of global warming, collaboration and endeavor within international government and the trend of international development for “energy-saving and emission reduction.” The Chinese government is enduring high pressure under the environment of “global warming” and “energy-saving and emission reduction” and it has made a policy for “energy-saving and emission reduction.” Based on this, we analyzed the possibility and feasibility for our logistics to “energy-saving and emission reduction,” then propose some solutions for our logistics industry to development and “energy-saving and emission reduction.”

The purpose of this paper was to improve the frictional wear resistance properties of piston skirts caused by the low viscosity lubricant by studying the tribological performance of three novel coating materials.

Comparative tribological examinations were performed in a tribological tester using the ring-block arrangement under two viscosity lubricants, the loading force was applied as 100 N, the speed was set to 60 r/min and the testing time was 180 min.

Under low viscosity lubricant, the friction coefficient and wear of the three coatings all increase, and the friction coefficient and wear of the PTFE coating are the largest, while the MoS₂ coating has the lowest friction coefficient and wear. Under low viscosity lubricant, the friction coefficient of the MoS₂ coating is 2.1%–5.4% and 20.0%–24.3% lower than that of the SiO2 and PTFE coating, respectively. The friction coefficient and wear fluctuation rate of the MoS₂ coating is the smallest when the lubricant viscosity decreases, which indicates that the MoS₂ coating has excellent stability and adaptability under low viscosity lubricant.

To reduce the piston skirt wear caused by low viscosity lubricant in heavy-duty diesel engines, the friction and wear adaptability of three novel composite coating materials for piston skirts were compared under 0 W-20 low viscosity lubricant, which could provide a guidance for the application of wear-resistant materials for heavy-duty diesel engine piston skirt.

This paper seeks to address issues of sustainability in the rapid urbanization in China with examination of knowledge management factors in the creation of new Chinese cities.

A case study was undertaken at Zhengdong New District along with semi‐structured interview mixed with evaluation and content analyses of successful knowledge management factors as the analytical approach.

This study explores the ongoing revolution of building new cities and towns in China, and highlights the importance of knowledge‐based development in achieving sustainable development. Following the establishment of the theory and model of the knowledge city, it explores the features of knowledge city in practice. Focusing on the case study of Zhengdong New District, Zhengzhou, Henan Province, it examines the factors of knowledge management in the creation of the new city. However, it is believed that the strategic development plan was made following the principles of sustainability. Furthermore, it has been accepted that the strategic plan reflexes the framework and sustains various features of the knowledge city, which could be seen as the embryo of knowledge city in China. In the meantime, it has to be recognised that the outcome of the evaluation of Zhengdong New District, which has been discussed in this paper, is merely the audit of what is currently happening in the first phase of the project and reflexes the current issues, and might give impact to the implementation of municipal government strategy in the future.

This paper concludes that, while the local authority is endeavouring to build a physically modern city, it might have overlooked the importance of using knowledge management principles as a tool to promote social, cultural, and environmental sustainability. Yet the analysis in this paper demonstrates that it is not impossible to use knowledge management framework as a tool to assist policy makers governing the creation of a new city in a sustainable way. The discussion in this paper is expected to be thought‐provoking in a holistic understanding of the theoretical perspective of knowledge city and further research into this field in the Chinese context.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between independent director military service and monitoring effectiveness, focusing on chief executive officer (CEO) compensation.

The authors identify independent directors with military experience using BoardEx data. The authors focus on the level of CEO compensation. The methods used include panel data estimation, propensity score matching analysis and instrumental variable analysis.

The authors find more powerful CEOs are more likely to appoint independent directors with past military service to the board. Boards with a larger proportion of independent directors with military experience tend to award higher levels of CEO compensation. Moreover, the positive relationship between independent directors with military experience and executive compensation is stronger when the CEO is more powerful.

This paper examines a relatively unexplored director background, directors with military experience, and finds this type of independent director is associated with weak monitoring. The authors contribute to the literature examining the effect of executive and board member military experience on corporations. The authors identify weak monitoring of powerful CEOs as a potential weakness of directors with military experience. This drawback should be considered before appointing a director with military experience to the board.

The purpose of this paper is to predict quantitative level of stray current leaking to the buried metallic structure by establishing convolution neural network (CNN) model.

First, corrosion experimental system of buried metallic structure is established. The research object of this paper is the polarization potential within 110 min, CNN model is used to predict the quantitative level of stray current leakage using the data from corrosion experimental system further. Finally, results are compared with the method using BP neural network.

Results show that the CNN model has better predictive effect and shorter prediction time than the BP model, the accuracy of which is 82.5507 per cent, and the prediction time is shortened by more than 10 times.

The established model can be used to forecast the level of stray current leakage in the subway system effectively, which provides a new theoretical basis for evaluating the stray current corrosion hazard of buried metallic structure.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the heat resistance and heat-resistant oxygen aging of 4-nitrophthalonitrile-etherified cardanol-phenol-formaldehyde (PPCF) to further use and develop the resin as the matrix resin of high-temperature resistant adhesives and coatings.

PPCF resin was synthesized by 4-nitrophthalonitrile and cardanol-phenol-formaldehyde (PCF). The structures of PPCF and PCF were investigated by Fourier transform infrared, differential scanning calorimetry and proton nuclear magnetic resonance. In addition, the heat resistance and processability of PPCF and PCF resins were studied by dynamic mechanical analysis, thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques and rheological studies.

The results reveal that PPCF forms a cross-linked network at a lower temperature. PPCF resin has excellent resistance under thermal aging in an air atmosphere and that it still had a certain residual weight after aging at 500°C for 2 h, whereas the PCF resin is completely decomposed.

4-Nitrophthalonitrile was introduced into PCF resin, and XRD and SEM were used to investigate the high temperature residual carbon rate and heat-resistant oxygen aging properties of PPCF and PCF resins.

This paper aims to thrash out friction and wear properties of automobile brake lining reinforced by lignin fiber and glass fiber in braking process.

ABAQUS finite element software was used to analyze thermo-mechanical coupled field of friction materials. XD-MSM constant speed friction testing machine was used to test friction and wear properties of friction material. Worn surface morphology and mechanism of friction materials were observed by using scanning electron microscope.

The results show that when the temperature was below 350°C, worn mechanism of MFBL was mainly fatigue wear and abrasive wear, and worn mechanism of GFBL was mainly fatigue wear because MFBL contained lignin fiber. Therefore, it exhibits better mechanical properties and friction and wear properties than those of GFBL.

Lignin fiber can improve mechanical properties and friction and wear properties of the automobile brake lining.

This paper aims to seek the optimal proportion of female executives in corporate management teams, and to analyze the threshold effect of the proportion of female executives on the enterprise market value and enterprise management performance by using a panel threshold regression model. The purpose of this paper is to obtain the optimal interval, during which female executives exert positive effects on enterprise market value and enterprise management performance.

Based on the data of listed companies in SSE from 2003 to 2012, this paper conducts theoretical and empirical analysis by using a panel threshold regression model.

This paper proves that the proportion of female executives has a threshold effect on the enterprise market value and enterprise management performance. The results show that the proportion of female executives has an optimal interval. In other words, during the 53.8-68.4 percent interval, the proportion of female executives exerts the least negative effect on the enterprise market value and the most positive effect on the enterprise management performance.

In this paper, the non-linear relationship between female executives, enterprise market value and enterprise management performance has been verified, and the optimization interval of the female executives’ proportion has been figured out as well.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the underlying mechanism in film formation of oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion.

This study focuses on the film forming characteristics of O/W emulsion between the surface of a steel ball and a glass disc coated with chromium. The lubricant film thicknesses of O/W emulsion with various mechanical stirring strength were discussed, which were observed by technique of relative optical interference intensity.

The authors directly observed the oil pool in the contact area, finding the size of oil pool was closely related to the film-forming ability of emulsion. Enrichment phenomenon occurs in oil pool, which was caused by phase inversion. Further investigations revealed that the emulsion is stable with strong stirring strength, resulting in a smaller oil pool size and worse film forming ability.

With the wide usage of O/W emulsion in both biological and industrial systems, the ability of emulsion film formation is considered as an important factor to evaluate the lubrication effectiveness.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-12-2022-0354/

Did Chinese cities whose public health departments are headed by medical professionals fare better in fighting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)?

The authors collected the professional background of the directors of the public health departments of 350 Chinese cities, which include 87% of the Chinese population. Excluding Wuhan, the epicenter of COVID-19, the authors analyzed the infection rates and death rates from COVID-19 between 131 Chinese cities whose public health departments are led by medical professionals and 218 cities whose public health departments are led by nonprofessionals. The authors employed a multivariate regression controlling for the number of people that traveled from Wuhan to each city, the local economic development and the number of hospital beds.

Chinese cities whose public health departments are led by medical professionals had 21 fewer confirmed cases per 10 million as of January 31, 2020 [95% CI, −40 to −3], 58 fewer cases per 10 million in the next 10 days [95% CI, −116 to 0], similar new cases between February 11 and February 20, 2020, and 3 fewer deaths per 10 million as of February 20, 2020 [95% CI, −7 to 0].

Association could not make a strong causal claim.

Local public health authorities are critical for combating a pandemic. The authors found that Chinese cities whose public health departments are headed by medical professionals were associated with lower infection rates and fewer death rates from COVID-19. The results were significant only at the start of the outbreak. This study’s results suggest that to better combat a pandemic, local public health authorities should be led by competent people who have a medical background.

The authors provide the first empirical evidence about the association between a local public health head's competence and the infection rate and death rate of COVID-19. The authors’ manually collected data also show that only 38% of the heads of the public health departments of Chinese cities have a medical background.