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Three types of industrial buyer-seller relational process models are available: joining theory, stage theory, and state theory. However, historically, these models have developed based on the knowledge and cultural context of the Western world. Several researchers note that national culture may have an impact on international industrial buyer-seller relationships. Including culture in the models is highly important, especially as the business environment is increasingly more global and different countries have different business cultures. The goal of this paper is to define the most suitable industrial buyer-seller relational process models for describing relationships in various contexts. The paper includes a through literature review and a single case study in order to reach this objective. A new state theory model evolved during the research. It consists of two beginning states: searching and starting; four purely middles states: constant/static, decline, growth, and troubled; and a purely end state: termination. The state of dormant/inert is both a middle state and an end state, that is, when the relational actors are not in contact does not mean that the relationship has ended, but instead, for example, new legislation may have been implemented, which requires the actors to evaluate their relationship and its future. A relationship goes through the two beginning states in the order mentioned above, but after that, any state may occur.

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.

This chapter examines China’s corporate governance and accounting environment that shapes the adoption of internationally acceptable principles and standards. Specifically, it examines international influences, including supranational organizations; foreign investors and international accounting firms; domestic institutional influences, including the political system, economic system, legal system, and cultural system; and accounting infrastructure. China’s convergence is driven by desired efficiency of the corporate sector and legitimacy of participating in the global market. Influenced heavily by international forces in the context of globalization, corporate governance and accounting practices are increasingly becoming in line with internationally acceptable standards and codes. While convergence assists China in obtaining legitimacy, improving efficiency is likely to be adversely affected given that corporate governance and accounting in China operate in an environment that differs considerably from those of Anglo-American countries. An examination of the corporate governance and accounting environment in China suggests heavy government involvement within underdeveloped institutions. While the Chinese government has made impressive progress in developing the corporate governance and accounting environment for the market economy, China’s unique institutional setting is likely to affect how the imported concepts are interpreted and implemented.

The three-axis simulator relies on the air film between the air bearing and the bearing seat to achieve weightlessness and the frictionless motion condition, which is essential for simulating the micro-disturbance torque of a satellite in outer space. However, at the beginning of the experiment, the disturbance torque caused by the misalignment between the center of gravity of the simulator and the center of rotation of the bearing is the most important factor restricting the use of the space three-axis simulator. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to set the balance adjustment system on the simulator to compensate the disturbance torque caused by the eccentricity. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this paper, a study of L1 adaptive automatic balancing control method for micro satellite with motor without other actuators is proposed. L1 adaptive control algorithm adds the low-pass filter to the control law, which in a certain sense to reduce the high-frequency signal and speed up the response time of the controlled system. At the same time, by estimating the adaptive parameter uncertainty in object, the output error of the state predictor and the controlled object can be stabilized under Lyapunov condition, and the robustness of the system is also improved. The automatic balancing method of PID is also studied in this paper.

Through this automatic balancing mechanism, the gravity disturbance torque can be effectively reduced down to 10⁻⁶ Nm, and the automatic balancing time can be controlled within 7 s.

This paper introduces an automatic balancing mechanism. The experimental results show that the mechanism can greatly improve the convergence speed while guaranteeing the control accuracy, and ensuring the feasibility of the large angle maneuver of spacecraft three-axis simulator.

The quality level setting problem determines the optimal process mean, standard deviation and specification limits of product/process characteristic to minimize the expected total cost associated with products. Traditionally, it is assumed that the product/process characteristic is normally distributed. However, this may not be true. This paper aims to explore the quality level setting problem when the probability distribution of the process characteristic deviates from normality.

Burr developed a density function that can represent a wide range of normal and non-normal distributions. This can be applied to investigate the effect of non-normality on the studies of statistical quality control, for example, designs of control charts and sampling plans. The quality level setting problem is examined by introducing Burr’s density function as the underlying probability distribution of product/process characteristic such that the effect of non-normality to the determination of optimal process mean, standard deviation and specification limits of product/process characteristic can be studied. The expected total cost associated with products includes the quality loss of conforming products, the rework cost of non-conforming products and the scrap cost of non-conforming products.

Numerical results show that the expected total cost associated with products is significantly influenced by the parameter of Burr’s density function, the target value of product/process characteristic, quality loss coefficient, unit rework cost and unit scrap cost.

The major assumption of the proposed model is that the lower specification limit must be positive for practical applications, which definitely affects the space of feasible solution for the different combinations of process mean and standard deviation.

The proposed model can provide industry/business application for promoting the product/service quality assurance for the customer.

The authors adopt the Burr distribution to determine the optimum process mean, standard deviation and specification limits under non-normality. To the best of their knowledge, this is a new method for determining the optimum process and product policy, and it can be widely applied.

The aim of this study is to numerically simulate the density-driven convection in heterogeneous porous media associated with anisotropic permeability field, which is important to the safe and stable long term CO₂ storage in laminar saline aquifers.

The study uses compact finite difference and the pseudospectral method to solve Darcy’s law.

The presence of heterogeneous anisotropy may result in non-monotonic trend of the breakthrough time and quantity of CO₂ dissolved in the porous medium, which are important to the CO₂ underground storage.

The manuscript numerically study the convective phenomena of mixture contained CO₂ and brine. The phenomena are important to the process of CO₂ enhanced oil recovery. Interesting qualitative patterns and quantitative trends are revealed in the manuscript.

The purpose of this paper is to detect the degenerate scale of a 2D bending plate analytically and numerically.

To avoid the time-consuming scheme, the influence matrix of the boundary element method (BEM) is reformulated to an eigenproblem of the 4 by 4 matrix by using the scaling transform instead of the direct-searching scheme to find degenerate scales. Analytical degenerate scales are derived from the boundary integral equation (BIE) by using the degenerate kernel only for the circular case. Numerical results of the direct-searching scheme and the eigen system for the arbitrary shape are also considered.

Results using three methods, namely, analytical derivation, the direct-searching scheme and the 4 by 4 eigen system, are also given for the circular case and arbitrary shapes. Finally, addition of a constant for the kernel function makes original eigenvalues (2 real roots and 2 complex roots) of the 4 by 4 matrix to be all real. This indicates that a degenerate scale depends on the kernel function.

The analytical derivation for the degenerate scale of a 2D bending plate in the BIE is first studied by using the degenerate kernel. Through the reformed eigenproblem of a 4 by 4 matrix, the numerical solution for the plate of an arbitrary shape can be used in the plate analysis using the BEM.