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This paper proposes that if a political system is more like to facilitate a unified government, to establish a strong executive body and to respond to the needs of the majority, financial reforms are more likely to emerge from the policymaking process and produce positive results. On the contrary, political systems that discourage those governing features are less likely to produce reforms. This chapter compares financial reform processes in China, Taiwan and New Zealand. All of them performed low level of financial reforms in the early 1980s but resulted in different situations later. In the mid-2000s, New Zealand heralded the most efficient and stable financial system; while Taiwan lagged behind and China performed the worst. Evidence showed that China’s authoritarian system may be the most superior in forming a unified government with a strong executive, but the policy priority often responds more to the interests of a small group of power elites; therefore the result of financial reform can be limited. Taiwan’s presidential system can produce greater financial reform when the ruling party controls both executive and legislative bodies, but legislative obstructions may occur under a divided government. New Zealand's Westminster system produces the most effective and efficient financial reform due to its unified government and a strong executive branch with consistent and stable supports from the New Zealand Parliament.

The purpose of this paper is to present special nine‐node quadrilateral elements to discretize the un‐cracked boundary and the inclined surface crack in a transversely isotropic cuboid under a uniform vertical traction along its top and bottom surfaces by a three‐dimensional (3D) boundary element method (BEM) formulation. The mixed‐mode stress intensity factors (SIFs), K_I, K_II and K_III, are calculated.

A 3D dual‐BEM or single‐domain BEM is employed to solve the fracture problems in a linear anisotropic elastic cuboid. The transversely isotropic plane has an arbitrary orientation, and the crack surface is along an inclined plane. The mixed 3D SIFs are evaluated by using the asymptotical relation between the SIFs and the relative crack opening displacements.

Numerical results show clearly the influence of the material and crack orientations on the mixed‐mode SIFs. For comparison, the mode‐I SIF when a horizontal rectangular crack is embedded entirely within the cuboid is calculated also. It is observed that the SIF values along the crack front are larger when the crack is closer to the surface of the cuboid than those when the crack is far away from the surface.

The FORTRAN program developed is limited to regular surface cracks which can be discretized by the quadrilateral shape function; it is not very efficient and suitable for irregular crack shapes.

The evaluation of the 3D mixed‐mode SIFs in the transversely isotropic material may have direct practical applications. The SIFs have been used in engineering design to obtain the safety factor of the elastic structures.

This is the first time that the special nine‐node quadrilateral shape function has been applied to the boundary containing the crack mouth. The numerical method developed can be applied to the SIF calculation in a finite transversely isotropic cuboid within an inclined surface crack. The computational approach and the results of SIFs are of great value for the modeling and design of anisotropic elastic structures.

More than 1.2 billion people live in what we Americans typically refer to as “Mainland China”. Without question, China is the world's largest surviving socialist state.

The purpose of this paper is to set out a study of a Mannich base, which was synthesized and used as an acidizing corrosion inhibitor first, and to the corrosion inhibitor mechanism.

A Mannich base, 1-phenyl-3-(1-pyrrolidinyl)-propanone (PHPP), was synthesized with acetophenone, pyrrolidine and formaldehyde at pH = approximately 2-3. The structure of PHPP was characterized by elemental analysis and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The corrosion inhibition of PHPP on N80 steel in 15 per cent hydrochloric acid (HCl) was studied by weight loss method, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX), and the adsorption behavior of PHPP on the surface of N80 steel was discussed.

The results showed that the inhibition efficiency reached to 99.8 per cent and corrosion rate was 2.65 g·m-2·h-1 at 0.6 per cent of PHPP concentration in 15 per cent HCl, which indicated that PHPP presented excellent corrosion inhibition performance. The results of SEM and EDAX analysis showed that PHPP could be absorbed on the surface of N80 steel. The adsorption process of PHPP on the surface of N80 steel was chemisorption. This process was spontaneous and obeyed Langmuir adsorption isotherm.

It was found that PHPP presented excellent corrosion inhibition performance, and it is practicable to enhance oil production in oilfield development as a oil-well acidizing inhibitor. The study results can provide theoretical guidelines for the development of the inhibitor.

As the normality concept for frictional dilatant material has a serious drawback, the key feature in this numerical study is that the material here is characterized by elastic-viscoplastic constitutive relation with plastic non-normality effect for two different hardness functions. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Quasi-static, mode I plane strain crack tip fields have been investigated for a plastically compressible isotropic hardening–softening–hardening material under small-scale yielding conditions. Finite deformation, finite element calculations are carried out in front of the crack with a blunt notch. For comparison purpose a few results of a hardening material are also provided.

The present numerical calculations show that crack tip deformation and the field quantities near the tip significantly depend on the combination of plastic compressibility and slope of the hardness function. Furthermore, the consideration of plastic non-normality flow rule makes the crack tip deformation as well as the field quantities significantly different as compared to those results when the constitutive equation exhibits plastic normality.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, analyses, related to the constitutive relation exhibiting plastic non-normality in the context of plastic compressibility and softening (or softening hardening) on the near tip fields, are not explored in the literature.

Presents an overview of currently recognized theories of imprecise probabilities and their possible extensions. It is shown how the theories are ordered by their levels of generality. A summary of current results regarding measures of uncertainty and uncertainty‐based information is also presented.

This chapter conceptually addresses outward internationalisation of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from the emerging markets (EMs) by focussing on the role of prior contract manufacturing relationships with a developed market multinational enterprise (DMNE). The internationalisation of SMEs originating from EMs is a rather under-researched area and the role of prior contract manufacturing experience specifically has not been addressed in prior studies. Based on a literature review, the authors identified four capabilities developed by EM SMEs during their contract manufacturing relationships with DMNE(s) that potentially help in later outward internationalisation. The authors incorporate some insights from dynamic capabilities theory, and develop propositions addressing the role of relational capital, human capital, manufacturing productivity capabilities and product innovation capabilities in this specific context. Despite being conceptual in nature, this chapter is one of the first to explicitly highlight the role of these specific capabilities developed during contract manufacturing relationship for outward internationalisation, setting bases for future studies to further empirically investigate them in different contexts.

This paper aims to introduce a systematic computing and analytical procedure that is applied to the co-author network to identify the temporal evolution and growth of research collaborations in the area of e-governance. The empirical analysis of the temporal co-author network can trace the emerging authors and knowledge bursts over time.

The study applied social network theory to trace the author collaboration patterns in the domain of e-governance. Analysis of the co-author network using micro and macro parameters was done to trace the temporal evolution of the author collaborations.

E-governance is a multi-disciplinary research domain split over streams of management, politics, information technology and electronics. Hence, research collaborations play a significant role in its advancement. The knowledge sharing between individual authors, institutions and groups through research collaborations, resulting in extensive sharing of data, equipment and research methods, has boosted research activities and development in e-governance. In this paper, the authors systematically analyse the current scenario of research collaborations in the area of e-governance using co-author network to estimate its impact on the advancement of the field. The authors also analysed the temporal evolution of the co-author networks, which show remarkable growth of research collaborations in the domain of e-governance from the year 2000.

The co-author network analysis is only a proxy measure for the analysis of research collaborations. The names of the authors and the university affiliations used in the article are as retrieved from the research repository of Scopus. The degree, citations and other parameters related with authors have scope only within the environment of the co-author network used in the analysis. The criteria used in the study is limited to the degree of research collaborations and the number of co-authored publications in the giant component of the co-author network.

Institutions, authors and governments can trace and select suitable topics and choose research groups of co-authors over the world for future research collaborations in e-governance. The knowledge about the emerging and most discussed topics gives an overview of the global research trends of e-governance.

The study identified the evolution of creative collaborations in e-governance in the global perspective. The methodology introduced here is helpful to detect the proficient and productive author collaborations and the spectrum of related e-governance research topics associated with them. As the author collaborations can be mapped to the institutional and country-level collaborations, the information is helpful for researchers, institutions and governments to establish the best collaborations in e-governance research based on the author proficiency, collaboration patterns and research topics as per the requirements.

The paper introduces a novel research methodology using temporal analysis of co-author network to identify the evolution of research patterns and the associated research topics.

Since China’s “opening-up” in the late 1970s, Singapore has played a major role in enhancing China’s engagement with the world, especially in economic terms. This traditional relationship is well manifested in the third government-to-government (G–G) project under the BRI, which is known as the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative (CCI). The purpose of this paper is to address the following question: despite Singapore’s initial reluctance to agree on a third G–G project with China, why did Singapore eventually decide to join the CCI?

This paper draws on archives of over 700 Chinese language media reports and over 400 English language media reports, as well as private interactions with scholars interested in Sino-Singapore relations and with both sides’ officials in charge of the CCI project.

The paper finds that it is the goal of connecting the region, along with the need to maintain Singapore’s relevance to China and the regional economy that led to Singapore’s participation in the third G–G project. This paper also uses this case to analyse the changes that are taking place in the bilateral economic relations.

Despite wide media coverage, op-ed commentaries and respective government statements, there are a limited number of academic studies on the rationale of the third G–G project and contemporary Sino-Singapore relations in the literature. The scholarship has not addressed the rationale for Singapore’s changing attitude towards CCI and the manner in which the CCI has improved cooperation (or upgraded cooperation to a broader and regional level).

Examines empirically the effects of the rationing system, open inflation and budget deficits on rural and urban consumption behaviour in mainland China. Employs a dynamic error‐correction model. Estimates the model by ordinary least squares (OLS) based on annual data for the period 1952‐1991. Employs a Chow test to test for structural changes in rural and urban consumption. The empirical results show that an income variable captures the distribution effect of rationing and has a significant impact on rural and urban consumption. Open inflation tends to underestimate inflationary pressure and has no impact on consumption in rural and urban areas, whereas per capita budget deficits show a significant influence on rural consumption. The results of the Chow test indicate that economic policies and reforms have significantly changed the structure of consumption since 1979. One such change is the shift in the relative importance of consumer durable goods in total consumption than equal to, or smaller than that under the tariff. This conclusion holds for both price‐setting and quantity‐setting duopoly with heterogeneous goods as well as quantity‐setting duopoly with homogeneous goods.