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The riveting process is a metal forming process involving complex elastic-plastic deformation, which will induce a compressive residual stress field and cause local distortions in the connecting areas. Regarding to the aircraft panel assemblies with plenty of rivets, the global deformation is inevitable and undesired, leading difficulties to downstream assembly processes. This paper aims to present a new method for the local distortion calculation and the global deformation prediction of sheet panel assemblies during the automated riveting process.

In this paper, a simplified algebraic study is presented to analyze the local distortion of single countersunk rivet joint with the consideration of the barrel-like shape of the driven head and the through-thickness variations along the rivet shank. Then, an equivalent rivet unit is proposed based on the result of the algebraic study and embedded into the global-level model for the prediction of the overall distortions of riveted panels.

The algebraic study is able to reach a more precise contour of the deformed rivet than the traditional assumption of cylindrical deformations and rapidly determine the equivalent coefficients of the riveting unit. The result also shows an industrial acceptable accuracy of the prediction for the global deformations of the double-layered panel assemblies widely used in the aircraft panel structures.

A new local-global method for predicting the deformations of the riveted panel assembly based on the algebraic study of the local distortions is proposed to help the engineers in the early design stages or in the assembly process planning stage.

For the automatic drilling and riveting in panel assembly, gaps between the skin and strangers are inevitable and undesirable. At present, the determination of pre-joining schemes relies on workers’ experience, introducing excessive number and inappropriate locations of pre-joining. This paper aims to present a new method for the evaluation of residual clearances after pre-joining and the pre-joining scheme optimization, providing operation guidance for the workers in panel assembly workshop.

In this paper, an equivalent gap assembly model for pre-joining is proposed on the basis of the mechanism of variation. This model retains the essential elastic behavior of the key features during the pre-joining operation and calculates the residual clearances in the view of the potential energy. Subsequently, this method is embedded into a Pareto optimality-based genetic algorithm, and the optimal pre-joining schemes are achieved with the consideration of the total residual clearances and the permissive tolerances.

The equivalent gap assembly model has the capability to predict an acceptable degree of accuracy of the residual clearances and achieve the optimized pre-joining schemes with less number of pre-joining at the same level of residual clearances.

The optimized pre-joining schemes are given in the form of Pareto optimality set, and workers can select suitable results according to their inclination to the quality and efficiency.

The paper is the first to propose the equivalent gap assembly model for the pre-joining operation, which provides for the simplification of the calculation of residual clearances based on the constrained variation principles.

Titanium alloy has the excellent performance and been widely utilized in aeroengine and airframe manufacture. However, improving the understanding of all aspects of titanium alloy is necessary. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the tribological properties of two typical titanium alloys against tungsten carbide under dry friction.

Reciprocating ball-disc friction tests were carried out at room temperature in different loading without lubricant to investigate the friction properties of TA19/WC-Co and TC18/WC-Co friction pairs. The influence of the load on the friction coefficient and friction force was analyzed. The worn surfaces of TA19 and TC18 specimens were observed by the digital microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). And the wear mechanism was discussed.

The results show that the friction coefficients decreased with the increase in the normal load. However, the reduction in the friction coefficient for the TC18 alloy was less than that for the TA19 alloy. The dynamic friction forces with time were not quite coincident with the variation trend of the friction coefficients during the sliding friction. The results observed by the SEM and EDS revealed that several grooving were the main type of frictional wear causing the surfaces of the TA19 and TC18 alloys.

It is shown in the paper that the tribological property of TA19 alloy was better than that of TC18 when sliding against tungsten carbide under the dry friction conditions. The main types of damage to the TA19/WC-Co friction pair were the ploughing, the delamination fatigue associate with abrasive wear and some diffusive wear. The ploughing and abrasion were the main wear mechanisms for the surface of TC18 alloy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the joint congruence effect of leadership styles and organizational culture on project members’ innovative behaviors in the construction projects setting.

The proposed hypotheses are tested using polynomial regression with a sample of 217 project managers and employees of different construction projects in China, and plotted through response surface analysis.

The results of polynomial regressions support the congruence effect hypothesis, indicating that more innovative behaviors of the project members could be elicited by a high level of congruence between transformational or transactional leadership styles and organizational culture. Furthermore, asymmetrical incongruence effects are found wherein project members with lower levels of innovative behaviors when project organizational culture is stronger as compared with when two leadership styles are at higher levels. Specifically, the condition is found under the innovation dimension of organization culture, but higher level of innovative behavior conversely displays when the harmony culture is weaker than two leadership styles.

The conceptual model and hypotheses are examined by analyzing cross-sectional and self-reported data collected in China. The findings could be further examined through multi-source or longitudinal, more systematic research.

The findings highlight the pivotal role played by the value congruence of leaders-organizations in motivating employees to be innovative in project organizations. This paper provides knowledge for project managers to help them understand whether and how project members’ innovative behaviors are better motivated by the fit or misfit between the styles of leadership and project organizational cultures. Besides, this study provides the approach or direction for the project leaders training.

This study is one of the first to examine the joint effects of leadership styles and organizational culture on innovative behavior based on the person-organization fit theory and from the perspective of value congruence.

The purpose of this paper is to utilize a multi-method design for research on corruption in China. Corruption in any society is inimical to good governance. Singapore, despite her size, is argued to be a plausible model for China.

Taking a multi-method approach, the phenomena of corruption is investigated from: etymological analyses for corruption (European roots) and its Chinese equivalent, 贪污 (pinyin: tan wu) case studies taken from three periods: current, Qing Dynasty and to founding of China (zhong guo, Qin Dynasty) to ground our policy recommendation of China be modeling after Singapore on the basis of our analysis of statistical (2013 and longitudinal) data. In the process, the authors embark on inter-country comparisons (mainly Confucian China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan).

Here are the key insights: scholars are unaware the English word corruption is narrower in scope than the Chinese equivalent tan wu贪污. As far back as 3,000 years, the Chinese had attributed wu, 污 as filthy, polluting, dirty to psychological concept of greed tan, 贪. In English, corruption does not denote greed per se. Falsification of facts as a political ploy dates back to Qin dynasty. Destabilizing corrupt cases occurred in China today as in Qing Dynasty. Singapore rather Hong Kong is a better model for China in reforming society.

This paper illustrates a distinctively, in-depth approach to research on Chinese management. It shows why it is important to clarify key concepts: corruption in the West and tan wu贪污in the East. Historical cases are utilized to show the presence of a continuing Chinese mind set. The authors argued for China to embark on a city-by-city strategy (modeling after Singapore) toward becoming a corruption-free society. Now, as 3,000 years ago, the Chinese conceptualization of corruption embeds the psychology of greed.

China is at a crossroad of her economic development. There is a possible risk of China being destabilized through the corruption of the top rung of leadership. Chinese authorities must with urgency, rein in corruption. An approach is proposed in this paper.

In terms of style, approach and method of research, this paper is highly original. The integrative research here provides a rationale and basis for the Chinese leaders to implement a policy for a less corrupt society.

This study empirically evaluates the effect of China’s 2016 Green Financial System (GFS) framework on corporate green development, focusing on the role of green investment in achieving sustainability.

This study uses a quasinatural experiment design to combine difference-in-difference and propensity score matching methods for analysis. It examines 799 polluting and 1,130 nonpolluting firms from 2013 to 2020, enabling a comprehensive assessment of the GFS framework’s influence.

This study affirms a statistically significant positive influence of the GFS framework on escalating green investment levels in polluting firms. Robust sensitivity analyses, encompassing parallel trend assessment, entropy balancing test, and alternative proxies, corroborate these findings. A mediation analysis identifies the implementation of an environmental management system as the potential underlying mechanism. A cross-sectional analysis identifies high financial slack, high profitability, mandatory CSR regulations, and marketization level as the influencing factors.

The study’s findings have critical implications for policymakers, regulators, and companies. Demonstrating the effectiveness of the GFS framework in driving green investment underscores the importance of aligning financial systems with sustainability goals.

This study contributes novel empirical evidence on the positive effect of China’s GFS framework on corporate green development. The quasinatural experiment design, coupled with comprehensive sensitivity analyses, strengthens the robustness of the findings.

Efficient traffic incident management is needed to alleviate the negative impact of traffic incidents. Accurate and reliable estimation of traffic incident duration is of great importance for traffic incident management. Previous studies have proposed models for traffic incident duration prediction; however, most of these studies focus on the total duration and could not update prediction results in real-time. From a traveler’s perspective, the relevant factor is the residual duration of the impact of the traffic incident. Besides, few (if any) studies have used dynamic traffic flow parameters in the prediction models. This paper aims to propose a framework to fill these gaps.

This paper proposes a framework based on the multi-layer perception (MLP) and long short-term memory (LSTM) model. The proposed methodology integrates traffic incident-related factors and real-time traffic flow parameters to predict the residual traffic incident duration. To validate the effectiveness of the framework, traffic incident data and traffic flow data from Shanghai Zhonghuan Expressway are used for modeling training and testing.

Results show that the model with 30-min time window and taking both traffic volume and speed as inputs performed best. The area under the curve values exceed 0.85 and the prediction accuracies exceed 0.75. These indicators demonstrated that the model is appropriate for this study context. The model provides new insights into traffic incident duration prediction.

The incident samples applied by this study might not be enough and the variables are not abundant. The number of injuries and casualties, more detailed description of the incident location and other variables are expected to be used to characterize the traffic incident comprehensively. The framework needs to be further validated through a sufficiently large number of variables and locations.

The framework can help reduce the impacts of incidents on the safety of efficiency of road traffic once implemented in intelligent transport system and traffic management systems in future practical applications.

This study uses two artificial neural network methods, MLP and LSTM, to establish a framework aiming at providing accurate and time-efficient information on traffic incident duration in the future for transportation operators and travelers. This study will contribute to the deployment of emergency management and urban traffic navigation planning.

This paper aims to study the impact of individual relationships on tacit knowledge sharing in the company setting of compulsory bond, expressive bond, instrumental bond and self-monitoring by empirical explorations.

The paper raises seven hypotheses that focus on the impact of employees’ relationship with tacit knowledge sharing in knowledge-intensive industries and positions based on relationship theory. Before distributing the formal questionnaires, a pre-research was done in a college by collecting comments and suggestions so as to correct and modify the questionnaires. A four-page questionnaire based on the Likert scale with 45 questions was used for data collection, and 210 valid questionnaires were collected from a research institute, a software company and an educational institute. Finally, SPSS17.0 was used to analyze these data, including reliability analysis, validity analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis, etc.

The findings include: there is a positive correlation between employees’ compulsory bond and the efficiency of tacit knowledge sharing; there is a positive correlation between employees’ expressive bond and the efficiency of tacit knowledge sharing; there is a negative correlation between employees’ instrumental bond and the efficiency of tacit knowledge sharing; the more apt employees are at self-monitoring, the more effectively they will share tacit knowledge; the interaction between compulsory bonds and self-monitoring has a positive and stimulating impact on tacit knowledge sharing; the interaction between expressive bonds and self-monitoring has a positive and stimulating impact on tacit knowledge sharing; and the interaction between instrumental bonds and self-monitoring has a certain impact on tacit knowledge sharing.

However, the efficiency of tacit knowledge sharing cannot be measured easily and how to share the tacit knowledge based on employees’ relationships should be further concerned by knowledge industries.

This paper illustrates multiple, in-depth approaches to research on knowledge sharing. It shows why it is important to pay attention to employees’ relationships during the process of tacit knowledge sharing. The author argued some key factors such as compulsory bond, emotional bond and self-monitoring that may have a certain impact on the tacit knowledge sharing. The paper also further discussed the influence on the sharing of tacit knowledge as for the interaction between different relationship types and self-monitoring.

The knowledge is critical to enhance enterprises’ performance, and it will become more useful when the new knowledge is shared with others. However, tacit knowledge cannot be measured easily, and how to share the tacit knowledge based on employees’ relationships should be further concerned by knowledge industries. A series of findings are proposed in this paper.

Integrating the knowledge of different individuals, of which 90 per cent is tacit knowledge, in an organization that engages in producing products and providing service is instrumental to the sustainability and productivity of that organization. This study addressed the factors and dynamics of tacit knowledge sharing that can be used in knowledge management to effectively capture, store and disseminate tacit knowledge across an organization.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the I‐V characteristics of ZnO film on Si substrates with Ag buffer layer by conductive atomic force (C‐AFM).

An Ag buffer layer and Zn film was first deposited on silicon substrate by RF‐sputtering deposition method from high pure Ag and Zn target, respectively. Then, the deposited film was sintered in air at 500°C for 1 h.

The structures and morphologies of the prepared films were characterized by X‐ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive spectrum (EDS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and C‐AFM. The results show that the prepared ZnO films with Ag buffer layer have a good crystallinity and surface morphology. Interestingly, the I‐V curve of ZnO film exhibited typical characteristics of semi‐conductive oxide under the conductive Ag buffer layer.

The paper demonstrates, by C‐AFM, that the ZnO/Ag‐buffer/Si exhibits excellent crystal structure, morphology and typical I‐V characteristics.

This paper aims to present a broad review of near-a titanium alloys for high-temperature applications.

Following a brief introduction of titanium (Ti) alloys, this paper considers the near-α group of Ti alloys, which are the most popular high-temperature Ti alloys developed for a high-temperature application, particularly in compressor disc and blades in aero-engines. The paper is relied on literature within the past decade to discuss phase stability and microstructural effect of alloying elements, plastic deformation and reinforcements used in the development of these alloys.

The near-a Ti alloys show high potential for high-temperature applications, and many researchers have explored the incorporation of TiC, TiB SiC, Y₂O₃, La₂O₃ and Al₂O₃ reinforcements for improved mechanical properties. Rolling, extrusion, forging and some severe plastic deformation (SPD) techniques, as well as heat treatment methods, have also been explored extensively. There is, however, a paucity of information on SiC, Y₂O₃ and carbon nanotube reinforcements and their combinations for improved mechanical properties. Information on some SPD techniques such as cyclic extrusion compression, multiaxial compression/forging and repeated corrugation and straightening for this class of alloys is also limited.

This paper provides a topical, technical insight into developments in near-a Ti alloys using literature from within the past decade. It also outlines the future developments of this class of Ti alloys.